Richard Deming: Tweak the Devil’s Nose

It wasn’t.

During the next few minutes I discovered the Farmer had better than an amateur knowledge of boxing, judo and plain wrestling. I have better than an amateur knowledge of the first two myself, having been a pro fighter and, for a short time, an army judo instructor. I even know the rudiments of wrestling.

In technical knowledge I considerably outclassed the ex-FBI man, but two factors more than counterbalanced this advantage. The Farmer’s lanky frame was encased in solid muscle which seemed to be interlaced with piano wire, and he could move faster than anyone I ever before even heard of.

Having felt his punch once before, I knew he had power as well as speed. But he made no attempt to hit me, employing his boxing skill only in defense. Apparently his design was to get me in his hands and bend parts of me until I felt like talking.

He would have been an infuriating ring opponent even for a champion, for his incredible speed made it impossible to hit him. Once I had a reputation for being fast in the ring, and in spite of a false leg, I still possess most of my co-ordination. Yet every blow I threw at him either met empty air, or slid harmlessly off his forearms. The closest I came to tagging him was a solid right cross meant for his jaw which landed high on his left shoulder.

The blow sent him staggering backward without hurting him in the least, but before I could follow it up, he skipped to one side, stopped out of range and gawked at me solemnly. Glad of the rest, I stopped too and listened to myself pant.

“You’re good,” he said with faint admiration. “That one almost nailed me.”

Since getting my breath seemed more important than verbal badinage, I refrained from replying.

“Shall we try an encore?” he asked, suddenly darting in again.

During the brief respite I had decided it was futile to wear myself out swinging at a phantom. If he wanted judo, we would fight on his terms awhile and see what happened.

What happened was that he threw me half across the room on my face, flopped on my back before I could roll clear, clamped a scissors around my legs and twisted my right arm up into the middle of my back, where he kept it with a double arm lock.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, the fight is over,” he said.

Gradually he increased the pressure on my arm. When he saw the sweat dripping from my face and knew the pain almost had me screaming, he said, “This goes on until you tell me that firm name.”

You don’t stand pain like that for long without either crying uncle or going unconscious, and he kept it at a point just short of where I could find relief in unconsciousness. He kept it there for five minutes.

“You’re biting your lip,” he said finally. “It’s bleeding.”

I decided to break the hold.

On television wrestlers break holds even more complicated than a combination scissors and double-arm lock, but you rarely see it done in an amateur match. There it usually ends the fight. Possibly a professional could have squirmed out of the hold without personal damage, but the only way I knew how to do it involved deliberately dislocating my own shoulder.

Working my left hand under my chest, I began to draw my knees forward.

“You damn fool!” the Farmer said. “Don’t make me cripple you.”

Slowly, despite the excruciating pain, I forced my knees forward until they were solidly under me. The next step was to push my face off the floor, roll sidewise and dislocate my shoulder.

Farmer Cole knew exactly what I was doing. When I got my face six inches from the floor, he suddenly released me.

When I climbed unsteadily to my feet and began to massage my numb arm, he was standing three feet away eying me moodily.

“I pass,” he said.

I continued to massage my arm.

“I should waste my time,” he elaborated. “Any idiot stubborn enough to pull what you just tried isn’t going to tell me anything no matter what I do to him.”

“That’s right,” I agreed. Licking my lips, I discovered he had been telling the truth about my biting them. They tasted of blood.

“So it’s a draw,” the Farmer said. “No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings,” I told him.

Then I moved unexpectedly for a change. Driving forward, I wrapped him in a bear hug and carried him against the wall at a dead run. As the air whooshed out of him, I banged him in the left eye with my forehead.

That dazed him enough so that he stood still while I unwrapped my arms and smashed an elbow into his jaw. I followed it with the other elbow, stepped back and watched him slide to a sitting position on the floor.

His jaw must have been iron, for he wasn’t quite out even after that punishment. After a moment he shook his head and looked at me groggily.

“The element of surprise is half the battle, son,” I told him.

The damned fool grinned at me.

It was another twenty minutes before we bothered to phone Murdoch’s apartment. First we brushed each other off, then washed our hands and faces, then he painted my lip with iodine and I put a cold compress on his left eye. After that we had a drink.

By the time the Farmer finally got around to phoning, we were on our second drink and had discovered, as Laurie Davis suggested, we had a lot in common. I was mixing a third drink when Laurie and Fausta returned.

Both of them looked from my swollen lip to the Farmer’s swollen eye, but neither said anything.

“It was a draw,” Farmer Cole explained briefly.

I mixed drinks for Fausta and Davis.

I have to credit Laurie Davis with being a cheerful loser. He simply accepted the situation and asked no questions whatever. His sole reference to the matter was an oblique remark he made just as he and the Farmer were leaving.

“If the Farmer ever leaves me, would you be interested in a job as a bodyguard, Mr. Moon?” he asked.

“Let’s take that up when it happens,” I suggested.

When they were gone, Fausta said, “I never in my life heard of such childishness. Two grown men fighting like babies, and then ending up friends. Your lip looks awful.”

I grinned at her.

“Also, it is way after noon, and time for you to feed me.”

Since she wanted to check up on how the club was functioning in her absence, we killed two birds with one stone by lunching at El Patio. It was a casual remark of Fausta’s during lunch which upset the applecart of the assassin of Walter Lancaster and Willard Knight.

She said, “Does it not make you think sometimes, Manny, that a person’s whole life may be changed by some small irrelevant thing which in itself is entirely unrelated to the person?”

Having just finished dessert, I was feeling unsuccessfully for a cigar. As I signaled a near-by cigarette girl, I said, “You mean, for instance, had there been a cigar in my pocket, probably I would never have noticed the shapely brunette approaching? But because of the irrelevant fact that I am out of cigars at this precise instant, perhaps we shall accidentally look into each other’s eyes, and ten years from now we’ll be the fond parents of eight children.”

“If you raise your eyes above her tray,” Fausta said firmly, “I will fire her on the spot.”

I disregarded her instructions, but nothing happened. She was just another pretty girl, and I was just another customer to her.

As I lighted my cigar, Fausta said, “What I was thinking of was this morning. Had there been one more chair in the Jones and Knight office, Mrs. Knight would not have been arrested for murder.”

“You’ve got your small, irrelevant things twisted,” I said. “It was an idle remark by Isobel Jones which set us after Mrs. Knight.”

“Yes, but if you had not gone into Willard Knight’s office after a chair, you would not have heard Mrs. Knight in the next office, so would not have mentioned her when you came out. Then Mrs. Jones would have had no occasion to make the remark.”