with These Hands (Ss) (2002)

by L'amour, Louis

  "You!" Briggs's face broke into a relieved grin. "I might have known it. I was afraid they'd killed you!"

  There wasn't much talking done until we got them down to Moffit's office. When we marched them in, he got up, scowling. Hudspeth was there, and I've never seen a man more frightened.

  Jake Brusa and Huber, handcuffed, looked anything but the smart crooks they believed themselves to be. Brusa stood there glowering, and Huber was scared silly. But they were only the small fry in this crime. We wanted the man behind the scenes.

  "All right," Briggs said, "it's your show." Most of the story he'd heard from me on the way over from the Sporting Center, and Bryan had admitted to the furs left in the truck.

  "There's only one thing left," I said, watching one of our men come in beside a tall young fellow in a decrepit sharkskin suit, "and that's nailing the inside man, and we've got him. Dead to rights!"

  Moffit sat up straight. "See here! If one of my men had been-" His eyes shifted to Hudspeth. "You, Warren?"

  "No, Moffit," I said, leaning over the desk, "not the man you hired to be your scapegoat! You!"

  His face went white as he sprang to his feet. "Why, of all the preposterous nonsense! Young man, I'll have-"

  "Shut up, and sit down!" I barked at him. "It was you, Moffit. You were the man who informed these crooks when a valuable haul could be made! You were the man who cased the jobs for them! You knew the inside of every warehouse in town, and could come and go as you liked.

  "We've got the evidence that will send you to prison if not to the gas chamber where you rightly should go! I'll confess I suspected Hudspeth. I know he had done time, but-"

  "What?" Briggs interrupted. "Why, you investigated this man. You passed him for this job."

  "Sure, and if I was wrong, we'd have to make the best of it. Hudspeth was in trouble as a kid, but after looking over his record, I decided he'd learned his lesson. I checked him carefully and found he had been bending over backwards to go straight.

  "Nevertheless, knowing what I did and knowing it was my responsibility if anything went wrong, I kept a check on his spending and bank account. That day in the office when I first came in, he acted strangely because he knew something was going on and he was scared, afraid he'd be implicated.

  "Another reason I originally let him stay was that I found that Moffit had hired him while knowing all about that prison stretch. I figured that if he would take a chance, we could, too. Now it seems Moffit was going to use him if anything went haywire."

  "That's a lie!" Moffit bellowed. "I'll not be a party to this sort of talk anymore!"

  Briggs looked at me. "I hope you've got the evidence." I looked at the man in the gray sharkskin suit and he stepped forward. "It was him, all right," he said, motioning toward Moffit. "He opened the doors this morning and he was standing by when the crooks knocked Pete out and took him away. He talked with this man," he added, pointing at Brusa.

  "That's a lie!" Moffit protested weakly. "How would you know?"

  "Tell us about it," I suggested to the man in gray.

  He shifted his feet. "Pete Burgeson and me were in the same outfit overseas. But I got wounded and I've been in and out of the hospital for the last two years. He told me to come around and he'd give me money for a bed and chow. When I got here, the rain was pouring down and I couldn't make him hear. I tried to push up that back window and it busted, so I opened it and crawled in. Pete was some upset but said he'd take the blame. There weren't any burglar alarms on the annex.

  "I was out of the hospital just a few days, and I got the shakes, so I laid down on those tarps under the bench after sharing Pete's lunch with him. Pete came along and put his coat over me.

  "When I woke up, I saw them slug Pete. Moffit was standing right alongside. Every morning, I have to rub my legs before I can walk much and knew if I tried to get up they'd kill me, so I laid still until they left, then got away from there. One of the detectives found me this morning in the park."

  "All right, boys," Briggs said, turning to the plainclothesman and the cops. "They're yours. All of them."

  Jerking my head at Hudspeth, I said to one of the cops, "We represent the insurance company as well as this firm, so Hudspeth might as well stay in charge. The lawyers will probably want a reliable person here."

  "Sure," Briggs said. "Sure thing."

  We walked outside and the air smelled good. "Chief," I suggested, nodding at the man in the gray suit, "why not put this guy to work with us? He used to be an insurance investigator."

  The man stopped and stared at me. Briggs did likewise.

  "How, how the devil did you know that?" he demanded.

