Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

She found a spot against the wall, out of his line of sight, and watched him train. He finished with the speed bag and moved on to the double end bag, a less predictable device than the speed bag, its balance such that it came back at you differently each time, and you had to react to its responses. Like a live opponent, she thought, adjusting to you as you adjusted to it, bobbing and weaving, trying not to get hit.

But not hitting back...

From the double end bag they moved to the heavy bag, and by then she was fairly certain they had sensed her presence. But they gave no sign, and she stayed where she was. She watched Darnell practice combinations, following a double jab with a left hook. That’s how he’d won the title the first time, hooking the left to Roland Weymouth’s rib cage, punishing the champion’s body until his hands came down and a string of head shots sent the man to the canvas. He was up at eight, but he had nothing left in his tank, and Darnell would have decked him again if the ref hadn’t stopped it.

“The winner, and... new junior middleweight champion of the world... Darnell Roberts!”

He’d moved up two weight classes since then. Junior middleweight was what, 154? And middleweight was 160, and he’d held the IBF title for two years, winning it when the previous titleholder had been forced to give it up for reasons she hadn’t understood then and couldn’t remember now. The sport was such a mess, it was all politics and backroom deals, but all of that went away when you got down to business. You sweated it out in the gym, and then you stepped into the ring, you and the other man, and you stood and hit each other, and all the conniving and manipulation disappeared. It was just two men in a pure sport, bringing nothing with them but their bodies and whatever they had on the inside.

He was a super middleweight these days. That meant he’d have to be under 168 when he weighed in the day before the fight, and seven to ten pounds more when he actually stepped into the ring. You wanted those extra pounds, she knew, because the more you weighed the harder you punched.

Of course your opponent had those extra pounds, too, and punched harder for them.

Darnell had run through his combinations, and now he was standing in and slugging, hitting the bag full force with measured blows that had all his weight behind them. And Marty was standing behind the bag, holding on to it, steadying it, while Darnell meted out punishment.

Marty saw her then. Their eyes met, and she didn’t see surprise in his, which meant she’d been right in sensing he knew she was there.

Other hand, Marty hardly ever looked surprised.

She drew her eyes away from Marty’s and watched Darnell as he hit the bag with measured lefts and rights. He weighed what, 185? 190? But he wouldn’t have trouble making the weight. He had two months, and he was just starting to train. All he had to do was work off twelve or fifteen pounds. Rest was water, and you sweated it out before you stepped on the scales, then drank yourself back to your fighting weight.

She always used to love to see him hit the heavy bag. It was fun to watch him train, watch that fine body show what it could do, but this part was the best because you saw the muscles work beneath the skin, saw the blows land, heard the impact, felt the power.

Early days, watching this, she’d get wet. Young as she was back then, it didn’t take much. And, young as she was, it embarrassed her, even if nobody knew.

Fifteen years. They’d been married for twelve years, together for three before that. Three daughters, the oldest eleven. So she didn’t get wet pants every time she watched him work up a sweat. Still, she always liked the sight of him, digging in, setting himself, throwing those measured punches.

She wasn’t liking it much today.

“Time,” Marty said,but he went on holding the bag, knowing Darnell would throw another punch or two. Then, when his fighter’s hands dropped, he let go of the bag and stepped out from behind it, smiling. “Look who’s here,” he said, and Darnell turned to face her, and he didn’t look surprised, either.

“Baby,” he said. “How I look just now? Not too rusty, was I?”

“I heard it on the news,” she said.

“I was gonna tell you,” he said, “but you was sleepin’ when I left this morning, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

“And I guess it was news to you this morning,” she said, “even if you signed the papers yesterday afternoon.”

“Well,” he said.

“Last I heard,” she said, “we were thinking about quitting.”

“I been thinkin’ on it,” he said. “I not ready yet.”

“Darnell...”

“This gone be an easy fight for me,” he said. He had the training gloves off now and he was holding out his hands for Marty to unwind the cotton wraps. The fingers that emerged showed the effects of all the punches he’d landed, on the heavy bag and on the heads and bodies of other fighters, even as his face showed the effects of all the punches he’d taken.

Well, some of the effects. The visible effects.

“This guy,” he said. “Rubén Molina? Man is made for me, baby. Man never been in against a body puncher like me. Style he got, I can find him all day with the left hook. Man has this pawing jab, I can fit a right to the ribs in under it, take his legs out from under him.”

“Maybe you can beat him, but—”

“Ain’t no maybe. And I won’t just beat him, I’ll knock him out. All I need, what you call a decisive win, an’ then I get a title shot.”

“And then?”

“Then I fight, probably for the WBO belt, or maybe the WBC. And I win, and that makes three belts in three different weight classes, and ain’t too many can claim that.” He beamed at her, and she saw the face she’d seen when they first met, saw the face of the boy he’d been before she ever met him. Under all the scar tissue, all the years of punishment.

“And then I hang ’em up,” he said. “That what you want to hear?”

“I don’t want to wait two more fights to hear it,” she said. “I worry about you, Darnell.”

“No call for you to worry.”

“They had this show on television. Muhammad Ali? They showed talking before the Liston fight, and then they showed him like he is now.”

“Man has got a condition. Like that actor, used to be on Spin City .”

“That’s Parkinson’s disease,” Marty said. “That Michael J. Fox has. What Ali has is Parkinson’s syndrome.”

“Whatever it is,” she said, “he got it because he didn’t know when to quit. Darnell, you want to wind up shuffling and mumbling?”

He grinned, did a little shuffle.

“That’s not funny.”

“Just jivin’ you some,” he said. “Keisha, I gonna be fine. All I’s gonna do is win one fight and get a title shot, then win one more and get my third belt.”

“And take how many punches in the process?”

“Molina can’t punch worth a damn,” he said. “Walk through his punches, all’s I gotta do.”

“You think Ali didn’t say the same thing?”

“It may not have been the punches he took,” Marty put in. “They can’t prove that’s what did it.”

“And can you prove it isn’t?” She turned to her husband. “And Floyd Patterson,” she said. “You don’t think he got the way he is from taking too many punches? And that Puerto Rican boy, collapsed in his third professional bout and never regained consciousness.”

“That there was a freak thing,” Darnell said. “Ring ropes was too loose, and he got knocked through ’em and hit his head when he fell. Like gettin’ struck by lightin’, you know what I’m sayin’? For all it had to do with bein’ in a boxin’ ring.”