Bluff City Brawler (Fight Card) Read online

It had been too long since I’d been in a bar. The place felt dank and uncomfortable to me, especially when every head turned in my direction.

  One of the broads, an older lady with hard creases around her mouth and eyes already swimming in their sockets, perked up a little. One corner of her mouth knifed up, and she growled, “Well, hello, big man.”

  I nodded and bee-lined for a stool as far away from her as possible. Yeah, it had been a little while since I’d had a woman, but I wasn’t that desperate. I ordered a beer, and the bartender served it up.

  Setting the glass in front of me, he said, “I know you, don’t I? Your face, it’s familiar.”

  “I don’t think so, mister.”

  “The bandage,” he said. “If it weren’t for the bandage on your nose, I could place you. What happened?”

  I touched the bandage self-consciously. “Bum head-butted me,” I said. “The ref didn’t see it.”

  The bartender’s face lit up and he snapped his fingers. “That’s it! You’re that fighter, whatshisname, Riley, right? Tom Riley.”

  “Guilty,” I said, grinning.

  No lie, it’s nice to be recognized sometimes. I could see how, if it happened all the time it could get annoying or embarrassing, but it’s not like it happened to me on a regular basis or anything. I was no celebrity, not even locally, so if anyone recognized me it could only mean they were a serious fight fan.

  The bartender motioned to one of the drunks farther down the bar. “Hey, Billy, this is that fighter I was telling you about, the Mick I saw a couple weeks ago take down Tyrone Jones at the Athletic Club. ‘Member I was telling you?”

  “Yeah,” Billy said, and went back to his whiskey.

  “I don’t mind telling you,” the bartender said, “you got the goods, Mr. Riley. That was a class fight that night.”

  I said thanks, and he slapped a hand on the bar. “The beer’s on the house.”

  “Well,” I said, raising the glass at him. “That don’t hurt my feelings.”

  I had a nice long sip and let me tell you, that beer tasted awful good going down.

  ***

  And yes, the second one tasted good too. So did the third and fourth.

  By the fifth beer, though, I wasn’t really tasting them anymore. Over the course of the night, more people rolled into the bar and the bartender made a point of introducing me to all his regulars. Most of those regulars didn’t know me from Adam, but a lot of them still liked the fights and so buying the Mick boxer a beer became the trend of the evening. For all the gloom and doom of the joint when I’d first arrived, it was a regular party stop a couple hours later.

  The hard-looking broad who’d given me the willies earlier was now on my arm, pushed up against me, braying at every stupid joke I made. I was surrounded by brand new friends.

  “And then you know what that Greek bastard done?” I was saying in a loud voice. “He got me in a clinch is what he done. And then he head… head-butted me. Right inna nose.”

  My new friends made sounds of sympathy. The woman on my arm said, “The dirty fink!”

  I nodded. “That’s what I said! But the ref didn’t even see it. And then Hugh, acting like it was my fault and all.”

  No one bothered to ask who Hugh was. They just drank and clapped me on the shoulders and bought me another round.

  Like I said, I was never a big drinker. At twenty-four years old, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been toes-up, and all of them had been before I was nineteen. For all my training in the ring, I had a surprisingly low tolerance for alcohol.

  But I wasn’t thinking about any of that at the time. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was having a grand old time, making new friends, regaling them with stories of past fights—with more than a few embellishments.

  At one point, the woman on my arm leaned over and said, “What say we get out of here, doll?”

  I looked at her and thought she looked just fine. I said, “Why not?” and started to push back my stool to get up.

  Someone said, “Tom Riley, the stupid goddamn Mick fighter from Chicago.”

  I turned around to see a slim, dark-complexioned fella in a three piece suit and a pork pie hat staring me down. Even in my goggle-eyed state, I could tell he was looking for trouble.

  Feeling too good to get wrapped up in it, I said, “That’s stupid goddamn Mick fighter from Springfield, originally. I didn’t hit Chicago until I was ten years old.”

