The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (44 page)

We got our instructions, and both men stared down at the canvas. I whispered a few last-minute instructions to the kid, tossed his robe and towel to a second, then dropped down beside the ring. Morgan was standing up there, all alone now. He had it all ahead of him in the loneliest place in the world. Across the ring the champ was sucking at his mouthpiece, and dancing lightly on his toes. When the bell sounded you could hear it ring out over the whole crowd, and then those guys were moving in on each other.

Did you ever notice how small those gloves look at a time like that? How that dull red leather seems barely to cover their big hands? I did, and I saw the kid moving out, his fists ready. They tried lefts, and both landed lightly. The kid tried another. He was still nervous. I could see that. The champ stepped away from it, looking him over. Then he feinted, but the kid stepped back. He wasn’t fooled. The champ moved in, and the crowd watched like they were in a trance. They all knew something was going to happen. They had a hunch, but they weren’t hurrying it.

Suddenly, the champ stepped in fast, and his left raked the kid’s eye, and a short, wicked right drummed against the kid’s ribs. The champ bored in, slamming both hands to the head, then drilled a right to the body. The kid jabbed and walked around him, taking a hard right. The champ landed another right. He was confident, but taking his time.

The kid jabbed twice, fast. One left flickered against the champ’s eye, the other went into his mouth—hard. The champ slipped under another left and slammed a wicked right to the ribs and I saw the kid’s mouth come open.

Then the champ was really working. He drilled both hands to the body, straightened up and let the kid have a left hook on the chin. The kid’s head rolled with the punch and Morgan jarred the champ with a short right. They were sparring in mid-ring at the bell.

The second opened with the champ slipping a left and I could see the gleam of grease on his cheekbones as he came in close. A sharp left jab stabbed Morgan twice in the mouth, and he stepped away with a trickle of blood showing. The champ came in again, jabbed, and the kid crossed a right over the jab that knocked the champ back on his heels.

Like a tiger the kid tore in, hooking both hands to the body. A hard right drove the champ into a neutral corner, and the two of them swapped it out there, punching like demons, their faces set and bloody. When they broke, I saw both were bleeding, the champ from an eye, and the kid from the mouth.

They met in mid-ring for the third and started to swap it out, neither of them taking a back step. Then the champ straightened up, and his right came whistling down the groove. Instinctively, I ducked—but the kid didn’t.

Then I was hanging on to the edge of the ring and praying or swearing or something and the kid was lying out there on the canvas, as still as the dead. I was wishing he never saw a ring when the referee said four, and the kid gathered his knees under him. Then the referee said five and the kid got one foot on the floor. At six he was trying to get up and couldn’t make it. At eight, he did, and then the champ came out to wind it all up.

Behind me someone said, “There he goes!” and then Kip wavered somehow and managed to slip the left, and before the right cross landed he was in a clinch. The champ pounded the kid’s ribs in close, but when they broke the kid came back fast with a hard left hook, then another, and another and another!

The champ was staggering! Kip walked in, slammed a hard right to the head and took a wicked one in return. I saw a bloody streak where the champ’s mouth should be, and the kid jerked a short left hook to the chin, and whipped up a steaming right uppercut that snapped the champ’s head back.

Morgan kept boring in, his lips drawn in a thin line. All the sleepiness was gone from the champ. Morgan stabbed a left and then crossed a right that caught the champ flush on the nose as he came in. Out behind me the crowd was a thundering roar, and the kid was weaving and hooking, slamming punch after punch to the champion’s head and body, but taking a wicked battering in return.

Somewhere a bell rang, and they were still fighting when the seconds rushed in to drag them back to their corners.

The kid was hot. He wouldn’t sit down. He stood there, shaking his seconds off, swaying on his feet from side to side, his hands working and his feet shuffling. I was seeing something I never saw before, for if ever fighting instinct had a man, it had Kip Morgan.

When the bell rang I saw the champ come off his stool and trot to the center of the ring, and then the kid cut loose with a sweeping right that sent him crashing into the ropes. Before he could get off them, the kid was in there pounding away with both hands in a blur of punches that no man could evade or hope to stem.

Kendall whipped a right to the kid’s body, but he might as well have slugged the side of a boiler, for the kid never slowed up. The champion was whipped, and he knew it. You could see in his face there was only one thing he wanted, and that was out of there. But he clinched and hung on, his eyes glazed, his face a bloody mask, his mouth hanging open as he gasped for breath.

