by Jack Tunney
I did my best. I studied her face for disappointment, for the moment she would stand and walk away from me forever. But she stayed.
“And you knew it was going to end like this and you didn’t tell me?”
“Honestly, Lola, I had no idea what would happen tonight. I couldn’t have predicted this. I never would have let you get within ten miles of this if I had known.”
I searched her face for some indication she believed me. She stared at me, her eyes blank.
“Jimmy, you’re not a bad person.”
Was she telling me that, or herself?
“What you did was stupid. What happened tonight made it worse.”
“I know, I know.”
“Tell me we can start over.” Her voice pleaded, worry dripped off every letter. Still, I’d never heard sweeter words. All this time I’d been thinking I was saving Lola, then here she was saving me.
“We can. We can, Lola.” I grabbed her and held her, wanting to take so much back. I did it for you, all for you, I wanted to say. But that would make her to blame. And it was me. Only me.
Sal was dead because of me.
I started crying, something I hadn’t done since St. Vincent’s. Around there if you didn’t toughen up and learn not to cry pretty quick, life became that much harder. Secretly, each of us boys went to Father Tim on our own and cried our eyes out over our lost parents, our sad little lives. And Father Tim never told our secret to the other boys. A secret we all held.
Lola stroked my hair. She’d been more to me than I ever could have expected. I’d do anything for that girl. Anything legal. My days of hand shaking with the rackets were over. So was my time in the ring. A new start. A legit job. Chicago.
I looked up at the clock again. We had just enough time, but we had to move.
Lola took off her shoes and held them in her hand as we ran the last five blocks.
***
I pulled Lola to a stop across the street from the station. We sank back into a shadowed alcove and I watched the doors, looking for any sign of trouble.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a shirt and pants. I changed in the darkness and tossed my boxing trunks into a bush, happy to be rid of them forever. Lola put her shoes back on.
There was a big clock out in front of the station, mocking people running late for the trains. It let me keep an eye on the time so we wouldn’t have to come out of our cover until we absolutely had to.
“We’ll get tickets on the train,” I explained to Lola. She started to shiver in the night air. “Are you sure you still want to come with me?”
The pause waiting for her to answer felt longer than any ten count I’d been on the losing end of. Finally, she nodded. “I’m not sure of very much right now, but I want to be with you. Jimmy, I just wish you’d come to me earlier. I could have helped.”
“How? You’re great at a lot of things, but I wouldn’t even let you talk to a guy like Whit. I should have known better myself. I just got so . . . well, the money, you know?”
“I know.” She took my hand in hers, the white gloves the only kind I wanted to see for a while.
“I was saving to buy you a ring,” I said. She gave me a sad little smile. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty or anything. I just wanted you to know. I didn’t do it just to have more money to throw around. I don’t think I’m a big shot or anything like that.”
“I know you don’t think like that. It’s why I love you.”
I kissed her, keeping one eye on the clock. The kiss I got in return belonged to a stranger. Something in her held back.
“Almost time,” I said.
As if on cue, Whit’s car rolled to a stop in front of the station. I cursed out loud. Lola said, “What is it?”
I pointed out of the darkness to Whit and Vic exiting the car, the driver staying behind with the engine running.
“They must have seen my suitcase,” I said. “Put two and two together.”
“What took them so long?”
“Maybe they went to the bus station first. They might be checking all the ways out of town.”
“So maybe they won’t stay.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Whit and Vic split up. Whit kept his gun tucked in his jacket, but his hand also stayed under and I knew his finger danced on the trigger, waiting to teach me a lesson about crossing him. A guy like him, working his way up in the underworld, it must have burned him more than anything to have Cardone beat him to the punch. If he was madder at Cardone than me, he already got that out of his system.
But if you want the big boys to notice you, you don’t leave loose ends to run out of town.
They paced the row of doors for an excruciating minute as I watched the iron hands on the clock grind slowly forward over the Roman numerals. 9:58 and that damn train rolled in right on time.
The whistle blew and I heard a crackling voice on the intercom announce the arrival of the Chicago-bound train. Lola gripped my hand tighter.
Whit scanned the crowd, his hand still tucked away but eager to get out. Vic stood and swiveled his gaze around, pounding one meaty fist into another. No gun would satisfy an old slugger like him. When your fists could do the job, nothing else was good enough.
“We have to move if we’re going to make that train,” I said.
“How? We’ll walk right in front of them.”
“It’s too crowded. They won’t shoot.”
“It didn’t stop them at the fight.”
I nodded my agreement to her point. The hands on that clock didn’t stop for anyone.
“We’ve got to try.”
I pulled Lola with me out of our hiding spot and walked slowly across the street to the far right door, Vic’s side of the blockade. Having changed clothes there was a decent chance they wouldn’t spot me right away. I kept my head down and stayed with Lola between me and them.
“Jimmy,” she said.
I turned to her, saw a mask of indecision on her face. I never wanted to see that look again. I’d managed to destroy the most beautiful face I’d ever seen with the doubt and fear I’d placed there.
“What is it?”
