A Dance At The Slaughterhouse Part 1

A Dance at the Slaughterhouse.

Lawrence Block.

For Philip Friedman.

If G.o.d should punish men according to what they deserve, He would not leave so much as a beast on the back of the earth.

THE KORAN.

Chapter 1.

Midway into the fifth round the kid in the blue trunks rocked his opponent with a solid left to the jaw. He followed it with a straight right to the head.

"He's ready to fall," Mick Ballou said.

He looked it, too, but when the kid in blue waded in the other boy slipped a punch and groped his way into a clinch. I got a look at his eyes before the referee stepped between the two fighters. They looked glazed, unfocused.

"How much time is there?"

"More than a minute."

"Plenty of time," Mick said. "Watch your man take the lad right out. For a small man he's strong as a bull."

They weren't that small. Junior middleweights, which I guess would put them somewhere around 155 pounds. I used to know the weight limits for all the cla.s.ses, but it was easy then. Now they've got more than twice as many cla.s.sifications, with junior this and super that, and three different governing bodies each recognizing a different champion. I think the trend must have started when someone figured out that it was easier to promote a t.i.tle bout, and it's getting to the point where you rarely see anything else.

The card we were watching, however, was strictly non-t.i.tle, and a long way removed from the glamour and showmanship of championship fights staged in Vegas andAtlantic City casinos. We were, to be precise, in a concrete-block shed on a dark street in Maspeth, an industrial wasteland in the borough of Queens bordered on the south and west by the Greenpoint and Bushwick sections of Brooklyn and set off from the rest of Queens by a half-circle of cemeteries. You could live a lifetime inNew York without ever getting to Maspeth, or you could drive through it dozens of times without knowing it. With its warehouses and factories and drab residential streets, Maspeth's not likely to be on anybody's short list for potential gentrification, but I suppose you never know. Sooner or later they'll run out of other places, and the crumbling warehouses will be reborn as artists' lofts while young urban homesteaders rip the rotted asphalt siding from the row houses and set about gutting the interiors. You'll have ginkgo trees lining the sidewalk onGrand Avenue, and a Korean greengrocer on every corner.

For now, though, the New Maspeth Arena was the only sign I'd seen of the neighborhood's glorious future. Some months earlierMadisonSquareGarden had closed the Felt Forum for renovations, and sometime in early December the New Maspeth Arena had opened with a card of boxing matches every Thursday night, with the first prelim getting under way around seven.

The building was smaller than the Felt Forum, and had a no-frills feel to it, with untrimmed concrete-block walls and a sheet-metal roof and a poured concrete slab for a floor. It was rectangular in shape, and the boxing ring stood in the center of one of the long walls, opposite the entrance doors. Rows of metal folding chairs framed the ring's three open sides. The chairs were gray, except for the first two rows in each of the three sections, which were blood red. The red seats at ringside were reserved. The rest of the arena was open seating, and a seat was only five dollars, which was two dollars less than the price of a first-run movie inManhattan. Even so, almost half of the gray chairs remained unoccupied.

The price was low in order to fill as many of the seats as possible, so that the fans who watched the fights on cable TV wouldn't realize the event had been staged solely on their behalf. The New Maspeth Arena was a cable phenomenon, thrown up to furnish programming for FBCS, Five Borough Cable Sportscasts, the latest sports channel trying to get a toehold in the New York metro area. The FBCS trucks had been parked outside when Mick and I arrived a few minutes after seven, and at eight o'clock their coverage began.

Now the fifth round of the final prelim fight was ending with the boy in the white trunks still on his feet. Both fighters were black, both local kids from Brooklyn, one introduced as hailing from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the other from Crown Heights. Both had short haircuts and regular features, and they were the same height, although the kid in blue looked shorter in the ring because he fought in a crouch. It's good their trunks were different colors or it would have been tough to tell them apart.

"He should have had him there," Mick said. "The other lad was ready to go and he couldn't finish him."

"The boy in the white has heart," I said.

"He was gla.s.sy-eyed. What's his name, the one in blue?" He looked at the program, a single sheet of blue paper with the bouts listed. "McCann," he said. "McCann let him off the hook."

"He was all over him."

"He was, and punching away at him, but he couldn't pull the trigger. There's a lot of them like that, they get their man in trouble and then they can't put him down. I don't know why it is."

"He's got three rounds left."

Mick shook his head. "He had his chance," he said.

HE was right. McCann won the remaining three rounds handily, but the fight was never closer to a knockout than it had been in the fifth. At the final bell they clung together briefly in a sweaty embrace, and then McCann bopped over to his corner with his gloves raised in triumph. The judges agreed with him. Two of them had him pitching a shutout, while the third man had the kid in white winning a round.