When the bell rang for the fifth, not a man in the house could speak above a whisper. Worn and battered by the fury of watching the fight, they sat numb and staring as the kid walked out there, his face set, his hands ready. There was nothing of the killing fury about him now, and he moved in like a machine, that left stabbing, stabbing, stabbing.

The champ gamely tried to fight back, throwing a hard right that lost itself on air. Then a left set him back on his heels, and as he reversed desperately to regain his balance, the kid stepped back, coolly letting him recover. Then his right shot out and the champion came facedown to the blood-smeared canvas—out cold!

Mister, that was a fight.

Race cornered me first thing.

“Give, Finny,” he said, all excited. “What did you do to the kid?”

I smiled.

“Nothing much, Race. I only used the same method Stig Martin used. With Doc’s help, we doped him that night, kept repeating over and over that he’d win the fight, that it was surefire for him! The next day he was all pepped up! The Doc and I worked on him after that, putting him into the right kind of physical shape. So how could you stop him in the ring tonight?”

“What a story!” breathed Race. “What a—”

“What a nothing!” I snapped. “No more stories from you, Race Malone. The dream fighter business is going to be all over, anyhow, Race. I’m going to tell Morgan just what happened to him! How long do you think he’s going to believe in this dream business after that?

“I’ll bet you ten to one it’ll knock his dreams out of the ring!”

Corpse on the Carpet

S
he was sitting just around the curve of the bar, a gorgeous package of a girl, all done up in a gray tailored suit. The hand that held the glass gave a blinding flash and when I could see again, I got a gander at an emerald-cut diamond that would have gone three carats in anybody’s bargain basement. Yet when she turned toward me, I could see the pin she wore made the ring look cheap.

No babe with that much ice has any business dropping into a bar like the Casino. Not that I’m knocking it, for the Casino is a nice place where everybody knows everybody else and a lot of interesting people drop in. But those rocks were about three blocks too far south, if you get what I mean.

At the Biltmore, okay. At the Ambassador, all right. But once in a while some tough Joes drop in here. Guys that wouldn’t be above lifting a girl’s knickknacks. Even from a fence there was a winter in Florida in those rocks.

It was then I noticed the big guy further along the bar. He had a neck that spread out from his ears and a wide, flat face. His hands were thick and powerful. And I could see he was keeping an eye on the babe with the ice, but without seeming to.

This was no pug, and no “wrassler.” Once you’ve been in the trade, you can spot them a mile off. This guy was just big and powerful. In a brawl, he would be plenty mean and no average Joe had any business buying any chips when he was dealing.

“Babe,” I said, to myself, “you’re lined up at the wrong rail. You better get out of here—fast!”

She shows no signs of moving, so I am just about to move in—just to protect the ice, of course—when a slim, nice-looking lad beats me to it.

H
E’S TALL
and good-looking, but strictly from the cradle, if you know what I mean. He’s been wearing long pants for some twenty-odd years, but he’s been living at home or going to school and while he figures he’s a smart lad, he doesn’t know what cooks. When I take a gander at Blubber Puss, which is how I’m beginning to think about the big guy, I can see where this boy is due to start learning, the hard way.

Me? I’m Kip Morgan, nobody in particular. I came into this bar because it was handy and because there was an Irish bartender with whom I talked fights and football. Like I say, I’m nobody in particular, but I’ve been around.

This nice lad who’s moving in on the girl hasn’t cut his teeth on the raw edges of life yet. The babe looks like the McCoy. She’s got a shape to whistle at and a pair of eyes that would set Tiffany back on his heels. She’s stiff with the boy at first, then she unbends. She won’t let him buy her a drink, but she does talk to him. She’s nervous, I can see that. She knows the big lug with the whale mouth is watching her.

All of a sudden, they get up and the boy helps her on with her coat, then slides into his own. They go out, and I am taking a swallow of bourbon when Blubber Puss slides off his stool and heads toward the door.

“Bud,” I tell myself, “you’re well out of this.”

Then I figure, what the devil? That rabbit is no protection for a job like that, and Blubber Puss won’t play pretty. Also, I have always had confidence in what my left can do to thick lips.

