Joe’s voice was as slow and big as he remembered. “You want me to throw the fight.”
“Hell, no,” North said. “You can fight as good as you want to. I don’t care whether you win or lose. But I’m going to be one of your handlers.”
“Bullshit,” Walsh told him.
There was a knock at the door, a nearly inaudible tap. Walsh hurried over to open it, and Lara came in.
Prelims
Walsh cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed. “Laura, this is North, the guy I told ya about. My lawyer, Miss Nomos. This other guy—”
Lara nodded frigidly. “Mr. Green and I have already met.”
North nodded too. “This isn’t a matter for attorneys. I didn’t know you were a fight fan, Miss Nomos.”
“There are a great many things you don’t know, Mr. North.”
North whirled on him. “So—you know her. Are you working for her?”
He nodded. “I’d do anything in the world for her.”
North’s hand drew back, then inched forward. It seemed to him that the entire world had gone to slow motion. He clenched his fist, knowing he could hit North—a dozen times if necessary—before the blow landed.
Lara’s eyes stopped him. They were brilliantly blue-green, matched aquamarines set in her lovely face, brighter far than the stained-glass eyes of the church window. They told him that this was not the moment to resist.
North’s open palm smacked his cheek, jerking his head to the right. He felt a flash of pain, but it was no more than pain—millions endured far worse every day. Backhanded, North’s knuckles raked his mouth, splitting his upper lip.
Walsh stepped between them. “’At’s enough!”
He got out his handkerchief and dyed it at his lip. Above their heads, muted by two feet of concrete and steel, the crowd growled low.
Lara said, “Exactly what is it you want, Mr. North?”
North was glaring at the bald man. “Walsh told you.”
“I prefer to hear it from you.”
North turned to face her. “Simple. Tonight I want to be out front where everybody can see me. I want to be associated with a popular male figure—a truly masculine man. I want the best seat in the house for the title fight.”
“And that is?”
“Joe’s allowed two handlers in his corner. I’m going to be one of those handlers.”
Lara shook her head. “That would be extremely irregular. The Boxing Commission—”
“God damn the Boxing Commission! I told you what I want. You know what’s going to happen if I don’t get it.”
Unexpectedly Jennifer asked, “If you do, are you going to hurt Joe anyway?”
North shook his head. “Not if I get what I want.”
Lara said, “Then tell me what you’ll do if you don’t get what you want, Mr. North. Again, I prefer to hear it from you.”
“To start with, I’ll tell the police about Walsh. He’s an escaped mental patient. You know that—so do I. He hasn’t been picked up because you’re his lawyer and Secretary of Security Klamm’s supposed to be your stepfather.” One corner of North’s mouth went up. “You think anybody really believes that?”
Lara said, “He and I do. It happens to be true.”
“Then you wouldn’t want to see him hurt. Or the President, and anything that hurts Klamm is going to hurt her politically. The papers haven’t connected the little bald guy who broke out of United with Joe’s manager; but they’ll sure as hell connect Walsh with you, and you with Klamm. With a little help, they might even connect Walsh with Green here, and he’s as crazy as a blue crab.”
He shook his head, thinking how tired Lara must be getting of being threatened with the media. First him, now North.
She said, “Eddie, you were correct to ask me to come. I’m supposed to protect you, and he’s using me to get at you.”
“’At’s not it. I was hoping you could see a way out.”
Lara turned back to North. “All you want is to be one of Joe’s handlers?”
North nodded.
“But we have no assurance you won’t use the same threat again and again.”
“I’m going to give it to you now,” North told her. He took a folded paper from his pocket. “This is a confession of murder, to be signed by me.”
It had seemed that nothing could surprise Lara, but that did; for an instant her eyes opened wide. “May I ask who you murdered?”
North nodded. “A doctor named Applewood. The police were about to get him, and he would have talked. He was a low-level man, but because he was a doctor he knew more than a low-level man should have.” North had taken a pen from his pocket. “That was about four months ago. Maybe you read about it.”
To him, Lara said, “You knew him—Dr. Applewood.”
He nodded. “Years ago.”
Walsh was staring at North. “Ya really going to sign that thing?”
“And give it to you,” North said, “or rather to Miss Nomos to hold in trust for you, when you agree to let me act as one of Joe’s handlers. You’re going to be the other, and do the actual handling.”
Slowly Walsh shook his head.
Lara said, “In other words, you trust us.”
W.F. had finished with Joe’s hands. He said, “But we don’t trust him. No way!”
North shrugged. “Naturally not. That’s why I wrote this. You have to promise me, on your honor, that you won’t use it or talk about it unless I threaten Walsh again. I know you won’t break that promise. But if you do, I’m free to tell the papers what I’ve told you I’d tell them. I might add that some of my friends will see to Joe and Jennifer for me.”
The noise of the crowd above them had become so constant that he had ceased to notice it. Now those thousands of throats fell suddenly silent, so that when Lara spoke her voice seemed unnaturally loud. “I think we should do it,” she said.
Walsh glanced at her incredulously. “Let this guy handle Joe?”
North said, “I’ll do whatever you tell me. You have my solemn word.”
Walsh shook his head. “It won’t be me telling ya. It’ll be W.F.”
W.F. yelped, “Wait up!”
Walsh said, “W.F., ya not losing ya chance t’ second the champ ’cause of me.”
“Hold on—Joe need you. You got strategy for him, all that stuff.”
The big fighter, who had been listening (as it seemed) with no more interest than an ox, nodded emphatically.
Lara asked, “Would you like a ringside seat, Eddie? Close to Joe’s corner? I can get you one if you wish.”
“Yeah,” Walsh told her gratefully. “Yeah, I sure would.” Sweat beading the small man’s head vanished before a yellow handkerchief.
“Perhaps when Mr. North has been seen sufficiently, you and he might change places.”
North nodded. “Perhaps. But the decision must be mine, not Walsh’s.” There was triumph in North’s voice.
“That’s understood. Sign that paper, then, and it’s all arranged.” Lara turned to him. “You look doubtful.”
He asked, “Aren’t you going to read it?”
“What would be the good—”
Someone pounded on the door. A voice called, “Time, Joe! You ready?”
Like a lion, Joe slid from the masseur’s table and drifted toward the door. W.F. followed, carrying a red-and-white kit as big as a small suitcase. “You a handler now?” W.F. asked North. “Okay, you fetch the waterbucket and all them towels.”
“Sure thing.” North signed the paper and gave it to Lara.
She unfolded it and glanced at it. “Jennifer? A seat for you? It’ll be no trouble.”
The blonde shook her head. “I never watch. I’ll wait right here.”