by Jack Tunney
First stop the next morning was Shinn’s Diner. I peeled two twenty dollar bills off the top of the pile in Cardone’s white envelope and bought a paper on my way there. The guy in the newsstand gave me a dirty look when he had to make change from a twenty on a ten cent paper.
I sat in a booth and spread the paper out on the table. I ordered steak and eggs, black coffee, and a donut. I read the paper while I waited. A bunch of junk on the front page, a three line column in the sports pages about the fight. The only thing that made it from the clutches of that reporter’s Underwood about me was, “Also on the card last night . . .” followed by my name and the skinny kid’s.
I was halfway through dipping my steak in ketchup and then the runny yolks of my eggs when I felt eyes on me. I looked up and saw three characters standing over my table. I’d been recognized once or twice in a bar after a fight. Always by some drunk who had been there and always when my face was puffed out and swollen from taking my licks, but never at breakfast the day after when my face was as normal as a bank teller.
“Can I help you?” I asked through a mouth full of rare steak.
“I believe you can, Wyler,” said the guy in front as he smacked gum in wide open-mouth chews. His two buddies fanned out behind him in a V. The guy took my question as an invitation to sit down, so he slid into the booth across from me. His friends stood blocking my way in case I decided to change seats.
“Name’s Whit. I work for an interested party.” He didn’t extend a hand and offered up no more details. He dressed like a guy headed out to a dance hall on a Saturday night. His tie loud and wide, his collar undone at the neck. His hat misshapen, like he’d been sitting on it all night. It added up to someone I felt like I knew, but I couldn’t out it together yet.
“What party? Do I know you?”
“You just met me, friend.” There was nothing friendly about his tone or the fake smile on his face. His gum continued to snap in his teeth. It started to get on my nerves. I think that was the idea.
It hit me. The guy Cardone had razzed the night before. Some sort of bad blood ran between them. I hoped none of it got on me.
“I think you got the wrong guy, pal.”
“Jimmy Wyler, right? Fighter?” Whit put his dukes up and faked a few short jabs, whiffing air out of his nose the way non-fighters think it was done. Now I was curious.
“State your business or leave me alone.”
“Next Friday night you’re on the card down at the Veteran’s hall, yeah?” He didn’t wait for me to confirm. “I need you to do me a favor. Well, really a favor for my boss.”
“Why do I owe you a favor?”
“Oh, you don’t owe me squat. Really, it’s me doing you the favor. See, I’m gonna see to it that you win that fight. And I’m gonna pay you three hundred bucks for the trouble.” Whit lifted his eyebrows and smacked his gum like I was supposed to be impressed with what he’d just told me. I wasn’t.
“Are you offering me a fix?”
Whit spread his arms wide like a preacher asking God for forgiveness. “Did I use that nasty F word? Now did I, Jimmy?” Again he didn’t wait for me to answer. “I’m offering you a win. And you did hear the part about the three hundred, right?”
I set my fork down, figuring I wasn’t going to be able to finish my breakfast in peace. “First off,” I said. “Your prices are a little low. The war’s over you know? We ain’t on rations anymore. Second, I can’t help you out on that fight. I have a previous commitment.”
I was a little leery telling him about it, but I figured on there being some sort of crook’s code of conduct. I planned to leave Cardone’s name out of it anyway, figuring that wouldn’t win me any points after their little sidewalk chitchat. Either way I was wrong.
Whit stopped chewing his gum. He brought his arms in and leaned on the table. “I don’t recall asking you for permission.”
I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t seem to want to hear no, but that’s all I had on my tongue.
“Next Friday,” he said, low and mean. “You get the win. Now what’s the confusion here?”
“I told you, I’d like to help.” I sounded weak, but he had me backed into a corner before I even knew the bell had rung. “But, I got other arrangements for that fight. Honest. Maybe we can work out another night. I play ball, it’s just not on that night.”
Amazing how weak my knees got when I didn’t have my gloves on. All of a sudden I was acting like a professional diver offering my services to the lowest bidder.