They walk about a block and take a cab. There’s another one standing by, and the big Joe slides into it. I am just about to figure I’m out of it when another cab slides up. I crawl in.

“Follow those cabs, chum,” I say to the cabbie.

He takes a gander at me. “What do you think this is—a movie?”

“If it was, you wouldn’t be here,” I tell him. “Stick with them and I’ll make it worth your while.”

We’ve gone about ten blocks when something funny happens. The cab the Blubber is in pulls up and passes the other one, going on over the rise ahead of us. While I am still tailing the babe and her guy, and trying to figure that one, I see his cab coming back, and Blubber isn’t in it.

Then, we go over the rise ourselves and I see the girl’s cab pulling up at the curb near a narrow street. They get out, and we slide past and pull in at the curb. Their side of the street is light, mine is dark, so I know what to do.

The cabbie takes his payoff, and I slip him a two-dollar tip. He looks at it and sneers.

“I thought they always slipped you a five and said keep the change.”

I look at him cold. I mean, I chill him. “What do you think this is—the movies?”

The cab slides away and I go around the corner into the same narrow street where the babe and her guy are going, but I’m still on the dark side and there is a row of parked cars along the curb.

It doesn’t figure right. If Blubber goes on ahead, that can only mean he knows where the babe and her guy are going. If that is true, that figures Blubber and the girl are working it together. That means mama’s boy is headed for the cleaners.

Only the doll doesn’t fit. She doesn’t look the type. There is more in this, as the guy said eating the grapefruit, than meets the eye.

The babe has pulled up in front of the side entrance of an apartment house and is trying to give her young Lothario the brush. He is polite, but insistent. Then the big lug steps from the shadows and moves up behind the kid.

When he starts moving, I start. The big guy has a blackjack and he lifts it.

I yell, “Look out!”

The kid wheels around, his mouth open, and Blubber Puss turns on me with a snarl. Get that? A snarl. The big ape will have it for days, I figure. When he turned, I plastered it right into his teeth, then fired another into the big guy’s digestion.

You know what happened?

Nothing.

It was like slugging the side of a building. That stomach, which I figured would be a soft touch, was hard as nails. I’d thrown my Sunday punch and all I got was rebound.

Now brother, if I nail them with my right and they don’t go down, they do some funny things standing up—usually. This big guy took it standing and threw a left that shook me to my socks. Then, he moves in with the blackjack.

The kid starts for him then, but—accidentally, or otherwise—the girl’s dainty ankle is there and the kid spills over it onto the sidewalk. I blocked the blackjack with my left forearm and then made a fist and chopped it down to the big lug’s eye. I was wearing kid gloves, and they cut to the bone.

Before he can get himself set, I let him have them both in the digestion again. No sale. He tried the blackjack and we circled. I stabbed him with a left, then another. He ducked his head and lunged for me. I caught him by the hair and jerked his face down and my knee up.

When I let go, he staggered back, his nose so flat he had no more profile than a blank check. He was blood all over, and I never saw him look so good. I set myself then and let him have both barrels, right from the hip, and my right smashed his jaw back until his chin almost caught behind his collar-button.

He went down. I’d a good notion to put the boots to him, but I always hate to kick a man in the face when there’s a lady around. Doesn’t seem gentlemanly, somehow.

I rolled him over on the pavement and he was colder than a pawnbroker’s heart. I turned around. The kid is standing there, but the babe has taken a powder.

“Listen,” he said, “thanks awfully. But where did she go?”

“Pal,” I said, “why don’t you let well enough alone? Don’t you realize that the doll brought you here for a trimming?”

“Oh, no.” He looked offended. “She wouldn’t do that. She was a nice girl.”

“Buddy, I tailed you and the girl out of the bar because I saw this big mug watching you. Until this guy passed your cab and went ahead, I figured he was after the girl’s ice. But he came here, and that could only mean he knew where she was going.”

“Oh, no. I don’t believe that,” he said. “Not for a minute.”

“Okay,” I answered. “Better scram out of here before the cops come nosing around.”

He scrammed. Me, I am a curious guy. The big potato was still bye-bye, so I gave him a frisk. He was packing a gun, which he might have used if I’d given him time. It was a snub-nosed .38. I pocketed the weapon, then found what I wanted. It was a driver’s license made out to Buckley Dozen.

