Canvas Coffin (11 page)

Sally was still looking at Max.

Max said, “Okay. A movie for you two. I want him in bed by ten-thirty. We’ll play pinochle. We’ll be up.” He smiled at Sally. “Biggest fight of his life coming up.”

“I know, Max,” she said. “Don’t worry about that, for a second. I know.”

We ate at the restaurant next to the seal tank. We got some fish for the seals first, and watched them perform and then we went in and took a table overlooking the ocean.

It had turned into a gray day, and the ocean was dirty along here. It wasn’t exactly an inspiring view today.

Lobster for Sally and scallops for me, and very little talk between us. Tired, Sally looked, and sad.

She sipped her coffee and I lighted her cigarette for her, and she looked out at the littered water as she said, “I’m sort of — frightened, Luke. Everything seems to be coming to a head. Tell me about Harry Bevilaqua now.”

I told her. Over her shoulder I could see the seals watching the doorway, watching for somebody to come with a plate of fish, the always hungry seals, like Los Angeles sports writers.

When I’d finished, she said, “Why don’t we go and talk to him? He’s a reasonable man, Luke.”

“He’s not a reasonable man right now,” I said. “I can’t risk the hand again. I was lucky last time.”

“Hit, hit, hit — ” she said bitterly. “Is that all you know?”

“Until after the fight. I’ll be all soft and tender again, after that. I’ll be your lover boy again.”

She put a hand on mine. “Sometimes I don’t think you’re for me at all. But then I think what it would be without you, and I shiver, Luke.”

“I’m kind of a handsome bastard,” I admitted.

“I’m glad you’re
not
handsome,” she said. “Are we going to live out here?”

“I’d like to.”

“Some days like this, I loathe this country. It’s so gloomy and littered and raw-looking.”

“You’re forgetting those Chicago Januaries,” I said. “And that dirty south side and the stockyards and the wind off the lake.”

“I suppose. And Colonel McCormick.” She put her cigarette out in the ash tray, watching it as she asked, “Do you think of Brenda much?”

“I think of her. But I feel that I — didn’t kill her, now. I’m like the big boy, I think about Noodles more.”

“I think of Brenda,” she said.

“Well, don’t.”

She looked up. “Oh, not the way you think. I feel sorry for her. She was really trying to make it the hard way, wasn’t she?”

“All the ways are hard. We’d better find a cheerful movie.”

It wasn’t quite that, it was
A Streetcar Named Desire.
It was a fine job.

“But a long climb down from
Glass Menagerie,”
Sally thought.

“I liked it better,” I told her.

“You would. Rape, perversion, violence. That’s too easy.
Menagerie
had subtlety and tenderness and depth.
Menagerie
had craftsmanship. Any hack can write violence and sex.”

“I refuse to listen to your opinions when you won’t listen to mine,” I said. “Is there a motel near here?”

“You go to hell, Punchy. I thought I’d given you some discernment. I thought you were developing taste and balance and sensitivity.”

“I’m trying,” I told her, and took her hand. “But none of those will help me against Giani.”

“And neither will a motel. What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“We’ll just about make it by ten-thirty. Max will be waiting.”

“To hell with Max.”

“And Patsy Giani? To hell with him, too?”

“Yes. He doesn’t bother me.”

“Not
much,
he doesn’t. Let’s get home, Champion.”

Searchlights stabbing the sky, traffic moving on the wide streets, the Ford talking quietly to herself.

“Why,” Sally asked, “couldn’t you have been anything in the world but a fighter? You’ve some good stuff in you, Luke.”

“If I hadn’t been a fighter,” I pointed out reasonably, “I wouldn’t have known Max. I wouldn’t have gone to that party in Chicago and met you. So what difference would it have made to you what I was?”

“We’d have met,” she said.

“You don’t believe that. You’re too much of a realist.”

“Me? You’re the realist.”

“Not me,” I said. “I still believe in God.”

“I’ll bet. The crown, that’s your God, the title, the top of the ant heap.”

“Lay off,” I said.

Silence, and then her hand came over to grip my knee. “I do it with my tongue and you do it with your fists. It’s cleaner your way, isn’t it? It’s more dignified.”

