Free Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole Page B

wrapped his hands. He warmed up for three rounds, then stretched. He went on to shadowbox, and after three rounds had broken into a good sweat. It felt good, his sweat steaming him, his body feeling oiled inside. He was ready to work the punch mitts, but Eloy was still at the hospital, so Chicky worked the big bag. He took it easy for two rounds, wanting tosave some gas for Eloy, still known around San Nacho as the Wolf, who hadn’t returned.
    Chicky cut loose, worked four hard rounds on the big bag, then went flat. He dogged it on the speed bag for two more rounds, painfully aware that he wasn’t in the shape he liked to be in. He forced himself through only two rounds on the jump rope, then did a hundred sit-ups in four sets of twenty-five. Ordinarily, he’d do five or six sets of thirty. No Eloy.
    Chicky showered quickly. He dried his close-cropped hair, then changed back into boots and jeans. Disappointed, and growing more concerned, he returned to the floor, which was nearly empty. Good fighters will go as many as fifteen, even twenty rounds nonstop in less than one and a half hours, then leave the gym promptly, no socializing. Chicky took a quick look around, nodded to the Cavazo brothers, Eloy’s former trainers, and then hurried out to check Fresita, but the pickup was gone. He’d known from experience what to expect, but tried not to believe it. He waited ten minutes in the dark, then gave up and reentered the gym. He crossed over to where the Cavazos were finishing up.
    “You seen my grandpa?” Chicky asked.
    Trini, the older of the brothers, said, “You need a ride?”
    Chicky said, “Naw, he’s late, that’s all.”
    Trini, the nickname for Trinity, as in the Holy Trinity, had also been known as Flash, but that was when he had a fine pro record of twenty-two and four, with sixteen KOs. Then the booze, the
chicas,
the gambling, and, finally, all the coke and the other shit he ingested made him a functioning addict. He thrived, became a dealer himself, and had maintained his habit for more than half his life. No street drugs for him, and none for what he referred to as his
GQ
customers, his uptown junkies.
    Trini was a “thoroughbred,” a dealer who sells only laboratory-pure narcotics. His current supplier was the civilian head of shipping and receiving at Lackland Air Force Base. Trini was able to obtain pharmaceutical-quality drugs for zip compared to their street value, and took the comfortable top piece of a 75–25 split. Trini’s previous contacthad been a pale old junkie pharmacist at Kelly Air Force Base, before it started closing down. Trini loved the flyboys. He loved to sing their song as he drove out through the gate with sealed cartons of morphine sulfate, codeine, Demerol, and Dilaudid in his taco wagon. Very few tacos were sold out of his gaudily painted vehicle, only enough to justify keeping his license and selling a few when he went on base. It gave him good cover, made him a familiar figure. Pearly rosary beads dangled from the rearview mirror, and the ragged fringe around his windows wiggled in the rushing wind, as he belted out
    Off we go, into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun!
Down we dive, spouting our flames from under,
La-la-laaaa la-la-la-laaaa!
    Trini never used a needle more than once. He would sometimes collect and toss them on a dope corner where junkies would pick them up and use them. Dumping his darts this way made him feel superior. He saw himself as a class act, the Cisco Kid of dope fiends. He ingested only the best, none of that street shit. He used Dilaudid if he was low on morphine, but preferred “Miss Emma.” Morphine didn’t give him heroin’s hilltop high, but that dirty brown street horse was too hard to ride, guns rode that nag, along with stumblebum spic violence, and there was AIDS in that saddle as well. Demerol had a market, but it took six times as much Demerol as morphine to get you where you wanted to be. Even though his stuff was