Fight Card Presents: Battling Mahoney & Other Stories

by Jack Tunney

  She sucked in a breath, her gaze resting on Orrin. “No!”

  “He ain’t dead yet, Mrs. Twyford,” Canelli explained in a reasonable voice. “Tell me where your boy is.”

  She looked from Canelli to her husband and back at Canelli. “Up – upstairs in the back bedroom…”

  Canelli signed to Box who then dashed past her and ascended the stairs.

  Nobody as much as moved a muscle until Box returned, gently carrying the infant. He glanced at Orrin, then at Enrica. “He takes after his pa,” Box said, walking past her. Holding the baby, he stood next to Canelli.

  “Okay, dump her,” Canelli told Cox.

  The big lummox shoved the covered shape off his shoulder, and the dead weight landed at Orrin’s feet with a heavy thud.

  Canelli held out a hand to Enrica. “Now, Mrs. Twyford, if you want your baby boy to live, I suggest you come with me right away.”

  Earl saw the distress in her eyes, her gaze flashing back and forth, from Orrin to her son. She nodded and stepped forward, let Canelli take her hand. She visibly shuddered at his touch but went with him. As they reached the doorstep, Canelli turned, barked, “You both know what to do!”

  Carrying the baby, Box followed them down onto the sidewalk. Earl glimpsed Cox unwrapping the material from a female stiff. Orrin stared at the doorway, his eyes empty, it seemed, oblivious.

  That was the last Earl saw of him as they all piled in their cars and drove away.

  The explosion reverberated down the street, reaching them as their vehicles turned the corner.

  “Oh, my God,” whispered Logan. “The woman’s corpse – it was supposed to be Mrs. Twyford?”

  “Yep. They used a dead prostitute nobody’d miss… Mrs. Twyford had no choice. They dumped her kid in the orphanage. Everyone thought she died in the ‘house fire’. Canelli got her to dye her hair black and she became his moll, named her Angel. Every time I saw her on his arm, she had sad, empty eyes.” Earl gritted the tombstones that were his teeth. “She might as well have died in that house with her husband...”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She died of cancer in 1918.”

  Logan sensed a tightness in his chest. “Hollis was deprived of her for about thirteen years…”

  “Yep. Of course, once Canelli had her, he plain forgot about the kid – until he started getting noticed in the fight game.”

  “He’s going to want Hollis to throw the game, isn’t he?”

  Earl nodded. “I’ve heard he’s invested heavily in ‘The Bone Grinder’. If he can get a crack at the title, even at Dempsey…” Earl sighed and leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, as if attempting to shut out the memories of a dubious past.

  “I don’t think Hollis will agree to take a fall.” Logan ran his hands over his face, weary, sickened by what he’d been told. “The kid’s got no chance, has he?”

  But Earl didn’t reply. He’d dropped off to sleep, snoring softly.

  ***

  The day before the big fight, Logan showed up at the door of Pinky’s. He flashed his membership card and was let in. The hat-check girl took his coat and fedora and showed him to a table near the front, by the small stage. Hollis Twyford and Little Sammy were already seated, both nursing glasses of water on the rocks. Dorothy was midway through a number so Logan sat without comment.

  Dorothy shimmied and kicked her way through the routine, the glinting tassels dazzling, bobbed blonde hair and beads shining. She was quite the flapper.

  When she stopped, she blew kisses to the cheering audience and skipped off behind the curtain.

  Hollis smiled. “You’ve come to keep your promise, Mr. Reid?”

  Little Sammy eyed Logan warily. Logan had already briefed the trainer, who was against offering Hollis the revelation before the fight.

  “I’ve been thinking it might wait till after the fight,” Logan said, shamefaced.

  Hollis shook his head, adamant. “No, if you’ve dug up stuff on my parents, I want to know.”

  “OK.” When Logan finished, he thought he’d never seen the kid so still, or so pale.

  Hollis raised his head. “Thanks for telling me, Mr. Reid. I appreciate it.” He looked at Sammy. “I had to know. You understand?”

  “Sure, Holly. Sure.”

  “Are you okay?” Logan asked.

  Hollis stood, moved to the exit.

  “I’m fine. Just fine. It’s getting late. I have a fight tomorrow night.”

