by Diane Munier
“Bag of money in the truck, Jules?”
He laughed easy. “I can’t leave it in my room.”
“It gives me the creeps but, you want to leave it here?”
“No. I’ll be fine until I can…put it to bed.”
“That what I said…about you not honest…I know you’re a good man, Jules, the best. That’s why I… love you.” She whispered all of this.
He wasn’t going to say it back—I love you. Not here, like this, like he was so guilty he’d buy her off with it. He wasn’t guilty. He hadn’t done anything—to them. But for them…he was working on that.
“Isbe,” he said, knowing she deserved something, “you gave me some pictures today—in my room? Baby—I ain’t getting over that. I’d…fight for those.”
She smiled a little, and he knew she blushed. “Such a mouth, Jules,” but she looked at his nasty mouth and licked her lips a little.
“Think about it when you’re lying up there—with your doors locked and your shade pulled, like I told you.”
She had all this guilt all of a sudden. Those eyes showed everything. “Yeah? You still—you respect me, Jules—the way I act sometimes?”
“Think about how it’s gonna be when there ain’t nothin’ between us but…respect, not even that pink slip, that gown—think about it.”
She was stuck looking at him. “Do you think about it?” she whispered.
He squeezed the daylights out of her then and groaned. When he pulled back, he said, “Give me that lucky clover for a couple of days?”
She didn’t seem to get it for a second, then she snapped to and turned from him, undid her blouse a little and fumbled for the pin. She was re-buttoning when she turned and tried to hand it to him.
“Pin it right there,” he said, pointing to the pocket on his shirt.
She touched his chest and worked to pin the clover in place, his cigarette pack crunching a little. When it was done, she kissed that clover, then raised on her toes and kissed him, just a single sweet kiss on his mouth.
“Hero,” she whispered. “My hero.”
He swallowed another groan. She was doing just what he feared…but even if she’d disapprove of what he was going to do…she would never disapprove of him.
“Now get in there before I give this Porky something to really make his eyeballs bug out on his fat little cheeks,” he told her, cause love was warm in his veins.
“Jules,” she tried to chide him, but there could be no shame in him now.
He guided her in then, kissed the air, closed the door, made sure it was locked.
He let out a breath. It killed him to leave her, but if he didn’t, now that might get him killed.
Satisfied, he walked toward Blake’s truck.
Blake was behind the wheel. He cranked the key. Jules hopped in, adjusting the bag between his feet again. “Mind showing me your old man’s station?”
“You serious?” Jerry said, pulling into the street.
“I’d like to see it.”
“I’d like to show you the highway. So you can hitch a ride home.”
“You ditching me?” Jules laughed.
Jerry had no sense of humor. He hadn’t laughed at one of Jules’s jokes all night, and he’d made a couple worth a smile at least.
“You ever fight for something?” Jules said.
“All the time,” Jerry answered. “Maybe I didn’t go over like you…don’t mean I…”
“You fighting now?” Jules cut him off.
“For Isbe? You think it’s funny? Everything a joke to you?”
“Whoa, whoa, I’m just asking.”
“Asking what, if I’d do anything for her?”
Jules got pissed for a minute, jealous. “You smoke with that big mouth?”
“Nah. Nasty habit. You smoke though—wise guy.”
Jules dug in his pocket and got his pack and matches. He lit up and blew smoke out the window, fingering that clover. If Jerry smoked Camels, they’d be having a different conversation. He’d have him in the trees behind Isbe’s about now, beating the shit from his body.
“I’d like to see your station,” he said, “meet your old man.”
“Why?” Jerry asked.
Jules shrugged. “I’m looking to invest.”
“In Pop’s station? Nobody wants that.”
“Maybe I’d like to make an offer…business.” Blake stared.
“What? You don’t want some of this money?”
Jerry licked his lips and eyed the bag. “What I have to do for it?”
Jules laughed. “You and your old man ever placed a bet?”
Jerry laughed, then sneered. “My old man—Isbe tell you about him?”
“What about him?”
