“You’re on, sucker,” he wheezed. “Let’s see your dough.”
Malvern brought his eyes back, reached out a flat pack of new hundreds, riffled them. He slipped five from under the printed band, held them out.
“Boy, this is from home,” the fat man said. He put his face close to Malvern’s face again. “I’m Skeets O’Neal. No little powders, huh?”
Malvern smiled very slowly and pushed his money into the fat man’s hand. “You hold it, Skeets. I’m Ted Malvern. Old Marcus Malvern’s son. I can shoot faster than you can run — and fix it afterwards.”
The fat man took a long hard breath and leaned back in his seat. Tony Acosta stared soft-eyed at the money in the fat man’s pudgy tight hand. He licked his lips and turned a small embarrassed smile on Malvern.
“Gee, that’s lost dough, Mister Malvern,” he whispered. “Unless... unless you got something inside.”
“Enough to be worth a five-yard plunge,” Malvern growled.
The buzzer sounded for the sixth.
The first five had been anybody’s fight. The big blond boy, Duke Targo, wasn’t trying. The dark one, Deacon Werra, a powerful, loose-limbed Polack with bad teeth and only two cauliflower ears, had the physique but didn’t know anything but rough clinching and a giant swing that started in the basement and never connected. He had been good enough to hold Targo off so far. The fans razzed Targo a good deal.
When the stool swung back out of the ring Targo hitched at his black and silver trunks, smiled with a small tight smile at the girl in the white wrap. He was very good-looking, without a mark on him. There was blood on his left shoulder from Werra’s nose.
The bell rang and Werra charged across the ring, slid off Targo’s shoulder, got a left hook in. Targo got more of the hook than was in it. He piled back into the ropes, bounced out, clinched.
Malvern smiled quietly in the darkness.
The referee broke them easily. Targo broke clean. Werra tried for an uppercut and missed. They sparred for a minute. There was waltz music from the gallery. Then Werra started a swing from his shoetops. Targo seemed to wait for it, to wait for it to hit him. There was a queer strained smile on his face. The girl in the white wrap stood up suddenly.
Werra’s swing grazed Targo’s jaw. It barely staggered him. Targo lashed a long right that caught Werra over the eye. A left hook smashed into Werra’s jaw, then a right cross almost to the same spot.
The dark boy went down on his hands and knees, slipped slowly all the way to the floor, lay with both his gloves under him. There were catcalls as he was counted out.
The fat man struggled to his feet, grinning hugely. He said:
“How you like it, pal? Still think it was a set piece?”
“It came unstuck,” Malvern said in a voice as toneless as a police radio.
The fat man said: “So long, pal. Come around lots.” He kicked Malvern’s ankle climbing over him.
Malvern sat motionless, watched the auditorium empty. The fighters and their handlers had gone down the stairs under the ring. The girl in the white wrap had disappeared in the crowd. The lights went out and the barnlike structure looked cheap, sordid.
Tony Acosta fidgeted, watching a man in striped overalls picking up papers between the seats.
Malvern stood up suddenly, said: “I’m going to talk to that bum, Tony. Wait outside in the car for me.”
He went swiftly up the slope to the lobby, through the remnants of the gallery crowd to a gray door marked: “No Admittance.” He went through that and down a ramp to another door marked the same way. A special cop in faded and unbuttoned khaki stood in front of it, with a bottle of beer in one hand and a hamburger in the other.
Malvern flashed a police card and the cop lurched out of the way without looking at the card. He hiccoughed peacefully as Malvern went through the door, then along a narrow passage with numbered doors lining it. There was noise behind the doors. The fourth door on the left had a scribbled card with the name “Duke Targo” fastened to the panel by a thumbtack.
Malvern opened it into the heavy sound of a shower going, out of sight.
In a narrow and utterly bare room a man in a white sweater was sitting on the end of a rubbing table that had clothes scattered on it. Malvern recognized him as Targo’s chief second.
He said: “Where’s the Duke?”
The sweatered man jerked a thumb towards the shower noise. Then a man came around the door and lurched very close to Malvern. He was tall and had curly brown hair with hard gray color in it. He had a big drink in his hand. His face had the flat glitter of extreme drunkenness. His hair was damp, his eyes bloodshot. His lips curled and uncurled in rapid smiles without meaning. He said thickly: “Scramola, umpchay.”
Malvern shut the door calmly and leaned against it and started to get his cigarette case from his vest pocket, inside his open blue raincoat. He didn’t look at the curly haired man at all.
The curly haired man lunged his free right hand up suddenly, snapped it under his coat, out again. A blue steel gun shone dully against his light suit. The glass in his left hand slopped liquor.
“None of that!” he snarled.
Malvern brought the cigarette case out very slowly, showed it in his hand, opened it and put a cigarette between his lips. The blue gun was very close to him, not very steady. The hand holding the glass shook in a sort of jerky rhythm.
Malvern said loosely: “Yeah. You ought to be looking for trouble.”
The sweatered man got off the rubbing table. Then he stood very still and looked at the gun. The curly haired man said:
“We like trouble. Frisk him, Mike.”
The sweatered man said: “I don’t want any part of it, Shenvair. For Pete’s sake, take it easy. You’re lit like a ferry boat.”
Malvern said: “It’s okey to frisk me. I’m not rodded.”
“Nix,” the sweatered man said. “This guy is the Duke’s bodyguard. Deal me out.”
The curly haired man said: “Sure, I’m drunk,” and giggled.
“You’r’a. friend of the Duke?” the sweatered man asked.
“I’ve got some information for him,” Malvern said.
“About what?”
Malvern didn’t say anything. “Okey,” the sweatered man said. He shrugged bitterly.
“Know what, Mike?” the curly haired man said suddenly and violently. “I think this — wants my job. Hell, yes.
He looks like a bum. You ain’t a shamus, are you, mister?” He punched Malvern with the muzzle of the gun.
“Yeah,” Malvern said. “And keep your iron next your own belly.”
The curly haired man turned his head a little and grinned back over his shoulder.
“What d’you know about that, Mike? He’s a shamus. Sure he wants my job. Sure he does.”
“Put the heater up, you fool,” the sweatered man said disgustedly.
The curly haired man turned a little more. “I’m his protection, ain’t I?” he complained.
Malvern knocked the gun aside almost casually, with the hand that held his cigarette case. The curly haired man snapped his head around again. Malvern slid close to him, sank a stiff punch in his stomach, holding the gun away with his forearm. The curly haired man gagged, sprayed liquor down the front of Malvern’s raincoat. His glass shattered on the floor. The blue gun left his hand and went over in a corner. The sweatered man went after it.
The noise of the shower had stopped unnoticed and the blond fighter came out toweling himself vigorously. He stared open-mouthed at the tableau.
Malvern said: “I don’t need this any more.”
He heaved the curly haired man away from him and laced his jaw with a hard right as he went back. The curly haired man staggered across the room, hit the wall, slid down it and sat on the floor.