  ***

  The auditorium was quiet. Only a few overhead lights were on. Shadows abounded. Canelli stepped through the door and strode down the sloping carpeted aisle toward the ring. “You there, kid?”

  “Over here, Mr. Canelli!” Hollis was on the far side of the ring and niftily climbed into it. He wore his training gear and his fists were wrapped in gauze.

  Canelli grinned. “You’ve come to your senses, is that it?”

  “That’s it, sir!” He stood, hands on hips. “Where are your two pals?”

  “I left them outside, like we agreed. Just you and me.”

  When he reached the ringside, Canelli clambered into the corner furthest from Hollis. “Just take the dive and I’ll see you get your money.”

  Hollis nodded, crossed the canvas. “Deal, Mr. Canelli. You’ll get exactly what you asked for.” He held out his hand. “I promise.”

  Warily, Canelli offered his hand. “Shake.” He smirked. “I usually get what I want.”

  “Is that so?” Hollis landed a swift chop to Canelli’s throat and followed through with his hand darting inside Canelli’s jacket, pulling out the snub-nosed revolver. He threw the weapon out of the ring; it clattered on the floor amidst some seats.

  Canelli croaked, “What the…?”

  Hollis sent a jab direct into Canelli’s nose, smashing it. Blood splattered over his mouth and pinstripe sack suit. Backing off, Canelli swore. His next words came out muffled. “You-you f-f-fool, you’ll p-pay-for-this!”

  “No, it’s you who’s going to pay, Canelli!” He lunged after him, slammed a fist into Canelli’s belly. As the hood doubled up, Hollis slugged the side of his face, twice.

  Canelli stumbled to the right, an arm reaching out, clutching the top rope.

  “No ropes, Canelli! Fight like a man!”

  Seeming to get his second wind, Canelli wiped blood from his face with his sleeve and charged, fists balled.

  Hollis skipped to the side and planted a blow on Canelli’s chin.

  Canelli’s legs wobbled and he went down on one knee. Blood dripped onto the canvas.

  “Come on, I’m giving you a chance to fight back. More than you gave my pa!”

  His pain-filled eyes gazed at Hollis, screwed up, his brow creased. “Your pa – you know? How…?”

  “Get up!”

  Canelli got to his knees, hauled himself upright, lifted his arms, fists ready. “You’ll never fight in this town again, Twyford. I’ll see to that!”

  Moving across the floor like lightning, Hollis sent a combination left-right into Canelli, knocking his defensive fists away, then followed up with a devastating uppercut.

  Finally, as Canelli sank to one knee, Hollis sent a succession of blows to his head and chest. “That’s for my pa!” He continued pummeling, his gauze-wrapped fists red. “Be proud, Ma, Pa, I kept my promise!” Tears ran down his face. “That’s for my ma!”

  It was Logan and Sammy who pulled him off.

  Little Sammy said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  His eyes cleared and he looked down at Canelli; his face wasn’t a pretty sight. “I’m not sorry I did that.”

  Sammy shoved him toward the ropes. “Come on, Holly, we’ve gotta go!”

  “What about his goons – Box and Cox?”

  “They’ve got no love for the guy. They’ll pick up the pieces, but they won’t talk…”

  Hollis looked at Sammy then Logan. “I’m finished, aren’t I?”

  “Not yet. You have a fight tomorrow.”
r />   ***

  When Hollis entered the ring, hauling on the ropes, he winced at the stabbing pain in his hands. The gloves helped a little. Pain cocooned. For a while, maybe. “Remember, O’Donnell’s slow on his feet and he relies on the strength of his right punch,” Sammy whispered. “He hasn’t got anything else.”

  “I don’t think I’ve got much, either, right now,” Hollis replied, “and…” But he was silenced by Sammy inserting his mouth-guard.

  From here, he noticed the stains on the canvas. He smiled, a warm glow filling his chest. Canelli’s blood from last night. He’d heard all about it, earlier today. The cops were called but there was nobody in the ring – just lots of blood spatter.

  Hollis glanced left and right. Canelli and his crowd usually sat up to the left. His heart sank as he spotted Box and Cox, chewing gum. Their faces betrayed no emotion.

  The bell sounded.

