by Jack Tunney
“Easy.” The cap’n spoke in a low voice, like we was just out for sandwiches.
I took my hand away from the pistol and spotted Tu Li at the bar getting a drink. I checked my watch and saw I’d been sleeping for a couple hours.
“Shoulda woke me.” I drained the dregs of my beer.
“Wasn’t no need.” The cap’n pushed aside a couple empty beer glasses that wasn’t there before. I guessed he’d kept himself occupied.
Tu Li carried three beers to the table and passed them out. I took mine and said thanks, then took a sip of the cold brew. It was a lot more welcome than them dregs had been.
The Chinaman and the cap’n talked in Mandarin for a while. It bored me listening to them because I wasn’t able to keep track of it all, but I knew they was talking about Falcone.
And me.
I knew the Mandarin word for boxer because I’d been in some fights in Shanghai and Kowloon City. So when they was talking about “the boxer,” I guessed they was talking about me. That made no sense to me and it made me keep thinking about Tu Li asking me if I was a fighter. The wily gleam in the cap’n’s eye told me he was up to something, but I didn’t know what. Sometimes he kept a couple games going on at the same time.
The cap’n took out a modest roll of cash and started to peel off some bills and sounded like he was apologizing. I suspected he was paying Tu Li for whatever information he’d gotten. Before the cap’n could get them bills loose, Tu Li closed his hand over the cap’n’s and stopped him in his tracks.
They talked a moment more, and Cap’n Slidell looked as thankful as I’d ever seen him. Tu Li patted the cap’n on the shoulder, then he turned to me and lifted a clenched fist.
“You fight good. Always fight win, okay?”
I looked at him and nodded, not understanding nothing that was going on. “Yeah.”
Tu Li lit up a fresh cigarette and walked outta the bar.
I looked at the cap’n and felt a little worried. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
The cap’n took his pipe out of his shirt pocket and stuffed the bowl with tobacco. “Falcone jammed us up. He was behind the crew that robbed Wide Bertha.”
I waved that away. “We already knew that.”
“No, we suspected it. Now we know. Li confirmed that some of Falcone’s cronies were talking it up.”
Anger rose in me. I hated being played for a putz. “If he knows who we they are, we need to go after them. What are we doing sitting around here? We can go get our stuff back.”
The cap’n sighed and shook his head. “Stow that. You got a lot to learn about how these things work, Mick.”
I shook my head. “It’s a simple world the way I see it. You hit me, I hit you back.”
The cap’n chuckled and I got a little peeved at him. “That’s a fool’s game. The way it works is this: you hit me, I hit back harder. You don’t fight to fight, Mick. You fight to win.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
“We go after the guys who robbed us, we get some of the money back. Maybe not enough to weigh anchor. And we don’t get to touch Falcone at all because you can bet your left eye he ain’t left his hands dirty on this. If we move against him, them other Italians he’s mobbed up with will drop on us like a ton of bricks.” The cap’n shook his grizzled head. “Nope, what we need is a payday, and me and Li think we got one figured out.”
I sipped my beer and shrugged. “What?”
The cap’n leaned in toward me with a crafty smile. “Falcone seems to put a lot of store by that boxer of his. Simbari.”
“Yeah. So what?”
“So I figure the best way to get to Falcone is through his pride. In order to do that we gotta bait a hook and pull him in.”
“What are you talking about?”
For a minute, the cap’n looked at me. “If I can get you in that ring with Simbari, do you think you can take him?”
I leaned back and sipped my beer. My pride told me to just say yes, but I knew the cap’n wanted an honest answer from me.
“I need to know the truth, Mick, because there’s gonna be a lot riding on it.”
I thought I saw where he was coming from then. “You plan on betting on the fight?”
“Yeah.”
“With what?”
“I negotiated an agreement with Li. He’s gonna back our play.”
“He’s gonna give you money to bet on me with?”
The cap’n nodded.
“And if I lose, you’ll have to pay that back?”
“Yeah.”
Truth to tell, I wanted to fight Simbari. Him and his big ego was what started all this trouble. I wanted to climb into that ring and pound him into the ground.
Trouble was, I wasn’t sure I could do that. Simbari was a great fighter, had skills I knew I couldn’t match. All I had going for me was the fact I was tough. When you put tough up against skills, tough don’t always come out on top.
I eyed the cap’n. “Wouldn’t it be better to take a loan from Li? Pay that off?”
The cap’n shrugged. “Sure, maybe I could swing a loan, but Li ain’t in the loan business. He’s in the money business. Him and his buddies would rather rake in a big score than have me making payments.”
“They’re gonna be betting on me too.”
“Yeah.”
I took in a deep breath and let it out. “I dunno. Guy’s good at what he does, cap’n. No way of steering clear of that. I met Simbari in an alley, where rules wasn’t gonna make no difference, sure, I could take him. When it comes to bare-knuckled scrapping, kicking, and gouging, I don’t think he’s seen too much of that. But a straight up fight, toe to toe, with a ref in the ropes too?” I shook my head. “Ain’t nothing guaranteed about that.”
The cap’n just grinned at me. “If it was guaranteed, it wouldn’t be gambling, now would it?”
