Call Me Hunter by Jim Shockey

Author:Jim Shockey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2023-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

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They walked like they owned the world, long bathrobes open, untied, tiny bathing suits doing little more than providing the minimum amount of modesty legally required in public. They really were gods. Zhivago considered the blond one walking by him. He was tall, but the Hungarian was taller than he was, and the athlete didn’t have Zhivago’s barreled-out chest and bloated paunch. Nor was the athlete hirsute like Zhivago; his skin was smooth and tanned and he was built like a gladiator.

It was the smile that told the most about the player. It had a confidence that only those who possessed everything had the right to. This was Gabor Csapo, a defender on the Hungarian team with the good looks of a Hollywood actor.

Zhivago made sure he was in place when the game ended and the two teams, the Hungarians and the Yugoslavs, left the water to walk down the pool deck, headed for their respective changing rooms. The Hungarian No. 10 walked by then, wearing the white cap he’d worn in the water, the only uniform water polo players wore. His hair was long, unusual behind the Iron Curtain, and even more surprisingly, he wore an earring in one earlobe. He was the crowd favorite, Farago.

Built like the first player who walked by, he did not have the features of anyone from Hollywood; instead the Hungarian’s features were those of an Aztec. Curious morphology, Zhivago thought to himself, seven thousand miles away from any possible Aztec antecedents and two feet taller than the tallest “Indio.” The next player was even more impressive, towering over the first two. Dr. Istvan Szivos, the man who played the center position on the team, was a giant, easily over seven feet tall. He’d scored two goals against the Yugoslavs.

The crowd was on its feet then, clapping for their winning team as the athletes walked in a line down the deck. The Cuban team, lined up as well, walked in the opposite direction. They were playing the Canadians next and passed by the Hungarians as close as was necessary on the narrow pool deck, but not one fraction of an inch closer. To any behavioralist watching, they were like two groups of apex predators meeting at a water hole. Both teams knew it was highly probable that they would meet in the final match.

The Cuban team ran the color gambit from Spanish olive to Nilotic black and it was that team Zhivago was far more interested in. The hulking player leading the team down the deck, toward their end of the pool, was of particular interest. Jesus Perez; sculpted body, black, and 250 pounds of rippling muscle, his six-foot, four-inch frame glistening under the hot afternoon Buda sun. It was a body honed to perfection from years of training in the pool.

It wasn’t the training in the pool that interested Zhivago. It was the years Jesus trained in the boxing ring. The multitalented athlete now leading the Cuban team to their staging

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