The Best American Noir of the Century

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  Wouldn’t you know it? Old stinky-head went right out and spent the whole shiteree on one of them new BMW four-wheel-drive deals what goes for better than fifty thousand. Coyle got to bragging about the sports package, the killer sound system, how much horsepower it had. Who gives a rap when you can’t afford tires and battery? Buying them boogers is easy, keeping them up what’s hard.

  Besides, it was about that time that Coyle’s knees went to flap like butterfly wings. See, the ladies took one look at Coyle and thought they had the real deal, what with him having that big car and flashing hundreds in the clubs.

  Dee-Cee said, “How many times you get you nut this week?”

  Coyle said, “That’s personal.”

  Dee-Cee said, “So you been gettin’ you nut every night.”

  Coyle said, “No, I ain’t.”

  Dee-Cee said, “You is, too. If it was one or none, or even two times, you’da said so.”

  Coyle looked at me like he’d never heard such talk.

  I said, “He’s sayin’ when your legs get to wobblin’, you been doin’ it too much. He’s saying that when your legs’re weak that your brain gets to wonderin’ why’s it so hard to keep itself from fallin’ down. That’s when your brain is so busy keeping you on your feet that it don’t pay attention to fightin’. Son, you got to have your legs right so your mind can work quicker than light, or you end up as a opponent talkin’ through your nose, and the do-gooders wants to blame us trainers. No good, it’s you and your dick what’s doin’ wrong.”

  Coyle said, “I’m a fighter livin’ like a fighter.”

  Dee-Cee said, “Way you goin’, you won’t be for long.”

  I said, “Dee-Cee ain’t wrong, Kenny.”

  Dee-Cee said, “Boy, you can fuck you white ass black, but that ain’t never gonna make you champ of nothin’.”

  Coyle snorted, said, “I’ll be champ of the bitches.”

  Dee-Cee said, “You go out, screw a thousand bitches, you think you somethin’? Sheeuh, you don’t screw no thousand bitches, a thousand bitches screw you — and there go you title shot, fool.”

  Coyle said, “Fighters need release.”

  Dee-Cee said, “Say what? All you got to do is wait some. You midnight emissions’ll natural take care of you goddamn release!”

  I said, “Look, we’re tryin’ to get you around the track and across the finish line first, but you’re headin into the rail on us.”

  “Yeah,” said Dee-Cee, “workin wit’ you be like holdin’ water in one hand.”

  Coyle thought about that and seemed to nod, but next day when he come in his knees were flapping same as before.

  ~ * ~

  Come to find out, Coyle wasn’t worth the powder to blow him to hell. Billy found out Coyle had been with three gals in the stall of the men’s toilet at one of his hot spots — that they’d been smoking weed hunched around the stool, yip! Billy didn’t jump Coyle. But instead of seeing him as a long-lost White Hope in shining armor, he saw him same as me and Dee-Cee’d come to — like a peach what had gone part bad. So, do you cut out the bad part and keep the good? Or do you shit-can the whole deal? Billy decided to save what he could as long as he could.

  Billy told Coyle to flat take his partying somewhere else, like he was first told. If I know Billy, there was more he wanted to say, but didn’t. ‘Course big old Coyle didn’t take it too good, and wanted to dispute with Billy. So Billy said not to mistake kindness for weakness. Coyle got the message looked like, and was back in the gym working hard again — he wanted that twenty-five hundred a month. We figured the bullshit was over, leastways the in-public bullshit. But who could tell about weed? And who knew what else Coyle was messing with? By then, I got to feeling like I was a cat trapped in a sock drawer.

  I told Coyle that what he’d pulled on Billy wasn’t the right way to do business.

  Coyle said, “He’s makin’ money off me.”

  I said, “Not yet he ain’t.”

  That’s when things got so squirrelly you’d think Coyle had a tail.

  ~ * ~

  First thing what come up was that stink with the plain-Jane cop’s daughter who said Coyle knocked her up — said Coyle’d gave her some of this GHB stuff that’s floating around that’ll make a gal pass out so deep she’s a corpse. Cop’s daughter said the last thing she remembered was that she was in Coyle’s pool playing kissy face. Next thing she knew she was bare-ass on the floor and Coyle was fixing to do her. She said she jumped up and fled.

