Otto Penzler (ed) - Murder 06 - Murder on the Ropes raw

by Unknown Author

  “You’ve got to take Eric the full fifteen rounds so you’ll have an excuse to still be inside when the Dempsey fight starts. Change fast. Pillow case masks and gloves go inside with you. Soon as the crowd roars with the bell starting Round One, you three run to the counting room, muscle inside, tie up the clerks, grab the cash, walk out with everything stuffed in your gear bags. Billie picks you up out front during the fifth round while the posse is still at the bank. You’re gone before anybody knows anything is wrong.”

  “No killing,” said Gene.

  “I’m not a necktie fool,” said Doyle. “We got handcuffs and tape strips for the clerks. Shouldn’t be more them two of them. I’ll be gun man, you truss them up, Harry scoops up cash.”

  “You know the rest of the plan,” said Taylor.

  “Yes,” said Gene, “I do.”

  “So,” said the banker to Gene as he stood to leave: “How you gonna do in the fight?”

  “Swell.”

  “Glory,” said Doyle. “Ain’t it great.”

  That night Gene and Billie made love for the last time before the fight.

  “We have to beat everybody,” Gene whispered to her. “Even Harry, and we have to clue him in as much as we dare. We have to do the holdup. Not let anybody die. Get to the car. Then take over Doyle, wrap him up. Drive out east to Texas John’s, dump the whole true thing on him and convince him ours was the only way. If we turn in the cash plus the guy who shot him and stole it, we got a chance. Maybe Doyle will rat on Taylor, too, buy himself a deal. The men Harry owes won’t go after you two: you’re not worth it to be roped in as accessories. I’ll do time if I have to. No matter what, you’ll be free.”

  “You mean from all this.”

  “From all that you want free of.”

  “It’s a terrible plan.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I know.”

  Heaven moved aside and let the noon sun boil down on a bull’s-eye boxing ring that Fourth of July, 1923, a black-roped canvas square centered in the heart of an octagonal sloping wooden arena on a sallow dust prairie. Gene wore those bloodied black gloves, blue satin shorts and his second skin shoes. For a long count he existed alone in the hollow, dry breeze, floating in slow motion, bouncing on the balls of his feet, jabbing air that was as thick as invisible molasses. He lived in the belly of a blazing whiteness. He heard his rasping breaths, his cannon heartbeat. Then gravity’s roar rocketed him back to a box of glory in Shelby, Montana, to Doyle and Harry wearing cornermen’s white shirts and bow ties and sweating at their post, and Gene knew everything had gone terribly wrong.

  “Nobody’s here!” he yelled to Doyle. “Look out at the stands! Like three rows of people! Maybe three hundred at most! Empty bleacher seats stretching all the way up to the sky!”

  Toad Taylor bobbed outside the ring beneath their corner, a ridiculous straw skimmer knocked off-center above his crimson face as he shook both hands in the air and hissed at them: “They’re coming! The charter trains! Don’t believe them when they say they didn’t go! We stopped the rumors about no fight! We did! So they have to go! They have to be here! Plus the crowds outside! Thousands of them! You’re just the throwaway! The time filler! The real people will be here! They’ll bring the big money! They have to! They must! This is the heavyweight championship of the world!”

  But not for Gene.

  Or for Eric Harmon, younger, taller, heavier muscled and abruptly materialized in the opposite corner. The sheen on Eric looked like the boy had oiled himself, but Gene knew it was sweat: Eric would not cheat. Eric’s eyes were bullets. As their gloves fell away from the referee’s handshake, Gene felt Eric drop benevolence he’d cradled for a lifetime.

  Then rang that bell.

  A whirling fury charged across the ring to Gene, gloves hooking and jabbing and feinting fast, so fast, trees falling on his raised arms as Gene backpedaled, saw flashes of sky and flesh flung his way. Eric connected with a right hook Gene blocked with his shoulder. Gene spun—

  Hit the canvas and bounded up before the referee could count two. The bell rang.

  “He’s killing you out there!” screamed Doyle in the corner as he sponged Gene’s face.

  “He’s trying.”

  “The fight’s gotta last!” Doyle glared into Gene’s face. “Decide how you want to die.”

  Ding!

