by Jack Tunney
ROUND 5
“Why?” I might have been a little harsh because the man backed up and started to reach under his jacket. Then he stopped himself and smiled.
“Me? I’m not looking for a fight.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “But they’re about to have one in the back. One of the local guys is pairing off against a boxer that come into town to make himself a rep and a little do-ra-mi. Thought maybe you fellas could use some excitement.”
I liked fights. Ever since Father Tim taught us how to scuffle and punch down in that church basement, I’ve had a healthy respect for any man that knew how to use his fists and could think on his feet. That combination didn’t come along as often as you thought it might in back rooms of bars. The illegal fights was called smokers, on account they was usually held in small, windowless rooms that filled up quick with cigarette and cigar smoke.
Sandbag stretched and yawned. “How much is this entertainment gonna cost us?”
The man shrugged. “Four bits a head gets you into the room. You can still get drinks back there, and if you’re interested in gambling, there’s guys in there that will do that too.”
I wasn’t interested. Not really. The idea of seeing a couple of palookas pound on each other in a drunken haze wasn’t my idea of a good time. And four bits was expensive for something like that.
Before I could say anything, though, a tall man in a suit entered the bar. He had blond hair and looked German, which didn’t make him any too popular with any of the local crowd. He had a jaw that looked like it had belonged on a bulldozer, and bright blue eyes that was as steely as gunsights. He would be a threat in the ring. He carried a black duffel in one hand.
I nodded at the guy. “That your local hero?”
The man looked over his shoulder and shook his head. “Naw. That’s the challenger.”
Well, I was interested then, because the blond guy didn’t look like anyone that would go down easy. A mousey little guy walked along in the big guy’s shadow and I figured he was the big guy’s cutman, the guy that worked the corner and kept a fighter from bleeding too much. They talked German like they’d been speaking it all their lives. The mousey guy flagged down our waitress as she returned with a platter carrying our beer.
“Which way to boxing match?” His words was heavily accented.
The waitress frowned and I figured maybe she wasn’t a fight fan. A lot of women claimed not to like boxing, but a lot of them went nuts once the leather went to flying. “In the back.” She nodded toward a door on the other side of the room.
The mousey guy thanked her, then talked briefly to the big guy. Still stony faced, the big guy turned and went through the crowd like a tank, jostling people that didn’t get out of his way fast enough.
Sandbag shook his head and looked at the plug-ugly guy talking to us. “Don’t know who your local hero is, but he ain’t gonna make it outta that room alive.”
The man grinned and took his stinking cigar out of his mouth. “You wanna put some money on that?”
“Yeah.” Sandbag didn’t hesitate. He liked betting on stuff, and I’d seen him bet on everything from fights to horse races to fruit falling off a tree. He wasn’t really good at it, but he believed if he stayed at it he’d do all right. “Gimme two dollars’ worth.”
The fireplug grimaced and ran a big hand over his face. “Two dollars? Pal, I sure didn’t figure you for no piker.”
“Piker?” Sandbag got all swole up at that and sat up a little straighter. “I ain’t no piker.”
“I got fifty dollars what says the local boy puts down that German down on his back.”
That meant the local guy had to win by a knockout. I’ll admit, that made me interested at that point, but I wasn’t gonna jump on nothing. I hadn’t seen the other horse in the race.
Sandbag, though, he wasn’t so cautious. He looked around at the other boys. “Anybody wanna help me take this guy’s money?”
Well, that started a brief convention that was still going on when the waitress come over to our table with the beers. I paid the freight and tossed in a dollar tip.
“Thanks, sailor.” She didn’t warm up none, but she gave me another look, sizing me up like she was trying to decide if I was gonna be trouble. She turned to go, but Sandbag hollered at her.
“You want to bring us another round in about fifteen minutes? We’ll take ’em in the back room.”
She didn’t look happy about that, but she nodded and went away.
