by Jack Tunney
Bud watched as the criminal pushed himself to his feet and raise his boot. It looked to Bud as if the criminal was going to stomp on him. However, before Mad Dog could bring his foot down, the Brown Bomber was on him.
Joe wound up and let fly with a crunching uppercut, catching the criminal on the point of the jaw.
Bud could swear Mad Dog flew two feet into the air, before plummeting back to the pavement, crashing in a crumpled heap.
Mad Dog didn't look so mad now. He was out cold.
“I want you to sit on him till the police arrive,” Joe said.
“What about the other fella? He's getting away,” Bud asked, as he climbed across and sat on the criminal's inert form.
“Don't worry about it. I'll get him,” Joe said, then took off running.
ON THE STREET...
Lou watched as the police ran down the taxi driver and took him into custody. Seeing his last chance to get a ride being dragged away, Lou figured he might as well try his chances with Bud and Joe.
Lou made his way off the street to the pavement. As he looked around, he saw Joe running toward him. And Joe was waving. Everything must be okay.
Lou went to wave back. As he raised his hand, his elbow struck somebody moving past him. It stung. His elbow really hurt.
“Ooooowwww!” Lou howled, shaking his arm.
Joe ran up to him.
“You got him,” Joe exclaimed. “I said you’ve got the fighter spirit in you!”
“Got who?” Lou queried, confused.
“Maginty. You laid him out cold.”
Lou was still confused. Joe pointed behind. Lou turned and saw Pistol Pete Maginty's unconscious form sprawled on the pavement.
THE AFTERMATH...
The police arrived on the scene shortly after. In no time, they had restored peace and order. Mad Dog and his gang were taken into custody and shunted into the back of a waiting Paddy Wagon.
The bank manager, a thin-faced man with a pencil mustache, stepped from the branch and collected the stolen money, handing the sacks to a security guard to return to the vault.
It seemed like all was well in the world once again, except some of the money was still missing...
THE CHAMP...
Joe saw the bag of cash lying in the gutter, tucked behind the wheel of a parked car. It must have been kicked there during the melee. Hidden in shadow, no one else appeared to have seen it. Joe walked over, reached around and retrieved the sack. It was quite heavy. He figured it must have a few thousand dollars in it.
Maybe enough to square his debt with the IRS.
Joe immediately turned and called out to the bank manager, who was standing in a huddle surrounded by police officers taking his statement.
“Excuse me, sir,” Joe called, holding the money bag aloft. “I think this is some of the stolen money.”
The bank manager broke away from the policemen. Joe handed over the sack.
“Thank you,” the manager said, gratefully.
“My pleasure, sir,” Joe said.
The bank manager then turned and walked back to the police. Joe stood silently, until Lou walked up beside him.
“I saw what you did,” Lou said. “Why didn't you take it? It could have got you out of debt. No one would have known.”
“I would have known,” Joe answered. “I don't take money from anybody. I work, I sweat and I fight for it. When I have paid off the IRS, I want to be able to hold my head high, knowing it was me, and me alone, who did it.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER...
Bud and Lou sat in the back of a taxi. One that hadn't been in an accident or driven by a criminal.
It had taken a while for the police to take Bud, Lou and Joe's statements, so most of the afternoon had passed. It was too late to go back to the studio gymnasium and continue the boxing training.
Lou was pleased. He didn't think he could take any more.
Besides, as Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, was leaving, he quipped that Lou didn't need any more training. He was dangerous enough as is.
Lou had smiled at the remark. It was a great compliment coming from a man such as Joe Louis. Lou thought back on all he had seen and heard that day. He remembered the lessons in the ring, and the punch he had landed on Joe's jaw. He thought about Joe's money problems, and remembered that when offered an easy way out, Joe immediately chose to do the honorable thing.
Lou nodded to himself.
“Hey, Abbott…” Lou started.
Bud knew what was coming. “What is it, Lou?”
“What’s the difference between a bad fighter and a bad book?”
