Brewer tanked up on beer at the Tipperary Pub, brooding in the midst of laughter and banter. The clientele was largely Irish and largely middle-aged and elderly, from the apartments and rooming houses in the neighborhood.
There were signs on the wall; one with a huge shamrock said GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY, BRITAIN. Another was a poster with Bobby Sand’s face: REMEMBER ME. Along the bar, amid the smiling faces and the chat, were conspiratorial little knots of men: huddled heads, angry scowls, murmured words.
Brewer’s anger still smoldered, and the beer just made it worse, taking him down into the depths. He left.
As he walked back to his hotel, a woman’s voice from a dark doorway called to him. “Goodnight, Mr. Horny.”
He paused. Black, young, in a thin, flowered dress. “Like to see what twenty-five dollars will buy?” She undid the belt around her waist and held the dress open. He stepped into the doorway, counting out the money.
“Here,” she said. She pushed a long-necked beer bottle into his back pocket, then raised her right leg around his waist and hooked it on the bottle’s neck. “Welcome to the Ritz, baby. Seconds are free.” And she laughed throatily in his ear.
Later, when he stepped back, she said, “Take her easy, baby. Calm down. You don’t want to do any more time in that place.”
He paused and stared at her.
She smiled again. “Takes one to know one, honey.”
Brewer lay awake in the dark. The waiting was maddening: After two days, no one had attempted to shiv him yet.
At three in the morning a great thunderstorm struck. High winds caught up garbage cans and, with a great clatter, rolled them like tumbleweed down Second Avenue. The gutters were awash, and streaming rain carried summer’s litter into the sewers. The rain slashed at Brewer’s window, and the wind seethed at the pane. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in minutes.
Up at Sweetmeadow, the inmates, damp with sweat, would be cheering as that chilly air blew away the locked-in heat. Many hands would reach for blankets. A good sleep under the patter of an autumn rain. The simple pleasures of the poor.
Brewer recalled Jason Poole’s description of a rainstorm in the Maine woods that blew all the autumn leaves off the trees in minutes and dragged in winter’s killing frost behind it.
Faintly he could hear Jason Poole’s heels kicking the prison walls. Galloping in air, running away from life. That haunting sound.
In the morning, autumn weather was in the city. Brewer took a bus up to Central Park, then walked in to the little stone bridge and stared at the spot where he’d been arrested.
Cyclists and joggers passed by. And a horse-drawn carriage.
He placed his feet in the approximate place: There he had stood, on that roadway right about there, two years before in March.
It had been bitter cold. And he’d called Andy Marvel’s name. Many times. And the answering silence sent him to prison.
Brewer should have known better.
On that cold day, everything had been wrong. The meet had been set up by a guy that Brewer had never heard of before. A guy named Rumbh. He’d contacted Brewer in Rome by phone, so Brewer had no idea what he looked like and no means of checking his credentials. He could have been calling from anywhere in the world.
Still, this had happened before in Brewer’s career. Midnight phone calls, abrupt transfers halfway around the world to confiscate contraband arms, to pose as an arms buyer, to shadow and observe.
Rumbh had used the right code words. And he detailed the job with great authority, including Marvel’s role. Whoever he was, he was a pro, and he knew the innermost details of the System. He’d even sent Brewer a round-trip airline ticket to New York.
When Brewer had gotten to the park, Marvel wasn’t where he was supposed to be. In fact, Marvel wasn’t anywhere in sight. The meet was in the worst place, out in the open in the middle of Central Park in broad daylight. And this guy, the buyer, Giuseppe, was giving all the wrong vibrations.
Make the sale and make the bust: That’s what Rumbh had ordered. Money in one hand, cuffs in the other.
Following Rumbh’s instructions, Brewer had driven into Central Park at 72nd. He’d followed the serpentine roadway that was clogged with cabs taking a shortcut to the West Side. He turned right into a lane and followed it to a high-backed stone bridge arching over a dry rivulet. And there he stopped.