I was still mooning after her, watching her hips sway under that skirt, when Sandbag flogged me on the arm.
“Get up, you big galoot. We got a fight to watch. And why didn’t you kick in any money?”
I rubbed my arm, sipped my beer, and stood to follow Sandbag and the rest of the crew into the back room. The pretty waitress watched us, but she caught me watching her back and she turned away again real fast.
Then I stepped through the door after the boys, followed them down a rickety set of stairs into a dimly lit room, and saw High Pockets and Shorty again. I figured the night might not turn out so swell after all.
ROUND 6
Them boys was evidently working security for the fight, but as stove up as they was, they wasn’t none too impressive. I grinned to myself before I could stop it when I saw Shorty’s mangled face and High Pockets standing there with one of his eyes swelled nearly shut. Them that didn’t know what happened might think whoever they’d been in a fight with had gotten the worst of it.
I kept my head down and was thankful of the shadows filling the room. I figured none of us needed round two, and them boys might have been embarrassed enough over things to feel like they at least needed to even the score.
And if they come at me again, I knew they wouldn’t do it with their fists. I was lucky the fireplug headed us to the other side of the room. I leaned back against the wall in the shadows and sipped my beer.
The room was bigger than I’d thought it would be. Maybe once upon a time it had been a storage room, but somebody had widened it out till it mirrored the dimensions of the club. I was surprised to see that there was more people gathered downstairs than upstairs.
There wasn’t no ring, no canvas floor. All they had was four steel posts and some ropes to mark off the area, which was considerably smaller than a ring. I took that in as I sipped more beer and realized that this arena wasn’t built for no showcase of fighting skills. This was down and dirty, designed to keep two men close to each other and pounding on each other’s skulls.
That ring was a butcher’s shop, not a field of competition.
Outside the ring, a couple rows of chairs was filled with what looked to be a bunch of swells in expensive suits. They talked to each other and I saw money changing hands. Their conversations was a dull roar trapped in the room, and the smoke was so thick and burning that I wanted to go back upstairs. Or – better yet – outside to grab a fresh breath of air.
Instead, I breathed shallow and sipped my beer. I knew that a fight couldn’t go on very long when a fighter started sucking air. There wasn’t enough clean air in that whole room to fill a deep breath.
The fireplug kept razzing Sandbag and the boys, and I knew he was trying to hoist his action and goad them into more foolish betting. I ignored them. I told the cap’n I’d bring ’em back alive. Them getting back broke was their own lookout. I hoped they kept enough back at least for a decent drunk. They deserved it.
Things happened pretty quickly because the room was packed. The bookies working the crowd was even laying off action back in the bar. I guessed we was lucky to get wall space crowded in with all them other mooks.
The German stepped back to a small room in the rear with the mousey guy, then come back a few minutes later dressed in black trunks and wearing gloves. He ducked under the ropes and got into the ring, then started loosening up by throwing punches and dancing around the ring. The naked bulb above him lifted him out of the shadows and made him seem larger than life.
As
they watched, the crowd seemed evenly split over the German. A few snarled oaths and name-calling of “kraut” and “Nazi” punctuated the noise, and those men seemed only too ready to watch the German get beat down. But about half the crowd seemed hopeful that the German could take the local hero. From what I overheard in all the noise, the local guy hadn’t ever been beaten, and he’d been fighting for almost three years.
That was impressive. I’d lost my share of fights in the ring along the way because I wasn’t much on beating a man by points. Patrick could do that because he knew more about technical fighting. Me, I was a brawler. All guts and hard head and strength. Father Tim had told me so, and that I’d never be a great boxer the way Patrick could be. But a guy meeting me in an alley wasn’t gonna be playing by the rules. Neither was I.
I was okay with that. I knew what I could do, and I knew that if I had something to fight for that I believed in, they’d have to scrape me off the canvas to get shut of me.
