Bluff City Brawler (Fight Card) Read online

  “—but I’m your friend, and Big Earl is your friend, too, though he don’t act like it all the time. If you’re running from something, or if there’s something you’re scared of, like, well… it can be mighty helpful to talk to someone about it. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Christ, Clarence. What are you, a priest now?”

  “No,” he said, sounding suddenly annoyed. “I ain’t no priest and I ain’t no head-shrinker neither. I’m just the fella who considers himself your friend, that’s all. Goodnight.”

  I heard him shift in his bed, and then he was quiet.

  ***

  I saw Jim Coley again the next morning. I was in the alley alongside the gym, taking out the trash, when a lean figure in a tan suit strode by the mouth of the alley. He looked cool and crisp, despite the blazing hot morning. He was visible only for two seconds, walking by, but I couldn’t mistake that confident walk and those wire frame glasses.

  He didn’t look at me when he passed, apparently didn’t see me there. But I saw him, and paused with the full trash can in my hands and the warning lights flashing and blaring in my head.

  It was nothing, probably. Nothing at all. Total coincidence.

  But it made me nervous as hell, all the same.

  I tried to put him out of my head. It wouldn’t do to make myself a wreck over it.

  Clarence was sullen all morning, but over the course of the day he cooled off. By afternoon it was as if he’d never been angry or hurt at all. We worked through the day. I swept and mopped three times, threw the soiled towels in the big washing machine, helped the fellas on and off with their gloves, repaired one of the ropes on the ring that had gotten frayed and loose, folded and put away the clean towels. I managed to forget all about Jim Coley.

  A normal day, which also meant there was a lot of time to do nothing much. Big Earl wasn’t the sort of boss who’d get mad if you were just standing around sometimes, as long as stuff got done.

  So, I was standing outside the alley entrance, ten feet or so from the sidewalk out front, just taking a few minutes to enjoy the nice weather. It was a little too hot for my taste, being a Northerner and all, but the sky was crystal clear and birds were chirping and it felt pretty idyllic.

  I was thinking about Lucy, about taking the trip to Chicago with her, and wondering if I would have to pretend I’d never been there before. No, I decided. No reason to do that. So what if I’d been there before? That meant nothing.

  In fact, I was honestly beginning to flirt with the idea of coming clean with her about everything. The things Clarence had said the night before had struck home, but not quite the way he’d intended. I liked Clarence a lot, and I trusted him, but… if anyone had the right to know the truth, it was Lucy.

  How would she respond? Would she hate me for lying to her? Hell, she didn’t even know my real name—to her, I was Tom Runyon.

  The thought of losing her over my deceit sent a chill of fear through me. But as dim as I am sometimes, I knew full-well if I was going to have any sort of future with her, I’d have to tell her everything.

  Almost completely resolved to spill to her that night, I started back inside.

  At that exact moment, a dark blue Plymouth pulled up to the curb across the street and two men got out.

  Both were well-dressed in suits and thin ties. One of them, the smaller one, wore a stylish gray hat with a feather in the band. The hatless one had wavy blond hair and thick, dark eyebrows.

  My jaw dropped. A nasty jolt rocked my brain, like catching an uppercut on the chin.

  It was Titus Stavros.

  And his brother Alkandros.

  ***

  I froze, hardly believing my eyes.

  The two of them trotted across the street, heading for the gym’s front entrance. They didn’t seem to have seen me in the shadows of the alley.

  For a long moment, I actually couldn’t move. Literally frozen to the spot with fear or shock or something.

  A year and three months I’d been dreading this day, even though a part of me—the optimistic part—never really thought it would happen. That optimistic part had managed to drown out the sensible part, the part that knew it had to happen eventually, the part that woke me up sometimes in the middle of the night with dread.

  See? the sensible part said. Didn’t I tell you?

  The optimistic part died a very sudden and ignoble death, on the spot.

  They’d found me. It was over.

  And the first thing I thought of, the first thing I mourned, was the life I would never get to have with Lucy.

