Bluff City Brawler (Fight Card) Read online

  Clarence jerked open the rear door on the passenger’s side, pushed me in and tumbled in after me. Earl didn’t wait for him to close the door. He hit the gas. Titus jumped out of the Plymouth just as we were passing, grabbed at the open window on Earl’s side. Earl said, “Ahh! Hey!” and instinctively swerved to the right.

  Titus, face grim, held on for almost five full seconds, being dragged along off his feet until Earl got up enough speed. I don’t know whether Titus let go on his own or if he lost his grip, but he finally went tumbling away from the DeSoto, and I looked behind us long enough to see him bounce and roll on the street behind us.

  Big Earl put on more gas and zoomed out of there.

  ***

  “Well,” Clarence said. “That ain’t something I want to do again. Not for a good long spell.”

  I was still a bit shaken up myself, but I couldn’t help laughing. He grinned at me, and from the front seat, Big Earl drawled, “You boys having fun back there? Yeah? Lotta laughs and all?”

  “It’s a regular riot,” Clarence said.

  “Good, good. Maybe when your case of the giggles passes, Runyon, you might wanna tell me what the hell is going on, exactly.”

  I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and rested my head against the back of the seat. “Yeah,” I said. “Okay. I guess it’s the least I can do, considering you just saved my life and all.”

  So I told them. I told them everything. It felt good to come clean, but I couldn’t bring myself to look Clarence in the eyes while I was talking. As close as we had been, I got an awful sense that, with every word I said, we were becoming more and more like strangers again.

  But I laid it all out anyway—my life as a fighter in Detroit, the night in the bar, Wheels Meyer, running for my life. The whole shebang.

  No one said anything for a while. The sense of hilarity that had overtaken us before was completely gone now. Big Earl drove, seemingly without a destination, and Clarence only gazed out the window at nothing in particular. I kept looking at them in turn, waiting for them to comment.

  After a couple minutes of the silent treatment, I said, “Well… That’s all, I guess. Thank you, both. You saved my life. Now… if you, um… if you just want to drop me off, I’ll… I’ll be on my way.”

  Clarence frowned at me. “What?”

  “You guys don’t owe me anything. I lied to you both, right from the start. And there’s no reason either of you have to be involved in this anymore. Just let me out, and I’ll—“

  “Runyon,” Earl said. “Or Riley. Or whatever. Shut up, will you?”

  “But—“

  “Far as I’m concerned,” he said, “the only thing you lied about was your name. You never told us anything about your past, but hell, we never asked. Figured it was your own damn business. But now? Now it’s our business, too.”

  Clarence said, “Damn straight. You ain’t alone in this, Tom.”

  I had to look away from them so they couldn’t see the tears of gratitude in my eyes. I was an orphan, sure, but you never know where you’re going to wind up being part of a family.

  ***

  We drove to Earl’s place, a modest bungalow on Cooper Avenue. It was a quiet residential area, farther east than I was used to, and not far from the University campus. I was a little surprised at how nice the neighborhood was—a peaceful little middle-class kind of place.

  “Who’s running the gym right now?”

  “No one,” Earl said. “We’re closed for the day. It ain’t safe to be there right now, I reckon.”

  I grimaced. So not only were Earl and Clarence putting their necks out for me, Earl was losing money in the process.

  Inside the house, Earl said, “I don’t have coffee. Trying to give it up, you know, getting healthy and all. But I have orange juice. You boys want orange juice?”

  We sat there at his kitchen table drinking juice, and Clarence said, “So, that Eye-talian fella comes strolling in, shouting for the boss. I go and fetch Big Earl, and the Eye-talian goes off on him about someone named Tom Riley, see? Says he’s come to take him off our hands and there won’t be no trouble if we mind our own business.”

  “He’s not Italian,” I said. “He’s Greek.”

  “Greek, Eye-talian, whatever.”

