He got both feet under him, and like someone doing a clean and jerk too heavy for him, he forced himself upright and faced me. He put his hands up in front of his face as if he could box. Which he couldn’t. He stuck a feeble left out at me. I leaned away from it. He followed with an aimless right cross, which I leaned away from in the other direction. He stood, then, with both hands up again, in front of his face. His eyes looked blank. Then, quite suddenly, without any visible volition, he sat down on the ground. Our dance was done.
“You fucking wimp,” Jumbo yelled at him. “You let this fucking local keyhole sniffer kick your ass.”
Z simply sat. If he heard Jumbo, he gave no sign.
“Fucking loser,” Jumbo said. “When you can get your sorry ass off the ground, take a goddamned hike. I don’t want to see you again. You’re fired.”
The detail cop came through the crowd that had gathered.
“What’s going on,” he said.
“My bodyguard, ex-bodyguard, is a fucking coward, that’s what,” Jumbo said.
“He’s not a coward,” I said to Jumbo. “He’s hurt.”
“You put him down?” the detail cop said.
“We were sparring,” I said. “It got out of hand.”
“My name’s Ed Keohane,” the cop said. “I know you?”
“Spenser,” I said. “I’m a private license.”
“Yeah, I know who you are,” the cop said. “Aren’t you pals with the homicide commander?”
“Captain Quirk,” I said. “Sort of.”
The cop bent over Z.
“You got anything to say?”
Z shook his head.
“You want to press charges or anything?”
Z shook his head.
“You need an ambulance?”
Z shook his head. The cop felt his pulse for a minute and straightened up.
“Anyplace he can rest, until he’s got himself together?” he said.
“We could put him in Jumbo’s trailer,” the first AD said.
“Like hell,” Jumbo said. “I’m done with him. Fucking fraud. Claimed he was tough.”
“He is tough,” I said. “He kept coming a long time after he should have stopped.”
“So how come he’s on the ground?” Jumbo said.
“He’s tough enough,” I said. “He just can’t fight very well.”
“Put him in my trailer,” the director said.
The cop and I helped Z to his feet and, one on each side, we walked him to the trailer. The director opened the door and we brought him in and laid him out on the bed. The young PA I had talked to before came in.
“I’ll stay with him,” she said.
I looked at Z. He looked back at me. There was consciousness in his eyes. I nodded slightly and turned and left.
Outside, the ADs were getting everybody back to work. Jumbo was still there. He was eating a large cinnamon bun.
“You want a job?” he said.
“Working for you?” I said.
He took a big bite of his cinnamon bun and chewed it while he spoke.
“Good money, lotta starstruck pussy,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Don’t like you,” I said.
“Oh, fuck,” Jumbo said. “Nobody likes me, but everybody likes money and snatch, and I got plenty of both. Chemicals, too, you like that.”
“No,” I said.
“I need a bodyguard,” Jumbo said. “You’re good. What’ll it take.”
“No,” I said, and started away.
“For crissake, at least gimme a fucking reason,” Jumbo said.
I paused and turned back.
“I think you’re a repellent puke,” I said, and walked away across the Common.
Zebulon Sixkill II
By his freshman year in high school, Zebulon was six feet two inches tall. He discovered the weight room, and by sophomore year he weighed 210 pounds and was an all-county running back. By senior year he weighed 240 and was considered the best running back in the state. The newspapers started calling him “The Cree named Z,” and the recruiters arrived in force. Bob and Zebulon talked to each of them in the neat kitchen of Bob’s cabin.
The recruiter from California Wesleyan was a very rich alumnus named Patrick Calhoun who had been an all-American tackle at Cal Wesleyan thirty years ago. He was a large man, gone to fat, and very pleasant. He told Zebulon to call him Pat. He told Bob he’d be like a father to Zebulon while Z was at the university, and reminded both of them that four members of last year’s Rose Bowl team had been drafted by the National Football League in the first two rounds. Zebulon and Bob talked it over for two days and opted for Pat Calhoun.
By the end of his first season he was starting as the feature back in Cal Wesleyan’s pro-style offense. Pat Calhoun paid Zebulon’s tuition and gave him money every week. He bought Zebulon a Mustang convertible. Bob couldn’t afford to come to the games, so Pat arranged for a video of each week’s game to be sent to him. Zebulon called Bob the day after every game, and they often talked for an hour. Two weeks before the beginning of Zebulon’s sophomore year, Bob died. Zebulon was two weeks late coming back to college.
He sat in the football office with the head coach, Harmon Stockard, and Pat Calhoun, whom Stockard, with a smile, referred to as “one of the owners.”
“I want you to take your time,” Stockard said. “You’re not ready to play, that’s okay. We can redshirt you for a year.”
“I can play,” Zebulon said.
“Z,” Calhoun said, “think about it. The level we all need you to perform. It takes a ton of focus.”
“I can play.”
“Be sure,” Stockard said. “You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to me, and you owe it to the team. We go into the season with you, and you’re not ready...”
“I can focus,” Zebulon said.
The first game he played after Bob’s death he ran for 136 yards and two touchdowns.
11
Dawn had two friends with her the day she met Jumbo. I met them for lunch in the food court of the Galleria near Lechmere Square, close to the community college, which was just across the Gilmore Bridge. One friend was a girl with maroon hair cut short and square across her forehead. The other was a boy with an earring and one of those hairdos where it looks like you just rolled out of bed. They both wore black: jeans, sweatshirts, sneakers. The girl had on a lot of dark eye makeup. They weren’t exactly goths. But they weren’t a couple of management trainees, either.
When they came to my table carrying a cup of coffee each, the girl said, “Are you the detective.”
“Am I sitting alone, wearing a dark blue Braves hat with a red brim and white B on the front?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Then it must be me,” I said.
They sat down. The girl’s name was Christine. The boy was James.
“My treat,” I said. “You want anything.”
“I just want coffee,” James said.
“Just coffee,” Christine said.
“Cheap date,” I said. “Tell me about Dawn and Jumbo Nelson.”
“You got a gun?” Christine said.
“Yep.”
“On you?” she said.
“Yep.”
James did a mock shiver and said, “Oooo!”
“You ever shoot anybody?” Christine said.
“Being a detective,” I said, “I’m sort of used to asking the questions. Tell me about Dawn and Jumbo.”
The big room was full of people, mostly adolescents, eating pizza, lamb on a skewer, and sweet-and-sour chicken with red and green maraschino cherries in it. I might have been the oldest person in the room.