  Coyle claimed that he’d already done her twice, said she was crying for more.

  See, it wasn’t until it come out she was pregnant that she told her daddy, who was a detective sergeant of the San Antonia P.D. She was a only child, and Daddy had them squinty blue eyes set in a face wide in the cheekbones what the Polacks brought into Texas. That good old boy got to rampaging like a rodeo bull, and right about then his neighbors got to thinking about calling Tom Bodette and checking into a Motel 6.

  Once Daddy’d killed a half bottle of Jim Beam, he loaded up a old .44 six-gun, put on his boots and hat, and went on over to shoot Coyle dead.

  Coyle told Daddy he loved plain-Jane more than his life itself, said that he wanted to marry her.

  Cop was one of them fundamentals and figured marrying was better’n killing, so he let Coyle off.

  Arrangements was made quick so the girl could wear white to the altar and not show. But then Coyle ups and says he’d have to wait till after the kid was born, that he wanted a blood test to prove he was the real daddy. The cop went to rampaging again and was fixing to hunt Coyle down, but he was took off the scent when his daughter stuck something up herself. Killed the baby, and liked to killed herself. The family was in such grief that Daddy started to drink full-time. The girl was sent off to live with a aunt up Nacogdoches. The cop had to go into one of them anger management deals or get fired from the force. ‘Course Coyle slapped his thigh.

  ~ * ~

  Second deal was about sparring, and was way worse for me’n Dee-Cee than the cop-daughter deal. All of a sudden Coyle started sparring like he never done it before. Everybody was hitting him — middleweights we had in with him to work speed, high school linemen in the gym on a dare, grunts for God’s sake. The eye puffed up again, and we had to take off more time. All of a sudden Coyle’s moving on his heels instead of his toes, and now he can’t jump rope without stumbling into a wall. A amateur light heavy knocked him down hard enough to make him go pie-eyed, and Dee-Cee called the session off. Most times like that, a fighter’s pride will make him want to keep on working, but not Coyle. He was happy to get his ass outta there. Billy heard about it and quick got Coyle that second Mississippi fight for seventy-five thousand. Got Coyle ten rounds with a dead man just to see what was what.

  The opponent was six foot tall, three hundred twenty-eight pounds, a big old black country boy from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who couldn’t hardly scrawl his own name. But in the first round, with his damn eyes closed, he hit Coyle high on the head with an overhand right and knocked him on his ass. Me and Dee-Cee couldn’t figure how he didn’t see the punch coming, it was so high and wide. Coyle jumped up, and to his credit, he went right to work.

  Bang! Three bitches to the eyes, right hand to the chin, left hook to the body, all the punches quick and pretty. The black boy settled like a dead whale to the bottom, and white folks was dancing in the aisles and waving the Stars and Bars. It was pitiful, but Coyle strutted like he just knocked out Jack Johnson. Me and Dee-Cee was pissed, and our peters had lost their glow. Dressing room afterward was quiet as a gray dawn.

  Coyle took time off, not that he needed the rest. He came back for a few days, then it got so he wasn’t coming in at all. If he did, he’d lie around and bullshit instead of work. You could smell weed on him, and his hair got greasy. Now all our fighters started going flaky. Sweat got scarcer and scarcer. There was other times Coyle’d come in so fluffy from screwing you wished he didn’t come in at all. Gym got to be a godda
mned social club what looked full of boy whores and Social Security socialites. What with Coyle lying around like a pet poodle, Billy’s other fighters started doing the same. Some begged off fights that were sure wins for them. You never want a fighter to fight if he’s not ready, but when they’re being paid to be in shape, they’re supposed to be in shape, not Butterball goddamn turkeys.

  I tried to get Coyle to get serious, but he kept saying, “I’m cool, I’m cool.”

  I said, “Tits on a polar bear’s what’s cool.”

