The Knockout (Fight Card) Read online

  “That’s okay.”

  “It’s been what. A week?”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know you’ll have to drop me—“

  “No, no,” she said. “Not what I meant at all. Don’t worry, Frankie. Gotta go. Other line.”

  When she hung up Crosby was done and the radio was playing “Earth Angel” by the Penguins. I knew she’d carry me longer than most. We had a connection. I’d felt it the first time we talked. And I wondered how many other men were fooling themselves the same way. She was either a very sexy girl who wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Or she was fat and fifty and working from home to make ends meet.

  She was a nice girl, though.

  Muddy Waters started singing “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man.”

  I went out later, picked up a late edition of The Mirror, and brought home a pizza. The baseball season was over, the Dodgers had finished five games behind the Giants. Not a bad first season for their rookie manager, Walter Alston. I was an all or nothing kind of guy, so with the Dodgers done for the season, I had no interest in the World Series.

  I ate half the pizza, washed it down with two Ballantine beers, putting the rest in the fridge.

  When I washed my hands before turning in, I noticed my bad hand was a little sore. I soaked it in hot water for a little while. Probably just because I hadn’t hit anything but a heavy bag for a while. It’s a lot different hitting a man’s ribs.

  I took some aspirin and went to bed. I was sure my hand would be fine for sparring in the morning.

  ROUND FOUR

  I knew something was wrong from blocks away.

  A plume of dark smoke was climbing straight up into the clear blue sky, like a scar. When I turned into the street where the gym was, I saw the crowd and the fire engines. I ran the rest of the way.

  “Hold it!” a policeman said, barring my way.

  “I’m supposed to be in there,” I said, inanely.

  “Mister, you don’t wannabe anywhere near there,” the cop said.

  “Did everybody get out?”

  “I dunno,” the cop said. He had the numerals 78 on his collar. There were police cars there from the 72nd and 78th Precincts. “I don’t think there was anybody inside.”

  “Yeah, there was,” I insisted. ”It’s a gym, for hell’s sake. Cappy woulda been in there.”

  “Who?”

  I walked away from him, looked around, saw a fireman I could get to and ran over. I grabbed his arm and he yanked it away.

  “What the hell—” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just need to know if everyone got out.”

  “I dunno,” the fireman said. “I don’t think there was anyone—”

  “Crud!” I shouted in frustration.

  I pushed through the crowd until I could see the front of the building. Smoke was coming out the door, and the windows. Up toward the top, I could see flames. In front of the building was Cappy’s old Packard. He’d been driving it for years.

  I went back to the cop.

  “I’m telling you, somebody’s inside—”

  “You again? Look, pal, I got enough trouble with this crowd—”

  Just then, somebody pushed, the crowd surged, and the cop lost his balance for a moment. I took the opportunity to push past him and run to the building. I heard him shouting behind me, but ignored him.

  I had to dodge two firemen, and avoid tripping over the hoses crisscrossing the ground. Water fell on me in a spray, like rain.

  “Whataya doin’?” someone shouted.

  I didn’t know what I was doing. I was heading for the front door, and then I was inside, in the midst of the smoke.

  I was in the front hallway. But I knew my way around the building. Cappy would have either been in the gym, or in his office.

  I thought about getting low, but at that point it didn’t seem to matter. I put my arms up in front of my face and fought my way forward.

  I was coughing by the time I got to the gym. The room was filled with smoke, but I didn’t see any flames. There was nobody there. I kept fanning the air in front of me with my hands, trying to dispel the smoke. My eyes were burning, and my arms and clothes were covered with black soot. I worked my way to Cappy’s office, one wall of which had a large plate glass window, so he could watch the fighters from his desk. I didn‘t understand why there weren’t firemen in the building. Didn’t they usually go running in with their axes?

  “Cappy?” I yelled. “Cappy?”

  Briefly I thought, if he was already outside I was going to feel real stupid about running into a burning building.

  “Cappy?”

  I fought my way to the door of his office and went inside. The ceiling was not as high as it was in the main room of the gym, and I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face. Suddenly I stepped onto something, lost my balance and went down. On the floor I realized I had stepped on someone. I got close enough to see it was Cappy. He was unconscious, his glasses were gone, and he was bleeding from a gash on his head. He must have gotten disoriented in the smoke, fallen and hit his head.

  “Okay, Cappy,” I said. “Let’s go.” I slapped his cheeks, but he was out. I was going to have to carry him.

  I got to my feet, coughing, my throat feeling coarse and hot. I lifted him into a fireman’s carry, then made my way toward the door. I bumped into the desk, then the wall before I finally found the doorway.

  I was walking through the main room when suddenly the ceiling above the ring gave way. Flames, plaster, wood and more smoke came down and the ring was in burning. I looked up and saw the fire was now traveling across the ceiling. Pretty soon the entire thing would come down.

  I turned quickly, slammed into a burning heavy bag, bounced off and tried to orient myself in order to locate the front door. The room was rapidly filling with smoke and tongues of fire from the second floor. The ceiling would come down on us any minute.