  Gene took the ring and meant it. Eric rained blows at him. Gene slipped a punch and fired his jab back along the younger man’s arm in a blow that shook Eric’s face. But Gene pulled the last two punches of his combination. Eric didn’t care. Round Two, Three, Four, Five. Eric matched each ticking second of the clock with a punch, a move, a charge.

  Round Six Eric bloodied Gene’s mouth. Not much. A trickle of salty wet inside his cheek. The bell rang. Gene went to his corner. If Doyle or Harry said anything, he heard them not. He swallowed. When the bell rang, a new beast pranced out to meet Eric.

  All fights have a rhythm, a jazz that is the two combatants and the fight itself, a music that shimmers beyond the sum of its parts into a set with its own time and place and fury. Often individual elements of a fight so dominate that the jazz is muted or lost to naked eyes and souls. But even then, the jazz is there. The true boxer senses that jazz in his bones, a feeling he can’t create alone but one which he can slip into, and through it, become it. And command.

  Round Seven came the jazz, and the jazz was Gene. Eric’s punches hit him and hurt, damaged and didn’t matter. Gene’s jabs slammed into the bigger man on time, in rhythm. Gene’s mind cut a deal with the jazz to play long enough to keep the set alive as Gene’s gloves smacked the meat of a young man. Here the ribs. There a hook to the face. Left-left-square up right bam! Over and over again. Round Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eric fought with everything he had and more, but in this music that was his sound, his damning sound: Eric was a fighter fighting. Gene was a boxer. Force against finesse. Strength against science. Work against art. Eric had a heart full of prayers but the angels’ chorus was jazz.

  Round Eleven. Blood ran from Eric’s ears and nose. He threw off the referee. Come on! his gloves beckoned Gene. Come on! Round Twelve. Thirteen. Gene danced him into a clinch.

  “You can have it!” whispered Gene. “I’ll take a dive in the fifteenth! Don’t make me do this!”

  Eric pushed off him and wildly swung-missed. Spit out his mouthpiece. Through broken teeth yelled: “Hell wi’ you! I’m real!” The low punch Eric threw might have hit home in Round One, but now Gene slid back and let it fan. Without thought, Gene’s right counter slammed his opponent’s jaw. Eric hit the canvas so hard Gene bounced. Stay down! Gene willed. Eric staggered up on the seven count.

  Round Fourteen. Eric stood in the center of the ring like a heavy bag absorbing punch after punch from Gene, who for a fury-blind minute couldn’t stop. Then he backed away, only bobbed back in close when it looked like the referee would call it.

  Fifteen. Final round. Strings down from the sky plucked Eric off his corner stool and puppeted him toward Gene. Blood and sweat trickled down both of Eric’s arms to drip on the canvas. His guard didn’t rise above his belt. Gene tapped his face twice. Eric staggered back—

  A roar from the soles of his shoes tore through the state. Eric charged, his arms swinging slow wild haymakers like a baby, his eyes drowned by gore streaming from his splattered forehead as he yelled: “W’re are ’ou? ’Hre ’ou? Fight me! Fight me!”

  No one should lose like that. Gene snapped up a perfect guard, danced in. As softly as he dared, Gene hooked a right into the staggering man’s cheek and felled him to the canvas.

  The referee stood there, not bothering to count ten. The last bell rang.

  Gene knew the referee raised his hand. Knew Harry gave him water, wiped him down. Knew the mayor bounded into the ring and hung a gold-painted brass medal around his neck. Men carried Eric out of the ring. Gene saw his chest move and knew that boy’s hands still clung to life inside bloodied boxing gloves. And as Gene staggered between the
ropes Doyle held and saw an arena overflowing with empty seats, he knew that now began his real fight.

  Momentum pulled him to the arena corridor. As they walked past the stands, Gene saw a man pass a mason jar to the only other two people sitting in the row. Gene knew the mason jar didn’t hold the concession stand’s lemonade. Going down the corridor’s ramp, Gene and his crew met a squad of trainers and corner-men coming up with night-haired Jack Dempsey.

  Dempsey hit Gene with eyes that were black ice and saw everything about him, the sheen of sweat, the glint of brass around his neck, the blood splattered on Gene’s chest. I’m taller than him, thought Gene as they drew close. That flicker of arrogance whispered to Dempsey. His gaze jabbed Gene’s soul and Gene knew: never had a day that good, never will.

