by Jack Kline
“This is it,” Rusty said. “This will be the round Shull takes him out.”
“Looks that way. Bet he doesn’t mess around either,” I said.
Mickey and the cornermen furiously attended a cut that had opened above Bryant’s left eye. I watched them work, but before Bryant stood for the eighth round I took a quick peek at the Holloways. The father was speaking to someone in the aisle, someone unfamiliar. Colleen looked straight at me. How long had she been watching me? She smiled and gave me a tiny wave. I nodded and turned away.
My gaze roamed as the fighters stood. Chief Myers appeared to look my way. He brought his hand up to his ear as if it held a telephone receiver in it, then pointed at me and then back to the phone-hand at his ear.
“You see that, Russ?”
“What?”
“Chief Myers?”
“No, what?”
The bell rang for the eighth round. “Never mind,” I shouted over the crowd’s cacophony.
Shull came after Bryant, and he left all caution back in his corner. Bryant ran from him, but he also utilized Shull’s aggression against him. It was a fighter’s retreat, filled with jabs that found Shull’s face, and an occasional quick combination. Shull doggedly kept up the attack trying to corner Bryant, or connect with brutal force.
Shull caught Bryant with a good right hand before he could duck and dart away. Bryant’s forehead gushed red and he repeatedly used his glove to try to keep the blood out of his eye. It streamed down his forehead, over and around his eyebrow, and made Bryant virtually a one-eyed fighter. Sensing the advantage, Shull came in again, forsaking his jab. He swung wildly with both hands aiming to land a blow that would finish Bryant.
Bryant, half blind up against the ropes, saw an opening and delivered a three blow combination that ended with a left uppercut. Shull went down.
Stunned, the crowd grew silent for a moment, then erupted. The whole auditorium crowd was on its feet. They had what they wanted—a good fight with lots of blood. Though the smart money was on Shull, the majority at the auditorium pulled for Bryant, and they were getting all they had hoped for.
Shull rose to his feet at the six count while Bryant, in his corner, gloved the blood away from his left eye. Shull bled now from his nose and his cheek below an eye. His cheek swelled, partially obscuring one eye. Squinting through the swollen cheek, Shull’s face, perhaps for the first time, resembled a boxer’s.
The referee wiped Shull’s gloves and motioned for the fight to continue. More cautious now, Shull led with his jab. He quickly realized that Bryant’s bloody eye made him vulnerable on his left side. Shull kept sliding that direction, using his jab with a series of hammering right crosses that came in from Bryant’s blind side. Several of them landed. Bryant was hurt. He wouldn’t last to the bell.
Perhaps sensing that it was a fight he couldn’t win with caution, Bryant ducked and came inside with everything he had. He landed a handful of body shots and an uppercut that snapped Shull’s head back. But Shull pummeled Bryant’s face and ribs.
The crowd grew hysterical. Hell, I was hysterical! The punishment each meted out to the other was brutal. Neither should have still stood when the bell rang, but stand they did. Their tired arms dropped to their sides before the bell’s clanging died away. The fighters’ cornermen had to literally guide them to their corners. Both men’s faces streamed blood, their shoulders and chests freckled with the stuff.
I felt dizzy, both from the destruction I had witnessed and the alcohol I had consumed. So I sat down, as did most of those standing, in a kind of communal fatigue.
Still standing, Rusty looked down at me. “Can you believe that? Have you ever seen anything like that round of boxing?”
I took those as rhetorical questions and managed a mild shake of the head. It seemed clear that the fight wouldn’t go on much longer. One of them would finish the other quickly. But it no longer seemed that Shull finishing Bryant was such a sure thing. And if Palmisano’s mob had bet a bundle on an eighth round knockout, they had just lost it.
The crowd rose again in anticipation of the ninth round. The referee and fight doctor squatted in the Battler’s corner looking at his eye. Mickey stood next to him shouting at the two. A fella didn’t need to read lips to catch a few of his words. Mickey turned and heaved his bloody towel into the third row. The referee motioned to the ring announcer and to the guy operating the bell.
