His head jerked to the side as Ruttman’s right hand caught him on the jaw. Ruttman hit him in the midsection with a short ripping left that caused him to double up, then straightened him with a long left, then another right to the jaw, setting him up now, gauging him, sort of propping him there, and then winding it up and sending it in, a package of thunder that became a flashing, blinding streak of light going up from his chin to his brain. He sailed back and went down like a falling plank and rolled over on his face.
The onlookers stood motionless for several moments. Then a few stevedores moved forward to join Ruttman, who was bending over Kerrigan and muttering, “He’s out. He’s out cold.”
“Is he breathing?”
“He’s all right,” Ruttman said.
They turned Kerrigan over so that he rested on his back. For a few seconds they were silent, just staring at his face.
His eyes were closed, but the men weren’t looking at his eyes. They were watching his mouth.
“He’s smiling,” one of them said. “Look at this crazy bastard. What’s he got to smile about?”
Kerrigan was deep in the soothing darkness and far away from everything, yet his blacked-out brain was speaking to him, smiling and saying derisively, You damn fool.
8
They lifted Kerrigan and carried him into the pier office and put him on a battered leather sofa in the dusty back room that was used for infirmary purposes. They splashed water in his face and worked some whisky down his throat, and within a few minutes he was sitting up and accepting a cigarette from Ruttman. He took a long drag and smiled amiably at the dock foreman.