“Li and his buddies could be pretty sore if this goes south, couldn’t they?”
“Don’t you worry about that, Mick. One thing I know, Li and them friends of his like gambling. Gets their blood up. When I told Li about this, about you fighting Simbari, he was interested immediately. Li and his buddies have taken a drubbing from them Italians regarding the business over here. They’re looking for some payback themselves.” The cap’n showed me a crooked smile with a twinkle in his eye. “Could be this is what we’re all looking for.”
I smiled at the cap’n ’cause I know he wanted me to, but I wasn’t feeling nowhere a sure about this thing as he was. I just kept remembering how I’d seen Simbari take the German apart in that ring.
ROUND 18
That night, I met Estefania on in front of her building. I’d been sitting there, jawing with her father, splitting a few beers I’d brought, and thinking about her.
When she saw me, her face lit up, then went dark again almost immediately.
“Oh, she’s not happy with you, amigo. She has been worried about you all day, and you did not come back to let her know how you were.” Her father took a draw on his cigarette and the orange coal flared brightly against his dark skin. His name was Esteban and his hands was hard and callused and scarred. He dropped one of them on my shoulder. “Do not think me a cowardly man, but this is not my fight.”
Estefania’s jaw was set tight and I dreaded what was coming.
Esteban put his beer between his thighs, gripped the wheels of his wheelchair, and spun smartly to go back into the building. I wished I was going with him. But I wasn’t.
I stood and pulled my watch cap off and held it in my hands. “Good evening, Estefania.”
She stopped in front of me, surveying the cuts and bruises that remained from the fracas the previous night. Maybe she wouldn’t have maintained her stone face if I’d lost an ear. Or maybe an arm. But there I was, standing in front of her battered, but whole.
“So.” She raised an arched eyebrow. “You finally decided to come calling?”
“Finally had a chance.” I rubbed the back of my
neck and wished words came easier to me. It was hard enough when there was no anger involved, and that girl was like a storm-tossed sea just building up to deliver all kinds of grief.
“Finally?” Well, it was plain to see she wasn’t happy about that. “After I worried about you all day? All you had to do was get word to me to let me know how you were.” She shook her head. “Am I truly the last thing on your list, Mr. Flynn? If so, I’m not interested in talking to you anymore.”
“Can I say something here?”
“No. I believe I know where you stand. I have met many men like you.” Hurt knotted up her face and made her words sharp as broken glass. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go make my father’s dinner.” She started to step around me.
I caught her shoulders in my hands, and I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but I did it before I knew I was gonna do it. She slapped me hard enough to turn my head and smart something fierce, but I didn’t let go of her. I understood her anger. When you’re in the world alone, you don’t let your defenses down, you don’t let anybody in close. Somehow, I’d got in under her defenses, and me not having the decency to let her know I was okay after getting picked up by the cops reminded her of how vulnerable she was.
How much she could be hurt.
I looked into her green eyes. “Look, I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“You are not going to get that chance.” She tried to slap me again, but I deflected it with my forearm, and that just frustrated her more. She kicked me in the shin before I knew it was coming.
“Estefania, please.”
That stopped her, and it was a good thing, too, because her next kick hadn’t been aimed at my shin.
“Let me go.”
I did.
She backed up a step, looked hard at me, and those green eyes cut right into me. I held my hands up in surrender.
“You don’t have to worry about your father. I already brought him something to eat.”
She shot a hard glance at the four empty beer bottles sitting there in the alley. “Beer is not a meal.”
“No, it’s not. Beer was for after the meal. He asked me to go get some beer. I did. Then we drank those waiting on you to get home.”
She folded her arms. “What did he eat?”
“Take out from the Chinese place around the corner. I let him choose. He said the restaurant is a favorite.”
“It is.” She wasn’t giving me an inch of forgiveness.
“Look, I know there’s some hard feelings here, but I ain’t been leading you on. Me seeing you? That’s exactly what you thought it was. Before you started thinking it was this, I mean. I like you, Estefania. I like you a lot.” That was hard for me to say. I was getting out there where I was defenseless too, and I didn’t like it none. “But I ain’t ready to settle down, and I think you know you already got your hands full here.”
Her gaze was sharp enough to cut glass.
“I enjoyed the company. I hope to continue to enjoy it till we set sail again, and maybe when we come back this way. Me and you? We’re charting different stars right now, but I like the company.”
She didn’t say anything, but I thought maybe some of the frost was gone from her eyes.
“I couldn’t come by till now. Cap’n Slidell pulled us outta jail this afternoon, then took us back to Wide Bertha to get our jobs done. When we got back, we found out one of our crewmen got knocked out and the ship had been looted. They cleaned us out. Cap’n says we ain’t got enough to clear the harbor fees.”
That softened her then. “I am sorry, and I must apologize for my behavior.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s fine. I understand. The day I’ve had today, I want to hit something – someone – too. I’m saving that for Simbari, though.”
“Simbari?” A troubled look erased the leftover bits of her anger. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to fight him. And I’m gonna need your help to set it up.”
Shaking her head, Estefania walked over to me and looked up at me. “You are muy estupido if you think I will help you get into that room with that animal.”
