Fight Card: CAN'T MISS CONTENDER

by Jack Tunney

  Krupa appeared wobbly as he rose to his feet, but he beat the count. He told the ref he was fine and staggered forward, banging his gloves together.

  He didn’t fool anyone. I could tell Krupa was fighting on instinct. He didn’t have anything else left.

  I learned a long time ago you had to be a shark. When you had a guy hurt, you went for the kill.

  Krupa came at me with a right, trying to stick it in my face, but it barely made a difference. I charged across the ring and unleashed everything I had. I threw combinations of lefts and rights. It was like working the body bag in the YMCA. He kept his gloves in front of his face, so I pounded punches to his gut, then pummeled his head with lefts and right hooks when he dropped his elbows. I hit him so hard with one of my body shots, I felt a rib crack, then another one when I banged my fist into his other side.

  I pulled his gloves away from his face and slammed my fist into his mouth. Once. Twice. Then a third time before he got a hand up to protect himself.

  He reached out to grab me and wrestled me to the center of the ring. I slammed a succession of uppercuts to his chin then pounded a right to his forehead. Krupa’s head was jerked backward with each blow, and blood from his mouth splattered my face and chest.

  Krupa tried moving, but his feet got in the way.

  As he twisted and turned, I rained another combination of lefts and rights to the head. There were so many, even I lost count. Finally he staggered backward against the ropes with his hands dropping lower and his eyes glazed.

  I slammed a hard left to his temple that put him down on the canvas again. It was the best punch I had thrown in two years. This time he was so far gone the referee could have counted to one hundred and he wouldn’t have gotten up.

  No way he was getting to his feet.

  Sugar Ray Robinson would have been down for the count if he got hit by a punch like that.

  ROUND FIFTEEN

  I always slept peacefully on nights after my fights. This night was no different. It was lights out as soon as I hit the pillow. My head was filled with dreams about middleweight contenders, a pretty girl named Sally, and hot rods with V-8 engines. I thought I heard a phone ring, but it was nothing that disturbed my sleep, until a few minutes later when there was a soft knock on my door.

  “Billy?” Mrs. Lester said quietly. “Sorry to wake you, but there’s a phone call.”

  It was way too early, even for a Sunday.

  I made my way downstairs. The pleasant aroma of bacon and eggs came from the kitchen and, as I reached for the phone, Mrs. Lester handed me a cup of coffee, just the way I liked it. I gave her a smile and a thumbs up.

  “Hey Buddy,” Donny Wayne’s voice boomed. “Time to get your lazy butt out of bed.”

  “It’s Sunday morning. Do you know what time it is?”

  “Don’t have a cow. Things to do,” he said. “Big Mike wants to sit down with you.”

  “What for?”

  “Said it’s time to talk about the Johnny Diamond fight,” Donny Wayne said. “He wants you to drive up to see him today. Give you a chance to talk about your future.”

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t need the coffee to wake up any more. “When?”

  “Come by his place around one,” Donny Wayne said. “Think you can leave that little Ozzie and Harriet slice of heaven down there?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “Good,” Donny Wayne said. “Because this is your shot. You play ball with him and he’s gonna make things happen for you.” I could hear his smirk down the line as he added, “Don’t be late.”

  As soon as it was a respectable time, I called Sally to let her know what was going on, and tell her not to look for me at church.

  “Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck,” I said. “And ask your Mom to save me some of that Sunday pot roast.”

  I brushed off my suit and tie, smoothed out the wrinkles, and drove the ninety miles north on 55. My right hand ached. I must have hurt it banging it so many times into Krupa’s thick head. Afterward, I had soaked it in a bucket of ice water until it was numb. It felt better, but I could still feel the fingers stiffening as I gripped the steering wheel.

  The Cardinals were playing a doubleheader against the Dodgers in LA, so there were plenty of parking spots. Still hard to believe the Dodgers left Brooklyn. It was just something else that changed while I was inside.

