The Boxer and the Spy by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    “Probably ruined his day,” Terry said.
    They sat quietly.
    “You know what I think,” Terry said after a time. “I think we ought to follow Bullard.”
    “Mr. Bullard?”
    “Uh-huh,” Terry said. “Let’s decide it’s him and see what we can find out about him.”
    “What if he catches us?”
    “We’ll have to be sure he doesn‘t,” Terry said.
    Abby nodded slowly.
    “Be kind of fun, wouldn’t it,” she said.
    Terry nodded. Neither of them said anything for a time. Abby bumped her heels some more against the Wall.
    “I didn’t mean you’re really like five years old,” Abby said. “Actually most of the time you seem like a grown man to me. You just don’t know so much about sex.”
    “I can learn,” Terry said.
    Abby looked straight at him and her smile was wide and bright.
    “I’ll bet you can,” Abby said.

SKYCAM V
    H e was a drug salesman for one of the big drug companies, and once a week he called on doctors at Mass General Hospital. When he was through for the morning, he would get a gym bag from his car in the parking garage and go to the cafeteria. There he would meet a big man who had a similar gym bag. They would have coffee together, and when they left, each would take the other’s gym bag.
    The cafeteria was called Eat Street, and whenever he went there, the salesman always smiled to himself. The place was so cutesy. The man he met was definitely not cutesy. He reminded the salesman of a rhinoceros: squat and thick and dangerous. The salesman was a little afraid of him, but when he took the big man’s gym bag back to his car and opened it in the parking garage, the money was always there, in cash.
    The salesman wondered sometimes what he’d do if there was no cash in the gym bag, if the big man stiffed him. He wouldn’t dare confront him. And even if he did, he couldn’t confront him in Eat Street. He didn’t even know the big man’s name, or where he was from, or even what he did. All he knew was the cash in the gym bag every week when they swapped.
    If the big man ever stiffed him, he guessed he’d have to eat the cost of that week’s delivery and not make another one. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be making any more deliveries, and the big man didn’t know his name either. The salesman could park in a different place and not come to Eat Street, and the whole thing would be over. He’d miss the money, but there were other people he could make an arrangement with, if he needed to. But cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now, he was getting his money. And the big ugly rhino was getting his steroids.
    Fair all around.

CHAPTER 17
    T erry was taping his hands.
    “I never see fighters using this check-block thing,” Terry said. “I watch those classic fight films a lot.”
    “They use the check part,” George said. “Foreman used it. But they do it so quick and easy that you don’t much notice.”
    “What about the block part?”
    “Mostly martial arts,” George said. “I just threw it in, case you liked it.”
    “I want to box,” Terry said.
    George nodded.
    “Martial arts guys do a lot of things with that check-block move,” he said. “Don’t do you no harm to know it.”
    Terry put his hands out and George slipped the big gloves on and Velcroed them tight.
    “Okay,” George said. “Today combinations. I’m going to move the mitts around. You do left jab, right to the body, left hook, right uppercut, right to the head depending on how I move the gloves. We’ll do it slow motion to start.”
    They walked through the sequence.
    “You got it,” George said. “Now, here we go.”
    George put the left mitt up. Terry jabbed it. George turned the right mitt over. Terry gave it an uppercut. They moved slowly, George shuffling left or right, Terry following.
    “Keep your stance,” George said. “Set up after you punch. Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
    The punches made a satisfying pop when they landed solid in the mitts. As Terry got