A Dance at the Slaughter House (Matthew Scudder #9) 4

He was around forty-five, balding, with dark brown hair and prominent eyebrows. He was cleanshaven. He had a lumpy sort of a face, as though he might have been a fighter once himself, but if so I figured they would have introduced him. They were not exactly awash in celebrities, and anybody who'd gone three rounds in the Golden Gloves stood a good chance of being called up to take a bow for the FBCS cameras. And he was right at ringside; all he'd have had to do was climb over the ropes and bask in the applause.

There was a boy with him, and the man had one arm around him, his hand resting on the boy's shoulder while he gestured with the other hand, pointing things out in the ring. I assumed they were father and son, although I couldn't see much resemblance; the boy, in his early teens, had light brown hair with a sharply defined widow's peak. Any widow's peak the father might have had was long gone. The father wore a blue blazer and gray flannel slacks. His tie was light blue, with black or navy polka dots, big ones, close to an inch in diameter. The boy wore a red plaid flannel shirt and navy corduroy pants.

I couldn't think how I knew him.

THE third round looked even to me. I didn't keep count, but I had the impression that Rasheed landed more punches. Dominguez hit him a few good shots, though, and they had more authority than the ones Rasheed got in. When the round ended I didn't look over at the man with the polka-dot tie because I was looking instead at another man.

This one was younger, thirty-two to be exact. He stood about five-eleven and he was built like a light heavyweight. He had shucked his suit jacket and tie and was wearing a white button-down shirt with a blue stripe. He approached the sort of handsomeness you see in menswear catalogs, a combination of chiseled features and attitude, spoiled by a little too much fullness in the pouty lower lip and a brutish thickness to the nose. A full head of dark hair, styled and blown dry. A tan, a souvenir of a week in Antigua.

His name was Richard Thurman, and he was producing the telecast for Five Borough Cable Sportscasts. He was standing on the ring apron now, outside of the ropes, talking to a cameraman. The girl with the placard came around, showing us that the fourth round was coming up next, and showing us a bit more than that in her abbreviated costume. The audience at home would miss that part of the show. They'd be watching a beer commercial while she showed the world what she had. She was a tall, leggy girl with a lush figure, and she was displaying a lot of skin.

She came over to the camera and said something to Thurman, and he reached out a hand and gave her a pat on the fanny. She didn't seem to notice. Maybe he was used to touching women and she was used to being touched. Maybe they were old friends. She was all pink, though, so it seemed unlikely that he'd taken her along to Antigua.

She got out of the ring and he climbed down and they rang the warning bell. The fighters got off their stools and it was time for Round Four.

In the first minute of the round Dominguez got the straight right in and opened up a cut over Rasheed's left eye. Rasheed jabbed a lot and hammered Dominguez with body punches, and toward the end of the round snapped his head back with a good uppercut. Dominguez landed another good right at the bell. I had no idea how to score the round, and said as much to Mick.

"No matter," he said. "It'll never go ten."

"Who do you like?"

"I like the black fellow," he said, "but I don't care for his chances. Pedro's too fucking strong."

I looked over at the man and the boy. "That fellow over there," I said. "First row, sitting next to the kid. Blue jacket, polka-dot tie."

"What about him?"

"I think I know him," I said, "but I can't place him. Do you recognize him?"

"Never saw him before."

"I can't think where I know him from."

"He looks like a cop."

"No," I said. "Do you really think so?"

"I'm not saying he's a cop, I'm saying he has that look. You know who he looks like? It's an actor who plays cops, I can't think of his name. It'll come to me."

"An actor who plays cops. They all play cops."

"Gene Hackman," he said.

I looked again. "Hackman's older," I said. "And thinner. This guy's burly where Hackman's sort of wiry. And Hackman's got more hair, doesn't he?"

"Jesus help us," he said. "I didn't say he was Hackman. I said that's who he looks like."

"If it was Hackman they'd have made him come up and take a bow."

"If it was Hackman's fucking cousin they'd have made him take a bow, desperate as they are."

"But you're right," I said. "There's a definite resemblance."

"Not that he's the spitting image, mind you, but-"

"But there's a resemblance. That's not why he looks familiar. I wonder where I know him from."

"One of your meetings, maybe."

"That's possible."

"Unless that's a beer he's drinking. If he's a member of your lot he wouldn't be drinking a beer, would he now?"

"Probably not."

"Although not all of your lot make it, do they?"

"No, not all of us do."

"Well then, let's hope it's a Coke in his cup," he said. "Or if it's a beer, let's pray he gives it to the lad."

DOMINGUEZ got the better of it in the fifth round. A lot of his big punches missed, but a couple got through and hurt Rasheed. He rallied nicely at the end but the round still clearly belonged to the Latin fighter.

In the sixth, Rasheed took a straight right to the jaw and went down.

