Canvas Coffin

by Gault, William Campbell

  The fire highlighted his broad, sad face. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Sally took the empty glass from his hand.

  “Relax, Max,” she said.

  “Fall asleep, you mean? What about you two? I want to keep an eye on you two.”

  “You’ve my solemn promise, Max.”

  His eyes were still closed as he patted her hand. “I know. You’re all right, Sally. We want the best for Luke, don’t we? We love that bullheaded bastard, don’t we?”

  “Most times. I wish he was more like you, though. You’ve got more sense, Max. And more heart.”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t got his ‘built,’ like we say in the Bronx. There’s a television set if you two get bored. There’s four of ‘em. Gawd.”

  “Maybe there’s a library, too,” Sally said. “Let’s see if there’s a library, Luke.”

  There was no library. A den, but no library.

  “Four television sets,” Sally said, “at five hundred each, we’ll say. That’s two thousand dollars. For three dollars and ninety-five cents, he can get a complete Shakespeare. But he’d rather spend two thousand dollars to watch Milton Berle. No wonder people like D’Amico can take over.”

  “The road-show Walter Lippmann,” I said. “Please talk about things you understand.”

  “All right, we’re even. Luke, look at that moon.”

  A full moon, over the quiet water, shining through the full-length windows flanking the fireplace.

  “Let’s go out,” Sally said. “I’ll get a coat.”

  I got one, too, and we went out into the chill California night, and down to the beach. Behind us, the glass brick of the house gleamed in reflection.

  “Runs a club in Las Vegas,” Sally said. “Why is it the wrong people have all the money?”

  “The road-show Walter Lippmann,” I said, and she said, “Oh, shut up. I’m sorry I cut off your curbstone philosophy last night but you were being very banal.”

  “Okay, then. The wrong people have all the money because the right people have the wrong appetites.”

  “Like — ”

  “Like gambling and entertainment and adultery and alcohol. So the gamblers and the movie stars and the divorce lawyers and distillers wind up with all the money, naturally.”

  “And the smart fighters,” Sally said.

  “And the underwear artists with sense.”

  “Commercial artists, counterpuncher.”

  “Yes. Commercial artists.”

  We walked along the beach, just out of reach of the water, where the sand was wet and hard. Overhead, a big plane droned, its lights alternately blinking. On the highway, the car lights brightened the hills crowding the road.

  “Poor Max,” Sally said.

  “Poor Luke. Max doesn’t have to fight him.”

  “Poor Noodles.”

  “And Brenda.”

  “All right, and Brenda. Luke, could you kiss me without getting all riled up?”

  “Of course.” I held her lightly by the shoulders and kissed her eyelids. “After I put this Giani out of commission, after I fix him so he’ll never want to fight again, you and I are going to get married. Or we are going to call it quits.”

  “All right. I’m ready for it. Luke, what do you mean about Giani? You were never a spoiler, Luke. Isn’t that the word, ‘spoiler’?”

  “That’s the word. And don’t talk about my streak. And don’t argue about it, and think what you damned please. Giani I mean to fix, good. For reasons of my own and reasons of my trade.”

  “If you can. Nobody thinks you can.”

  “Nobody thought Dempsey could take Willard. But he knocked him down seven times in the first round. Don’t worry about what people think.”

  “All right. You’re my gospel.”

  She kissed my neck and the silver of her hair was like a mist in my vision.

  “Let’s go back,” I said. “I want to hit the hay early.”

  Only one more think did she have to say, and that about halfway back to the house.

  “The canvas coffin,” she said.

  A dreamless night on a good hard bed, and Max shaking me awake at eight o’clock. He had a sweat shirt on and corduroy trousers and tennis shoes.

  “C’mon,” he said, “that beach is just right for road work.”

  “Before breakfast?”

  “Right. Let’s go.”

  Max looks like a little fat man until you trot along beside him for a while. Then he looks like a little stocky man. I was blowing, and he was still breathing free and easy by the time we got back to the house.

  Sally had breakfast ready, and the table set in that big kitchen. I didn’t have time to dawdle over it. Max had me out splitting firewood the minute I was through eating.

