Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

6

The Pats flew out to Atlanta the next morning. Kinjo was now under the watch of Jeff Barnes. I told Kinjo to give him my best.

As I had a couple days to sleuth, I drove to the Harbor Health Club to search for some company. I found Z and Hawk sparring in Henry’s newly expanded boxing room. Hawk and I had taken turns coaching Z that summer.

Z wore cut-off gray sweats, a pair of eighteen-ounce gloves, and leather headgear. Hawk wore a black satin Adidas getup with red stripes, focus mitts, and no headgear. Hawk’s head was made of steel and Teflon and shone black and smooth in the harbor’s morning light.

Hawk played James Brown on the sound system. He had been telling Z he moved more white than red or black, and he needed rhythm.

“Keep yourself bladed, move, come on, duck, okay, two, three, two. Slip. Up on that toe. Breathe like you live. Don’t breathe to punch. You do that in the ring and you get killed.”

I stood next to the heavy bag. The new section of plate glass provided a commanding view of the harbor. The boxing room had more than doubled in size, which, at first, Hawk and I thought came from Henry’s undying gratitude. Then we noted the flyers around the gym for kickboxing and something called Punch Fit classes. It didn’t matter. We now had two heavy bags, two speed bags, and a big mirrored room to shadow-box and to offer classes to promising young thugs.

“Where’s the snap?” Hawk said. “You pushing a punch. Don’t push it. Snap that jab out there. Come on in. Make me back the fuck up.”

The three-minute timer buzzed. Z was drenched. He winked at me and made his way to the water fountain.

“As a white man, I am deeply offended by your comments on rhythm.”

“Only white man could move was Gene Kelly,” Hawk said. “Only white man who could move and fight was Hollywood fantasy.”

“Besides being part of the Big Brothers program,” I said, “what else do you have going on?”

“Besides lookin’ good and pleasin’ the ladies?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Besides that.”

Hawk shook his head. “Nothing that interest me.”

“I thought I had something,” I said. “Good pay, too.”

“Fella offered me a job in a grocery store,” Hawk said, grinning. “Said I’d make a crackerjack clerk.”

“Crackerjack,” I said.

“What happened to the job?”

“Still on it,” I said. “But starting to think it’s all in the client’s mind.”

“Sounds like Susan’s kind of work,” he said.

“Maybe.”

Hawk removed the focus mitts. Without looking at his watch, he told Z to take on the heavy bag. Within two seconds, the buzzer sounded. “So, if it is real,” Hawk said, “what’s the job?”

“Shooing flies off a man who just may be tougher than you.”

Hawk raised his eyebrows. He doubted it.

“Kinjo Heywood,” I said. “Pats linebacker.”

“Playing a game ain’t the same, babe.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not.”

“’Course millions of people don’t pay to watch us kick the shit out of people, either.”

“True.”

“They should,” Hawk said. “We good at it.”

“And Z is getting better.”

Hawk shrugged. Z worked on the heavy bag. Despite his injuries from a few months ago, his body had healed and his punches had become even more substantial. The bag hopped and bounced on the heavy chains. Z’s breathing was smooth and easy, his muscles bulging from his cut-off sweatshirt. He had cut his long, black hair as short as mine.

“Full-time job for Z to unlearn all your bad habits.”

“Thank God you stepped in when you did,” I said.

“Another month with you, and he’d be ready for the Ziegfeld Follies.”

“Shall I serenade you with ‘There’s Beauty Everywhere’?”

“How about I teach Z to fight, and you teach all the useless shit you know.”

“We each have our calling.”