The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (28 page)

The bell sounded and Darby went out fast. He tried a wild right, and Mink stabbed with the left. But Darby had been ready for that and he rolled under the left and smashed a punch to the body. Then he worked in, jabbed a left and crossed a short right. Mink backed up and looked him over. The first round was fast, clean, and even.

The second was the same, except that Mink Delano forged ahead. He won the round with a flurry of punches in the final fifteen seconds. The third found Mink moving fast, his left going all the time. He won that round and the fourth.

Dan Faherty and Beano were in Darby’s corner. Dan smiled as McGraw sat down. He leaned into the fighter.

“Take him this round,” he said quietly. “Go out there and get him. You’ve let him pile up a lead, get confident. Now the fun’s over. Go get him!”

When the bell sounded, Delano came out briskly confident. He jabbed a left, but suddenly Darby exploded into action. He went under the left and slammed a savage right to the ribs that made the other fighter back up suddenly, but McGraw never let him get set. He hooked his left hard to the body, and then threw a one-two for the head, moving in all the time.

Delano staggered and attempted to clinch, then whipped out of it and smashed a wicked right to Darby’s jaw. It hurt, and Darby started to clinch, then tore loose and smashed both fists to the body. He stabbed at Delano with a left. Fighting viciously, they drove back and forth across the ring.

Mink straightened up and started a jab. Anxious, Darby sprang in, smashing two ripping hooks to the body, then lifting the left to the chin. Delano sidestepped and tried to get away, but Darby was after him. He stabbed a left, another left, then feinted and drilled his right all the way down the groove.

Mink tried to step inside of it, but took the steaming punch flush on the point of the chin. He hit the floor flat on his face.

Faherty was gathering up Darby’s gear when he looked up. “Fats surrendered to the police,” he said. “I don’t get it. If the assault can be proved, he’ll get a stiff sentence.”

“There’s me and Beano,” Darby said. “We can prove it. Even if he has three witnesses. Nobody can deny I got beat up. I’ve got the doctor’s report.”

“Uh-huh.” But Faherty was worried, and Darby could see it.

H
E WAS EVEN MORE WORRIED
at workout time the next day. “You seen Beano?” he asked.

“No. Ain’t he here?” Darby pulled on his light punching-bag mitts. “I saw him last night after the fights. He went down to Central Avenue, I think.”

“He hasn’t come back.” Faherty shrugged. “He’s probably got a girl down there. He’ll be back.

“There’s something else,” he went on. “I’ve got you a fight, if you want it. Or rather, Mary got it. A main event with Benny Barros.”

“Barros?” Darby was surprised. “He’s pretty good, isn’t he?”

“Uh-huh. He is good. But you’ve improved, Darby. You’re getting to be almost as good as you thought you were in the beginning.”

McGraw grinned, running his fingers through his thick hair. “Well,” he said, “that big spar-boy, Tony Duretti, was hitting me with a left today, so I guess I can get better. When do I fight him?”

“Not for two months,” Faherty advised. “In the meantime, we’re taking a trip. You’re fighting in Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. Once every ten days, then train for Barros.”

“Gosh.” Darby grinned. “Looks like I’m on my way, doesn’t it?” He sobered suddenly. “I wish Beano would get back.”

T
WO DAYS LATER
when the plane took off for Toledo, Beano Brown was still among the missing. In Toledo, Darby McGraw, brown as an Indian, his shoulders even bigger than they had been, and weighing one fifty-seven, knocked out Gunner Smith in one round. In Detroit he stopped Sammy White in three and flew on to Cleveland, where he beat Sam Ratner. Ratner was on the floor four times, but lasted the fight out by clinching and running. The tour ended in Chicago with a one-round kayo over Stob Williams.

The morning after their return to the coast, Darby rolled out of bed and dug his feet into his slippers. He shrugged into his robe and walked into the bathroom. There was a hint of a blue mouse over his right eye, and a red abrasion on his cheekbone. Other than that, he had never felt better in his life.