“I love you,” I said, “disposition and all. Moods and attitudes and gray hair and fine figure and intellectual snobbery and underwear advertisements. Everything you do and are is exactly what I want. You can’t help trying to make me over; that’s the woman in you. I don’t mind.”

Nothing from her, her hand on my knee, no words of love from her; she wasn’t as sure as I was at the moment.

Off Sepulveda, a supermarket and the bakery sign, the blue windmill revolving. Sally’s grip tightened and relaxed.

Down to Olympic and Olympic through the tunnel, and out onto the Coast Highway. Black night, no stars in sight, no sound from Sally.

Tomorrow,
I thought,
I’ll plaster that Scarpa. I’ve got him figured now; I’ve got the rhythm of him. I’ll get to him.

Sally said, “I wish you could remember about Brenda.”

“You don’t wish it as much as I do.” I was stopped for the light at Sunset, and I looked over at her. Her profile was toward me, her gaze directed through the windshield.

She took her hand from my knee and reached into her purse for a cigarette. She lighted it. “That Harry Bevilaqua’s the key to the whole thing, isn’t he? He knows.”

“I think he does. Maybe he’s next.”

“And maybe he’s
it.
Maybe he’s the killer.”

“Maybe.”

“Of Brenda. And maybe Noodles, too. No, not Noodles.”

The light changed, and I moved out in low gear. “No, not Noodles. You can chalk that one up to Johnny.”

“I suppose. God, what a — thing he is.”

Nothing from me. A sign read:
Slide Area Drive With Caution.
A huge rock had fallen from the cliffs above the road here and crashed into a garage of one of the beach cottages. It had completely demolished the garage. If it had chanced to hit the cottage, instead, it would have done as much for the cottage. And the sleeping occupants.

Design? Chance?

“What are you thinking about?” Sally asked. “About that rock that fell the other day. Was it just chance it didn’t hit the house?”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know. I’m asking you. You’re the bright one.”

“It rained,” Sally said patiently. “The rain eroded the cliff. The rock was dislodged. It fell. There was a garage in the way. If you’re thinking of God, He didn’t build the house or garage. If you believe in Him, He could have put the rock there, and made it rain. He could have anticipated the people who were going to move there. But wouldn’t it be kind of stupid to believe He’d cause all the damage that rain caused to thousands of people, just to scare some family in Malibu with a rock that hit their garage?” She chuckled.

“Don’t make a federal case out of it,” I said. “I get the shivers, that’s all, when I think of that rock. When I think how all a man’s lifetime of planning can be smashed by a falling rock.”

“Or a falling plane,” Sally said, “or a falling star. Or even a falling arch, if you’re a mailman. You can’t be ready for
everything,
Luke.”

“I guess not. Giani, I can be ready for. I’d better concentrate on that”

“It’s more in your line. But
can
you be ready for him?”

“He can be hit. I hit pretty hard.”

“So does he, I hear.”

“Yes. Yes, indeed.”

Silence for almost a mile. We passed the seal tanks, the Topanga Road.

Then, as we turned into the winding driveway of the estate, Sally said, “But you
have
to fight him, don’t you? You couldn’t retire without fighting him, could you?”

“I have to fight him. You know it, and you know why.”

“I know why, but you don’t Oh, I’m not going to talk like that any more.”

The floodlight that illuminated the parking-area was on, and Tony Scarpa’s bleached and battered station wagon was parked there.

“He’s so smart and talented,” Sally said. “Why isn’t he rich?”

“Relax,” I said. “Tony’s made a mint, in his time. Maybe he doesn’t worship money.”

“But I do? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t want to fight,” I told her. “I’m saving all my fight for Patsy.”

Nothing from her. We walked along the parking-area to the lighted entryway, and I held the door for her, and she went through.

The boys were playing in the kitchen tonight. They all looked up and smiled, and Max said, “Good evening, love birds.”

I
COULDN’T GET TO SLEEP
that night. Too much had happened this past week. I felt crowded and edgy. Tomorrow was Sunday, and the scribes would be here, watching me work.

Why couldn’t Sally and I get along? Why did we have to scratch at each other all the time? From the direction of the living-room, I heard Tony laugh.

