Walking back to my seat, something compelled me to knock on Rattlesnake’s door. I fooled myself that it was only a gesture of sportsmanship to wish him luck.
His locker room was the opposite of Pete’s. Scores of press were camped outside the door. I knocked hard for a second time. The door swung open and Popcorn let me in.
“Hey, Popcorn,” I said. “How ya been?” Walking in, it was impossible not to look at the kid differently after what I’d found out. In fact, as I watched him saunter back toward Rattlesnake to massage his broad shoulders, their honest affection for one another was more blatant than ever. Couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it earlier.
I walked up to Dillian, who never looked better.
“Hey, Turtledove,” I said. “Miss me hanging around?”
“We’ve been busy, Nick.” She could be cold as ice.
“Me, too. Been working on the movie. Doing research,” I said.
“Really?” she inquired. “What kind?”
“Nothing special. Just visiting juke joints in town. Interviewing people.” I looked at Rattlesnake. “I’m writing a love story after all.”
Dillian’s eyes widened. “Nick . . .”
“A kid’s love affair with the sweet science.”
I could tell I had her on the hook. I leaned into her. “Don’t worry,” I said, putting a finger lightly against my lips. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Grenade piped in. “Why are you here, Moretti?”
“Just wishing your boy luck. My cousin can hold his own pretty good, you know.”
“Piece of cake,” Rattlesnake snickered from the table he was sitting on.
“Well, I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” I said, moving back to the door. I pointed at the champ. “I’ll see you at the movies.”
As I left, Grenade stepped out after me, putting a hand on my sleeve. We were alone and could speak more freely.
“What are you up to, Moretti?”
I ignored the question, coming back with one of my own. “Did your boy train hard for the fight?”
He laughed, almost fiendishly. “Harder than Chinese arithmetic. As long as I’m in his corner, he’ll be a winner.”
I shook my head. “No way,” I countered bluntly. “He a loser just living in a winner’s world.”
With that line hanging in the air like a Sinatra song lyric, I sauntered away.
* * *
I took my seat during the third undercard. Two Irish southpaws were beating the whiskey outta one another. By round four, it looked more like a Southie street brawl than a premium undercard. I was half-expecting the ref to take a left to the chin any second.
Outside the ropes, Stitch Bromer was calling the shots. Even though he had said he was finished calling Rattlesnake’s bouts, there was no way he could sit this one out. The radio syndicates would have him hog tied.
There were scores of press men in a sea of fedoras. From my seat, I caught Stitch’s eye. He shook his head as if to say, “This ain’t gonna end pretty.”
I agreed and felt even more anxious. I just wanted the bout to start.
When the main event finally arrived, the champ hit his rhythm almost immediately. As far as I could tell, Rattlesnake was fighting clean, but that was only because he didn’t need any of his dirty tricks during the first few rounds.
From my seat I could hear Stich jabbering, “Pete the Python and his furious jab are working overtime, but the champ is looking like Fred Astaire, ducking, dancing and looking for Ginger . . .”
But then I saw it. And so did Pete. The Rattlesnake was open, if only for a millisecond.
I watched Pete seeming to swing in slow-motion again and again, but when his punches landed the Rose Bowl exploded. Nobody could believe what they had just seen.
Stich was beside himself. “The Rattlesnake is down! Python Moretti found his opening and unleashed his ungodly venom in the form of three brutal body shots . . .”
While the champ was on his knees, huffing and puffing, almost a hundred thousand of us were on our feet. I looked a few seats back and saw Dillian palming her face, distraught. She, too, seemed to be a bundle of nerves. For a second, I kinda wished I was sitting with her. Even though we were rooting for different fighters, I missed being a comfort to her.
Stitch Bromer was standing up, hands on his head because this was, indeed, becoming a fight:
“I can’t believe it! The Rattlesnake manages to find the strength, the will, deep in the bowels of his gut, he’s on his knees as the ref’s count reaches nine — And there’s the bell, ladies and gentlemen! This is history, folks! Franklin ‘Rattlesnake’ McNeal was almost knocked out by Pete ‘Python’ Moretti, and dagnabbit, was saved by the bell. What a shocker!”