  I closed my burning eyes, tried to fill my mind with the layout of the room, then headed for the door. I saw what looked like light at the end of a tunnel of black-grey smoke. I must have been in the hallway, so I headed for the light.

  Suddenly, I was outside, almost falling down the front steps with Cappy’s body on my shoulders. Two firemen appeared and grabbed him from me as I staggered. A third grabbed me before I fell.

  Before I knew it, I was eased down to the ground and an oxygen mask placed over my face . . .

  ROUND FIVE

  A grizzled veteran of an ambulance attendant with a crewcut washed out my eyes and gave me a few more drags on an oxygen tank.

  “You ought a let us take you to the hospital,” he told me. “You could have a reaction to the smoke later on.”

  “Yeah, okay . . .” I said, weakly. “How’s Cappy? How’s the man I carried out?”

  “I don’t know that, sir,” the man said. “I haven’t seen him. But I’ll try to find out.”

  “Thanks.”

  A couple of firemen came over to check on me, and one of them said, “That was really somethin’. How’d you know he was in there?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I coughed, tried to clear my throat, then tried to moisten my mouth.

  “I . . . I just knew . . . he’s always in there . . . early . . .”

  They patted me on the back and told me to make sure I went to the hospital.

  Two other men in suits came over to me. They weren’t complimentary, and they didn’t particularly care if I went to the hospital or not.

  “Corleone?” one of them said.

  “Yeah,” I rasped out.

  “Detective Conroy,” he said, then nodded at the man next to him. “My partner, Detective Miller.” Miller, a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties, built like a wrestler, stared at me with no expression.

  The spokesman, Conroy, was older, and definitely had never been a wrestler. Soaking wet he didn’t go a buck forty. They were definitely a mismatched pair of flatfoots.


  “What can I do for you?” I asked. “I’m a little . . . worn out, right now.”

  “We understand you knew Walter ‘Cappy’ O’Brien?” Conroy asked.

  “What?”

  “I said we under—”

  “Knew?” I asked.

  “Oh, well, yeah,” Conroy said, with a shrug. “He’s dead. We heard you were a real hero, carried him out and all, but he was already dead.”

  I closed my eyes, glad they were already tearing from the smoke.

  “Damn.”

  “So, you knew him?”

  “I knew him real well,” I said. “A lot of years.”

  “Well, we gotta ask you—”

  I started coughing then, cutting him off. The grizzled ambulance attendant came over and said to them, “Hey, he’s gotta go to the hospital.”

  Conroy showed the man his badge and said, “We gotta ask him some questions.”

  “Well, he ain’t in any shape to answer,” the attendant said. Under his crewcut, he was a tall, rangy man with big hands. At that moment, he closed one of those hands over my upper arm and pulled me to my feet. “He’s gotta go.”

  “You takin' him to Methodist?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay,” Conroy said. “We’ll meet ‘im there.”

  “You do what you got to do,” the attendant said. “I’m takin’ this man to the hospital.” He guided me to his ambulance, helped me into the back and then pulled the doors shut.

  “Thanks,” I said, sitting on a gurney.

  “Lie back, man,” he said. “You need some more oxygen if those cops are gonna make you talk when we get to the hospital.”

  I was too tired to do anything but lie back and say, “Okay.”

  ROUND SIX

  I was wheeled into the emergency room and, again, put on oxygen. I didn’t know it, but I also had a gash on my shoulder. Must have happened when the ceiling caved in. They closed it with some stitches, washed out my eyes again, and then left me there in the ER to breath in some more oxygen. After a few minutes, a Jamaican nurse came in and gave me some water.

  “Thank you.”

  “Ya drink it all now, ya hear?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She padded away on the soft soles of her white shoes, her legs very solid and sturdy in her matching hose. She looked to be in her late forties, had probably been doing this for over twenty years.

  “Yah, I’m lookin’ for a patient named Corleone,” I heard Conroy’s voice say.

  “Whatchoo wan’ wit’ him?” the nurse asked.

  “Miss, I’m a policeman. I’ve got some questions for him.”

  “Well, he ain’t in any condition to be answerin’ any questions.”

  “Ma’am, this is a police matter—”

  “I don’ care,” she said. “You in my emergency room now, Mister Policemon. No, you get outta here until I get a doctor to talk to you.”

  I expected to hear Conroy try to argue and assert his authority, but instead he said, meekly, “Yes, ma’am.”

  A few moments later the nurse came back in, folded her arms beneath very large, firm breasts and stared at me.

  “You done somet’in’ ta make the po-lice be after you, mon?”

  “Not me, ma’am,” I said. “All I did was get caught in a fire and have a ceilin’ fall in on me. I thank you for makin’ him wait outside.”

  “Well, as soon as he show his nice shiny badge to a doctor, dey gonna let him in here ta talk to you. I can’t stop ‘em, then.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to ‘em, then.”

  “Okay.” She unfolded her arms and wagged her right forefinger at me. “Don’t choo be runnin’ off, ya hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “Sit back and relax. We need a doctor ta release you, or admit you.”

  I nodded and set my head back on the flat pillow. I didn’t have any intention of being admitted, but I was willing to wait for a doctor to release me. I also needed somebody—a doctor, a cop, anyone—to tell me about Cappy.

