Canvas Coffin

by Gault, William Campbell

  “Gus Galbini? I’ve met him twice, I think.”

  “I don’t like him,” she said. “I think he’s a crook.”

  I shrugged. “His reputation isn’t much worse or better than most managers’. Boxing’s infested with crooks.”

  “Terry isn’t crooked,” she said. “Except when it comes to women, Terry plays it straight all the way.” She flushed and looked away from me.

  I said, “You accept that? You must love him.”

  She was still blushing, but her gaze came back to meet mine. “At first, I thought he was going somewhere; I went along for the ride. And then — ” she shrugged. “Call it animal magnetism. I’ve overlooked some pretty raw — escapades.”

  “You mean, at first you thought he was going to make a lot of money, and that was the attraction?”

  She nodded and looked at me quietly.

  “Well, then,” I said, “what’s wrong with throwing a fight? A lot more money is made on fixed fights, you know.”

  She was silent.

  “Do you want to be more frank?” I asked quietly.

  “I didn’t come in here, Mr. Puma, to hire you to investigate me. My motives are cloudy even to me. I want you to investigate Gus Galbini.”

  “In what way? Do you mean in regard to the Mueller fight?”

  “In that way and all the ways,” she said. A pause. “Gus Galbini seems to know every gambler and every chippie in town. I want you to investigate his influence on Terry.”

  And every chippie…. That’s what was bugging her. The fixed fight gambit had been only to save face. The dames were what was bothering Mrs. Terry Lopez.

  But she hadn’t asked me to check her husband, which I wouldn’t have done, not for infidelity. Galbini was my target and I could use the business. It had been a slow month.

  “His credit, too?” I asked her.

  “Everything,” she said. She smiled and stood up. “But not our credit. Do you usually get a retainer?”

  “I’ll bill you,” I said. And thought, in my lecherous way: One way or another, you’ll pay!

  She went out, leaving some perfume behind. I sat there, pondering on philanderers. So often, they had beauties like Bridget for wives. And still they went to Newcastle for their coal.

  Except for the credit report, investigating Gus Galbini was not a chore that suggested the direct approach. I went down to the old two-door and drove over to Delamater’s. Delamater’s is a gym and health studio out on Olympic where a number of fighters train.

  And also a place where a number of wise guys hang out, including some gamblers, big and little. The hoodlum involvement in boxing was getting a lot of current publicity, but it had always existed in this country. Boxing had been born in the saloon district, it had achieved the salons, but it was still a mugs’ game.

  Barney Delamater ran a two-faced store. The gym, which fronted on Olympic, was barnlike, old and gray, weathered stucco and faded redwood. The health studio connected with this but fronted on Eighteenth, all white tile and shining plate glass set in polished aluminum casements. Barney rarely came over to this newer section; his origins were humble and his tastes simple.

  He was in the gym, in a littered, glass-enclosed corner office from where he could view each of his three rings and all the multitudinous light and heavy bags and other paraphernalia of his shop.

  He’s bald and short and jovial and he grinned at me when I came into his office. “Decided to listen to me?” he asked.

  It was an old private joke. In a bar fight, I had decked one of the local promising heavyweights a few years back. Ever since, Barney had insisted I had a future in the ring.

  “Listen to you?” I answered. “On some subjects, I will.”

  He leaned back in his office chair and smiled at me, waiting.

  “On Terry Lopez, for instance,” I said. “How good is he?” Barney shrugged. “He’s no Greb.”

  “Nobody ever was, except for Greb. Is Lopez good enough for that German?”

  “Hans Mueller?” He shrugged again. “Who can tell, with them foreigners? They build up a big rep on stumblebums, come over here — and get clobbered.”

  “Not Mueller,” I said. “He’s been in this country a long time. He’s beat some pretty good boys.”

  “That he has,” Barney agreed. “Why the interest?”

  “I’d like to get a bet down,” I said. “I can always use an easy buck. Which way should I bet?”

  “You’re lying,” he said mildly. He leaned forward. “You heard something, huh?”

  I stared at him. He stared at me.

  “From Gus?” he asked quietly.

  “Galbini? We’re not that close.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Maybe, just maybe, from somebody very close to Terry Lopez.”

  “His wife,” he said. “That’s it. She came to you?” We went through another staring session. Barney said, “Good-looking girl, isn’t she?” I didn’t answer.

  Barney leaned back in his chair again, and his voice was musing. “A model, I guess she used to be. Though I got it on real good authority that she wasn’t above answering a call, now and then, if the caller pleased her. At one grand a night, I heard. One thousand dollars for one night.” He shook his head wonderingly. “Now, who’d pay that, when you can get a good steak for five bucks?”