  "You told me about the gray threads, the dampness on the tarp, the crumbs on the table, all the evidence that somebody was with Pete! But this-next thing you'll be telling me what his name is!"

  "Sure," I agreed cheerfully. "It's Patrick Donahey!"

  "Well, how in-" Donahey stared.

  "Purely elementary, my dear Watson." I brushed my fingernails on my lapel. "You ate with your left hand, and insurance investigators always-"

  "Don't give me that!" Briggs broke in.

  "Okay, then," I said. "It did help a little that I found his billfold." I drew it out and handed it to Donahey. "It fell back of that tarp. But nevertheless, I-"

  "Oh, shut up," Briggs said.

  *

  GLOVES FOR A TIGER

  The radio announcer's voice sounded clearly in the silent room, and "Deke" Hayes scowled as he listened.

  "Boyoboy, what a crowd! Almost fifty thousand, folks!

  Think of that! It's the biggest crowd on record, and it should be a great battle.

  "This is the acid test for the 'Tiger Man/ the jungle killer who blasted his way up from nowhere to become the leading contender for the world's heavyweight boxing championship in only six months!

  "Tonight he faces Battling Bronski, the Scranton Coal Miner. You all know Bronski. He went nine rounds with the champ in a terrific battle, and he is the only white fighter among the top contenders who has dared to meet the great Tom Noble.

  "It'll be a grand battle either way it goes, and Bronski will be in there fighting until the last bell. But the Tiger has twenty-six straight knockouts, he's dynamite in both hands, with a chin like a chunk of granite! Here he comes now, folks! The Tiger Man!"

  Deke Hayes, champion of the world, leaned back in the | chair in his hotel room and glanced over at his manager.

  "Toronto Tom" McKeown was one of the shrewdest fight managers in the country. Now he sat frowning at the radio and his eyes were hard.

  "Don't take it so hard, Tom," Deke laughed. "Think of the gate he'll draw. It's all ballyhoo, and one of the best jobs ever done. I didn't think old Ryan had it in him. I believe you're actually worried yourself!"

  "You ain't never seen this mug go," McKeown insisted. '

  "Well, I have! I'm telling you, Deke, he's the damnedest j fighter you ever saw. Talk about killer instinct! '

  "There ain't a man who ever saw him fight who would be surprised if he jumped onto some guy and started tearing with his teeth. This Tiger Man stuff may sound like ballyhoo but he's good, I tell you!"

  "As good as me?" Deke Hayes put in slyly.

  "No, I guess not," his manager admitted judiciously.

  "They rate you one of the best heavyweights the game ever saw, Deke. But we know, a damned sight better than , the sportswriters, that you've really never had a battle yet, j not with a fighter who was your equal. j "That Bronski thing looked good because you let it. But don't kid yourself, this guy isn't any sap. He's different. ]

  Sometimes I doubt if this guy's even human."

  Toronto Tom McKeown tried to speak casually. "I talked to Joe Howard, Deke, Joe was his sparrin' partner for this brawl. That Tiger guy never says anything to anybody! He just eats and sleeps, and he walks around at night a lot, just. . . well just like a cat! When he ain't workin' out, he stays by himself, and nobody ever gets near him."

/>   "Say, what the devil's the matter with you? Got the willies? You're not buyin' this hype?" Deke Hayes demanded.

  But the voice from the radio interrupted just then, and they fell silent, listening.

  "They're in the center of the ring now, folks, getting their instructions," the excited announcer said. "The Tiger Man in his tiger-skin robe, and Bronski in the old red sweater he always wears. The Tiger is younger, but Bronski has the experience, and-man, this is going to be a battle!" the announcer exclaimed.

  The bell clanged. "There they go, folks! Bronski jabs a left and the Tiger slips it! Bronski jabs again, and again, and again! The Tiger isn't doing anything now, just circling around. Bronski jabs again, crosses a right to the jaw.

  "He's getting confident now, folks, and-there, he's stepping in with a volley of punches! Left, right, left, right-but the Tiger is standing his ground, just slipping them!

  "Wow!" the radio voice hit the ceiling.

  "Bronski's down! The Battler led a left, and quick as a flash the Tiger dropped into a crouch, snapped a terrific, jolting right to the heart, and hooked a bone-crushing left to the jaw! Bronski went down like he was shot, and hasn't even wiggled!