“I don’t know, Lou. What?” Bud delivered the straight line knowing, as always, he was setting up the punchline.
Lou gave a mischievous grin. “The book has a title.”
JAMES HOPWOOD
Australian author David James Foster writes under the pen name James Hopwood. He has contributed to Crime Factory Magazine (Vol. 10), Matt Hilton’s Action: Pulse Pound Tales. As Jack Tunney he has written the Fight Card novels King of the Outback and Rumble in the Jungle. As James Hopwood, he writes the Jarvis Love spy thrillers starting with The Librio Defection.
It has been surmised David was raised by wild razorbacks in the dusty outback. While still a tot, he was rescued by a nomadic tribe and went to live with them at an oil refinery. There he also learned to use a boomerang with lethal efficiency. He now lives in Melbourne, Australia, which has a population of 3.74 million people of which David is now considered the city’s 3,729,845th most dangerous man.
ON THE WEB:
http://permissiontokill.com
ROUND 5
JEREMY L. C. JONES
GATOR JOE
Point Larga, Alaska, January, 1991
Three dollar minimum?
They were screwing with me. That much was clear. And I was not in the mood.
“Yee,” said Rusty, “toss in what you got.”
I knew the rules. So did they. No one needed to speak them out loud.
I scrounged around in the slash pocket of my field coat – a handful of wadded bills, loose change, and a pouch of Drum tobacco with a sleeve of papers tucked inside.
We all watched my hands as I spread out the linty riches inside the rough circle drawn in the snow.
They’d staked out an area in the alley between the Mercantile’s warehouse and the shack rented by the Anchorage newspaper. The narrow passage rested at an angle to the Bay where the wind ordinarily had to work harder to cut through, but a Siberian front had been hammering Point Larga for a few days now.
The luffing fire rouged Rusty’s flat and creased face. I couldn’t tell if his watery eyes were yellow from liver disease or the weird lighting.
Elmer Roundtree tugged off one of his mittens, held it in his bare fingers, and poked through my share, flattening the bills and palpating the tobacco with a dirt-etched index.
Rusty watched, breathing with his mouth, and I was damn glad he wasn't using his toothless maw to smirk or talk for once.
“One dollar,” Elmer said. “And half a pouch.”
“Yee,” Rusty said. “And seventy-four cents.”
Elmer shook his head. “Not much.”
“Yee.”
The smoke from the fire covered up the ammonia tang of sweat and piss, but it couldn't hide the reindeer sausage and skunk bud on their breath. Nor could it hide the other whiff I was catching – liquor. They were most definitely holding out. No need for a circle. They were flush. Typical.
“That all you got?” That was Rusty for you.
No, it wasn't all I had, but, “Yeah,” was what I said.
“Tsk, tsk.”
The rest was spread around my person – in my boots, sewn into the lining of my coat – everywhere and anywhere I could find to stash a few bucks. Not a lot. Damn sure not a lot. Just enough to buy me a minute's rest between rounds.
“We can't get no drink with this,” Elmer said.
The fur-trimmed hood of Elmer's parka
didn't move when he shook his head and I almost laughed, but I swallowed my mirth.
My pittance would’ve been a strong showing down in the Lower 48, but not up here off the road system where everything had to be flown, dogged, or shipped in.
I popped my coat’s collar against the razor wind.
Rusty and Elmer sat on wooden shipping pallets. More pallets were half-buried behind them in the ice and snow. Rusty pulled one of his heavy snow-boots around in front and retied the laces. There was no question I was supposed to see the heavy, wooden handle of the hunting knife sticking out of the fur-lined uppers.
This was a game, sure, but a serious one that could turn mean fast.
“That's all I got,” said.
“One buck?” Elmer said.
“And seventy-four cents,” Rusty said, punching the native cadence hard for emphasis – it reminded me of the sounds in the gym back home. His voice twisted the skin off my patience like glove leather on cheek and brow.
“Not enough.” Elmer, again.