Rather than clang once to start the ninth, he clanged it non-stop for five or six seconds as the referee trotted over to Shull’s corner. Shull stood, ready to go another round. The ring announcer reached his dangling microphone.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the ring doctor has stopped the fight. The winner, with an eighth round technical knockout, ‘Iceman’ Gary Shull.”
Pandemonium erupted. The ring was buried in projectiles including dozens of liquor bottles. The men in the ring covered their heads and scrambled to get away. A bunch of stiffs rushed the ring trying to show the referee or the ring doctor or anyone handy that they knew their way around fisticuffs. Fights broke out around the ring and even in the aisles. Rusty sat down and enjoyed the show, and once I saw the Holloways had safely made their exit I joined him.
There weren’t nearly enough uniforms to squelch the melee, and the cop hierarchy had already made a hasty exit. So the police down there somewhat passively tried to keep the fighting from becoming a conflagration. When necessary, the cops night-sticked the over enthusiastic pugilists. And we spotted some comic relief.
A woman with auburn hair in a sky blue dress pummeled a guy with a large red handbag. The way she wielded it, the big red bag must have weighed five pounds. The guy tried to flee, but she marked him step-by-step whaling away on his head and shoulders.
As I watched the bonus bouts, I noticed that the bevy of mob kingpins had also made a hasty exit. It was just the common Joes down there getting in some exercise.
“My shovel-faced friend and his shadow left sometime around the fourth round,” I said to Rusty.
Without turning his head, Rusty kept his eyes on the lady with the two-ton handbag. “They must have had some important business.” He chuckled as the man finally eluded the woman who went to work on another guy. “That lady has some serious issues with men.”
“Can’t blame her. We’re all cads,” I said. “I been thinking those two trouble boys might have left early to set up an ambush for someone.”
“Someone we know?”
“Maybe.”
The fight had died down and the police seemed to be gaining the upper hand on the remnants. A police officer escorted the lady in blue out of the auditorium, not in handcuffs but he did have her purse.
I stood and stretched, a little woozy and still feeling the alcohol buzz.
Rusty stood too. “So what now?”
“I figure we better be careful as we leave. Either take a back exit or leave in the middle of a crowd.”
“I like the crowd idea,” Rusty said. “If they got somebody watching the back exits we’re toast.”
“Okay, we go out the front in a crowd then. You got your rod, don’t you?”
Rusty looked hurt. “No, Phil, I forgot all about it. And I forgot my underwear too.”
“So that’s why you wore your brown slacks.” We both laughed, and then headed down to the exiting crowd.
The lights of downtown made it easy to see. We huddled in a crowd that began to split up at the corner, some headed north on Wyandotte and the rest either east or west on 13th Street. Both Rusty and I had parked over by the President Hotel. There were a half dozen others in our group headed east. We kept our eyes moving; every passing car potentially contained shooters.
Without incident, we ducked into the hotel bar. I ordered a whiskey doubled-up and Rusty a Schlitz. Rusty prefers Schlitz after drinking the hard stuff. Turns out we both had parked less than a half block apart. I suggested that we walk together after our drinks, two guns being better than one.
“Since these
fellas are after you, and they know what car you drive, why don’t you let me take you home? I’ll go get my car and pick you up out front. We leave your Plymouth here overnight.”
“What if they mess with my car again?”
“You’ll be alive in the morning to get it fixed. Besides, I thought the old man was paying your expenses.”
“He is.”
“There you go. Whaddya say? Let me drive you home.”
I never liked relying on other people for help, even Rusty. But what he said made sense. I agreed.
As he stood I grabbed his arm. “Be careful. They know who was with me. They might figure getting to you is almost as good.”
Rusty paused in sober thoughtfulness. “A better plan, to my way of thinking. They plug me and they’ve taken out the brains of the operation.” He slid his automatic into his coat pocket and walked out into the street. I tossed down my drink and ordered another.
