Glass exploded in the car window.
Doyle: near the arena. He stood on a wobbly overturned pushcart, his gun hand shaking as he lined up for another shot over the sea of heads who didn’t give a damn.
Gene grabbed her hand, held on to his life and plunged into the mad, milling crowd.
“One chance!” he yelled as he dragged her behind him. Every bone in his body wept. His legs shook. Lemonade he grabbed from a kid didn’t cool the fire in his throat. “We got one chance! Get to Texas John! Not crooks! We’re targets ’n’ only he can save us!”
“His house is two miles across town!” But she ran with him.
By the time they’d fought their way to Main Street, Billie was more carrying Gene than running with him. They looked back and saw only the sea of people in their wake.
“Still there,” gasped Gene. “He’s still there somewhere. Won’t stop. We can’t stop.”
The crowd became a solid wall of flesh at the east end of Main Street, an audience to the volunteers battling a belli of fire that had once been a tailor shop.
“Railroad tracks!” gasped Billie. “Nobody’s there! We can go quicker along them!”
“But not straight to John’s! That’s maybe three football fields north of his house—”
“Only hope,” she told him as they staggered to the steel rails. Hundreds of parked freight cars squatted on the tracks, diverted there for the passenger charters that hadn’t come. A metal clang! shuddered the wall of boxcars beside them as the locomotive a thousand yards away got a clear track signal. Steel wheels creaked a slow revolution.
Gene pressed Kearns’ close-in gun into Billie’s hands. Shoved Kearns’ money into her dress pocket. “Get on train! Can’t make it farther. Can’t run no more.”
“Yes you can!” Billie grabbed his shirt. “Look! You can see
Texas John’s house from here! Just up that hill!”
“Can’t get up that hill ’fore Doyle catches us. You know he’s out there, Hell-hound smelling us. He won’t stop until he gets his blood. Till he gets me. But you: hop on this freight, open boxcar cornin’ up. Hide. Taking care of me will slow him down. He’ll see me, stop for me. Enough so you can go. Get free.”
“You can get away!” cried Billie.
“No. I can only do what makes me special. You said it. I save you. Only special you can do is make me love you. Let me be special and love you and get you on the train. You be special and do it. Don’t let us both die as nothing.”
“Too late,” she said, looking past him, wrapping her grip around the pistol.
Doyle stood a hundred yards down the tracks.
Billie raised her gun—
Gene covered her hand with his: “That won’t work until he’s close enough to kiss.”
The barrel of her automatic swung down along Gene’s ribs. Billie hid the gun behind her.
“You have to let him get real close,” said Gene. “He’ll like that. Do that. For you. Not for me. He’ll never let me get close to him again. But I won’t just stand here and take it.”
He stepped away from her grabbing hand. Took two steps forward as Doyle strolled toward him. Doyle stopped when he was about the same distance away as a sucker shot to a bank door. But instead of night, he had a broad daylight aim, though the sky had suddenly gone grey with rain clouds as Dempsey threw everything he had at Gibbons, yet had to settle for a clinch finish at the final bell, a decision victory instead of a knockout.
The freight train groaned and inched forward.
Gene Mallette brought both hands up in fists and dropped into the stance of a boxer.
Heard Doyle laugh and saw that man’s solo hand clear his suit coat and snap straight out.
A crimson rose blew out Doyle’s left ear and sprayed red on a passing boxcar. Doyle fell to the chipped rock track bed as the crack! of a German sniper’s Mauser from a front porch on a hill a thousand yards away whispered to Gene above the rumble of the train.
No second shot came from the man who used to have a badge and who knew what his eyes saw. Gene stared at the house on the hill: whatever had happened up there was over. He and Billie went to the dead man. A million angels dropped tears on them as she helped Gene throw Doyle and the guns through open doors of crawling boxcars. Gene almost fell under the steel wheels, but she grabbed him and held on. The train rumbled toward the mountains and the ocean beyond. Gene ripped the medal off his neck and threw it onto the last boxcar out of nowhere.