A million choices passed behind her eyes. She settled on none. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Two cars passed in the street and I ducked us behind them for the last quick steps to the curb. The voice over the loudspeaker called, “Last call for the number thirty-five to Saint Louis and Chicago. Track nine.”
I moved behind a couple just getting out of a cab and tried to make myself as small as I could. The older couple argued for a moment about money and the man leaned in to hand over the fare to the cabbie. When he leaned forward, my cover went with him.
Vic looked right at me.
ROUND 15
Vic’s eyes went wide and his fists clenched tighter. He charged forward like an angry bull.
I pushed Lola toward the door. “Go, I’ll catch up.”
Vic crossed the distance between us in no time. He put a heavy hand on the older woman waiting by the cab and she toppled over her suitcase to the sidewalk. Vic stepped through the pile of luggage and her body like it wasn’t there.
He expected me to run or at least to duck back. Much like in our match at Whit’s gym I decided the way with Vic was to bring the fight to him.
I dropped my bag and made up the three paces between us. With his forward momentum added to mine I drove my fist into his nose, catching him before he could get any defenses up.
The fight was on.
My knuckles already ached and the shot to his beak didn’t help matters. It was now or never time though. Vic reeled and I followed him back, swinging another one into his gut. It caught my hand like steel.
Vic staggered and the fallen woman and her bag finally caught up with him. He tripped over the mess he’d made and went down, the husband now out of the cab and shouting.
“What’s the meaning of this?” said the offended husband.
Vic spun on the ground, slam
med a sidearm blow into the man’s knee. The husband buckled and fell to the floor with a yelp. Vic slapped his palms on the ground to push himself up. No way I was letting that happen.
I dodged a suitcase and put a hard right in his ear. I could almost hear the ringing inside his head. I hated to do it, but I gave him a kick too. No ref, no rules. Only survival.
I looked up to see Whit moving across the sidewalk. The crowd gathering around the fight would keep him back a few extra seconds at least. I spun my head and saw Lola paused at the entrance to the station, seeing me fight dirty.
“Go!” I urged her, but she stood still, watching my bouts to the last.
Vic’s massive fist plowed into my thigh. My leg went numb and I slumped, but I caught myself with a knee and remained standing. He got halfway to standing and I knew my time was running out. I put a hand out and it landed on top of the woman’s smallest suitcase. Makeup, I guessed. She still writhed on the ground, confused by the brutality going on over her head.
I lifted the case and swung up, catching Vic under the chin. His front teeth were long gone but I heard a few more shattering inside his mouth. No boxer worth his salt resorted to back alley tactics, but this was me hanging up my gloves.
I dropped the case and laid into him with a left-right-left combo across the cheeks. The dirty tricks had softened him up, but my own fists put the K.O. on him. Vic went down as lifeless as that pile of luggage. For safe measure I kicked him once in the ear and swung down a hand to lift the makeup case over my head and smash it into his unconscious face, spraying blood on the old woman’s fur coat.
A cheer went up from the crowd. The same cheer would have come if it had been my face down on the sidewalk. Whit had moved in too close for comfort so I started running – fast.
I snatched my gym bag and made for the door, bracing myself for gunshots. I saw Lola ahead of me. She didn’t wait. She turned and moved deeper into the station, a look on her face that frightened me. Fear. Not fear of Whit or Vic – fear of me.
I pounded through the glass door, afraid it might break. I scanned the crowd for Lola and saw her ducking under a sign that read TRACK 9. She moved fast and I couldn’t help thinking she was trying to outrun me. I sprinted across the marble-floored lobby of the station.
The crowd was thin and easy enough to pick through, but no one was in the same rush as me. I nearly crashed into three people as they walked head down looking at their ticket or eyes up searching for the right track.
“Come back here, you rat!” Whit called after me.
People began to turn. I spotted a blue uniformed security guard. He watched me run past, unimpressed. A guy like him got used to seeing guys like me make a run for a train about to leave.
I heard a porter cry, “All aboard!”
“Lola!” I yelled. She turned and stopped running. Her eyes were scared, her chest heaved with eager breaths. The train blasted a whoosh of rushing air and the metal groaned as all twelve cars lumbered to a slow roll.
“Take any car, just go,” I said as I rushed past her. She hesitated, a sliver of doubt playing across her eyes. I almost stopped to plead with her, to tell her this would all be over once we got on that train and headed north, but she started running again on her own. I guess the prospect of the gunman behind her seemed more daunting than the uncertain future in front of her.
The first gunshot clanged into the thick metal hide of the train. People screamed. The train driver sat twelve cars ahead with a steam whistle roaring in his ear. A puny gunshot meant nothing to him and his schedule.
Lola tripped over her high heels and put out her hands to stop herself falling to the platform. Her suitcase went sailing and rolled twice before stopping an inch away from being swept under the wheel of the train.
“Leave it!” I said.
Whit made it to platform nine and waved his gun out ahead of him, carving a path through the people standing and kissing loved ones goodbye.
I tossed my bag into an open door on the second to last car and gripped the handrail as hard as I could. I turned and held my other hand out to Lola. The train rumbled slow, gaining momentum, so I knew she could make it. The question in my head was, could Whit make it too? I wished for another fistful of broken glass. Anything to slow Whit’s charging down the platform.