  That went on for three months, but I wasn’t big enough to choke sense into him. Besides, no trainer worth a damn would want to. Fighters come in on their own, or they don’t come in. Billy wanted a answer, but I didn’t have one. How do you figure it when a ten-round fighter hungry for money pulls out of fights ‘cause of a sore knuckle, or a sprung thumb, or a bad elbow? ‘Course old Coyle didn’t volunteer for no cut in pay.

  One day he was lounging in his velour sweatsuit looking at tittie magazines. He said to turn up the lights. I said they was turned up. He said to turn them up again, and I said they was up again. Coyle yelled at me the first and last time.

  “Turn ‘em all the goddamn fuck up!”

  “Boy,” I said, and then I said it again real quiet. “Boy, lights is all the goddamn fuck up.”

  He looked up. “Oh, uh-huh, yeah, Red, thanks.”

  About then I figure Kenny don’t know shit from Shinola.

  ~ * ~

  Vegas called Billy for a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fight with some African fighting outta France. He had big German money behind him, and he was a tough sumbitch, but he didn’t have no punch like Kenny Coyle. Coyle said he’d go for the two-hundred-thousand fight in a heartbeat.

  I knew there had to be some fun in all this pain. We whip the Afro-Frenchie and win the next couple of fights, and we’re talking three, maybe five hundred thousand a fight. Even if he loses, Billy’s got all his money back and more, and me and Dee-Cee’s doing right good, too. If we win big, we’ll be talking title fight, ‘cause word’ll be out that there’s some big white boy who could be the one to win boxing back from the coloreds. The only coloreds me and Dee-Cee gave a rap about was them colored twenties, and fifties, and hundreds that’d make us proud standing in the bank line instead of meek. Like I say, the amateurs and the pros ain’t alike, and Billy’s figuring to get his money out of Coyle while he can. Me and Dee-Cee’s for that, ‘specially me, since it gets me off the hook.

  But neither one of us could figure what had happened with Coyle, so we got Billy to bring in some tough sparring partners for the Frenchie fight to test what Coyle had. Same-oh same-oh, with Coyle getting hit. But when he hit them, damn! they’d go down! A gang of them took off when Coyle threw what that writer guy James Ellroy calls body rockets that tore up short ribs and squashed livers. But it was almost like Coyle was swinging blind. Usual-like, you don’t care about the sparring partners, they’re paid to get hit. But the problem was that Coyle was getting hit, and going down, too. He’d take a shot and his knees would do the old butterfly. We figured he’d been smoking weed, or worse — being up all night in toilets with hoochies.

  Dee-Cee said, “Can’t say I didn’t tell him ‘bout midnight emissions, but no, he won’t listen a me.”

  ~ * ~

  But Coyle wasn’t short on wind, and he looked strong. Me’n Dee-Cee’d never seen nothing like it, a top guy gets to be a shot fighter so quick like that, ‘specially with him doing his road work every dawn? Hell, come to find out he wasn’t even smoking weed, just having a beer after a workout so’s he could relax and sleep.

  Seeing all our work fall apart, I figured we was Cinderella at midnight. Me and Dee-Cee both knew it, but we still couldn’t make out why. Then Dee-Cee come to me, his hand over his mouth.

  Dee-Cee said, “Coyle’s blind in that bad eye.”

  I said, “What? Bullshit, the commission doctors passed him.”

  “He’s blind, Red, in that hurt eye, I’m tellin’ you. I been wavin’ a white towel next to it two days now, and he don’t blink on the bad-eye side. Watch.”

  Between rounds sparring next day, with me greasing and watering Coyle, Dee-Cee kind of waved the tip of the towel next to Coyle’s good eye and Coyle blinked automatic. Between the next round, Dee-Cee was on the other side. He did the same waving deal with the towel. But Coyle’s bad eye didn’t blink ‘cause he never saw the towel. That’s when I understood why he was taking all them shots, that’s when I knew he was moving on his heels ‘cause he couldn’t see the floor clear. And that’s why he was getting rocked like it was the first time he was ever hit, ‘cause shots was surprising him that he couldn’t tell was coming. And it’s when I come to know why he was pulling out of fights — he knew he’d lose ‘cause he couldn’t see. He went for the two-hundred-thousand fight knowing he’d lose, but he took it for the big money. I wanted to shoot the bastard, what with him taking Billy’s money and not saying the eye’d gone bad and making a chump outta me.

