by Ed Lacy
“Then he didn't believe in that—protect yourself at all times,” Mady said to the hairs on my chest.
“Well... yeah, Pops sure didn't protect himself with his pugs. But then if a guy is going to rat, what will a contract get you but a lawsuit? Pops watched me working out, began to give me pointers. When I told him I wanted to be a pug he said, 'Why? It's a tough way to make a buck—the worst way.' So I asked him, 'You know an easy way to make the dollar?' That tickled him and he said he liked the way I moved about and if I wanted to, he'd be my manager. We shook hands on it. Every day for ten months I was at the gym and he coached me. During the winter he looked so bad I bought him a suit and an overcoat, told him it was old stuff my uncle was throwing away. And every payday I took him out for a decent supper.
“I was getting pretty good as a boxer and Pops thought I was ready for the amateurs. Had five fights, won them all by knockouts. They'd give me a watch for winning and after every fight we'd 'eat the watch,' as Pops called it... hock it for ten or fifteen bucks. In my sixth fight I got a small cut over my eye and Pops stopped it. I was sore, was beating the guy easily when he threw a lucky punch I didn't pull away from in time. Pops exploded at me. 'Anytime you get a cut eye— even if you're fighting Louis for the championship, I'll stop it! Hell with the fans and the sports writers, you can't buy eyes.' He used to hate the fans something awful.”
“Why?” Mady asked sleepily. “They support fighters.”
“Called them a pack of bloodthirsty animals, cowards scared to fight themselves, and a couple of fancy cuss words. Anyway, I fought this guy a month later.”
“And of course you won?”
“Stop riding me. Kayoed him in one round. When summer came and there wasn't any school, I got a job working nights and started training during the day, with pros, for experience. Big demand for heavies and all the chiseling managers tried to get me away from Pops, but he kept telling them I wasn't ready for money fights yet. I never double-crossed Pops, but I was getting impatient. Kind of frustrating, sparring with guys I knew I could beat, and reading about them getting five hundred or a grand a fight, and I hardly had coffee money. Then... it was a Tuesday. Guess I'll never forget that day. Got a letter in the morning that I was appointed a cop. That same...”
Mady sighed, got off my chest and nestled up to me.
“You listening?”
“Aha.”
“That same day a big-time heavy named Porky Sanders came into the gym on his way East for a fight with Louis. Louis later knocked him kicking in three rounds. Sanders' manager was a shrewd guy with a big in, and he was looking for sparring partners—ten bucks a round. Pops said no dice, and one of the hustlers hanging around said, 'Get old Pops turning dough down. What's the matter, your big boy made out of cut glass? Pops so high and mighty... and thrown out of his fleabag room two weeks ago. Ask Pops where he's been sleeping at nights, Matt? Right on the gym benches!”
“I told Sanders' manager I'd go three rounds, told Pops, 'Hell, might as well see how good I am—one way or the other.' Only time Pops and me had words. Well... Porky was a big name and at first I was too cautious, but when he floored me in the second round, I got mad. I outboxed him, floored him and had him hanging on the ropes, when his manager stopped it. Didn't want his boy cut up, spoil that big payday with Louis. Ranzino was the white-haired lad around the gym that day! As I was dressing and Pops was clucking over me like a mother hen, I told him about getting the cop job, but of course that was out... now. You know what Pops told me?”
Mady sighed, “What?”
“Why, he bawled hell out of me, told me to quit the ring and become a cop! Said I was a cinch to be police department champ, get myself a soft racket. When I argued, Pops shouted, 'Get out of this dirty racket—if you have the chance! Man shouldn't make his living beating people, taking punishment. And they all get their lumps... Louis, Zale, Robinson... they get punishment. The good ones just take less. Man only becomes a fighter because he can't make porkchops any other way. Get out of the game while you have the chance. It stinks! I know.'”
“Hell of it was, Sanders' manager offered Pops five grand for my contract, then offered me the dough when he learned we didn't have it in writing. When I insisted Pops was my manager, he offered the old man three grand for a half interest. I was tempted to take it... five grand and this guy could get me the right bouts. But I kept thinking Pops needed the dough worse than I did and if he could turn it down, so could I. So that was the end of my career as a pug—before it ever started.”
Mady's even breathing told me she was sleeping. I lay there and thought of the time I'd kayoed Max for the department championship a month after I was on the force. Pops had been right, about the soft details. I was made a plainclothes man, given desk jobs... all the time I wanted to train. I was a pretty honest cop, I only took a few bucks in graft—enough to give Pops fifteen a week. I added another ten out of my pay. Pops, that strange old man. Once we were having supper— we always ate together a couple times a week—and I asked how the mugs at the gym were. He winked at me, said, “Them dumb studs. They keep asking me, 'Pops, where's that good heavy you had, the speed kid with the punch?' And I don't say nothing and they laugh and say, wise-like, 'He ran out on ya, become a dumb bull. Old Pops lost hisself another boy.' I don't bother answering 'em, Matt, a because these jerks don't know at long last I've really found me a boy.”
