Joe Gores: Hammett

‘That takes care of supper,’ said Hammett.

‘Quit smirking!’ exclaimed Goodie furiously.

The second prelim was a slam-bang affair between KO Eddie Roberts and a colored lad named Battling Barnes, who took the decision. In the third preliminary bout, Roundhouse Revani TKO’d his Filipino opponent after flooring him in the second, closing his eye in the third, and using his gut as a workout bag in the fourth. Freddy the Glut spoke around Goodie again.

‘I’ve got twenty at four-to-seven that says the semi-final is a draw.’

Goodie was sure he was offering Hammett a bet of some kind, and was excited. ‘Go ahead, Sam,’ she urged. ‘Take him up on it.’

‘You’re faded,’ said Hammett to the gambler.

He spent the six-round roommate act that followed explaining to Goodie the difference between a jab, an uppercut, and a cross; why working on an opponent’s gut to take away his legs and wind was better than head-hunting; and how a fighter could win by opening an opponent’s eyebrow with his glove-laces if the ref was lax.

‘Of course nothing like that’s going on here,’ he said. ‘This is just a dancing lesson.’

The referee called it a draw. Hammett returned to the obese gambler.

‘Freddy, want to double your dough on the Pride of Glen Park?’

Freddy raised an eloquent shoulder under the rich coat. He had it draped around his shoulders like a cape.

Hammett grinned at Goodie. ‘See what you got me into?’

‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.’

‘We had a twenty-buck bet, two-to-three odds. Twenty to me if I won, thirty to him if I lost. Now that’s doubled. If I lose I owe him forty — and I don’t have forty. Plus, I already owe him thirty-five from the last fight.’

‘I’m sorry, Sam.’ Her voice was contrite. ‘I thought-’

He chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, kiddo. I don’t have the thirty-five, either.’

By the end of the first round, it was apparent that Campbell was outclassed. By the end of the second, Goodie had become aware of stamping feet and a growing chorus of boos, shouts, and catcalls.

‘Hey, Frenchie, why don’t you kiss ’im?’

‘Me an’ my old lady tangle more than that!’

Hammett, watching Boulanger left-jab Campbell across the ring with light stinging blows without real beef behind them, had a calculating expression on his face.

‘He’s keeping Campbell awake, trying to choose his round. He must have some money down himself. It’ll work for Red Harvest, right enough.’

Goodie looked at him curiously, but he ignored her. Boulanger, dark, lean, intense, a good fighter, trying desperately to keep Campbell from tripping over his own shoelaces and KOing himself on a ring-post. And Campbell, blond, slow, stupid in the ring, throwing roundhouses at whatever got between him and the light. Good.

Only in the novel, the Boulanger character wouldn’t be trying to pick his round — he’d be trying to throw the fight. And… sure, the Op wouldn’t let him. Why? Some criminal charge from back east that the Op had found out about, and…

Boulanger was boring in. The catcalls had died under the thud of leather on flesh. Sweat flew as the Canadian pummeled away.

‘He’ll put him away in the next round,’ said Hammett.

The fifth started with Boulanger going around the bewildered local fighter, jabbing him at will like a cooper nailing up a barrel. Whenever Campbell would clinch, Boulanger would go inside, working on his belly with solid blows and on his jaw with sizzling uppercuts. The ref stopped it after the round’s fourth knockdown.

The lights came up. The ref raised the Canadian’s right hand above his head in the victory signal. And just here, Hammett thought, would come the flash of silver as a black-handled knife would be thrown from one of the balconies to kill the fighter in his moment of victory.

Freddy the Glut handed Hammett a twenty and a five. ‘I think our local boy should find some other line of work.’

‘Unless he wants to end up in Napa cutting out paper dolls.’

The lean writer and the petite blonde inched their way toward the Post Street exit. Tonight’s stint at the typewriter would just about wrap up Red Harvest.

‘What was that about cutting out paper dolls in Napa, Sam?’

‘A few more beatings like that, and Campbell will be ready for a room in the state hospital for the insane at Napa. Let’s go down to Fillmore Street and take on a stack of wheats and bacon.’

‘Oh, yes! I’m famished!’

‘On you. Remember?’

Goodie pouted her way out of the amphitheater.

The very big man wearing the checked lumberjack was bent over to smear out his cigar butt against the sole of one new elk-hide workshoe as they passed him. He came erect against the frame of a deep-set double door to Post Street through which the last of the fight fans were exiting. The bare low-wattage bulb caged in the archway over his head cast harsh shadows down across his features.

Atkinson unwrapped a fresh cigar, spat the end in the gutter, and lit up. He seemed to be watching for someone. Overhead, the wet-laden ocean wind creaked the ornamental iron fire escape held in place by pulley and counterweight.

His eyes gleamed. The boy who had sold Hammett the Knockout had emerged from the entrance. Atkinson caught his arm in an ungentle grip. The boy’s face contorted. The big man asked questions. At the end of them, the boy palmed half a dollar and went his way, whistling.

Atkinson grinned as he departed himself, in the direction of the all-night lunchroom on Fillmore Street where he’d be able to pick up his surveillance again.

It was Saturday morning. Hammett faked a leap of terror when the grinning youth behind the wheel of the Fialer Limo hire-car goosed him with the electric horn. Still chuckling, Hammett entered the long narrow red brick building at 880 Post that housed Dorris Auto Repair. He unhooked the receiver of the block’s only public pay phone, dropped his nickel, gave the operator a TUxedo exchange number.

An accented voice said, ‘Verain’s Smoke Shop. Make me blink.’

‘Henri? Dash.’

‘But of course it is. Who do you like today?’

‘Louisville Lou in the second; Easter Stockings in the fifth; Khublai Khan in the seventh.’

‘All on the nose?’

‘Where else? And don’t tell me.’

One of them had better come home, Hammett thought as he hung up, or he wouldn’t be paying the rent on the first. No word from Cap Shaw at Black Mask about the two Op stories he had sandwiched between segments of The Dain Curse for eating money. Unless he could rustle up a few bucks to sit in on one of Fingers’ games, he’d have to depend on the monthly disability check from the government, which was about enough to keep him in cigarettes…

‘Hey, Hammett.’

‘How’s it going, Lou?’

Lou Dorris fluttered a grease-blackened hand, palm down.

‘The kid’s got a fever driving my wife nuts, at least it keeps her from driving me nuts, listen, you oughtta know. Big bird was around early this morning asking what time you’re usually in to place your bet, where you go to breakfast, like that.’

‘What else you have on him?’ Sounded like a cop, but Hammett couldn’t think why either public or private tin would be stepping on his shadow.

‘Big as a moose and dressed in work clothes, a wool lumberjack, heavy work shoes-’

‘The shoes new?’

Dorris momentarily checked his spate of words for thought. ‘As a matter of fact, yeah.’ Behind him, a wrench clattered on the grease-stained concrete under the Minerva Landaulet up on blocks at the rear of the garage. ‘Anyway, thought I’d better tell you, an’ lissen, who d’ya like in the fourth at Aurora?’