I tried to think of something to say, but I couldn’t. Words was never my best skill. I took her by the shoulders again and I kissed her long and hard.
ROUND 19
Estefania hit me again, and she had even more pepper on this one than she did the last time. I didn’t even have to fake stumbling back because she’d rocked me back on my heels. Fire spread along my jaw and my ear rang because she’d clipped it too. I shook my head and glared at her.
“I told you to stay away from me, gringo.” Estefania’s voice cut through all the hubbub and chatter in the Mermaid’s Pearl. The place was packed because several ships had come in, and that helped what we staging. “I no longer have any wish to see you. You disgust me.” She spat at my feet.
She was a good actress. If I hadn’t known what we was doing, I would have believed what she was saying. It was real enough at the moment to hurt some anyway, and that surprised me. I knew we was faking the fight to attract another fight.
“Get outta my face or I’m gonna bust you one.” I lifted a fist and swayed like I’d had a few too many. I took a step toward her.
A few of the guys in the bar rose to their feet because there was some decent men among them. But most stayed in their seats, not wanting any of the trouble I was pushing.
The fight, mine and Estefania’s, had been dreamed up by the cap’n, a bit of theater to influence the mugs sitting around in the place. And I’d surely set myself up to be the villain in our little production. Them boys that had kept their seats was probably still salivating over the idea of me getting my head stove in. That was something they’d pay to see, and the cap’n had figured on that too.
Before anybody else could reach me, Adrian Linares, one of the fishermen who was friends with Estefania’s father, jumped off his seat and pasted me a good one in the gut. It was hard not to tense up to take the punch, but I didn’t have to worry about making it look good. Adrian was a healthy bull of a man, made hard by the sea, and he threw a strong right hand.
I bent over as all the air rushed out of me. If we’d really been fighting, he’d never have touched me because he telegraphed that punch. He clocked me behind the ear with his left and I went down.
Several people in the bar started clapping and cheering Adrian on. I fumbled around, trying to get to my feet. Adrian grabbed me by the belt and the shirt collar and gave me the bum’s rush out the door. I landed in the street and rolled, then remembered to lay there for a minute like I was stunned.
People crowded the door and the windows at the Mermaid’s Pearl to watch me. Other people stood on the sidewalks. I got to my knees in front of a taxi that I thought for a moment was gonna run me down, and I was wondering what the cap’n would make of that if it did.
As those bright lights poured down over me and I felt the burn of abrasions on my elbows and my knees and one cheek, I grabbed that taxi’s bumper and climbed up it like a man grabbing hold of a life preserver in a wild sea. Finally, I stood. I took one look back at the bar, saw Estefania there and Falcone standing at the window, and I shuffled away into the darkness.
***
“Are you sure that Adrian did not hit you too hard?” Estefania fussed over me as we sat at her dinner table after she got off work that night. “Your cheek looks very bad.”
The cheek did look bad, all swollen and turning purple. Adrian had caught me a good one there, and the fact that it had been bare knuckles instead of a boxing glove made the injury more severe. She was working on the concrete burns I’d picked up after getting thrown out of the bar. She’d dab a small towel into some foul-smelling ointment and rub it into the wound. That stung, but I liked her fussing over me.
“I’m fine. The cheek’s okay. Adrian surprised me with that punch, that’s all. His hand’s probably hurting more than my face is.” I knew that when you was gonna hit a man bare handed, you went for the soft spots, not bone.
The face had a lot of bone in it. Better to go for the throat, and shutting down a man’s wind always ended a fight sooner.
Esteban grinned at me from his wheelchair and tilted back his beer. Adrian had stopped over earlier to make sure I was all right, and to collect the money the cap’n sent me to pay him. Adrian said he was going to bet it on me when we had the fight set up with Simbari because he’d never hit a man with a harder head than me. I wasn’t sure if I’d been complimented or not, but he’d just grinned, drunk his beer, and went on his way. Then me and Esteban had eaten at the Chinese place again and made small talk till Estefania got home.
“Did Falcone get a good look at everything?” I flinched a little when she started treating the bruise on my cheek.
“Hold still.”
“Did he?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean, you think so?”
“I was busy watching you, making certain you were not too badly hurt.”
“I wasn’t hurt.”
“Then you were nearly run down in the street.”
“That was a surprise, but it didn’t happen.”
Estefania shrugged as she dabbed the towel into the ointment jar again. I was torn over asking her to stop because the stuff smelled so awful, but as soon as she put her soft fingers back on my face, I was a goner. “Falcone was watching. Everyone in the bar was watching.”
I let her tend to me in silence for a while, and I was hoping that we’d put out the bait pretty good. Now we just had to set the hook when the fish came to bite.
ROUND 20
Things was quiet for a couple nights after that. The situation aboard Wide Bertha was getting even grimmer. The crew was pretty down in the mouth, but the cap’n said something like this took a little time, that we had to be patient. The whole while, though, we knew the harbor fees was piling up. And as long as we sat at anchorage, we wasn’t making no money. In fact, some of our pay depended on a timely delivery, and we was missing that on some shipments.