  ***

  “Mr. Corleone?”

  I opened my eyes and looked at the tall bird-like man in a white coat who was looming over me.

  “I fall asleep?” I asked.

  “You did.”

  “That’s bad, right?”

  “Not necessarily,” the man in the white coat said. “It’s when you’re asleep that your body is healing itself.”

  I struggled up onto my elbows and asked, “If my body’s healin’ itself, then why do I need you?”

  He was young, and didn’t take offense. In fact, he laughed and shook his head.

  “Believe me, sometimes I ask myself the same thing,” he said. “But sometimes we physicians can help. Like with the two cops outside who are waiting to see you. If you like, I can tell them they have to wait until tomorrow.”

  ”Are you sayin’ you’re gonna admit me?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “In fact, I was about to examine you so I could make that determination.”

  “Well then,” I said. “Let’s do that first.”

  He helped me into a seated position, then shined a light in my eyes, asked me to follow it, then asked me to follow his finger.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “I don’t see any sign of concussion,” he said. “What about your breathing? You apparently inhaled a lot of smoke.”

  “I guess I shoulda held my breath.”

  He used his stethoscope to listen to my lungs.

  “They don’t sound too bad,” he said, taking a step back and folding his arms. “I don’t see any reason to admit you.”

  “Good.”

  “So what about those two dicks?”

  “Yeah, let ‘em in,” I said. “Might as well get it over with.”

  “Okay,” the doctor said. “But don’t take too long. I’m gonna need this area for somebody else pretty soon.”

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Doc.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Wait till you see the bill.”

  The doctor left and the detectives appeared. Conroy and Miller. They pulled the curtain so we’d have some privacy. I figured I was safe. There were no phone books in sight to hit me with while not leaving any marks.

  “You feelin’ okay?” Conroy asked.

  “I can talk,” I said. “Tell me about Cappy.”

  “He’s dead.” Those were the first words Miller spoke to me. I didn’t like him.

  “How did you guys get there so fast?”

  “So fast?” Conroy asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I just brought Cappy out of the building and there you were.”

  “Pal, you were out for almost an hour.” Conroy said. “As soon as the fireman and uniforms saw O’Brien was dead, they called us. You just woke up when we got there.”

  “Really?” I didn’t like losing time. Punch drunk fighters lost time, not me. Okay, I lost an hour to smoke inhalation, but lost was lost.

  “What was goin’ on with O’Brien?” Conroy asked. “Why would somebody wanna kill him?”

  “Somebody killed him?”

  “Come on,” Conroy said. “You were in there. You saw him.”

  “I was a little busy, guys,” I said. “And there was a ton of smoke. Wait—he had a gash on his head.”

  “Bingo,” Miller said.

  “Yeah, somebody brained him,” Conroy said. “Hit him hard enough to kill him. We don’t know with what. We gotta wait for the building to cool down before we can go in.”

  I rubbed my face with my hands.

  “Hey, you okay?” Conroy asked.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m thinkin’. You did ask me who would kill him, right?”

  “That I did.”

  I noticed Miller looking at me hard.

  “Wait,” I said. “You don’t think I had anythin’ to do with it, do you?”

  “No, why?” Conroy asked. He looked over his shoulder at his partner, then back at me. “What, hi
m? Naw, he looks at everybody that way. Hell, why would you kill ‘im, and then run into a burning buildin’ to get him out?”

  “To make myself look innocent?”

  “No,” Conroy said, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t risk your life to do it. Nope. You’re off the hook. Actually, you were never on the hook.”

  That was good to know. I’d worked plenty of cases where the cops looked at me funny. Speaking of which . . .

  “Where’s Detective DeLucca?”

  “He’s on his swing,” Conroy said. “Be back on tomorrow.” A cop’s weekend was called his “swing,” and it didn’t always fall on a weekend. “He a friend of yours?”

  “Nope,” I said, “I just know ‘im.”

  “That so? Maybe I’ll ask him about you. Will he give me the good word?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Really? Okay, so I’ll form my own opinion. When’s the last time you saw Cappy O’Brien?”

  “Last night.”

  “What were you doin’ with him?”

  “I was sparrin’ with one of his boys. ”

  “Yeah, you look like a fighter.”

  “I used to be.”

  “Middleweight?”

  “Light heavy.”

  “You’re still pretty young. Why’d you quit?”

  “Broke my hand,” I said, making a fist out of my left.

  “Was O’Brien your trainer?”

  “No. I just worked out at his gym sometimes. I knew him from years back.”

  “So, you’d classify yourself as a friend of his?’

  “Yeah, I would.”

  “Was anybody else at the gym with you?”

  “Yeah, the boy I sparred with.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Candy Marquez.”

  “Marquez. Now, he is a fighter.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “And O’Brien was his trainer?”

  “Right.”

  “So, if O’Brien was at the gym early this mornin’, shouldn’t Marquez have been there, too?”

  “Um, yeahhhh, he shoulda been. I was comin’ to work with him, again.”

  He turned to his partner. “We gotta put out an APB on Marquez when we get back.”

  “Right.”

  He looked at me again. “Nobody else was there?”