  From where I stood, with the door half open, I could hear the front door of the gym squeaking open and a pair of shoe heels clicking on the lino.

  “Hey,” one of them called. “Where’s the guy called Big Earl?”

  Someone answered, I couldn’t tell who without peeking in the door, which I wasn’t about to do. The shoe heels clicked some more, coming closer, and the voice said, “Big Earl. The guy that runs this joint. Where is he?”

  It sounded like Al, the smaller, older brother. I was about to ease the door closed and get the hell out of there when it occurred to me I was only hearing one pair of heels on the lino.

  The moment that realization came to me, I heard someone clearing his throat at the mouth of the alley.

  And there was Titus, grinning at me, arms folded across his wide chest.

  “Hi, Riley,” he said. “Long time no see.”

  ROUND 11

  I let the door close and turned to face him, not knowing what I was going to do. I’d rehearsed this moment in my head so many times, thought through all sorts of possible scenarios, but now it was here in front of me I couldn’t think of a damn thing.

  So I said, “Titus.”

  He took a slow, easy step toward me, letting his arms drop to his sides. “I gotta tell you, Riley. Not a great job of covering your tracks.”

  He kept moving toward me and by sheer force of will I didn’t move. I said, “Is that why it took you over a year to find me?”

  He laughed. “Okay, granted. It was a bear at first. That’s no lie. But once we caught the scent, it led us right here.”

  “How?”

  “That’s not terribly important right now, Riley.”

  “It was that Coley guy, wasn’t it?”

  He frowned at me. “Coley guy? I have no idea what you’re talking about, Riley.”

  By now he was only a couple steps away. Close enough to reach out and touch—or punch. But I still didn’t move.

  “So what now?” I said.

  “Now, you face the music.”

  I grinned back at him, even though I wasn’t feeling particularly cocky. I could feel the sweat beading on my scalp, but didn’t move to wipe it away. I said, “That’s gonna require you to work for your dough.”

  He sneered. “Oh, believe me, Riley, I’m ready to do that.”

  His hip shifted, very, very subtly, and I moved in and toward his right just as his fist popped out.

  It sailed past my right shoulder. I sidestepped, buried my left in his gut. He whooshed air, and I came around fast with a right to his ear.

  He stumbled to the side but recovered fast. By the time I’d moved in on him for another punch he had his defenses up and my right hook caught him on his forearms. In the split second I was open, his right popped out again and caught me flush on the chin.

  I rocked back on my heels, fell into the wall.

  Jesus, he could hit hard. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to get hit like that.

  I shook my head, trying to clear out the ringing, and righted myself. He swung with a left just as I was pushing away from the wall and his huge fist nailed me in the jaw and I went staggering back again.

  Not the fighter I used to be. Stupid Mick, out of practice, out of the ring for far too long. I didn’t have a chance.

  But that didn’t stop me from trying.

  My legs were like rubber but I forced myself toward him, fists up.
He was still grinning.

  I let loose with a fast jab that he easily wove around, followed it with a pretty pathetic right uppercut that didn’t come close. He took quick advantage of my exposed mid-section, hammered home two wicked blows to my ribs.

  I went down to my knees, unable to breath.

  It would’ve been his chance, right then, to knock me absolutely senseless. But he didn’t. I looked up at him, saw the desire to kill me all over his face. But he only stood there, looking down at me.

  After what seemed like minutes, I was finally able to draw breath again. Slowly, painfully, I managed to get back to my feet. Raw, ugly pain radiated through my entire torso.

  Breathing hard through gritted teeth, I took up a stance and said, “Come on. Come on.”

  He shook his head, disgusted. “Riley, you idiot. You’re done. Even a stupid punk like you can see that.”

  “I’ll tell you,” I wheezed. “I’ll tell you when… when I’m done…”

  I moved toward him.

  Movement from the corner of my eye stopped me in my tracks, and then cold steel pressed into my temple.

  Al pressed the gun barrel hard, said, “How about now?”