Tony could always laugh, broke as he was. Maybe being broke is one of the requirements for laughter. And knowing you’re good, knowing there isn’t a man in your division you couldn’t beat if you wanted to. And then not particularly wanting to.

I wondered how many deals Tony had made. And Charley? Charley had a rep as an honest fighter, but that Giani farce was too much to swallow.

I thought of Max, who’d been a happy man the past few years and was now getting more irritable by the minute. And Jest, with his soft, quiet poise. I thought of the soul-sick Ruth Gonzales, and I thought of Brenda Vane.

How many horizontal encounters had she had in that big bed with the maroon sheets? And in other beds and couches and davenports and parked cars and dark fields? For love or money, in loathing and ecstasy, in pain and peace. What she offered was a product constantly in demand, and she didn’t ask for a lifetime contract.

Fighting, they say, is a cruel trade. Being a woman can be a crueler one, both ways. Man and woman, that was the real battle of the century, of
any
century.

Which brought me back to Sally, which would bring no sleep.

Harry Bevilaqua, Paul D’Amico, Sergeant Sands and Sergeant Nolan, Johnny, the landlady, the hotel clerk, Vickie and Vera, George and Sam Wald, Michael Lord, and the dead Noodles. The seals and the windmills. The windmills, a pair of them, went around and around and around and around —

A bright room and lassitude and the sound of water. Even in the better California homes, you can always hear the water in the pipes. Maybe the pressure is too high, or the pipes too small, but you can always hear the water.

I heard Sally talking quietly to Max, right outside my door. “Why not let him sleep?”

“I’m awake,” I called. “I’ll be up and out pretty soon.”

Dopey, dead, weary. A warm shower and then cooler, but it didn’t help much. An ache in the knees, a tiredness in the shoulders, a defeat in the mind.

Fruit juice and milk and eggs. Tony and Charley gabbled; the rest of us were quiet.

Charley asked me, “You want us to pull ‘em, today, Luke? You want us to miss?”

“You won’t need to,” I said.

“We don’t want to make you look bad in front of the customers,” Tony said. “I hear some local pride is coming in for a couple rounds, too.”

I looked at Max.

“Royal Lincoln,” Max said.

A hitter, and a light-heavy, a Negro lad who could wallop.

“Kind of early for that, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Never too early to know,” Max said. “You can always sprain an ankle or something.”

“He’s way past his peak,” Charley said. “He’s out of shape.”

Scarpa chuckled. “Sure, and he hits like Max Baer used to. Don’t forget to duck, Luke. Or let Charley go with him.”

“He’d be too much for Charley,” I said. “And you, too, Tony. I’ll handle him.”

Tony chuckled again and shook his head. Charley’s face showed nothing.

It was the kind of day Sunday should be, clear and warm, and we drew a good crowd. I didn’t go up against Tony; just Charley and the black boy, Royal Lincoln. Charley opened the show.

He didn’t miss a trick, butting, thumbing, heeling me, clowning, clinching, switch hitting.

In the middle of the second, in the clinch, I told him, “Don’t get too cute, Charley.”

He put a shoulder into my chin, and shoved.

I found his right foot with my left, clamped it down, and slammed a hook in under the ribs. He started to crowd me, and I backed off and caught him with a clean right hand on the break.

A murmur went through the crowd, and the bell rang.

Jest was smiling, wiping off my face. Max was over talking to Charley.

“Charley must have gone crazy,” I said. “What’s his angle?”

Jest said quietly, “D’Amico’s out there. Maybe Max wants to show him we’re ready for anything.”

“The less we show D’Amico, the better,” I said.

Jest shrugged, toweling my shoulders, the back of my neck, my chest. I turned to look over the crowd.

Two rows deep all around the ring, and some standing in small groups farther out. One group of two seemed to be apart from the others in more ways than one; Paul D’Amico and his silent partner, Johnny.

For a second, our eyes met, and D’Amico smiled. He made no gesture, but the smile was smug enough to tell me he wasn’t worried about a thing. This was another in the D’Amico bag.

Then Charley was coming across toward me, and grinning, and I felt cold and steady and calloused.

It was a dull round, a round of reflexes and counter-punching, a tired replay of a melody we’d worn thin through the years.

Under the eucalyptus tree, Royal Lincoln waited patiently.