“I appreciate the offer, Jimmy. Really, I do. But it has to be Friday night. My boss insists.” Whit took the gum out of his mouth, perched it on the top of his index finger like it was gonna do a trick or something. He reached over to my plate with his other hand and picked up a cut section of steak with his fingers, dragged it through the broken egg yolk, and slid it into his mouth. “I insist too.”
“Look, Whit, I just can’t. I–”
Whit nodded to his pals and each one grabbed one of my arms. My hand hit the table loud like a gunshot and the three old timers at the counter turned to watch. The waitress froze with a pot of coffee in the aisle between tables.
Whit slowly put the gum back in his mouth, chewed twice and picked up the ketchup bottle. He flipped it over in his hand, gripping the stubby neck of the bottle, and smashed it on the table. It bled ketchup onto the floor and across my newspaper. I started breathing too hard and too shallow, had to remind myself to slow down, not hyperventilate.
Whit leaned across the table, his tie dipping into the pool of red. He pushed the jagged edge of the broken bottle against my hand. I felt the sharp edges dig in, but he stopped short of breaking the skin.
He squared a stare at me that drained the blood from my face.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Jimmy. I came in here to tell you what’s what. Now do we understand each other?”
I nodded my head, my throat too tight to speak.
He pushed a little harder on my hand and then pulled the bottle away. The two men let my arms go. I looked down at my hand, but couldn’t tell if I was bleeding or if it was just ketchup.
The cook had come out of the kitchen to check on the ruckus. No one moved to help me though.
Whit brushed his tie off and stood. “You owe me for a new tie. You’ll have plenty of cash soon enough though, right?”
He slapped his pals on the shoulder and they followed him out like rats trailing after the pied piper of chewing gum.
ROUND 6
I paid for my breakfast with the change from my newspaper. Twenty bucks minus ten cents ought to cover my meal, the broken bottle and then some.
My first thought was to go see Sal. Cardone had been so nice about everything, and Whit had been the opposite. Cardone had to let me bow out if I promised him another fight for less money, right? Even knowing Cardone paid so much more than Whit’s mystery boss made me feel like he had to be an okay guy. A businessman.
I found Sal at the gym. His overstuffed office in the corner of an open gymnasium, which permanently smelled of sweat, sat like a fishbowl where he could watch everything. Two young kids with thick eyebrows I pegged as brothers sparred in the ring while Nick, the sweep up man, ran a dirty mop around the floor.
Sal was a happy man that morning.
“G’morning, Jimmy.”
“Hiya, Sal.”
“Why do you look so glum? You ought to be on cloud nine, all the dough you’re into these days.”
“You know what they say, money doesn’t buy happiness.”
“Like hell it don’t.” He laughed like a child. Sal had to be over fifty, but with all those blows to the head he more often than not seemed awfully childlike. The way he sat there all excited about our illicit deal made me think he was as gullible as a child too.
Me, I had no excuse. Money blind. That was all I had to lean on.
“Sal, I want to talk to you about next Friday.”
Sal whispered, a big grin on his face like we
were a pair of boys out in the woods telling secrets. “You want to know what my cut is for that fight? Two hundred.” He giggled again. “You know what that means? I’m gonna get my operation.”
Punch drunk no one can fix, but Sal had seen a doctor who said he could take care of his ears. Sal had gone almost all the way deaf in one ear, and for all the ringing in the other he might as well be deaf in that one too. The doc was going to cut away a lot of the puffed up cauliflower ear tissue, some you could see and some he said was deep down inside. Back in Sal’s day, boxing a guy in his ears was commonplace. So were kidney punches. I didn’t know how any of those guys made it out alive, especially after as many fights as Sal had.
“That’s great news, Sal.”
“Yep. I got six coffee cans full of dough just waitin’ on this last little bit. Then I go up to Kansas City General and let the doc have at it. Hey, do you think I’ll get one of them real pretty nurses?”