"I'll get a beer," Mick said. "Will you have something?"

"Not right now."

We were in the first row of gray chairs over on the right-hand side of the ring as you entered. That way I could keep an eye on the entrance, although I hadn't been looking anywhere much outside the ring. I looked over there now while Mick made his way to the refreshment stand at the far end of the hall, and for a change I saw someone I recognized, a tall black man in a well-tailored navy pinstripe suit. I stood up at his approach and we shook hands.

"I thought it was you," he said. "I ducked in before to watch a couple minutes of Burdette and McCann from the back, and I thought I saw my friend Matthew over here in the cheap seats."

"They're all cheap seats in Maspeth."

"Isn't that the truth." He put a hand on my shoulder. "First time I saw you was at the fights, wasn't it? The Felt Forum?"

"That's right."

"You were with Danny Boy Bell."

"You were with Sunny. I don't remember her last name."

"Sunny Hendryx. Sonya, her name was, but n.o.body ever called her that."

I said, "Join us, why don't you? My friend's getting a beer, but the whole row's empty, or almost. If you don't mind sitting in a cheap seat."

He grinned. "I got a seat," he said. "Over by the blue corner. Got to cheer my man to victory. You remember Kid Bas...o...b.. don't you?"

"Of course I do. He was on the card the night we met, he beat some Italian kid that I don't remember at all."

"n.o.body does."

"He took the heart out of him with a body punch, I remember that. The Kid's not fighting tonight, is he? He's not on the program."

"No, he's retired. He hung 'em up a couple of years ago."

"That's what I thought."

"He's sitting right over there," he said, pointing. "No, my man in the main event's Eldon Rasheed. He ought to win, but the boy he's fighting is sitting on eleven wins and two defeats, and one of those they stole the decision from him. So he's not just an opponent."

He was talking about fight strategy when Mick came back carrying two large paper cups. One held beer, the other c.o.ke. "In case you get thirsty," he said. "I wouldn't care to stand in that long a line for a single beer."

I said, "Mickey Ballou, Chance-"

"Chance Coulter."

"A pleasure," Mick said. He was still holding on to both drinks, so they couldn't shake hands.

"Here comes Dominguez now," Chance said. The fighter came down the aisle flanked by his retinue. He wore a royal-blue robe with navy piping. He was good-looking, with a long, square-jawed face and a neat black mustache. He smiled and waved at fans, then climbed up into the ring.

"He looks good," Chance said. "Eldon may have his hands full."

"You're supporting the other one?" Mick asked.

"Yes, Eldon Rasheed. Here he comes now. Maybe we can all have a drink afterward."

I said that sounded good. Chance made his way over to his seat near the blue corner. Mick gave me both cups to hold while he settled himself in his seat. " 'Eldon Rasheed versus Peter Dominguez,' " he read. "Where do they get their names?"

"Peter Dominguez is a pretty straightforward name," I said.

He gave me a look. "Eldon Rasheed," he p.r.o.nounced, as Rasheed climbed through the ropes. "Well, if it was a beauty contest, you'd have to hand it to Pedro. Rasheed looks as though G.o.d hit him in the face with a shovel."

"Why would G.o.d do a thing like that?"

"Why does G.o.d do half the things He does? Your friend Chance is a good-looking man. How do you come to know him?"

"I did some work for him a few years ago."

"Detective work?"

"That's right."

"I thought he looked like a lawyer. Dresses the part."

"Actually he's a dealer in African art."

"Carvings, like?"

"That sort of thing."

The announcer was in the ring, ballyhooing the coming bout and doing what he could to hype next week's card. He introduced a local welterweight who'd be fighting in next week's main event, then called up a few other celebrities seated at ringside, including Arthur "Kid" Bas...o...b.. The Kid got the same lackadaisical round of applause that had greeted everyone else.

The referee got an introduction, and the three judges, and the timekeeper, and the guy whose job it was to count in the event of a knockdown. He figured to get some work tonight; the fighters were heavyweights, and both had knocked out most of their previous opponents. Eight of Dominguez's eleven wins were by knockout, and Rasheed, undefeated in ten professional bouts, had only had one fight that had gone the distance.

Dominguez got a big hand from an Hispanic contingent at the far end of the arena. Rasheed's ovation was more restrained. They huddled together in the center of the ring while the referee told them nothing that they didn't already know, then touched gloves and went back to their corners. The bell rang and the fight got under way.

