Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Great,” I said.

  He was around the desk now, leaning close to me. It was hard to get the cup to my mouth. He looked at me for a few seconds and backed away. “What happened to your face?”

  “A cop shoved me,” I said.

  Lipparini nodded knowingly. He had been shoved by cops. “The way I figure it,” he said, “the only one who figured to gain from this Ralph Howard’s getting it is Howard’s widow. How about that?”

  “She didn’t do it,” I said, putting the empty cup down on the desk. Lipparini nodded and Silvio, who I had thought of as Larry, leaped forward to pick up the cup and wipe the ring I had left with his pocket handkerchief.

  “Parkman,” Lipparini said, holding up a finger.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Howard owed him. I don’t kill people who owe me but that doesn’t mean other people have my ethics.”

  I wasn’t getting far this way. All I was getting was cheap coffee and weak ideas.

  “How were you going to fix the fight with Louis and Teeth Guzman?” I asked.

  To my right Curly, who I now knew was Mush, sucked in his breath. Lipparini stood back and looked at me as if I were insane. His smile left for a second and came back.

  “You’re a crazy man,” he said.

  “Humor me.” I grinned.

  “You know boxing?” he said. “More coffee?”

  “I know boxing,” I answered. “No more coffee.”

  “Ever see Louis fight?”

  “Roper, 1939,” I said. “Louis put him away in the first.”

  “Okay,” said Lipparini. “But first Roper tagged Louis with a left, hurt him. And Galento. I saw that one. Galento went down in the fourth, but he had Louis down. See what I mean? Some bum of the month could get lucky.”

  “Or,” I contributed, “some bum of the month could be helped to get lucky.”

  Lipparini shrugged, indicating that it was possible, and said, “Something in Louis’s water. Or maybe someone could talk to him about life insurance for his wife or his sisters or his mother. People do things like that, Peters. Sure you don’t want another cup?”

  “I’m sure. Yeah, I know people do things like that. Hell of a world.”

  “Now you got it.” He grinned. “I told you that when you walked through that door. Just took you a while to soak it in. You can go now. It’s been good talking to you, but I don’t want to see you or hear from you again. If I have to I can handle that file you say you’ve got on me and Howard. I’ll look bad, have a little trouble with the boxing commission, a little chat from some partners back East, but I can live with that if I really want your skin.”

  I got up and went to the door. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said. “Made the war seem far away.”

  Moe was still standing in the same place in the outer office. The blonde was on the phone, listening and nodding her head. I grinned at him and went out.

  When I got to my car, I remembered what Jack Roper had told the reporters after Louis put him away. “I zigged when I should have zagged,” Roper had said. I knew the feeling. I stopped for a pair of cheeseburgers and a Victory shake at a stand on Laurel Canyon. The Victory shake tasted like plain vanilla to me, but it was served in a red, white, and blue plastic cup.

  I drove through the hills on Laurel Canyon and then went over to Figueroa. The picture at the Lex had been changed. Today’s feature was The Elephant Boy with Sabu. I found a space a half-block away from the entrance to Reed’s, not far from the Rexall’s where I had eaten the night before. I got out and looked around. Gunther was parked directly across from the Reed’s entrance. I got into his car from the passenger side.

  “How’s he doing, Gunther?” I asked.

  “He is a nervous man, Toby,” Gunther said. His head barely made it over the window ledge. More than one driver passing Gunther on the road must have thought he was seeing a driverless car. “He arrived here at eight thirty-four and has come outside four times looking both ways as if he expects someone who has not arrived.”

  “Can you keep on him for a few more hours?” I asked.

  “As long as you see fit,” he said seriously.

  “Thanks,” I said. “How about we take in a restaurant of your choice on my client when this case is over?”

  “That would be very nice,” Gunther said.

  I got out, closed the door, waited for a truck to pass, and crossed the street to Reed’s. China Rogers was at his post.

  “Teddy Roosevelt,” I said, coming to the top of the stairs. China was wearing a blue pullover today.

