Somewhere out there, Thelma Pearl would know what was happening. She would understand what Lionel Kane was doing to him. Jake was landing more punches, he might even be winning on the scorecards, but Kane was beating him deep down, where a spider’s web of cracks can spread through a fighter’s heart. Boxing people might not see it, but Thelma Pearl would know that he was done in the ways that matter. If he was done in the ring, he was of no more use to her.

In the sixth round, he missed with a left jab and Kane caught him on the nose with a terrific, ripping right cross. It felt like a hand grenade exploding between his eyes, as though bone and shrapnel had blown up into his brain. Jake hit the canvas so hard that he bounced and came down a second time. He rolled over, tried to sit up, felt blood pouring down his chin and neck and chest. The ref stood above him, legs wide apart, right arm swinging back and forth like a metronome. One… two… three… He could hear Bucky screaming. Ya gotta get up! Get off the goddamned canvas! He heard the crowd, their voices far away, as though he was underwater, drowning right next to a crowded beach. Four… five… six… He gathered his legs. Seven… eight…

He was up. The bell rang. The round was over. He staggered rubber-legged to his corner, where Bucky was lifting the stool into the ring. Herb Ferren, the cut man, stuffed cotton batting into his nostrils. Bucky tried to sponge away some of the blood. He soaked through one sponge, then another. Jake wondered if a man had ever bled to death in the ring. Bucky wore a white shirt and a black tie and the shirt looked like a butcher’s apron. Bucky was in his ear, telling him to jab and move, jab and move, but what he needed was a crowbar.

Somehow, he answered the bell for the seventh. He tried to backpedal on watery legs, but Kane shoved him into a corner and whacked him where his ribs were cracked. The pain was awful, but he wanted it to hurt. The pain kept him on his feet. He could hear Kane wheezing when they got in close. Kane lived in Louisiana. He wasn’t used to fighting a mile above sea level. Sooner or later, his lungs would go and the legs would follow, but it might be too late. Jake survived the eighth and connected with one good shot in the ninth, but Kane answered with a straight jab that burst his eyebrow. When the bell rang, Jake collapsed on the stool in his corner. He was spitting blood from his mouth, his left eyebrow was pumping out a cauliflower of blood, his nose was smashed. Herb Ferren shook his head. “I can’t fix that eye. Not so’s he can see worth a damn.”