Thing is, I'd put in two dollars and seventy-four cents – I never keep more than I can afford to lose where losers can find it – and the roll-your-own tobacco bumped my share over the minimum.
“There’s the smoke,” I said.
If I ever laughed at someone the way Rusty laughed at me, I’d fully expect to get my head kicked in.
“No, no,” Elmer said. “Cash only.”
I had to hand it to him. Elmer had the touch alright. The mitten. Why hold the mitten in his hand while taking count? That was the cover for lifting my second dollar bill. Dexterous.
“Yee.” Rusty.
Now, Rusty was all bulk and no finesse. He was big for a Native. Six feet and solid. Big hands stuffed into leather that looked more like 20 ounce gloves than winter mittens.
“We need three bucks,” Elmer said.
“Yee.”
Nine bought a bottle. That was enough to chase off the creepy crawlies for the three of us. For a little while. Time enough to think, at least.
If we each put in just a shake and a rub more, we'd have enough for something stronger and longer. But they weren't sharing.
Not yet.
And the hold up? It wasn't clear. It wasn't supposed to be clear. That was their push.
They’d changed the rules twice now – imposing a minimum and declaring it a cash-only share. Both rules smelled like goat.
My move.
I grubbed around in my pockets for a while, taunting them with a piece of paper, cigarette roach, a losing pull tab lottery ticket.
Either way, they had me in the corner.
If I came up with more green, I'd been withholding. If I didn't pony up more, I'd shorted the circle or, at least, the stink was on me as a moocher and my place at the round on the ground had been established and my share would be cut.
They’d played this from the start. I walked up and they humped my leg and now I was expected to smile about it.
I showed hands.
“Nothing more,” I said. “That's it. That's all I got.”
Rusty snorted, again, and looked away. Elmer shook his head and it looked like a doll's head inside his hood and I had to cover my sudden mirth with a cough.
“Keep your money,” Elmer said.
“Yee,” Rusty said.
Not what I'd expected.
I eyed them both and they nodded and gestured toward my share. I scooped up the bills and coins and deposited them back into my pocket.
They were working an angle here. Everyone pitches in. Everyone gets a slice. No free-loading. No refunds. Once your share hits the circle it’s no longer yours.
What the hell?
We each rolled one from the packet of Drum. Mine was thick and the smoke thicker. It took the fish hooks out of my brain for a moment or two.
“Good,” Elmer said through curling wisps.
“Yee,” Rusty said, squinting one eye and sucking on the skinny little cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger like a teenage stoner trying to be too cool. “Yee.”
A part of me thrilled at having my cash back and another burned white hot. What about my dollar? I'd been twenty-six cents from a bottle. Now, I was a buck-twenty-six away.
There was also the matter of my nerves. Tobacco only did so much. I'd promised them a drink and things weren't necessarily working out as planned.
And the three dollar minimum? Circles don't have minimums. You put in something, anything. I knew that. They knew I knew that. I wasn't new to the village. And I wasn't new to the road. What gives?
“So,” Elmer said, “Rusty tells me you’re a boxer?”
***
Thirty dollar minimum.
Winner takes a hundred. Loser gets thirty.
“Three ways,” said Elmer. “Fifty each.”
“Who gets the penny,” I said.
“Eh?”
“Forget it.”
I strongly doubted they’d follow through on an even split, but the owner of The Hook promised to pay out directly to me, either way.
“That's what me and Elmer worked out,” Fitz said, when he took my coat and hat to stow behind the bar for safe keeping.
Fitz and his boys had set up the ring out back, using four oil barrels for posts and chain for ropes. They'd cleared most of the snow and ice. The heat from the barrel-fires had done the rest, leaving a mat of gravel and slowly softening mud for us to muck around it.
Elmer wrapped both our hands. It was nice feeling the bones snuggling up to each other again. I fisted my palms and, sweet Heaven, was it a lovely feeling. Tight. Strong. Familiar.