THE MAN WHO BOXED FOREVER
by Edward D. Hoch
Simon Ark and I were in London on another matter when we first heard about Desmond “Dragon” Moore. A publishing friend of mine had given me two tickets to Moore’s sold-out fight against Clayt Sprague for the heavyweight championship. It was a title that would go unrecognized in American boxing circles, but the winner was certain to become a top contender to challenge the Americans.
“We could delay our return by an extra couple of days if it interests you,” I told Simon.
“Boxing as such holds little appeal, but this man Dragon Moore seems to be getting a great deal of press over here. Do you think Shelly could spare you for two more days?”
We’d been in England a week already while I met with a juvenile author and Simon took care of a matter up in Suffolk. I phoned Shelly with some trepidation that her perpetual annoyance with Simon Ark might surface. “Two more days? Is this some idea of Simon’s, chasing after his goblins?”
“No, no.” I explained about the prizefight and the free tickets. “All right, I suppose two days more doesn’t matter. Just remember we have the dinner party Saturday night for my sister’s birthday.”
“I’ll be home long before that.”
“Have fun. I’ll look for you on Thursday.”
As it turned out, it wasn’t much fun.
The championship fight the following night was at London’s new Barbican Arena. I realized at once that it was an upscale event, with the ringside seats occupied by men and women in proper evening clothes. Our seats were farther back in the front section, on the aisle, and we arrived halfway through the card. One of the preliminary bouts was in progress as we settled into our seats. “We are not dressed for this, my friend,” Simon remarked. He was wearing a black suit, as usual, and could have passed for a priest with his intense expression and eyes that missed nothing.
“The people farther back aren’t so fancy,” I observed, turning to study the sell-out crowd. It was then that a man seated about four rows behind us in the adjoining section caught my eye. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him until he got up at the end of the preliminary bout and came down to say hello.
“I’m Roger Russell,” he said. “You probably don’t remember me, but I did a sports book for Neptune about ten years ago and you were my editor.”
“Sure, Roger! I thought you looked familiar. This is Simon Ark, Roger Russell.” I was retired from publishing now, but still acted as a consultant for Neptune Books. Russell’s opus, a coffee-table volume about the early days of sports in America, had been a mildly popular seller for the Christmas trade. He was a rugged, athletic-looking fellow, probably in his mid-forties now, and he wore his brown hair cut short to heighten the illusion of youth.
“Seeing Mr. Ark here, I suppose that means you’re investigating the rumors too.”
“What rumors would those be?” Simon asked him.
“Oh, about Dragon Moore being a lot older than he claims.”
“We hadn’t heard that,” I admitted. “A London editor gave me the tickets.”
“It’s probably not true anyway,” Russell said, putting a quick end to the conversation. “Good seeing you again.”
“Same here.”
When he’d returned to his seat, Simon Ark asked, “What are those rumors about Moore’s age?”
“Beats me. I don’t follow boxing that closely. All 1 know is that he’s a Creole from New Orleans who’s done most of his fighting in England.”
&
nbsp; The ring bell sounded several times to signal the arrival of the fighters for the main event. Down our aisle came Dragon Moore, a bald, hulking giant of mixed race, grinning widely as he trotted into action. Seeing the flare of his nostrils, 1 remembered something else about him. He’d earned the nickname of Dragon because of a small dragon-shaped birthmark on his left cheek, and because he often seemed about to exhale fire. A limping grayhaired man followed along, apparently his trainer or manager.
On the opposite side of the arena a second boxer had appeared. Clayt Sprague was a limber Jamaican who seemed to move about more easily than Moore. He bounded into the ring with gloved hands raised, eliciting cheers from the packed house. Clearly he was the crowd’s favorite. The fighters were called to the center of the ring to hear the referee’s instructions, then retreated to their corners until the bell sounded for the start of the first round.
