One-Eyed Jacks

by Brad Smith

  Lee straightened in her chair. “Now that’s a goddamn lie,” she said.

  “Well, I thought you should know.”

  “I don’t see how it’s going to matter much,” Lee shrugged. “From what I hear, nobody knows where he is.”

  Patty thought about it and then let it go. She shouldn’t have been talking about Tommy Cochrane in the first place. She drank her gin and suggested one more.

  “No,” Lee said and she got to her feet. “I gotta be sharp tomorrow, you know how it is.”

  “Show business,” Patty said.

  “Yeah,” Lee grinned. “The big time.”

  SEVEN

  T-Bone Pike sipped the sweet coffee and looked at the Indian arrowhead on the tabletop before him. He’d had the flint only a couple days but already it was his most prized possession. This was partly because T-Bone didn’t own a hell of a lot else, but mainly due to the fact it had been given to him by his friend Thomas Cochrane. As they ate breakfast T-Bone kept the flint on the table, admiring its stony beauty.

  Across the table Tommy Cochrane had finished eating and now he was writing on a scrap of paper. Every so often he would squint absently across at T-Bone as he searched his memory, then go back to the paper.

  “I know what I’m goin’ to do, Thomas,” T-Bone decided. “I’m goin’ to make a hole in this arrowhead and put a string through and hang it round my neck. That way, I have it always.”

  Tommy wrote a number on the paper and then looked up.

  “You can’t do that, Bones,” he said. “You try to drill that flint and you’ll break it to pieces. I’ll get you a leather thong and tie it with that, then you can wear it around your neck.”

  “A leather thong be fine,” T-Bone said in agreement. He slipped the stone into his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap carefully. “What you so busy writin’, Thomas?” he asked then.

  “I’m making a list, Bones.”

  “What you listin’?”

  “Names and numbers, Bones.” Tommy turned the paper sideways so T-Bone could see. “People that owe me money. Everybody on this list borrowed money from me years ago, when things were going good, and they never paid me back, Bones. See here, at the top is Harold Stedman — he owes me fifteen hundred bucks. I lent him a thousand when he opened the Old Kentucky, and I spotted him another five hundred a few months later when he almost went under. That was eight years ago and I haven't seen a nickel since. Here’s Deke Anderson, he owes me three hundred from a card game. I lent Chuck Monday four hundred to get married; his wife wanted to go to Florida for a honeymoon. I gave Teddy Joplin a hundred for this hair-growing stuff, last I seen of him he was still bald as a cue ball. There’s about $3,300 on this list, and there’s more than that if I could remember. But if we could collect on this, it’d be a start, Bones. I figure if we make it back to Marlow with four thousand, the farm is ours. We could get even on the other thousand later.”

  “Lot of money, Thomas,” T-Bone said.

  “It’s not like I’m asking for a handout, Bones. I let ’em hold it all these years. All I want now is my money back.”

  “These people you friends, Thomas?”

  “Used to be.”

  T-Bone finished his coffee. “Guess we gonna find out if used to be still is.”

  There was some commotion up front then. A middle-aged fat man was leading a charge through the diner; with him were a pair of younger men, one in a green zoot suit with pegged pants. Tommy knew the big man; he was Ollie Newton — Fat Ollie — who used to hang around the Dundas Street gym years ago. Ollie was a pool shooter, card player, sometime bookie, horse player, and a few other things. He was known to be a straight shooter, and Tommy Cochrane had always liked him. Tommy raised his hand in hello and the big man came over.

  “How ya doin’, kid?” Ollie asked and he offered his hand.

  “Good to see you, Ollie,” Tommy said. “This here’s T-Bone Pike. Oliver Newton.”

  “Ah yes, Mr. Pike,” Ollie said and the two shook hands. “I saw you fight at the Gardens one night. You knocked out Dundas Willie Boyd with an astounding overhand right. I can’t remember which round.”

  T-Bone showed Tommy his teeth. “See, I tol’ you,” he said. “You awful good at rememberin’, Mr. Oliver. That’s fifteen years gone.”

  “It was a memorable punch,” Fat Ollie said. He turned to Tommy. “Where have you been, kid? I heard you dropped off the face of the earth.”