“I’m sure you will, Sal. Ain’t they all pretty up there?”
“I guess you’re right.” He got a little sad, I thought. Regretful maybe. “You know, Jimmy, I hate to say it . . . but I shoulda done this years ago.” He looked at me and laughed a bit. I knew he didn’t mean the operation, he meant the fix. His eyes were watery, like he remembered an old dog he’d lost or something. “I’ve had offers before for my boys. Had offers when I’s fighting. Never took a dime though. Maybe if I had…” He looked around his sad gym. “Maybe I’d have been better off, is all.”
Sal already forgot I’d asked to speak to him about the fight. I let it drop. Who the hell was I to tell him he couldn’t have his operation? And who was I to get him in Dutch with Cardone over my problem? No, whatever I did, Sal had to stay out of it.
That much I could promise. And it was time my promises started to mean something again.
***
The next two days I kept to myself. I didn’t call Lola, took all my meals out from the lunch counter a block away from my apartment.
Wednesday I went into the gym. One way or another I was going to fight on Friday night, so I might as well show up in shape.
The heavy bag never knew what hit it. I punched until my knuckles were swollen and sore. I swung until my elbows hurt from all the sudden stops. The poor Negro kid holding the bag for me was scared. I could see it in his eyes. He was more scared to let go and take off, fearing what I’d do to him. He cowered behind the bag and tried to wait me out. I had twenty rounds of slugging inside me, though.
I punched at Whit’s face, and at my own.
Once I’d let the kid off the hook, I stepped over to the speed bag and started tapping out a rhythm. The mesmerizing sound and the sweet, sweaty funk of the place put me in a trance. I thought of a million ways the night could end, none of them good. I tried to weigh who it would be worse to make angry. Who would understand more.
I hadn’t taken any money from them yet, either one, so maybe that bought me a little leeway. My fee was chicken feed though, I knew that. The real dough in a fix was the bets, and those were already coming in. In tiny bookie joints, back rooms in bars, street corners under yellow lamps – bills and markers were changing hands. Not even half the bets that would be placed on a title fight, but so far they hadn’t gotten any of those guys in on a fix. As far as I knew, anyway.
The speed bag at Sal’s gym hung in front of a mirror. You were supposed to study your form and make corrections as you go. I looked dead into my own eyes. I didn’t like what I saw there.
I’d taken money to throw a fight. Didn’t matter what end I came out on. My ego might hurt less if I stayed standing, but a fix was a fix. And I was part of the fraternity now.
I stopped punching and let the speed bag swing to a rest. I swear it let out a sigh of relief. The room stayed noisy with other fighters slugging each other, the slap of leather on the heavy bag, on flesh. The shouts of a corner man coaching his sparring up-and-comer floated on the air like the smell of spit and wet canvas.
Put me out in the country with nothing but the crickets at night and I’d go nuts in no time flat. But there, in the gym, with the noise swirling around me, I could tune everything out and focus completely on my own face. The bastard who let me down.
I stepped up closer to him. I tightened my fist inside the thin practice gloves, lighter than the full boxing mitts I used in the ring, but also less padding to protect my knuckles. I glared at the face. Tried to stare so hard time would go backward and I could make the choice all over again. Make it the right way this time.
I punched him square in the jaw.
The tangled knots of sound inside the gym came to a stop when the mirror shattered down the wall. Shards of glass landed in a pile at my feet, long swords of mirror view of the ring behind me stabbed down into the worn wood floorboards.
All eyes were on me. All but my own. I stood alone without my reflection. Just me. No one else to blame. The way it should be.
I turned and left without a word.
ROUND 7
The bell dinged above the door to the jewelry store. I stepped in feeling the way I always did there – out of place. The man behind the counter wore a starched suit and a gold pocket watch chain, silk kerchief in his pocket matching his tie. All class.
“Hi there,” I said. He recognized me. Must not get many of my type down there.
“I thought we’d seen the last of you, Mr. Wyler.”
“Sorry. Guess it has been a while.”