  “Theodore,” he said, beaming. “He’s seventeen.”

  “Alexander Hamilton,” I returned.

  “Seventeen, but he wasn’t a president,” China said seriously. “But Franklin Roosevelt’s a seventeen, too. Lot’s of seventeens, if you don’t count middle names.”

  I plunked a dime into China’s gnarled hand and stepped into the sea of bodies banging, running, jumping, grunting, throwing, and catching in the gym. I spotted Josh the trainer in the corner by the ring, but no Parkman. I made my way ringside to Josh, who stood with his arms folded, a white towel draped over the shoulder of his gray sweatshirt.

  “The right,” he shouted. “The right.”

  The guys in the ring were bigger than the ones yesterday. One was slightly taller than the other, very black and fast. The other was a little smaller, slower and more tired. His face was red.

  “Hi,” I said, stepping next to Josh. He nodded to me.

  “More of Parkman’s boys?” I said, looking at the two men puffing in the ring.

  “Guzman,” Josh said.

  I watched for a few seconds. “The white guy?” I asked.

  Josh nodded.

  “He’s got nothing in his right. Doesn’t put anything behind it.”

  “You think you’re telling me something I don’t already know, mister?” Josh said without looking at me. “He’s got a left, good left, and he’s got the heart, but no punch. Guzman ain’t no main-eventer.”

  “The other guy looks pretty good,” I said.

  “Yeah, you tell me Bobby’s problem.”

  I watched the two of them going at it again. Guzman did have a pretty good left and maybe he could take a punch, but there was no way he could make it through a round with Joe Louis. Ralph Howard had made some poor investments in the boxing world.

  “Upstairs, downstairs,” I said. “Bobby headhunts and goes for the basket. No change-up.”

  Won’t go to the heart,” Josh said, shaking his head and pointing to his own heart. “Don’t know why. He don’t know why. Some fighters are like that. Seen some good fighters, maybe even great fighters. Boy named James Pulley, middleweight a few years back. Had everything but held back when he went to the head. Didn’t want to hurt nobody. Couldn’t break him of it.”

  “Sounds like Howard would have invested a chunk in Pulley if he were still around,” I went on as Guzman blocked a left to the head and threw a halfhearted right.

  “Howard didn’t know fighters,” Josh said. “They’re like horses. Some of them look great on the outside, like Bobby in there, but something’s missing.”

  “But Lipparini knows the score,” I said, watching his face. He turned to look at me, ran his thumb along his gray sideburns.

  “Some,” he said cautiously.

  “Then why did he take a piece of Howard’s action?”

  “Mister,” Josh said softly, “I got me a pretty good living here. People want me to train their fighters, and I do my best, though I don’t have a real contender. I’m a good cut man, and I’ve been in the corner of some boys who’ve been in there with champions. It’s a pretty fair life for an ex-welter who left the ring with no savings and not much in the way of learning. I’d sort of like to enjoy it, not get anybody riled up, and mind my own business.”

  “I follow,” I said.

  “Good,” Josh said with a grin. “Now I’ll answer your damn question. I’d sort of like to do all those things,
but I can’t live with myself running scared. Mister Lipparini’s one of those guys who like to rub up with fighters, ringside, stuff like that. Likes his picture in the papers. He’ll rub with the whites and the Negros just so the Negro fighters don’t rub too close.”

  “You don’t much care for Mr. Lipparini,” I guessed as Guzman threw a good body and head combination. Bobby acted as if he felt nothing.

  “Not much,” Josh agreed. “Too many like him around the game. Trying to make a dirty dollar. It don’t make you a man by buying men. I figure maybe Lipparini buys fighters and sells them ’cause he got something missing. I figure he went in with Mister Howard because Howard looked clean and respectable and Lipparini wanted to dirty him up a little.”

  “You figure pretty well,” I said as Josh threw the towel into the ring. It thudded against Guzman’s back.

  “That’ll do it,” Josh called. “Go get something to eat and come back in an hour.”

  “One final question,” I said. “How come they call him Teeth Guzman?”