  The guy said, “I don’t care if you were originally from Timbuktu. You’re a lousy stumble-bum who cost me four hundred bucks.”

  The bar went silent and I could only frown at him. He was a good head shorter than me, and about as wide as a stiletto blade. Even soused, I could wipe the floor with him, so I could only figure he was either nuts or suicidal.

  I said, “Let me guess. You bet on a fight and it didn’t come out your way. Yeah? Well, that’s the bane of gambling, friend. Sometimes you gotta lose.”

  He said, “I bet four hundred bucks on you tonight, you lousy Mick, because any jack-ass could see you were the better choice. I know Titus Stavros, and I know he went into that bout half-cocked. He shouldn’t have won.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

  All my new friends started fading away, back to their own stools, or to booths. A couple of them left the bar in a hurry. The hard-faced woman on my arm vamoosed to the ladies room.

  The little guy said, “But you, prancing around like a sissy, playing like it’s some stupid game. You could’a beat him but no. You had to get stupid. And now I’m out four hundred clams.”

  I laughed. “Sorry, mack. That’s what happens sometimes.”

  His dark narrow face scrunched up like someone had taken a pair of invisible pliers to his jaw. He spat, “You laughing at me, stumble-bum?”

  “Look,” I said. “Lemme buy you a beer, huh? Sorry I let you down tonight. It wasn’t my finest hour.”

  “Buy me a beer? I lost four hundred bucks and you wanna buy me a beer?”

  The bartender leaned over and hissed at me, “Riley. Listen, you should get out of here. That’s—“

  He didn’t get to finish. The little guy said, in a louder voice, “Buy me a beer! I got a better idea. I’m gonna take that four hundred out of your hide. How about that?”

  His slim hand ducked into his coat and came out holding a stiletto.

  I put up my hands. “Hey, hey. Take it easy, buddy. Someone’s gonna get hurt.” The cobwebs in my head started clearing then, damn fast. “Just put the knife away, all right?”

  He lunged at me with the knife and I backed up two steps, almost stumbled over my bar stool. I said again, “Put the knife away, pal,” but he wasn’t listening. His face was twisted with rage.

  I couldn’t get into this with him. As a fighter, I had to follow pretty strict rules about brawling outside the ring and all. But the guy had a knife, for God’s sake. Rules were rules, but I couldn’t just let him stab me, could I?

  He came at me again, jabbing low toward my gut with the blade, and my fingers shot out and latched onto his wrist. I twisted his arm around, trying to bring him to his knees.

  That’s when he did something I didn’t expect. He went down of his own accord, crouching under the pressure I put on his arm. The knife sprang out of his right hand and into his left.

  It was the move of a seasoned knife pro, a guy who knew how to handle someone bigger and stronger than him. Really, if my life hadn’t been in such immediate danger I might have admired his skills.

  With the knife now in his left hand, he slashed out with it and the blade got me in the leg, ripping my pants leg open and cutting a shallow gash in my thigh. Even with who-knew-how-many beers in me, it hurt. I gritted my teeth, jerked his arm hard, yanking him up to his feet.

  He tried to pull back and jab the knife in my face at the same time. His little pork-pie hat went flying across the bar. I caught his left wrist, let go of his right, and punched him hard in the nose.

>   The fight evaporated right out of him then. His knife clattered to the floor, a stupid blank look fell across his face, and, eyes still open, he dropped.

  The bartender said, “Jesus!” and I glanced over at him. His face was bloodless, his eyes wide. “You know who that is?”

  I took a deep, steadying breath. “Yeah. Some crazy little creep with a knife.”

  He shook his head. “Riley, that’s Wheels Meyer.”

  My throat went dry and I looked down at the little man on the floor, feeling the bottom drop out of my stomach. Wheels Meyer.

  Well, damn.

  He wasn’t exactly top man in Abe Kardinsky’s crew, not by a long shot. But he was big enough, important enough. Even third-rate fighters like me had heard of him. I didn’t know exactly what he did for Kardinsky, and I didn’t care to know. They called him Wheels because he owned a fleet of expensive cars he kept in a showcase garage up in Bloomfield Township.