He fired again. The window beside me shattered and I heard a yell from inside the train car.
Lola locked eyes with mine and I saw that look again. She reached for me, but pulled back at the last second. Up close the look seemed less fear than doubt. Doubt I was the man she’d thought I was.
Whit’s gun erupted again and Lola’s eyes changed. They read confusion. Pain. Her hand went to her shoulder. Her white glove soaked up the blood.
I jumped off the train. I hit the platform and tumbled. My view of Lola spun, her confused and agonized face rolling in and out of view. I heard two more gunshots and thought surely the worst had happened. Behind me the train brakes screeched as the momentum of the massive steel beast ground to a halt. No doubt, a porter watching the action had pulled the emergency stop.
When I stopped rolling and looked up, Lola staggered toward me. I slid up onto my knees and caught her as she fell forward. As her body dropped, I saw Whit behind her, also falling. His arms out wide, the gun sailing through the air and two blooms of red on his chest. He flopped to the platform and revealed the security guard behind him, gun still pointing straight ahead, smoke drooling from the barrel.
I turned my head down to Lola in my arms.
“Are you okay?”
“My arm,” she said and gripped high on her shoulder with that blood red glove.
“You’ll be all right.” I hugged her. “It’s all gonna be all right.”
“Jimmy . . . that man outside. Is he dead?”
“No.” I could see more than the pain in her eyes. I held her, and yet I offered her no comfort.
“They held the train, Lola.” I nodded to the stopped train over my shoulder, brakes still hissing with steam.
“We can still make it to Chicago?”
“If you want to.” I left the door open for her to say what I knew she had on her tongue. I always knew a girl like her was too good for me.
“I don’t think I ought to travel like this.” She tilted her eyes to her bloody shoulder. Something in her demeanor had changed – hardened. It scared me more than anything else had all night.
“Yeah. I guess you better not.” I said.
“It’s over though. Right, Jimmy?”
I hoped she wasn’t talking about us.
I looked past her to Whit’s lifeless body on the platform, the curious crowd gathering around him. “Yeah. All over now,” I said, playing dumb, trying not to pick up what she might actually be saying.
A porter from the train bent down to us. “Doctor’s on his way. Be here any second now. You best lay down, miss.”
He took Lola from my arms, lay her down using his folded jacket as a pillow. I stepped back and the crowd took over, straining to get a look at the girl who’d been shot.
“Jimmy?” she called.
“I’m here, Lola.”
She found my eyes. “You should go. The police are going to want to talk to you and who knows what they are going to make of this. Go back to Chicago. See if you can settle things with anyone else who might be after you, then make a fresh start.” I read between the lines. “You always talked about a fresh start.”
“Yeah. You’re right, Lola. I can get set up for us. Get a job, a place to stay.”
“I won’t be long. Couple of weeks maybe.” She winced in pain.
I hoped she was telling the truth. No vision I’d ever had of a new life was complete without her in it.
A man in a long coat and a doctor bag came rushing off the train and pushed through the crowd.
A porter called, “All aboard!” Gunshots were one thing, but the schedule was the schedule.
“Goodbye, Jimmy.” Her voice was almost drowned out by the bl
ast of steam and engine churn of the train. The crowd broke apart, people running for the their seats. Another story to tell when they got to Chicago and gossip fodder for the journey. I’d have to hear retellings the entire ride, each one stretching the tale ever taller.
The doctor leaned in close to Lola, her focus was on him now as tears rolled down her cheeks.
A second security guard and a cop joined the circle around Whit’s dead body. Triumphant over their kill, no one even looked my way. In their eyes, Whit had gotten his target. The girl. They’d figure out why later. For now, I’d enjoy the moment. I knew Lola would keep my name out of it if she could.
I faded back, trying to steal a last look at Lola. I knew in my gut she wouldn’t be coming to Chicago. It was easier for both of us to believe the lie. I bought my own lies, telling myself I was taking the money for the right reasons. If she’d wanted me to believe hers, then I owed that to her.
“Best hurry, sir,” a porter said to me from the train. I turned and hopped on the steps, spun back to watch Lola fade away from view.
When I got to Chicago, I’d send money every week, come hell or high water, to a certain jewelry store. Then, when that baby was all paid off, I’d have it delivered to Lola, hoping Mrs. Lovell wouldn’t swipe it first.
I wouldn’t send no note, no letter of apology. Lola would know.
And if she changed her mind about coming to Chicago, then she would come. If not, she still deserved that ring. And a whole lot more. She deserved better than me.
BONUS PREVIEW
FIGHT CARD: THE CUTMAN
JACK TUNNEY
ROUND 1
HAVANA, CUBA
1954
I was tying Wide Bertha to the mooring cleats when the two mooks swaggered toward me like they owned the dock. I wasn’t in no mood for a scrap, but things didn’t turn out that way.
The last three days at sea before we made portage at Havana, we’d fought hurricane weather, and I felt like I was about stove in. All I wanted was a hot meal, a bellyful of beer, and a nice, soft rack to sleep it off. Someplace where I could wash the stink of the ship off me and not have to worry about a dog watch.
