Felony Fists (Fight Card)

by Jack Tunney

  “You see what I want you to do?” Pops asked.

  “Yeah, punch from my shoulder and my hips . . .”

  “No! No! No!” Pops raised his fists and his eyes Heavenward. “What happened when you twisted your shoulder and your hips into the punch?”

  I must have looked blank because Pops started kicking at me. “Your feet . . . your feet!”

  I was bouncing away from him, when Pops stopped chasing me and turned to Tombstone. “You tell him,” he said.

  “I think he wants you to punch from your feet.” Tombstone upped the wattage of his grin.

  “I want you to punch all the way from the canvas!” Pops yelled at me.

  I nodded like I knew what he was talking about.

  “You’ve got a punch like a mule kick in your own weight class,” Pops said in a calmer tone. “But a heavyweight is going to think you’re a gnat bothering him. These guys are mountains of mean and stupid – you’ve got to hit them with everything you’ve got, plus the canvas underneath your feet.”

  Pops threw a slow motion right, over emphasizing everything he did.

  “Think about your fist like a bullet in your gun. It’s harmless unless there’s powder behind it, a primer to set the powder off, a firing pin to strike the primer, a hammer behind the pin, a trigger to drop the hammer, fingers to pull the trigger, a hand to steady the fingers, and an arm to guide the hand.” When Pops’ punch was fully extended, his whole body had been behind moving it to its final position.

  Pops threw the same slow punch again. “Your fist is backed by your wrist, which is backed by your arm, which comes from the shoulder, which twists in from the power in your hips, which delivers the power from your buttocks, which is driven by your thigh, which is turned by your knee, your calf, your ankle, and your foot, which draws power from the canvas beneath it . . .”

  As Pops finished talking, his fist was three inches from the leather of the hanging heavy bag. Suddenly, his whole body snapped, twisting from his feet – his fist exploding across the remaining distance to the leather.

  The bag popped, jinking up in the air on its chain. Kinetic energy flowed through the bag, knocking a grunt out of the unprepared Tombstone and staggering him backward.

  “You learn to hit like that,” Pops said to me. “And ain’t nobody big enough to stay on their feet.”

  He turned to walk away. “Keep at it,” he said over his shoulder. “Five more sets of intervals – and this time punch from the canvas.”

  ***

  An hour later, Pops called for the end of the morning training. There’d be sparring again with Donovan in the late afternoon, but until then Tombstone and I had police work to do.

  After Tombstone and I had our little heart to heart several weeks earlier, we’d gone to the small apartment I was renting and moved most of my things over to a spare room above Ten Hawks Gym. Pops actually owned the building and lived above it with Mama Hawk, Tina, and whichever of the interchangeable male Hawk siblings were still at home. There was still space for me, even though I would be using the gym’s locker room downstairs to shower.

  Everyone agreed it was going to be a better arrangement for training and for Mama Hawk to keep feeding me up. Apparently, Chief Parker had a slush fund available for food and training fees and whatever else we were going to need in our campaign.

  Even after showering, my arms were still so sore from the intervals on the heavy bag I could hardly bring them up in front of me. Once dressed in one of my new suits, I met Tombstone outside the gym. He was leaning against the fender of our detective sedan and drinking a soda out of a bottle.

  “That old man can really hit,” he said. “I swear, my chest feels bruised from that last pop of his.”

  “So, my feeble efforts had nothing to do with how you feel?”

  Tombstone shook his head. “You’ve got a ways to go before you hitting with that kind of dynamite. But you better get to it quick.”

  I reached into the inside pocket of my suit and removed the envelope Bonnie Wallace had given to me. I’d been too busy training to think about what to do with the counterfeit bills, but I’d decided to finally get to it.

  I handed the envelope to Tombstone.

  “What’s this?” he asked, taking it. His face clouded over when he looked inside. “We don’t take no payoffs,” he said. His voice was hard. There was a disappointed, almost hurt tone to it.

  “Never have, never will,” I said.

  Tombstone stared steadily at me, the envelope still in his hand.

  “Take a closer look,” I said.

  He dropped his eyes to the contents of the envelope. With his other hand, he riffled through the bills. He took one of the twenties out and held it up toward the sun, trying to look through it.

  “Counterfeit?”

  “If you have to ask, then they’re very good counterfeits.”

  He grunted and put the bill back in the envelope with the others.

  “Okay, so what do these have to do with anything?” he asked.

  I told him where they came from.

  “The kid just gave ‘em up?”

  “Figured he’d either get them stolen from him, or get him beat for being black and having them.”

  Tombstone nodded. He handed the envelope back to me. I slid it back into my jacket pocket.

  “You’ve been holding on to those for a while?”

  “Too much other stuff going on,” I said. “But I think it’s time to see if we can use them.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “Taking out Mickey Cohen’s light-heavyweight prospect might upset the big man, but it really isn’t going to hurt him. It might stop him from spreading his influence to the fight game, but his organized crime machine will still keep on turning in L.A.”