  I said, “Somebody who had one thousand and five dollars, I suppose, Barney. You’re old, don’t forget.”

  “I’m not old,” he said peevishly, “and I was never young enough to be that dumb.”

  Another silence. He stared at his desk and I stared at him.

  He looked up. “So? What else is new?”

  “Don’t you want to talk about the Mueller-Lopez fight?”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “It looks like you know more than I do about that.”

  “What kind of man is Gus Galbini?”

  “He’s a manager. A manager is what he has to be if he wants to make a buck. And they all want to make a buck, any way they can.”

  “They can’t all be crooked, Barney.”

  “Everybody has to eat,” he said. “Hardly anybody is crooked unless there’s a buck in it.”

  Another pause. And I said, “Okay, let’s say it’s all on the level. Who would you pick, Mueller or Lopez?”

  “Mueller,” he said firmly. “He trains. He keeps in shape. He runs on the road, not after dames.”

  I winked at him. “Thanks. That’s the way I’ll bet, then.”

  “Bet,” he said scornfully. “Who do you think you’re kidding? Come on, Joe — you heard something, right?”

  “Nothing I’ve confirmed,” I said. “When I do, if there’s a buck in it, I’ll tell you.” And then I remembered what Bridget had told me. I asked, “Is it true that Galbini knows every gambler and every chippie in town?”

  “He knows a lot of both,” Barney conceded. “He introduced Lopez to his wife.”

  Through the glass behind him, now, I could see someone entering the center ring. It was a blond head in a flat-top cut and though his back was to me, I was almost sure it was Hans Mueller. He had the bunched hitting muscles near his shoulder blades, and the thick German neck.

  Barney turned to look where I was looking. “Mueller,” he said. “Watch him work out, why don’t you? And then make your bet.”

  I thanked him for nothing and went out and over toward the center ring. A Negro who looked close to the light-heavy class was climbing between the ropes in the far corner from Mueller. He had a Fitzimmons build, slim legs and enormous shoulders. He appeared to be three inches taller than Mueller.

  I went over to stand next to a two-bit bookie I knew slightly. I asked him, “Who’s the tall boy?”

  “Lincoln Jones,” he said. “All left hand and glass jaw.”

  “How did you figure this Mueller with Lopez?”

  He shrugged. “If Lopez would train, he’d murder him. But when did Lopez ever take a fight serious enough to train?” />
  Jones was wearing a headgear but his opponent evidently scorned such a sissy protection. A very calm and confident-looking man, Hans Mueller.

  At the bell, Jones came out erectly in an almost classic stance, stabbing with the left and moving to the right, away from Mueller’s right.

  But the German also had a hook and he moved in with it, landing heavily to Jones’s ribs, crowding him. Jones tied him up.

  They broke — and the German put his weight into a sneak right hand. It landed high on the head guard but the force of it sent Jones stumbling to his right. Hans Mueller moved in.

  For ten seconds, he thudded rights and lefts into the taller man’s belly, driving him up against the ropes, bulling him with his right shoulder, keeping him off balance while he went to work downstairs.

  It was rough work at spar-mate’s wages; Jones grunted a protest and looked toward his corner.

  At the same time Mueller backed off and threw another flat-footed right hand. Jones went down.

  Next to me, the two-bit bookie murmured, “Real storm trooper, huh? I’ll bet he would have loved Hitler.”

  “He looks muscle-bound,” I said. “Lopez could make him look clumsy, too.”

  The bookie sniffed. “Lopez! He’s a lover, not a fighter. What’s your interest in this, Puma?”

  “Financial,” I said. “I have to make a buck some way. Do you know Gus Galbini very well?”

  The bookie shook his head, staring at me thoughtfully. “What’s cooking?”

  “Nothing,” I said innocently. “I’m not on the inside of anything.”

  Jones was up now, standing quietly in one corner of the ring, while in another corner Mueller’s handler was talking to him. Then the handler stepped out and the fighters moved toward the center of the ring again.

  The bookie said, “If you’re looking for Galbini, there he is.” He nodded toward Barney’s office.

  I turned to see Gus Galbini going in and Barney rising to meet him. I thought Barney glanced toward me before shaking Galbini’s outstretched hand.

  I turned back to the ring to see that Mueller was letting up, pulling his punches a little. And leaning against the apron of the ring beyond this one, I saw another familiar face.

  It was Terry Lopez, in street clothes. He was watching the action in this ring carefully, his face thoughtful. I went over there.

  “I don’t think you know me,” I said. “My name is Joe Puma.”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen you around. Barney’s mentioned you. I guess you know Gus, too, don’t you?”

  “I’ve met him,” I said. “How does Mueller look to you?”

