He glanced at me, and I saw interest in his gold-flecked eyes for the first time. “What makes you say that?”

“Canelli had an opening twice in the fourth round and he didn’t follow it up either time. He’s too smart a fighter for that. But he was trying to get through the sixth and he couldn’t. At least that’s how it looked from my seat.”

“You ever box, Scudder?”

“Two fights at the Y when I was twelve or thirteen years old. Balloon gloves, protective headgear, two-minute rounds. I was too low and clumsy for it, I could never manage to land a punch.”

“You have an eye for the sport.”

“Well, I guess I’ve seen a lot of fights.”

He was silent for a moment. A cab cut us off and he braked smoothly, avoiding a collision. He didn’t swear or hit the horn. He said, “Canelli was set to go in the eighth. He was supposed to give the Kid his best fight until then, but not to get out in front or the knockout might not look right. That’s why he held back in round four.”

“But the Kid didn’t know it was set up.”

“Of course not. Most of his fights have been straight until tonight, but a fighter like Canelli could be dangerous to him, and why chance a bad mark on his record at this stage? He gains experience fighting Canelli and he gains confidence by beating him.” We were on Central Park West now, heading uptown. “The knockout was real. Canelli would have gone in the tank in the eighth, but we hoped the Kid might get us home early, and you saw him do that. What do you think of him?”

“He’s a comer.”

“I agree.”

“Sometimes he telegraphs the right. In the fourth round—”

“Yes,” he said. “They’ve worked with him on that. The problem is that he generally manages to get away with it.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have gotten by with it tonight. Not if Canelli had been looking to win.”

“Yes. Well, perhaps it’s as well that he wasn’t.”

We talked boxing until we got to 104th Street, where Chance turned the car around in a careful U-turn and pulled up next to a fire hydrant. He killed the motor but left the keys. “I’ll be right down,” he said, “after I’ve seen Sonya upstairs.”

She hadn’t said a word since she told me it was nice to meet me. He walked around the car and opened the door for her, and they strolled to the entrance of one of the two large apartment buildings that fronted on that block. I wrote the address in my notebook. In no more than five minutes he was back behind the wheel and we were heading downtown again.