I grinned back at him and then at Mrs. Charalambides.“I’ll lay you good money that the president of the AOC never came in this dump,” I said.

“Is he another dirty Jew?”

“I think we’d better leave,” said Mrs. Charalambides.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “It does smell kind of bad in here.”

The next second, he took a swing at me with his right, but I was ready for it, and his scarred fist whistled past the tip of my ear like a Hitler salute gone awry. He ought to have used the jab first—tested me out with it before throwing the kitchen sink my way. Now I knew everything there was to know about him—as a fighter, anyway. The man was made for the corner, not the ring. When I’d been a criminal commissar, I’d had a sergeant who was quite an accomplished pugilist, and he’d taught me one or two things. Enough to stay out of harm’s way. Half of winning any fight is not getting hit. The punch that had put August Krichbaum on a slab had been a lucky punch; or an unlucky one, depending on the way you looked at it. For that reason I hoped I could avoid hitting this man harder than he probably needed to be hit. He swung again and missed again. So far I was doing just fine.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Charalambides had the good sense to take several steps back and look embarrassed. That was how it seemed to me, anyway.

His third punch connected, but only just, like a flat stone landing on the surface of a lake. At the same time, he growled something that sounded like “Jew lover,” and for a moment I thought he might actually be right. I was damned if Mrs. Charalambides wasn’t very lovable indeed. And it angered me that she should have to witness this close-up display of rabid anti-Semitism.

I was also feeling a certain obligation to the small crowd that had stopped what they were doing in the gym to see what happened next. So I let go with a left jab to Primo’s nose. It brought him up short, as if he’d found a scorpion in his nightshirt pocket. A second demoralizing jab and then a third rocked his head on his shoulders like an old teddy bear’s.