A few minutes later, the local guy come down the stairs dressed in a suit and wearing a confident grin. I figured he’d lose that when he saw the German, but he didn’t. He just looked at the big guy in the ring and rolled his head, loosening up.
Sandbag poked me in the ribs. “That’s the local guy.”
“Had that one figured out all by myself.”
He ignored me. “His name’s Marcell Simbari. Marcell’s supposed to mean hammer in Italian.”
Simbari was at least three inches over six feet, but he was about that many inches shorter than the German. Thick black hair was swept back in oily waves and he was as handsome as Dean Martin. Martin had been a boxer, too, but he’d only won one of his twelve fights and had a broken nose and scarred lip to prove it.
This guy was handsome, and if anybody had ever put a mitt on his face, it didn’t show. You see a boxer that’s got a pretty face, you better pay attention. That’s a guy that knows how to bob and weave and slip a punch. And he’s hard to knock out.
I had a bad feeling about Sandbag and the boys’ money. I didn’t think they’d be seeing it again.
Simbari made a show of giving the German a once-over, then went back to the little room and changed clothes. He came back just a few minutes later wearing red trunks and gloves. He chewed gum like he was going out for a drink with the guys instead of stepping into a boxing ring.
The two fighters met in the middle of the ring and just stared at each other. I didn’t know if the German even spoke English. Maybe his mousey friend did. Anyway, if you climb in the ring enough, you know what the ref is gonna tell you.
The ref for this fight was a balding white guy who stuck out in the sea of Cuban and Italian faces. I thought maybe he’d been brought down special, like the baseballs players from the States sometimes came down. He was direct and to the point, an unemotional guy.
After that, the two fighters returned to their corner and waited for the bell. It rang and the fight was on.
ROUND 7
Neither fighter came out strong. They wasn’t there to put on a show. Both of them showed savvy in the way they fenced with each other, getting a feel for how the other guy covered up, how he spaced his feet, which way he liked to circle when he had a choice and which way he circled when he didn’t.
The crowd grew quiet, waiting expectantly. Most people in an audience wouldn’t admit to it, but they was there waiting on the blood to spill. They wanted to see the pain delivered and taken. Kinda the same way a circus audience thinks about a trapeze artist taking the long fall, not wishing the guy bad, but hoping to see it if it did happen.
About halfway through the first three-minute round, the German threw a couple jabs and then tried to follow up with a big haymaker. Simbari deflected the jabs, faded the haymaker, and swiveled and stepped around just enough to unleash a fully loaded right hand into the center of the German’s stomach.
All the air went out of the German in a rush. He tried to suck it back in, but Simbari didn’t give him a chance. Leather popped and splatted as Simbari drove a dozen heavy blows into his opponent. The German staggered back from the onslaught as Simbari lived up to his name as the Hammer.
Then the German locked down against the ropes, covering his face with his forearms and giving up his mid-section. Simbari went to work on the German’s breadbasket like he was chopping wood, and I swear I could hear ribs turning into kindling. The German’s pale skin pinked up right quick, and the crowd went crazy with bloodlust.
“Hammer! Hammer! Hammer!”
It got so loud in the room that you couldn’t hear anything else. I watched and sipped the dregs of my beer, admiring how Simbari looked, like some kind of big cat playing with a mouse. By the time the bell rang to end the round, the German was stove up pretty good.
Simbari turned around and winked at the crowd, playing to them and listening to them chant for him. I had to admit it, I admired the guy. Seeing him work was like listening to a singer croon a favorite tune.
Sandbag cursed, telling the boys they’d all been hoodwinked by the fireplug, whose name was Tony. Yep, they’d figured out their money was in the wind, and they was feeling pretty sore about it.
While he was sitting in his corner, Simbari leaned through the ropes and talked to a well-dressed guy sitting next to a pretty dame. The swell looked like a happy guy, and that seemed to make Simbari pretty happy too.