  I sighed, didn’t look at Al, only glared at Titus. And then I shrugged.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay. I’m done.”

  ROUND 12

  They shoved me in the back seat of the Plymouth and Al slid in next to me, careful to keep his gun pointed at me. Titus got behind the wheel and squealed rubber away from the curb.

  I glanced back, caught a glimpse of Clarence coming out of the gym at a fast clip. He watched as we drove away.

  Al said, “Eyes forward, Riley. Nothing to see back there. That part of your life is over.”

  I did what he said and settled into the seat.

  Titus rocketed up Marshall, took a hard turn onto Union and sped east, away from the river. No one spoke. My breath was coming easier now, but the pain in my ribs was still pretty intense. I felt pretty sure Titus had managed to bruise them. The worst of the pain had passed, though, and now I had time to think. Time to think about how out of luck I was.

  Would they take me back to Detroit? Or would they just drive me to some remote spot outside of town and put a bullet in my head? Driving me all the way back to Michigan would take days, and would be a dangerous thing to do. They’d have to kill me. It was the only way.

  I licked my dry lips and said, “So… How did you find me, anyway?”

  “Shut up,” Al said, and poked me in my sore ribs with the gun.

  I winced and sucked in breath. Titus glanced at me over his shoulder and laughed. “You really wanna know, don’t you? Okay.”

  Al said, “It doesn’t matter. Just drive, will you, Titus?”

  “No, I think he should know, brother. I want to tell him. See, Riley, it’s like this. Mr. Kardinsky has had men snooping around in just about every major city you can think of. Has been for well over a year now. But there was no trace of you anywhere, not for a long time.”

  We got stopped at a traffic light, and Titus took the opportunity to turn around and look at me. “Until about a month ago, see? Just a lucky break. One of the boys was driving from Nashville to Little Rock when he stopped at this little podunk town just in the next county. And because all of Mr. K’s boys are under orders to always be thinking of your ugly mug, he started asking around. Just casual-like, right? He talks to this copper in a little hole-in-the-wall diner, tells the copper he’s a private dick looking for a lowlife con artist wanted for bouncing checks. He just made up the story, on the spot.”

  A car horn honked behind us, and Al said, “Light’s green.”

  Titus turned around and started driving again. Glancing at me in the rearview mirror, he said, “So anyway, this copper? He gets all wide-eyed and tells our man all about this seedy drifter he and a couple of his fellow officers rousted about a year back. A drifter who fits your description perfectly. He tells our man about how they… reprimanded this drifter, and then drove him out to the county line and set him on his way.”

  I nodded and looked out the window as downtown Memphis zipped by. I could guess the rest of the story, and only half-listened as Titus pointed out the obvious fact Memphis was the closest big city to where the cops had dumped me, and how it was a pretty simple thing to figure out I might be working at a boxing gym. And there weren’t many of them in Memphis to check.

  “Mr. K did me a favor by sending Alkandros and me to fetch you. We spotted you yesterday, on our way down to the gym where you’ve been holed up,” Titus said. “Walking down the street with a big stupid grin on your face, like you didn’t have a care in the world. Blind, stupid luck. I don’t mind saying, you looked like an even bigger idiot than I remembered.”

  That got a laugh out of Al, who had been silent and scowling the whole time.

  Titus said, “So, we went back to the hotel, called up Mr. K, worked out the plan. Got a good night’s sleep. And today—“

  “Plan?” I said. “What kind of plan would you need? All you had to do was grab me off the street, right?”

  Al’s smile vanished and he said, “Never you mind about the plan, Riley.”

  “What? Is it top secret, Al?”

  Titus shook his head, making a left onto N. Cleveland Street, home to a gambling joint and at least one brothel I knew about. He said, “Always be prepared, right? Isn’t that what the Boy Scouts say? You ever been a Boy Scout, Riley? But no, I suppose you haven’t, growing up in that home for unwanted punks you were always talking about.”

  Al said, “Titus. Shut up about the plan already.”