  “The bills were taken off one of Cohen’s thugs,” Tombstone said, picking up my train of thought.

  “If we can find the source of the counterfeits,” I said, “maybe we can put the hurt on Cohen’s machine – really cost him.”

  “Get us a few steps closer to closing him down all together.”

  “Maybe cost him enough to put him in bad with the bent nose boys back east.”

  Tombstone grinned. “Maybe they do our job for us.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Cohen is a weasel. He’d probably find some way out of the corner, but we’ll make him sweat.”

  “You’re really going to be raising your profile with him.”

  “You too,” I said. “Can you stand the heat?”

  “I’m black. I been taking heat all my life.”

  “You’re not married,” I said. “Anybody else close?”

  “I’ve got a sister, but she’s back in Alabama,” Tombstone said. “No way Cohen could find her there. I know you ain’t got a wife, and I ain’t seen you sneaking off to meet a girlfriend these past few weeks . . .”

  “Too tired,” I said, and we both laughed.

  “Footloose and fancy free, that’s me,” I said.

  “We’ll see how fancy free you are if Cohen comes gunning for us. He be a rabid dog,” Tombstone said.

  “So, we have to be prepared,” I said.

  Tombstone gave me that silent assessing stare, as if he could see into my head, checking he could trust what I said.

  “Where do you want to start with this counterfeiting thing?” he asked.

  “Treasury Department is supposed to investigate counterfeiting. Their office is in the Federal Building on the Westside. Why don’t we pay them a visit?”

  ROUND 8

  We were looking dapper in our fedoras and slick suits, but those items didn’t make us stand out in the crowd moving through the lobby of the Federal Building. Both Tombstone and I were actually fighting the uncomfortable feeling of country cousins visiting upscale relatives – city boys up against the feds.

  Feeling uncomfortable was agitating. This was our city, and believe it or not, the feds didn’t have local powers of arrest in Los Angeles, or anywhere else
in the state of California. If the feds wanted to make a pinch or serve a warrant, they had to come to us, hat in hand, and ask if we’d go with them to make things legal. They were the feds, and they didn’t like that one little bit. Federal agencies verses city agencies – the old unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects.

  Tombstone and I didn’t think we were going to get much cooperation, but we could stir the pot and see what we could learn.

  The elevator opened and there she was . . .

  . . . The redhead from ringside – sitting next to Mickey Cohen, studying me. The one I thought I recognized.

  She had her head up and I saw her eyes widen when she saw me. She knew me, no doubt, even dressed up with my Borsalino at a rakish angle. And I knew her – but I still couldn’t place her.

  She dropped her head, breaking eye contact. She turned her body sideways, slipping between Tombstone and me like a rabbit dashing down a hole. I turned toward her, but her heels were clacking across the lobby tiles and she was out the door. There was nothing left of her, but a trace of magnolia scent and the memory of nicely nyloned gams and a woman’s sway.

  “You coming?” Tombstone asked from inside the elevator.

  I joined him with my mind spinning all the way to the third floor. I knew the redheaded frail, but from where? If she was hanging out with Cohen, it could be important. And, if she was hanging out with Cohen, what was she doing at the Federal Building?

  I had to push thoughts of her face and body out of my mind as I followed Tombstone out of the elevator and into the office of the Treasury Department. We flashed our badges at the pinched looking secretary, and were quickly ushered in to the office of the SAC – Special Agent in Charge.

  “Walter Dent,” said the SAC, introducing himself with an outstretched hand from one side of his government issue desk. He was a bulky man in a gray suit. His cheeks were pockmarked and jowly, but his eyes were sharp and alert.

  “What can the Treasury Department do for two of L.A.’s finest?” he asked, once we did our part of the introductions and were sitting down.

  I took the envelope out of my jacket pocket and removed one of the counterfeit twenty-dollar bills. I handed it to Dent. “Can you tell us anything about this bill?”

  He glanced at the bill, rubbing it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He then brought it up to his nose and sniffed it.

  “I assume you know it’s counterfeit?”

  I nodded. Tombstone simply sat immobile. Even I found his stillness a bit intimidating.

  Dent glanced back at the bill. “It’s a good counterfeit. The printing plates used were clean. The ink is an excellent match, but the paper is rough – probably from a test batch. Counterfeiters don’t waste good paper on samples – it’s too hard to get.”

  “Not made to pass on the street?”

  Dent shook his head. “Whoever printed this is certainly planning on passing bills on the street. But this is just a sample to make sure the plates and ink are working. Do you have any others?”

  I showed him the four bills remaining in the envelope. Dent stuck out his hand. I was reluctant, but I let him take the bills. He ran them through the same process as the first, then stacked them with the other and placed them on his desk blotter.

  “Can I ask where you got these?”

  “You can ask,” I said.

