Роберт Паркер - The Boxer and the Spy

“No,” Terry said. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“Damn straight,” Kip Carter said. “Wouldn’t be much of a damn fight anyway. You little turd.”

“Sure,” Terry said.

“You understand,” Kip Carter said, “what I’m telling you? You forget about Jason Green and you forget about steroids, and you keep your nose clean. Maybe you make it to sophomore year without getting hurt.”

“Sure,” Terry said.

“Damn straight,” Kip Carter said, and turned and walked out of the weight room.

He must like saying “damn straight,” Terry thought .

They were having coffee together in a shop on Main Street, across from the two-story brick building in downtown Cabot where Terry trained with George.

“Were you scared?” Abby said.

“I guess everybody’s a little scared before a fight,” Terry said.

“But there wasn’t a fight,” Abby said.

“I didn’t know that,” Terry said, “when I was being scared.”

“Everybody’s scared of Kip Carter All-American,” Abby said. “Even Tank, I think.”

Terry nodded.

“Would you fight with him if you had to?”

“I guess,” Terry said.

“You can box,” Abby said.

“I’m learning,” Terry said.

“Maybe you’d win,” Abby said.

“Maybe,” Terry said.

He sipped his coffee. He didn’t like it exactly. But he had decided he was too old now to be going out for sodas and frappes. He felt more like a serious guy drinking coffee. Abby had some too.

“Thing is,” Terry said, “it’s like George says. You learn how to box, you also learn how to not get in fights over nothing.”

“And Kip Carter All-American is nothing?”

“Nothing to me,” Terry said.

“Even though he says you can’t do what you want to?”

“I’m going to do what I want to,” Terry said.

“Try to find out what happened to Jason?”

“Yeah.”

“What if he catches you and tries to beat you up?” Abby said.

“I’ll try to make him stop,” Terry said.

“What if he wins?”

“George says losing is part of fighting. Everybody loses. George lost eighteen times,” he said. “Mohammed Ali lost once to Joe Frazier.”

Abby was looking at him and frowning a little, the way she did when she was thinking about something. Terry believed it was the greatest look that was possible.

“If you gave it all you had when you won,” Terry said. “And you gave it all you had when you lost. It’s all anybody can ask you to do, George says.”

“George, George, George,” Abby said. “Do you believe everything George tells you?”

“I guess,” Terry said. “The way George is, is a nice way to be.”

“He doesn’t seem all that successful,” Abby said.

“I don’t mean that,” Terry said. “He seems like he’s not scared of anything and he’s not mad about anything and he’s got nothing to prove to anybody, you know?”

Abby nodded.

“You’re more like that than most kids,” she said.

“Not like George,” Terry said.

“It’s too hard to be like George when you’re a kid,” Abby said. “I mean there’s all the crap around you. Get good grades, get into college, be popular, do a bunch of extracurricular activities so the colleges will think you’re well rounded. You’re supposed to, you know, not have sex, not get drunk, not smoke dope, even though all the adults do it, and you have to listen to them always telling you about how these are the best days of your life.”

Abby paused for breath.

“What crap,” she said.

Terry smiled.

“Feel better?” he said.

“You know it’s true.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I do.”

“So how do you deal with it?” Abby said.

“I try not to pay so much attention to it,” Terry said. “I just try to sort of keep going, do what I do. We’ll grow up in a while.”

Abby put her hand on top of his. He felt it throughout his whole self.

“I think maybe you already have,” Abby said.

Terry felt as if the air were fresher than it had been and he could breathe deeper. It was as if the fresh air went into every part of him. He didn’t know what to say. So he simply nodded. The waitress came down the counter and poured them more coffee. Terry put sugar and cream in his. Abby drank hers black. They both drank some coffee from the thick white diner-style mugs. Abby held hers in two hands.

“Who do you suppose told on you?” Abby said when she had put her cup down.

“Not that many kids knew I was interested in steroids,” Terry said.

“Tank,” Abby said. “And Suzi and Bev, we were talking by the Wall that day. You talked with Nancy Fortin.”

“Yeah.”

“Anybody else?”

“I don’t think so,” Terry said.

“Then it must have been one of them,” Abby said.

“Why would they tell Kip Carter?” Terry said.

“To get in good with him,” Abby said. “The question is: Why would he care?”

“Maybe he’s juicing,” Terry said. “And he’s afraid he’ll get caught.”

“How are we going to find out?” Abby said.

Love that “we,” Terry thought.

“I guess we’ll have to ask,” he said.

They were hanging on the Wall.

“I never said anything to Carter,” Tank said.

“You’re sure?” Terry said. “Maybe when you were asking around about steroids?”

“I didn’t ask,” Tank said. “I just kinda looked and listened, you know.”

“Is he one of the guys on ’roids?” Terry said.

Tank gave an elaborate shrug.

“Look at him,” Tank said.

Terry nodded.

“And Nancy Fortin says she doesn’t even know who Kip Carter is,” he said.

“Everybody knows who he is,” Tank said.

“Nancy’s in her own world,” Terry said.

“He was freakin’ all-state,” Tank said.

Terry shrugged. Abby came across the common from the library and joined them on the Wall. She held out a package of Altoid mints, which she liked and no one else could stand.

“Mint?” she said.

Terry shook his head.

“No thanks,” Tank said. “Take the enamel off your teeth, I think.”

Abby smiled at him.

“Sissy,” she said.

“You talked to Suzi and Bev?” Terry said.

Abby popped a mint into her mouth. She nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “Neither of them said anything to Kip Carter All-American.”

“You believe them?” Terry said. “Maybe they wanted to score some points with the big man on campus?”

Abby laughed.

“Terry,” she said, “most of the girls in school don’t like Kip Carter All-American. He’s always trying to cop a feel in the halls. You wear a loose top, he’s always trying to get a peek down your front.”

“Doesn’t make him a bad person,” Tank said.

“Oh Tank, oink!” Abby said. “Suzi’s got no interest in him. He’s creepy.”

“How ’bout Bev?” Terry said.

“She says he’s never spoken to her.”

“Lotta people ain’t spoken to Bev,” Tank said.

“I know,” Abby said. “Poor Bev, she’s such a Goody Two-shoes.”

“So how’d he know,” Terry said. “If nobody told him, how’d he know.”

They were quiet, sitting three in a row on the Wall. Abby was between the two boys, swinging her legs, and Terry liked how her jeans tightened over her thighs as she moved. He liked the strong smell of mint on her breath when she spoke.

“No kids told him,” Abby said.

“That’s what we’re saying,” Tank said.

“No,” Terry said. “We’re saying nobody told him.”

“What’s the difference?”

Terry looked at Abby.