Two gun bob, p.278
Two-Gun Bob, page 278
Joan, I mean. A bookkeeper’s daughter! My God!” “Well, what’s the difference between an honest bookkeeper and a crooked fight promoter?” asked a harsh voice, and we all whirled – except Hoolihan which was still tied and couldst only twist his head around, which he done. It was Billy Ash, and he was madder’n I ever seen him.
He walked up to Hardcash.
“You say one word against that girl and I’ll knock your fat head into the bay,” he said between his teeth. “The kid happens to be my sister. I don’t know what she saw in that sap son of yours, but they’re married now, and you’re going to kick in and help them.”
“I’ll see you in hell first! “ roared Hardcash. Billy laughed harshly.
“You know what happened tonight?” he said. “Steve here tangled up with your two prize stumblebums and knocked them both stiff in Reynolds’
training quarters.”
Hardcash jumped convulsively.
“What? Oh my God! Is it in the papers?” he squalled like a stricken elk.
“Not yet,” said Billy. “I was the only newspaper man there. But you open your yap about Horace and Joan, and I’ll scarehead it in the morning paper. You’ve been building up these bums till the public thinks they’re championship material. You’ve spent plenty on the ballyhoo. It would look nice, wouldn’t it, a big headline how old Steve here cooled both your prize pets? How many tickets you think you’d sell?” Hardcash began to shake all over and mop his brow with a palsied hand.
“Don’t do it, Billy,” he begged. “I’ve got too much money tied up in this fight. If I don’t clear some dough on it, I’m sunk.” “Well,” said Billy, “your scrap with Shifty Steinmann is none of my business.
But if you don’t kick in with some dough for those kids, I’ll spill the beans all over the place.”
“Sure, Billy, sure!” soothed Hardcash hurriedly. “I’ll mail them a big check the first thing in the morning.”
“Ain’t nobody ever goin’ to turnmeloose?” wrathfully demanded Hoolihan.
“Wait till I get my lawyer! I don’t know what you thugs have been talkin’ about but I know Clemants hired me shanghaied to try to interfere with my fight with Gomez. I’ll see somebody behind the bars for this!” Billy turned on him. “Yeah?” he sneered. “How’d you like for your wife back in Chicago to know you’re playing around with Gloria Sweet?” “Hold on,” begged Hoolihan. “Don’t let that get out. You never saw such a jealous woman in your life. She’d shoot me! Let’s just all forget about it, pals.”
Whilst Bill O’Brien untied Hoolihan, Billy Ash turned to me.
“Steve,” he said, “why did you run away from me for? I’ve been chasing you all over the city. That article of yours was a knockout. I’d like to have you do a series of them. A laugh in every line! People wouldn’t need the comic strips, with them in the paper.”
“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” I answered, nettled. “That there article represented my best efforts, to say nothin’ of a dozen lead pencils and a stack of paper. Anyway, I’m through!
“Hardcash, I want you to get me a fight in the prelims of the Reynolds Clanton match.”
“You mean you’re goin’ back to fightin’?” exclaimed Bill O’Brien with joy. “And me and the boys can win dough on you some more?” “I mean I’ve found the only way I can get along with my feller man is to bust him on the jaw,” I answered, “and I might as well be gettin’ paid for it.”
Hard-Fisted Sentiment
I was feeling so good when I come into the American Bar that I essayed a handspring in the middle of the floor, to the astonishment of the onlookers and my white bulldog, Mike. I wasn’t drunk nor nothing. The Sea Girl hadst just been docked in Port Arthur a few hours and I was so blame glad to be on shore leave again. But I reckon I ain’t quite as spry as I was in the days when I used to turn handsprings in the ring at the end of my fights to show the customers how little I minded taking a fifteen-round beating.
I kind of piled up on a reef, so to speak, or in other words, I catapulted into a table knocking it over with a feller under it that hadst been setting there with his head in his hands. As I kicked the ruins off of us, I looked with amazement into the wrathful face of the Sea Girl’s cap’n.
Before I couldst say a word, the Old Man, which had been more crabby than ever for the past week, give a roar of rage and got up, kicking the table and chairs in all directions.
“You drunken fool!” he roared. “Can’t a man set down and brood peacefully nowhere? Ain’t a man safe from you no place, you Irish baboon? What do you mean crashin’ into my table like that, you brainless, boneheaded, infantile fool?”