When he had bathed and shaved, he walked outside to the drive that ended at the main house. Mary’s car was parked under a big tree, where she had left it the night before. She’d been strangely quiet all the way home from the airport. It was unusual for her to be quiet after one of his fights, but he had said nothing.

The sun was warm and it felt good. He walked across the yard, dappled with shadow and sunlight, toward the car. He dropped his hand on the wheel, the wheel Mary had been handling the night before, and stood there, thinking of her. Then he noticed the paper. He picked it up, idly curious if there was anything in the sport sheet about his fight with Williams.

He stiffened sharply.

FIGHTER DIES IN AUTO ACCIDENT

Beano Brown, former lightweight prizefighter, was found dead this morning in the wreck of a car on the Ridge Route. Brown, apparently driving back to Los Angeles, evidently missed a turn and crashed into a canyon. He had been dead for several days when found.

“No,” Darby whispered hoarsely. “No!”

The screen door slammed, but he did not notice, staring blindly at the paper. He had known Beano only a short time, but the Negro had been quiet, unconcerned, yet caring. In the past few weeks he had come to think of the man as his best friend. Now he was dead.

“Oh, you found it!” Mary exclaimed. She had come up behind him with Dan Faherty. “Oh, Darby, I’m so sorry! He was such a fine man!”

“Yeah,” Darby replied dully, “he sure was. He didn’t have a car, either. He didn’t have any car at all. He wouldn’t go driving out of town because he couldn’t drive!”

“He couldn’t?” Dan Faherty demanded. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. You can ask Smoke Dobbins, his friend. Smoke offered him the use of his car one day, and Beano told him he couldn’t drive.”

Faherty looked worried. “Without him, it’s only your unsupported word against Fats Lakey and his two pals that you were beat up. We’ll never make it stick.”

“But a killing?” Mary protested. “Surely they wouldn’t kill a man just to keep him from giving evidence in a case like that!”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Dan agreed, “but after all, they could get five years for assault, or better. And Fats wouldn’t have had any trouble getting someone to help him with the job, since he’s Renke’s brother-in-law.”

“He is?” Darby scowled. He hadn’t known that. He did know that Fats was vicious. He suddenly recalled things he had heard Fats brag about, thoughts he had considered just foolish talk at the time. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Renke manages Benny Barros,” Dan said suddenly. “They’ll be out to get you this time.”

“It still doesn’t seem right,” McGraw persisted. “Not that they’d kill him. Beano was peculiar, though. He kept his mouth shut. Maybe there was something else he knew about Fats or Renke?”

IV

Smoke Dobbins was six-feet-four in his sock feet and weighed one hundred fifty pounds. He was lean and stooped, a sad-faced Negro who never looked so sad as when beating some luckless optimist who tried to play him at pool or craps. Darby McGraw, wearing a gray herringbone suit and a dark blue tie, found Smoke at the Elite Bar and Pool Room.

“You know me?” he asked.

Smoke eyed him thoughtfully, warily. “I reckon I do,” he said at length. “You’re Darby McGraw, the middleweight.”

“That’s right. Beano Brown was my trainer.”

“He was?” Dobbins looked unhappier than ever. He shook out a cigarette and lit it thoughtfully.

“I liked Beano,” Darby said. “He was my friend. I think he was murdered.” He drew a long breath. “I think he knew something. To be more specific, I think he knew something about Renke or Fats Lakey.”

“Could be.” Smoke looked at his cigarette. “Ain’t no good for you to be seen talkin’ to me,” he added. “Plenty of bad niggers around here, most of ’em workin’ for Renke. They’ll tell him.”

“I don’t care,” Darby snapped. “Beano was my friend.”

Smoke threw him a sidelong glance. “He was just a colored man, white boy. Just another nigger!” The man’s voice took on a bitter tone.

“He was my friend,” Darby persisted stubbornly. “If you know anything, tell me. If you’re afraid, forget it.”

“Afraid?” Smoke looked at his shoes. “I reckon that’s just what I am. That Renke, he’s a mighty bad man to trifle with. But,” he added, “Beano was my friend, too.”

Smoke looked up and met the fighter’s eyes then. “Me, I don’t rightly know from nothin’, but I got an idea. You ever hear of Villa Lopez?”

