The Professional Page 11

  “You want me?” Doc said, turning from us.

  Schaeffer and Keener’s heavyweight were finished in the ring, and Polo had walked over. He had been standing there listening and looking to Doc.

  “You want my guy to work with Eddie?”

  “With Eddie? No thanks.”

  “I thought you wanted him. I mean Jay said you might use him. You remember I mentioned it?”

  “He’s too big, Polo.”

  “But just to move around.”

  “I got DeCorso,” Doc said. “Charley’ll let me use that middleweight of his if I need him. I got Memphis Kid coming up. Thanks, Polo.”

  “Whatever you say,” Polo said, shrugging but waiting for Doc or someone to say something else.

  “Thanks,” Doc said.

  “I got to look after my guy,” Polo said and, the towel over his shoulder, he walked over to where Schaeffer was whanging the big bag.

  “Can you imagine?” Doc said. “Can you imagine the Pro pushing that tub of lard around?”

  “Well, he wants to be helpful,” I said.

  “Amateurs,” Doc said.

  He saw Jay coming out of the dressing room now with the headgear for Eddie and DeCorso, and he walked over to him and took Eddie’s. While Keener and I watched, the two fighters climbed into the ring. Eddie stepped into his cup and tugged it up over the white woolen tights, and DeCorso climbed into the sweat-blackened leather carcass of his.

  “How do you like my kid?” Keener said to me.

  DeCorso was fitting on his own headguard, but Doc was leaning across the ropes and fastening the strap on Eddie’s. Jay was standing on the apron with Doc, holding Eddie’s gloves, ready to give them to Doc.

  “Cardone?”

  “He’s gonna be a good fighter.”

  “He’s got talent.”

  “You keep an eye on him,” Keener said. “Remember I told you.”

  It is the least of my concerns, I thought. I am involved here in a crisis, and you want to show me card tricks.

  “You like Eddie in this fight, hey?” Keener said, looking at me out of the sides of his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “The other guy’s a good fighter. You know that.”

  “So is Eddie.”

  “That’s right. Old Doc could stand a break.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Just don’t tell him that.”

  “He’s an odd guy.”

  “He just doesn’t play for the breaks. He never has, and I don’t think he ever will.”

  “In this business you have to.”

  “You can say that of any business,” I said.

  There can be no use in talking about it, I thought. The play for the break, the dependence on it has come to be regarded as almost a mathematical factor, but to the few, even in the winning, it is the admission of defeat.

  “Time!”

  It was Jay, standing on the ring apron with Doc, looking up from his wrist watch and shouting to Eddie and DeCorso. When he called it, the two fighters turned toward each other, top-heavy in their headguards, Eddie with his hands low, head down and looking out of the tops of his eyes, and DeCorso sticking out the big pillow of his left.

  “I have to go and pick up my crew and get back,” Keener said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  “Remember what I told you about Vic. If you ever want to write something about him just let me know. He’s yours.”

  “Sure, Charley.”

  “Always glad to help,” he said.

  I watched Eddie and DeCorso work three rounds, the gym quiet now except for the shuffle of their shoes on the canvas, the thap-thud of their punches and the low, short rushing of their breathing. Eddie was saving all the time, never wasting a thing. When it was over he worked a couple of rounds on the big bag and two more on the light bag, and then I followed them into the dressing room.

  “Close the door, will you, Frank?” Doc said.

  “Sure.”

  Only Penna was still there, in an old pair of green-gray slacks and a white T-shirt and over it a soiled brown suède unbuttoned jacket. He was sitting on the bench, his long black hair still wet from his shower and still sweating a little just below the hairline in front, and he pulled his legs in to let the others by.

  “Now I’m gonna tell you this once and for all,” Doc said.

  Eddie had his white terrycloth robe on, pulled close under his chin. The perspiration was beaded on his forehead and he sat down on the chair and extended his legs.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me you know,” Doc said, standing in front of him and squinting down at him. “The only way to tell me anything is to show me.”

  “All right,” Eddie said, looking up at him.

  “Now I don’t want to see you take one single step back in this camp. Not a one. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t care what this guy does.”

  He motioned back with one arm toward DeCorso, who was sitting on the bench next to Penna and sweating in a soiled dark-blue satin robe and starting to peel the gym wrappings off one hand.

  “I don’t care how this guy or anybody else up here moves to you. I want them to move to you, but don’t let me catch you taking one step back.”

  “I know,” Eddie said, nodding and looking down along his legs.

  “Give him that towel.”

  “Sure,” Jay said, serious-faced and handing Eddie the towel.

  Doc waited while Eddie wiped himself, his face and his neck.

  “Move to this side, move to that. Circle him, but don’t ever give him his angle and don’t ever step back.”

  “I know,” Eddie said, still wiping. “I mean, sure.”

  “Look at me.”

  “Sure,” Eddie said, looking up at him, his hands with the towel suspended in front of him.

  “They think this other guy can fight. Sure he can fight, if you let him. Anybody can fight if you let him, but you never let him. What they don’t know, but you and I know, is that the other guy can’t do anything with you if you don’t give him the room he wants, and he’ll be absolutely nothing if you back him up.”