Well, I don’t much blame him for being mad, but his manner got on my nerves. I got a wild temper myself, and it ain’t in me to stand up and take a cussing from any man. I flared up myself.
“Stow that guff, you old sea-goat!” I roared. “You can’t abuse me, even if I have been sailin’ under you for more years’n I like to remember! Save your cussin’s for the square-heads you shanghai. I’m a free-born American citizen and no slave-drivin’ old pirate can crack a whip at me! I been takin’
orders from you on board so many years you think you can chart my course ashore.Well, you can take some more soundin’s. I’m fed up with you, and I’m fed up with that lousy tub you call the Sea Girl!” “Alright!” he roared. “You’re fed up with the Sea Girl, eh? Well, you’ve sailed your last cruise aboard her. Her new owners won’t be the softhearted fools I’ve always been, to ship such a thick-skulled gorilla as you.” “Huh!” I stopped short in the middle of a roar and glared at him kind of blank. “What you mean, new owners?”
“What I say!” he snarled, and I noticed how old and worn he looked.
“I’ll never steer the Sea Girl again, and when I think of the crew with such apes as you, I’m almost glad of it.”
“But I don’t understand – ” I began.
“When did you ever understand anything?” he yelled, jerking at his chin whiskers. “I owe a company here a lot of money. They hold my note. I can’t even pay the interest. If I could get a few weeks more time, I could pay.
But they have to have at least a thousand dollars by tomorrow morning before they’ll give me any more time, and I haven’t a blasted half penny.
Even you know what a rotten cruise we’ve had. I’m losin’ the Sea Girl, that’s what. They’re goin’ to attach her tomorrow if I can’t scrape up a thousand dollars. I’m goin’ to lose my ship, that’s the very blood and heart of my soul. I’d rather lose a leg, an eye, an arm. The snap of her sails is the sweetest music I know; the creak of her timbers is like old friends a-talkin’.
Lettin’ her go is like rippin’ the heart outa my ribs. But what do you know or care about it, you thick-skulled mick? You got about as much sentiment as that bulldog. I’m a old man and my ship’s goin’ to be took away from me, and I’ll be on the beach in my old age. Now you can cheer all you want to. I guess you’re glad to hear it. But get out of here and leave me alone!”
Well, I just turned around and walked out without saying a word. I was kinda dazed, I reckon, I’d knowed the OldManwas deep in debt and hadn’t had a good voyage, but I hadn’t knowed how it was. I wouldn’t have spoke to him like I had, hadst I of knowed. I couldn’t hardly realize the Sea Girl was going to be took away from him. I got kind of cold and sweaty. Mike sensed what was in my mind and he snuggled up against me and licked my hand.
Well, I racked my brain how to get some money, and turned to the only way I knowed – fighting. And a sudden idee took me so quick I give a yell. The first part of the idee had to do with Shifty Strozza, foremost middleweight contender, who in the middle of a world tour, was in Port Arthur that day. Right in front ofmethey was a big poster announcing that Strozza and Benny Goldstein was going to fight ten rounds to a decision that night in Jim Barlow’s Wharfside Arena.
I beat it up the street, trying to figger out just what to do, when all at once I seen a form ahead of me – a broad-shouldered man of medium height – Shifty Strozza hisself ! What luck! He was passing a cheap dive that was run by a Chinaman I knowed – one of these joints where you go down several flights of steps from the street. I met him.
“Hello, Shifty,” I greeted him. “Glad to see you agin!” He gimme the once-over kinda scornful – a dark, handsome fellow he was, and cold and cruel as a panther in the ring.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “I remember you – the old Sailor. You ain’t risen much in the world since I fought a preliminary to one of your scraps on theWest Coast three years ago.”
“Naw,” I admitted. “But you have – you was just a kid then, with a natural gift uh slippin’ and side-steppin’. But now they say the middleweight champ is side-steppin’ you.”
“He can’t duck me much longer,” he snarled. “I’m fightin’ my way around the world, just to show the fans I’m the best middleweight in the business. When I get back to America I’ll make that cheese champ meet me – and the belt’s as good as mine. What do you want? A handout? I’m not givin’ out no dough to punch-drunk ring tramps.” “And I’m not askin’ it,” I growled, keeping my temper, but feeling red sparks dancing in my eyes. “I’m askin’ you to have a drink with me and talk over a deal I got in mind.”
