Read Online A Better Goodbye by John Schulian - Free Book Online Page A

Nick on a kitchen chair that he had turned around so he could prop his arms on its back.
    â€œI thought you were a big deal at the paper,” Nick said. “Columnist or something.”
    â€œUsed to be—you know how it goes.” Rigby looked like he had a sad story he wanted to tell, but thought better of it. “They’ve got me doing local stuff now, small colleges mostly. Some boxing too, except there aren’t many good fighters around anymore.”
    Nick shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention.”
    Rigby nodded, biding his time, hoping Nick would go on. But everything Nick might have said stayed in his head. There was no forgetting how Rigby had gone to bat for him back in Chicago, when his manager was fucking him over, making side deals with promoters. Even when Rigby moved to L.A., he stayed in touch, calling Nick every six months or so, covering himself in case the kid won a title. He called after the Burgess fight, too, but Nick never got back to him. Now Nick was watching Rigby fidget nervously under the weight of those years of silence.
    â€œI’d like to write about you,” Rigby said at last. “You know, after what happened the other day.”
    â€œThat’s old news, isn’t it?”
    â€œWhat was on the police blotter, yeah. But I was thinking there’s more to the story.”
    â€œLike human interest.”
    â€œExactly.”
    Nick could see Rigby getting confident. Pulling a notebook from the hip pocket of his jeans. Extracting the ballpoint he had clipped inside his shirt, between the second and third buttons. Looking at Nick with an expression that would have been condescending if it hadn’t been rooted in such obvious neediness.
    For all the time Nick had been away from it, the game between sports writers and their subjects remained the same. They used you, you used them, and everybody profited—unless, of course, they were tearing you a new asshole. But most fighters talked even then, forever rooted in poverty, beholden to the writers who might help them tunnel out to a better life. Hell, Rigby knew about Nick’s father stealing from him to keep a bookie’s leg-breakers at bay, and Nick’s mother walking out on his old man, and his kid brother Frankie getting shot to death when he tried to rob a chop shop. Rigby knew all the Pafko family secrets, which was why Nick could hardly believe it when he heard himself say, “Sorry, Andy. Not this time.”
    Rigby’s watery eyes looked ready to spill over. “Think about it. A story like this, it might help you. You never can tell.”
    â€œHelp someone else,” Nick said.

    Two days later Coyle was on the phone so early the Mexicans hadn’t even cranked up their radio yet. “You see the paper?” he asked.
    â€œWhat paper?” Nick said, fogged in by sleep.
    â€œThe one that says you’re some kind of hero. The fucking Times. ”
    â€œOh.” Nick had been afraid this would happen.
    â€œâ€˜Oh’ is right. As in ‘Oh, shit, this is going to get back to Mrs. Coyle somehow and she’s going to realize her loving husband has been fucking around again.’ Jesus Christ, you telling me you couldn’t have stopped this asshole reporter from writing about you?”
    â€œWhat did you want me to do, Coyle? Tie him up and throw him in the ocean?”
    â€œWell, he makes it sound like you’re old friends or something.”
    â€œI know him from Chicago, that’s all. Now let me ask you something: Is your name in the story?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo why are you bitching?”
    â€œI’m just—”
    â€œGo back to sleep.”
    â€œCan’t. I’m already at work.”
    â€œOkay, then I’ll go back to sleep.”
    Nick was about to hang up when Coyle said, “You don’t talk much about fighting. Were you really as good as that story says you were?”
    â€œHow would