Both came out warily, like two jungle cats approaching one another, each seeking an advantage. At first only a few feints, and then light, testing blows were struck. Some in the crowd booed, wanting them to mix it up, but the round ended with barely a single serious punch having been thrown. In the second round Sprague went after the Creole, landing a stiff right followed by a rain of left jabs. Dragon Moore retreated, but only momentarily. Just before the bell ended the round he landed a savage blow to the jaw that sent Sprague’s mouthpiece flying.
“The crowd likes it now,” I commented. “It’s a brutal business.”
“It always has been, since ancient Greece. It was a sport in the first Olympic Games, and in Rome it was often part of gladiatorial contests. The boxers there wore metal-studded hand coverings designed to maim or kill."
After that blow the energy seemed to go out of Clayt Sprague. The Jamaican went through the motions for another two rounds, but in the fifth he went down hard and didn’t move. Dragon Moore won by a knockout. Though most of the crowd had favored Sprague, they gave wild approval to the giant Creole.
“What did you think of it?” Roger Russell asked me on the way out. Simon had dropped behind us in the crowd.
I shrugged. “That Dragon is quite a fighter. How do you think he’d do back in America?”
“With the right publicity he could be a pop icon like Ali and Foreman and some of the others. He’s got a lot of backstory going for him.”
“What do you mean?”
The crowd was pushing from all sides as the place emptied out. A final bout followed, but hardly anyone remained for it. “The age thing, you know.”
“I don’t know,” I assured him.
“I’ve got some clippings and things. Your friend Simon Ark is the one who should really see them. He’s into this undead business, isn’t he?”
“Undead? What in hell are you talking about?” He must have heard about Simon from someone, about how he sometimes claimed to have been a Coptic priest in first-century Egypt, prowling the earth ever since in search of evil, hoping for a confrontation someday with Satan himself. I’d met Simon more than forty years earlier when I was a young reporter, before my publishing days. My wife Shelly took a dim view of him, and chided me about believing in his myth of eternal life. I may not have believed it all, but when I studied his face and saw the tiny lines of age almost hidden there, 1 had to admit that he hadn’t changed much in those forty years.
We’d reached the front entrance at last and Roger Russell shoved a card into my hand. “Meet me at this place tomorrow afternoon around two. Leather’s Gym in Soho. Bring Ark with you.
There might be a book idea in this.”
In the taxi on the way back to our hotel I recounted the strange conversation to Simon. “What did he mean by undead?” I asked. “Vampires?”
He smiled slightly. “I know of no vampire pugilists, my friend. Let us go to Leather’s Gym tomorrow and find out.”
The following day was cool and cloudy with occasional drizzle, typical of London in October. We took a taxi to Soho Square and walked two short blocks down Greek Street to the address on the card, arriving just at two o’clock. There a metal sign above the entrance advised us: leather’s gym — one flight up — hours 10 to 5. We followed the direction and found three gray metal fire doors with no names on them. 1 picked the right one on my second try and it slid open readily when I pushed.
We found ourselves in a large room dominated by a regulation prizefighting ring. Around the ring were rows of folding chairs and off to one side were punching bags and other training equipment. Through an open office door I could see a desk and computer. At first the place seemed empty, but suddenly 1 realized there was a man on the canvas in the center of the ring.
“Simon! It’s Roger Russell!”
The man we’d come to meet was lying on his back, arms outstretched. His shirt was off and he was bare to the waist. Boxing gloves were laced onto each of his hands. The left side of his head had sustained a mighty blow that left it ripped and bloody. He was dead.
The police arrived within five minutes of our call. A brisk young man named Sergeant Willis came in a few minutes later and seemed to be in charge of the investigation. “Do you two work here,” he asked, “or are you just hangers-on?”
“Neither one,” I informed him. “We came to meet the dead man, a writer named Roger Russell.”