  "There's the count, folks!-eight-nine-ten! He's out, and the Tiger wins again! Boyoboy, a first-round knockout!

  "Wait a minute, folks, maybe I can get the Tiger to say something for you! He never talks, but we might be lucky this time. Here, say something to the radio fans, Tiger!" the announcer begged.

  "He won't do it," McKeown said confidently. "He never talks to nobody!"

  Suddenly, a cold, harsh voice spoke from the radio, a voice bitter and incisive, but then dropping almost to a growl at the end.

  "I'm ready now. I want to fight the champion. Come on, Deke Hayes! I'll kill you!"

  In a cold sweat Hayes snapped erect, face deathly pale.

  His mouth hung slack; his eyes were ghastly, staring.

  "My God ... that voice!" he mumbled, really scared for the first time in his life.

  McKeown stared strangely at Hayes, his own face white. "Who's punchy now? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

  Hayes sagged back in his chair, his eyes narrowed. "No.

  I ain't seen one. I heard one!" he declared enigmatically.

  Ruby Ryan, veteran trainer and handler of fighters, looked across the hotel room. The Tiger was sitting silent, as always, staring out the window.

  For six months Ryan had been with the Tiger, day in and day out, and yet he knew almost nothing about him.

  Sometimes he wondered, as others did, if the Tiger was quite human. Definitely he was an odd duck, and Ruby Ryan, so-called because of his flaming hair, had known them all.

  Jeffries, Fitzsimmons, Ketchell, Dempsey. But he had seen nothing to compare with the animal-like ferocity of the Tiger. Through all the months that had passed since Ryan received that strange wire from Calcutta, India, he had wondered about this man....

  Who sent the cablegram Ruby Ryan didn't know. Who was the Tiger? Where had he come from? Where had he learned his skill? He didn't know that, either. He only knew that one night some six months before, he had been loafing in Doc Hanley's place with some of the boys, when a messenger had hurried to him with a cablegram. It had been short, to the point-and unsigned.

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO HANDLE NEXT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION

  STOP READ CALCUTTA AND BOMBAY NEWS REPORTS

  FOR VERIFICATION STOP EXPENSES GUARANTEED STOP

  COME AT ONCE.

  *

  Ryan had hurried out and bought the papers. The notes were strange, yet they fascinated the fight manager with their possibilities. Ever alert for promising material, this had been almost too good to be true.

  The news reports told of a strange heavyweight-a white man with skin burnt to a deep bronze. A slim, broadshouldered giant, with a robe of tiger-skins and the scars of many claws upon his body, who fought with the cold fury of a jungle beast.

  The China Clipper carried Ruby Ryan to the Far East. He found his man in Bombay, India. In Calcutta, the Tiger Man had knocked out Kid Balotti in the first round, and in Bombay, Guardsman Dirk had lasted until the third by getting on his bicycle.

  Balotti was a former top-notcher, now on the downgrade, but still a capable workman with his fists. He had been unconscious four hours after the knockout administered by the Tiger.

  In Bombay, the Tiger, a Hercules done in bronze, had floored Guardsman Dirk in the first round, and it had required all the latter's skill to last through the second heat and one minute of the third. Then, he, too, had gone down to crushing defeat.

  Ruby Ryan found the Tiger sitting in a darkened hotel room, waiting. The big man wore faded khakis and around his neck was the necklace of tiger claws Ryan had heard of.

  The Tiger stood up. He was well over six feet tall and well muscled but he had a startling leanness and coiled intensity to his body. Looking at him, Ryan thought of Tarzan come to life. There was something catlike about the man, something jungle-bred. One felt the terrific strength that was in him, and knew instantly why he was billed as "The Tiger."

  "We go to Capetown, South Africa. We fight Danny Kilgart there," the man said bluntly. "In Johannesburg, we fight somebody-anybody. If you want to come on you get forty percent of the take. I want the championship within a year. You do the talking, you sign the papers; I'll fight."

  That was all. The man knew what he wanted and had a good idea of how to get it.

  Danny Kilgart, a good, tough heavyweight with a wallop, went down in the second under the most blistering, two-fisted attack Ruby Ryan had ever seen. The next victim, the Boer Bomber, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, lasted just forty-three seconds... that had been in Johannesburg.