  Dent’s eyes narrowed. “Counterfeiting is a federal crime under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department.”

  I tried Dent with a smile. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you. I was just hoping for a little more give and take before I did. You haven’t told us much yet we didn’t already know.”

  Dent gave me a stare. “What’s your interest?”

  “You know us city boys,” I said. “We blunder along, but even a blind hog can root out truffles sometimes.”

  Tombstone suddenly leaned forward and snagged the pile of bills from the center of the desk. Dent moved a hand to stop him, but if it had been a gunfight Dent would have been dead and cooling on the ground.

  “City property,” Tombstone said.

  “Now, look here,” Dent started. He was leaning forward definitely ruffled, one hand pointing a finger at us.

  “Agent Dent,” I said, cutting him off. “If you level with us, we’ll cooperate.” I looked over at Tombstone and tilted my head in the direction of Dent’s desk. Tombstone reached out and replaced the bills on Dent’s blotter.

  Dent visibly relaxed. “Those bills are confirmation of something we’ve been waiting for. Six months ago, a man named Verne Chadwick was released from prison. He’d been sentenced for forging Treasury plates. He disappeared a month later. We believe he’s back to his old trade. I’d have to have them examined further, but these bills look like his work.”

  “The bills came off a leg-breaker with ties to Mickey Cohen,” I said.

  “Makes sense,” Dent said. “Cohen has the upfront money to get a counterfeiting operation like this off the ground on a large scale. Chadwick was once an engraver for the Treasury Department before he went bad. He is skilled and knows the process. He knows where to go for ink and paper.”

  I looked hard at Dent. “You already knew Cohen was behind this.”

  Dent shrugged. “Suspected. I told you, it makes sense. Although we haven’t been able to locate Chadwick, his trail led to L.A.”

  “What are you doing about it?” Tombstone asked.

  Dent thought for a few seconds before replying. “We have an agent close to the source.”

  “Undercover?” I asked.

  “Deep undercover,” Dent said. “Any steps you take could put the agent in danger. This is a big operation. You need to let us run it.”

  ***

  Outside the Federal Building a few minutes later, Tombstone unlocked our sedan and opened the doors to let the heat out. The sun was high and shining and I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back. We got nothing more out of Dent, but we’d let him keep the bills.

  “We gonna let the feds run with this?” he asked me.

  The Treasury Department had the counterfeiting experts, but it was still our city.

  “We told Dent we would . . .”

  “But . . .”

  “But we might have lied to him, since he lied to us.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He was careful to make us think his undercover agent is a man, but I think it’s a woman. There’s a problem, but I think I know who...”

  Tombstone was quick on the uptake. “The dame who turned your head when she got off the elevator?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is she?”

  “That’s the problem. I know her from somewhere, but I can’t place her.”

  There was the sound of a saxophone, and I looked over at the plaza of the Federal Building where we had just been. A tall Negro in a shiny black suit and a porkpie hat was playing his sax softly, his back to the wall of the building. His sax case was open at his feet to catch change from passers-by. He’d have to move along quickly if a uniformed cop saw him, but he looked desperate enough to take the risk.

  He could barely play the sax well enough for me to make out the tune, Someone To Watch Over Me . . .

  And then I had it . . .

  “Anita O’Shay!”

  Tombstone gave me a funny look. “Who?”

  “Anita O’Shay,” I slapped the roof of the sedan, looking across it at Tombstone. “The frail . . . the one who came out of the elevator –Anita O’Shay. She’s the new singer at the Blue Cat in Hollywood.”

  “Jazz club?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You seen her?”

  “No, just posters outside the club pushing her coming appearance. Saw them a couple of months ago.”

  “And you think a jazz singer is a female Treasury agent?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s who she is. I saw her with Cohen, and again here at the Federal building. And I don’t put much stock in coincidence.”

  ROUND 9


  I might have figured out who Anita O’Shay might be, but there wasn’t any time before the fight with Trevor Haywood to find out if I was right. Pops kept my training regime rigid, and even Tombstone, as big as he was, didn’t want to argue with him.

  The Sunday before the Friday night fight, Pops gave me a rare day off, just a couple of miles of roadwork, some light calisthenics to stay loose, and exactly ten minutes in the steam room. I was still having problems putting on the needed weight, and Pops didn’t want me sweating off any poundage.

  With a little spare time, Tombstone and I took a trip out to the county jail where Ennis Cooper was being held. Cooper was the goon Rodney had taken the counterfeit bills from. He wasn’t happy to see us.

  He was still waiting to go before the judge on the outstanding assault warrant he’d been arrested on after our encounter. It could still be another month before he got in a courtroom. The wheels of justice turned slow for repeat offenders like Cooper.

  The guard brought him into the interview room, a concrete box with two chairs set in the middle. Over the chairs hung a harshly bright light bulb in the center of a wide, flat, metal shade. Everything in the room was gray, including Cooper.