  Tony Scarpa came out around ten-thirty in a weathered station wagon. He parked not far from where I was working and grinned out at me.

  “For this one, you’ll work. Luke, baby, you went over the edge?”

  “Make sense,” I said.

  “Giani,” he explained. “Muggsy Ellis or Art Cary, sure. Or another battle of the century with Charley Retzer. But Giani. Did you get a piece of him, or something?”

  “Blow it,” I said. “Wait’ll I get you in a ring.”

  He came out of the station wagon. “Oh, me, a lousy welter, sure.”

  “You don’t look like a welter to me,” I said. “What do you go now, Tony?”

  He shrugged. “Hundred and fifty, sixty. Depends on how I eat.” He held out a hand. “I hope you do it, Champ.”

  A different tone, that last sentence. I shook his hand. “Good to see you, Tony. Think I’m out of my class?”

  “I haven’t seen you go for two years,” he said. “Four years ago, nobody was good enough for you.” He looked past me. “Hey!”

  Sally stood there in shorts and one of the new sweaters.

  “My girl, Tony,” I said. “Sally, I’d like to present Tony Scarpa, Sally Forester.”

  “A distinct pleasure,” Tony said. “Your house, Miss Forester?”

  She shook her head. “One of Max’s many friends. Luke, Charley Retzer phoned. He’s coming out, too.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “I told him to leave Vera and Vickie behind, though.”

  Tony grinned. “I had a date with Vera, couple nights ago. Don’t we need a cook?”

  Sally looked at him wonderingly. “Two nights ago, or three?”

  Tony frowned. “Let’s see — three. I fixed Charley up with Vickie, and — ”

  But Sally wasn’t listening. Sally came over to kiss me on the nose. “I misjudged you, honey.”

  “What goes on?” Tony asked. Over Sally’s shoulder, he winked at me, and gave me the nod.

  “Nothing you’d understand,” Sally said.

  Then Max was out there, and Max said, “Hello, Tony. I’ll show you where you’re bedding down.” He looked at the wood I’d split. “We’ll need more than that.”

  Tony went to get his luggage. Sally said, “See you later, Champ,” and went into the house.

  I was left with the wood and the ax.

  The men came out to repair the ring. Charley Retzer came, a colored handler named Jest came. I stayed with the wood.

  Until Max came out to say lunch was ready. “I had a cook coming,” he said, “but Sally wants to handle it. Don’t ask me why. It’ll be a lot of work.”

  “Work never bothered Sally. It does me, though. My back aches, Max. Maybe I sprained something.”

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  Steak for lunch, broiled over charcoal on the big grille in the big kitchen. Salad with garlic dressing and milk, milk, milk.

  Tony Scarpa said, “I thought only wops liked garlic.”

  “Italians,” Sally corrected him, and wondered why we laughed.

  The big bag, that afternoon, boom-boom-boom. The little bag, tat-a-tat-tat. The rope. And then a couple fast ones with Tony Scarpa. Max had taped my bad hand with Piastora.

  He hit m
e with everything he threw, damned near. He looked fat and out of shape, but Tony could always move. He moved around me, sliding in, sliding out, smooth as only an old-timer can be, scoring, splat, splat, splat.

  “Jesus Christ, Luke,” he said, when it was over.

  “Max has got me muscle-bound,” I complained. “He’s working me too hard, too early. And that bum right hand slowed me.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  It wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to bring Sally into it. It would come back. Milk and eggs and steak and the fresh air; it would come back.

  Max had some movies for us, after that. Giani’s fights with Art Gary, with Graziano, with Charley Retzer.

  In the Retzer fight, in the fifth round, there was a fine camera angle on the right hand Charley hit him with. For almost two seconds, Giani was motionless, his hands low, his eyes blank. Charley was flat on his feet, the right cocked, and Charley, too, remained motionless. Then Giani started to retreat, his hands up.

  Tony Scarpa’s laugh was edged in the dim room. “Could we have that one over? Oh, Charley!”