He looked slow. He kept moving, though, hitting from a fairly square stance, erect and flat-footed. His right was carried high, but wide of his chin; the two early times he threw it, I could see it coming as slow as a balloon.

The third time, he almost knocked off my headguard.

I went into the ropes, and felt it again, an overhand right, a sucker punch. Had my eyes gone bad?

I could hear the murmur in the crowd through the buzzing in my ears. I could feel his bulk crowding me into a corner, and I put my hands inside, and burned my back on the ropes, trying to slide out.

He clubbed me again, and the redness came, and I poured leather like a Golden Glover, as he covered, riding it out.

The crowd was noisy, now, a fight crowd, and I’d driven Lincoln to the center of the ring. I was hitting him with both hands, but no place where it would hurt. He was covered; he didn’t open up to strike back.

The rest of it was dull. The rest of it looked like Royal was under orders.

The scribes wanted to know about that overhand right; how much had it hurt?

“Plenty,” I said. “Royal can hit.” Local boy.

“Not like Giani,” one of them said.

“Don’t talk like a tourist,” I told him. “Royal’s always been one of the heaviest hitters in the business.”

Some laughs. Except for a reporter from the
L. A. Times.

It wasn’t funny to him. He said stiffly, “I’ve heard Royal described as the heaviest hitter of all time.”

“So have I,” the other said, “but only in your column.”

Laughs.

Chinning with the crowd, making with the good will, building the gate. Fun in the afternoon sun, but the sun went down after a while, and they left, and it got cold.

“You sure stunk,” Max said. “What the hell is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The murders, I suppose.”

“D’Amico starting to scare you?”

“Hell, no!” Why the “hell,” why so emphatic? Was he?

“You’re getting to be a regular gentleman,” Max said. “Even when you foul, you do it in a nice, clean way. Sally’s made a gentleman out of you.”

“Maybe. Don’t worry about it, Max. The worse I look, the more D’Amico will bet. The more he bets, the more he’ll get hurt. And that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Gawd,” Max said. “He ain’t going to be hurt at all, the way you’re going. But you are, bad.”

“I’ll be hurt,” I agreed, “but I’m not going to lose, even if I have to carry an ax in there with me.”

“You can’t carry an ax,” Max said. “That’s the hell of it.”

A hundred and sixty million people in this country and only I believed in me.

After supper the pinochle game started, and Sally and I sat in the big kitchen, playing canasta. Five minutes of that and she threw her cards, face up, on the table.

“Let’s go to the
Hoot Owl Club.”

“Why? What can we learn there?”

“I want to talk to Ruth. She’ll talk to me. She needs a friend, the way she must be feeling.”

“She’s got one,” I said, “Harry the horse.”

“I want to talk to him, too.”

“Sally,” I said patiently, “he’s nobody to talk to, right now. And Ruth probably isn’t, either.”

“I’ll go alone, then,” she said. She stood up. “I want to know, Luke. All you care about is the title, but I want to know about that night.”

“All right,” I said. “God damn it,
all right!”

She drove; she handled all of it. She told Max we were just going over to see some friends in Santa Monica, and she drove the car.

A damn-fool idea and I rode next to her in silence. Wisps of fog drifted over the highway from the beach side; the headlights of approaching cars were haloed by it.

Lincoln Boulevard was jammed with coming-home traffic, but was reasonably clear on our side. Not a word from either of us on the entire trip.

When we parked in the small parking-lot, we could hear the juke box going inside, and the sound of Harry’s laugh. He must be feeling better.

The place was doing a business. Workingmen in their bright Sunday sport shirts and part-rayon slacks. Workingmen and their girls and wives. At the far end of the bar, Ruth Gonzales was sitting in front of a beer.

And next to a man, a small man with black, shiny hair and a garish sport shirt and an “Oh, yeah?” sort of look.

Her eyes met mine, then Sally’s, and went back to the beer in front of her. Shamed, had she looked?

We crowded in at a spot not too far from them, and Harry came down to serve us.

His face blank. “What’ll it be, folks?”

“A smile,” Sally said. “When did you stop smiling, Harry?”

“When Noodles died. What’ll it be, folks?” I said, “You’re judging us awful God-damned quick, Harry.”