“Well, make it snappy,” he snarled. “I’m due at the Arena in an hour and if I’m a minute late that lousy manager of mine will be havin’ conniption fits, thinkin’ I’m kidnapped or somethin’.”
I led the way down into the joint, nodded at Yat Yao, the old Chinee which owned the place, and he showed us a back room – a lousy, moldy place, more like a cellar than a room. He put drinks on the ramshackle table and left, closing the door.
“Well, what do you want?” snapped Strozza. “This is the lousiest dump I ever seen.”
“What I want is soon said,” said I. “Shifty, this fight tonight don’t mean nothin’ to you. The only reason you’re doin’ it is because your manager saw a chance to grab some easy money. This ain’t no fight town and you know it. Fifteen hundred dollars Jim Barlow guaranteed you – that’s chicken feed to you. You must be worth a hundred thousand, easy. Benny Goldstein’s your sparrin’ pardner. I know that, if the rest of the town don’t. It won’t be no fight, it’ll be a dancin’ match and the crowd will git gypped.” “What’s that to you?” busted in Shifty. “They’ll see me perform, won’t they? Ain’t that worth the price of admission?” “Maybe,” I admitted. “But that ain’t the idee. That fifteen hundred you won’t need would help me a lot. I know better’n to ask you to lend it to me. But three years ago when you was just a unknown prelim fighter in Frisco, you come to me and begged me to git you a fight, as a semi-windup to one of my scraps. I done it, and you know blame well, Shifty, that it was that fight that started you on the right road. All the sportswriters in Frisco featured your showin’ that night.Well, I ain’t one ask favors for favors I’ve did, but you could help me a lot tonight if you would.
“All I ask is – don’t show up at the Arena! Give me a chance. My cap’n’s a old man and they’re about to take his ship away from him. It’ll break his heart. Fifteen hundred ain’t nothin’ to you – ” Shifty was setting there with a sneer on his dark handsome face and I knowed my breath was being wasted. White flashes of fury began to zip through my brain and I held onto the table edge to control myself.
“And you want me to pass up a grand and a half,” he sneered, “just to help some dodderin’ old fool of a sailor! What do you think I am, a charity fund? Fifteen hundred ain’t nothin’ to me, no. But by the same token I ain’t passin’ it over to the first tramp that comes along. If anybody asks you, Shifty Strozza is out for himself and nobody else. Now get out.” I was on my feet shaking with rage.
“Yes, you wop rat!” I roared. “You was never for anybody but yourself!
You ain’t got the heart of a snake in your slimy carcass! Thank the Lord they ain’t many fighters like you! Three years ago you come whinin’ to me for a chance – now you won’t pass up what ain’t cigarette money to you to keep a old man off the beach! But get this, you dirty fourflushin’ alley-rat, you ain’t goin’ to get a smell of that fifteen hundred bucks!” He leaped up with a screech of rage, plumb red-eyed, and I smashed him square on the jaw with a right that had every ounce of my beef and about ten tons of red fury behind it. He splintered the table as he went down and he laid among the ruins without twitching. I called for Yat Yao and he come in, without changing expression on his yellow, parchmentlike map.
I laid hold of Strozza and dragged him through a door which Yat Yao opened for me, into a small dungeon-like room.
“He won’t be out but only for a few minutes,” I told the old Chinee. “You lock the door and don’t let him out for a couple of hours, anyhow. Better have several strong-arm men on hand when you let him out – he’s liable to get rough.”
Old Yat Yao nodded and grinned and me and Mike hurried down the waterfront till we come to the Wharfside Arena. They was quite a crowd going in and I went up to the ticket booth.
“How’s the gate, Red?” I asked and the fellow grinned.
“Howdy, Sailor,” said he. “Boy, I didn’t know they was so many fight fans in Port Arthur! They’ve all turned out tonight – Americans, English, French, Dutch, Japs, and a lot of rich Chinees. Lemme tell you, Shifty Strozza is sure an attraction! It ain’t often us fans exiled in the Orient gets to see a first class fighter perform. At five bucks a throw, we got close onto a three thousand dollar gate – maybe more. If Shifty’d knowed they’d turn out like that, he’d demanded a percentage instead of a guarantee.” I got kind of cold and shaky inside. All these fans hadst come to see the great Strozza. Maybe they wouldn’t be satisfied with anything I could give ’em. It ain’t often that the realization is brung home to me that after all I’m nothing but a ham-and-egger, but it come to me hard then, and the taste was dust in my mouth.