  “Wise guy,” Charles said. “Anybody can make a mistake.”

  “And how,” Tony said. “The Commission made the big mistake on that one.”

  “Wise guy,” Charley said again. “Shut up, you two,” Max said.

  There wasn’t much I learned from the pictures that I didn’t already know. Patsy was hit often enough, but only Charley had slowed him. Patsy bulled in, working close to his man, one big shoulder protecting his chin, doing all the legal and illegal damage he could get away with in the clinch.

  Three times the camera showed him hitting on the break, a dozen blows looked low. The laces and the elbows and the top of his thick head were additional Giani weapons.

  But Charley knew all those tricks and more; Charley had invented a couple new ones. And he’d be working out with me.

  When the room grew bright again, Tony said, “You’ve been fighting right along, Champ. Why all the trappings?”

  “Los Angeles,” I said. “And a dead sports time for the papers. This fight is going to be milked. Wait’ll you see the ticket scale.”

  Max and Charley and Jest and Tony played pinochle; I took a hot bath, soaking in the big tub, stretching the soreness out, feeling the tenseness leave and my mind quieting down.

  Clean slacks and flannel sport shirt, at peace and spotless. In the car-barn living-room the boys were still at the pinochle, shrouded in the smoke of Max’s cigar.

  In the kitchen, Sally sat near the fireplace reading a fashion magazine. “Come to help?” she asked me.

  “If you want. Why do you want to do the cooking? Jest’s a good cook.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “You’re tops, but it’s going to be work. There’ll be writers here and other guests from time to time.”

  “I want to keep busy,” she said. “That Tony Scarpa’s kind of a smart aleck, isn’t he?”

  “Big-city boy,” I said. “You’ll get to like him. He sure made a fool out of me in that ring today.”

  “He did?”

  “Yup. He’s fast, upstairs and down, thinks fast, moves fast. He could have had the welter title for years if he’d ever taken the game seriously.”

  I was standing near the sink and through the window above it, I saw the car come in the driveway and park, and Sergeant Sands get out of it.

  I had the front door open by the time he got there and I brought him along with me back to the kitchen.

  “Cup of coffee, Sergeant?” Sally asked him. “You look tired.”

  “I’ll have a cup, thanks. I am tired.” He nodded toward the living-room, and looked at me. “You’ve got some high-priced help in there.”

  “Nothing but the best for this one,” I said. “Learn anything from that cabbie’s girl friend, Sergeant?”

  “Nothing. He didn’t confide in her, it seems. And Bevilaqua’s playing dumber than even he can be. That’s where this thing revolves, back there in the Hoot Owl Club; that’s the hub of this mess. But they’ll give me nothing to go on. They’re covering for somebody.”

  Sally brought him a cup of coffee, and he said, “Thanks.” He smiled at her. Then he inspected the coffee cup as though there was something to see on it. There wasn’t; it was a very ordinary cup.

  I can’t believe that he was embarrassed, but that’s the way he looked. “So,” he went on, “the only substantial suspect I have to go on, right now, is you. The chief’s kind of annoyed about the way I‘ve been riding with you. He wants me to crack down.”

  Chapter X

  SALLY TOOK a deep breath. I took one, myself. I said, “It makes sense. If I was wearing your badge, I’d think just like the chief does.”

  “Except for the flesh on her teeth,” he said. “Except for this — who was her boy friend at the party? Who brought her?”

  “Wald would know that.”

  “He doesn’t. He claims she wasn’t even invited, by him. He doesn’t even remember her coming in.”

  “You’ve questioned the other guests?”

  “Hell, yes. The ones that didn’t play dumb were dumb. Do you remember seeing her with anybody when you came in?”

  “I don’t remember anything but the windmill, Sergeant,” I said.

  “So.” He shook his head. “Everybody trying to cover, Wald, Ruth Gonzales, Bevilaqua. I can’t see Wald covering if he thought you were the killer. Because if he could prove that, you’d be vacating the title the hard way, and Giani’s the logical successor. Or the logical winner in an elimination tournament. Wald would only cover if he knew you were innocent. And Wald’s covering.”