The first round was largely exploratory, but both fighters landed some shots. Rasheed worked nicely off a strong left jab and went to the body effectively. He moved well for a man his size. Dominguez was awkward in comparison, an ungainly fighter, but he had a straight overhand right that was very sudden, and he caught Rasheed over the left eye with it with thirty seconds to go in the round. Rasheed shook it off, but you could see he felt it.

Between rounds Mick said, "He's strong, that Pedro. He might have stolen the round with that punch."

"I never know how they'll score it."

"A few more blows like that last and there'll be no need to keep score."

Rasheed had the edge in the second round. He stayed away from the right and landed some solid body shots. During the round I happened to notice a man sitting at ringside in the center section. I'd noticed him before, and something made me look at him again.

He was around forty-five, balding, with dark brown hair and prominent eyebrows. He was cleanshaven. He had a lumpy sort of a face, as though he might have been a fighter once himself, but if so I figured they would have introduced him. They were not exactly awash in celebrities, and anybody who'd gone three rounds in the Golden Gloves stood a good chance of being called up to take a bow for the FBCS cameras. And he was right at ringside; all he'd have had to do was climb over the ropes and bask in the applause.

There was a boy with him, and the man had one arm around him, his hand resting on the boy's shoulder while he gestured with the other hand, pointing things out in the ring. I a.s.sumed they were father and son, although I couldn't see much resemblance; the boy, in his early teens, had light brown hair with a sharply defined widow's peak. Any widow's peak the father might have had was long gone. The father wore a blue blazer and gray flannel slacks. His tie was light blue, with black or navy polka dots, big ones, close to an inch in diameter. The boy wore a red plaid flannel shirt and navy corduroy pants.

I couldn't think how I knew him.

THE third round looked even to me. I didn't keep count, but I had the impression that Rasheed landed more punches. Dominguez hit him a few good shots, though, and they had more authority than the ones Rasheed got in. When the round ended I didn't look over at the man with the polka-dot tie because I was looking instead at another man.

This one was younger, thirty-two to be exact. He stood about five-eleven and he was built like a light heavyweight. He had shucked his suit jacket and tie and was wearing a white b.u.t.ton-down shirt with a blue stripe. He approached the sort of handsomeness you see in menswear catalogs, a combination of chiseled features and att.i.tude, spoiled by a little too much fullness in the pouty lower lip and a brutish thickness to the nose. A full head of dark hair, styled and blown dry. A tan, a souvenir of a week inAntigua.

His name was Richard Thurman, and he was producing the telecast for Five Borough Cable Sportscasts. He was standing on the ring ap.r.o.n now, outside of the ropes, talking to a cameraman. The girl with the placard came around, showing us that the fourth round was coming up next, and showing us a bit more than that in her abbreviated costume. The audience at home would miss that part of the show. They'd be watching a beer commercial while she showed the world what she had. She was a tall, leggy girl with a lush figure, and she was displaying a lot of skin.

She came over to the camera and said something to Thurman, and he reached out a hand and gave her a pat on the f.a.n.n.y. She didn't seem to notice. Maybe he was used to touching women and she was used to being touched. Maybe they were old friends. She was all pink, though, so it seemed unlikely that he'd taken her along toAntigua.

She got out of the ring and he climbed down and they rang the warning bell. The fighters got off their stools and it was time for Round Four.

In the first minute of the round Dominguez got the straight right in and opened up a cut over Rasheed's left eye. Rasheed jabbed a lot and hammered Dominguez with body punches, and toward the end of the round snapped his head back with a good uppercut. Dominguez landed another good right at the bell. I had no idea how to score the round, and said as much to Mick.

"No matter," he said. "It'll never go ten."

"Who do you like?"

"I like the black fellow," he said, "but I don't care for his chances. Pedro's too f.u.c.king strong."

I looked over at the man and the boy. "That fellow over there," I said. "First row, sitting next to the kid. Blue jacket, polka-dot tie."

"What about him?"

"I think I know him," I said, "but I can't place him. Do you recognize him?"

"Never saw him before."

"I can't think where I know him from."

"He looks like a cop."

"No," I said. "Do you really think so?"

"I'm not saying he's a cop, I'm saying he has that look. You know who he looks like? It's an actor who plays cops, I can't think of his name. It'll come to me."

"An actor who plays cops. They all play cops."

"Gene Hackman," he said.

I looked again. "Hackman's older," I said. "And thinner. This guy's burly where Hackman's sort of wiry. And Hackman's got more hair, doesn't he?"

"Jesus help us," he said. "I didn't say he was Hackman. I said that's who he looks like."