  “Just got back in time. Got a little business to take care of.”

  “You fighting again?”

  “No.”

  Ollie nodded. That was enough for him. Ollie was the kind of guy who understood these things. He didn’t need pictures drawn like the goddamn reporters and radio people.

  “You’re the last mug I’d figure to see out and about at nine in the morning, Ollie,” Tommy said then. “You changing your ways?”

  “Not in the least,” Ollie said. “In fact, I’m just heading home to bed. But first, this gentleman” — he pointed to the man in green — “is going to buy breakfast, as is the custom.”

  “That means he beat you at cards all night,” Tommy said.

  Ollie sighed with unfathomable despair. “That is precisely what it means.”

  Ollie then introduced Danny Bonner and Herm Bell. The pair of them were piss-ass drunk, and jammed in Herm’s pockets were some $320, a hell of a run for somebody who had crawled out of bed twenty-four hours earlier without as much as cigarette money. Herm grinned and offered a salute to the two men in the booth.

  “I’m awful pleased to meet you,” Danny Bonner was saying to Tommy. “I spoke to you yesterday, remember I recommended the chili?”

  “That’s right,” Tommy said. “I remember.”

  “Did you try it?”

  “The chili?” Tommy asked. “No.”

  “1 don’t give a damn about the chili,” Danny exclaimed. “I want you to know I don’t believe any of the stuff they’re saying. I’m behind you all the way.”

  Tommy looked at Fat Ollie. “What’s this?”

  But the big man had his arm draped around his drunken friend and he was steering him away. “Breakfast, gentlemen, breakfast,” he said and then he looked back. “Come around to see me, kid. I’m still on Queen, the old place. You been playing any poker?”

  “Not lately,” Tommy said. “But I might have to start.”

  At eleven o’clock he and T-Bone were at the Old Kentucky Tavern. The front door was locked — the joint didn’t open until noon — and they walked around back through the alley. The bar was one of Tommy’s old haunts — he’d celebrated here after his first professional fight. The party had taken a hell of a lot more out of him than the fight, which had gone only two rounds. The celebration had lasted three days.

  The back door was open, and they walked right in. A woman washing glasses at the bar looked at them without interest, and Tommy led the way down a hallway and into Harold Stedman’s office where they found the man himself, hunched over a ledger at a desk. There was a cigarette burning in the ashtray. Harry looked like a little bird, smaller even than Tommy remembered, as if in time he might just disappear altogether. But, of course, in time he would. It’s what happened to everybody.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Harry said when he saw them.

  “Harry the Horse,” Tommy said. “How’s it going?”

  Harry reached for the cigarette. “Well, well, stranger,” he said. “When’d you arrive back in these parts?”

  “I blew in with the wind, Harry. This is T-Bone Pike.”

  Harry was puffing like crazy on the butt. “It’s sure good to see you, Tommy. Where the hell you been all these months?”

  “No place special.”

  “Well, you look in shape. You been working out? You look like you could go tomorrow.”

  “I’m in walking-around shape, Harry. That’s all I am.”

  “Well, you look ready to go,” the little bird said again. “Say, you hear about this kid Brady’
s got, this Wilson kid? Just twenty years old, a heavyweight, and he’s fifteen and oh — thirteen knockouts. How’s that for a record, Tommy?”

  “Depends who he’s knocking out.”

  “Oh, he’s fought some names,” Harry said. “He beat up Wallace Pierce last month, knocked him colder than dry ice the third round.”

  “Where’d they find Pierce — the old folks’ home?” Tommy asked.

  Harry shook his head and pulled on the cigarette. “The kids a hell of a hitter, I’m telling you. Brady’s trying to get him ranked real quick, wants to get him a shot.”

  “Well, Mac will find a way to do it,” Tommy said. “Not much doubt about that.”

  Harry butted the cigarette and flicked his cuffs once from his coat sleeves. He had bony, nicotine-stained fingers. His teeth were the same colour and huge — hence the name Harry the Horse.

  “So what’re you doing in town, Tommy? You looking for something? Who you with — Gus Washbone still?”