  “What the hell difference does it make, brother? If he—“

  “Shut it!” Al barked.

  Titus shut it.

  I was a little surprised that Al seemed to be the dominate sibling, even if he was older. Titus was bigger, stronger, better-looking. He even seemed like the smarter one, but that could’ve just been because Al didn’t say much. Either way-- once a big brother, always a big brother, I guess.

  Regardless, I didn’t like his insistence on secrecy about ‘the plan’—whatever it was. It didn’t bode well at all.

  Titus kept driving north, well into the outskirts of the city. We passed more than a few rat-trap hotels, run-down diners and storefront churches. I’d never been out this way before. My entire life in Memphis consisted basically of Union Avenue and a couple miles north and south of it, so I was totally lost.

  Obviously, Titus wasn’t familiar with the area either. He kept craning his neck, checking street names. We drove on like that a while, until Al finally said, “For Pete’s sake, Titus. Just pull out the map, already.”

  “I don’t need the map. I know where we are. It should be just… just a little ways up this way.”

  I said, “What are you looking for, Titus old pal? Maybe I can help you.”

  “Shut up. I don’t need any help.”

  “So about your big plan. How are you going to pull it off? You can’t just kill me, you know. This ain’t like Detroit. Hell, you can’t even find your way around the streets, let alone find a safe place to snuff me.”

  Al said, “You don’t know half of what you think you know, Mick.”

  “Probably. But I know enough. You idiots are out of your element here. There’s nothing you can—“

  Titus swerved to the curb, slammed on the brakes. He snapped his head around and said, “Shut it, Riley, unless you want me to pound your face some more.”

  I laughed shortly. “Stavros, let’s face it. You could never take me in a real fight. Maybe you know how to fight dirty, in an alley, like some common thug. But a real fight? Not a chance. You only beat me in Detroit because you head-butted me. Like a cheap, yellow punk.”

  “I’ll show you cheap yellow punk. I’ll—“

  “You don’t have the skills, Stavros. Face it. You could never take me in a real fight, in the ring.”

  Titus snarled, “You lousy--”

  Al said,
“He’s trying to get your goat. Calm down, Titus.”

  “You washed-up, lousy palooka,” Titus said.

  I smiled at him. “You know it’s true, don’t you, Stavros?”

  He started to reach over the seat to grab me, but Al pushed him back. “Damnit, Titus, calm down! We don’t have time for this.”

  Titus fumed and cursed and finally turned back around in his seat and pounded on the steering wheel a couple times. Glaring at me in the rearview mirror, he said, “I’m gonna make you eat those words, Riley.”

  “Sure.”

  He tore his eyes away from the mirror, took a deep breath, and started to pull back out into the street.

  A car engine revved loudly behind us, followed by a blasting horn. Al started to turn around in his seat to look behind us when something crashed hard into the left rear corner of the Plymouth, and I was jolted forward, practically flying out of my seat, and there were shards of broken glass everywhere.

  Al’s head slammed into the front seat and his gun skittered away across the floorboard and out of sight. From the corner of my eye, I saw Titus’ forehead bang against his steering wheel, and the Plymouth skidded a few feet sideways amid the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal.

  Then there was almost absolute silence for a long second. I gathered myself enough to look out the shattered rear window.

  It was Big Earl’s trusty old DeSoto.

  ROUND 13

  Someone yanked open the door on my side, said, “Tom! Come on, move, quick!” A hand reached in and grabbed my arm, and Clarence pulled me out of the car.

  “Clarence?” I said, like an idiot. I was still a little dazed.

  The DeSoto’s engine revved again, and Big Earl stuck his head out of the driver’s side window. “Move it, Tom!”

  In the Plymouth, Titus and Al were coming to their senses. Al shook his head sharp, saw that I was out of the vehicle. Eyes widened, he looked around for his gun, said, “Hey… stop…”

  I didn’t stop. I let Clarence pull me toward the DeSoto while Earl revved the engine again and Al started cursing behind me.