Blood Game by Ed Gorman

get old suddenly.” Stoddard shook his head. “You know how it gets with fighters.”
    â€œYeah. I know.”
    â€œHe found this kid from Pennsylvania. This really strapping bastard.”
    â€œA kid killed him?”
    â€œNineteen. But a punch you just can’t believe.”
    Rooney got up from the chair. The three of them were in a small room on the east edge of the raw board building adjacent to the ring. The room smelled of heat and tobacco. The building was a warehouse for a tobacco wholesaler. Rooney was already stripped to the waist because of the heat.
    â€œCarter. Dead.” Rooney shook his head. “He was a decent man for a—”
    Stoddard grinned and turned to the man he called Guild. “He was going to say ‘a decent man for a white man. ’ You see, Guild, they think of us what we think of them.” He laughed in a booming way that revealed anxiety beneath.
    Rooney kept pacing. “Victor still hates colored folks?”
    â€œI’m afraid he does.”
    â€œWhat we ever do to him?”
    â€œYou know how Victor is.” Stoddard tapped his skull to indicate he was crazy. “You go fifteen rounds with him, you could be sitting pretty, Rooney. Sitting very pretty.”
    â€œI go fifteen rounds with him, I could be dead is what I could be.”
    â€œVictor’s not so young anymore.”
    â€œThat why he killed a fighter just last spring?”
    â€œTo be honest, that guy wasn’t much of a fighter. He really wasn’t.”
    Stoddard looked over at Guild. There was some doubt in his expression. “Now you’re not going to go out there and just lay down, are you, Rooney?”
    â€œWe have an agreement. I’m going to stick to that agreement. I’m going to do everything I can.”
    â€œI need at least twelve rounds.”
    â€œI need my head on my shoulders, too.” Rooney allowed a certain belligerence to come into his voice.
    Stoddard glanced over at Guild again, then back at Rooney. “Why don’t you show me a little something?”
    â€œI ain’t in the mood.”
    â€œJust a little something, Rooney. So I know you’re fit and all ready to go.” He patted his stomach. “You’ve been putting on weight, boy.”
    â€œI’m gettin’ old.”
    Stoddard smiled. “Old is going around. Like the flu. Everybody seems to be catching it.”
    Rooney finally relented and showed him a few things. He showed him a few right hooks and a few right crosses and a few uppercuts. He stood in the sunny comer and fought his quick moving shadow. The shadow was not quite as black as Rooney.
    When he finished, there was a sheen of sweat on his back and arms. He went over and sat on the edge of a chair. He was panting. As he had told Stoddard, he was getting old. He’d fought many one-hundred-round matches in his youth. Today he was up against two things—the loss of that youth and the unforgiving hands of Victor Sovich.
    â€œYou know something, Rooney?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou look scared.”
    â€œI got a right to look scared.”
    â€œYou’re going to be fine.”
    â€œHe hates us folks.”
    â€œVictor isn’t exactly a spring chicken himself anymore.”
    â€œThat’s what you said. That don’t necessarily convince me.”
    â€œI need a good show, Rooney. A damn good show. There’s going to be a lot of people out there.”
    â€œSure. A man who kills other men always gets a crowd.”
    Stoddard paused. “You’re forgetting something, Rooney.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou killed a man, too.”
    â€œNot on purpose.”
    Stoddard smiled. “That story kind of hangs on.”
    â€œWhat story?”
    â€œThat you poisoned his drinking water before the fight.”
    â€œThat’s bull.”
    â€œIt’s what I hear.”
    â€œIt’s not the truth.”
    â€œYou just put