  The paltry paid crowd roared when they saw the true champion emerge into the sunlight.

  The lone guard on the door to the walled-in area for the dressing and other rooms told Gene’s crew: “Not a single chartered train came! And everybody else is still hanging outside!”

  “Nothing changes!” hissed Doyle as they hurried to the pine-planked sweat chamber the promoters grandly called a dressing room.

  Inside, door closed. Harry threw a bucket of water over Gene, wiped him with a towel. Kept muttering: “Great fighter, you’re a great fighter, great fight. Not me, you. ‘S’ thing to be”. From a duffel bag, Doyle pulled pillow cases cut for masks and money hauling, his .45 shoulder rig, a suit jacket. He tossed revolvers to Harry and Gene.

  “Don’t worry, Champ. They ain’t loaded.”

  Gene said: “If the trains didn’t come—”

  “We take what’s there!” said Doyle. “You better pray there’s enough!”

  Gene had only his shirt left to button when a thunderous creak! rolled through the wooden arena. The room around them bent and screamed. From outside came a great roar. Three would-be holdup men ran into the dungeon of rooms built under the area. The dim hall was empty. They ran to the corridor door. No guard. They hurried up the ramp into a blast of sunlight. Dempsey and Gibbons danced in the ring for Round One, but the great rolling-herd roar of a thousand voices caught even their attention.

  In they came from every entryway. Men in suits and straw hats, work boots and denim. Women in long skirts and yellow scarves. Umbrellas and pocket flasks. Clothes ripped by the barbed wire and turnstiles they’d torn down to storm inside for free. Damn the big money they’d never have: no one would keep them from their championship.

  “Look!” Harry pointed to a corridor a hundred feet away.

  A toad of a man, his straw hat askew, hopped back and forth in front of a stampeding phalanx, his hands outstretched to hold them back, screaming so loud that even Gene and his crew heard him: “Go back! You didn’t pay! You’ve got to pay! Everybody’s got to pay!”

  Laughter drowned him out as he spun into the ranks of wild-faced men and cackling women. Gene lost sight of Taylor as the crowd swirled. The banker popped out, pressed against a railing as elbows and shoulders slammed his back. The toad’s face was a purple moon with craters for eyes and the scream of his mouth. Taylor’s hands clutched his chest like he’d been punched, clawed at his throat fighting a strangler. A well-wisher poured amber liquid from a pocket flask into the uptight banker’s maw. Taylor choked, gurgled. He flopped over the rail as the crowd surged into the arena. Revelers plucked the banker from the rail and dragged him along until he sprawled into a hatless toad heap on a bench, reeking of bootleg whiskey like he was dead drunk, but Gene knew the toad was just dead, that he’d bake in the sun until the cleaning crew and newspaper eulogies told about an innocent casualty of championship fever.

  “Gone.” Harry trembled as he stared at the chaos. “’Sail gone to crazy!”

  “Come on!” yelled Doyle as the crowd of twelve thousand gate crashers scrambled in and the bell rang the end of Dempsey-Gibbons Round One. “We’ve got a job to do!”

  “No good,” muttered Harry as Doyle marched them back down inside the bowels of the arena, past the unguarded corridor door. “Nothing’s no good ’less you’re a fighter.”

  “Shut up!” snapped Doyle as they hurried back to Gene’s dressing room.

  Harry plucked at Doyle with a trembling hand: “No good, you’re no good, this is all gone no good and we know what you’re going to do!”

  Shut up, Harry! willed Gene.

  Harry chose to fight for the first time in his life. He jumped on Doyle: “Get him now, Gene! Don’t wait!”

  Doyle threw Harry into Gene. Gene shoved Harry back toward Doyle as that man’s right hand whirled. A heartbeat before the crowd outside roared the start of Round Two, Gene heard snick and saw light flash in the dim wooden cavern. Crimson misted the air between Harry and Doyle. Harry spun to show Gene his new wet red collar. The inertia of the switchblade slash turned Harry all the way around to face Doyle again. Doyle pushed the dying man aside. Harry fell between wooden beams to lay underneath the arena until the demolition crew found him two weeks later, long after insects and animals finished with his flesh. The law chalked up his bones to a worker who’d gone missing after cops ran two Wobbly labor organizers off the construction site, one of those tragic industrial accidents that happens all the time.