Before I had a chance to get worried, Rusty’s car pulled up to the curb out front. I slipped my own revolver into my coat pocket and, to my astonishment, left my drink unfinished on the bar. Keeping my right hand on the gun in my pocket, I walked through the bar and outside, half-expecting a hail of bullets. There was no hail or even a shower, just a warm muggy night.
As we headed to my place I kept looking for a tail, but no one followed. I told Rusty about watching Myers in between rounds and him motioning me to call.
“What’s he want?”
“Hell, Russ, I don’t know. I don’t read sign language.”
I told Rusty to pick me up at 8:00 in the morning, told him that I needed to get my car and check in with Tommy’s old man. And I wanted to see what kind of burr Detective Chief Myers had in his trousers.
Rusty looked at me as if he doubted my sanity.
I gave him a palms-up shrug. “What?”
“Eight … a.m.?”
“You heard me. I’ll be fine, up and ready with bells on.”
“You’re the boss.” He wore an adolescent’s smile.
Rusty parked his car at my place and we went up to my flat together, just in case. I fumbled to unlock the door and the new heavy-duty deadbolt. The match I had slid in the door was still where it was supposed to be. We made a quick check of the place and returned to the door. Rusty hesitated.
“What? You waiting for a goodnight kiss?”
My humor brought no reaction.
“You okay?” he asked.
Was he getting sappy on me? “Yeah, I’m okay. Now scram, gumshoe, before I call the landlady.”
I had another drink or two before I went to bed. Normally I sleep like Sammy used to, the roof could get torn off by a twister and I’d have to wake Sammy up to take shelter. But I had trouble sleeping that night, loaded though I was. And when I did sleep I had a dream, a nightmare.
I stood in an alley and that flat-faced son of a bitch was at the other end holding fistfuls of money. His pal stood next to him, his Thompson gun blazed away at me. Only it wasn’t just him. There were at least a dozen of him stationed all around the far end of the alley—all of them fired at me. I held only my .38, and each time I shot one of them another popped up nearby. I couldn’t reload fast enough to whittle their numbers. All the while the bastard waved that money, bills floating to the street around him. He laughed hysterically, only he and his cluster of identical pals weren’t alone.
On both sides of Flat Face were uniformed Kansas City cops, all smiling Satanic smiles and slapping bloody nightsticks in their palms. And my dad stood there with them in his uniform slapping his nightstick and wearing a grim grin I had never seen. He pointed his stick at me and then swung it like a baseball bat.
I don’t remember how it ended or if it ended. And I know at some point I woke up feeling like I had sawdust in my mouth, the dream still vivid. I don’t remember going back to sleep, but I must have.
Saturday, October 13, 1934
(Day Five)
My head pounded as I awakened, pounded so loud it was audible. No, someone bashed on the door. Someone banged on it and called me names. Rusty. I sat up and, yes, my head did pound too. My pulse thumped in my temples. The open pocket-watch on my nightstand showed 8:08. Damn.
“Hang on, Russ. I’m coming.” I forced my unruly feet to drag me to the door.
As I slogged along, Rusty offered words of encouragement. “Rise and shine, Sister Belle” and “tempus fugit” among others.
I fumbled with the deadbolt, swung the door open, and without comment turned toward the kitchen.
Rusty followed. “I see you’re not quite ready yet.”
“I need coffee,” I said.
“Here, I’ll make the coffee. You take a shower. You smell like Mickey’s Tavern on Sunday morning.”
I did stink too. Even I found the stench offensive.
Hot water eased the pain in my head. And by the time it ran out, I felt almost human. As I toweled off, a bruised, haggard man with marijuana-red eyes mimicked my movements in the mirror. In my room, I donned my old charcoal gray suit and followed the aroma of coffee. Rusty had placed butter and an almost empty jar of grape jam on the table. Eggs fried on the stove, and he broiled bread in the oven. I grabbed the coffee.
After the chow and three cups, Rusty spoke. “What’s up for today?”
“After we get my car, I’ve got a couple of things to do at the office and then I need to check in with Mr. Holloway.” I poured the last of the pot into our cups. Rusty added sugar and milk to his, the whippersnapper. “Then I thought I’d see if Chief Myers is in today, see what he wants.”
