A Naked Singularity: A Novel (89 page)

Developments leading up to the fight only increased the significance of the matchup. After losing to Benitez, Duran returned to the ring on September 4th in Hearns’s Detroit against some Brit named Kirkland Laing. He looked old and meek and, whether he decided to retire or not following the well-earned ten-round decision defeat to a barely capable retread, the fight surely signaled, everyone agreed, the end of Duran’s career as a premier fighter.

After defending his World Welterweight Championship with a third-round knockout of Bruce Finch in Reno, Sugar Ray Leonard began to complain of vision problems or
floaters
. He was diagnosed with a detached retina in his left eye (the one that had swollen to gory proportions against Hearns) and three months after the fight had surgery to repair the problem. He was warned of the danger of losing his eyesight if he continued to box. On November 9, 1982, during an odd press conference for some reason held in and around the boxing ring where he made his professional debut, Leonard announced his retirement from Boxing, lamenting that he would not be fighting Marvin Hagler in the fight the universe most longed to see.

The loss of Leonard and the perceived elimination of Duran meant the upcoming Benitez/Hearns fight would create a clear challenger to Hagler and make whoever of the three managed to ultimately emerge the biggest star in Boxing. Along with the bout’s significance there was considerable interest in seeing Boxing’s most skilled boxer against its most fearsome puncher; the fight would feature one of the greatest defensive fighters ever against one of the best offensive ones and it wasn’t entirely clear how it would unfold. On a personal level for Benitez, who had accomplished more than Hearns to that point, a decisive victory would all but erase the negative impact of his only loss. Benitez seemed to recognize the importance of the fight as well as the unique threat Hearns presented because he trained as much as he ever did. And good because on December 3, 1982, in New Orleans, in the ring just before the opening bell, Thomas Hearns looked scary. The extra seven pounds he was allowed at junior-middleweight appeared to consist entirely of sinewy but granite muscle. Whereas at welterweight he had looked freakishly thin, against Benitez he looked very much like the human cobra his nickname implied he was. Benitez looked good too, solid, but next to Hearns maybe small.

From the outset, Benitez, like every single human who would ever step into the ring with Hearns, was wary of his opponent’s power, especially from the right cross. As a result he moved a lot and Hearns established a good jab and crisp punches while stalking Benitez and wisely eschewing punches to his elusive head for solid body punches. In that manner Benitez ceded the first three rounds as it became apparent he would have significant trouble getting inside Hearns’s long punches to land his own. In the fourth he seemed to solve Hearns a bit, fighting more effectively to win the round and also benefiting from a point deduction by the ref. He appeared to have weathered the storm that was the early rounds against Hearns and seemed ready to begin winning rounds and imposing his skillful will.

But Hearns was too good and in the fifth he bounced a right cross off the top of Benitez’s head so powerfully that Wilfred seemed to lose his legs for a moment until he fell forward, his gloves landing on the canvas for an official knockdown. He survived, but in the sixth he caught another right cross flush at the end of the round and after bending exaggeratedly at the waist he fell back against the ropes in deep trouble until the bell saved him. After a seventh and eighth round that featured more, albeit less dramatic, Hearns dominance, Benitez had a decision to make.

He was clearly losing the fight. Hearns looked simply awesome that night. He was bigger and stronger. He had hand speed that was at least equal to that of Benitez. In Emanuel Steward he had an all-time great trainer and in accordance with his instructions he was executing a perfect game plan. Worst of all was the inhuman power. Benitez felt all the punches, even the ones he blocked. A Hearns punch that landed on his arm, for example, would deaden that spot for minutes.

On the other hand, as the Leonard fight had shown, if Hearns had any weakness it was his chin and stamina. To have any chance to win Benitez would have to go against his nature by forcing his way inside the reach of The Hitman to try and land the bomb that would change the fight. And that was the decision that needed to be made because the fact was that as great as Hearns was offensively, if Benitez dedicated his efforts principally to avoiding being hit he would not be hit. It was that simple and that certain. It was an option. He could go into a defensive shell and circle the ring. He would lose a decision, true, but he would avoid embarrassment and avoid needless pain. Then he could simply say that Hearns’s particular style was too difficult for him and people would agree and no one would fault him too much.

