Eye in the Ring

by Robert J. Randisi

  Books by Robert J. Randisi

  Nick Delvecchio Novels

  The End of Brooklyn *

  The Dead of Brooklyn

  No Exit from Brooklyn

  Miles Jacoby Novels

  Eye in the Ring *

  Beaten to a Pulp *

  Full Contact *

  Separate Cases *

  Hard Look *

  Stand-Up *

  Other Novels

  The Bottom of Every Bottle *

  Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

  Luck Be a Lady, Don’t Die

  Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime

  Alone With the Dead

  Arch Angels

  East of the Arch

  Blood on the Arch

  In the Shadow of the Arch

  Short Stories

  The Guilt Edge *

  Anthologies (Editor)

  The Shamus Winner Volume I (1982-1995) *

  The Shamus Winners Volume II (1996-2009) *

  *Published by Perfect Crime Books

  EYE IN THE RING. Copyright © 2012, 1982 by Robert J. Randisi. Afterword Copyright © 2012 by Robert J. Randisi. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored by any means without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Crime@PerfectCrimeBooks.com.

  Perfect Crime BooksTM is a registered Trademark.

  Cover by Christopher Mills.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, entities and institutions are products of the Author’s imagination and do not refer to actual persons, entities, or institutions.

  Perfect Crime Books Trade Paperback Edition

  July 2012

  Kindle Edition July 2012

  This one is for Anna and Christopher,

  in recognition of their patience and understanding.

  And for my favorite TV eyes: Harry Orwell,

  David Ross, John McGill and Thomas Magnum.

  And for Dominick, who knew

  how to end it and how to sell it.

  Chapter One

  My left eye had fallen out of my head and was rolling around on the canvas somewhere. I hoped that neither I nor my opponent would step on it and squish it. They were doing wonders reattaching loose parts these days.

  Actually, it hadn’t really fallen out, but for all the good it was doing me in that ring at the time, it might just as well have. The simple truth of the matter was that it was the eighth round of a ten-round fight and my opponent’s jab—he was a southpaw—had been working on that eye for so long that the damned thing had closed up tight on me and I was fighting half blind.

  When the bell ending the eighth round sounded I groped my way back to my corner and sat down heavily on my stool. My brother hopped into the ring and began working on me. The ring doctor leaned over and took a look at my eye.

  “If it was earlier in the fight, I’d stop it right now,” he told us and the referee, who was also inspecting my eye now.

  “You can’t stop it now,” my brother Benny yelled at them.

  Why not? I almost asked, but Benny would never have forgiven me.

  Both men backed away, and when I knew they couldn’t hear me I asked Benny, “Is it cut?”

  “No, it ain’t cut,” he told me, “but it’s shut tight. You want me to stop it?”

  “Shit no,” I said, which was just what he wanted to hear. “I’ve got him right where I want him; now all I have to do is find where that is. Point me in the right direction, will you?”

  “Listen, somebody in the fifth row noticed something,” he told me, leaning closer to me.

  “I’m losing?”

  “Shut up and listen, will ya? When he jabs he drops his left. You got that?”

  “Yeah, jabs, drops left. So?”

  I knew that already, I just hadn’t been able to tee off in time to capitalize on it. That was my problem the whole night, more than anything else. I just couldn’t seem to get off, get started.

  “Well, here’s something else. When he jabs you, count one-two, just like that, and then throw your right and follow with a left. Have you got that?”

  I took a mouthful of water, spit it out and nodded.

  “Say it!” he insisted, vigorously rubbing my arms and chest.

  “Okay, okay, I count one-two, just like that, throw right and follow with left, Benny?”

  “What?”

  “You seen my eye anywhere?”

  The buzzer sounded and he said, “Just don’t forget to count, okay? We’ll buy you a new eye out of the purse!” He got out of the ring and I stood, waiting for the bell. When it rang I ran out to the center of the ring, right into another jab. It jarred me and sent my mouthpiece to the canvas.

  My opponent was taller than me, and he had a longer reach; but I was still determined to be the aggressor, as I usually was in my fights. Sometimes you can swing a round, just by being aggressive.

  I bore in on him, and he threw that damned jab again, catching me flush on the eye. It split then, I knew it split, and the blood started to run down my face. I knew if I didn’t catch him this round, the doc and the ref wouldn’t let me come out for the tenth.

  “Count, damn it!” I heard Benny yell. I said, “Shit,” to myself, and he threw the jab again. I counted one-two and threw my right. It caught him right on the cheek, and I was so shocked that I forgot to throw the follow-up left.

  “The left, the left!” Benny was yelling, sounding like a crazy man, which I sometimes thought he was.

  I bore in again, took the jab, counted, and threw the right-left combo. They both landed and shook the guy up. Every time he threw that jab, I nailed him again, right-left. I started swinging harder and harder. I had to get to him before they stopped the fight because of my cut.

