High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) (15 page)

“This will be a night to remember,” I said.

“Oh, brother,” sighed Carmen and off we went.

The Hollywood American Legion Stadium was as safe a place to meet a killer as possible. More than half a million people came there every year to see boxing and wrestling. Los Angeles fight fans knew that the best place to see movie stars is not on Hollywood Boulevard but in the first six rows of the stadium, which was one of the reasons Carmen got excited about going to the fights. She also had an honest respect for men who wanted to get rich by battering the other guys into submission or shame.

Eastern states, including New York, don’t recognize championship fights held in California, where the state law limits all decision fights to ten rounds. But there is no lack of interest on the part of local fans. Henry Armstrong, ex-welterweight champ and former lightweight champ, lives in Los Angeles, but he never defended his title at home. Before 1915 boxing exhibitions up to twenty rounds were permitted in Los Angeles. I remember as a kid seeing a bloody one with Jack Johnson and a bald guy at Hazard’s Pavilion at Fifth and Olive with my old man. Jim Jeffries fought his first pro fight in the old Manitou Club on Main Street.

Most of my own fights, including the one this afternoon, had come in or around Los Angeles, but no one had ever paid to see me punch and be punched. Maybe this would be the night when I got a chance to go one-on-one with a killer in the Hollywood Legion. Maybe the ghost of Jim Jeffries would be over my shoulder. Maybe I had the imagination of a ten-year-old and the brain of a flea. Then I found a free parking space on El Centro and waited in line with Carmen, who stayed close and looked around for celebrities. I plunked down a few bucks for tickets and we went in.

The wonderful trap of Toby Peters was set. Nick Charles, eat your heart out.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
here were waves of olive drab and dark blue in the crowd, and the place was packed. Soldiers and sailors swelled the stadium, though the nonuniformed spectators still outnumbered them. The war made boxing even more popular. Maybe it was the fact that a boxing match has a definite start and distinct end, and there’s a clear winner and loser. Violence, rules and no one gets killed. Boxing is war without the worst of war. I’d been at fights with servicemen before. There were two basic reactions. Before the fight they horsed around, spilled a little beer, argued about which was better—a fast-stepper or a slow, hard puncher. Then when the fight actually started, some of the boys went red-faced wild with every punch, their mouths open and moaning. Others sat back silent and serious, not knowing quite what it all meant to them, but knowing it meant a lot.

The crowd that night had the sound of fight crowds, a wave of sound pierced by an occasional loud, hysterical laugh or someone calling out to Maury or Al or Brian to bring back an extra hot dog or beer. Carmen craned her neck to see the ringside seats.

“I think I see Ann Sheridan,” she said excitedly.

“Ann Sheridan don’t come to no fights,” said a bulldog man sitting next to her, without looking up from his program.

“I ought to know Ann Sheridan when I see her,” Carmen insisted to the guy, who looked up from his program ready to fight and got his first look at Carmen, who was wearing her tightest red dress.

“Maybe Ann Sheridan changed her mind,” the bulldog said with a twisted smile.

Carmen accepted his apology.

“Babe Ruth is supposed to be here,” the bulldog said amiably.

“Toby knows Babe Ruth, don’t you?” she said, taking my arm without stopping her survey of the crowd for celebrities.

“Sure,” said the bulldog, eyeing me briefly and turning back to his program.

The hour hand on my watch was anchored now. It must have happened in the fight with Marco, but a firm grip on a small gear didn’t mean a firm grip on time. I asked the bulldog what time it was, and a soldier on my left told me it was just before eight-thirty. A few minutes later the heavyweights in the first fight came down the aisle. The crowd cheered. The crowd booed. The crowd didn’t know either one of the saps or their records, but they were big, and big guys gave out the hope of big punches. Both fighters looked scared. Both fighters looked young. One, a white kid with his hair cut short, was called Army John McCoy. The reason for the “Army” was made clear neither by the ring announcer nor our programs. The soldier next to me said he thought he was a soldier. Someone else corrected him behind us and said he knew he was a soldier. I doubted it but didn’t care. The other fighter was a Negro kid with the biggest arms I’d ever seen and legs to match that might make him a little slow. His name wasn’t even on the card, but the ring announcer introduced him as Archie “Black Lightning” Davis.