Well, Buckley was coming out of his dozen, so I turned away. Then, I saw the diamond pin.

Somehow, the doll had dropped it. Probably when her ankle had tripped the kid. I lifted it off the pavement, went around the corner, and made a half block walking fast. A moment later a cab came streaking by, and Buckley Dozen was in it. But he didn’t see me.

F
OR A COUPLE
of days after that I was busy. Several times I looked at that ice. I figured no dame like that would be wearing anything nearly as good as this looked, so decided it must be glass, or paste. Then I dropped in at the Casino Bar and Emery, the bartender, motioned me over.

“Say, there was a guy in here looking for you. Nice-lookin’ kid.”

His description fitted the youngster who’d been with the girl.

“Probably figured things out,” I said, “and wants to buy me a drink.”

“No, it wasn’t that. He looked serious, and was awful anxious to see you. He left this address here.”

I took the visiting card he handed me, noted the address at a nice apartment away up on Wilshire, and the name Randolph Seagram.

That made me think of the pin again, so on a hunch, I left the bar and started up the street. There was a fancy jewelry store in Beverly Hills, just west past Crescent Heights and Doheny but a million miles away. I went there first, taking a gander at the stuff in the window. Glass or not, this pin in my pocket made the rest of that stuff look like junk. Walking around to the door, I went in.

T
HE FLOOR WAS
so polished, I hated to walk on it and everything seemed to be glass and silver.

A clerk walked toward me who looked as if he might consider speaking to either the Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts and asked what he could do for me. I think he figured on taking a pair of tongs and dropping me outside.

“Just give me a quick take on this,” I said, handing him the pin, “and tell me what it’s worth.”

He took a look and his eyes opened like he was looking at this great big beautiful world for the first time. Then, he screws a little business into his eye and looks the pin over.

When he looked up, dropping his glass into his hand, he was mingling extreme politeness and growing suspicion in about equal quantities.

“Roughly, twenty thousand dollars,” he said.

T
HE NIGHT BEFORE
, I’d been in a poker game and my coat had hung on a hook alongside of a dozen others, with all that ice loose in my pocket! I took it standing.

“I’d like to speak to the manager,” I said quickly.

The manager was a tall, cool specimen with gray hair along his temples and looked like he might at least be Count von Roughpants or something.

“Listen,” I said, “and while I’m talking, take a gander at this.” I dropped the ice on the table.

He looked at it, and when he looked up at me, I knew he was thinking of calling the cops.

“I’m not going to tell you how I got this,” I said. “I think maybe the party that owns it is in trouble. I don’t have any way of finding out where the party to whom it belongs is—unless you can help me. Isn’t it true that pins like this are scarce?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I would say very rare. In fact, I believe this to be a special design, made to order for someone.”

“All right. I want you to make some discreet inquiries. Find out the name of the person it belongs to and where they live. I don’t want anybody to know why we’re asking. This party may have some relatives or friends who would be worried. When I find out who, what, and why, then I’ll know what to do.”

“You have some idea to whom it belongs?” he asked.

“I think so. I hope to find out for sure. Meanwhile, do this for me. Take down an accurate description of this pin, then my name and description.” I could see the suspicion fading from his eyes. “Then if anything goes haywire, I’ll be in the clear.”

“And the stone?” he asked.

“I’ll see it gets to a safe place.”

Leaving the store, I turned into a five-and-dime and after picking up a box several times larger than the pin would need, I wadded the pin in paper, stuffed it in the box, and then had the box wrapped by their wrapping service. Then I addressed it to myself and dropped it in a mailbox.

Emery, the Casino bartender, had said the kid was worried. He might have something.

I caught a cab and gave the address that was on the visiting card the kid had left for me.

None of this was my business. Yet I could not leave it alone. The girl had measured up to be the right sort, yet somehow she was tied up with Blubber Puss, who was a wrong G from any angle.

No girl wears jewelry like that when she’s willingly working with a strong-arm guy. There was something that smelled in this deal, and I meant to find out what.

The kid lived in a swank apartment. I stopped at the desk and when the lad turned around I said, “Which apartment is Mr. Seagram in?”

He looked at me coolly. “He lives in C-three, but I don’t believe he’s in. His office has been calling and hasn’t gotten an answer.”