  Hollis stood and moved to the center of the ring. O’Donnell approached. Briefly, they touched gloves and then dropped into defensive crouches.

  O’Donnell jabbed, left and right, fishing for an early weakness, a lucky opening, but Hollis deflected his opponent’s gloves, though not with ease. Each contact sent knives of pain into his knuckles. Maybe I’ll have to take a dive, just to survive, he thought, then bunched his shoulders and attacked.

  He hit O’Donnell’s jaw, a lucky strike. Smokin’, he thought, and grinned, showing his mouth-guard.

  O’Donnell seemed riled at the grin and plowed forward, arms wind-milling like a novice.

  Hollis side-stepped and planted a scoring hit on O’Donnell’s temple. That hurt his right fist; he only hoped it hurt “The Bone Grinder” as much.

  The round ended; they went to their corners.

  The crowd was abuzz. They weren’t happy, Hollis could tell. They didn’t want strategy, carefully placed hits, they wanted a blood and guts brawl. They’d been deprived for many years. Their blood-lust seemed to have its own smell, and it wasn’t pleasant.

  They got their blood in the next two rounds.

  His hands, badly damaged from last night’s fight with Canelli, sent spasms of pain through him as every punch landed. Sweat leaked in response to the agony. His body flinched, involuntarily, seconds before he delivered another blow, as if it didn’t want to suffer anymore.

  By the fourth round, both of them were limb-tired, since neither had let up for an instant. Hollis had never fought like this before, constantly on the attack, and O’Donnell found himself unexpectedly on the ropes a half-dozen times.

  This couldn’t last. As they broke from a brief clinch, Hollis again glimpsed the stains on the canvas. For that moment, he was transported to last night when his fists obtained retribution. Fresh adrenaline surged through him and he sprang at O’Donnell, sending punch after punch into the man. Finally, a bone-crunching blow slammed into O’Donnell’s temple and he staggered back, sank to his knees.

  Swaying, still overflowing with aggression, Hollis waited.

  “The Bone Grinder” attempted to get to his feet. He shook his head, pushed himself up on the count of eight.

  Contact again, this time his left followed by a right uppercut, and he was sure he heard and felt the bones in his hand crunch. But it didn’t matter, because “The Bone Grinder” fell flat on his back, knocked out.

  ***

  While the crowd went wild, Hollis stood in the neutral corner and nursed his hands. Abruptly, the referee lifted his hand up, acclaiming the outsider, the victor. That hurt, boy, did that hurt. Somehow, he grinned through the pain.

  He joined Sammy in their corner. Logan was there, too. “Hey, just got news from the hospital,” Logan whispered. “Canelli died from a blood-clot in the brain. That cowboy’s not gonna talk at all, ever.”

  Hollis nodded, surprised to discover that he wasn’t disturbed that he had been the cause of Canelli’s death. Maybe he could emulate his father and go cowboying. No, that was probably not a good career choice these days. Maybe he could go into the moving pictures, and be a cowboy there? If his hands healed, of course. He’d need to pack a gun, anyway, he reckoned. For real, not for the movies, just in case Canelli had vengeful friends.

  NIK MORTON

  Ex-Royal Navy, ex-IT, expat, Nik Morton lives in Spain with his wife Jennifer, a linguist and musician who also writes. They have a daughter Hannah, son-in-law Farhad (Harry), a grandson Darius and a granddaughter Suri, who also live in Spain.

  An editor and writer, Nik writes short stories, articles and novels. He also draws cartoons and illustrates comics, stories, and magazine covers. Writing under his own names and several pseudonyms, he has published twenty books with more to come in the near future.

  ON THE WEB:

  http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/

  ROUND 10

  BLOODIED LEATHER

  MARSHA WARD

  Isabelle Gilbert pulled a blonde curl down alongside her cheek. She repeated the effect with a second lock of hair, then adjusted the coiffure on the other side of her head for symmetry’s sake. She frowned. Mama had such sharp eyes. If the bruise weren’t entirely hidden, she would spot it in one second and ask about it in the next. How would Isabelle ever explain how it had happened?

  Surely Percy hadn’t meant to strike her. He’d been so excited about attending the prizefight, and when she had declined to accompany him... I never imagined what trouble a fiancé could be to a girl. I must work harder to make him happy.