  His name was a familiar one in the fight circuit. He wasn’t directly involved, but he liked to drop money on important fights. I’d never actually laid eyes on him before; no one could say any of my fights were important enough to warrant the interest of someone like Wheels Meyer.

  But here he was, knocked out on the floor after trying to knife me.

  Most of the patrons had beaten a pretty hasty retreat already, but the few that were still there stood around with stricken faces. I stared down at Meyer, and the bartender came rushing around to check on him. While I sat down on a stool, the bartender checked the pulse in Meyer’s wrist, and then his neck. He slapped Meyer lightly across the face a couple times, and then leaned over to put his ear against the mobster’s chest.

  Getting my breathing back under control, I said, “How’s he doing?”

  The bartender looked up at me. “Riley,” he said. “You’d better get out of here, pal.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because he’s dead, Riley. You killed him.”

  ROUND 4

  When you’re a fighter, you tend to deal with trouble the same way out of the ring as you do in the ring. What Father Tim always told me, back at St. Vincent’s, and what Hugh would sometimes say, although with less eloquence: it’s a weird combo of clear thinking and the instinct that comes with training.

  You bob and weave, you know? You look for an opening. You keep moving.

  So that’s what I did.

  I had not only killed a man. I’d killed a connected gangster. I was scared, yeah, but I was thinking too.

  The bartender would have to call the cops, no two ways about it. And how would that play out?

  They would arrest me. Okay, I could live with that. The witnesses would testify Meyer came at me with a knife and I was only defending myself. The fact I was a boxer would complicate things, but in the end I had enough faith in the justice system to believe that I wouldn’t be convicted.

  Except for the fact this wasn’t just anybody. This was Wheels Meyer.

  I had no reason to think the cops in Detroit were bad, or on Abe Kardinsky’s payroll, but I really didn’t know. It was possible, wasn’t it? What if I turned myself in and the cops let Kardinsky get to me?

  All of those thoughts went through my head in a fraction of an instant, and next thing I knew I was beating it out of the bar. No one tried to stop me.

  The street was quiet and dark, not a soul around. There was a light wind, and trash skipped and skittered up the sidewalk. My apartment building was right next door, so I quickly headed over.

  The landlady was one of those old biddy types who liked to hang around near her door to keep track of all the comings and goings of her tenants. I saw her yellowy eye peeking at me from the door crack as I hurried past and headed up the stairs. I pretended not to see her, and heard her door clicking shut.

  I hurried into my second floor apartment, shut the door behind me, snapped on the floor lamp by the door. It was a small place, a little dingy if you want to know the truth. Just a bed and a couple chairs and a small kitchenette. The bathroom I shared with three other fellas was just down the hall.

  I went to the closet, pulled out my old suitcase and started throwing clothes in. It took maybe a minute to get packed. I stood there for another minute after that, thinking, That’s it? That’s all I have to pack? The idea was sort of depressing, that everything I owned outright could be thrown into a suitcase in about a minute.

  But my sense of urgency wouldn’t let me mope about it too long. Granted, Kardinsky’s men very likely wouldn’t be coming for me any time soon—if they even came for me at all. Was I being paranoid? Was I making a big deal out of nothing? Maybe Kardinsky wouldn’t give a damn about Wheels Meyer.

  But my gut was telling me I had to clear out, and the sooner the better.

  I started for the door, but stopped with my hand on the knob.

  Where the hell was I going to go?

  Back to Chicago, maybe? No. If they came after me that would be the first place they’d look. I had roots there. Maybe out west or something. I’d never been west of the Mississippi River, so that might work.

  Hell, I thought. I’d just wing it. Get to the bus station, hop on whatever ride was heading out soonest.

  I was back out on the street and heading for the bus station before I even thought about Hugh, and that made me stop in my tracks.

  I had to see him. I couldn’t just skip out and not let him know what had happened. I owed him that much. Hell, I owed him more than that.