“Six weeks.” He stood a few inches shorter than I did and somehow managed to look down his nose at me. “Six weeks without a payment.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.” I took a twenty out of my pocket. I’d added one to replace what I spent the day before. Something nagging told me not to drop the whole load on him yet. I might need it.
I handed the bill over. “This makes a hundred even.”
“Mr. Wyler, perhaps we’d better cancel your contract. Full refund of course. If you cannot meet the specific payment plan–”
“No. I’ll have it. Next week. All of it.” I tried to step back, not sound so desperate. “I have a big deal coming in. I’ll have all of it. Next week I swear.”
He sighed like a man who’d heard it all before. “I’ll give you until next Friday. How does that sound? By then, if nothing happens. . .” He said it like he knew nothing would. “Come back and I will refund your money in full. Minus the five dollar deposit.”
“I’ll be in. I swear. You can count on it.”
He sighed again.
***
I went from the jewelry store to a department store. A regular shopping spree. I went to the men’s department and picked out a tie matching what I remembered Whit wearing. The brightest one on the table. The sales clerk asked if she could gift wrap it for me and I nodded yes.
In one quick morning I’d drained the money I’d lifted from the envelope already. Worth it if it bought me my life back.
I’d done some asking around and found out where to find Whit. No matter how many people I asked though, no one knew or no one would tell me the guy he worked for. It made me even more worried.
Whit kept time on Wednesday afternoons at a gym over on Highmore. The one bit of information I did get about him was he recently started running the fight game for the mystery man. Trying to make a name for himself. The beef between him and Cardone had been sizzling for a few months now. Cardone accused him of stepping in on his game, and Whit didn’t deny it. He aimed to take over and didn’t care who knew about it. Talk like that though, you’d have to back it up eventually.
No ring experience in his past, but Whit sure seemed to like pulling the strings behind the scenes. He had a pretty tight grip on my strings, for sure.
I walked inside with my thin tie box under my arm like I’d come calling for a date.
Whit stood ringside, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hat pushed back off his forehead and his jaw working another gob of chewing gum.
“You don’t keep t
hose gloves up, boy, he’s gonna knock your block off, and you’re gonna deserve it.”
His accent caught up with me. Pure Chicago. I felt no nostalgia.
“Get ‘em up, you crumb bum!”
The two boys in the ring were no more than teenagers. They wobbled around on newborn pony legs and swung their arms like they were reaching for a pillow to lie down.
A short man next to Whit saw me and tapped his boss on the shoulder. Whit looked at the man who nodded his head in my direction. Whit turned and broke into a smile, chewing all the while.
“Take a break, you bums.”
The two boys in the ring nearly collapsed. Reminded me of a couple in the third day of a dance marathon.
A small section of bleachers was set up for people to watch the fights. They were empty except for a Hispanic kid tying his shoes on the bottom step. Whit motioned me over.
“Beat it, spic,” he said. The kid scrambled away, one shoe on.
I sat down. Whit took a seat one row higher than me. Mind games. He might not have had any time in the ring, but he knew the way behind an opponent’s defense.
“What’s that you got there?” He lifted his chin at the box under my arm.
I looked down like I’d forgotten about the tie, and I guess I had. Other things on my mind, y’know. Things like counting up all the bodies in the room in case things got ugly. The two tired kids had retreated to the sidelines and were sucking down water, four other young men jumped rope or worked out here and there. Then there were three men who stood by watching Whit and me, apparently with no other plans for the afternoon. There was a dark door to a locker room. Not knowing what lay beyond it frightened me in a way I hadn’t been since my boyhood at St. Vincent’s, convinced there were monsters in the closet.
“For you,” I said, handing over the box.
“Mr. Wyler, you shouldn’t have,” he said sarcastically as he untied the ribbon. Whit lifted out the tie and gave a wolf whistle. “Slick. Just my style. Thanks, Jimmy.”
“A peace offering. Y’know, after our first meeting didn’t go so well.”