  “And why would Harry Bevilaqua cover?”

  “Not why, but who. Harry likes you, but he likes somebody else more. Who but the killer?”

  “Harry liked Noodles, too.”

  “Sure. But that’s a different kill. That’s a professional kill. That’s one may never get solved.”

  The picture of Johnny came to my mind, silent Johnny.

  Sands said musingly, “Great stuff, conine. Soluble in alcohol. One of those Florida cops died the same way. Drinking man.”

  I saw Johnny standing in front of the door, and Sally waiting to get out. I said, “I can’t seem to work up any sympathy for a Florida cop, but Noodles was kind of a nice little guy, despite the knife he pulled on me.”

  “Guys his size in his kind of company,” Sands said, “almost have to carry a knife. That Gonzales woman is still crying.”

  Sally replenished the sergeant’s cup. He looked at it again as he said, “Rumors are going around town. The wise guys seem to think this fight is in the bag.” He sipped the coffee.

  “That’s logical enough, the terms we got out of them. It would look like we were selling the title. Only Max could keep them from the crown forever, and they know it. And they have to take our terms. They figure the title’s worth it, I guess.”

  “It would be, to them. There’s not much Pilgrim money around.”

  “There’s my end of the purse, if anybody wants to cover it,” I said.

  The sergeant smiled, and stood up. “You sure are a confident man, Pilgrim. I’ll ride with you awhile. Best thing about a job like mine, I don’t mind losing it. Which the chief knows.” He finished his coffee standing up. “You’ll see a lot of me. I can find the door without help.”

  Seconds of silence, and Sally said, “I like him. He doesn’t seem like a policeman at all.”

  “He does to me. I wonder if Harry Bevilaqua would tell me anything he wouldn’t tell the sergeant.”

  “He already has. I don’t think he’d tell you any more, not after you blabbed to the law.” She stood up. “You can help with dinner. There are some potatoes to peel.”

  I peeled spuds, and set the table and broke out the ice cubes for the drinking-water. Sound, muscle-building labor to ready me for my imminent and important defense of the title.

  After dinner, the pinochle hounds went back to their battle,
and I helped Sally with the dishes. It was eight o’clock when we finished, and it had been too much of a day for me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  I fell asleep a few seconds after my head met the pillow and slept a dreamless sleep right through to dawn. And then came fully awake with the opening of my eyes.

  Nobody was up, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good to stay in bed; I was as rested as it was possible to get. I got up quietly and put on the sweat pants and shirt and sneakers.

  It was some day. The Pacific smooth as a blue lawn, the low clouds on its far rim pink in the morning sun. From the wet beach a sea gull looked at me curiously.

  Easy, now, trotting the morning stiffness out of the leg muscles, sweating the sore edge of yesterday’s labor out of my misused body, drinking in the salt air, blanking the mind.

  Yesterday had taught me how far I was from my peak. Still, I’d been fighting right along, and better men than Tony Scarpa. The answer seemed to be I’d been fighting the same men over and over, men I’d watched in other bouts, men I knew. It was almost automatic, fighting men I knew as well as I knew Art Cary, Muggsy Ellis, and Charley Retzer.

  And another thought came to me. I’d heard about fighters whose opponents had splashed without their knowing it; deals made by managers and one of the fighters, leaving the winner in the dark.

  Had Max, I wondered, ever done that? No, not Max. But still, the way that Scarpa had scored on me —

  Max and Sally were in the kitchen when I got back. Max was setting the table, and Sally was pouring popover batter into a muffin tin.

  I had a small drink of water and sat near the biggest window. “That Scarpa sure got to me yesterday, Max,” I said.

  “Mmmmm-hmmm. He’s got to plenty of them, in his time.”

  “I’m surprised I lasted this long,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Max agreed. “Keep going; this fight isn’t bad enough, you’ve got to work yourself into a mental lather. You want me to fight Giani for you?”

  “If it would draw, I would. What are you nervous about?”

  “Me — nervous? Why should I be nervous? You’ve got to fight him. How’s that hand?”