  “I understand, Doc.”

  “Get him his hot tea, John.”

  “I thought he’d have it when he comes out of his shower,” Jay said.

  “I want him to have it now. I want him to keep that sweat longer.”

  “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  He was cutting open the bandages on Eddie’s hands, and when he finished he put the scissors down on the bench next to his jars and went out.

  “That was all right today, Vince,” Doc said to DeCorso.

  “Thanks.”

  When Doc walked out I sat down on the other chair and watched Eddie sweat. On the rest of us sweat is the visible, often repulsive evidence of our unsuitability, but on the trained athlete it is the finely balanced weighing of the water content and the exact equating of the chemical formula and so it belongs.

  “That’s not a bad head of steam,” I said to him.

  “Yeah,” he said, wiping his hands now with the towel. “I wanted it today. I haven’t felt quite right, you know? I mean, not loose. I think a good sweat like this will get me going right.”

  “You can have it,” Penna said.

  “You were sweatin’ good today,” Eddie said.

  “Who wants it?” Penna said. “There’s only one thing I ever wanna get up a sweat doing.”

  “Forget it,” Eddie said.

  “Who can forget it?”

  “Hey, Penna,” DeCorso said, “why don’t you get a good close haircut?”

  “A what?”

  “He’s right,” Jay said. He had come in carrying the tea, a cup balanced on a saucer in each hand, with a slice of lemon floating in each. He kicked the door shut behind him, and handed one steaming cup to Eddie and the other to DeCorso.

  “He’s right, what?”

  “Get one of them crew haircuts
like Eddie got.”

  “Why?”

  “Then it don’t look so bad when you get hit a punch. You get hit a punch now, your hair flies up. It makes the punch look good.”

  “Are you kiddin’?”

  “No. The way you got your hair long now, it could lose you a close fight.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “No, he’s not,” DeCorso, sipping the hot tea, said.

  “Sure,” Jay said. “You see a guy’s long hair fly when he gets hit and everybody in the crowd lets out a holler. Them judges got ears.”

  “Yeah, but you two guys got no hair. You two guys are just jealous. Don’t con me. Nobody’s cuttin’ my hair short.”

  “What are you tryin’ to be?” Jay said. “A fighter or a sheik?”

  “A fighter or a what?”

  “A sheik.”

  “A sheik!” Penna said, laughing and turning to Eddie. “You hear that? You get that? Here’s a guy still thinks that Rudolph Valentino, or whatever his name was, is still alive. Hey, Jay?”

  “What?”

  “Nobody ever tell you Rudolph Valentino is dead? You know he’s dead?”

  “Sure I know he’s dead.”

  “Where’d you get that word? You got any more words like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like sheik. What a word! You got any more old words like that. Sheik. Oh, Jay.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll bet you were some sheik, hey? I’ll bet you wanted to be some Rudolph Valentino, hey?”

  “I did all right.”

  “You did all right, hey? Tell us about it, Jay.”

  “I’ll see you gentlemen later,” I said.

  “Okay, Frank,” Eddie said.

  I walked out through the gym and when I got to the lobby I saw Doc sitting on the porch in one of the red-painted metal tubular chairs. It was the warmest afternoon we had had, and the sun was just nearing the tree line and Doc was sitting there, looking up the avenue of the driveway toward the road.

  “You’re right about not backing up with that other guy,” I said, sitting down.

  “Of course I’m right.”

  “The moment you said it I could see his fights, and I knew you were right.”

  “You want to know something?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s made for Eddie.”

  “It’ll be great if it works out that way.”

  “If? It has to. People have the idea the other guy’s a great fighter. That’s a joke.”

  “He’s a pretty good one, Doc. Let’s give him that.”

  “Sure he is. He’s champion of the world, isn’t he?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “But not a great fighter. Let’s not get confused about that. Quicker than the rest, so he covers better. He looks good at it, but he’s not what he looks. You’ve got to see through all that.”

  “I can see it, now that you say it.”

  I meant it. I could see that lithe brown body and the fast hands and all the natural grace, but I could see now that always, without it being a conscious thought, there had been the impression lying dormant within me that something was not there. It is the way a passage of music will raise you and then leave you up there all alone, feeling but not quite knowing that something is missing and wondering what is wrong.

  “Window dressing,” Doc said.

  “Yes, it’s pretty.”

  “Made for the Pro. For nine years I’ve fed him every guy I could find who’d come to him. That’s why I’ve made every one of my fighters a counter puncher. It’s the only way you can con the other guy into thinking you’re fighting his fight. When he finds out you’re not, it’s too late. Surprise. Christmas is over. Ante up. It’ll be the same with this great champion.”

  “But a bit tougher.”

  “Naturally. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Listen. After forty-three years I’ve got a guy who’s learned everything I could teach him. He’s even learned how to walk out there and make it look tough. He makes it look like it’s close, but it isn’t. He’s just inside those punches or outside them. The ones he’s taking he’s taking where it doesn’t matter. He’s even kept the secret. That’s the great talent, because nobody knows this except the guys who’ve fought him. Ask any one of those guys. Ask them. I can give you three, four, a half dozen that came to Eddie after he fought them and told him they never had it done to them before. They still aren’t sure what happened, but whatever it was they never thought anybody could do it to them. I’ll give them to you, if you want them.”

