"Block, Lawrence - Scudder 1982 - Eight Million Ways To Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Block Lawrence)

I turned around and looked at the ring. Two Hispanic kids, one light and one dark, were being very careful not to risk serious injury. They looked like lightweights to me, and the fair-skinned kid was rangy with a lot of reach. I started getting interested, and in the final round the darker of the two figured out how to get in under the other kid's jab. He was working the body pretty good when they rang the bell. He got the decision, and most of the booing came from one spot in the audience. The other boy's friends and family, I suppose.

Danny Boy had returned to his seat during the final round. A couple minutes after the decision, Kid Bascomb climbed over the ropes and did a little shadowboxing. Moments later his opponent entered the ring. Bascomb was very dark, very muscular, with sloping shoulders and a powerful chest. His body might have been oiled the way the light glinted on it. The boy he was fighting was an Italian kid from South Brooklyn named Vito Canelli. He was carrying some fat around the waist and he looked soft as bread dough, but I had seen him before and knew him for a smart fighter.

Danny Boy said, 'Here he comes. Center aisle.'

I turned and looked. The same usher who'd taken my five bucks was leading a man and woman to their seats. She was about five five, with shoulder-length auburn hair and skin like fine porcelain. He was six one or two, maybe 190 pounds. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, trim hips. His hair was natural, short rather than long, and his skin was a rich brown. He was wearing a camel's-hair blazer and brown flannel slacks. He looked like a professional athlete or a hot lawyer or an up-and-coming black businessman.

I said, 'You're sure?'

Danny Boy laughed. 'Not your usual pimp, is he? I'm sure. That's Chance. I hope your friend didn't put us in his seats.'

He hadn't. Chance and his girl were in the first row and a good deal closer to the center. They took their seats and he tipped the usher, acknowledged greetings from some of the other spectators, then approached Kid Bascomb's corner and said something to the fighter and his handlers. They huddled together for a moment. Then Chance returned to his seat.

'I think I'll leave now,' Danny Boy said. 'I don't really want to watch these two fools pummel each other. I hope you don't need me to introduce you?' I shook my head. 'Then I'll slip out before the mayhem commences. In the ring, that is. Will he have to know I fingered him, Matt?'

'He won't hear it from me.'

'Good. If I can be of further service - '

He made his way up the aisle. He probably wanted a drink and the bars in Madison Square Garden don't stock ice-cold Stolichnaya.

The announcer was introducing the fighters, calling out their ages and weights and hometowns. Bascomb was twenty-two and undefeated. Canelli didn't figure to change his status tonight.

There were two seats empty next to Chance. I thought about taking one but stayed where I was. The warning buzzer sounded, then the bell for round one. It was a slow, thoughtful round, with neither fighter anxious to commit himself. Bascomb jabbed nicely but Canelli managed to be out of range most of the time. Nobody landed anything solid.

The pair next to Chance were still empty at the round's end. I walked over there and sat next to him. He was looking very intently at the ring. He must have been aware of my presence but didn't indicate it if he was.

I said, 'Chance? My name is Scudder.'

He turned, looked at me. His eyes were brown flecked with gold. I thought of my client's eyes, that unreal blue. He'd been at her apartment last night while I was barhopping, dropped in unannounced to pick up some money. She'd told me about it earlier, called me at the hotel around noon. 'I was afraid,' she'd said. 'I thought, suppose he asks about you, asks me some kind of questions. But it was cool.'

Now he said, 'Matthew Scudder. You left some messages with my service.'

'You didn't return my calls.'

'I don't know you. I don't call people I don't know. And you've been asking around town for me.' His voice was deep and resonant. It sounded trained, as if he'd gone to broadcasting school. 'I want to watch this fight,' he said.

'All I want is a few minutes conversation.'

'Not during the fight and not between rounds.' A frown came and went. 'I want to be able to concentrate. I bought that seat you're sitting in, you see, so I'd have some privacy.'

The warning buzzer sounded. Chance turned, focused his eyes on the ring. Kid Bascomb was standing and his seconds were hauling the stool out of the ring. 'Go back to your seat,' Chance said, 'and I'll talk to you after the fight ends.'

'It's a ten-rounder?'

'It won't go ten.'

It didn't. In the third or fourth round Kid Bascomb started getting to Canelli, punishing him with the jab, putting a couple of combinations together. Canelli was smart but the Kid was young and fast and strong, with a way of moving that reminded me a little of Sugar Ray. Robinson, not Leonard. In the fifth round he staggered Canelli with a short right hand to the heart and if I'd had a bet on the Italian I'd have written it off then and there.