Political Suicide by Michael Palmer Read Free Book Online

both ready. Around here, sucker-punching anyone anywhere can get you suspended for a week.”
    “Sorry.”
    The apology, Lou knew, a rarity for his daughter, was a clear mark of the respect she had for the onetime street pug and AAU light-heavyweight champion. Hank Duncan earned the nickname Cap’n Crunch because of the sound noses reputedly made when he hit them. His promising pro career lasted just six fights—until he stood up to the mob and refused to take a dive against a fighter they were backing. A short while later, he flunked a drug test and was suspended, even though he had never used anything.
    He ended up working for the very men who had destroyed him, and turned to alcohol and narcotics to ease his humiliation. The path eventually took him to rehab, and then a halfway house. Cap had become a counselor in the house when Lou Welcome checked in, fresh from his own nine-month stint in a treatment center. Two years later, Lou had gotten his medical license restored, and Cap, his AA sponsor, was the owner of the Stick and Move Gym.
    “I haven’t trained a girl before,” Cap said, “but from what I just watched, she might have pro stock in her blood.”
    Emily’s face lit up. “Pro? Like I could be a professional boxer?”
    Lou stepped in. “Pro as in you can be a professional anything so long as someone’s willing to pay you for doing it. For now, I think you should keep your amateur status and keep getting A’s in school. At least until you’re eighteen.”
    “Sixteen,” Emily said, dancing and throwing jabs at the air.
    Cap’s trademark laugh echoed through the gym. “Doctor, you have your hands full with that one.”
    Cap had poured his heart and everything he owned and could borrow into the Stick and Move—a converted warehouse just a short walk from Lou’s apartment. The gym was well equipped with a row of heavy bags, a half dozen speed bags, stationary bikes, three regulation-sized rings, free weights, and plenty of room for jumping rope. Bit by bit, despite the fact that Cap let membership fees slide for anyone he knew couldn’t pay, the place was inching its way into the black.
    “Emily,” Lou said, “why don’t you practice your footwork in front of the mirror for a bit? I have to talk to the big guy, here.”
    “Sure thing, Pop.”
    Cap lifted the ropes and helped her from the ring. Lou waited until the two of them were alone at one corner.
    “We gonna go a couple?” Cap asked, throwing a slow-motion left-right combo toward Lou’s head.
    At six-two, he was a couple of inches taller than Lou, and at fifty years old, he was still well down into the single digits in body fat percentage.
    “Not today,” was the reply. “I hope you remember that Emily’s going to stay here with you. At least for this afternoon, she is. I’m going to that funeral in Bethesda.”
    “Ah, yes, the congressman. Well, I have a bunch of chores mapped out for Ms. Emily, and maybe another lesson. You going to be back before dinner?”
    “I expect so. The burial’s in Arlington National, but I might not go. I should be back here way before five.”
    “In that case, we’ll be here waiting. I promise you one thing, Doc: You’re going to have one tired child on your hands.”
    “Ten bucks says she’ll be running circles around you by the time I return.”
    “Make it twenty if she’s asleep over there in the corner.”
    Lou remembered a story he had once heard about a man interviewing for membership in Mensa, the high-IQ society. He was asked only one question by the panel: What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The answer that got him immediate admission was “an inconceivable event.” Cap’s energy versus Emily’s exuberance—an inconceivable event.
    “My money’s on the kid,” he said. “Listen, pal, I need your help.”
    Lou checked to make sure Emily was out of earshot and following instructions. She was shadowboxing in front of the mirrors alongside four other