  I spit out the blood that was flowing into my mouth and bulled him into his own corner. He threw a weak, defensive jab now, all the snap gone from it, and I swung from the heels, first the right, then the left. His knees sagged, and I swung again, right, then left, then the right, then the left . . .

  He fell down as I was throwing a hard right, and I missed and almost went down on top of him. The crowd was screaming and yelling, and the ref pushed me away to a neutral corner. I staggered to it and waited while he counted, “. . . eight . . . nine . . . ten.”

  It was over.

  My brother was in the ring, saying, “Can you hear me? Can you see me?” He was holding a towel tightly to my cut eye, so how the fuck could I see him, I wanted to ask.

  “I won,” I told him proudly. “I won the fuckin’ fight!”

  “No shit,” he said.

  They moved me to the center of the ring, and the ring announcer was shouting into his microphone, “The winner by a knockout—Kid Jacoby!”

  Chapter Two

  The next morning my face hurt like hell.

  The eye was not as swollen, but it was still half shut—and it had taken twelve stiches to close the gash. I had never gotten so marked up during a fight before, but then I had never fought a southpaw before, either.

  When I shaved I tried not to look at my face, so as a result I cut myself twice—like I could spare the blood, right?

  As I was dressing the phone rang.

  “Jack?” a voice asked. It was Eddie Waters, the guy I worked for part-time, when I wasn’t fighting.

  “Yeah, Eddie?”

  “Today’s the day, Jack. You comin’ in?”

  That surprised me. Today was the day, huh. I had forgotten all about it.

  “I’ll be in after breakfast, Eddie. Thanks.”

  I had the same breakfast I always have the day after a fight: steak, eggs, hash browns, coffee, toast and grapefruit j
uice. After that I went to Eddie’s office at Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street.

  His office was on the fifth floor, and the lettering on the door said Waters Investigations. Underneath that it said Edward F. Waters.

  I had been working part-time for Eddie for the past three years. Today was my third anniversary. It was also the day I qualified for a license of my own, which had been the whole purpose of working for Eddie in the first place.

  I walked right in.

  “You won?” Missy asked as I entered. Her tone said plainly that I didn’t look the way a winner is supposed to look.

  “Hard to believe, huh? Is Eddie in?”

  “Yeah, he’s been waiting for you.”

  Missy had been Eddie’s secretary and Gal Friday for the past five years. She was about twenty-eight now and still as pretty as an eighteen-year-old. Red hair, green eyes and a body that won’t stop. It won’t start either—with me, anyway. Lord knows I tried often enough, but she says she doesn’t like fighters. Florists are more her speed. At least, the guy she was seeing now was a florist.

  No accounting for taste.

  I walked into Eddie’s office after a quick here-I-come knock on the door.

  “Hi, Jack. Congrats on another stylish win,” he said, smiling broadly.

  “I ain’t pretty, but I gets the job done,” I told him in a pug voice.

  “Seriously, what’s your record now?” he asked.

  “Twelve and two,” I told him. I needed that win last night. After starting out ten and oh in my first ten fights, I had now split my last four bouts. My style had cost me two bouts, because I’m a brawler and two boxers had beaten me on points. After last night’s debacle, I was going to have to give some serious thought to a change of styles.

  “I gotta admire you, Miles. I didn’t think you’d last as long as you have.”

  Eddie had always felt that I started too late to make anything of myself in the fight game. Three years ago I had started working for him the same week I had my first fight. I was twenty-four. Most fighters have been fighting ten years by the time they reach that age. Twenty-four is old to start any sport; but I’d had fourteen fights up until this point, and I hadn’t lost one until earlier this year. I followed that with a knockout win, then lost again on a split decision. I followed that by taking on that southpaw last night. I won that fight, but I had help.

  Somebody in the fifth row.

  “Here,” Eddie said, handing me a brown business-size envelope. I opened it and took out my brand-new private investigator’s license.

  “I jumped the gun a little,” he confessed, “so I’d have it for you today. I filled in the hours on your application and submitted it.” He extended his hand and said, “Welcome to the club.”

  I shook his hand and put the license in my pocket.

  “You don’t look overjoyed,” he observed.

  “I guess three years of process serving, tail jobs and runaway husbands have sort of dampened my enthusiasm.”

  “I told you in the beginning that it wasn’t a glamour racket, Miles.” He only called me “Miles” when he was dead serious, otherwise, as with most people I was friendly with, he called me “Jack.” As a rule, only people who didn’t know me well call me by my proper name, with the exceptions of Benny and his wife, Julie. Benny has always called me Miles, since we were kids, and Julie calls me Miles because it kind of keeps a space between us and reminds us that we are sister and brother-in-law.

  “I know, I remember,” I said, replying to his remark.

  Eddie was about forty-five, now. He’d been a cop for ten years before going out on his own. Now he was a private investigator and had been for fourteen years. He still enjoyed the racket. He was his own man, and that had been what he was after he left the department. His hair was starting to thin out now, but his face was the same, open and trusting. It was his greatest weapon.