“American, like you?”
“Yes.”
An officer called out from the other side of the ring. “I think we have the murder weapon, Sergeant.”
Simon and I followed him around to look at it. We saw a bloody leather hand covering, studded with bits of sharp metal. “A cestus,” Simon said, giving a name to it. “They were used by Roman gladiators. The straps wrapped around the hand. Remember, my friend, I mentioned them just last night at the fight.”
“What fight was that?” the detective wanted to know.
“Moore and Sprague,” I told him. “We had free tickets. That’s where I ran into the victim.”
Someone else had entered the gym, a tall man with crew-cut black hair, wearing a single gold earring and a long leather coat. “What’s going on here?” he asked in a deep Scottish brogue. “I go out to lunch and come back to find coppers all over my place!”
“I’m Sergeant Willis,” the detective said. “There’s been a murder here.”
“Who?” the man asked. “Not Roger?”
“The dead man has been identified by these people who found him as Roger Russell.”
“My God!” He ran past them and tried to climb into the ring but was restrained by the officers. “I left the place open because he said he’d be coming by.”
“It appears that someone goaded him into a boxing match,” Willis said. “He stripped to the waist and allowed himself to be laced into boxing gloves. Then, when he was relatively helpless, the killer struck him a deadly blow, wearing a studded leather hand covering.”
“A cestus from ancient Rome,” Simon added.
“Who are you two?” the bald man asked, appearing to notice us for the first time.
I introduced us and he did likewise. “Miles Leather. This is my gym.”
“Does Dragon Moore train here?” Simon asked.
“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” Willis told him.
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Because we encountered the dead man at the Moore-Sprague fight last evening, and that’s when he invited us to meet him here.”
He turned back to Leather. “What about it? Do either of those fighters train here?”
“Moore does, when he’s in the city. Usually he goes to his camp outside Brighton."
“Have you seen him today?”
Leather shook his head. “He never comes in right after a fight.”
“Do you usually leave the door unlocked when you go out to lunch?”
“Roger phoned to say he was meeting someone here. I left it open for him when I went out at one.”
“It was probably Simon and me,” I volunteered. “He’d asked us to meet him
here around two.”
Willis made some notes and then led Miles Leather over to look at the murder weapon. “Did you ever see it before?”
“Not like that. I’ve seen kids from street gangs wearing studded gloves sometimes. I took one away from a guy at a soccer game once. Those people get crazy.”
“What did you do with it after?”
“Threw it away,” Leather told him. “It was nothing I wanted around.”
The detective made another note. “How well did you know the dead man?”
“Pretty well. He was a journalist. You always like to be friendly with them.”
“Was he living in London or just visiting?”
“He came over a couple of weeks ago to do research for last night’s fight. He was writing something about Dragon Moore. It started out to be a magazine profile but he told me this week it might develop into a book.”
“What hotel was he at?”
Leather hedged a bit. “1 don’t know. He might have been staying at a friend’s flat.”
“Do you have the address?”
“Roger was married, you know. Wife back in the States.”
It was Simon who put it into words. “He was staying here with another woman.”
“I guess so, yes. Her name is Tracy Kimball, but I don’t know where she lives.”
“We’ll find her,” Sergeant Willis assured him.
When he’d finished his questioning of Simon and me, he suggested we remain in London until the investigation was complete. When we returned to the street the drizzle had stopped and a ray of sunshine was fighting a winning battle with the clouds. We walked north toward Soho Square and almost at once we encountered an agitated young woman who stopped us with a question. “What’s going on in there? I saw the police cars.”
“An accident,” Simon told her as we tried to keep on walking.
“A friend of mine was at Leather’s Gym. Is that where it happened?”
I studied her more closely then. She was a tall, athletic-looking woman with chestnut hair and large brown eyes, probably around thirty but who could tell with women these days? I took a gamble and asked, “Would you be Tracy Kimball?”
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