The Boxer and the Spy

by Robert B. Parker

Terry finished up on the speed bag.

  “Now deck him,” George said.

  Terry got the bag moving again and then hit it as hard as he could with a right overhand punch.

  “A devastating punch,” George said. “Now take a seat and breathe.”

  Terry sat on the folding chair and began to peel the self-stick trainer’s tape off his hands.

  “It’s all about control, isn’t it, George?” Terry said.

  “It is,” George said.

  He pushed the wastebasket closer so Terry could drop the used tape in it and took the big sixteen-ounce boxing gloves to the shelf.

  “Hard for a kid,” Terry said, “to control stuff.”

  “It is,” George said. “Most of the time people controlling you.”

  “Was that the way it was for you?”

  “When I was a kid,” George said, “there was no control. Kid needs some. I didn’t get none ‘til the priest started me boxing.”

  “Then you could control things, ‘cause you could fight,” Terry said.

  “I could control myself,” George said. “So can you. It’s the only control matters.”

  “Self-control.”

  “Sure,” George said. “You maybe want to fight Golden Gloves, fine. You maybe want to go on and fight pro, fine. I’ll stay with you far as you want. But I ain’t teaching you to box so you’ll be a good boxer.”

  “Then what the hell are you teaching me for?” Terry said.

  “So you be a good man.”

  “Not a good man because I can box,” Terry said.

  “That’s correct,” George said.

  “A good man because I can control myself,” Terry said.

  “That’s correct,” George said.

  “‘Cause I can stick with my plan.”

  “First you learn to have a plan. Then you learn to stick to it until it proves to be wrong. Then you get a new plan.”

  “You’re talking about life,” Terry said.

  “You need to have the smarts to know your best interest,” George said. “And you need to have the control to stay with it.”

  “So,” Terry said slowly, “everything won’t be a brawl that’s decided by a lucky punch.”

  George smiled and hit the speed bag, his hands so fast that Terry could barely see them. The movement of the bag was pyrotechnic and entirely rhythmic.

  “Badda bing,” George said.

  CHAPTER 34

  On her way home from school Friday, Abby passed the dirt road that led to the construction project. She stopped for a moment and listened. She didn’t hear anything. It was after school hours, so there was probably nobody working on the project. Sometimes when you looked at a thing, Abby thought, and tried to keep your mind empty, you would think of something. She turned into the quiet dirt road and walked to the site. It was empty. She stood looking at it, listening to the bird sounds in the empty woods. The house was a big one, and fancy.

  Worth a lot of money ... to someone ... Maybe it got sold and the money went back into the school budget ... or the town budget... if the town had a budget... it must, towns cost money... so how come nobody seems to know who got the money? Except maybe Mr. Bullard and she didn’t dare ask him.

  She heard a footstep behind her and turned and it was Kip Carter. She felt the little jag of fear flash through the center of her stomach.

  “Little Abby Hall,” he said. “Out in the woods all alone.”

  Abby stared at him. He was like a grown man, big, with muscles. He looked like he shaved every day. And he was handsome in a pouty self-satisfied kind of way that Abby hated. She also hated that she was afraid of him.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Kip Carter said.

  “I don’t want anything,” Abby said.

  “Maybe I do,” Kip Carter said.

  “I don’t care if you do or not,” Abby said.

  He moved closer to her. She felt the fear. But she felt anger too. She started to walk around him. He stepped in front of her.

  “Where you going?” he said.

  “I’m going home,” Abby said, and started to move past him again.

  Kip Carter stepped in front of her again.

  “We need a little talk,” he said.

  Abby moved to go around him in the other direction. He stayed in her way. It was almost like a dance step.

  “About what?” Abby said.

  “About why you’re snooping around this construction site. About why you’re asking nosy questions about what happens when it’s done. About what you and your creepy boyfriend are up to in general.”

  “Terry’s not my boyfriend and he’s not creepy.”

  “Yeah? I say he is.”

  “Gordon didn’t think so,” Abby said.

  “Gordon.” Kip Carter laughed. “Your creep boyfriend gets in a lucky punch and now people think he’s tough. He’s a kid. He annoys me and I’ll step on him like he’s a cockroach.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Abby said.

  She moved again. He stepped in her way again.

  “What are you two little nerds up to?” he said.

  “We’re not nerds,” Abby said. “And we’re not up to anything. Now get out of my way.”

  Kip Carter laughed.

  “Who you telling to get out of your way?” he said.

  They danced the little dance again. Kip Carter seemed to be liking it. Abby felt equal parts fear and anger and both were growing.

  “You ain’t going no place,” Kip Carter said. “Until you tell me why you’re asking about this property.”

  She tried to dodge around him again and he put a hand against her chest and shoved her. She staggered back and a branch scratched across her face. The pain made her madder. She tried to run past him. He pushed her again and she fell down.

  He said, “Bad things can happen to little girls in the woods, you know.”

  She scrambled to her feet. Her face felt hot. He put a hand on each side of her face and put his face close. He shook her head slightly.

  “Now,” he said, “what’s going on?”

