The Harder They Fall (26 page)

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘This is how the story ends, can’t we be friends. It’s been set to music.’

I wanted to call the wisecrack back, wanted to show her I was bigger than that, wished I could think of something to say that would send me out of there a generous, understanding citizen. But I didn’t seem to have it in me. I
went out with the smallest, meanest, foul ball of a parting shot I could think of. ‘Well, I suppose Herbert Ageton is a better bet at that. After all, he’s had a hit on Broadway.’

‘Oh, damn you, Eddie, damn you!’ Beth cried out, and her eyes were suddenly full of angry tears. ‘You’re such a heel! What makes you such a heel? Eddie, you of all people! You make me so goddam mad sometimes.’

I felt exhausted, I felt exhausted with the effort of having all these years tried to keep my marriage to Beth in suspension. I never wanted to let go of it and I never wanted to face the consequences of holding on. But finally, now, when I was forced to let go, where did that leave me? Maybe I was lucky to be rid of her, always harping at me, trying to reform me, make me quit the fight game. I wanted to get out of town. I didn’t want to stay in the same town with her, even a real big town like NY. Real big. I knew better than to say ‘real big’. I knew better than a lot of things. But it was easier. Danny and Vince and Doc and George, they all said ‘real big’. Why should I be any different, why should I be any better, what was so special about me that I should look down on those guys? But I did look down on them, and why shouldn’t I? I knew more, I understood more, I felt more. Who else in this crowd of bums, lushes and grifters worried about Toro, wondered what he was feeling, saw him in any real perspective? Who noticed when he was lonely, bothered to walk around town with him, tried to give him some guidance? And yet Beth called me a heel! She had the nerve to call me a heel!

I took a train out to the camp. I felt better as soon as I got off. I was back in my own world, or at least in a world I felt equal to.

Benny Mannix met me at the station. His venal, unattractive puss made me feel at home. ‘How’s everything going, Benny?’

‘Tings ain’t so bad, kid. We got a nice set-up here.’

‘How’s Danny behaving himself?’

‘Danny, he’s kinda tapering off. Oney had a pint so far today.’

‘Sounds like he’s almost on the wagon. And how’s my boy getting along? Toro.’

Benny shrugged. ‘Da bum tries, you gotta give ’im dat. He didn’t look too bad wit’ Chick Gussman dis afternoon. That’s this new light-heavy we got in from Detroit who fights kinda on the style of Lennert.’

It was just after dinner when I got there, and Danny was sitting out on the porch with Doc and some of the other sparring partners. Danny was reading the
Morning
Telegraph
. He looked almost sober.

‘Still trying to beat ’em, Danny?’

Danny grinned. ‘I gave that up a long time ago, laddie. I’m just along for the ride. But this Shasta Rose’ – he tapped the racing form – ‘if she don’t run away with the Maryland at Laurel tomorrow I’m gonna …’

‘Turn in your chips and quit,’ I interrupted.

Danny shook his head and smiled. ‘… throw these lousy form sheets away and play my own hunches.’

‘He couldn’t do any worse if he picked ’em blindfold,’ Doc said. ‘He’s the bookie’s friend, Danny is.’

Everybody laughed at Danny. At a training camp it seems as if everybody is waiting to laugh at everybody else. There was a dice game starting in the parlour and
Doc, Gussman and the other boys on the porch joined it.

‘That Gussman, he knows how to handle himself for a kid.’ Danny said as the new light-heavy went in. ‘Kinda reminds me of Jimmy Slattery, when he was gettin’ started, a regular Fancy Dan, not quite as fast as Jimmy maybe, but he’s got natural ring sense. If I could take him in hand ’n teach him to sharpen up his punching a little …’

Danny sighed and looked off into the gathering dusk. ‘Boy, to come into New York with a real fighter again, to walk down 49th Street and have all the guys come up and say, “Saw your boy take that guy last night, Danny. You really got yourself something there …”’

‘Why don’t you sign this Gussman?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you bring him along?’

‘What’s the percentage, laddie?’ Danny said, dead-voiced again. ‘If the guy’s too brittle and he don’t work out, I’ve wasted a lot of time. And if he looks good, Nick moves in and takes over, and pretty soon the kid has to throw one or he wins one he don’t deserve. The hell with that. Nick’s got me by the short hairs, laddie. Sure it’s my own fault, but when did that ever make a guy like it any better?’

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I’m glad to see you looking so sharp.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’d like to win this one. I’d really like to beat that Lennert.’