  Earl said, “Fella thought he could just walk into my gym and start giving orders. Ticked me right off. I told him to take a long walk off a short pier. He started to get nasty about it. But then we all hear the ruckus out in the alley, where you were, and the Greek fella stops and goes running out the side door.”

  Clarence said, “I went out the front. Came out just in time to see you driving away with them in that Plymouth.”

  I nodded and sipped some juice. It was nice, but something a bit stronger would’ve been nicer.

  Earl said, “Way I see it, Runyon, you—“

  “It’s Riley, boss. Not Runyon. Sorry.”

  He waved a dismissive hand in the air. “We’ll just say Tom, okay? Anyway, way I see it, you got two choices: go with these bozos and let them kill you, or go to the cops for help.”

  I shook my head. “Not the cops. They’d haul me back to Detroit, and Kardinsky’s men would get me, sure as anything.”

  Clarence said, “There’s a third choice.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You run again.”

  We all nodded, but said nothing. The idea of taking it on the lam again was horribly depressing, even more depressing than it had been before. The life I’d run away from in Detroit was no great shakes and it didn’t grieve me too much to leave it behind. But now… now was different. I liked my life here.

  I said, “And run. And run. And keep running. For the rest of my life.”

  Clarence said, “Ain’t there no way to reason with these people? Ain’t there no way you can talk to them, tell them how it all happened? That it was an accident?”

  “I don’t know, Clarence. Probably not. They’re gangsters, you know. Not exactly renowned for their reasonableness.”

  “So,” Earl said. “What do you do? I don’t imagine it’ll take long for them to find this place, Tom.”

  I looked at my glass of juice and felt the sorrow welling in my heart. “The third choice. It’s the only one I really have. I have to run.”

  Clarence made a sympathetic noise. “I hate it, Tom, but I reckon you’re right. Not unless you wanna get yourself killed.”

  Earl said, “I got some money here in the house, Tom. About eight hundred bucks. That should get you pretty far. And you can take the DeSoto.”

  “I can’t do that, Earl. That’s asking too much.”

  “Listen. You’re a good kid, and I like you. But I’m doing this for Lucy. She’d never forgive me if I let something happen to you. And besides, it’s just money. And you’re gonna need it more than me. You’ll take it, and you won’t argue with me about it.”

  I didn’t argue. “Thanks, Earl.” Then, “Hell. Lucy.”

  Earl said, “I’ll tell her everything, if you want me to.”

  “No. I… I have to talk to her myself. I have to see her.”

  “Tom—“

  “She needs to know, boss. She deserves to know.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, fine. The telephone is in the living room. You go ahead and call her up.”

  ***

  They stayed in the kitchen while I went into the living room and found the telephone. Raw, ugly anxiety clawed at my stomach as I picked up the receiver.

  I had planned on telling her anyway. I had planned on spilling the whole thing to her, before we went to Chicago to see her aunt. But I hadn’t thought yet about how I would do it. Now I had no choice but to just come out with it.

  And to tell her goodbye.

  My hands shook very slightly as I dialed the operator, said, “South Manassas-878, please.” The operator put the call through, and I clenched the receiver tight as the number rang.

  Three, four, five times the line buzzed, before someone picked up. />
  A male voice said, “Yeah?”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  I said, “Who… who is this?”

  “Hello, Riley,” the voice said. “We were beginning to wonder when you were gonna call your best gal.”

  ROUND 14

  I didn’t recognize the voice, but it sounded cold and clear and relaxed.

  “Who is this?”

  “Really? That’s the question you want to ask, out of all possible questions? I’ve got a better one for you. ‘where’s Lucy?’ Or ‘What have you done with her?’ Try those on for size.”

  I gripped the receiver tight, so tight my fingers ached. “Lucy,” I said. “What… if you’ve hurt her, I swear I’ll—“

  “You’ll what, Riley? Come down here and bust me up?” His laugher rattled dry over the lines.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t hurt her.”

