The Gentlemen's Hour

41

You have to have your legs under you to do it, which Boone doesn’t, but Boyd demonstrates on a heavy hanging bag.

It’s basically simple, but it’s harder to do than it looks. You jump off one foot, toward your opponent, then while in midair, execute a downward chopping punch with the opposite hand. The impact is incredible because of the momentum of the whole body being thrown into the punch.

Boyd does it and the heavy bag hops on its chain, comes back down, and shakes.

“It’s not a move you want to try a lot,” Boyd explains after he does it, “because both feet are off the ground and that leaves you vulnerable to any kind of counter. If you miss with it, you’re truly fucked. But if you connect—”

“So you teach this,” Boone says.

“Sure.”

“Did you teach it to Corey Blasingame?”

“Maybe,” Boyd says. “I don’t know.”

Yeah, maybe, Boone thinks. He takes two steps toward the bag, then launches himself. Twisting his hip in midair, he throws everything into the punch and can feel the energy surge all the way up his arm as his fist makes contact.

A wild adrenaline surge.

Superman.

The heavy bag sags in the middle and pops back.

Mike Boyd seems impressed. “You can come train here anytime,” he says, then adds, “We need men like you.”

Boone walks out of the dojo. After a day of dipping his spade in the sad, barren soil of Corey Blasingame’s life, his question isn’t how the kid could have beaten someone to death, but how it didn’t happen sooner.

He gets into the Deuce and heads for the Spy Store.