Роберт Паркер - The Boxer and the Spy

“Fifty-five.”

“How long did you fight?”

“Started when I was a kid, quit when I was forty-one.”

“Did you start doing this right after?” Terry said.

“Nope.”

“So what’d you do?”

“I sparred a little, did some work as a bouncer.”

“Ever lose a fight in a bar?”

“Didn’t have many,” George said. “Ones I had didn’t last very long.”

“But did you ever lose?”

“No,” George said. “‘Course not.”

Terry nodded. His breathing had steadied.

“Round two?” he said.

“Round two,” George said. “You and the heavy bag.”

His name was Jason Green and he was dead. The incoming tide had washed him up onto’ the beach and left him there as it receded. Now, he lay on his back in the pale darkness and gazed sightlessly up at the moon, while the declining ocean washed over his Air Jordans.

He lay like that in the stillness of death until morning, when a, yellow Labrador retriever trotted happily down the beach and stopped to sniff at him. She wagged her tail and stepped back a little, then began to circle him, sniffing as she went, her tail wagging eagerly. A ways behind the dog came her owner, a woman wearing a Red Sox baseball cap and a maroon warm-up suit. She carried a leash. When she saw her dog sniffing, the woman stopped.

“Molly,” she said to the dog, her voice beginning to rise. “Molly, you get away from there. Molly! Molly!”

Molly stopped sniffing and looked at her owner.

“Molly,” the owner was screaming now. “You come, now! Come!”

Molly gave the dog equivalent of a resigned shrug and trotted over to the woman in the maroon warm-ups. The woman snapped the leash onto Molly’s collar and turned, and the two of them ran back up the beach. As they ran, Molly looked back now and then. Her owner did not.

The morning sun was bright. It dried the wet clothes the boy was wearing. The ocean water was very calm. The tide had ebbed entirely during the night, and turned, and was now beginning imperceptibly to creep in. A few gulls landed near the body and hopped around, looking at it. Nothing else moved.

After a time, in the distance, there was the sound of a siren. Then a police car pulled up in the beach parking lot, and two cops got out and walked down the beach toward the body. When the cops got close, the gulls began to squawk and then flew up and circled overhead while the cops squatted in the sand beside the dead boy.

“Did you hear about Jason?” Abby said.

They were hanging on the Wall across from the town common.

“Jason Green?” Terry said.

“Yes,” Abby said. “He committed suicide.”

Terry stared at her.

“Suicide?”

“Yeah,” Tank said. “Cops said he loaded up on ’roids and it made him crazy.”

“Steroids?” Terry said.

“Isn’t it awful?” Beverly said.

“Jason never did ’roids,” Terry said. “He wasn’t a jock. He wanted to be some kind of damn landscape designer.”

“They found him on the beach,” Suzi said.

She seemed excited. Her cheeks were bright.

“They said he probably jumped off the Farragut Bridge and the currents took him to our beach,” Suzi said. “Some woman found him when she was walking her dog.”

Beverly hunched her shoulders and hugged herself as if she were cold.

“How’d you like to have found him?” she said.

“How come you haven’t heard about this?” Abby asked. “It was on the tube last night. It was all over school today.”

Terry shrugged.

“All Terry thinks about is boxing,” Suzi said.

“And sex,” Terry said.

“With Abby?” Suzi said.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking about,” Abby said. “He sure isn’t doing anything.”

“Not because I don’t try,” Terry said.

They all laughed. Suzi took out a pack of long thin cigarettes and lit one.

“Try me,” Suzi said.

They all laughed again.

“Abby can’t fight me off forever,” Terry said.

“Don’t count on it,” Abby said, and smiled at Terry.

“You ever take anything?” Tank said. “You know, to help with the boxing and stuff?”

Terry shook his head.

“George would kick my butt right out of the gym if he caught me,” Terry said.

“You really going for the Golden Gloves?” Terry said.

“Not this year, maybe next, depends on when George thinks I’m ready.”

“Was he really a pro boxer?” Tank said.

“George fought everybody,” Terry said.

“So how come he’s in some little health club teaching kids?” Suzi said.

“Probably didn’t beat everybody,” Tank said.

“He beat a lot,” Terry said.

A tan Ford Fusion cruised past the common and stopped in front of the Wall.

“I think that’s the principal,” Beverly said.

The side window went down. It was Mr. Bullard.

“Get rid of the cigarette,” he said.

He was a thick man, with a thick neck.

“We’re not in school,” Tank said.

“Get rid of it,” Mr. Bullard said.

“Yes sir, Mr. Principal,” Suzi said.

She dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and carefully stamped it out. Bullard nodded, looked hard at Tank for a moment, and drove away. As soon as he was out of sight, Suzi took out another cigarette and lit it.

“You know,” Beverly said, “I think, actually, it’s against the law. I think they passed it last year.”

“Smoking?” Suzi asked.

“Smoking in a public place,” Beverly said.

“That’s bogus,” Tank said.

They all sat watching the smoke from Suzi’s cigarette curl up into the soft air.

“Who says Jason was on ’roids?” Terry asked.

“It was on TV last night,” Terry said.

“So that makes it true for sure,” Suzi said.

“Yeah, babe,” Tank said. “If there’s one thing you can trust, it’s television.”

“They did an autopsy,” Suzi said.

“And they found some kind of note,” Beverly added.

“What’d it say?” Terry asked.

“I don’t know. They just said it was a suicide note.”

“Jason was kind of porky,” Tank said. “Maybe he was taking them to lose weight.”

“How many people you know of take steroids to lose weight?” Terry asked.

“I don’t know,” Tank said. “Some of the guys on the football team take ’roids. I could ask them.”

“Why don’t you,” Terry said.

“I will,” Tank said.

The town beach in Cabot ran a couple of miles along the south end of town. It was broken occasionally by outcroppings of dark rock, rounded smooth by being so long beside the ocean. Terry sat with Abby on one of the outcroppings.

“That’s where they found him,” Abby said.

Terry nodded. The beach looked no different than it had before Jason washed up onto it.

“It doesn’t look any different,” Abby said.

“Nope.”

“It should,” Abby said. “You know?”

Terry nodded.

“He wanted to be a gardener,” Terry said.

“I know,” Abby said.

“So why would he be taking steroids?”

“I remember Tammy Singer offered him some grass once,” Abby said. “He was, like, shocked.”

“Yeah,” Terry said. “He wouldn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He never got in trouble at school. And he’s taking ’roids?”

“I think he was gay,” Abby said.

“Yeah, probably,” Terry said. “I know some gay guys are really into bodybuilding. But he wasn’t. He didn’t lift weights or anything. I don’t believe it that he was taking them.”