The time between rounds appeared to refresh Rattlesnake. At the bell, the champ came out angry, embarrassed, and determined.
I noticed something immediately. He kept turning his body in the direction of the afternoon sun. All Pete could do was squint into the light, struggling to focus, allowing Rattlesnake to open up with his own brutal assault of hooks.
“Now it’s the Python who’s stumbling folks, trying to find his legs . . . And he does just that, covering up, buying his time and waiting for his own life-saving bell.”
The two scrapped it up a bit more. It was funny. Pete was waiting for the bell, but I was looking toward the sky, waiting for the sun to shift or go behind one of the few paltry clouds.
A couple of brutal rounds later, Rattlesnake couldn’t use the sun as a tactic anymore. The fighters were back to slugging it out in a surprisingly even manner. It was looking more and more like the fight would go the distance.
Or so I thought.
The champ started banging Pete’s chest with his forearm and, every so often, would sneak in an elbow jab on the sly. For my money, the elbow is one of the most lethal weapons on a guy. Pete kept pushing the champ off and countered with some uppercuts.
Stitch Bromer could easily see it and I’m glad he spoke up, “Sorry to say it’s getting a little dirty in here, folks, perhaps resembling the back alley skirmish the champ found himself in a few months ago . . .”
To make things worse, the champ kept stepping on Pete’s feet, corrupting the fight’s rhythm. Rattlesnake then blasted Pete with a series of punches to the head. It was hard to watch. I also noticed Pete blinking rapidly and rubbing his eyes with his forearm.
“The Python is in trouble,” Stitch said, continuing his coverage. “Rattlesnake is performing some serious chin music. Pete the Python returns some shots, but they’re going nowhere. Will it be lights out for the slithery challenger?”
Lights out, indeed. It was obvious Pete couldn’t see because something was impairing his vision, burning his eyes. My guess was some sort of agent like Mercurochrome, mainly because it was red and could easily blend into the leather of the gloves. It could also be passed off as a simple mistake. Rattlesnake’s corner treats his wounds and — oops — some dripped on his gloves. Pete’s corner may have just fallen off the turnip truck, but I sure hadn’t.
Someone had to do something. Going with my gut, I threw off my jacket and ran to the champ’s corner. I saw Dillian out of the corner of my eye follow slightly behind me.
I poked Grenade hard on his shoulder and he snapped around. “Grenade, you better tell your kid to knock it off!”
“Knock what off? Boy, I’m working!” he barked, as his baseball mitt of a palm shoved me back a few feet.
That was it. The line had been crossed. Pete’s face was quickly starting to resemble three-day-old deli meat, so I ran to the other side of the ring and begged Father Sal to throw in the towel.
“Not yet, Nick,” Sal said. “I don’t want that hanging over me. Pete’ll have my hide!”
Bromer’s voice told the story. “The Python’s fight is slipping away quickly as the Chi-town puncher is catching nothing but air . . . The champ is landing destructive brain-finding jabs with an imposing will and skill rarely seen in this
or any other ring . . . A minute left in the tenth frame and we may be looking at a knockout soon, folks . . .”
I was stuck, completely helpless. That’s when Dillian got my attention from where she was standing right behind me.
“Nicky . . .” was all she said. It sounded like an I’m sorry . . .
“Dillian, the fight can’t end like this. Your guy is fighting dirty. He’s gonna kill Pete . . .” I could tell all the blood was rattling her and she looked at me empathetically — even more so toward Pete in the ring. “This wasn’t my idea, Nick.”
“I know . . .” I said. “I gotta end this somehow and you may be angry when I do.”
Blood was starting to trickle from Pete in places I’d not thought possible. I couldn’t believe he was still standing. I approached Grenade once again. “I’m giving you a last chance you crazy, old bastard.”
Grenade shot me his evil grin as he yelled towards the champ, “Now!”