  He smiled and shrugged. He was a handsome man, with jet-black hair and soft brown eyes. His face was unmarked.

  “Were you here when he put Jones down?” I asked.

  “Yup.” He smiled again. “I’m not Jones.” He looked at me lazily. “Are you a betting man, Mr. Puma?”

  “At times,” I said. “When I need the money.” I paused. “And the risk isn’t too great.”

  He stared at me steadily. “There’s always a risk. Anything can happen in a ring, anything.”

  I returned his stare. “In other words, it would be a bad fight to bet on?”

  He studied me quietly for a few seconds before saying, “All fights are bad bets. Stick to the ponies.” He turned away and walked over toward the corner office, where his manager was still talking to Barney.

  In the center ring, Jones and Mueller were only going through the motions, now; I went out and climbed into the car and headed for Venice, for the lower-class lodging of Snip Caster.

  At one time, Snip had been a slicker, a confidante of the major mobsters, a dashing and articulate dandy.

  Booze had got to him and from there he went to wine, as his fortunes diminished. He now lived in a lodging house run by a lady named Aggie, a former madame who had outlived her saleability.

  He was in the side yard of this lady’s lean-to, ragged shorts and no shirt, getting the sun on an old army blanket laid over the gray Bermuda lawn. He looked drawn and sick.

  Aggie, fortunately, was not in sight. I asked my friend, “What’s the matter? Nothing serious, I hope?”

  He shrugged and shivered, and put a hand on his bare abdomen.

  “Muscatel stomach?” I suggested.

  “Nope,” he said. “Aggie’s cooking, maybe. Jeepers, she’s getting sloppy.” He looked down at his white, stringy legs. “I sure don’t look like a native, huh? I look like a tourist. Man, when I think of how I used to look in Palm Springs — ” He glanced around. “You — bring a bottle?”

  “I brought you a buck,” I said. “You can get your own bottle and have forty-one cents left over.”

  “A buck,” he said scornfully. “Big, big man — a buck!”

  “Maybe five later, if you come up with something,” I said.

  “Five — phooie,” He rubbed his stomach.

  “Gus Galbini,” I said, “and the Mueller-Lopez fight. That’s what I’d like the word on.”

  He rubbed his stomach some more and looked out at the gray grass. “Gus Galbini — That son-of-a-bitch! He’s the bastard that ruined Joey Veller. Joey should have been featherweight champ. Hell, he beat the champ, in Mexico.”

  “Gus sold him out?”

  Snip grimaced. “Who knows? In that division, there’s no big money riding, so it doesn’t have to be spread. And on those local fixes, how many have to know?”

  “Snip,” I said, “you’ve really got nothing on Gus, then, have you?”

  “For a dollar,” he said, “what do you want? If I was active, if I could get around, I could ask some old friends. But I wouldn’t want ‘em to come here and see Aggie, guy like me, with the broads I used to shack with. I got some pride left, don’t forget.”

  It was one of his petulant days, his reminiscent days. I said nothing, being patient.

  “Galbini,” he said, and looked again at the gray grass. “Nah, I don’t think he’s got any tie-ups. Lopez, now — he’s got that sister.”

  “What sister?”

  “Don’t you remember? The one that got all that ink when Bugsy Martin went to the gas chamber? Remember, she claimed they were engaged and all.”

  “I remember now,” I said. “But her name was Loper, not Lopez, Mary Loper. She was a model, right?”

  “She was a model,” Snip agreed, “and she called herself Loper. So she’s still Terry’s sister and who says she can’t change one letter in her last name?”

  “Are you sure she’s Lopez’ sister?” I asked.

  “One will get you five,” he said. “And Bugsy Martin was no bush league hood, either. There’s your angle, if you’re looking for a big money tie-up.”

  I shook my head doubtfully. “I never once, in all that publicity, remember her being mentioned as the sister of Terry Lopez.”

  “Jesus!” Snip shook his head, too. “Man — is that how you stay hep, reading the newspapers? Check it, check it. Everybody knows it, except maybe newspaper readers. Where’s the fin?”

  I took out my wallet. It contained two fives and three singles. “I’m kind of low, Snip,” I explained. “I wonder if — ”

  “You’re not as low as I am,” he reminded me. “Come on — I want to get off the grape and back onto corn and it takes a fin — ”

  “Okay,” I said, and that left me eight dollars. “If you learn any more — ”

  “I’ll ask around,” he promised. “As soon as this bellyache goes away, I’ll ask around. Cripes, I’m not rich enough to have ulcers, am I?”

  “You should see a doctor, Snip,” I told him quietly. “You can owe him. Everybody owes doctors.”

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  Copyright © 1953 by William Campbell Gault, Registration Renewed 1981

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  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-3911-1

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3911-4