  “On account of he ain’t got any,” Josh said.

  My question answered, I made my way around a guy jumping rope and a kid with pretty good muscles who looked as if he were trying real hard to push down the wall.

  Parkman’s outer office door was open. I went in. There was no one around. In the daylight I could now see that the walls out here were covered with posters announcing past fight cards. I’d seen some of them, including the Henry Armstrong exhibition last year. I went through the outer office, knocked at the door of the inner one, arid went in before Parkman could answer. He was sitting there looking scared.

  “Go,” he said. His little mustache twitched. He was dressed in another less than elegant but glowing suit. This one was almost white with gold threads.

  “I can’t. You’re a suspect.”

  “Me?” he pointed at his chest. “Me? A suspect? For what?”

  “Murder. Ralph Howard’s.”

  “I … He owed me money,” Parkman sputtered. “I couldn’t murder. Lipparini …”

  I waited till he lapsed into coherence. It took a while.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, getting up. “I couldn’t kill anybody. I liked Howard. I mean he was a class guy. You don’t get a lot of class guys in a business like this.”

  I pulled up a chair and sat down, saying nothing. My eyes wandered around the room looking at pictures of King Levinsky, Jack Sharkey, and Bob Pastor. Parkman was strong on the heavyweights.

  “Who else might have wanted Howard dead?” I asked. “I’ll give you some names. You give me a make on any you know.”

  I pulled out my list from Ralph’s notebook, placed it on the desk, flattened it with my palm, and read a name. “Mahan, Jeffrey.”

  “Means nothing to me,” he said. His eyes went to the door. I looked but there was no one there.

  “Let’s try Dolph Heitner.”

  “Light heavy,” Parkman said, picking up a pencil and putting it down. “You know you broke my lamp last night?”

  “I know,” I said. “Send me a bill. A light heavy?”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “Howard had a piece of him, too. Figured with a Kraut name we could get some good spots on the card. People might come out to see him get plastered.”

  “And?”

  “Heitner joined the Navy.” Parkman half-laughed. “By the time the war’s over, if he makes it through, he’ll be too old to fight and, assuming we win, no one is going to be interested in a third-rater just because he has a Kraut name. Howard could pick ’em all right. And Lipparini was right in there with them. Funny, isn’t it? I’m supposed to be the cheap manager who doesn’t dress too classy, and these two smart, rich guys with all the connections are buying washed-up fighters I wouldn’t take for nothing and paying me to manage them. You know what I’m talking?”

  I was telling him I knew when his eyes went to the door again. Again I looked, but this time there was someone there: Mush and Silvio.

  “Oh no,” Parkman said, looking at the window, realizing he’d never make it, and then collapsing into his chair. “They’re going to … I didn’t tell this guy a thing, not a thing. Ask him.”

  “No a thing,” I agreed, standing up to face them.

  I could see the pattern of blue veins on Mush’s shaven head. Some people look good with their heads shaved. Others look like Mush. Silvio stepped forward. I thought about the window, too, but agreed with Parkman. I’d never make it.

  Mush closed the door.

  “I’ve got a deal with Lipparini,” I reminded them.

  “We’re canceling it,” Mush said, reaching for my collar. I threw a low right, but it bounced off his stomach. I tried for another right as he got a grip of my neck, but he blocked it with his shoulder. I could feel Silvio stepping in to get a shot at me.

  “Monty isn’t going to like this,” I tried.

  “You aren’t going to be around to tell him,” Silvio said behind me.

  “Wait,” Parkman said and then shut up when Silvio slammed his fist down on the desk. Things certainly did not look good. Mush and Silvio were pros, not just pro killers but pro fighters. They had the weight, the experience, and the years on me, and I was going to get hurt very badly if I was lucky. I had the feeling they had worse in mind for me than split lips and broken bones. If Lipparini sent them, he had decided my nonexistent files weren’t enough to keep him from his duty. If Lipparini didn’t send them, then they were going against the boss, and they wouldn’t want me alive to complain. I made another shot at keeping my skin by trying a very low left, but Mush turned and caught it on his thigh without easing up on my neck. Things were going dark and inky inside my head, and I was afraid I’d soon be seeing my old pal Koko the Clown. This time when I went into the inkwell with him, I probably wouldn’t be coming out.

