Page 31 of Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

Great choice of words, I told myself.

'You called my house yesterday,' I said.

'You Mr. Robicheaux?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, yeah, well—I be with you in a minute, okay? They waiting for me over at the ring. I'm gonna go three with that white boy putting on his kidney guard.'

'You said you had some pretty important things to tell me, Zoot.'

His eyes flicked sideways, then came back on my face again.

'I gotta go my three. This ain't an easy place to talk, you know what I mean?'

'Yeah, I guess so.' I looked at the white kid who was climbing up in the corner of one of the rings. His skin had the alabaster iridescence of someone who seldom went out in the sunlight, but his stomach, which was tattooed with a red-and-green dragon, was a washboard, and the muscles in his arms looked like pieces of pig iron. 'Who is he?' I asked.

'Ummm, he fights in Miami and Houston a lot.'

'He's a pro?'

'Yes, suh.'

'You sure you want to do this, partner?'

He licked his lips and tried to hide the shine of fear in his eyes.

'He's a good guy. He's been up against some big names. He don't do this for just anybody,' Zoot said. 'I'll be right back. You ain't got to watch if you don't want. There's a Coca-Cola machine back in the dressing room.'

'I'll just take a seat over here.'

'Yes, suh. I'll be right back.'

I don't think I ever saw anyone box quite as badly as Zoot. Either he would hold both g

loves in front of his face so that he was unable to see his opponent or he would drop his guard suddenly and float his face up like a balloon, right into a rain of blows. His stance was wrong-footed, he led with his right hand, he used his left like a flipper, he took shot after shot in the mouth and eyes because he didn't know how to tuck in his chin and raise his shoulder against a right cross.

Fortunately the white kid went easy on him, except in the third round when Zoot swung at the white kid's head coming out of a clench. The white kid stepped inside Zoot's long reach and hooked a hard chop into his nose. Zoot went down on his butt in the middle of the canvas, his long legs splayed out in front of him, his mouth-piece lying wet in his lap, his eyes glazed as though someone had popped a flashbulb in his face.

Twenty minutes later he came out of the dressing room in his street clothes, combing his wet hair along the sides of his head. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his left eye had started to discolor and puff shut at the corner. We walked across the street to a café that sold pizza by the slice and sat at a table in back under a rotating electric fan.

'Have you been boxing long?' I said.

'Since school let out.'

'You trying for the Golden Gloves?'

'I just do it for fun. I don't think about the Gloves or any of that stuff.'

'Let me make a suggestion, Zoot. Keep your left shoulder up and don't lead with your right unless you go in for a body attack. Then get under the other guy's guard and hook him hard in the rib cage, right under the heart.'

He fed a long slice of pizza into his mouth and looked at me while he chewed.

'You been a fighter?' he said.

'A little bit, in high school.'

'You think maybe I could try for the Gloves?'

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