by Jack Tunney
And then there was Lola. It wasn’t like we were a secret. It would be easy to find out about her and where she lived. And it wasn’t like Whit and guys like him kept family or girlfriends off limits. Cardone, too, had been swell so far. But what would happen if I bailed on him? A kind and benevolent mobster was still a mobster.
And when there was money on the line – all bets were off.
When I got out of the shower, Cardone was there. Sal was talking to him with his hand nervously lacing and unlacing his fingers, his head bowed slightly the way you would talk to a bishop or something.
“Ayy, there’s the boy,” Cardone said, throwing a few air punches in my direction. He looked over my towel-wrapped body approvingly.
“Hiya, Mr. Cardone,” I said.
“Sal here was just telling me about his operation. Good news, I say. Good news.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Been a long time coming.”
“Well, I can’t promise nothing, but if things keep going well, I can have more paydays for you boys. It ain’t exactly a long term job like working at the post office or nothing,” He stepped closer and slapped my bare chest. “But it pays a hell of a lot better, am I right?”
Sal laughed and I tried to muster up a smile, but it died on my face.
“So, what do you say, kid?” Cardone asked. “Fourth round is a charm? Worked for us the first time, right?”
“Fourth round. Got it.” Whit said his guy would go down in the third. I thought maybe I should tell Cardone about Whit, about the things he said. Cardone being a losing prospect and all that stuff he talked about. Then what? All Cardone was going to say is I should stick with him. And did one lousy fighter on a random Friday night warrant sparking a mob war? I doubted it. Either man would let me twist in the wind rather than start a street fight over who called the shots in the low-rent boxing halls of Kansas City. I’m sure neither man saw this as the pinnacle of his career. I was nothing but a stepping stone and I was starting to get shoe prints on my neck.
“Mr. Cardone, can I ask you something?” I felt like I’d just dropped my gloves in the middle of a bout. I was wide open and primed to take a big hit.
“Sure, kid.” He kept his genial expression on his face, but I saw something more sinister pass behind his eyes.
“Does the other guy know?”
“About round four? Hell no. Why would I bother paying two guys? Your first time, I paid you to make sure you’d play ball. A test, if you will.” He slapped my bare chest with the back of his hand, friendly like. “Now, I know I can trust you. Saves me some dough.”
He smiled and I tried to force one out. So, I knew the score. Only one of us was losing sleep over the fight. Maybe paying two guys was why Whit paid so low.
“I met your friend Whit,” I said. I let that fly out of my mouth before I had the good sense to think twice. Just the way I wanted it. If I stopped for a second I would have kept it in, but I had to know Cardone’s side of things. I got it quick.
The genial smile slid off his face. The friendly neighborhood mobster I’d known had left the building, replaced by Al Capone’s ghost. A seething, remorseless man.
“That scumbag ain’t no friend of mine. He talked to you?”
Scared into submission, I retreated back to my corner. “I only seen him in passing,” I said. “I saw you two talk once. I thought maybe–”
“You thought wrong. That little punk has been up my stronzo for a year now, trying to prove what a big shot he is. Every time I squash him, he pops up again like the cockroach he is.” Cardone took a moment to compose himself, straighten his tie, shoot his cuffs. “Little children oughta know their place, is all I’m saying.”
Sal, sensing the tension, tried to change the subject. “Mr. Cardone, any time you wanna do business, I’m your man. I got a lot of up and comers. Some real tough kids. I could talk to them for you. I’m sure they would be on board.”
Cardone softened back to the well-mannered gentleman I’d come to know. “As long as you get your cut, huh?” He smiled widely at Sal, who ducked his head as he smiled back. “We’ll see, Sal. We’ll see. Got to be judicious. If we go out and fix every fight . . . aw, I don’t want to bore you with business talk.” He turned back to me. “You just keeps those mitts up, capice?” He leaned in and slapped my chest again with the back of his hand. “At least until the fourth round, eh?” He winked at me and turned to leave, slipping a cigarette into his mouth. When he opened the door to leave I saw his two bodyguards out in the hall, waiting on either side of the door.