He was a swell old bum and when I was busted from the force he was heartbroken, wouldn't take a dime till I convinced him I was making more as a private dick. In the army, this last time, I kept sending him his weekly dough. When he died—in his sleep—Max sent me the little packet of money orders they'd found in his crummy room. Never cashed a one, even though he was back to scuffling for eating money. I was in the hospital then and I lost all the dough in a crap game the day I got the packet. I almost wanted to lose... seemed to me the money was no good. If he'd used it for food he might have been still alive.
I stroked Mady's soft hair, ran my hands over her strong neck... she'd have liked Pops. Whenever I thought of him I also couldn't help but wonder how I would have made out with Louis, what it would have felt like being heavyweight champ of the world. Or would I now be a broken-down has-been, working as a bouncer in some dive?
I got up, took a pill and went to the bathroom and then back to bed. Mady slept till eleven.
It was a hot day and we took a quick dip in the Pacific—the water as cold as I expected it to be. Mady seemed to have snapped out of her mood. She was a good swimmer and I clowned around with my few strokes and worried about the cold. Then we dried ourselves and raced across the sand to the cottage and the hot coffee that was waiting. There was a small item in the papers about Harry's death. Joe called and still was jittery, but nobody had been to see him.
I took the camera and went down to the corner drugstore and put in a long distance call to Atlanta. My boy said, “Been waiting for you. Got all the answers—and in one day.”
“What'd you learn?”
“First, that there's another seventy-five bucks due me.”
“I'm good for it. I'll wire it to you immediately.”
“Sure, Mr. Smith. Or is it Brown or Jones this morning?”
“Stop playing and tell me what you have. Captain Daniels will vouch for me. I'll send the money at...”
“I have a better idea. Suppose you wire me the rest of the bundle, then call back? Even let you reverse the charges for prompt payment. Best you buy that, Smithie.”
“Okay, you great big believer in your fellow man.”
“Says on a buck, In God We Trust, and that's good enough for me. Be waiting. Don't be too long, I have a big day ahead of me here.” He hung up and I was sore but I couldn't blame him. Besides, I didn't want him calling Max.
I took the bus to town, returned the camera and got my deposit. I almost patted the dumb clerk for giving me the wrong bulb—he'd done us a favor. I wired the dick another seventy-five, and having a few hours to kill
, I dropped in to see Max. His face looked too neat, he must have taken a store shave. He said, “Flo was in, looking for you. Kept nagging me for your address.”
“Bet she wants to cry on my shoulder because poor Harry is gone.”
Max grinned. “She slings some fine stuff. Man be kind of tempted to try it—even a happily married man like me.”
“You wouldn't have to try very hard with Flo.”
“I know,” Max said sadly. “The tough part would be shaking her off.” He bit into a cigar and shook his head, all in one impossible motion. “Man goes after a new woman like she was something unknown, all the time expecting to find it different. Think women go after it the same way?”
“Why don't you ask Libby?”
Max laughed. “I can see that—she still blushes when I pinch her ass. Speaking of ass, Flo said to call her at Harry's office.”
“Anything new on Harry?”
“What can be new on a suicide? That jerky office boy he has—had—a Mr. Austin—was ranting about the Reds must have pushed him out the window, but that's crazy. You think Harry was on the stuff and his junk told him to jump? Sometimes his eyes looked as watery as a hophead's.”
“Maybe. Always was on the verge of blowing his top —last night he did it. Always nervous.”
“You mean he was always jumpy!” Max said, roaring with laughter.
“Television is calling you, Max. Maybe I'll see Flo, maybe not. If she calls, just say you told me.” I went out and stopped for a glass of milk and took another pill, then walked slowly over to the Grace Building. Flo couldn't know anything, but it was best I see her.
The bag of bones at the reception desk was red-eyed and there was a wreath of flowers on the office desk with some small black lettering across it. Harry would have been astonished that anybody cried for him.
She said, “We're closed today due to the death of....”
“Where's Flo?”
“Miss Adler?”
“Miss Florence Daisy Mae Adler.”
She tossed her head, asked, “Who's calling?”
“Matt Ranzino.”
She announced me over the phone, then buzzed the door. As I opened it, the creep came out of what had been Harry's office, and solemnly ushered me in. Or he could have been playing guard. He had on a dark suit and a black tie and didn't look any more dismal than usual. The jerk had his honorary tin cop's badge pinned to his vest, for some reason.
Flo was sitting behind Harry's desk, a cigarette pasted to her sultry red lips. There wasn't anything funereal about her, or the dress that seemed cut down to her belly button. She said, “Matt baby! Take a seat, I have much talk for... us.”