  We had met through a mutual friend, and I had mentioned wanting to get into his game. He agreed to take me on for the required three years so I could get my license. After that, he said, we’d talk.

  Now it was time, and I didn’t want to talk. Not just yet. I wasn’t ready.

  I touched my wallet where my license now reposed and thought, Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it? The same could be said for my record as a fighter. Now that I was 12-2, what could I do with it?

  Suddenly, I felt very depressed. I was twenty-seven, and what was I going to do with my life?

  One of my goals had been to open my own office once I got my license.

  The other had been to become middleweight champ.

  Which one took precedence?

  Maybe, if I was smart, I’d take last night’s purse and put it down as security on an office.

  Then again, maybe I wasn’t smart. . . .

  “You want a job?” Eddie asked me.

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind, Eddie,” I told him. “You’re your own man; that’s what I—”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No, that’s not what I meant. Do you want a case, as a referral? Something to work on, keep you busy?”

  “Something you don’t want to handle?” I asked him.

  “Right. I’ve got a couple of cases that are keeping me busy. I told the client I’d recommend someone. If you want, I’ll set up an appointment for you. You can listen to what the man has to say and then decide for yourself if you want it. Fair enough?”

  I thought it over, then agreed. Hell, I had the license now, I might as well make some use of it. The extra cash would come in handy. That was no million-dollar purse I’d fought for last night.

  “Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. “Call me later, and I’ll let you know if I was able to set it up.”

  My first case. Suddenly, I wasn’t so depressed.

  “Okay, Eddie, okay,” I told him. “Thanks.”

  “Forget it, kid. Just remember everything I taught ya—and throw a case my way every once in a while, will ya?”

  “You got it. I’ll talk to you later, Eddie.”

  “S’long, kid.”

  On the way out I gave Missy a cheery good-bye and she graced me with a beautiful smile.

  Maybe I should just forget the whole thing and become a florist?

  Chapter Three

  I found my brother just where I thought I would, in a bar called Packy’s, in Greenwich Village.

  “Did I find you before you had time to drink up the whole purse?” I asked him.

  Benny was five years older than me. He had pushed me into the fight game and appointed himself my manager when his career ended with a vicious knockout that left him with occasional double vision. He was pretty good with the booze while I was training, but I had to watch him the day after a fight to make sure I got my share of the purse before he drank it up.

  “Aw, Miles. I got it right here,” he told me, and handed me my share. Benny took twenty percent, which left me with eight hundred bucks, my biggest payday to date. Better paydays were coming, he always told me. Yeah, sure, I always told him.

  What could I do? He was my brother.

  “Look, Benny,” I said, showing him my P.I. license.

  “You got it, kid,” he replied unhappily. Although he knew it was something I had been wanting for a long time, he had always felt that my working for Eddie Waters would interfere with my fighting. My getting my own ticket was an even bigger threat. “Congrats. C’mon, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Ginger ale.”

  He shook his head and muttered, “Athletes. Packy, give the champ a ginger ale.”

  He turned to the bar and slumped over his drink. I didn’t want to get into another argument with him over my license, so I sat next to him and kept my mouth shut.

  Packy set my soda down in front of me and said, “I saw the fight last night, Jack. What took you so long to figure the guy out?”

  “Well, Packy, I would’ve had the guy figured out sooner, but he kept hitting me.”
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  Packy was a big, florid-faced man in his early fifties who had known me and Benny since we were kids. He was an ex-heavyweight and still told stories about the time he had gone eight with Marciano, before Marciano was champ. “I coulda beat him,” he always said, “if I’da had a crowbar.”

  He usually charged us half price for drinks when things were slow, and didn’t charge us at all when things were going good.

  This time he took my dollar and brought back change.

  I left it on the bar.

  “I just wish for once the ring announcer would get my name right,” I added. “Just once I’d like to hear him say Jackabee instead of Jacobee.”

  “When you’re champ,” Benny told me, “they’ll get your friggin’ name right.”

  “Speaking of figuring the guy out, Benny, who was the guy?”

  Without turning his head he answered, “What guy?” absently.

  “The guy in the fifth row last night, remember?”

  He thought it over a moment, then remembered. “Oh, that guy. I don’t know, just some guy. Did you a lot of good, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he did that. I’d kind of like to know who he was, though. Did you talk to him yourself?”

  “No, he sent me a message with Lucas. ‘Count, right-left’—that was the message.”

  “Lucas, huh?”

  Lucas Pratt was a junkie who hung around the Times Square Gym, where I worked out. When I was flush—which was rare—I’d throw him a few bucks. He ran some numbers, other times just delivered messages for walking-around money.

  Like last night.

  “Maybe Lucas knows,” Benny offered. He waved to Packy for another drink.

  “Take it easy, okay, Benny?” I said, and gave Packy the eye. Benny smiled and nodded, like he always did, and he’d probably go ahead and get stiff, like he always did.