“Sal, can I ask your advice?”
“Sure, kid, sure. Anything.”
I didn’t know what I was doing, but I needed someone in my corner more than ever. “It starts with I gotta tell you something.”
“Whatever it is, kid. I knew something was wrong.”
“It ain’t Lola or anything. I wish it was.” The locker room at Sal’s gym was small. Two rows of steel lockers painted a red that reminded everyone who used the gym of blood. Nosebleed blood specifically. A single bench ran down the middle between the two rows of lockers. I sat on the worn wood while Sal stood over me reminding me of Father Tim at confession.
“I got a problem, Sal, and I don’t know how to get out of it.”
“You gotta speak up, kid.”
I hated to do it, hated saying the words out loud at all, let alone for anyone to hear. “I said I’ve got a problem, Sal. A problem I don’t know how to solve.”
“You can tell me.”
“I never should have gotten into the mess with Cardone.” I could feel Sal tense up, the two hundred bucks slipping through his fingers. “I’m really behind the eight ball on this one. I’ll take the dive tomorrow night. That’s no problem. I never want to do it again.”
“That’s all right, Jimmy. I understand.”
“No, you don’t.” My volume increased all on its own. The stress and anger I felt toward myself caused my blood to boil. “I have another fix. For the same fight. Only it’s with someone else and it’s the opposite result.”
Sal’s face screwed into confusion. I explained, “Another guy came to me about Friday's fight. Said he wanted me to win it in the third. You hear me, Sal? I’m in deep with two different guys who want me to do two different things.” Sal was starting to get it. “What do I do, Sal?”
“You told the other guy about Cardone?”
“Yeah. That didn’t go over. There’s some kind of beef between them. I get the feeling Whit wants what Cardone has, and I’m caught in the middle.”
“Hmmmm.” Sal thought for a while. I could tell it was hard on his brain. Finally, “I don’t know what to tell you, kid.”
I’m not sure what I expected. Sal was no mastermind. If you couldn’t slug it out in the ring, Sal didn’t know how to solve most problems. At least I felt a little bit better about him knowing the score. One less person I had to lie to. I could see the worry on his face, though, and I felt bad about handing him my burden.
“I’ll figure it out, Sal. Don’t you worry about it. Your money’s good as gold.”
He forced a grin and nodded. I watched his cauliflower ears, puffed and misshapen. In a way, I envied Sal. His life was one of simplicity. All life’s mysteries were solved within the ring. Philosophy, religion, manhood – all started and ended inside the square.
My troubles were just beginning.
ROUND 9
I called Lola, had her meet me out at the soda shop around the corner from her place. Fontana’s Fountain had become our spot. During the long wait while she pondered if I was worthy of being her boyfriend, I’d spent a Cadillac’s worth on ice cream sundaes, vanilla cokes and banana splits.
The familiar, candy-colored decor of the booths gave me no comfort as I waited for the right moment to ruin her world. Felt eerily similar to waiting for the perfect instant to level a right hook across someone’s chin. I feared it would hurt her just as bad.
I left my chocolate milkshake alone even as Lola reach
ed the bottom of her strawberry shake. She slurped the last of it and looked at me, frowning.
“Jimmy, you’re still blue. Just like the other day. Did that kid you sparred with really get into your head that bad?”
I pushed away my melting shake.
“Lola, tomorrow night I need you to do something for me.”
She sensed the seriousness in my voice. “What, Jimmy?”
“I want you to pack a bag. Be ready to leave town.”
“Leave town? Where?”
“Chicago. I’m going to take you there. Well, maybe. I just want you to be ready, is all.”
“You want me to be ready to leave for Chicago, but you’re not even sure you’re going to take me? Jimmy, I’d love to get away for a weekend, but why so secretive about it?”
“Not for the weekend Lola. For good.”