“Lemme go in, Red,” I said. “I ain’t got a dime, but I wanta see Jim Barlow.”
“Sure, Sailor,” said Red. “Go right in – I wish you was fightin’ a prelim tonight – the fans still remember how you licked Black John Scanlan here six months ago.”
I went on in, me and Mike, and I looked over the crowd; they was a big crowd for a Port Arthur fight show and I felt my heart kinda sink. They’d come to see a first-string fighter perform – how could I hold ’em, me with no kind of a scheme?
They was already getting restless, and suddenly, in the back rows, which was the cheapest, I seen three men and a idee flashed into my mind. I made my way down the aisle, and to my delighted surprise the crowd give me quite a hand. They hadn’t forgot the old Sailor, after all. I made my way in the dressing rooms; Benny Goldstein was already in ring togs, waiting to go on, but naturally Strozza hadn’t showed up. His manager was running in circles and Jim Barlow was cussing. I got hold of Barlow and got him into a small side room he used as a kind of office.
“Jim,” I said, “the crowd’s gettin’ impatient.” “Yes,” he growled, “I know it, but what can I do? Where do you suppose that blame Strozza is?”
“Never mind,” said I. “He ain’t goin’ to turn up.” Barlow jumped clean out of his chair. “What!” he hollered. “How do you know? I’m ruint! I’ll have to give that crowd their money back – ” “Wait a bit,” said I. “I think I can save the day without Strozza.” “You?” sneered Barlow. “They came to see a near champion – not a ring tramp. You’re good enough drawing card in your way, Sailor, but you ain’t Shifty Strozza.”
“Alright,” I snapped, “go out and tell them muggs that the show is off and they can get their money back at the box office.” Jim Barlow cussed like he’d have apoplexy.
“Listen to me,” said I. “I don’t blame you for feelin’ put out. You put one over on Strozza and his manager – they figgered you’d lose money by givin’ ’em a straight fifteen hundred dollar guarantee. But you was smart; chargin’ three, five and ten bucks a seat you’ve got over a four thousand dollar house. Your expenses ain’t nothin’ scarcely, you ain’t even put on no preliminary shows. You stand to make a clean two thousand dollar profit as it stands. But if you have to give the crowd back their money, you make nothin’. Listen to me, and I’ll put you in the clear yet. The crowd won’t see Strozza perform, but they will see a real fight, where they wouldn’t if they’d seen Shifty and Benny Goldstein cakewalk.”
“Lay your cards on the table,” said Jim Barlow. Already we could hear the crowd yelling for action and Strozza’s manager and handlers and seconds had run out to look for him.
“I seen three men in the crowd we got to use,” I said. “They’re Frenchy Ladeau, Peter Nogaya, and Bill Brand. Get ’em in here.” Barlow sent a boy for ’em and purty soon they filed into the office.
Ladeau and Nogaya was dark and dangerous looking; Brand was a rough, hard-faced blond. All three was tough and hard, fighting men from the word go. They looked on me with little favor.
“Here’s the ticket,” I said. “First we’ll put it up to the crowd – if they want their money back, why of course they ain’t nothin’ we can do. But I believe they’ll agree to what I suggest. If they do, why, I’ll fight these three jailbirds, one after another. If I lay all three of ’em, which I probably will, I get a thousand dollars and they gets nothin’. If even one of ’em licks me, they split the thousand between the three of ’em. How’s that?” They licked their chops, being broke, as usual – they was all seamen.
“This is the way it goes,” I went on. “Without Strozza showin’ up,wegot to give the crowd somethin’ very unusual to keep ’em contented. Ladeau is a boxer and a savate fighter – he can use his hands and his feet too. Pete is a jujitsu expert – he’ll wrestle and hit with his bare hands if he wants to. Brand is a boxer – he’ll fight me his way. I’ll wear gloves and straight boxing rules for all three fights.”
“But what if the first man flattens you?” said Barlow. “The crowd will feel gypped.”