This had been Nick’s idea, to bring Danny back to his job by not letting him know the Lennert thing was in the bag. Danny knew Lennert hadn’t done any business before, so it wasn’t too difficult to convince him. And since he had never learnt as much about the fight business as he had about fighters, he bought the line that Nick didn’t care who
won this time because he owned them both. Danny was a sucker for most of the fighters he had handled, but Lennert was the exception. Lennert was a businessman, not a miser exactly, just careful about his money. If some old pug came along whom Lennert had licked and put the arm on him for a sawbuck or two, Lennert had been known to stall on the ground that the guy was a boozer who would just drink the dough away. But Danny didn’t care what the guy did with the dough, figuring it was only money and that was none of his business. That was the difference between them. When Lennert made his comeback, he figured he knew as much about conditioning and strategy as Danny and insisted on being his own boss. Pretty pig-headed, Lennert was. When he came back he made no bones about being in it purely for the high dollar and not to take any unnecessary chances. Once in a while, for instance, Danny would want Gus to go in and carry the fight to an opponent whom Gus would be content to stay away from and counter-punch, winning an easy decision on points without extending himself when he might have been able to do something more spectacular. That wasn’t honest prizefighting, in Danny’s book, but then, even though one would never know it from some of the things he had had to do, Danny had a sense of purity, of real nobility about the game that an ordinary pro like Lennert wouldn’t understand. Lennert went in for boxing the way he ran his diner in Trenton, not robbing anybody, just cutting them as close as he could without stepping over the line.

‘You don’t really think Toro could take Lennert if they’re both sent in to win?’ I said.

‘Don’t be too sure, laddie,’ Danny said. ‘Let’s not kid ourselves, Gus hasn’t got much any more. That beating he took from Stein didn’t do him any good.’

‘I never thought he could take that much any more,’ I said.

Lennert had looked like his old self against Stein until he began to run out of gas. From the seventh on, Stein had had him down in every round, but couldn’t keep him there. The referee was just about ready to stop it when the fight ended. Lennert was still on his feet, but no longer able to defend himself. He had collapsed on his way to his dressing room.

‘He showed a hell of a lot more guts than I thought he had,’ I said.

‘That was business,’ Danny said. ‘He was figuring how much bigger the Molina fight would draw if Stein didn’t knock him out. So he let Stein beat his brains in, to make an extra ten or fifteen Gs. That’s Gus. I know him. He don’t care about being a hero. All he’s worried about is how much dough he can lay aside to retire on.’

‘You think Stein really slowed him up?’

‘I saw him the next day, when he came up to the office to pick up his money,’ Danny said. ‘I thought he was acting kind of funny, sort of slow-like, like something was hurting him in his head or something.’

‘I heard Stein hit him so hard Gus cracked his head on the floor,’ I said. ‘Gus is a pretty old man to take those potshots in the head the way Stein throws them.’

‘He’s lucky Toro can’t hit,’ Danny said. ‘I guess that’s why he picked him for the bow-out. He figures Molina can’t do any more ’n lean on him once in a while or maybe stamp on his toes with those size fifteens. But believe it
or not, laddie, I think I got Toro working a little better. I been spending a lot of time with him this week. I got him throwing a pretty fair right uppercut, and he’s getting so he don’t just wave that left hand like it was a flag.’

‘Danny, you could teach a wooden Indian to box.’

‘Well, at least a wooden Indian wouldn’t buckle every time you tap him on the jaw.’ Danny laughed. ‘I think I got a pretty good defence worked out for Toro’s jaw this time. Only if he wants to look any good in there, he’s gotta pay a little more attention to his training.’ Danny rubbed the back of his hand across his cheek nervously. ‘That’s why I’m glad you came down, laddie.’

‘I’m just the word man,’ I said. ‘What have I got to do with it?’

‘You can talk to him. Maybe in his own language he’ll listen better.’

‘Sure I’ll talk to him. What do you want me to talk to him about?’

‘About Ruby. You better talk to him about Ruby.’

‘Ruby? What goes with Ruby?’

‘I don’t know,’ Danny said, ‘but I got ideas.’

‘You mean Ruby and Toro? No, Danny, I can’t buy that. Why, Toro doesn’t know enough…’

‘How much do you have to know, laddie?’

‘Jesus, are you sure, Danny? Toro is no intellectual giant but I didn’t think he’d be dumb enough to fool around with what belongs to Nick.’