She stared at me a long time, trying to match the look on my face with my words. She put two and two together, came up with trouble. “Jimmy, you’re scaring me.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” I lied. I didn’t come close to believing it and I doubted she did either. “It’s just, I need to know how tomorrow’s fight goes before I can promise anything.”
She scrunched her eyebrows together in that way I usually love. “Is this you trying to be romantic? Because it’s not working at all, Jimmy.”
“No. I really need you to be ready.” I hated frightening her. I hated lying to her too. The less she knew, the better. And if I made it out of this and she never had to know? Even better still. “Will you promise me?”
“Yes, Jimmy. Okay. If you insist.”
“I do.” It was no kind of proposal. Maybe no way to start a life at all, but I had to get her out of town or I’d wonder forever if she ended up paying the price for my mistakes.
I walked her home, gave her a dispassionate peck on the cheek and said goodnight. Then I went back to my room and packed a bag of my own. I didn’t take much, but then I didn’t have much. I packed my gym bag. Smaller than a regular suitcase, but one I could bring to the fight tomorrow without rousing any suspicion. I put in three shirts, two pair of pants and two ties. Socks, underwear, and a belt. The rest of the space I’d need for my gloves, shoes and trunks.
I took the one photo I owned, of me and Lola arm in arm, out of the frame of the mirror where it wedged and slid it into the bottom of the bag. Next, I took the envelope of cash from Cardone and split it in two. I put two hundred of it in another envelope and then the two hundred and forty bucks I had left over I kept in the original. I put both envelopes at the bottom of the bag.
Finally I got into bed and stared at the ceiling. It felt like looking up from the bottom of a grave.
***
Fight night and Veteran’s Hall was about half filled. We were up third on a four fight card. Me versus some guy named Kelly. “The Fightin’ Irishman,” it said in quotes under his name on the poster.
I knew whose side Kelly was on. I wondered how his negotiation with Whit had gone. Better than mine or was that just the way Whit did business? Either way Kelly expected me to put him down in the third. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
I found Sal in the locker room. The Vet’s Hall was a big place, wood floors in the lockers that creaked. The walls were always sweating from the steam in the showers.
We grunted hellos to each other. Sal waited for me to tell him that I’d come up with a brilliant plan or that I’d worked it all out with Cardone.
I hadn’t.
“So, what goes on tonight?” he asked. His voice shook like I was Marilyn Monroe and he was asking me to dance.
“Sal,” I said. “I have no idea.”
“Jesus, Jimmy.” He crossed himself. I’d never seen him do that before. I almost asked him to do one for me, but I didn’t feel I deserved it.
We stayed underground in the locker room through the first two fights. I taped my hands in silence. Sal checked my work, rewrapped a section. We avoided each other’s eyes while Sal laced my gloves. The pre-fight rituals calmed both of us down. The slow and steady rhythm of getting ready to fight was something familiar to us. The silence wasn’t unusual. We didn’t need to speak.
A stubby guy in a vest and a rope for a belt pounded once on the door then charged in.
“Two minutes,” he barked and was gone.
I slapped my gloves together twice, nodded my satisfaction with the fit.
“So, when do you . . .?”
“I dive in the fourth,” I said, telling him what he already knew about my agreement with Cardone. “I win in the third.”
Sal shook his head. Without a word, he slung a towel over his shoulder, lifted the spit bucket and stool, and held the door open for me. I picked up my bag and took it with me.
“Don’t you want to leave that here?” Sal asked.
“Not tonight. Might need it.”
Sal had given up questioning me.
***
The crowd filled in during those first two fights. The place was noisy and smelled like popcorn and beer. A ring announcer with a nasally voice and wearing the usual black bow tie took the microphone hanging down from the rafters. He droned over the PA for a minute and I heard none of it.
Sal nudged me at one point and I raised my hand over my head, assuming the man had said my name.