  I’m not sure if I heard the door open or just imagined later I did. The grip on my neck loosened enough for me to open my eyes. There was a soldier standing there, a corporal dressed in brown and filling the door. His face was blank and brown and beautiful.

  “You’d best let him go,” Louis said, tucking his cap into his belt.

  Mush didn’t let me go. Instead he threw a right into my stomach that made me feel like a kid with the bad part of the flu. I needed what my brother and I used to call a throw-up bucket. I cracked against the desk and tried to grab something to keep from falling, but there was nothing to grab. I slipped to the floor.

  “You’d best get out,” Louis said to Mush and Silvio, but they were committed. It was too late. Silvio’s hand went under his jacket and I lurched forward on my knees, hitting him low with my shoulder. He pulled his hand out of his jacket and used his hands to keep from going over the chair. That was all I had in me. I was on my back, looking up, when Mush threw the first punch at Louis.

  The champ’s left shot out to block the punch, and he followed with a right and left to Mush’s stomach. Silvio, on the blind side, picked up the chair in one hand and pulled it back to fling it at Louis. The champ stepped forward under the chair and threw a right and left combination to the midsection. Silvio went down hard. Mush was up, his arms out, trying to grab Louis around the waist, but Louis stepped back against the wall, crouched, and threw a pair of rat-tat lefts at his chest. Both punches were jabs. Mush went down for the count.

  “See,” Parkman shouted behind the desk. “Body punches. All body punches.”

  “Didn’t want to break my hands,” Louis explained, helping me up. “These are the two I saw there on the beach.”

  “It’s getting curious,” I said, unable to stand up.

  “Take small breaths,” Louis advised. “Real small, like a dog.”

  I panted. It helped.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when I could. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Came looking for Mr. Parkman,” Louis explained. “Settle up for the workout and to see Josh. I want him to work my corner after the war, with Chappie and Roxie gone.”


  “I’ll drink to that,” I said, propping myself on the desk and looking around with eyes that felt as if they might pop out of the sockets. Mush and Silvio were down, but only Mush was out. Silvio was moaning low.

  “Call the cops,” I told Parkman. “Champ, you’d better do some roadwork. I’ll try to keep you clean on this, but you might have to identify our two sparring partners.”

  “If you say so,” Louis said. “Sure you can handle them, now?”

  I reached down and took the gun out from under Silvio’s jacket. He moaned some more and tried to find his stomach with his right hand, but it eluded him.

  Behind us, Parkman was talking into the phone.

  I walked with Louis out of the outer office and into the gym.

  “I got to go back to New York,” he said. “Might have to go tomorrow unless I get mixed up with this. Truth is I want to get back to my wife. We tried for a baby last year. Marva had a miscarriage.”

  The action in the gym had almost come to a stop. People were looking at Louis instead of their bags and sparring partners.

  “It’s going to be hard to deny you were here,” I said, looking around. Louis looked, too.

  “Do what you can,” he said, taking my hand. “You can find me at the Braxton Hotel at least through tomorrow.”

  I turned back into the alcove near Al Parkman’s office after I watched Corporal Louis pat China Rogers on the back and disappear down the steps. The door to the outer office was locked, which I didn’t like. I hadn’t even closed the door. I liked even less the six shots that came from behind it. I threw my elbow into the rectangle with Parkman’s name on it, let the glass clear, and reached in to open the door. I could hear steps behind me from the gym, running to see what was going on.

  Glass crunched under my feet, and I felt pain in my stomach from the blow Mush had thrown, but I knew I’d feel worse if Parkman was dead.

  The inner door was locked, too, and it was harder to get through. I threw my shoulder against it and pleaded with my stomach not to turn against me just yet. The door didn’t open. I stepped back and kicked it three or four times, and it popped open.