2
Tony Acosta, the bell captain, was slim and dark and slight as a girl, with small delicate hands and velvety eyes and a hard little mouth. He stood in the doorway and said:
“Seventh row was the best I could get, Mister Malvern. This Deacon Werra ain’t bad and Duke Targo’s the next light heavy champ.”
Malvern said: “Come in and have a drink, Tony.” He went over to the window, stood looking out at the rain. “If they buy it for him,” he added over his shoulder.
“Well — just a short one, Mister Malvern.”
The dark boy mixed a highball carefully at a tray on an imitation Sheraton desk. He held the bottle against the light and gauged his drink carefully, tinkled ice gently with a long spoon, sipped, smiled, showing small white teeth.
“Targo’s a lu, Mister Malvern. He’s fast, clever, got a sock in both mitts, plenty guts, don’t ever take a step back.”
“He has to hold up the bums they feed him,” Malvern drawled.
“Well, they ain’t fed him no lion meat yet,” Tony said.
The rain beat against the glass. The thick drops flattened out and washed down the pane in tiny waves.
Malvern said: “He’s a bum. A bum with color and looks, but still a bum.”
Tony sighed deeply. “I wisht I was goin’. It’s my night off, too.”
Malvern turned slowly and went over to the desk, mixed a drink. Two dusky spots showed in his cheeks and his voice was tired, drawling.
“So that’s it. What’s stopping you?”
“I got a headache.”
“You’re broke again,” Malvern almost snarled.
The dark boy looked sidewise under his long lashes, said nothing.
Malvern clenched his left hand, unclenched it slowly. His eyes were sullen.
“Just ask Ted,” he sighed. “Good old Ted. He leaks dough. He’s soft. Just ask Ted. Okey, Tony, take the ducat back and get a pair together.”
He reached into his pocket, held a bill out. The dark boy looked hurt.
“Jeeze, Mister Malvern, I wouldn’t have you think—”
“Skip it! What’s a fight ticket between pals? Get a couple and take your girl. To hell with this Targo.”
Tony Acosta took the bill. He watched the older man carefully for a moment. Then his voice was very soft, saying:
“I’d rather go with you, Mister Malvern. Targo knocks them over, and not only in the ring. He’s got a peachy blonde right on this floor. Miss Adrian, in 914.”
Malvern stiffened. He put his glass down slowly, turned it on the top of the desk. His voice got a little hoarse.
“He’s still a bum, Tony. Okey, I’ll meet you for dinner, in front of your hotel at seven.”
“Jeeze, that’s swell, Mister Malvern.”
Tony Acosta went out softly, closed the outer door without a sound.
Malvern stood by the desk, his finger tips stroking the top of it, his eyes on the floor. He stood like that for a long time.
“Ted Malvern, the All-American sucker,” he said grimly, out loud. “A guy that plays with the help and carries the torch for stray broads. Yeah.”
He finished his drink, looked at his wrist-watch, put on his hat and the blue suede raincoat, went out. Down the corridor in front of 914 he stopped, lifted his hand to knock, then dropped it without touching the door.
He went slowly on to the elevators and rode down to the street and his car.
The Tribune office was at Fourth and Spring. Malvern parked around the corner, went in at the employees’ entrance and rode to the fourth floor in a rickety elevator operated by an old man with a dead cigar in his mouth and a rolled magazine which he held six inches from his nose while he ran the elevator.
On the fourth floor big double doors were lettered City Room. Another old man sat outside them at a small desk with a call box.
Malvern tapped on the desk, said: “Adams. Ted Malvern calling.”
The old man made noises into the box, released a key, pointed with his chin.
Malvern went through the doors, past a horseshoe copy desk, then past a row of small desks at which typewriters were being banged. At the far end a lanky red-haired man was doing nothing, with his feet on a pulled out drawer, the back of his neck on the back of a dangerously tilted swivel chair and a big pipe in his mouth pointed straight at the ceiling.
When Malvern stood beside him he moved his eyes down without moving any other part of his body and said around the pipe:
“Greetings, Teddy. How’s the idle rich?”
Malvern said: “How’s to glance at your clips on a guy named Courtway? State Senator John Myerson Courtway, to be precise.”
Adams put his feet on the floor. He raised himself erect by pulling on the edge of his desk. He brought his pipe down level, took it out of his mouth and spit into a waste basket. He said:
“That old icicle? When was he ever news? Sure.” He stood up wearily, added: “Come along, Uncle,” and started along the end of the room.
They went along another row of desks, past a fat girl in smudged makeup who was typing and laughing at what she was writing.
They went through a door into a big room that was mostly six-foot tiers of filing cases with an occasional alcove in which there was a small table and a chair.
Adams prowled the filing cases, jerked one out and set a folder on a table.
“Park yourself. What’s the graft?”
Malvern leaned on the table on an elbow, scuffed through a thick wad of cuttings. They were monotonous, political in nature, not front page. Senator Courtway said this and that on this and that matter of public interest, addresses this and that meeting, went to or returned from this and that place. It all seemed very dull.
He looked at a few half-tone cuts of a thin, white-haired man with a blank, composed face, deep set dark eyes in which there was no light or warmth. After a while he said:
“Got a print I could sneeze? A real one, I mean.”
Adams sighed, stretched himself, disappeared down the line of file walls. He came back with a shiny narrow black and white photograph, tossed it down on the table.
“You can keep it,” he said. “We got dozens. The guy lives forever. Shall I have it autographed for you?”
Malvern looked at the photo with narrow eyes, for a long time. “It’s right,” he said slowly. “Was Courtway ever married?”
“Not since I left off my diapers,” Adams growled. “Probably not ever. Say, what’n hell’s the mystery?”
Malvern smiled slowly at him. He reached his flask out, set it on the table beside the folder. Adams’ face brightened swiftly and his long arm reached.
“Then he never had a kid,” Malvern said.
Adams leered over the flask. “Well — not for publication, I guess. If I’m any judge of a mug, not at all.” He drank deeply, wiped his lips, drank again.
“And that,” Malvern said, “Is very funny indeed. Have three more drinks — and forget you ever saw me.”
3
The fat man put his face close to Malvern’s face. He said with a wheeze:
“You think it’s fixed, neighbor?”
“Yeah. For Werra.”
“How much says so?”
“Count your poke.”
“I got five yards that want to grow.”
“Take it,” Malvern said tonelessly, and kept on looking at the back of a corn-blond head in a ringside seat. A white wrap with white fur was below the glassily waved hair. He couldn’t see the face. He didn’t have to.
The fat man blinked his eyes and got a thick wallet carefully out of a pocket inside his vest. He held it on the edge of his knee, counted out ten fifty-dollar bills, rolled them up, edged the wallet back against his ribs.