  The Tiger didn't speak three words to Ruby Ryan in three weeks. But Ryan knew what he was looking at-that potentially, the Tiger was a coming champion. Of course it was unlikely that he was good enough to beat Deke Hayes. Hayes was the greatest heavyweight of all time, a master boxer with a brain-jolting wallop. And Hayes trained scientifically and thoroughly for every fight; Ryan's Tiger Man was, to push the allusion too far, an animal. Brutally strong, unbelievably aggressive, but he hadn't been in the ring daily with the best fighters in the world.... The Tiger wasn't just a slugger, he was better than that, but it was unlikely that he had the skill of the champ.

  In Port Said, Egypt, accompanied by an internationally famous newspaper correspondent, Ryan and the Tiger had been set upon by bandits. The Tiger killed two of them with his bare hands and maimed another before they fled.

  The news stories that followed set the world agog with amazement, and brought an offer from Berlin, Germany, to go fifteen rounds with Karl Schaumberg, the Blond Giant of Bavaria.

  Schaumberg, considered by many a fit opponent for the champion himself, lasted three and a half rounds. Fearfully battered, he was carried from the arena, while the Tiger Man, mad with killing fury, paced the ring like a wild beast.

  Paris, France, had seen Francois Chandel go down in two minutes and fifteen seconds, and in London the Tiger had duplicated Jeffries' feat of whipping the three best heavyweights in England in one night.

  Offered a fight in Madison Square Garden, the Tiger Man had refused the battle unless given three successive opponents, as in England. They agreed-and he whipped them all! One of them was unfortunate-he had lasted into the second round, and took a terrific pounding.

  Then had followed a tour across the country. The best heavyweights that could be brought against the mystery fighter were carried from the ring, one after the other.

  Delighted and intoxicated by the Tiger Man's color and copy value, sportswriters filled their papers with glowing stories of his prowess, of his ferocity, and of the tiger-skin robe he wore. The story was that the skins were reputed to have been taken with his bare hands.

  Ruby Ryan, after the Bronski fight, was as puzzled as ever. He had his hands on the gimmick fighter of the century, a boxer who made his own press, packed stadiums, and had
launched himself into the imagination of the public like a character from the movies. The Tiger Man had created a public relations machine beyond anything Ryan had ever seen but what bothered the old trainer to no end was that he wasn't in on the joke. His fighter played the part every hour of the day. He was good at it, so good that you'd swear the vague stories were real.

  Ryan, however, knew no more about his man than the average kid on the street-and sometimes thought he knew less.

  Ryan drank the last of his coffee and turned to the man seated in the window.

  "Well, Tiger, we've come a long way. If we get the breaks, the next fight will be for the title. It's a big if, though; Hayes is good, and he knows it. But McKeown won't let him fight you yet, if he can help it. I think we've ; got McKeown scared. I know that guy!" j "He'll fight. When he does I'll beat him so badly he'll never come back to the game ... maybe I'll kill him." i The Tiger got up then, squeezed Ryan's shoulder with a ; powerful hand, and walked into the bedroom. f Ruby Ryan stared after him. His red face was puzzled _ and his eyes narrowed as he shook his head in wonderment. !

  Finally, he got up and called Beck, his valet-handyman, to > clear the table. |

  "I got an idea," Ryan told himself, "that that Tiger is a j damned good egg underneath. I wonder what he's got it j in for the champ for?"

  Ruby Ryan shook himself with the thought. "Holy jj mackerel! I'd hate to be the champ when my Tiger comes }| out of his corner!" j Beck came in and handed the manager a telegram. Ryan i ripped it open, glanced at it briefly, and swore. He stepped into the Tiger's room and handed him the message.

  COMMISSION RULES TIGER MUST FIGHT TOM NOBLE STOP

  WINNER TO MEET CHAMPION.

  "Now that's some of Tom McKeown's work!" Ruby exclaimed, eyes narrow. "They've ducked that guy for five years and now they shove him off on us!"

  "Okay," the Tiger said harshly. "We'll fight him. If Hayes is afraid of him, I want him! I want him right away!"

  Ruby Ryan started to speak, then shrugged. Tiger walked out, and in a few minutes the pounding of the fast bag could be heard from the hotel gym.