About that time, the waitress came over to us with our second rounds. She didn’t look none too happy about making the trip through that packed basement, and I didn’t blame her. There wasn’t very many guys down in that room that any real manners. Sandbag paid her and tipped her two-bits on account he knew he was losing his money, and she was unhappy about that too.
As she started to leave, I touched her shoulder. She swung around with fire in her eyes and a fist all knuckled up. “Keep your hands to yourself, sailor.”
“Sorry.” I held my hands up to show her I didn’t mean no harm. I had a dollar between my fingers. “Didn’t mean nothing. My friend’s on the cheap ’cause he bet on the wrong fighter. I wanted to make it right.” I flicked the dollar with a finger.
Her face softened a little then and she lowered her fist. She looked embarrassed. “I apologize.”
I shrugged. “No foul.” I looked around. “It’s a rough crowd.” I handed her the dollar.
“Yeah, and a hard way to make a living. The fighters take a beating once, but I’m here dodging perverts all night.” She looked at me with more interest then. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“Haven’t been to Havana before.”
“Are you going to be here long?”
“A few days. Cap’n’s looking to take on some more cargo.”
She looked around. “You’ll want to be careful in the streets. Havana’s not the way it used to be with all these…businessmen.”
I smiled at her to let her know I understood her drift. I nodded toward the well-dressed guy Simbari had been talking to. “Who’s the swell?”
She followed my gaze and frowned. “That’s Victor Falcone. One of the businessmen.”
Well, I recognized the name right off from the conversation I’d had earlier with Shorty and High Pockets. I wasn’t crazy about the guy to begin with, and to know he was hooked up with an animal like Simbari was just the icing on the cake.
The waitress looked back at me. “Look, I have to get back to work. I’ll be back around in fifteen or twenty minutes and see if you need something.”
“Thanks.” I watched her walk away, but the crowd closed up around her too quick for me to really appreciate the view. I looked back at Falcone and rubbed the stubble on my jaw, only realizing then that I shoulda shaved. Might have made a better impression on the waitress.
The bell rang and Simbari went back to work, taking up pretty much where he let off. Only this time the German was a little more careful. He got down to business and the fight changed. The German started giving as good as he got, but Simbari could take the damage to his mid-section, an
d he kept his head moving too fast or too covered up for his opponent to score more than glancing blows at best.
The second round ended, and I wondered how much Simbari had in the tank, whether or not he had the wind and the heart and the legs to go the distance. I was guessing he probably did, but I wanted to see it because I wanted to see that pretty boy face get mussed.
That wasn’t gonna happen, though. Simbari stalked his prey through the third and fourth rounds, then clocked the German with a teeth-chattering uppercut followed by a cross that was right on the button. The German’s legs turned to rubber. He tried to stay on his feet, but that just made him a wandering punching bag for Simbari, and the Italian fighter mercilessly pounded the German, turning him into bloody hamburger.
I figured the ref would call the fight or the mousey guy would throw in the towel, but neither one did. The crowd wanted the blood, and everybody was gonna give it to them.
I’ve seen some hard things in my life, seen things in the war I’d rather forget, and seen bad accidents happen to men at sea where there ain’t no doctors and hospitals, but that fight was gonna stick with me for a while. I’d have quit beating on the poor palooka because I knew he didn’t know where he was at the end. The German’s whole world musta just been one big haze of pain.
Simbari didn’t quit throwing punches, though. He just leaned into them harder and picked vulnerable spots. Cuts had opened up above both of the German’s eyes and his nose and mouth was running rivers. The only good thing about all that blood was that it made Simbari’s punches harder to land because the gloves kept sliding off the slick flesh. The crowd was quiet, like it was holding its breath. I had to make myself breathe.
Finally, though, the big man gave up the ghost and dropped to the stone floor. He didn’t try to catch himself, and I knew he was out on his feet. The man was stubborn and prideful, and I knew them attitudes would get him killed.