I watched Kelly on the other side of the ring. Bright green silk robe with a shamrock on it. I wonder how he felt being propped up as nothing more than a Mick in two gloves. And some people in the crowd either loved him or hated him already because of it. Fickle fight fans. Choose your man based on whatever caught your eye. I’d known guys who could watch Joe Louis punch out their own mother and still would say a Negro can’t slug his way out of a wet paper sack.
Judge a guy for the color of his skin or what island his parents came from. Go figure.
I wished my decision was that easy to make.
The referee beckoned us to the center of the ring. Sal put a hand on my shoulder.
“Good luck out there.”
“I thought the Irish had all the luck.” He didn’t laugh at my joke.
“I’m here in your corner. You know that.”
“Sal, if it goes like I think it’s gonna go, do me a favor and deny you knew anything. Keep your trap shut. Do whatever you can to keep that two hundred bucks.”
The ref hollered for me to join them. I patted Sal with my glove and went to center ring.
Kelly shuffled his feet, a tall, pale kid with sandy blond hair and a still-healing cut over his right eye. He wasn’t the only one who should have sat out another week or two. He also wasn’t the only one getting an extra payday for this bout.
I could feel him sizing me up, taking in the fact this was the other guy who took dirty money to throw this fight. I felt judged, but I didn’t know why.
I ignored the ref’s usual patter, knowing when to touch gloves only by the cadence in his voice.
On my way back to the corner, I saw Cardone in the stands, dressed to the nines with a girl on his arm. He sat about halfway up the sloping rows and munched on a box of popcorn. He looked like a guy without a care in the world. For the first time, I got incredibly angry at him. I wished like hell he was the guy in the green trunks across from me so I could beat him silly for getting me into this mess.
I scanned the crowd for Whit and almost missed him. I spotted Vic first. The giant who’d beaten me two days before sat next to Whit. Three other men I recognized as Whit’s shadows, and at least two of them were the ones who held me up against the ropes while Vic beat me.
It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been angry at them.
Suddenly I became the spectator. I saw one of Cardone’s men tap him on the shoulder, point to where Whit sat with his crew. Cardone said something angrily, flecks of popcorn flying out of his mouth. The angry ghost of Capone was back. He placed a row of fingers under his chin and flicked it out quickly and aggressively toward Whit. Some sort of insult.
&
nbsp; Whit and his boys laughed. The gap in Vic’s teeth stood out even that far away. They sat like the jester and his court, come to dethrone the King. I felt more for Cardone. If the fight was between them, I knew where my money would be. But being on one side or the other didn’t help me in the ring. Either way, the outcome would be the same for me.
The bell rang and I felt like I was being swept away in the tide.
The crowd urged us on, angling for blood. I took it the first two fights didn’t deliver much in the action department and the place had gotten antsy. Kelly kept a respectable distance, taking his time. Waiting for the third.
We slapped leather like a couple of school girls and the crowd was quick to boo. I recognized the radio announcer as the same guy from my fight at the Excelsior. He already thought I was a slug and I wasn’t helping his argument any.
I threw a combo, just to prove to myself I still could, and Kelly covered up. I didn’t follow it up, letting him escape and dance away. As I turned to follow him, I could see Sal across the ring hanging his head like the day Roosevelt died.
I chased Kelly, and when I caught him, he stood still on lead feet, inviting me in. I jabbed him three times fast, then whiffed a wide hook past his face. He stepped forward and grabbed me in a cinch.
“What’s with the light touch, pal?” Kelly whispered in my ear. “Whit pays us to make it look good, not just for the decision. Make with the punches already. Just no chin shots and I’ll be fine until the third. Don’t you worry about me. I’ve taken dives more times than the U.S. Navy.”
The ref stepped in and broke us up. It was all out on the table. We knew the other was in on the fix and The Fightin’ Irishman had imparted some of his expertise. If he went down on a feather punch maybe I could claim to Cardone that I knew nothing about it. That Whit had set up the dive on his end and not consulted with me at all.