  She hit him in the mouth with her right fist. It cut his lip and the blood spurted. He swore and let go of her face and she dodged around him and ran for the street. He stood for a moment, stunned that she had hit him, looking at the blood on his hands as if he couldn’t believe it.

  “You cut my lip,” he said.

  Then he started after her. He was faster than she was. But the stunned moment cost him and she reached the street before he could catch her.

  He screamed at her.

  “This isn’t over. I’ll get you. I’m gonna get you.”

  There were people on the street. A woman, seeing the boy emerge bleeding from the woods, stopped and spoke to him.

  “Are you all right?” she said. “Do you need help?”

  Kip Carter shook his head, looking after Abby.

  Abby kept going.

  CHAPTER 35

  After school on Monday she walked down to the Wall to meet Terry. She had covered the long scratch on her cheek as best she could, with makeup. She wouldn’t tell him, she decided. It would upset him. It might even cause trouble. Kip Carter was three years older than Terry and much bigger. What if Terry felt obliged to fight with him? Plus she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t even like to think about it. Thinking about it made her want to cry.

  Terry was on the Wall when she got there. She sat beside him.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “What happened to your face?” he said.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “You got a scratch right across your whole cheek,” he said.

  “It’s just a scratch,” she said.

  “I can see that,” Terry said. “How’d you get it?”

  She felt it coming. She tried to stop it. She couldn’t. She turned her head away and started to cry.

  “What?” Terry sa
id.

  She cried harder. He felt something like panic.

  “Why are you crying?” Terry said.

  She shook her head.

  He slid off the Wall and walked around so he could look at her.

  “Why are you crying?” he said.

  She put her hands over her face.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  He didn’t know what to do. He put his hand on her shoulder. She felt how red her eyes must be, and puffy. Her nose had started to run. She wiped it with her sleeve.

  “Don’t look,” she said again.

  He went back and sat where he’d been and she cried with her back to him. After a time she fished a packet of tissues from her backpack and tried to clean up her face. Then she got out some makeup and a little mirror and did some damage control. Finally she got her breathing back under control and turned to Terry.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What happened?” Terry said.

  She shook her head.

  “Oh for god’s sake, Abby,” Terry said. “You can’t do that. You can’t have a major meltdown in front of me and not tell me why.”

  She clasped her hands and looked down at her thumbs for a time. Then she looked up at Terry and nodded.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

  He waited. She took in some breath and let it out slowly.

  Then she told him.

  He listened in absolute silence. His body motionless. His gaze fixed on her face. He felt himself slowly getting colder inside, as if he were turning to ice. He thought, I’m going to have to do something about this. He felt threading through the cold a small wiggle of uncertainty. He wasn’t sure what he should do about it ... or could.

  When Abby got through, they sat in silence, until Abby said, “What do you think of that?”

  Terry thought about his answer.

  “I ... I can’t let it go.”

  “Why?”

  “I can‘t,” Terry said. “I can’t just let him treat you like that.”

  “I don’t ... I would hate it if you got into trouble with him. I would feel awful, because I told you.”

  “But I can’t let him do that,” Terry said again.

  “It’s about me,” Abby said. “Not you.”

  “It’s about us,” Terry said.

  Abby started to speak and stopped. They were quiet again.

  “Everything is about us,” Terry said.

  Abby nodded.

  I’m fifteen, she thought, how the hell am I supposed to know what to say?

  “What are you going to do?” Abby said.

  “I don’t know,” Terry said. “But I gotta do something.”

  “We’re doing something,” Abby said. “We’ll keep doing it.”

  “I can’t let him bother you again,” Terry said.

  “What do you think George would say?”

  “George?” Terry said.

  “Yeah, George,” she said. “What would George tell you to do?”

  “He’d say I needed to make sure you were safe.”

  “How would he say to do that?”

  Terry thought about George.

  You need to stay with the plan. Worst thing you can do is ... get mad and go crazy.... You get mad, you use it for energy.... You control it and channel it.... You need to have the control.

  Terry nodded slowly.

  “I know what to do,” Terry said.

  CHAPTER 36

  They went across the common to the town library and sat at the farthest table back and worked softly on their plan. They stayed until suppertime.

  That night both of them made many phone calls.

  The next day Abby typed up the whole plan on her computer and ran off a bunch of pages and stapled them together. She liked organizing, being neat, getting everything in order.

  That afternoon, when school was over, they gathered, eleven of them including Terry and Abby, at the rocks by the town beach, away from everybody, where no one could hear them or approach them without being seen. It was the inner circle of the spy ring. Otis was there, looking worried, and Tank, and Nancy, who seemed ill at ease with the other kids. Perry Fisher was there and Bev, and Suzi, the wind ruffling her big hair. Steve Bellino stood with Mitchell and Carly Clark, who was taller than the rest of them, and darker.

  “Okay,” Terry said. “Like I said on the phone, we’re gonna make our move on this whole thing we been spying. We’re gonna do it today, and Abby and I will do all the hard stuff. Abby will give you your letter packets. Hang on to them. And we need you to stick around with us in case somebody gets nasty. It’s pretty hard to be too bad in front of eleven eyewitnesses.”

