Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole

drugstore pure, Demmie often caused infection at the point of entry, forcing people to go to the doctor. That meant someone might rat him out, so he trafficked less in Demerol than in the other pills and liquids his uptown clientele delighted in. He focused on lawyers, stockbrokers, athletes, and media people. All they wanted was fresh needles and the pure shit, clean and sterile, pretty pills and little tamper-proof bottles. Trini’s people had the money to pay for pure and sterile, and pay they did when they met him in gas-station crappers, or sometimesright there in the courthouse of Bexar County. Athletes were his favorites. They had all that money and they were so big that they needed shit by the tubful. Besides, he got off on ruling those big mothafucks. Women were a trip, too, liked to score when they were sitting with Trini in their Beamers or Audis in car washes with the water going. Some, even the marrieds, offered to barter tits and ass and blow jobs.
    Trini, the old-line junkie, would answer, “I don’t even fuck my own wife, man.”
    Some would feel insulted by being turned down, some would laugh, but they all paid. He’d suck on lemon drops and watch the sheets of water flowing over the windshield while they dug into their purses for cash. One offered him two gold credit cards and said she’d wait a week before she reported them missing.
    “Cash.”
    Chicky had known guys like this from the Victoria Courts, gaunt men who always wore long-sleeved shirts buttoned tightly at the wrist, the cuffs held in place by a loop of dirty elastic. He pegged Trini for a doper the first time he saw him. Eloy had bought morphine in squat little brown bottles from Trini when Dolores was in terrible pain at the end. Prescriptions written by Dr. Ocampo were not enough. Chicky had watched from the hallway when Eloy injected Trini’s stuff into his grandmother’s arm. He had heard his grandfather sob every time he shot her up. When Mamá Lola continued to linger in agony, Chicky wondered if maybe Eloy had started to use some of the squirt on himself.
    Trini and Paco had trained Eloy his whole career. They had been in Eloy’s corner the night Eloy had lost his title shot. But they were poor technicians who valued tough over fundamentals. They expected their fighters to stand Mexican style and take punches in order to land punches, yet they saw themselves as bold tacticians equal to Santa Ana in his cruel prime. Their relationships with all their fighters were strictly business, and they were quick to lure a boy from another trainer. They were equally quick to dump him should he lose a couple of fights.
    Eloy had left the Santa Rosa Hospital in a hurry. Once Doc Ocampo confirmed that Eloy’s heart and liver were shot anyway, the Wolf decided to have a few thousand
tequilazo
shooters with salt and lime, though he knew that the booze was what was killing him. He’d swallowed that idea the way he had swallowed a thousand
mezcal
worms, with a wince and a smile, but he wouldn’t be able to smile his way through Chicky. And he knew it. How to tell the kid? He inhaled deeply from his third cigarette. Better not to tell the kid at all. Chicky had enough mud to haul as it was. If the kid was to be saved, it would be through boxing. He hadn’t been working with Chicky at home in the improvised gym because he couldn’t. He didn’t have the gas. He was hurting every hour of every day. But the Cavazos could keep Chicky in the game. They weren’t the best, but they weren’t the worst, despite what they’d pulled on him, and on others. Trini’s habit could make things tricky, but Eloy figured he’d be square with the boy, what with their having watched him grow up, and because they’d stayed tight with Eloy down through the years. It was a reasonable choice to Eloy, on the surface at least. He was too drunk to dive deeper, but for some reason he remembered the time he’d broken a knuckle in training. Trini had given him shots in