  Isabelle determined at last that three dangling curls on each side did the job of masking the unsightly discoloration. She gave her hair one last pat and rose from her dressing table to choose her outfit for the day.

  Something simple. Nothing to call Mama’s attention to me.

  Since Isabelle would not make any calls on friends today, she chose a pale blue bodice with puffed sleeves and a matching skirt with only the slightest of bustles. Something comfortable would be best. After all, she’d only be working on her trousseau. She grimaced. The hand towels must be embroidered with intertwined initials to herald her upcoming marriage to Percival Egmont.

  She didn’t call him Percival. Who would? She had chosen to call her fiancé Percy, even though he pressed her daily to use an endearment like “dear” or “darling.” It didn’t suit her to bestow such sweet names on him yet. Especially after last night.

  She had left Percy in the parlor on his knees, swearing he had not meant to lay a hand on her. Well, he had done so, and her remembrance of the blow stung as sharply as had the blow itself. Fortunately, Mama hadn’t caught her on the stairs afterward or she would have known something was amiss. Isabelle wondered what action, if any, Mama would have taken in regards to the man. Mama was sometimes a puzzle.

  Papa, now, was a different matter. Isabelle sighed as she fastened the top button of her bodice. It was Papa’s idea for her to accept Percy’s offer of marriage. Leave it to Englishmen to stick together! She sometimes wondered if Papa would be happier back in England. Instead, he was obliged to remain here in America, due to some ancient scandal or other. She thought Percy was under the same sort of constraint but had not managed to bring up the subject to him.

  She was familiar with the relative size of Great Britain and the United States. One could get lost in the western expanses, as Papa had done, years ago. Then he had met Mama, the story went, and had repented of whatever had been his offense in order to win her hand. She had chosen to marry Papa instead of her own fiancé, a young man from Virginia newly arrived in the West.

  Interesting and highly romantic as the old story was, thinking about it now would not put any stitches on her linens, so Isabelle threw back her shoulders and went downstairs.

  After a brunch prolonged as long as she dared, Isabelle entered the parlor with her embroidery case and three linen towels, holding her breath. Mama scarcely paid her any mind, greeting her with a simple “Good morning,” and returning to her own hand work.

  Isabelle exhaled and sat, arranging her threads to decide the b
est color arrangement for the initials.

  “Ecru and dark blue, I believe,” Mama said, without even looking up.

  “What?”

  “For the initials, my dear. The colors of the Egmont family crest.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Mama’s faint snort disheartened Isabelle. She thinks I have no sense at all. Perhaps she is correct. I never even thought about using the colors of the crest.

  Isabelle threaded a needle with a deep, brilliant blue, put a hoop over the end of one towel, tightened it with the screw, and began work on a capital E she had previously traced in elegant script. E is for Egmont. She made a careful stitch. E is for eggs. They sat like a lump in her stomach, nervous as she was about Mama’s sharp eyes. E is for idiot. She stopped. Of course that wasn’t right. She allowed herself time to take a long breath. I is for Isabelle. She exhaled and pulled her thread tight. She didn’t let her thought follow to the next possible I. She kept it at bay, off in a corner of her mind where it wouldn’t become reality. Instead, she looked at another letter. P is for Percival. P is for philanderer. P is for... pig!

  Isabelle swallowed. She had learned of his inconstancy by chance. A whisper had come to her, before her engagement had become public, about Percy’s affair with a Chinese woman named Madame Wu. She had thought it wouldn’t matter to her. After all, she and Percy had not yet wed, and she had been taught that a man must have outlets for his passions. Still, she could not get the anguish out of her soul.

  Her eyes teared up and she jabbed her finger with her needle, inhaling sharply at the pain. She brought her hand to her mouth and sucked the pricked digit. Was there blood on the towel? No. How fortunate.

  Isabelle looked up. Mama seemed not to have noticed.

  After a time she examined her finger. The bleeding had stopped.

  “Will you require cold water?”

  Mama sees everything! Isabelle tucked her chin tighter against her chest. “No. No blood stained the towel.”

  “That is fortunate.” Mama bent her head over her work again.

  Isabelle wondered if her tears had remained unseen. She hoped so. Right now she needed to feel secure in her secrets, especially the sorrowful ones.