  So okay. A side-trip to Hugh’s place at the gym.

  ***

  There wasn’t a cab in the entire world that time of night, so I wound up walking the four miles to the gym. Not a problem, normally. I usually walked it. But lugging the suitcase around made it seem much longer, and my mounting sense of paranoia didn’t help. Every car that passed on the street, every headlight that skittered over me as I walked, made me cringe and shrink away from an imaginary hail of bullets.

  I was soaked in sweat by the time I got there. Outside the front doors, I glanced at my watch. It was almost three-thirty. Over two hours since I’d killed Wheels Meyer. Surely they were after me by now? And the cops, too. I couldn’t stay here very long. They’d check my apartment first, but they’d have to know the gym was practically my second home. Part of me was amazed they weren’t here yet.

  Or maybe they were. A chill played along my spine and I peered up and down the dark block for any signs of life.

  Nothing.

  Keep it together, Tommy, I told myself.

  I hurried around to the side of the building, through the alley separating the gym from a drug store next door. I had the key to the service entrance, so I let myself in, managing to not drop my keys, even though my hands were shaking a little.

  With the lights out, the gym felt bigger than it was. A little bit of gray light crept in through the narrow casement windows along the front of the building, and the punching bag cast a long shadow along the far wall. There was a little bit of light coming from the back of the place, too, where the office was.

  I almost called out for Hugh, thought better of it at the last second. Something didn’t feel right but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  I stood there by the door for a full minute, listening. Hugh lived in a small set of rooms at the back of the gym, up a short flight of steps and behind his meager office. That’s when it came to me—at night, Hugh always kept the office door and the door to his rooms closed tight. He told me once he always used a little space heater in his rooms at night, and kept the doors closed for warmth.

  But the light coming from the back told me his doors were open right now.

  Okay, not a sign the world had ended or anything, but enough to keep me standing there, unmoving, listening intently. If Kardinsky’s men were here, they must have heard me come in. The service door was creaky and loud, and the sound of the latch catching behind me had echoed through the whole place.

  I was just about to move when I saw the dim light from the offi
ce area shift, and a vague shadow slide across the floor. I heard the soft squeak of shoe leather, and someone clearing his throat very quietly.

  It could have just been Hugh, up and around at three-thirty in the morning for some reason. But there was a very real sense of stealth to the sound and the movements, and I knew it wasn’t Hugh.

  My survival instinct kicked right in, and I came very close to turning around and getting the hell out of there. But I couldn’t just leave Hugh. They obviously had him in there, maybe tied up or something. Maybe they’d even killed him. Because of me.

  The thought of that, the thought they may have done something to Hugh, made the fear coursing through my blood turn suddenly into anger. If Kardinsky’s men had laid a single finger on Hugh, I’d tear them to pieces.

  Fists clenched, I made my way across the darkened gym to the office area, not making any attempt at stealth now. They knew I was here, anyway. They were just waiting for me to poke my head in.

  So, I poked my head in.

  ROUND 5

  Hugh’s room was a small space, occupied by nothing except a rumpled bed and a table with an electric burner on it for cooking cheap meals. Even with those meager props, the place was cramped. Barely big enough to contain the thugs who waited for me.

  There were only two of them, crisp and clean-looking fellas in good suits and expensive haircuts. They stood in the middle of Hugh’s room, and Hugh himself was on his knees between them, hands secured behind his back. His mouth was bloody and bruised, but he looked okay otherwise. One of the guys held the back of Hugh’s collar and smiled at me when I came in.

  Hugh looked up, said, “What the hell did you do now, Tom?”

  Before I could answer, the guy holding Hugh’s collar said, “We don’t want anything to happen to the old man, right, Riley? We all want this to go the easy way. Don’t we?”

  I stood in the open doorway and said, “What’s the easy way?”

  “You turn around, let Schmidt tie your hands, and the three of us take a little drive out to Mr. Kardinsky’s place. He’d very much like to speak with you.”