  Donny Wayne was waiting outside the liquor store. He paced back and forth like an expectant father and, when I pulled into a parking space, he raced over to the car.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  I shook my head as I got out of the Mercury. “I’m right on time.”

  The same old guy was at the counter, reading a morning edition of the paper and chewing a doughnut. He didn’t even look up this time as we made our way to the back of the liquor store.

  Big Mike’s office hadn’t changed in months. It looked like the same papers were stacked in piles and scattered everywhere.

  “How you doing kid?” he asked. “Enjoying life in the outside world?”

  I told him what he wanted to hear – how I appreciated the little things like good meals, Coca-Cola, and seeing the sun without bars blocking my view. How it felt to have a second chance. Guys like Big Mike who never spent a minute behind bars didn’t understand what it was like to lose everything, but I acted like he did.

  “Heard you had some fights,” he said, and I nodded. “A kid like you needs to keep at it. You got to build your reputation and make a name for yourself again. That’s how it’s done.”

  “Doing my best,” I told him.

  “Heard you put on quite a show last night,” Big Mike said. “Maybe you knocked out a palooka in the second round, but you need some serious action,” he said. “You ain’t gonna find it fighting those tomato cans down at the VFW. You need a fight that’ll make people stand up and take notice.”

  “I want Johnny Diamond,” I said. “That’ll get people to notice.”

  Big Mike bared a mouthful of teeth, like a shark circling fish. “The kid don’t hold nothing back,” he said to the goons flanking him. “Same as before. Just comes right out with it.”

  “Moxy,” the thug on his left muttered.

  “Something like that,” the other one said. “Got brass.”

  “Just telling you what I want,” I said.

  “I like you. Always have,” Big Mike said. “Know you and Donny Wayne here go back a couple of years and got history. You got a bad break and I want to help you.”

  Big Mike looked at me, smiling the whole time. I stared back and waited.

  “I got you the fight against Diamond,” he finally said. “Johnny had a fight scheduled, but the pug backed out and left him hanging. Got an opening I need to fill.”

  “Need a trainer I trust in my corner,” I said. “Somebody I know from The Walls. Guy named Muldoon.”

  One of the thugs frowned. “That old-timer? Heard he had problems in KC.”

  “Guy’s ancient. Been out of the game a long time. He got anything left?”

  “I want him in my corner,” I said.

  “Got a fight at the Barn, a week before Halloween,” Big Mike said. “Gonna be a Friday night card with Sonny Liston headlining. Got him a rematch against Bert Whitehurst.”

  “I saw that first fight,” Donny Wayne said. “You see it? It was pretty good.”

  I shook my head as Big Mike kept going. “Sonny’s been on a roll all year. If he gets through Whitehurst again, he’s got another bout down in Miami in November,” he said. “Got a lot of people coming in for this. We got big plans for Sonny.”

  He looked at me, but gave nothing away beyond his shark-like smile. “A spot on the undercard will be good,” he said. “It’ll get you attention. Get you press. Get your name in the papers.”

  “What’s it gonna cost?” I asked.

  Donny Wayne kicked me in the ankle and shot me a look, but Big Mike kept smiling. “Gonna need you to give me another fig
ht after this one,” he said without missing a beat. “And thirty-five percent management fee.”

  That was steep, especially since I’d have to pay a trainer out of my cut, along with expenses. And I’d be tied to Big Mike for another fight.

  But it was Johnny Diamond. A top ten contender.

  I was willing to do anything, even fight for free if it got me the fight.

  “Got one more thing,” Big Mike said.

  “Got something going with your pal, here,” he said, nodding towards Donny Wayne. “Need somebody who knows a thing or two about cars to help us out.”

  “About fixing them?”

  “About driving them,” he said. “Need you to play ball with me on a job.”

  “That didn’t work out so well for me last time,” I said.