  “Your gal is fine, Riley. Not a hair touched on her pretty little head. But I can’t guarantee how long that will remain the case. Here, you want to talk to her?”

  There was a clump as the telephone was set down, and I could imagine it clearly, her ornamental looking white telephone with the pink rotary dial, there on the end table next to her record player and her love seat covered with frilly pillows and her paintings on the walls.

  They had no right. They had no right to just waltz right into her world and ruin it. A wave of anger burned through my guts when I thought about it.

  The phone picked up again, and Lucy said, “Tom? Tom, what’s going on? Who… who are these people?”

  She sounded scared, real scared, and my anger was suddenly tempered with real fear for her. I said, “Don’t worry, Lucy, baby. They won’t hurt you. Just… just do what they say. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “Tom, they said… they said you killed someone. Tom, what’s going on?”

  More thumping, a slight commotion, and the mysterious voice came back on the line. He said to someone else in the room, “Get her over there by the door,” and then to me, “See, Riley? Your sweetheart is fine. But like I said, I can’t say for how long. Pretty little thing like her, you know. We just might not be able to help ourselves. You dig?”

  “I’m coming. Just leave her alone, okay? I’m on my way to you now.”

  “No, Riley. You don’t get to call the shots here. We’ll meet later, at my discretion. After all, we don’t want another situation like earlier, with your friends getting involved, do we?”

  “They won’t. I promise. I’ll come right now, turn myself over to you, and you let Lucy go. Okay?”

  That dry laugh again. “I’ll tell you the truth, Riley, it’s sort of fun hearing you squirm a little. So we do this my way. This is what you’re going to do: in two hours, be in front of the gym. By yourself.”

  “Please—“

  “Do it, Riley. Or your cutie-pie here is going to have something very, very horrible happen to her face. You understand?”

  “Okay. But let me talk to her one more time.”

  “Bye for now, Riley.”

  “No! Let me talk to her!”

  He hung up, and I was left standing there holding the phone, listening to a dead connection.

  Behind me, Clarence said, in a quiet voice, “What happened?” The way he said it, I could tell he already knew.

  I dropped the receiver, turned to face him. “Lucy,” I said.

  And then I tore out the front door, down the driveway to Earl’s car. Clarence and Earl came out after me, Clarence saying, “Tom! Slow down, what’s happening?”

  Sliding behind the wheel of the DeSoto, I said, “Stay here. They… they’ve got Lucy. I have to go.”

  I peeled out of the driveway and up the street.

  ***

  I must’ve hit eighty miles per hour tearing down Union, weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring stop lights, swerving around pedestrians. Amazingly, I didn’t encounter a single copper—I don’t know what I would have done if I had. Tell him what was happening? Beg for help? Or just run away?

  In ten minutes, I was screeching up to the curb in front of Lucy’s apartment building and jumping out of the car, running hard for the doors. I slammed them open, rushed up the stairs to her place on the second floor.

  Her door was unlocked.

  I burst in, unmindful of running into Kardinsky’s men.

  “Lucy!”

  No one in the front room or the kitchen. I made my way to the bedroom—which I’d never been in before—and the bathroom. Empty.

  Feeling a desperate weight getting heavier on my head, I went back to the front room, searching, as if it was possible I’d somehow missed her the first time through. Her easel and brushes were in the corner by the window, where the light was good, and I saw that she’d started another painting. Something full of blues and greens and yellows. I had no idea what it was.

  The painting she’d done of me, on the wall over the sofa, was still there. But someone had sliced it apart with a knife and it now hung in tatters of raw color.

  I sat very carefully on the sofa, heart pounding. I’m not sure how long I sat there. It must’ve been quite a while, though, because eventually Clarence appeared in the open doorway.

  ***

  He and Earl had taken a cab to come to my rescue, again. But this time there was no one to rescue. It was too late.