“He don’t gamble no more. Got in some trouble back in the day—had to leave New York. It was that, or Ma would walk. He plays the horses—two dollars in an envelope once a week. That’s it,” Jerry said sharp. “He’s in that chair—and Mom’s been gone. I figure…it’s all he’s got for kicks.”
Jules touched that clover. It was working.
In bare-knuckle fighting, the odds were posted after each round, followed by a frenzy of betting. And since legend had it these fights could go for as much as seventy-plus sessions, a lot of winning and losing might occur before a man would drop for the count.
The old London Prize Ring Rules would loosely apply here, just like in the former days when boxing in the States was illegal. There would be a purse for the victors, a couple thousand or more apiece, in addition to the bets made on the side.
Bare-knuckle fighting still was illegal. But since that hadn’t eradicated the sport, Jules needed someone who could stay in the game and make book. He’d need a killer’s brain, the kind he’d shown earlier in the day at Lou’s. And he’d need some legs for placing the bets.
Redver proved to be the prize. He had the smarts and the will; Jules could see that almost as soon as he saw the station, shook Redver’s calloused hand, looked in his lined, eager face, his bright birdy eyes. The station was closed, so he invited Jules to come around back to the trailer he and Jerry shared.
Redver had recognized Jules’s name from the story on the radio. He was bold in expressing appreciation for what Jules had done in killing those men. “A good solution, applied with vigor now, is better than a perfect solution, applied ten minutes later,” he said, quoting General Patton.
That summed up Jules’s actions in Lou’s store pretty damn well. “You believe dat, you are exactly the man I’m looking for,” Jules said.
“I believe it. In thirty-eight, when two micks came in the back door of my station, I sent them to the happy hunting grounds with my old Colt pistol. One hadn’t even gotten in the door.”
Jules heard Jerry’s groan. But Jules was in love with this guy.
As Jerry had told Jules, Redver followed the races, bet with a bookie. And like many a law-abiding citizen, he wasn’t averse to bending the law to make a buck… or kill a mick.
Jerry had the legs. And some skill. He had a nice repair shop going in the two bays at the station. He worked on automobiles and motorcycles. Young as he was, he had something to offer. Not to Isbe, as she was taken. Jules had made that clear. But in truth, Jerry was no bum.
So he sat at the Blakes’ small kitchen table, bag of money at his feet, and at ten o’clock at night, Redver fried them ham and eggs.
Four hours and four beers later, he was falling asleep on the Blakes’ broken-down sofa. Jules knew Audie would be going out of his mind looking for him, so as soon as he awoke, he went out to the station and called Gorilla on the phone there. Redver’s chair was pulled up to a desk, and he flashed the newspaper he’d been reading at Jules. He’d made page two.
“If I wasn’t saving myself for the fights, I’d pound the shit out of you, pansy,” Audie was saying in Jules’s ear. They’d missed a meeting with Cabhan.
Yeah, yeah. Jules would give him that. But he hadn’t been spinning his wheels either.
>
“I got the guys to bet our money,” he said. Our money. Lou’s money.
When he got off the phone with Audie, he’d call the hospital and see how Lou fared. He figured Sal was in town by now.
Audie said the address for the fight had been rolled in a tight little scroll and stuck in a human ear. This was left in the driver’s seat of the Buick. Audie had pulled the rolled-up piece of paper from the ear’s fragile hole. “Listen up,” it read. Then it gave the address.
Later, Jules called the hospital and found out that Lou still hung on, and later still, just a couple of hours before the fight, the monkeys were in the Buick headed for their arena.
They had no idea who the ear belonged to. Once they’d all three seen it, and Jules commented on Uncle Cabhan’s outstanding sense of humor, Audie threw it out the window as they drove down to the docks and the warehouse. The Blakes, including Redver’s cousin Seth, a big guy Redver brought for backup, followed in Jerry’s truck.
The monkeys were quiet. Jules barely introduced them to the Blakes. It didn’t matter. The Blakes needed to know the right faces to bet on. “This gorilla and that baboon,” is what he said to Redver as he pointed to Audie and Bobby, respectively.