I’ll never forget what came next. The Rattlesnake unleashed an ungodly fury, punches in all sorts of directions. I saw Pete’s eyes glaze over.
That was it. I grabbed Grenade’s wooden stool and hopped in the ring. The crowd exploded.
I heard Stitch Bromer announce: “Ladies and gentlemen, it appears a stranger is approaching the champ . . .”
All I could do was break that wooden stool clean over the Rattlesnake’s back. If Pete was going down, so was the champ. Fair was fair.
“The champ is down, folks! Assaulted in the ring, pummeled by a madman using a corner stool! Chaos has arrived here at the Rose Bowl!”
Bromer palmed his microphone and yelled up to me, “Nick, are you outta your mind?! You’re gonna be ruined!!”
Like I cared. I kept thrashing the champ’s back with the stool until, like Pete’s face, it was a bloody, mangy mess. Eventually the wood snapped into several pieces and the rest of it went flying. The kid finally knew what it meant to be kissing the canvas and not get up. I looked to Dillian. Her eyes were puddles.
Leaning down, I whispered into the champ’s ear. “You’re not going to win this one by fighting dirty you son-of-a-devil.”
Of all people, it was Popcorn who pulled me off Rattlesnake and snapped me around. Man, that kid could punch. As I was keeling over, the cops appeared, slapped the bracelets on me, and whisked me out of the ring.
As we passed Dillian, she looked at me in shock.
“Somebody had to do something,” I said.
I was led out of the Rose Bowl, quickly and efficiently by L.A.’s Finest. Getting spit on by fight fans was truly no fun.
ROUND TWELVE
Because the Pasadena City lockup was crammed with a high number of fight night disorderlies and minor degenerates, I spent what was left of my night and most of the next morning in the drunk tank. The fuzz threw me in there as if I were an afterthought.
The last time I was incarcerated was when I was serving our country. I was tossed in the brig for smuggling some premium hooch into our barracks. Most of the other privates didn’t mind guzzling rotgut eel juice. Not me. I used some of the connections I managed to make in the village to scour their own countryside for a real bottle of scotch that was either sealed or bottled in bond. What the MPs never found out was I managed to sneak my hip flask into the brig with me.
In Pasadena, however, there was no flask. All I had were two drunks to keep me company. The entertainment was of the highest order. I watched some Irish lug named McCoy piss himself silly singing Andrews Sisters’ ditties while some WASP lawyer named Lawrence pined away over his wife who he claimed left him because he’d had a tryst with his secretary. “Such is life,” I told him . . .
I was getting concerned because I needed to tell people — and by people I mean the press — that Rattlesnake was as dirty as they come. At the very least, I wanted to tell the nation why I jumped into the boxing ring, wreaking havoc in front of the eyes and ears of the waking world.
So imagine my utter disbelief when a scraggly little deputy yelled my name and said I was sprung. I chuckled to myself. Was this The Rattlesnake McNeal Public Relations Machine working its magic in my favor this time?
Getting back what little I’d had in my suit pockets, I asked the discharging officer, “Who bailed me out?”
“You certainly got some friends, pal, and I’m betting they’re probably in high places,” he said, slurping his cola through a straw and pounding his rubber stamp on my release papers.
I needed to gather my thoughts before I did anything and, as I watched the pork-bellied pencil pusher sip his tepid Royal Crown, I couldn’t help but salivate for the opposite — some Crown Royal. I asked the cop where the closet gin mill was and he told me a cab outside could take me anywhere I wanted.
“Now beat it,” he said. “You already cost me a finske when you ruined the fight.”
“Don’t be sore,” I said. “How ’bout I buy you another RC? Maybe throw in a Slim Jim for good measure.”
“Hit the bricks,” he darted back.
Walking out, I wondered about what he’d said. Ruined the fight . . . There was no way Pete won the bout, and if I had ruined the fight it could only mean it didn’t go to the scorecards and was probably ruled No Contest. The upside would be, Pete might have a good chance of snagging a rematch. No way Rattlesnake would want an NC on his record.