Instead of boxing gloves, we each wore a similar pair of shearling mittens oiled smooth on the outside. Mine were a little lose. Fitz taped them to my wrists and I pushed any discomfort out of my mind. They weren't on my hands. They were my hands. End of discussion.
Elmer was in Rust’s corner. No surprise there.
A crowd gathered fast. Dead of winter. Ships can't get in. Choppers off the Bering Sea only come in every other week. Night is eternal. Entertainment is limited.
We both wore jeans and snow boots and as soon as I saw Rusty bare-chest, I regretted every drink I'd taken since leaving the game two years before. The sweat and stink and sweet satisfaction of a hard day's work out in that Florida gym seemed much, much, further than a continent away as Rusty loosened his neck, rolled his shoulders, and stomped his boots.
The knife was gone. That was something, at least.
My hips were tight and that worried me. I stretched surreptitiously, so he wouldn’t see how strung tight I was. I worked through my punches to loosen up. Muscles twinged up and down my sides, my back, and over my shoulders. The more I moved, the deeper my body drew on memories of past work-outs, past fights, past strengths.
The devil, of course, was to keep my mind off past failures.
Rusty worked a salmon boat, and his shoulders and arms showed it. He carried the softness of a boozer around the middle, but he hadn't gone full lush just yet.
Me? I wasn't so sure. My head was back in swampland rings, but my body was still in the bottle.
Fitz called us to center and rattled through the rules. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Till he got to the end.
“Three rounds,” he said. “Or no one gets paid.”
***
Three round minimum?
Elmer had left out that little detail.
I understood. This was part exhibition. Got to keep the crowd happy. But three rounds last a long time when you're out of shape.
Yeah, I understood. But I also wanted to shove Elmer's head through an iceberg.
There it was.
That white hot anger.
Friend or foe, there it was.
***
Be the moccasin?
I grew up taking punishment. A fat kid, heavy and slow, but solid, I ate punch after punch, kick after kick. I would bide my time, then move in and take them down – force them to grapple.
It was my version of the death roll.
My wide jaw and flat nose, my short arms, thick hide, and a stare to do an alligator proud. They called me Gator Joe.
My first week in the Fort Lauderdale gym, I was slugging away at a sparring partner, really pounding his elbows into his ribs, and Tommy Lee pulls me out of the ring and says, “Gator Joe, Gator Joe, listen up.”
I was still steaming out my nose and my muscles were still ghosting the piston-work I'd been deep into seconds before.
“You listening?”
I nodded at the squat old cat with his gangly mangrove limbs, gnarled up face, and sand-spur voice.
“You got to stop that crap,” he said. “You ain't the Gator no more. You got to be the moccasin.”
I slobbered the mouthpiece half out of my mouth. “What the hell? Like the shoe?”
“No, no,” he said. “The snake! The water snake! Water moccasin!”
I was irritated. “What you talkin’ bout? Gators eat cottonmouths,” I said, still feeling the juice from the beating I'd been putting on my guy.
Tommy Lee didn't take the bait.
“Skim across the mat,” he said. “Float. Strike. Float.”
“That's not my style,” I said.
“You're too young to know from style,” he said. “Be the moccasin.”
Movement, patterns, pulse, beat, timing…
Be the moccasin.
***
But moccasins don’t wear snow boots.
Rusty came in hot, swarming me with a flurry of hooks, pressing me back into the heat of the oil barrel fire. My heavy boots caught and snagged in the softening muck. I lifted my knees higher, careful not to jeopardize my balance, trying to avoid a stumble.
I was giving enough ground to suck out some of the force of his blows, but it was also allowing Rusty to build momentum.
He favored his right, and I used that to groove into a counter-clockwise circle dance. He had reach and respectable power, but either he'd forgotten we needed to go three five minute rounds, or else I was in serious trouble.
He worked hooks for a while, then uppercuts, and back again. My forearms were ringing from his fists and my elbows were thrumming my floating ribs.