Jerry got Redver’s chair out of the bed of Blake’s truck. He placed Jules’s duffle on the seat, and Seth dragged Redver out of the vehicle and sat him on top of the money. Redver got situated, and he wheeled himself then, laughing over how his arms could just reach the wheels with the added height of Jules’s bag. Jerry ended up pushing the old man.
It was up to the monkeys to win. It was up to the Blakes to bet smart, and sometimes that might include betting against one of them for a round. Redver made the call.
There had to be a thousand people here; that’s what Jules thought as they made their way inside. If the coppers came, it would get wild, but he’d have to get to Redver and his money. Jerry knew, and Seth knew too. Save the money.
The bookies lined one side of the big room. The bettors lined up at the tables. There were no chairs; it was standing all around, one after another, lots of hats and smoke and mouths open and sound—your ears could bleed, is what Jules thought; even the ear they’d thrown out the window could bleed in a crowd like this.
Cabhan was there, money in his hand, cigar between his teeth, and the thugs around him, some dames too, shit and hardy-har about the message, the ear...
“You fight first,” he told Audie. Bobby went next. Jules was last.
Cabhan was going on about Jules being in all the papers. Killing three men, three fooking men. His eyes were on Jules, all the time; every time Jules looked, Uncle Cabhan was burning holes—they were touting him as the hero. The moogs were betting their farms. The Irish, the luck of the Irish.
Word was out around here that the monkeys had blown off a meeting earlier, Cabhan said. Audie didn’t answer. Then they followed Cabhan and the various vegetables in his squad to a back room. They had to strip there, those dames ogling boldly, them in their skivvies, handed gaudy green shorts because they fought for the Irish or some bullshit. They’d already decided to wear their boots, the ones they’d bought to work construction. Those would do, Cabhan said—big laugh, kick the shit or something—pugilists, Cabhan was saying. It was all like a dream, a dream, and Jules unpinned the clover and there, inside the waist of his shorts, he let it dig into his side.
“Jules!” Audie yelled. “Other end of the hall. That big one is yours.” Then they marched back out to a big sound, and the crowd parted, and people touched them as they went by, but Cabhan’s men were around, those micks, pushing back the hands. Some of them held money, and they wanted to rub it on the Irish, for luck.
So he was fighting another mick, face broad and thick, like the one at Cabhan’s—Potato Face. Potato Two. Fry him good. Real good.
These three overgrown leprechauns had blue trunks. So the Irish liked blue? Who knew, he said, something like that, to Bobby. Bobby laughed. He never showed nerves, except around Dorie a couple of times. But Baboon didn’t want to mess up his hands. His uncle was letting him apprentice, working for the card the real way, and he felt like he owed him. Yeah, he’d said that. They knew. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but what they had to do next—the fight.
He fingered the clover. Nothing mattered but Isbe. This was for her. That’s what would make him last. Isbe. And the son of a bitch in him so deep, the one his father could never touch, the one that almost outgrew his own skin. He thanked his father then, because nothing could stop him now—having survived the old man, nothing would stop him.
Baboon was quiet. Audie was sweating, his chest and shoulders shiny, and those Irish moogs around Cabhan were talking to Audie, wiping him off, slapping his back cause he was first out of the chute.
But the truth? He loved it. Jules loved it—the desperate press—the dark threat, and him in a ten-gallon white hat. He knew Baboon was in. That’s why he was here. And Audie—he’d taught them how to think and not let the anger blind you so much you made a mistake. Tonight, they fought for themselves. For a reason. An excuse. For money. Filthy lucre. The root of all evil. The green.
Bobby’s opponent was a wire, a whip. Audie’s a German icebox. They were well-matched here in the Garden where the lion lay down with the lamb until the bell rang—then all-out hell.
Chapter 28
Jabs and hooks. That was Audie’s style. He focused on it, tightened the scope and kept pounding. He liked it that way, on his feet, strong in his arms, shoulders, chest, stomach—powerful. You had to admire it. Jules did.
