39
Z
AND I WERE DRIVINGout Storrow Drive in the late afternoon on
a bright, cool Tuesday, to do some intervals at Harvard Stadium,
when I picked up the tail. It was a black Cadillac sedan, and it
was discreetly changing position behind us from time to time,
doubtless hoping to deceive me.
"Aha, Sixkill," I
said. "The game's afoot."
"The Caddy behind
us?" Z said.
I looked at him. He
shrugged.
"Injun read sign,"
he said.
"Let's make sure," I
said.
I turned off Storrow
at the Mass Ave Bridge exit, and went across the river and turned
left onto Memorial Drive. The Caddy came along behind, trying to
look like it wasn't following. I went all the way to the place
where the Charles does a big bend, and re-crossed the river onto
Soldiers Field Road, and stayed to the right of the underpass, and
turned right to Harvard Stadium. By now the Caddy had figured out
that we'd made them, and just came along behind us with no further
deception.
The gate was open,
and I drove in and around the stadium and parked near an
entrance.
"Gladiatorial
combat," I said. "On the floor of Harvard Stadium. Is that cool or
what?"
"Gladiatorial
combat?" Z said. "You are one weird white eye."
We walked under the
stands to the field.
"Well, see," I said.
"It's got a kind of Roman Colosseum design to it."
We stood on the
fifty-yard line and waited. Z's breathing was maybe a little fast,
but it was steady. If there was tension in him, it was the tension
of a drawn bow. He was focused on the entrance we'd come
through.
"Two reminders," I
said. "One, try to stay on your feet. Two, stay in close. Guy your
size especially."
"Three," Z said.
"Remember what I've learned."
"Let that flow," I
said. "Don't think about it."
Four men came out of
the entrance tunnel and onto the field.
"You've trained
enough," I said. "It should come as needed. Like riding a
bicycle."
One of the four men
was squat, with big hands, longish black hair, and a fat
neck.
"You Spenser?" he
said to me.
"We gonna fight?" I
said.
"Not for long," the
squat man said.
He put out a hard
left. I checked it with my right and stepped around it as I blocked
it with my left. I slid my left hand down, caught his wrist, pulled
it toward me, and drove my right forearm against his elbow. He
grunted with pain. I drove my forearm into his elbow again, harder,
and felt the elbow break. He screamed. Someone hit me in the back
of the head. I spun and hit him with the side of my clenched left
fist, and continued turning, into a right cross that put the second
guy down. I glanced at Z in time to see him bob under a big right
hand from a tall kid with a gelled Mohawk and a weight lifter's
build. Z turned his right shoulder into the bodybuilder's chest and
drove a right upper cut up into the bodybuilder's chin that looked
like it might loosen the guy's head. Mohawk took a step back, and Z
hit him with a left hook just as the fourth guy put an arm around
Z's neck. Mohawk took two more steps backward and fell down. The
fourth guy, too, was an obvious bodybuilder, with his head shaved
for scariness. Z dropped his chin and turned his head, which
prevented Baldy from getting his forearm on Z's windpipe. Then Z
quite thoughtfully located Baldy's feet and stomped his right heel
down hard on Baldy's toes. Discouraged, Baldy let go, and Z
introduced a move we hadn't taught him. He grabbed the guy by the
throat with his left hand, and by the crotch with his right, lifted
him chest-high, and slammed him to the ground. He wasn't out, but
he didn't get up. The guy I had put down with a right cross had
gotten to his hands and knees, and, like me, was watching Z. He
decided to stay down as well. Mohawk was out. And the squat guy
with the broken elbow was hunched up in pain and not threatening
anybody.
"You boys local?" I
said.
"You broke my
fucking arm," the squat man said.
"I know," I said.
"Hospital right across the river got an emergency room. You guys
local?"
Nobody spoke. I bent
over the guy whom Z had bodyslammed.
"Where you from?" I
said.
He mumbled,
"Charlestown."
I
nodded.
"Who hired
you?"
He looked at the
squat man.
"Bull," he
mumbled.
I
nodded.
"Bull," I said. "You
were the contractor on this. Who hired you?"
Bull shook his
head.
"Soon as you tell
me, we're outta here," I said. "And you can get to the
hospital."
Bull shook his
head.
"Or," I said, "I
could break the other one."
Bull stood with his
head down, trying to find a place that didn't hurt to put his left
arm.
"Guy named Silver,"
he said.
"Hospital's right at
the head of the Charles," I said. "You'll see it when you get out
of the stadium. Go west on either side of the river."
Then I turned to Z
and held up my hand; he gave me a high-five.
"What about our
intervals?" he said.
"I think we've done
them," I said.