  Doyle stabbed at the boxer but Gene still had the jazz. He batted the knife out of Doyle’s hand with a left slap and slammed his right fist straight into the killer’s jaw. Fifteen rounds earlier, that punch might have put Doyle out for good; now it dropped him out but breathing.

  Finish him—No! Gene dragged the moaning man to his dressing room, threw him inside and slammed the door: no lock. He wedged the knife in the doorjamb and snapped off the blade.

  Doyle won’t be out for long. The wedged door won’t hold him long. Think! Won’t let us get away, we’re witnesses, ’n’ he doesn’t need no other reason than rage.

  But first he’ll go to the money. Try to feed his money hunger first, then revenge.

  Gene ran to the counting room. Get there first! Tell them Doyle’d gone crazy! Killed Harry! Was going to hold them up. With a clerk, maybe two, maybe guns with bullets, they could ambush Doyle and the clerks would be witnesses to Gene’s story, to him being a hero, to him and Billie being innocent, safe, fr—

  The counting room door stood ajar.

  The crowd roared as Gibbons split open an old cut over Dempsey’s eye in Round Four.

  A short guy in a good suit stood in the counting room. Four chairs behind the long table were empty. Notebooks and tills were strewn everywhere. But no silver dollars. No stacks of greenbacks. The short guy stared at the big man in the doorway whose hand dangled a revolver.

  “If you’ve come for money, you’re too late,” said the short guy. “Someone beat you to what little of it they had. Got them to give it up to him. Then once the bust-in riot started, the clerks knew it was over and they all left to see the big fight.”

  “You’re Dempsey’s manager. Jack Kearns.”

  “Guilty. And with that gun in your hand, you’re a man looking for trouble.”

  “Doesn’t have any bullets.”

  “A man with a gun and no bullets is a man who’s in trouble.” Kearns squinted. “I saw you fight, Mallette. You held back. Got size, speed, strength, technique. But give it up. You got no future as a real champ. Inside you there’s no killer.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Not likely. What did they promise you for winning?” “Wasn’t about the money.”

  “For you, probably not. But how much to be the champ of this town?”

  “A thousand.”

  “They cheaped you. You’ll never get it anyway. This crazy day cheated them, too. They’ll all go bust.” Kearns held a fold of bills toward Gene. “Every winner deserves a purse. Five hundred, and keep this between you and me. Call yourself lucky to get it and get gone before your half-assed manager comes looking for his cut.” Gene didn’t know what to do. Put the money in his pocket. Kearns took the revolver from Gene. Br
oke open the cylinder and clucked at the empty slots for bullets. “You’re too honest for your own good.”

  He took a flat .25 automatic from his back pocket and disappeared it in Gene’s hand. “An honest guy needs iron that works. This one’s ready to go, though it won’t damage anybody who’s not kissing close.”

  Kearns walked toward the door. The crowd outside roared when Gibbons connected with a combo that stung the champion, than danced around the ring to escape a furious Dempsey.

  “Mr. Kearns!” said Gene. “Who got all the money from the fight?”

  “Gee kid, beats me.”

  Then he was gone. Outside, the crowd roared. Gene fled the counting room. Saw the door to his dressing room shake. Out of the door crack fell a knife blade.

  Gene ran. Made it out of the roaring arena. A naked yellow eye baked the oiled air. He muscled his way through a dirt street jammed with crazed strangers. Two Martin boys set off a string of Chinese firecrackers. A man and two women sat on an overturned sausage peddler’s cart, stuffing themselves with meat tubes they plucked from the ground. A tuxedoed redhead bounced off Gene and staggered away, his eyes whirling in his head. A cowboy shot his Peacemaker into the air and no one flinched.

  Where are you, Billie? Got to be here! She’s got to be here!

  Firecrackers. A horse screamed and a fat woman laughed. The cowboy fired his pistol.

  Car horn, was that a—

  “Gene! Over here!”

  Billie waved from the Ford’s running board. Gene shoved his way to their getaway car that was pinned against the curb by a deserted truck. Parked vehicles jammed every road.

  She grabbed Gene to be sure he was alive and real. “Where’s Doyle? Where’s...?”

  “All gone wrong. No heist. Doyle killed Harry. He—”