Next to me, a man said, “Hey, mister, there’s ladies present.”

“That’s right,” Harry said. “You owe the man an apology, Luke.”

Redness in the mind, tremble in the hands. Sally’s grip digging into my forearm. “He’s right, Luke. You do owe the man an apology.”

I turned to him and said, “I’m sorry. I apologize to both of you.”

Beyond him, the woman he was with looked straight ahead, miffed. A heavy woman, heavily made up, her face blank in cheap pseudo-dignity.

Harry said, “That’s better.”

The man mumbled something and turned away.

Sally said, “I guess we shouldn’t have come. Harry’s the kind of moron who hates a fact.” She took a breath. “Let’s go, Luke.”

“I’m here now,” I said, “and Harry owes us more than silence.”

The man next to me said, “Easy, mister. Let me warn you, fair, that big boy used to be murder in a ring.”

“I know,” I said. “I saw him murdered. I’ll take a glass of milk, Harry. I don’t know what Sally wants.”

“A glass of beer,” Sally said. “Eastern beer.”

“You’ll have to buy a bottle. I ain’t got Eastern beer on tap.”

“I can swing it,” she said. “You know Luke had nothing to do with what happened to Noodles, Harry. You aren’t so clean, yourself.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. He turned to me. “I talked to Krueger yesterday. He got bounced, didn’t he? Why?”

“How do I know? Sam Wald’s the new manager. You tell me why. You’re the man with answers.”

“Krueger says it’s a job, a job to end all jobs. He said millions are going to be bet on Giani. He said it’s arranged all the way around. That puts you in the wrong kind of company for me.”

“This place clear, Harry?” I asked him.

“Clear enough. Why?”

“You want to bet it against my end of the purse? You never had better odds. You can even keep the owl, for luck.”

For seconds, he said nothing. “You’re leveling, Champ?”

“Name me
one
time when I didn’t.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s right. Yes. Yes.” He clicked his teeth. “I’ll get the drinks.”

The man next to me said, “Champ? Luke? Are you Luke Pilgrim?”

“That’s right.”

Nothing more from him. Harry came with a bottle of Milwaukee beer and a carton of milk and two glasses.

He set them down in front of us. “We all know who killed Noodles, don’t we? Even the cops know.”

“Johnny.”

“Sure, and I thought you were working with those boys now. The way Krueger talked — ”

“In a corner,” I said, “very few guys know more than Dutch Krueger. Outside of his corner, I’m surprised he knows enough to find his way home.”

“I guess. That’s right, I guess. That’s what they all say. But that Johnny, and what can we do about it? Even the cops can’t do anything about it.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to kill him.”

“That wouldn’t bring Noodles back. Get all the Giani money you can handle, Harry. You can buy a new owl, a platinum one.”

“Oh, Champ,” he said. “Jesus, Champ, maybe it’s the way you feel, but — Oh, hell, it’s the way I felt before the Burke fight, too.”

“Hey, mister,” Sally said, “there’s ladies present.”

Harry started to chuckle, and then he threw back his head, and the laugh came. On his perch, the owl shivered, and the blaring juke box seemed to whisper.

At the end of the bar, Ruth Gonzales watched him, and then she looked our way, and her gaze went to Sally, and she smiled.

The man next to us and his heavy-faced woman climbed off their stools, and Sally beckoned to Ruth. She came over, bringing the patent-leather kid along.

He was a jockey. His name was Ralph. He’d won eight in the last two days, out of eleven rides. He was hot.

Sally waited until he went to the growler to tell Ruth, “He’s cute.”

“He’s all right,” Ruth said. “He’s no Noodles.” Her voice was shaky. “They — the law, they still think I — had something to do with what happened.”

“Have you any idea how it happened, Ruth?”

She shook her head. “I know he — knew something about the murder of that Brenda Vane.” She lowered her voice, and looked down toward where Harry was serving someone else. “And Harry does, too, I’m almost sure. But if he doesn’t want to talk about it, I suppose I shouldn’t.”

“I wish you would talk about it, Ruth,” Sally said gently.

Ruth shook her head. “I like both you kids. But Harry’s my best friend in the world, and with him it’s clean.”