Part 8 (1/2)

'He's a comer.'

'I agree.'

'Sometimes he telegraphs the right. In the fourth round - '

'Yes,' he said. 'They've worked with him on that. The problem is that he generally manages to get away with it.'

'Well, he wouldn't have gotten by with it tonight. Not if Canelli had been looking to win.'

'Yes. Well, perhaps it's as well that he wasn't.'

We talked boxing until we got to 104th Street, where Chance turned the car around in a careful U-turn and pulled up next to a fire hydrant. He killed the motor but left the keys. 'I'll be right down,' he said, 'after I've seen Sonya upstairs.'

She hadn't said a word since she told me it was nice to meet me. He walked around the car and opened the door for her, and they strolled to the entrance of one of the two large apartment buildings that fronted on that block. I wrote the address in my notebook. In no more than five minutes he was back behind the wheel and we were heading downtown again.

Neither of us spoke for half a dozen blocks. Then he said, 'You wanted to talk to me. It doesn't have anything to do with Kid Bas...o...b.. does it?'

'No.'

'I didn't really think so. What does it have to do with?'

'Kim Dakkinen.'

His eyes were on the road and I couldn't see any change in his expression. He said, 'Oh? What about her?'

'She wants out.'

'Out? Out of what?'

'The life,' I said. 'The relations.h.i.+p she has with you. She wants you to agree to... break things off.'

We stopped for a light. He didn't say anything. The light changed and we went another block or two and he said, 'What's she to you?'

'A friend.'

'What does that mean? You're sleeping with her? You want to marry her? Friend's a big word, it covers a lot of ground.'

'This time it's a small word. She's a friend, she asked me to do her a favor.'

'By talking to me.'

'That's right.'

'Why couldn't she talk to me herself? I see her frequently, you know. She wouldn't have had to run around the city asking after me. Why, I saw her just last night.'

'I know.'

'Do you? Why didn't she say anything when she saw me?'

'She's afraid.'