  We all sat there in Lucy’s front room, with the early evening sky going orange outside and streaming through the windows. There wasn’t anything to say anymore. They had urged me to run before, to get out, but they weren’t doing that now. They knew as well as I did that if I took off, Lucy would pay the price.

  They were good friends, but they knew my life wasn’t worth Lucy’s.

  After a good twenty minutes of sitting and brooding, Earl said, “You want us to come with you, Tom?”

  I shook my head. “No. He said to come alone, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “Maybe now’s the time to call the police,” Clarence said.

  “If we call the police,” Earl said, “we’d be risking Lucy’s life. I mean, what if they shoot it out? I don’t trust the cops to do it right, not against people like this. And not with Lucy there.”

  “But we don’t know that she’ll actually be there,” Clarence said.

  “That makes it even worse. Think about it. Cops show up at the gym, these guys get word to wherever Lucy is, and… well… you get the idea.”

  “Damn,” Clarence said.

  “I have to do exactly what they want,” I said. “There’s no other choice.”

  ROUND 15

  They dropped me off two blocks from the gym. We all got out of the car in front of a corner drug store, and I took a minute to watch the people coming and going. Through the front glass, I could see a young couple at the counter inside the drug store, sharing a malted. They were laughing about something. The boy said something the girl must have liked, because she leaned over very suddenly and kissed him on the cheek. Then she rested her head on his shoulder.

  A beautiful black woman in a pink dress walked past us, hips swinging to beat the band. A couple of men in business suits strolled by, hands in pockets, smoking cigarettes.

  Everyone was going about their lives.

  And I was getting ready for mine to end.

  I stuck out my hand to Big Earl, said, “You’ve been a good friend to me. Take care of yourself.”

  He took my hand, shook it. He looked like he wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind.

  I turned to Clarence, but he ignored my hand. Shaking his head, he said, “No. This ain’t goodbye, not yet.”

  “Yeah, Clarence, I kinda think it is.”

  “I’m going to follow a couple minutes behind you, Tom. I don’t know. Maybe… just maybe, a chance will show itself, and we’ll be able to pull something out of our hats.”

  “Like what? It’s over.”

  “I don’t know. I just…”

  He petered out, and I sa
id, “I appreciate it, but there’s nothing you can do. Just… go home.”

  “Naw, I won’t. I’ll be a couple minutes behind you.”

  Big Earl said, “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “Have you guys lost your minds?”

  “Get going, Tom. You only have a couple of minutes to get there. Just go, and don’t argue. I’m still your boss, after all.”

  “For the next few minutes,” I said. “Until I’m dead.”

  “Well… you ain’t dead yet. So you still gotta do what I say. Now, go.”

  “No, Earl. We can’t risk Lucy.”

  “We won’t. Lucy is like a daughter to me, Tom. And I wouldn’t risk her life, not for anything. Not even for you. And if it seems like she’d be in danger if we made a move, then we wouldn’t make it. But we’re gonna follow, just in case.”

  “Earl—“

  “Shut it. Move.”

  I shook my head, and despite everything, all the fear and anxiety, I found myself laughing.

  “You’re the boss,” I said, and walked away.

  ***

  I didn’t turn around to see if they were following me. What if they’d only been trying to make me feel better, feel less alone, and had vamoosed the minute I was out of sight? I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had.

  But a part of me, deep down, really hoped they were behind me somewhere. I don’t know why. It was just a comfort to know that someone cared whether I lived or died.

  It was eight o’clock on the dot when I arrived in front of the gym. The orange sun was huge, hanging over the Mississippi, and the heat of the day still clung to the pavement even though the sky was going gray around the edges. I peeked in the windows, but the doors to the gym were locked and it was dark inside.

  I paced back and forth in front of the building, stopping and staring every time a car went by. I looked at my watch. It was four minutes past the hour now. They were late.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that I was annoyed at the hold-up—I had no doubt I was going to die before the day was over, and was strangely impatient to get it over with.