His breath was a damp white plume. Leaves of snow fell now and then from the dirty-gray March sky. In all directions the bare trees made a beige haze against the sky. Here and there the park showed green patches. Springtime in the wings waited for her cue.
He leaned against the rented car and waited.
A few minutes later, Giuseppe came rolling down the road in his dented and scraped green Volvo. “Ha,” he said as he got out. “Florida it ain’t. Would you believe snow on March twenty-third?”
Still no Marvel. No cops. No backups.
“You got my goodies for me?” Giuseppe crossed over to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
Brewer was looking at a man who was about to do three-to-five for arms violations.
He shook his head at Giuseppe. “Nah. The deal’s off.”
“Come on, cupcake. What kind of off? We got a deal and I got the cash.”
“Buy yourself a lollipop.”
“Hey, que pasa? You got something I want and I got something you want. So what’s with the lollipop?”
“Later.”
He saw Marvel. At last. Under the bridge. It was just a piece of him, part of his head and shoulder. And there was someone else down there too.
“There’s no later,” Giuseppe insisted. “Now. Deal now.”
Brewer shrugged. He made a beckoning motion to Giuseppe and watched the man pull a white teller’s envelope from his jacket pocket.
“Count it, champ.”
Brewer counted it and grunted. He took one long last look at Giuseppe. Coming up: a fall for Giuseppe of at least three-to-five for arms dealing. Still the vibrations were bad. He hesitated one last time. Instinct.
Then he walked to the trunk of his car and unlocked it. Giuseppe bent over and pulled back the olive-drab army blanket.
“There’s a dozen of them there, ha?” Giuseppe lifted one and grunted. “Sweet, sweet, sweet. Okay. You got a deal, Mr. Cupcake. Assume the position, please.”
Brewer was looking at an armed New York City detective.
“Oh, beautiful,” said Brewer. “Another screw-up.” He peered down under the bridge. “Hey, Marvel, get your ass up here.”
But the man who scrambled up the side of the embankment wasn’t Marvel. Whoever he was, he arrived with handcuffs. Behind him came a uniformed New York cop. They put the cuffs on him.
Now it was Brewer who was looking at three-to-five. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more.
Remembering in the midst of the autumn leaves, Brewer felt his rage rise again. He walked hastily away from the site. When he came down the lane to the road, he saw a parked cab abruptly start up. Through the back window he glimpsed a familiar Mediterranean face.
Every Thursday night at Slosberg’s Gym, the boxing committee put on a card of young comers, drawn mainly from the local talent pool—New York, north Jersey, occasionally Connecticut. Raw talent in varying stages of development. The bouts were three-rounders mostly, with head guards and heavy gloves so no one could get hurt.
This was far from the Olympics class. It wasn’t even at the Golden Gloves level, but for the dedicated fight fan it was always an interesting card: young kids, eager, still learning the basics of their trade. Lots of action, one quick three-round bout after another. This was the fight game’s own minor leagues and it had a large following.
There was always the chance you’d see a new Sugar Ray or Hagler in his first bout. That would be something to talk about.
“I seen the champ in his very first fight ever, and I pegged him then as a comer.”
Marvel’s brother Freddy loved the Thursday night fights al
most as much as he loved shooting pool and hustling the ponies. He never missed Slosberg’s Thursday night card.
So Brewer went there. He put on a big Spanish moustache and a baseball cap and mixed with the others.
There was a good crowd. It was a cool evening after all that heat, and everyone seemed glad to be out. They were all talking about a black kid from Bedford-Stuyvesant who had all the right moves. Eighteen he was, with a couple of years in the Police Athletic League. They said he already had a left jab that could drop an ox.
When the kid walked in, even in his street clothes, you could tell. You could see the way the head was screwed down on the neck—and the neck on the shoulders. He could take a punch, you could see that. And then there were the shoulder muscles and the legs.
He had the right build for throwing jabs. And they said he was a converted left-hander which figured too. Best of all, the crowd liked the look in the kid’s eyes. Young and naïve, skittish like a colt, but behind that the eyes of the hungry hunter. He would stay the course, that one.