  “This is different,” Donny Wayne said quickly. “It’s not like before. Not the same kind of job.”

  “I’m doing you a favor and getting you this fight,” Big Mike said. “I need you to do me a favor and help out.”

  I took a deep breath as the knot in my stomach twisted. Felt Donny Wayne’s stare burning a hole in the side of my head while he waited for an answer. Nothing good could come out of anything they had cooking. But it was Johnny Diamond. I needed that fight.

  “What do you say, kid?”

  I looked across the desk at Big Mike. I was smarter now. No way I would make the same mistakes this time.

  “Put Johnny Diamond’s name on a contract,” I said, “and you got a deal.”

  ***

  “Can you trust him?” Sally asked.

  I shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “I can’t trust either one of them. But I need this fight, so I got to do this.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  I shrugged and kept walking. Holding her hand tightly in mine. It was early Sunday evening and all the stores on Main Street were closed, but we didn’t care about shopping. A light rain fell, but we didn’t mind that either. I’d gone straight to Sally’s house when I got back from St. Louis.

  I told her all about the meeting with Big Mike. There were no secrets between us.

  But I didn’t mention anything about helping Donny Wayne or doing what Big Mike wanted. I couldn’t tell her everything if I didn’t know all the details.

  “I need to do this,” I said. “I have to take the risk. It’s Johnny Diamond.”

  “What if something goes wrong?”

  “I’m sending Muldoon a letter tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll ask him to come here and help me train when he gets out. We’re tight. He’ll watch my back.”

  “I’m still worried,” Sally said.

  I kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said.

  “I’m not stupid enough to do the same things I did three years ago,” I said. “I learned my lesson.”

  “That Donny Wayne is bad news,” Sally said.

  “He’s the same guy he’s always been,” I said. “When it all went south last time, he was nowhere to be found. Like all those guys who said they were friends, but disappeared.”

  Sally nuzzled her face into my neck. “I don’t want you to go away.”

  “It won’t happen,” I said. “I’m never going back to jail. I got too much to lose.”

  Sally smiled and pulled me closer. “Good,” she said. “I love having you here.”

  ROUND SIXTEEN

  I kept training while I waited for Muldoon to show up in Flat River. He had been scheduled for release at the beginning of September. I figured my letter would get to him before then, although, there were no guarantees. Mail didn’t move quickly in prison. I knew I should have written sooner.

  I wanted him working my corner. He knew me. He knew my style and how I fought. Muldoon could see more things inside one round than most guys could figure out in ten.

  There was nobody better.

  I hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Classes at the community college started in early September. That meant Sally was back in school, splitting time between work and class. Those summer nights, holding hands and sharing kisses under the stars became a thing of the past. Time turned into my enemy – there was just too much of it to fill. On nights when I knocked off early, I had tons of free time on my hands.

  It was early evening. I sat on Mrs. Lester’s front porch, reading the latest copy of Hot Road, as she came up the walk.

  “Evening, Mrs. Lester,” I said. “Hope you had a good day.”

  She wore her usual smile, tired but warm. “It’s been a couple of months, Billy,” she said. “You don’t have to call me, Mrs. Lester. You can call me Nancy, just like everybody else.”

  I shook my head. “That wouldn’t feel right.”

  She nodded and sat down next to me. “Had some young man by the diner today, asking about you,” she said. “He didn’t tell me his name. Didn’t say what he wanted, but I didn’t like the looks of him,” she said softly. “Didn’t have a real good feeling about what he was up to.”

  “Not to worry,” I told her. “Probably nobody important.”

  A couple of nights later, I was walking home from the YMCA when I heard the low rumble of a big block engine behind me. I knew it was Donny Wayne. He loved cars you could hear coming a mile away.

  A ’55 Chevy Bel Air rumbled alongside me.

  Donny Wayne turned down KMOX and shot me that grin. “Need you to take a ride with me, old buddy.”