  “You know me for a believer.”

  “Who are those dames? You know them?”

  I had seen them as soon as I had stepped onto the porch, but I had had it in my mind then to go at Doc and, half turned from them, I had forgotten them. They were sitting in a tomato-red Buick convertible, the top down, sitting in the last spread of sun in the parking space and about sixty feet from us.

  “What are they doing here?” Doc said.

  The one at the wheel was a blonde, about thirty, and she seemed to be reading a book. The other was a brunette, older but only they knew how much, and she was smoking and occasionally, without turning her head, saying something to the blonde, who would then raise her eyes, looking straight ahead, and then go back to the book.

  “Who are they?” Doc said.

  “Ma-me!” Penna said.

  He had come through the doorway behind us, and he was standing now between Doc and me.

  “Ma-me!” he said. “How do you like that?”

  “Who are they?” Doc said.

  “Top secret. This information is classified. Ain’t that what they say in the F.B.I.?”

  “Who are they?”

  “I ain’t allowed to give out this information. You screws can put me in solitary and torture me all you want, but I ain’t gonna sing. I’ll just give you one clue.”

  “What?”

  “Ask Cardone.”

  “Cardone knows them?” Doc said.

  “Knows them? And how!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You know who that dark-haired one is?”

  “Who?”

  “She’s the blonde’s mother.”

  “Isn’t that dreadful?” Doc said, looking at me.

  “I told that Cardone. I told him: ‘Just knock me down to that mother. That’s all. I never had a mother like that.’ Two good-looking broads, ain’t they?”

  “Why, she’s got to be old enough to be your own mother,” Doc said.

  “My mother was never like that. How about that? Every day could be Mother’s Day. Right?”

  “Cardone,” Doc said, disgusted.

  “They must have some pretty interesting conversations,” I said. “I mean, discussing things like the lasting evidence of the transcendentalist influence in modern American literature.”

  “What?” Penna said. “What?”

  “Do you believe in transcendentalism, Penna?”

  “I believe in that,” Penna said, still looking at the two.

  Booker Boyd had come out of the door behind us, and he walked down the front steps. He was carrying a sweatsuit and a pair of white woolen socks, apparently taking them from his room to hang them out and, without even glancing at the two, he walked by the car and around the corner of the building. As he walked by, the brunette glanced at him and then leaned forward and, apparently, snuffed her cigarette out in the ash tray on the dashboard.

  “Some car, too, hey?” Penna said.

  “If it’s a fighter they want,” I said to Doc, “they just saw one. Booker Boyd.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I should tell them,” I said. “I should say: ‘Look. If you’re specializing in fighters, that was Booker Boyd. One of these days, in a year or so, he’s going into a ring for real with your boy, and he’s going to knock your boy out. In fact, he’s going to destroy
your boy. Meet Booker Boyd.”

  “The dirty bitches that can’t keep their hands off fighters,” Doc said. “Why, that Cardone’s just a kid.”

  “Come on,” Penna said. “Just ’cause you guys can’t do it, don’t knock it.”

  We were playing them so hard, sitting there on the porch with our eyes and all our thoughts on them, that I knew they knew it. You could not tell it, though, the way they sat there, each holed up behind her own indifference.

  “Who are they?” Girot said, walking out onto the porch.

  “There,” Doc said.

  Cardone had come out of the gym door, and walked up to the car on the brunette’s side. He couldn’t have said more than three words, but the blonde turned toward him and, leaning over a little, said something to him across the other, and then the other said something and smiled and Cardone turned and, without looking at us, went back into the gym. When he did the blonde started the car and the back wheels ground into the gravel and they went by us and up the driveway, looking straight ahead.

  “Ma-me!” Penna said.

  “So that’s who they are?” Girot said. “They should be arrested.”

  “Go on,” Penna said. “‘What do you wanna do, play jailer?”

  “That new fellow who has those cabins down the road,” Girot said to Doc and me, “he called me last week. He said: ‘You know, one of your fighters comes here.’ He told me what he looked like. I knew who it was. I said to him: ‘You shouldn’t allow that. That’s against the law.’ He said: ‘I have to make a living.’ I think I’ll tell Mr. Charley Keener.”

  “You tell him nothing,” Doc said.

  “Mr. Charley Keener has money invested in that boy. He sends him up here to get in condition. He has a fight coming up. That’s not right to Mr. Charley Keener. I should tell him.”

  “Tell him nothing,” Doc said. “Let him find out for himself.”

  “I don’t know,” Girot said, shaking his head. “That’s terrible.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Penna said. “I know you foreign guys.”

  “I know you, too,” Girot said.

  He walked back into the lobby and Penna followed him, talking at him.

  “What’s that going to be like between that mother and daughter in a few years,” Doc said. “I mean when that mother can’t go any more? Isn’t that dreadful?”

  “I’m thinking of Charley Keener,” I said. “I like what you told Girot.”