The Boxer and the Spy (7 page)

Mikey was another hanger-on. He played center on the football team and followed Carter around most of the rest of the time.

“Sure he can,” Mikey said.

“How ‘bout you, dweeb,” Carter said to Otis. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Otis said.

“And you, Kitty Cat?” Carter said to Abby “What do you think?”

“I think you should buzz off,” Abby said.

“Me too,” Suzi said.

“Well we’ve heard from the Kitty Cats,” Carter said to Terry, “what you think.”

Terry took in a long breath of air, and slid off the wall.

“Terry,” Abby said. “Don’t.”

“Hey, the boxer boy’s gonna show us his stuff,” Carter said. “You stay out of this, Tank.”

“You too,” Tank said.

Carter laughed.

“Sure, sure,” he said. “I’m thinking Gordon won’t need no help.”

Terry went into his stance. Left foot forward. Hands high. He heard Carter laugh. It wasn’t about Carter now. It was about him and Gordon. They circled each other. Gordon seemed a little stiff in his movements, Terry thought. Maybe he’s a little scared too. Gordon lunged at him. Terry put a left jab onto his nose. It stopped Gordon. Terry followed with a straight right, again on the nose, torquing his forearm, turning his hip in, keeping his feet under him, breathing out hard when he threw the punch. Gordon yelped. The blood spurted from Gordon’s nose. Gordon put his hands to his nose, and Terry landed a heavy left hook on his cheekbone and Gordon fell down.

“My nose,” Gordon said. “He broke my damn nose.”

Abby took a packet of Kleenex from her bag, and jumped down from the wall, and gave the Kleenex to Gordon.

Terry turned, still in his stance, toward Carter. Tank slid off the wall and stood beside Terry. Then Otis jumped down and stood with Tank. Carter looked at them and didn’t say anything. Gordon took some of the Kleenex in a wad and held it against his nose.

“I think it’s broke,” he mumbled.

“Why don’t you get Gordon into your stupid car,” Abby said to Carter, “and take him to the doctor?”

Carter nodded.

“Get him in the backseat,” Carter said to Mikey.

Mikey helped Gordon up and they got in the car.

“Careful with the blood,” Carter said.

He looked silently at Terry for a moment.

“Don’t change nothing,” he said. “What I told you in the weight room.”

Terry kept his stance.

“And keep in mind... I ain’t Gordon,” Carter said, and turned and walked around and got in the driver’s seat and drove his silver BMW away.

Terry let his arms drop. The fight had lasted about ten seconds, but he was breathing heavily. His hands hurt where he had punched Gordon. No gloves. No tape. Lucky he didn’t break something. He felt his hands. They seemed intact.

“Man, that was fast,” Otis said.

“You okay?” Abby said.

“Yeah, sure. He didn’t even hit me.”

“I think you did break his nose,” Tank said.

Terry nodded. He was exhausted.
How do you get exhausted in a ten-second fight?

“This will be all over school tomorrow,” Suzi said.

Abby was looking at Terry. He looked back at her.

“I’ll bet they won’t bother Terry anymore,” Otis said.

Terry shrugged. He felt a little shaky. He’d have to talk with George about this. He hadn’t thought about how he’d feel after a fight.

“Terry,” Abby said. “Can we take a walk? Just you and me?”

“Sure,” he said.

His left hand was beginning to throb a little where his left hook had landed on Gordon’s cheekbone. When he got home, he’d put ice on it.

As they walked away, Abby took his hand.

Behind him he heard Otis say, “I’m serious, maybe I should learn to box.”

“I don’t know, Otis,” Suzi said. “Maybe you’re better to out-think them.”

“How do you feel?” Abby said.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“No,” Abby said. “You’re not.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell,” Abby said. “I know you.”

He liked it that she cared how he was. He liked it that she knew him well enough to tell when he wasn’t all right.

“I’m a little shaky,” he said.

“A fight like that must give awfully intense feelings,” Abby said.

“I guess,” Terry said.

“Feelings like that take a lot out of you.”

“Sometimes,” he said.

“And sometimes not?” she said.

He looked at her without speaking for a while.

“And sometimes not,” he said.

It was Abby’s turn to be silent for a time.

Finally she said, “Are we still talking about the fight?”

“I don’t think so,” Terry said.

The problem with following Bullard,” Abby said while she waited for her coffee to cool, ”is even worse than Kip Carter All-American. Bullard drives everywhere.”

“I thought of that,” Terry said. “I say we need a spotter network.”

His left hand was swollen and sore.

“A what?”

“We know kids who live all over town. Everybody got a cell phone, practically. You know, Otis lives in East Cabot, you live near the Center, Nancy Fortin lives by the park. We get people all over town to keep an eye out for Mr. Bullard. Keep track of where he goes, what he does.”

“And they could report to us by cell phone,” Abby said.