  “I’m on my way home,” I said. “I’m tired. Been busting my butt all day.”

  He reached across the seat and opened the door. “Get in, pard,” he said. “Can’t take no for an answer. Not tonight.”

  I shook my head. “Got plans,” I lied.

  “Gonna have to change them,” Donny Wayne said. “We need to take a ride up to Jeff County. Time to get busy with that thing Big Mike wants us to do.”

  I tossed my gym bag in the back seat and got in.

  ***

  It was past eight when we pulled into a little town called Arnold. Until then, Arnold had only been a dot on the map, an inch below St. Louis. Along the way, I peppered Donny Wayne with questions, but he clammed up. The only thing he said was that he’d tell me everything once we got where we were going.

  Donny Wayne drove the Chevy slowly past the downtown Woolworth’s, turned a couple of corners, and swung into a narrow alley behind the store. He cut the lights and pulled off to the side, parking behind a row of trash cans. We sat in the car and eyed a door at the rear of the store.

  “So?” I asked. “What are we doing here?”

  Donny Wayne nodded towards the store.”

  “Woolworth’s,” he said. “It’s an easy job.”

  I knew a hundred guys who got sent away because their easy job didn’t work out the way they planned.

  “This is different,” he said. “It’s an inside job.”

  I knew another hundred guys who could tell me that story, too.

  Donny Wayne shook his head. “It ain’t like that,” he said. “There’s this nerd who works the lunch counter. Got a money problem. He’s into Big Mike for a couple of grand and Big Mike’s tired of waiting to get his money back.”

  “I’m not muscling some guy who owes Big Mike money,” I said. “I don’t do stuff like that.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  Donny Wayne kept giving me that grin, like he had the answer to a secret nobody else had figured out. In that moment I was tempted to sock him in the jaw and get out of the car.

  “This is an easy job,” he said again.

  “Do you know anything else about the job?” I asked. “Other than it’s easy?”

  “We’re gonna knock off the Woolworth’s.”

  I stared at him.

  “The place is a gold mine,” he said. “Place does a ton of business all day.”

  “At the end of the day, they take the money from the cash registers to the office,” he added. “On a good day, they take a couple
of grand to the bank after the manager counts it. The best part is that most weekends the manager don’t always make the deposit. All that money just sits there.”

  “Why doesn’t he go to the bank on Saturday?”

  Donny Wayne’s grin grew wider. “The guy has a girl on the side,” he said. “His wife don’t know about it because he only sees her Saturday nights while the wife goes to church.”

  “Church on Saturday night?”

  He shrugged. “Not real church,” he said. “Some kind of prayer group or Bible study. Saturday nights the manager tears out to go see his girl while the wife is praying and singing. Makes one big deposit on Monday night instead.”

  I sat back and closed my eyes. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We hit ‘em on a Monday night,” Donny Wayne said. “Our guy will be the last one out. He’ll make sure the back door’s unlocked. We’ll walk in there and take the money. It’s as easy as that.”

  I opened my eyes and turned to face him.

  “That has got to be the stupidest plan I ever heard,” I said. “You’re telling me we’re just walking through an unlocked door and taking the cash? There are no cops? No guards? Nobody to stop us?”

  Donny Wayne kept grinning. “Turns out the manager’s a real tightwad. Don’t like to spend a dime on nothing,” he said. “He acts like the money belongs to him, instead of Mr. Woolworth. Won’t pay a penny for guards.”

  “The store closes at eight. By eight-thirty all the employees leave,” Donny Wayne said. “Nine o’clock the cops arrive. It never changes.”

  “What’s in it for us?”

  Donny Wayne kept grinning. “We get half. You know how much that could be?”

  We sat in the car, staring at the back door. I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong, how nothing ever worked the way it was planned. The Walls was filled guys who thought they outsmarted everyone else. Plans and schemes that never panned out. After a couple of minutes, the back door opened and a group of people streamed out in different directions.”