What made it all the more interesting, he was slated to fight a Hispanic kid who had scored a first-round knockout in his last bout. Beat that: With a heavy glove and head guards he took out a guy with one punch, an overhand right smack on the button, and goodnight, Charlie.
It was a fight not to be missed by fans like Marvel’s brother. He was sure to show up.
The early bouts took place in rapid order. There were mistakes in every round, awkwardnesses, cross-footed jabs and hooks, headhunting without finesse, scores of missed punches, dumb right-hand leads—but there were sudden flashes of real talent, a beautifully executed combination finishing with a head-rocking straight punch that made the crowd yell.
Brewer hardly noticed.
The kid from Bed-Stuy came out in purple trunks. He stood dancing in his corner, shadowboxing in the Sugar Ray style. His opponent was a tank: a head like a cannonball and no neck. The shoulder muscles seemed to be rooted to his skull right behind the ears. The overstuffed gloves looked like mittens a size too small. He was just the type of street brawler that makes even the best boxers look bad.
The kid was overmatched.
The bell rang and the caller introduced the two fighters. Marvel’s brother was nowhere in sight. The two fighters went to their corners, whispering urgently to their handlers. The mouthpieces were shoved in and the bell rang.
The tank strode across the ring, upright and open as a crab, and threw a punch that the kid dodged, then threw six more, wild, without finesse, totally exposed to counterpunches. But the sixth one was a major-league ace that caught the kid flush on the jaw and rolled him like a pole along the ropes. The crowd yelled.
And Brewer saw Marvel’s brother, standing in shadow behind a heavy punching bag, peering out and shaking his fists in excited silent pantomime.
The kid pedaled, the tank charged, the crowd stood on its feet, and Brewer moved to the side toward the wall, working around to Marvel’s brother Freddy.
The kid danced, cleared his head, and turned to fight. But the tank was swarming all over him like surf. An experienced fighter would have known how to slip the punches, to roll, to straighten up that battering charging head, and to tear the tank’s face to pieces.
At the bell the crowd sat, and Brewer got a clear view of the punching bag. Marvel’s brother was gone.
Brewer skipped down the stairs.
The street was dark and empty. Slosberg’s was in the middle of the block, and even at a dead run Freddy Marvel couldn’t have made it to either corner. So he was hiding in a doorway. Or behind a car. Or in a car.
Brewer worked hastily down one side of the street, watching the shadows and peering into dark parked cars. Through the open windows of the gym two floors up, he could hear the crowd at ringside yelling. He heard the bell ring. And he heard the applause.
He didn’t find Marvel.
He turned and worked down the other side of the street, hearing the round bell and the renewed shouting. At the middle of the block he saw a figure in a doorway and paused. The Mediterranean undertaker’s man. They faced each other briefly and then Brewer went on.
The noise as he passed under the gym windows was one long bellow. At the end of the street he turned and looked back, just in time to see, all the way at the other end of the street, a shadowy figure dodging around the corner. It was undoubtedly Freddy Marvel. Brewer must have gone right by him.
The caller’s voice carried clearly as he awarded the decision to the tank. It must have been a drubbing; nobody booed the decision. And now the kid from Bedford-Stuyvesant would take his battered body home and wonder if he was really cut out for the fight game. A beating like that had driven many a man out of the ring before him.
Too bad about Marvel’s brother. It had been just the kind of fight he loved.
The next morning Brewer went down around the Bowery and found a pawnshop. For twenty-five dollars he bought an unclaimed segmented cue stick in a leather-trimmed case. He carried it back uptown and near Murray’s found a wino rooting through a trash Dumpster.
For five bucks the wino took the cue in its case and walked up the metal-edged steps of Murray’s and presented the case at the counter.
“For Mr. Marvel,” he said.
“I’ll take it,” said the counterman.
“Your ass is out. I have to give it to Mr. Marvel.”