“I’ll put up ten on Black Lightning,” said the bulldog, looking around for a taker.

The soldier on my left dug into his pocket, and others rose to the challenge.

“Take the bet,” urged Carmen, as the fighters in the ring got their instructions.

“The Army boy hasn’t got a chance,” I said. “The Negro’s a ringer. I’ll bet ten his name isn’t Archie Davis. Look at those arms, scar tissue over the eyes. He’s been around, and the other kid can’t even look him in the eye.”

I tried to spot Babe Ruth but couldn’t. I sure as hell didn’t see anyone who looked like Ann Sheridan.

For the first few minutes the two fighters received cheers for dancing. When McCoy decided that things weren’t going too badly, he made a flat-footed rush and landed a right to Davis’s head that Davis slipped. In return, Davis put a short hard left into McCoy’s kidney that the crowd and the referee missed. The crowd went wild. It looked to them like McCoy had drawn first blood. The bulldog man looked over at me with a mean smile, and I nodded that I had seen what he had seen.

“Ten more says McCoy don’t go the four rounds,” the bulldog said.

Money came his way. Carmen dug into her purse, and I stopped her.

“He’s right,” I said.

I didn’t have time to see the end of the fight. I told Carmen to enjoy herself, that I’d be back soon, and headed up the aisle before she could ask any questions. When I glanced back, the bulldog man was leaning in her direction, explaining the finer points of the fight game to her.

In the corridor the sounds of the crowd seemed artificial, like someone had created them for a John Garfield boxing movie.

The corridor wasn’t quite empty. A woman rushed for the women’s room. A guy at a hot-dog cart was counting his before-the-fights take. I spotted Gunther without any trouble. It is hard to miss a midget, especially when the midget is trying to look inconspicuous by standing against a wall reading a newspaper while a boxing match is going on that he supposedly spent money to see. Even the woman anxious for the toilet paused to look at him.

Gunther and I were at the right gate, and a wall clock told me that I was on time. A groan rose from the crowd, so I figured that Black Lightning had done his first evident damage. Curtis Bowie came loping along about thirty seconds later, looking a bit bewildered but holding onto his smile. He wore a dark ski sweater and a thin topcoat and had his hands in his pockets. I wasn’t sure what might be in those pockets. I hadn’t brought my trusty .38. I didn’t expect a shoot-out, but you could never tell what a desperate human or a fool will do.

Bowie walked over to me and looked into my eyes, and the smile grew broader.

“I wasn’t sure I’d recognize you,” he said.

“Let’s get down to business,” I said. “Why did you do it?”

“The money,” Bowie said, still grinning.

“Money?” I asked. “What money?”

“The money Max Gelhorn promised me,” Bowie went on, scratching his stomach and turning his head at another echoing groan from the crowd. He spotted Gunther and was fascinated by the sight.

“Gelhorn paid you to do it?”

“Of course. Well, he didn’t pay me but the guarantee was there,” said Bowie, unable to take his eyes from Gunther and return them to me.

“So you killed Tillman and Larry from Chicago because Max Gelhorn paid you?”

“Killed?” said Bowie, forcing his attention from Gunther. “I didn’t kill anybody. I was talking about the
High Midnight
script.”

“If you didn’t kill anybody, why did you come here tonight?” I said.

“Fargo killed him,” said Bowie with a smile.

“Killed who?”

“Whoever got killed,” explained Bowie. For a writer, he was having a hell of a time making things clear.

“Why?” I asked checking the clock. I had another possible appointment in a few minutes.

“A lot of hate in him,” said Bowie confidentially, “and a lot of need. I can’t see him being in the picture, but he’d do anything to get it off the ground, even more than I’d do. He’d kill for it. He said he’d kill to get this picture.”

