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too.
    “What you going to do, Fro, you find the hobo that hassed him?” Major said.
    “One way to find out,” Hawk said.
    Major turned and grinned at the audience. Then he looked at the big kid next to him. “John Porter, you do that?”
    John Porter said “Ya,” which was probably half the things John Porter could say. From his small dark eyes no gleam of intelligence shone.
    “There be your man, Fro,” Major said. “Lass time you mace him, he say you sucker him. He ain’t ready, he say.”
    Hawk grinned. “That right, John Porter?”
    The cork was going to pop. There was no way that it wouldn’t. Without moving my head I kept a peripheral fix on the van door.
    John Porter said, “Ya.”
    “You ready now, John Porter?” Hawk said.
    John Porter obviously was ready now. His knees were flexed, his shoulders hunched up a little. He had his chin tucked in behind his left shoulder. There was some scar tissue around his right eye. There was the scar along his jawline, and his nose looked as if it had thickened. Maybe boxed a little. Probably a lot of fights in prison.
    “Care to even things up for the sucker punch?” Hawk said.
    “John Porter say he gon whang yo ass, Fro,” Major said. “First chance he get.”
    The laughter still skittered around the edges of everything Major said. But his voice was tauter now than it had been.
    “Right, John Porter?” Major said.
    John Porter nodded. His eyes reminded me of the eyes of a Cape buffalo I’d seen once in the San Diego Zoo. He kept his stare on Hawk. It was what the gang kids called mad-dogging. Hawk’s grin got wider and friendlier.
    “Well, John Porter,” Hawk said, friendly as a Bible salesman. “You right ‘bout that sucker punch. And being as how you a brother and all, I’ll let you sucker me. Go on ahead and lay one upside my head, and that way we start out even, should anything, ah, develop.”
    John Porter looked at Major.
    “Go on, John Porter, do what the man say. Put a charge on his head, Homes.”
    John Porter was giving this some thought, which was clearly hard for him. Was there some sort of trickery here?
    “Come on, John Porter,” Major said. “Man, you can’t fickle on me now. You tol me you going to crate this Thompson first chance. You tol me that, Homes.” In everything Major said there was derision.
    John Porter put out a decent overhand left at Hawk, which missed. Hawk didn’t seem to do anything, but the punch missed his chin by a quarter of an inch. John Porter had done some boxing. He shuffled in behind the left with a right cross, which also missed by a quarter of an inch. John Porter began to lose form. He lunged and Hawk stepped aside and John Porter had to scramble to keep his balance.
    “See, the thing is,” Hawk said, “you’re in over your head, John Porter. You don’t know what you are dealing with here.”
    John Porter rushed at Hawk this time, and Hawk moved effortlessly out of the way. John Porter was starting to puff. He wasn’t quite chasing Hawk yet. He had enough ring savvy left to know that you could get your clock cleaned by a Boy Scout if you started chasing him incautiously. But chasing Hawk cautiously wasn’t working. John Porter had been trained, probably in some jailhouse boxing program, in the way to fight with his fists. And it wasn’t working. It had probably nearly always worked. He was 6’2“ and probably weighed 240, and all of it muscle. He might not have lost a fight since the fourth grade. Maybe never. But he was losing this one and the guy wasn’t even fighting. John Porter didn’t get it. He stopped, his hands still up, puffing a little, and squinted at Hawk.
    “What you doing?” he said.
    Major stepped behind John Porter and kicked him in the butt.
    “You fry him, John Porter, and you do it now,” Major said.
    There was no derision in Major’s voice.
    “He can’t,” Hawk said, not unkindly.
    John Porter made a sudden sweep at Hawk with his right hand and missed. The side