I sat in one of the new chairs that felt like you'd fallen into a bucket—at first. Thatcher blinked and didn't sit down. “Miss Adler,” he said, “I don't think it's proper to discuss business so soon after Mr. Loughlin's tragic death. Couldn't this wait?”
“Oh, shut up,” Flo said. “And beat it!”
Austin looked as though he was going to whimper, but took a walk. When he was gone Flo flashed a happy smile at me. “How do you like the set-up? I'm boss here now.”
“How come?”
“Harry had some old judgments against him, so he kept his stock—75%—in my name. Now it's all mine.”
I stared at her. “Harry did that?”
“Sure.”
“Come, Flo, Harry wasn't that simple.”
She shrugged. “He was covered—had something on me, a real tough rap that.... No sense telling you about it. Why do you think I stood for his being a louse?”
“For the car, the clothes.”
“That helped, but he had me against the wall. Oh, I had to make out a will in his favor, lot of other legal razzle-dazzle, but he didn't bother changing anything before he tried the wild blue yonder. That's something I can't figure. Harry wasn't the kind to...? Hell with it, and him. Matt, I want you as a partner.”
“No.”
“Harry was knocking down a clear twenty grand a year, and he was only starting. I'll give you ten— that's a good shake. And if we're together, we have all the twenty.”
“Baby, I don't want any part of this outfit.”
Flo shrugged again and everything was like jelly. “I don't know what it's all about, but it's big dough, from the back pocket. Matt, I need you to operate. Need a strong man to run things.”
“What's the matter with the creep?”
“Him? You kidding? Look, this racket is all a bluff. I need a hard guy who can walk a tight-rope, drive hard... and know when to pull in his horns. Harry always used to say, a good libel suit would ruin him. In short, I need a tough guy with common sense. That's you. My God, Matt, we'll live big, plenty of jack coming in for a few hours' work, time to travel and...”
“Look, honey, we're done, I told you that.”
“You have another girl, I know it. That's okay. I still want you. Let me hang around long enough.... I'll take my chances. You'll be a part...”
There was a knock on the door and Thatcher came in, holding a file card. He whispered something into Flo's ear, his eyes trying hard not to travel down into her dress. She said, “Oh, for God's sake, shut up, you!”
“But it's true,” he said loudly, waving the card before her. “In 1946 a Matt Ranzino signed a petition to the governor, asking that the use of tear gas be outlawed in strikes and...”
He was bending over the desk, his can within reaching distance. I gave him a little goose and as he jumped and turned to look at me, I slapped his thin face. He and his glasses went sailing across the room. As he picked himself up, I got up and took the card out of his hand. Tearing it into little pieces, I told him, “Don't stick your nose into my business, junior.”
“But that proves,” he began, as he put his glasses back on, “that...”
“It proves what it says, I signed a petition. Now get out of here.”
He turned to Flo. “We can't hire anybody who...”
She waved him away, crushed her cigarette in a fancy bronze ashtray shaped like a nude woman—probably one of Harry's pet possessions. “You heard the man— get out.”
When he left, I asked, “The creep own much stock?”
“Naw, he's just an employee. I can fire him any time.”
“That's an idea. By the way, what's the time?” I asked, nodding toward the tiny diamond-studded watch on her wrist. It was a corny way of getting out of there, but it was time to call Atlanta.
Flo held up her hand so I could see it was two-twenty. “Don't rush off, Matt.”
“Got to.”
“Then think it over. It's important, for both of us.”
“I told you I don't...”
“You don't lose nothing by thinking it over. Let's talk again, tomorrow. Okay?”
“I'll think about it.” I waved and Flo blew a kiss at me as I went out.
I dropped into the first phone booth I passed, called Max, asked if he'd ever heard of Flo being wanted for anything, or in a jam.
“Not that I know of,” Max said. “I'll check if you want. What's up?”
“Nothing. But check.” I hung up and called my expensive buddy in Atlanta, reversing the charges. He said he'd received the money, and in a few short sentences told me what I wanted to know.
I took a cab out to Mrs. Samuels' and we had another little talk. “Can you leave town?”
“Do I have to?” she asked.
“I don't know. Be better if you do. Could you move to L.A. or Harlem, get lost there? I know it's a lot to ask and if you can't, why...”
“Why is it a lot to ask? Haven't anything to hold me here.”
“Any relations?”
She shook her head. “I'm nearly 62, all my kin has died. Had two boys but they never growed up, never reached twelve. Lost one at childbirth... hospital didn't want no colored. Other, got sick when he was eleven... one of these flu epidemics. Guess can't blame that on his being colored. Maybe I'll go to L.A. Sick of this old town anyway.”
“Need money?”
“I have some savings.”
“Listen carefully, then forget what I'm telling you. I'm going to see that Saxton gets the works. I don't want you to return if you should read about the case, even if it says they're looking for you. And we never talked about this. Get that?”