The hard thing for Audie was taking it slow. The purse would stand no matter how many rounds, but the side bets, they had to be milked. Up and down and drag your feet, your ass. Audie didn’t go in close; he didn’t rest. He just kept coming. Jabs and hooks.
When his guy was fresh, Audie took a couple of hits, and he wasn’t so good at taking a fist, not like you’d think. He didn’t mind the pain, but pain for Audie brought shame. Quick shame. That was a weakness, the pride. That’s why he kept slugging.
He’d taught the monkeys about the anger, not letting it rule, but he hadn’t taught them how to take the shame of allowing a man to hit you, and hit you while you waited to make your big move.
There was technique, rolling with the punch, protecting the mid-line, elbows on the ribs, chin down, fists up, but the shame…Jules knew all about it; that’s what he thanked his father for the most, cause you had to suffer to overcome it, go to the mine, deep in the darkness, and chisel for gold. That’s how you learned to stand when the beating was over, and the shame stared at you from the mirror wanting the last shreds you’d managed to protect.
His dad he could survive, but himself—the way he felt inside—he was working on it.
Audie went ten rounds. It was just enough but nothing to celebrate. He’d rushed. He’d needed to feel the win, and now he did, his beefy arm raised, three tattooed soldiers turned on their heads and God bless America.
Audie’s tired grin, sweat shining like diamonds in his hair, top of his head, under his arm, the gorilla on his bunched, powerful shoulder as the ref turned him slow. King of the Jungle.
The icebox was bleeding from his ears, eyes, and mouth. Led into the crowd like a disappearing dragon’s tale, a defeated beast, the bodies closing behind him, he was already chewed, and now effectively swallowed. Shame.
Bobby liked it on the ground. He was long-limbed, his strength in his whole body, and he’d need his legs to win. So once his opponent was down, he wasn’t getting back up until the round ended.
Bobby had to get him down each time, and the moog thought each round would be different, but it never was—Baboon sweeping the idiot’s legs out from under him soon as he went in, the crowd saying “Oh,” one big note of frustration or admiration, depending on which way they’d thrown their money.
Twelve rounds, twelve times knocking the other one to the rough floor. Once he had him down, Bobby got on him like a barnacle. Audie wasn’t too
tired to watch Baboon and shout instructions. Bobby wouldn’t hear the words, not in this weeping and wailing, but he’d know that thick-bottomed tone of Audie’s, and that’s what he’d let in to fire him up, inspire him.
Once Baboon got on him, he got his arm around the guy’s neck, and he choked and choked. It was dirty fighting, street fighting, fighting for real, fighting to kill. The ref was screaming, the crowd was on fire—get on your feet, keep him down, choke the fooker, beat the fooker, win!
And he did—his hair pulled, shoulder bit, back clawed, Baboon stood tall, his arm too long for the ref to grab at the wrist, but waving like a flagpole in the ref’s hand.
Jules looked at Bobby’s hands, bloody, most of it the other guy’s; that’s what he hoped. But Bobby had kept his fingers in the other moog’s mouth, pulling at his jaw all the time from inside, so…time would tell if his fingers had got mistook for a pork chop.
Jules knew he shouldn’t, but before he went into the circle, he searched the crowd for Redver, for Jerry or their big cousin. He caught a glimpse, Redver’s chair lifted on some kind of loading dock so he was above the crowd and could see, and Cabhan up there with him, and them having their own fight, looked like, and Jules knew so much, in that one look.
Redver knew Cabhan. Cabhan was pissed. Redver was too. That was the fight…the real fight.
It was time. Images came at Jules like God Himself was fanning His hand to make random scenes flip through his mind like a picture show…the time they’d been lined up for Christmas, cold and hungry, ready to storm that village, and they knew they might not make it, and he thought of dying on Christmas, and he said, hell no.
And the mirrors ceiling to floor in that mansion—him and his buddy looked at each other, then fired into the glass, and then the sparkling shower, the sound, like Christ coming—angry glitter—wrath and joy, gasps and smiles, beautiful, magical destruction.
And the time he lay in his foxhole and its mud sides quivered in—the earth shivered, the bomb had landed so close.