It was a solid knockdown and it brought the crowd to its feet. Rasheed was up at five and took the mandatory eight count, and when the ref motioned for them to resume fighting Dominguez rushed in swinging for the fences. Rasheed was wobbly but he showed a lot of class, ducking, slipping punches, playing for time in clinches, fighting back gamely. The knockdown came fairly early in the round, but at the end of the three minutes Rasheed was still on his feet.

"One more round," Mick Ballou said.

"No."

"Oh?"

"He had his chance," I said. "Like that fellow in the last bout, what was his name? The Irishman."

"The Irishman? What Irishman?"

"McCann."

"Ah. Black Irish, that would be. You think Dominguez is another one who doesn't know how to pull the trigger?"

"He knows how, he just didn't have what he needed. He threw too many punches. Punching tires you, especially when you don't hit anything. I think the round took more out of him than it did out of Rasheed."

"You think it'll go to the judges? They'll give it to Pedro then, unless your man Chance put the fix in."

You wouldn't fix a fight like that. There's no betting. I said, "It won't go to a decision. Rasheed'll knock him out."

"Matt, you're dreaming."

"You'll see."

"Do you want to bet? I don't want to bet money, not with you. What shall we bet?"

"I don't know."

I looked over at the father and son. Something was hovering at the edge of thought, nagging at me.

"If I win," he said, "we'll make a night of it and go to the eight o'clock mass at St. Bernard's. The butchers' mass."

"And if I win?"

"Then we won't go."

I laughed. "That's a great bet," I said. "We're already not going, so what would I be winning?"

"All right then," he said. "If you win I'll go to a meeting."

"A meeting?"

"A fucking AA meeting."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I wouldn't want to do it," he said. "Isn't that the fucking point? I'd be doing it because I lost the bet."

"But why would I want you to go to a meeting?"

"I don't know."

"If you ever want to go," I said, "I'll be happy to take you. But I certainly don't want you to go on my account."

The father put his hand on the boy's forehead and smoothed his hair back. There was something about the gesture that hit me like a hard right hand to the heart. Mick said something but I'd gone momentarily deaf to it. I had to ask him to repeat it.

"Then I guess there's no bet," he said.

"I guess not."

The bell rang. The fighters rose from their stools.

"It's just as well," he said. "I think you're right. I think that fucking Pedro punched himself out."

THAT'S how it turned out. It wasn't that clear-cut in the seventh round because Dominguez was still strong enough to land a few shots that got the crowd cheering. But it was easier to get the crowd on its feet than to knock Rasheed off his, and he looked as strong as ever, and confident in the bargain. Late in the round he landed a short stiff right to the solar plexus and Mick and I looked at each other and nodded. Nobody had cheered, nobody had shouted, but that was the fight, and we knew it and so did Eldon Rasheed. I think Dominguez did, too.

Between rounds Mick said, "I got to hand it to you. You saw something in the round before that I never saw. All those body punches, they're money in the bank, aren't they? They don't look like anything at all, and then all at once your man has no legs under him. Speaking of legs."

The placard girl was letting us know that Round Eight was next.

"She looks familiar, too," I said.

"You met her at a meeting," he suggested.

"Somehow I don't think so."

"No, you'd remember her, wouldn't you? A dream, then. You were with her in a dream."

"That's more like it." I looked from her to the man with the polka-dot tie, then back at her again. "They say that's one of the ways you know you're middle-aged," I said. "When everybody you meet reminds you of somebody else."

"Is that what they say?"

"Well, that's one of the things they say," I said, and they rang the bell for the eighth round. Two minutes into it Eldon Rasheed staggered Peter Dominguez with a brutal left hook to the liver. Dominguez's hands fell and Rasheed dropped him with a right cross to the jaws.

He was up at eight, but it must have been pure machismo that got him on his feet. Rasheed was all over him, and three shots to the midsection put Dominguez on the canvas again. This time the ref didn't even bother to count. He stepped between the fighters and raised Rasheed's arms overhead.

Most of the same people who'd been rooting for a Dominguez knockout were on their feet again now, cheering for Rasheed.

WE were standing next to Chance and Kid Bascomb, over by the blue corner, when the ring announcer quieted the crowd and told us what we already knew, that the referee had stopped the fight after two minutes and thirty-eight seconds of the eighth round, that the winner by a technical knockout was Eldon "the Bulldog" Rasheed. There were two more four-round bouts to follow, he added, and we wouldn't want to miss a minute of the nonstop boxing action here at the New Maspeth Arena.

The boxers competing in those two four-rounders had a thankless task ahead of them, because they were going to be playing to a near-empty house. The fights were on the card as insurance for FBCS. If the prelims had finished early, one of them would have been shoehorned in before the main event; if Rasheed had kayoed Dominguez in the second round, or been knocked out himself, there would be a bout or two left to fill up the television time slot.