  “I’m not with anybody, Harry,” Tommy told him. “I’m not fighting anymore.”

  “Oh.” And the yellow stick fingers went after another Export; there were a half-dozen packs on the desk. The bird with the horse teeth had dandruff on his shoulders and he needed a shave. As he lit up he looked narrowly at T-Bone Pike, standing in the doorway.

  “You a fighter too, boy?”

  “One time.”

  “How’s business, Harry?” Tommy asked him then.

  The bird eyes swung back to Tommy and they were suddenly wounded eyes — eyes that had known much misfortune. “Not good,” said the little bird’s voice. The little bird seemed reluctant to burden others with its woe. “Not good,” it said again.

  Tommy sat down then, in a chair opposite Harry. “I have to get some money together, Harry,” he said. “I’m gonna have to ask you for what you owe me.”

  “I haven’t got it,” Harry said real quick. He seemed relieved, like he was thinking that maybe Tommy was going to ask for something else. What else?

  “If I had it,” Harry went on, “I’d give it to you. Hell, you know that. But I haven’t got it. Christ, I’d be lucky to scrape together a hundred, never mind a grand.”

  “It’s fifteen hundred, Harry.”

  “I remember it was a thousand,” Harry said in earnest.

  “It was a thousand at first and five hundred later,” Tommy said. “And I remember you were awful glad to get it at the time.”

  “I’d have to check my books.”

  “It was never in your books, Harry.”

  Harry laced those awful fingers together and leaned over the table. “I’m not trying to pull anything, Tommy. Maybe it was fifteen. But the fact is I don’t have it. And you know, the ironic thing is — part of the reason I don’t have it is you, Tommy. Six months ago I was doing pretty good — things are always better in the winter, people stay in the city more.”

  “Tell me the ironic part, Harry.”

  “I’m saying I was doing good enough to lay twelve hundred on you against Rinaldi. Now if the fight goes the other way, that’s twenty-four bills in my pocket, right? And when you walk in here today — bam! There’s your fifteen hundred on the table, Tommy. Simple as that.”

  Tommy, in the chair with his hand on his chin, glanced over at T-Bone in the doorway. But T-Bone was looking at the floor, he was embarrassed for Harry the Horse and his bullshit excuses.

  “But things didn’t work out,” Harry was saying. “I did my damnedest, Tommy, I backed you all the way. But you let me down and now I have to let you down, because I haven’t got it.”

  “I need the money, Harry,” Tommy said. “Could you get it together if I gave you some time?”

  Harry put his cigarette in the heaping ashtray. “There’s been a lot of talk about that fight, Tommy,” he said. “You disappointed a lot of people in this town. I mean you disappointed them financially, get my drift.” The yellow fingers went after the Exports. Harry went on, a little bird with nerve. “There’s talk you went in the tank, Tommy. They say Rinaldi’s people paid you a bundle to give him the title shot.”

  The accusation took Tommy hard, caught his breath in his throat. So that’s what the kid in the diner was running on about.

  “I’ve never gone down for anybody,” he said after a moment.

  Harry shrugged and showed his palms. Tommy was shaking his head, he truly could not believe what he had just heard.

  “So you figure I took a dive and now you’re welshing on the fifteen hundred?” he asked.

  “I’m not saying you did, Tommy,” Harry insisted. “I’m telling you the story around town.”

  “You’re telling me you’re going to welsh,” Tommy said.

  “lt’d be a lot simpler if you’d won the goddamn fight, Tommy. I mean, that would’ve solved everybody’s problems.”

  “You’re telling me you’re going to welsh?”

  Tommy got to his feet, his big meathooks hanging at his sides. He looked at the little bird in the chair. The little bird looked at Tommy, and at T-Bone Pike.

  “You’re telling me that?” Tommy asked.

  “I wouldn’t recommend violence,” the bird advised.

  Tommy blinked and shook his head. “My grandfather was a great man, Harry,” he said after a moment. “He told me never to hit a cripple or an old lady. I figure you’re one or the other, Harry, maybe both.”

  Harry the Horse took a billfold from his jacket pocket and laid fifty dollars on the desk. “Take some meal money, Tommy.”