“You mean the bantamweight? The one who died after his fight with Bobby Bland?”

“That’s right. That’s the one. Well…” Smoke took his hat off and scratched his head without looking at Darby. “Beano, he was in Villa’s corner that night. Mugsy Stern was there, too. Mugsy was one of Renke’s boys. At least, he has been ever since.

“Lots of people thought it mighty funny the way Villa died. He lost on a knockout, but he wouldn’t take no dive. He got weak in the third round and Bobby knocked him out. Villa went back to his corner and died.”

“You think Beano knew something?” Darby demanded. He was keeping an eye on a big Negro across the street. The Negro was talking to a white man who looked much like one of those with Fats that night when he got beat up.

“You fightin’ Benny Barros, ain’t you? What if somethin’ happen to you? What if Beano was afraid somethin’ goin’ to happen to you? Somethin’ like happened to Villa? Maybe if he thought that, he told Renke if anything funny happened, he would tell what he knew.”

“The police? Go to the police, you mean?”

“No, not to the police.” Smoke smiled. “Renke, he’s got money with the police, but Villa, he had six brothers. A couple of them have been with the White Fence Gang. They good with knives. Good to stay away from. Even Renke is afraid of the Lopez brothers. If they thought, even a little thought, that something was smelling in that fight, there would be trouble for Renke.”

“Where are they?” Darby demanded. “Where could I find them?”

“Don’t you go talkin’,” Smoke said seriously. “You talk an’ you sure goin’ to start a full-sized war. Those Lopez brothers, they are from East L.A. and down to San Pedro. Two of them are fishermen.”

Darby McGraw walked down to the car stop when he left Smoke. When he glanced around, the tall colored man was gone. Then he saw two men walking toward him through the gathering dusk. The big Negro and the white man who had been with Fats. The man’s name was Griggs. Darby stood very still, his thumbs hooked in his belt. He looked from one to the other. He was going to have to be careful of his hands, the fight was only three days off. There was no sign of the streetcar.

He waited and saw the space between the two men widening. They were going to take him. They were spreading out to get him from both sides.

“What you askin’ that dinge?” Griggs demanded. “What you talkin’ to that Dobbins for?”

“Takin’ a collection for some flowers for Beano,” Darby said. “You want to put some in?”

“I don’t believe it,” Griggs said. “I think you need a lesson. I thought you’d learned before, but I guess you didn’t.”

They were getting close now, and Darby could see the gleam of a knife in the Negro’s hand, held low down at his side. He stepped away from them, stepping back off the curb. It put Griggs almost in front of him, the big Negro on his extreme left. Griggs took the bait and stepped off the high curb to follow Darby.

Instantly, Darby McGraw sprang, and involuntarily, Griggs tried to step back and tripped over the curb. He hit the walk in a sitting position, and Darby swung his right foot and kicked him full on the chin. Griggs’s head went back like his neck was broken and he slumped over on the ground.

Quick as a cat, Darby wheeled. “Come on!” he said. “I’ll make you eat that knife!”

“Uh-uh,” Smoke Dobbins grunted, materializing from behind a signboard. He held the biggest pistol Darby had ever seen. “You don’t take no chances with your hands. I’ll tend to this boy. I’ll handle him.”

The big Negro’s face paled as Smoke walked toward him. “You drop that frog sticker!” Smoke said. “Drop it or I’ll bore a hole clear through you!”

The knife rattled on the walk. “You get goin’, Darby,” Smoke said. “I’m all right. I got two more boys comin’. We’ll put these two in a freight car, and if they get out before they get to Pittsburgh, my name ain’t Smoke Dobbins.”

McGraw hesitated, and then as the streetcar rolled up, he swung aboard. He did not look back. It was the first time in his life he had ever kicked a man. But Griggs had once slugged him with a blackjack from behind, and they had intended to cut him up this time.

F
AHERTY HELD
a watch on him next day. “You look good,” he told Darby. “Just shorten that right a little more.” He threw the towel around Darby’s neck. “There’s a lot of Barros money showing up. Mary’s worried.”