Gunther finally turned a page in the paper.

“You see that little guy?” asked Bowie, pointing to Gunther.

“Little guy?” I asked, looking around. “What little guy?”

Gunther packed up his newspaper and moved slowly away. Bowie shook his head in wonder, and the crowd roared again.

“Mickey would kill me, you or Cooper to get the picture done,” Bowie said, watching Gunther walk slowly and reluctantly toward the men’s room.

“You think he can reach the toilet?” Bowie asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. The bell rang inside the stadium, and crowd sounds swelled. “Why would he want to kill Cooper? He’s the goose with the golden face.”

Bowie nodded and dropped his grin a bit.

“What happens if Copper gets killed?” he said.

“The picture deal is off,” I tried.

The fight had obviously ended. People streamed out into the corridor, hurrying for the toilet and the hot-dog stand.

“Maybe not,” said Bowie. “Maybe Mr. Gelhorn’s backer lets Gelhorn go ahead with someone else. If someone kills Cooper, Fargo and Gelhorn aren’t responsible for delivering him on the picture.”

“You have a devious mind and a deceptive exterior,” I said as a sailor jostled me.

“I’m a writer,” explained Bowie proudly.

“How much did it cost you to get in here?” I said.

“Cheap seats, a buck,” he said.

I pulled out a couple of bucks and said, “It’s on Gary Cooper.”

Bowie looked at the two bucks, was tempted, but plunged his hands deeper into his pockets to resist temptation.

“Nope,” he said. “I like the fights, and maybe I’ll pick up some material for a script.”

Sometimes you make a mistake. My sometimes came more often than those of other people. I tried to restore some of the pride I had shot away by returning his status as a murder suspect.

“If Cooper got killed, the chances of your script being shot would go up,” I said seriously. “Your motives might be the same as Mickey Fargo’s.”

Suspect Curtis Bowie straightened up and grinned at me. “Could be,” he said and walked into the oncoming crowd.

Gunther hustled up to me and whispered while pas-sersby watched us. “Shall I follow him?” said Gunther.

“Right,” I said, resisting the urge to tell him to be inconspicuous. “Stay with him, and thanks, Gunther.” Gunther disappeared into the crowd, and I went back to my seat.

Bulldog was counting his money and explaining the finer points of boxing to Carmen, who wasn’t paying attention.

“You missed the knockout,” Carmen said sadly. “Black Lightning electrocuted the army.”

“Very colorful,” chortled Bulldog.

“You get a jolt out of taking candy from soldiers who don’t know the game,” I said irritably.

Bulldog gave me a smirk and went back to counting his cash. There were guys like bulldog all over the stadium, guys who made their living knowing the fighters and the odds and playing on sentiment. Sometimes they lost, but usually they won.

In about three minutes the next preliminary bout was ready to go. Again one fighter was white and the other black, but this time they were welterweights, and both looked tough, and both looked like they were beyond maximum draft age. The white guy had a face even more mushed in than mine. The black guy had a double dark line under his right eye. The white guy had been around long enough to spot an old scar and work on it. If the black guy didn’t nail him in the first round, the white guy would probably open the cut and work on it.

“I’m feeling sentimental,” sighed the bulldog, talking over me at the soldier and then over his shoulder at anyone in the crowd who wanted to hear. “I take even money and take Monroe.” Monroe was the white fighter.

The soldier next to me looked in his wallet and hesitated. He looked at me, and I shook my head no.

“I’ve got ten says Harkins goes for the knockout in the first. If he gets it, I win. If he misses, I’ll go with the sentiment and take Monroe. I’m a sucker too,” I said.

The bulldog leaned over and whispered to me, “Go work another area, you clown. This is my section.”

When the fighters touched gloves, I whispered to the soldier to watch for a cut under Harkins’s eye. If it opened a little, he should push for a bet and take Monroe. The soldier looked at my battered face, took me for an ex-pug and said thanks.