Bucky shook his head. “Damned if he didn’t beat your kidneys plumb to hell. You’ll be pissin blood for a month.”

Bucky cut the tape off his hands. Jake could see himself in the mirror, the bruises on his chest and arms, as though he had been mauled by a Brahma bull. He stumbled into the shower and stood there, letting the hot water run until it turned ice cold without warning, stepped out cursing and toweled off. They found a sawbones in a card game next door who was more or less sober and paid him to sew the cut over Jake’s eye. It took nine stitches and hurt like hell. When the doc was done, they walked the three blocks to Boodles Speak. Thelma Pearl had been there and left. The barkeep didn’t have to say it. She left with a man. Jake saw it plain on his face. For the second time that night, he punched a wall because of her. The barkeep gave him a look. Easy, buddy. He ordered a double whiskey, but he was thirsty too, so he asked for a beer chaser and bought one of the same for Bucky. There were fight fans in the speakeasy, dozens of them. Most of them had won money on him. After the first one, they lined up to buy him drinks. He wasn’t a drinker, but on this night it went down like water and it didn’t dull the pain a bit. Drunks swatted him on the back, hard enough to make him wince. Women ran pink tongues over red lips. He shook his head. Not tonight, sweetheart. Not tonight. The night slipped away. By the time Bucky drove him to the little rented house on the edge of Denver, there was a streak of watery gray light out east toward Kansas.

The door was open wide, the lights on. Everything that was loose was gone, even the sheets and blankets and pillows from the bed. She had left with the money Moe gave him, all that he earned from the fight. He would have hit something, but he was too tired. He swallowed four aspirin, curled up on the bare mattress, rolled his jacket for a pillow, fell asleep with his boots on.

Bucky fronted Jake a double sawbuck until he felt up to going to the bank. Bucky’s wife, Vera, brought some bedding, filled up his icebox, looked in every day to make sure he had something to eat. He slept twelve hours a day, took short walks around the block, slept again. The ribs hurt every time he moved, his nose was so swollen he had to breathe through his mouth. Every time Bucky mentioned fighting again, he shook his head. Not now. Maybe not ever.