The Boxer and the Spy (6 page)

As they walked, he felt the pressure inside him. He always felt it when he was with Abby. He was thrilled to be with her. But he knew there had to be something more and he wasn’t sure what would happen to them if they took the next step toward something more. What if the something more didn’t work so well, and it meant they couldn’t be friends anymore.

It would kill me
, he thought.

“We could follow him,” Terry said.

“Kip Carter All-American?”

“Yes.”

“What would that prove?”

“If he spent a lot of time talking to the librarian or the secretary in the nurse’s office or Mr. Bullard, maybe we’d know something.”

“You don’t think it’s the librarian or the secretary,” Abby said. “Do you?”

“No.”

“You think it’s Mr. Bullard.”

Terry shrugged.

“Mr. Bullard also told me to stop messing around with this stuff,” Terry said.

Abby nodded.

“And you think we’ll catch Kip Carter All-American hanging out with Bullard?” she said. “What’ll that do for us?”

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

The wind was driving the rain at a small slant. Terry liked it. There was something exciting or romantic or
something
about rain.

“How about he’s got his license and his father bought him a car and we can’t even drive yet,” Abby said. “How do we follow him if he drives?”

“We can follow him in school,” Terry said.

“But what about after?”

“I guess all we can do is follow him where we can,” Terry said.

Abby smiled.

“It’s not much of a plan,” she said.

“No,” Terry said. “It isn’t.”

“But I suppose it’s better than no plan,” Abby said.

“Yes,” Terry said. “It is.”

The wind was strong now and the rain was hard. Terry felt as if all the energy of the storm was in the pit of his stomach, as if he might explode. She seemed so much calmer about their relationship. Sort of peaceful. Every time he joked about what might happen, like the kissing remark, she might joke or go along, but she always allowed him to think it might happen. That he and Abby might happen. That maybe they were happening already. He thought of his jokes as sort of momentary overflow But he knew she knew. Sometimes he thought she knew everything.

He felt her arm through his and her shoulder against his and now and then their legs would brush as they walked together in the storm.

The hell with that, he thought. We know what we need to.

A
bby had two classes with Kip Carter All-American.

She watched him in those classes.

Terry had one class with Carter.

He watched him during that class.

They watched him in the corridors.

They watched him in the lunchroom.

They watched him during free periods when they could.

Sometimes they would be in the coffee shop at the same time.

They watched him there.

Sometimes Kip and other football players hung around after school near the football field and strutted, and pushed and shoved each other, and stared at girls. Some of the senior girls stared back. Some of them joined the group. When they did, there was a lot of talk and a lot of hard laughter.

They watched him flirt and swagger.

“Pretty raunchy,” Abby said.

“Kind of gross,” Terry said.

“It’s not gross,” Abby said. “It’s ...” She gestured with her hands as if she was searching for words. “They’re just learning how to be men and women.”

“They could do it quieter,” Terry said.

He didn’t like Abby hearing such talk, but he knew she wouldn’t like it if he said that.

“Oh most of it is talk,” Abby said. “Only a few of them actually do any of that stuff.”

“How do you know?” Terry said.

“Girls talk about things,” Abby said.

“How do you know they’re learning to be men and women?”

“I think about stuff,” Abby said.

“A lot,” Terry said.

After Carter was through swaggering, and flirting, he walked home.

They followed him.

During the time they watched him, he never had any contact with the secretary in the nurse’s office or with the school librarian. They saw him with Mr. Bullard three times.

“Doesn’t mean there’s anything,” Terry said.

“But the math is good,” Abby said. “He never saw those other people. He saw Bullard three times.”

“‘Course maybe Tank told him and won’t admit it,” Terry said.

Abby bumped her heels against the Wall, where they were sitting.

“We already said it’s not much of a plan,” she said. “But we also agreed it was the best one we had.”

Mr. Bullard’s tan Ford Fusion rolled slowly past the Wall and Mr. Bullard craned his thick neck to study the two of them sitting on the Wall. He always drove past the Wall on his way home after school.

“Gotta make sure nobody’s smoking,” Terry said.

“Or doing dope,” Abby said.

“Or making out,” Terry said.

“Probably hoping,” Abby said.

“Bullard?”

“Yes. He’s a pig, like Kip Carter All-American. He always looks at you when you walk past him in the hall. You know? Checks out your chest. Watches you as you walk away, looking at your butt.”

“Bullard?”

“Uh-huh.”

“He ever look at you?”

“Sure,” Abby said. “What? Do you think I’m too homely?”

“No, no. God no. You’re beautiful,” Terry said.

Abby smiled.

“Why thank you, Terry,” she said.

“But isn’t Bullard married?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And he’s looking at high school girls?” Terry said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Doesn’t seem right,” Terry said.

“Oh Terry,” Abby said. “Sometimes you’re like five years old.”

“Well it doesn‘t,” Terry said.

“It’s just how men are,” Abby said. “Men started staring at me the minute I started wearing a bra.”

Her mention of her bra made him a little uncomfortable, but he didn’t want her to know that.

“Grown men?”

“Sure, any girl knows that. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just how it is.”

The tan Fusion moved on.

“Couldn’t catch us doing anything,” Abby said.

“Probably ruined his day,” Terry said.

They sat quietly.

“You know what I think,” Terry said after a time. “I think we ought to follow Bullard.”

“Mr. Bullard?”

“Uh-huh,” Terry said. “Let’s decide it’s him and see what we can find out about him.”

“What if he catches us?”

“We’ll have to be sure he doesn‘t,” Terry said.

Abby nodded slowly.

“Be kind of fun, wouldn’t it,” she said.