“I don’t have a cell,” Terry said.

“Why don’t you get one already?”

Terry shrugged.

“We don’t have much extra money,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Abby said. “I got a cell. They can report to me.”

“We have to use people we can trust,” Terry said. “We can’t let Bullard know, or Kip Carter and his crew either.”

“I’ll do it,” Abby said. “I got a lot of girlfriends who’d love to do this. Let me organize this. We’ll like chart his movements.”

Terry looked at her and laughed.

“Abby Hall,” he said. “Girl detective.”

She grinned at him. Her eyes were very big. Her mouth was wide. When she smiled, it made her face seem bright, and he always thought of her smiling like that. It made him think of glee when she grinned like that, as if something wildly exciting was about to happen.

“Well,” she said, “it is kind of fun, isn’t it?”

“Not if Kip Carter pounds me into a fish cake,” Terry said.

“Maybe he can‘t,” Abby said. “Gordon couldn’t.”

“Gordon is not Kip Carter,” Terry said.

“Don’t you think if Kip Carter All-American thought he could pound you into a fish cake he’d have done it instead of siccing Gordon on you?”

Terry shrugged.

They were in the Coffee Café in the center of town. The café had not set out to be a high school hangout. But it was downtown, next to the cinema, four blocks from the high school, and never seemed crowded in the afternoon. Slowly the kids started hanging out there, and the more they hung out there, the more adults didn’t come, so that finally the place had become a high school hangout. Whether the owners liked it or not, it was a fact. If you were a high school kid, the café was where you went.

“Have you found out any more about steroids?” Abby said.

“I’ve been on the Internet, but there‘s, like, too much information and they say different stuff, and I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.”

“And there’s no one to ask?” Abby said.

“Like who? My mother? She’s a bartender. She doesn’t know any more than I do about steroids.”

“And there’s no one else,” Abby said.

“Nobody that knows anything. I mean I can’t just make an appointment with some doctor and say, ‘tell me about ’roids.‘ You know?”

“I do,” Abby said. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

“You do a lot of thinking,” Terry said.

“Yes I do,” Abby said, and smiled the big smile at him again. “I’m very smart.”

“Modest too,” Terry said.

“Absolutely,” Abby said.

“So what have you been thinking?”

“Gary,” she said. “At the drugstore.”

“Sarkis Pharmacy?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “He’s very nice, and he must know about steroids. I bet he’s got a book or something.”

Terry nodded, looking at her.

“Let’s go over there now,” Terry said.

“On the hunt,” Abby said.

And they left.

“I shoulda done it myself, ” the jock said. “If you hadn’t told me not to, I‘da kicked his
butt. ”

A
t the drugstore, Gary Sarkis gave them ten photocopied pages of a medical update about steroids from a big HMO.

“Lotta medical language,” he told them. “But you can wade through it. You need help, call me.”

“Do you take steroids for asthma?” Terry said.

“Of a sort,” Gary Sarkis said. “In very small amounts. But it’s not the same stuff that athletes use.”

They took the pages to the Wall and sat and began to read them. Terry would read a page and hand it to Abby. When Abby read it, she underlined things in yellow.

When they had both finished, Terry said, “Yikes.”

“It does take some wading,” Abby said.

“You get anything out of it?” Terry said.

Abby giggled.

“If you take some of these things, your ... testicles might shrink,” Abby said.

“Come on,” Terry said.

“Says so right here,” Abby said, and marked the passage.

Terry read it again.

“ ‘Testicular size may decrease if androgen is taken for many years,’” he said. “I missed that first time through.”

Abby giggled again.

“I didn‘t,” she said.

“So
androgen
is another word for
steroid,”
Terry said.

“I think so.”

“So here’s the psychological effects,” Terry said. “That’s what we want.”

“It doesn’t say anything about suicide,” Abby said. “‘Major mood disorders and aggressive behavior’ is what it says.”

“Suicide is a
major
mood disorder,” Terry said.

“But if they meant suicide, they’d say so, wouldn’t they?”

“I guess. Jason certainly wasn’t aggressive.” He pointed. “What’s this mean, you think?”

Abby read aloud.

“ ‘Most psychological descriptions are uncontrolled.’ ”

“Uncontrolled how?” Terry said.

“Like the studies aren‘t, um, careful, you know?” Abby said. “They’re more just what people say about steroids. The doctors are, like, not sure if it’s true. A lot of this stuff is like that.”

“Well, hell,” Terry said. “Who’s going to tell their doctor they’re on ‘roids?”

“I guess that’s the problem,” Abby said.

They read the pages again.

“Lot of stuff they think might happen to you from juicing,” Terry said.

“And over here it says they’re not all that sure that it does you much good.”

Terry nodded.

“Look at this,” he said. “If women take it.”

Abby looked down and read where he pointed.

“Oh wow,” she said. “Acne, facial hair ...”