‘Well, all I know is he’s been driving over there in that goddam Lincoln of his every chance he gets. I been letting Benny take him out for rides. You know he’s worse than a
kid with a new toy with that thing. Well, Benny told me the big sap’s been slipping him dough to drive over to Green Acres. And Toro goes inside and doesn’t come out for an hour. Well, I don’t know, maybe I got a dirty mind, but if Toro isn’t getting in, Ruby’s not the girl I’ve heard she is.’

‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘I hope you’re wrong. I’d hate to think what’d happen to Toro if Nick ever catches onto that one.’

‘It’s a funny thing,’ Danny said. ‘You’d think a guy as smart as Nick would keep a little closer check on a broad like that.’

‘They all got their weak spots, the smartest of ’em,’ I said. ‘And, for Nick, I guess it’s believing Ruby’s a real high-class dame.’

‘Well, you better talk to him,’ Danny said. ‘Even if Nick doesn’t catch, that kind of business won’t do him any good in there with Lennert. And I want to beat Lennert. I just want to see if I can do it with this lunk.’

Doc came out on the porch. When he smiled he did not stop looking sad, but merely superimposed the smile over the permanently tragic lines of his face. ‘How about a little two-handed pinochle, Danny?’ he said. ‘You might as well lose it to me as to the books.’

‘Don’t gimme that,’ Danny said. ‘I’m the champion pinochle player of Pompton Lakes.’

‘Since when could a Mick ever beat a Jew-boy at pinochle?’ Doc said, and winked at me.

I sat on the porch alone for a while, half listening to the guys inside talking to their dice. I thought of Toro and George walking out there on the back road and wondered what they found to say to each other, Toro with his pidgin
English and his child’s mind and George making his own music deep in his throat. ‘There it is, boys, the hard way!’ someone called out, with the gloating laughter of the triumphant. I was tempted to go in and fade that guy. He sounded like the kind of fellow who took so much pleasure in winning that he pressed himself too far.

But I supposed I should wait and talk to Toro. Goddamit, since when was I Toro’s keeper? What business was it of mine whether he hung the old horns on Nick? That’s just it; it was my business. It wasn’t my inclination; it wasn’t my personal interest; it was simply my job, my five per cent interest to see that Toro stayed away from trouble.

‘¿Qué tal, qué tal, amigo? ¡Buenas noches!’

Toro had loomed up on me, his gums showing in a clownish smile. I hadn’t realised how glad he would be to see me. He seemed actually relieved to have me back. I hadn’t thought anything about it, but this had been the first time we had been separated since Acosta left. Toro didn’t speak enough English to have a real conversation with the others, and anyway those who bothered with him at all treated him with the belittling kindness one might bestow on a trained dog. We talked for a while about the little things, the quality of the food at the camp, the peace of the countryside after our hectic tour, how hard Danny and Doc were working him, the album of pictures of him in fighting poses I had promised to prepare for his family. In a little while Benny came out with the message, ‘Doc says it’s time fuh yuh tuh hit da sack.’

‘I’ll go up and sit with you while you’re getting ready for bed,’ I said.

It was a large, sparsely furnished room with a comfortable-looking old-fashioned wrought-iron double bed. As soon as he came in Toro turned his radio on with the volume up. An elocutionist for the NAM was talking about the unique opportunities for self-made men who believed in the American Way. But Toro didn’t seem to care what it was, as long as it was loud. I wandered over to his bureau. There was a pile of papers under his comb and brush. I picked them up and looked at them. They were quick pencil sketches that Toro had drawn, primitive in perspective but with surprising force and humour. The first was obviously Vince, all neck and fat in the face with little eyes and a large cruel mouth. The next one was Danny, with an exaggerated flattened nose and with Xs for eyes. He was bent over a bar. The next was Nick, looking considerably more hard-boiled and sinister than I had thought him. It made me realise for the first time what Toro must have thought of him. Toro had always seemed perfectly docile in his presence, as if he had no feelings in the matter. But the sketches seemed to bespeak a resentment, even a kind of understanding of these men that Toro either had hidden or was unable to express. No matter how crude these sketches were, they showed a certain limited talent that no one would have expected from this lumbering giant. But the artistic quality of the next picture was considerably lower. It was a schoolboy’s amateurish and sentimental attempt to draw a beautiful woman. The woman was obviously meant to be Ruby, though a younger, more slender, more ethereal and completely romanticised version of Ruby. The snood she wore around her head, instead of creating an effect of
the exotic as Ruby actually intended it, gave her in Toro’s picture a spiritual, almost Madonna quality. It was clearly a work of love, marred by the mawkishness that such works often have.