Terry nodded. Neither of them said anything for a time. Abby bumped her heels some more against the Wall.

“I didn’t mean you’re really like five years old,” Abby said. “Actually most of the time you seem like a grown man to me. You just don’t know so much about sex.”

“I can learn,” Terry said.

Abby looked straight at him and her smile was wide and bright.

“I’ll bet you can,” Abby said.

H
e was a drug salesman for one of the big drug companies, and once a week he called on doctors at
Mass General Hospital. When he was through for the morning, he would get a gym
bag from
his car
in the parking garage and go
to the cafeteria. There he would meet a big man who had a
similar gym
bag. They would have coffee together, and when
they left, each would take the other’s gym bag.

The cafeteria was called Eat Street, and whenever he went
there, the
salesman always
smiled to himself. The place was so cutesy. The man he met was definitely not cutesy. He reminded the salesman of a rhinoceros: squat and thick and dangerous. The salesman was a little afraid of him, but when he took the big man’s gym bag back to his car and opened it in the parking garage, the money was always there, in cash.

The salesman wondered sometimes what he’d
do if there was no cash in the gym bag, if the big man stiffed him. He wouldn’t dare confront him. And even if he did, he couldn’t confront him in Eat Street. He didn’t even know the big man’s
name, or where he was from, or even what he did. All he knew was the cash in the gym bag
every week when they swapped.

If the big man ever stiffed him, he guessed he’d have to eat the cost of that week’s delivery
and not make another one. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be making any more deliveries, and
the big man didn’t know his name either. The
salesman could park in a different place and not come to Eat Street, and the whole thing would be
over. He’d miss the money, but there were other
people he could make an arrangement with, if he
needed to. But cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now, he
was getting
his money. And the
big ugly rhino was getting his steroids.

T
erry was taping his hands.

“I never see fighters using this check-block thing,” Terry said. “I watch those classic fight films a lot.”

“They use the check part,” George said. “Foreman used it. But they do it so quick and easy that you don’t much notice.”

“What about the block part?”

“Mostly martial arts,” George said. “I just threw it in, case you liked it.”

“I want to box,” Terry said.

George nodded.

“Martial arts guys do a lot of things with that check-block move,” he said. “Don’t do you no harm to know it.”

Terry put his hands out and George slipped the big gloves on and Velcroed them tight.

“Okay,” George said. “Today combinations. I’m going to move the mitts around. You do left jab, right to the body, left hook, right uppercut, right to the head depending on how I move the gloves. We’ll do it slow motion to start.”

They walked through the sequence.

“You got it,” George said. “Now, here we go.”

George put the left mitt up. Terry jabbed it. George turned the right mitt over. Terry gave it an uppercut. They moved slowly, George shuffling left or right, Terry following.

“Keep your stance,” George said. “Set up after you punch. Be quick, but don’t hurry.”

The punches made a satisfying pop when they landed solid in the mitts. As Terry got tired, the punches began to slide off with less pop.

“Torque your forearms,” George said. “First two knuckles ... Breathe... Keep your feet under you... Left foot forward ... Punch from the floor ... Turn your hip into it... Good, take a seat.”

Terry went and sat. He was sweating. His chest was heaving. He felt good.

“How’d you come to be a fighter, George?” Terry said.

George smiled. Terry noticed he was not trying to catch his breath.

Hell, Terry thought,
I was doing all the punching
.

“Old story,” George said. “Grew up in Baltimore. No father. Mother working two jobs to keep us going. I spent most of my time in the streets. In that part of Baltimore, on the streets, you had to fight. Didn’t have no choice. Got in some trouble. So my mother say you gonna fight anyway, maybe you should learn how. Maybe make some money. Took me to a priest, white priest, run an athletic program for street kids. Got me signed up for boxing.”

“You Catholic?”

“Nope,” George said. “Wasn’t white neither. Priest didn’t care. Went to Golden Gloves and then pro. Made a living. Most of the kids I fought in the street with are dead or in jail.”

“Wow,” Terry said. “A real priest.”

George smiled and nodded.

“Yep,” George said. “A real one.”

They went another round on the combinations and moving. Then they did what George called speed drills.

“Want you hit that heavy bag, left-right, left-right, fast as you can, keepin’ your form. Gonna do it for a minute.”

Terry did it. George counted it down.

“Good,” George said. “Take a break.”

Terry went, and sat, and breathed.

When he could, he said, “I used to think, like, a priest wouldn’t do a bad thing. A teacher wouldn’t do that, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But sometimes they do bad things. Priests can be bad. Teachers, you think they’re all supposed to be good, and some of them aren’t.”

“Way it is,” George said.

“Makes it hard to trust people,” Terry said.

“It do,” George said.

T
hey were hanging on the Wall: Terry and Abby, Tank, Suzi, and a small smart kid named Otis. A silver BMW sedan pulled up in front of them and Kip Carter got out with two friends.

Otis said, “Uh-oh.”

“Hey, boxer boy,” Carter said. “You keeping your nose clean?”

Terry didn’t say anything.

“What do you want?” Abby said.

“Want to know if boxer boy’s being good,” Carter said.

“Why don’t you go bother somebody else?” Abby said. “Creep.”

“‘Cause we want to bother you, slut,” Carter said.

“Hey,” Terry said. “Watch your mouth.”

“He’s telling me to watch my mouth,” Carter said to one of his friends.

The friend’s name was Gordon. He played linebacker and was part of Carter’s entourage.

“Or you’ll do what,” Gordon said.

“I told him about you being a boxer,” Carter said. “And Gordon don’t think much of that. Gordon thinks he can kick your butt.”

Terry nodded slowly.

“I think he can too,” Carter said. “You think so, Mikey?”