The other option meant getting inside no matter the cost. It meant throwing punches once inside, which meant by necessity getting hit hard and often by punches that Benitez already knew from most recent experience would hurt and possibly knock him unconscious. And either tomorrow or years from now, thousands or millions, when Time has ground our bones into an ashy mist and the very Earth we now inhabit has drifted into its third-generation sun, let the record reflect that Wilfred Benitez, who had more money than a thousand people needed, who’d been bred since infancy to fight at the expense of all else, who seemed like a perpetual child who did not take his career seriously, understood his responsibilities and chose to fight. Let it reflect that he bounced a left hook off the top off The Hitman’s head and that head fell to the canvas as a result. That he came forward winging his fists like he had done since he was seven and that, as expected, he took ugly shots to the head in return. That some of those shots momentarily disrupted communication from his brain to his legs but he never fell again. That he would take two to land one but that he kept taking them, kept trying to win. That he did not relinquish greatness easily but that it had to be forcefully wrested from his grip by overwhelming superior force.

When the fight was over Benitez smiled as always and hugged Hearns. One judge had it a draw but the other two were decidedly for Hearns. The announcers reminded their audience that Benitez was still only twenty-four. They said you could still expect great things from him in his future. If told what that future would hold they would not likely have believed it.

I said nothing the whole time I thought about that and now the silence was bugging me again so I released some music into the room. What was I thinking protesting the quiet? Silence was a gift. You needed it to listen to real music and my ear was mysteriously better to boot. I closed my eyes. It was rapturous.

But I wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with my CD because I heard a faint percussive knocking I didn’t recognize, although I mentally acknowledged I could’ve simply failed to notice it before since, healthy or not, I didn’t have the best ear.

Or a simpler explanation could be that there was someone knocking on my door, which there was. When I opened the door I saw Herbert. He was wearing a light-colored, possibly-white, satiny jacket and holding what appeared to be a bowling bag.

“Hi Herbert,” I said.

“Call me Herb,” said Herb.

“Done.”

“The music.”

“I’m sorry was it too loud?”

“No pal o’mine, I just noticed you went right to the second movement.”

“Oh, yeah, uh.”

“Well, as I’m sure you know, the second movement of the Eroica is a funeral march. A
funeral
march, y’unnerstand?” his eyebrows rising in wait.

“Okay, and?”

“Well it’s just that when someone goes right to the funeral like that I start thinking maybe something’s wrong you know buddy?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“That’s right pal. Nothing
is
wrong. You keep listening to that music is what you should do. There didn’t have to be music you know. Anyway I hope this isn’t about what I told you with the detective and all. Because that’s nothing to concern yourself about.”

“Why do you say that Herb?”

“Call me Jackie,” said Jackie.

“Fine Jackie but why do you say I shouldn’t be concerned? Not that I am mind you.”

“It’s like this letter I once got saying the government was investigating my taxes. You shoulda seen how I got myself all worked up over it, hoo ho! I had myself convinced I was being investigated for not reporting a clock with a horse in its stomach, I mean a horse with a clock in its stomach ha ha!”

“So what happened?”

“Oh my friend calmed me down. Anyway pal, wanna go bowling?”

“Bowling?”

“Yeah, you do bowl don’t you?”

“Sure all the time. Well I mean I bowl quite a bit. Actually, well, I have bowled in the past, once or twice, maybe, I think.”

“Let’s go then.”

“No I better stay, I have a lot of work to do.”

“Oh yeah? Whattya do?”

“I write.”

“Okay, suit yourself pal.”

“Before you go Jackie.”

“Yeah?”

“How did your friend calm you down that time with the tax investigation?”