  “Might be able to do better than be a witness,” Carly Clark said.

  “You got that right,” Tank said.

  “We’re not looking for trouble,” Abby said. “If we’re together, nobody much is going to give us any.”

  “We don’t want people thinking we’re a bunch of hooligans,” Otis said.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “Hooligans?” Steve Bellino said. “What kinda word is that?”

  Otis shrugged and looked at the ocean.

  “Hey,” Carly said. “We all in this together. Otis wanna say ‘hooligan’ he can say ‘hooligan,’ you know?”

  “You’re right,” Bellino said. “Hey, Otis, I’m sorry. I was only kidding you.”

  “It’s okay,” Otis said, and smiled.

  “We need to stay together as much as we can,” Abby said. “I got a sort of plan in with the letters packet about where to meet so we can walk to school together, and where Terry and I are going to go, and where to meet us, stuff like that.”

  “I know,” Terry said, “that all eleven of us can’t be together all the time. But several of us can.”

  “And we all got cell phones,” Suzi said. “One phone call and we all come running.”

  “You’re each, like, sort of team captains,” Abby said. “And you each got your list of people you call, you know, like in a snowstorm.”

  “You bet,” Suzi said.

  Suzi looked like she was planning for her wedding. Her eyes were bright. She was excited. Suzi was adventurous, Terry knew. For Suzi this was fun.

  Terry felt a tightness in his throat as he stood in front of them, with the quiet ocean moving behind him, and the mild breeze blowing past. He felt like he loved all these people, some of whom he barely knew, and in other circumstances might have been scornful of. He knew he wasn’t a very scornful guy, but these people covered a pretty good spectrum. Perry was probably queer. Otis was a nerd. Carly was a basketball star. Tank was very big. Suzi was a sex-pot. Bev was some sort of goody-goody. Bellino was mainstream. Mitchell was ... hell, he didn’t know anything about Mitchell.

  “So if we really have to,” Abby continued, “I figure we can pull about forty people together.”

  “Easy,” Tank said. “Everybody likes Abby, and nobody likes Kip Carter. It’s a no-brainer.”

  “Anyway,” Terry said. “I just want to thank you for standing up for us.”

  “And Jason,” Perry said.

  Terry nodded.

  “And Jason,” he said.

  “Hell, Terry,” Tank said. “This is fun.”

  “Yeah,” Carly said, “and who you rather have fun with than Carter and Bullard.”

  “And maybe Old Lady Trent,” Bev said.

  Everyone turned and looked at her.

  “Bev?” Suzi said.

  “Well, I don’t like her,” Bev said.

  He knew they were right. For most of them this was like a war game, like cops and robbers, but maybe it wasn’t for Perry. And for him and for Abby it had kept getting more serious. But for the rest ... cowboys and Indians ... Didn’t matter. It was a good feeling to have them there.

  Terry smiled.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s saddle up.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Everyone knew it was an el
ection ploy. But Mrs. Trent kept open-door office hours at her campaign headquarters on Main Street, from three to six every day. The office was in a storefront a block up the street from the Coffee Café. At 4:10, Terry and Abby arrived with seven other kids. The seven others waited outside. Across the street, standing inside the entrance to the movie theater, Kip Carter watched Terry and Abby go into the storefront. There was no one in the office but Mrs. Trent and some staff. A Cabot police cruiser was parked outside. The outer office was plastered with campaign posters that said:SALLY TRENT FOR GOVERNOR

  and showed a big picture of the candidate in a white blouse and some pearls.

  “Do you kids want to see our next governor?” a young woman said to them. She was seated at a table behind a bank of telephones.

  “Yes ma‘am,” Abby said.

  “Are you supporters?” the young woman said.

  “Of course,” Terry said.

  “That’s great,” the young woman said. She turned to a young guy in jeans and a plaid shirt who sat with his feet up at the next table and said, “Get some pictures of this, Harry.”

  She stood and went to the inner office door and spoke. In a moment she nodded and turned back.

  “Come on in, kids,” she said. “Mrs. Trent would love to see you.”

  As they walked to Mrs. Trent’s office, Harry the camera guy stood and came in behind them.

  Abby murmured to Terry, “Let them take their pictures first.”

  Terry nodded. They went in.

  Sally Trent’s office was smaller than the outer one. Just a desk, two guest chairs, and a phone. On the walls were more campaign posters, including some that said:LET’S RALLY BEHIND SALLY

  As they came in, she stood and walked around her desk. She was wearing a tailored gray suit and a French blue shirt with a long collar. The collar was open over the pearls at her throat. Abby already could see that the pearls, which Terry probably hadn’t noticed, were Mrs. Trent’s trademark. She glanced at Harry, then smiled at Terry and Abby.

  “Young supporters, how lovely,” she said.

  She glanced at the camera, saw that it was ready, and put out her hand.

  “Tell me your names,” she said.

  “Terry Novak.”

  “Abby Hall.”

  Mrs. Trent shook both their hands. The camera clicked and flashed as she was doing it.