Walking out of the hoosegow, I looked at my release papers and instantly discovered just how high my so-called friends went. I whistled a cab over and hopped in.
“Where to fella?” the cabbie asked.
“Pinnacle Studios,” I said.
Studio man Benny Carter was waiting for me outside of Isaac Stuhlberg’s office. The harried smile that had greeted me when I arrived in La La Land was now replaced by a disappointed frown.
“Can you at least let me explain?” I asked.
“Nick, we gave you the opportunity of a lifetime,” he answered. “And you peed all over it?”
“Is that what I did? I’d say I made your boy pretty damn sympathetic. After all, isn’t that what you hired me to do? Make him look good?”
Carter didn’t answer. He just looked at me like Father DelMonico did in grade school — with monumental frustration as he held up the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
There it was, in all of its 70 point type glory:
NICK MORETTI: HERO OR VILLAIN?
I sighed and decided to be as brutally honest as possible. “I had to stop him, Ben. He was gonna kill my cousin.”
Carter nodded. It told me he may not have approved of my antics, but he understood them. He motioned toward Stuhlberg’s office.
“He’s waiting,” was all he said.
“I imagined he would be,” I said, and then thanked Carter for taking a chance on a Jersey boy who had lofty Tinseltown dreams. I figured the pleasantry was the least I could do.
He didn’t acknowledge my gratitude, simply repeated, “He’s waiting.”
It appeared the only thing to do was to see what the old studio lion wanted.
Little did I know what was waiting for me up ahead.
* * *
The great thing about being picked on as a kid is it teaches you to take a punch or even the occasional beating.
This was one of those times.
You always hear rumors about the studio shamus — how they were crooked ex-cops or former marines looking to do some dirty work while getting well paid. I could now testify the stereotype was real. Two of the big bruisers had me by the arms and were dragging me down the alley next to Stuhlberg’s white brick office. As they slammed me against the side of the building, I prepped to ride with whatever punches they threw my way.
But, of course, the first punch cracked me right in the shoulder where my bullet wound was still uneasy from scraps on this journey.
I keeled over, swallowing back bile. I tried gasping out some dented wit. “Hey, Frick, if that’s the best you can do? Your friend Frack over here is in some serious trouble.”
Frack laughed which, in hindsight, meant I’d been stupid since a moment later I was on the ground sporting a deep shiner.
“Pick yourself up and go inside. The old man wants to talk to you,” Frick said.
I spat more for the effect than anything else, tucked in my shirttail and watched them exit into the hustle of the backlot. From the corner of my eye, I could see Carter paying them.
I spat again, this time to get the last of the bile from my mouth, pungent from the rotten taste of dirty boxing.
* * *
Inside, Stuhlberg was once again seated behind his burlwood runway thumbing through some lobby cards. Judging from the way he tossed them aside, I could tell they weren’t delivering the goods.
“First rule of movie marketing, son . . . If you’re making a monster movie, you play up the giant, the zombie, the ghost or whatever is going to scare the bejesus out of the country. Otherwise, it’s the broad. Play up the broad screaming her tatas off. I gotta do everything in this joint.”
I said nothing.
“But we’re not here to talk about movie marketing. Are we?”
“Depends,” I answered. “Maybe if we’re trying to sell a film about a dirty fighter.”
He chuckled. But I could tell it was faker than a two-headed nickel won from a crooked Tijuana slot.
I probably could have picked a better time to take his temperature, but I forged ahead. “At least our movie now has an ending, right? May I suggest George Raft play me? Bogie’s probably too busy these days.”
“Do you have a disdain for powerful men, Mr. Moretti?”
“I’m a newsman, sir,” I answered. “It’s kind of in my blood.”
“You’re a cocky little pipsqueak,” Stuhlberg said. “Too bad you didn’t arrive in this town sooner. You would’ve made a mint.”
“I still owe you a movie script.”
“You do, indeed,” he said nodding, but not exactly sounding like he wanted it. “But that ship may have sailed, son.”
Front Page Palooka: A Nick Moretti Mystery Page 10