  Tommy had a notion to stuff the fifty into Harry’s mouth, to feed the paper to the little bird, but he said to hell with it and left the office. Harry shook his head like he’d been disappointed terribly and shoved the money into his pocket. When he looked up T-Bone Pike was standing by the desk.

  “What you said is a lie, mister,” T-Bone told him. “And you a damn liar for sayin’ it.”

  Harry slid his hand into a desk drawer. “Keep your distance, boy,” he said.

  “You ain’t got no pistol there,” T-Bone said. “If you did, you wouldn’t be sittin’ there lettin’ this nigger call you down. You a damn liar and a thief and you know it.”

  The yellow fingers came out of the drawer and rested uneasily on the tabletop.

  “Reckon Thomas right ’bout you bein’ an old woman too,” T-Bone said and he left.

  They found Chuck Monday eating lunch in a park on Gerrard across the street from the foundry where he worked. He was sitting on the grass, reading the sports out of the Telly and eating a fried egg sandwich. His black flat-top was still as stiff as a hairbrush.

  “Shit, Tommy, that four hundred lasted as long as the marriage,” he said from the grass. “We got back from Florida and she found out we wouldn’t be eating in restaurants every night and she was out the door. Hooked up with some pretty boy downtown. I hope he had lots of jack to spend on her. Right now, I’m making sixty a week and most of that goes to the finance company to pay the goddamn bills she left me with. I can give you a little here and there, Tommy, but not all at once. I’ll pay you though, I swear. I never welshed in my life.”

  Tommy looked at the dirty hands holding the sandwich. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Chuck,” he said.

  “I will though,” Chuck said. “I let it go too long and I’m sorry as hell I did. I’ll make it right, Tommy, I swear.” He stood up and wiped his dirty hands on his dirty pants. “I’m surprised to see you back in the city, Tommy.”

  T-Bone saw the look come back into Tommy’s eyes. “You been hearing stories, Chuck?”

  “None that’s any of my business,” Chuck said. “But there’s a lot of bullshit around town. Same as always, I guess.”

  “I guess,” Tommy said.

  “Seems there’s people who always want to find somebody else to blame for everything,” Chuck said. “I’ve made mistakes — hell, that bitch I married was the biggest one, but I never blamed anybody else for it. It was my doing and that’s all there is to it. Ri
ght?”

  “Right,” Tommy said. “See you around, Chuck.”

  “I’ll see ya, Tommy.”

  They tracked down most of the names on the list and didn’t collect a thin dime. The last couple of people Tommy didn’t bother to ask, just stopped and said hello and watched the faces. The word was out. Lou Dirant even tried to borrow fifty, never mentioned the two hundred Tommy had given him years earlier to buy a used Packard.

  Around suppertime they were walking on Queen Street and went into the Rooster for a beer. They sat in a corner with a pair of draught each, Tommy quiet and eaten up inside, T-Bone watching quietly, not knowing what to do.

  “Ain’t nothing but lies, Thomas,” he said at last. “A body shouldn’t fret ’bout lies.”

  “It ain’t enough that it’s a lie. People have to know it’s a lie.”

  A man in a suede jacket and felt hat hurried in the front door. He stopped when he saw them, then came closer for a better look.

  “Might have known,” he said.

  “What?” Tommy asked.

  “It figures,” the man said and he walked away, to the stage where he started fooling with a microphone.

  “Who that man, Thomas?” T-Bone asked.

  “Damned if I know.”

  T-Bone took a long pull of the draught and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Maybe we just leave this here Toronto, Thomas.”

  “No. We got to raise a stake, Bones.”

  “How we gonna raise that much money in jes’ four weeks? That be more than a thousand dollars a week, more than a king makes.”

  “Maybe Harry the Horse will come through, if he’s got any conscience,” Tommy said. “Fifteen hundred would be a start, we could turn it into something.”

  “That little man ain’t gonna give you nothing, Thomas. The only reason he sayin’ you threw the fight so’s he don’t have to feel bad ’bout not payin’ up. I seen men like that before, Thomas, he ain’t about to pay you no fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “We’ll get it someplace,” Tommy said. “We can do it, Bones, me and you.”