“Oh I see. Well think of it this way. This detective that’s investigating you.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it that but what about him?”

“Can he put you up in front of a firing squad?”

“No.”

“Can he push you over a cliff?”

“No.”

“Can he string you up there on the end of a rope?”

“No I guess not,” I laughed slightly. I felt better. Jackie was right. “Thanks Jackie, I feel better, you’re right,” I said.

“Never mind that Jackie business,” he said walking to the door and turning his considerable back to me. “Call me Ralph.”

“Ralph,” I muttered.

Ralph opened the door and started to walk out. Then he popped his head back in. “The worst he can do to you is send you to the federal pen!” he said and immediately left.

I sat back down. The federal pen. Ralph was right. Well it wouldn’t be a
federal
pen but at that moment it seemed almost probable that I would end in state prison. It was true that the press had already lost interest in the 123rd Street Massacre but that was only because the monster wasn’t being fed anything new. The arrest of a public defender with a weird name for any involvement in the deaths, however peripheral, would certainly qualify as a press case.

Given that, and the DA’s office usual reaction to those types of cases, I thought I’d be fortunate to get something like 5 years determinate on a plea. Five years in lonely prison, I would do six/sevenths of that.

I wouldn’t talk to anyone the whole time I was there. I would pull what that guy who accepted Chekhov’s Bet did where he read everything under the sun while voluntarily imprisoned for fifteen years. I would read everything ever published; I would learn a few more languages, learn all day and every day. It would actually be a great deal of fun in that sense. I would have some time to think. I could write. Not briefs or anything boring like that, majestic stuff. No less a supernova than
El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
was detonated from prison. I could write about what happened to me, what I did, nah.

“I should just pipe down is what I should do,” I said. “I have too much to do to sit around here thinking of this bullshit. The only thing I should be thinking about is the writing I have to do. I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air then come back and write until I drop, how’s that?”

I left the door open and went outside. Ralph was gone. It was less cold that day. I walked half a block and felt someone following me, first just with their eyes then with their entire body. I stopped and waited. He came up to me.

“Casi?” he said.

“What?”

“Are you Casi?”

“Never heard of him.”

“I happen to know you’re Casi.”

“Oh Casi you said?”

“Correct.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Can I have a moment of your time?”

“No.”

“I think you’ll want to talk to me.”

“You do? Why’s that?”

“Because I know what you did.”

Huh, what, huh?

—Anonymous

How disconcerting really. Imagine looking someone directly in the face and seeing only your doubled image looking back at you. He wore those ridiculous mirror sunglasses that usually only state troopers are oblivious enough to wear. Against the skin of my chest I could feel my heart press. My entire body tightened into itself trying in vain to disappear.

“What, who are you?” I said.

“Detective Mondongo Assado,” he said extending his hand. I started to put my hand forward then pulled it right back when he again said “I know what you did.”

“Are you having some kind of mental difficulty Detective?” I said.

He smiled and seemed to think better of his approach. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to be confusing or to sound adversarial either,” and that’s when I knew I was in trouble and needed to get my head out of my ass quickly.

“What do you want? I’m in a hurry.”

“It’s about a former client of yours, Ramon DeLeon.”

“Oh so you’re one of the geniuses helped get him killed?”

“So you know what happened?”

“Yeah I know what happened. He was cooperating with you guys and next thing I know he’s on the front page of The Post. Good work. I’ll be sure to steer some more clients your collective way.”

“Just curious, how do you know what happened?”

“How could I not?”

“What I mean is that you certainly couldn’t have told from the picture in the Post and I’m sure there are several Ramon DeLeons, so how did you know.”

“This might be difficult for a New York City detective to comprehend but most people can put two and two together and get four.”

“I see, so you had no inside information, just what you read in the papers?”

“Is this what you came to see me about? How I could know that the DeLeon killed was my DeLeon or should I say
your
DeLeon since he was cooperating with you guys and signed an agreement in which you collectively promised to protect him.”