  The rule is if you can’t see, then you can’t fight. I told Dee-Cee we got to tell Billy. See, Billy’s close to being my own kin, and it’s like I stuck a knife in his back if I don’t come clean.

  Dee-Cee said to wait, that it was the commission doctor’s fault, not ours, let them take the heat. He said maybe Vegas won’t find out, and maybe the fight will fuck Coyle up so bad he’ll have to retire anyhow. Billy’ll still get most of his money back, Dee-Cee said, so Billy won’t have ‘cause to be mad with us. That made sense.

  ~ * ~

  But what happened to mess up our deal permanent was that the Vegas Boxing Commission faxed in its forms for the AIDS blood test, said they wanted a current neuro exam, and they sent forms for a eye exam that had to be done by a ophthalmologist, not some regular doctor with a eye chart. Damned if Coyle wasn’t sudden all happy. He couldn’t wait once he heard about the eye test. Me and Dee-Cee was wondering how can he want a eye test, what with what we know about that eye?

  Sure enough, when the eye test comes in, it says that Coyle’s close to stone blind in the bad eye, the one what got cut in Canada. The neuro showed Coyle’s balance was off from being hit too much in training camps, which is why he couldn’t jump rope, and why he’d shudder when he got popped. The eye exam proved what me and Dee-Cee already knew, which is why Coyle was taking shots what never shoulda landed. What it come down to was the two-hundred-thousand-dollar fight was off, and Coyle’s fighting days for big money was over. It also come down to Billy taking it in the ass for sixty grand in signing money that was all my fault. And that ain’t saying nothing about all the big purses Coyle coulda won if he had been fit.

  Turns out that the fight in Vancouver where Coyle got cut caused his eye to first go bad. The reason why word didn’t get loose on him is ‘cause Coyle didn’t tell the Canadian doctors he was a fighter, and ‘cause it was done on that Canadian free health deal they got up there. The eye doc said the operation was seventy percent successful, but told Coyle to be careful, ‘cause trauma to the eye could mess it up permanent. What with him dropping out of boxing for a couple of years the way fighters’ll do when they lose, people wasn’t thinking on him. And the way Coyle passed the eye test in Alabama and Mississippi was to piece off with a hundred-dollar bill the crooked casino croakers what’s checking his eyes. When later on he told me how he did it, he laughed the same snorty way as when he told how he played his game on the Navy.

  That’s when I worked out what was Coyle’s plan. See, he knew right after the Marcellus Ellis fight that the eye had gone bad on him again, but he kept that to himself instead of telling anyone about it, thinking his eye operation in Canada won’t come out. That way, he could steal Billy’s signing money, and pick up the twenty-five hundred a month chasing-pussy money, too. I wondered how long he’d be laughing.

  Only now what am I supposed to say to Billy? After all, it was my name on Coyle what clinched the deal. It got to be where my shiny, big old white boy was tarnished as a co
pper washtub. I talked with Dee-Cee about it.

  Dee-Cee said, “You right. That why the schemin’ muhfuh come down South from the front!”

  ~ * ~

  See, we surprised Coyle. He didn’t know the tests had come back, so me and Dee-Cee just sat him down on the ring apron. Starting out, he was all fluffy.

  Dee-Cee said, “Why didn’t you tell us about the eye?”

  Coyle lied, said, “What eye?”

  Dee-Cee said, “Kenny, the first rule’s don’t shit a shitter. The eye what’s fucked up.”

  Coyle said, “Ain’t no eye fucked up.”

  “You got a fucked-up eye, don’t bullshit,” said Dee-Cee.

  “It ain’t bad, it’s just blurry.”

  “Just blurry means you ain’t fightin’ Vegas, that’s what’s muthuhfuckin’ blurry,” Dee-Cee said, muscles jumping along his jaw. “I’m quittin’ you right now, hyuh? Don’t want no truck with no punk playin’ me.”