“Okay, good,” Rusty said. “I’ve got a case of my own that I need to play a little catch up with.” I waited with eyebrows raised as high as they would go. “Just a domestic espionage case.”
I waited some more, Rusty’s espionage hook lodged firmly in my mouth. But Rusty seemed enraptured by the swirl of milk in his cup. He was playing me. I decided to be played.
“Really, Russ, that’s all you’re going to say?’
He grinned big. “A guy’s wife’s jewelry is disappearing an item or two at a time. And the guy’s loaded. And he gave her a lot. She always has an excuse. The earrings he wants her to wear that night are loaned to a friend, or ‘they’re around here somewhere; I’ll just wear these tonight.’” Rusty took a sip of his doctored java. “Guy thinks she’s selling the stuff or pawning it. Wants to know to whom and why.”
“Where are you on the case?”
“I got Nat Simpson following the dame. I’ll check in with him today.”
The shower and the food, and especially the coffee had me feeling like a new man—a new man with a sizeable headache. On the way to pick up my car, we agreed that I would call him at his office at eleven to square out the rest of the day. Rusty mentioned that Count Basie was playing at the Chesterfield that night. That again meant everybody who was anybody would be there, mobsters, mob thugs, cops, the moneyed, Palmisano, and maybe our girl Beverly. And maybe Colleen. I held that thought for a moment, the memory of her in a slinky gown, and me holding her tight as we spun around the dance floor. I must have smiled before I shook loose of the thought.
Rusty leaned forward. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, my smile returning.
“Oh, no, it was something all right,” he said. “I’ll bet I know what too.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. We both laughed loudly. My head wasn’t happy about the laughing.
Rusty suggested that maybe we should make the scene, that is, if my expense account picked up the tab. I nodded in the affirmative, trying to hide my eagerness.
When we got to my car everything looked okay. As I opened the Plymouth’s door and slid in Rusty hollered, “Hang on a second, Phil.”
He pulled his parking brake and left his jalopy double-parked and idling. It was Saturday morning in the middle of the Depression. Shoppers and traffic were minimal. Rusty squatted down and began to poke around on the Plymouth’
s under-carriage.
“What you doing?”
Rusty stood, cocked his head and offered a “you-dumb-shit” expression. “Car bombs.” He opened the hood. I hopped out, suddenly very interested in looking too. Car bombs had been all the rage in St. Louis and Chicago recently.
The Plymouth checked out okay. Rusty and I parted ways and I drove the short distance to my office, where I found a parking spot on the street right in front. The day was gray and blustery and unseasonably warm. You could feel the humidity on your skin, could drink it with every breath.
Henry didn’t work Saturdays and the sour, silent lady brought me up to the third floor.
I unlocked my desk but avoided opening the lowest drawer. Hair-of-the-dog-bite wouldn’t do that day. Instead, I pulled out my circles and arrows drawing from the previous day. What jumped out at me were Flat Face and his pal. No arrows to anyone. I’d bet my last bottle of booze they worked for someone who had done something to Tommy Holloway. But who?
I called the Holloway home and got Hannerty on the third ring. He told me Mr. Holloway would be working at his office all morning and he gave me the number.
A pleasant sounding woman answered, asked for my name and told me to wait. She returned and asked me for my number. She told me Mr. Holloway would phone when he had a free moment.
I grabbed some more paper and began tracking my expenses, something I should have done from the very beginning. I’m sure I missed a few things. And I left off my jazz club visit and the previous day’s lunch with Colleen. Technically they were expenses. But I would have jumped at the chance for either, even if I had no questions to ask. And for some reason, I didn’t want the old man to know about his daughter and me. From an investigational vein, it was improper.
What did she have that made me feel like a schoolboy with his first crush—I mean besides her gorgeous looks? There was something other than the raw physical attraction that made me hungry to bed her. She was smart, but manipulative. I even enjoyed the cat and mouse of her attempts to manipulate.