The counterman told him Marvel’s address.
The wino carried the cue back down the stairs and through the streets at an eager shuffle. The five dollars was burning a hole in his pocket. Each time he passed a bar he turned and glanced back at Brewer following him, then hurried on.
He turned in at an old, battered brownstone apartment building, three stories with crooked blinds and potted plants in the windows. He dashed up the outside steps and into the vestibule and pushed a button. When the door buzzer went off, he flung it open and ran down a hall.
“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Me. I mean—I got a package for Mr. Marvel.”
“Put it under the door.”
“It won’t fit. It’s a cue stick.”
There was a murmured conversation behind the door. Then the door opened a few inches and a woman’s bare arm reached out. “I’ll take it.”
“Nah! This is an expensive stick. I have to give it to Mr. Marvel.”
The door swung open. “Come in,” the woman said. “And be quick about it. I’m not dressed.”
Brewer stepped into the room behind the messenger.
The woman gaped at him. All she had on was Marvel’s suit vest and a brown bath towel, which she had wrapped around her hips. Unbuttoned, the vest barely covered her large breasts, and the towel left a four-inch gap around her ample hips.
From the bed a tousle-haired man lay glaring sullenly at him.
“Hullo, Brewer.”
“Yeah.” Brewer took the cue stick and dropped it on the bed. “First prize for last night’s foot race. Where’s your brother?”
“That’s a funny question coming from you.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in Joliet.”
“What for?”
“What for, he says. For you! You set him up in Central Park. Three-to-five.”
The wino hurried toward his favorite bar with his five dollars. It was something between a trudge and a scurry but it quickly carried him down the street and around a corner, followed by his own long autumn shadow.
Brewer sat down on the brownstone steps. He had been trained all through his career to expect the unexpected. But here in his own personal affairs he’d been surprised.
Hour after hour, day after day, for more than two years he’d pictured himself finding Bobby Marvel and beating the truth out of him before dragging him to court to vindicate himself. And now it turned out that Marvel was in Joliet, sitting hour after hour, day after day, planning to club the truth out of Brewer.
He had to find Rumbh. The road to vindicat
ion led to a man he’d never seen and no one else had ever heard of. And for that he needed money and lots of free time. Years perhaps. He would have to make a career of finding Rumbh.
Meantime he had to find a job. It might just be that he would go to his grave, embittered and furious, his entire life blighted, haunted by that voice on the telephone. And never finding it.
Meantime, he waited for someone to try to kill him. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Brewer stood up. At least he wasn’t in Marvel’s boat—in prison on a bum rap while his wife, in a vest and a towel, is screwing his own brother.
He had to assess his situation. So, up the street from Marvel’s apartment he bought a News, went into a bar, and ordered a double with a beer.
The first thing he did was count his money. In his pocket and in his checkbook. Enough for a couple of months. Four or five weeks more likely.
So.
No money. No way of clearing himself. No moves on the board. An unemployed ex-con on the dodge, expecting someone to try to kill him.
He opened the newspaper and read the classifieds. But there was no job there for him.
On the margin of the newspaper he penned an ad. Situation Wanted: Ex-con, ex-government agent Specialist in illicit high-tech arms smuggling. No reasonable offer refused.
All his expectations had focused on one event: getting the truth out of Marvel. And now the bottom had dropped out of that plan. He saw no other moves on his board. He heard the soft padding paws of Despair approach.
Life was snickering at him. He looked at the rows and rows of bottles, lined up like an audience in a theater, come to laugh at the great fool Brewer. Innocent. Framed. Ruined. Show me the man who did this to me. Point him out. God deliver him into my hands.
Brewer tossed off the double, then grasped the empty shot glass in his palm. Target practice; his eyes selected a half-empty bottle of Old Fitz whiskey on the upper row. Two for one: The shot glass would smash the bottle and the mirror behind it.
A figure blocked the light from the door.
“Mr. Brewer?” The undertaker’s man, come for the body. “May I have a word with you?”
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