Ed Gorman: Blood Game

A few more hours, he figured. A few more goddamned hours.

* * *

“I’m sorry I got so pissy.”

“It’s fine, son. We all get pissy.”

“I know you’re only trying to help.”

“It isn’t my business, and I shouldn’t put my nose in it.”

“It’s just I wish you knew him better before you passed judgment on him.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s a wonderful man.” “You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you, Leo?”

“No, son, I’m not. Maybe he’s a wonderful man and it’s just my blind spot.”

“He took right over as soon as my mother left.”

Guild smiled at him. “He couldn’t ask for a better son. You know that?”

Just then the crowd shouted and whistled and began stomping their feet.

“The prelim must have started,” Stephen Stoddard said.

Guild picked up the rifle from where it stood next to the chair he was sitting in. He laid it across his lap. “Should be some more money coming our way pretty soon.”

“I really am sorry I got so pissy, Leo. I hope you understand.”

“Oh, I understand, son. I understand fine.”

Stephen Stoddard grinned. “Maybe when this is all over, the three of us will go out and have some drinks. Would you go along if we asked you?”

“Sure.”

Stephen Stoddard sat back and shook his head. “I’ve got a feeling you’re good for him, Leo. He seems to act a little better when you’re around.”

“That’s me,” Leo Guild laughed. “A good influence on everybody I meet.”

He rolled himself a smoke and checked out the rifle again.

They started rubbing Rooney with liniment half an hour before schedule. He was tightening up, and the bald, lanky man John T. Stoddard had appointed as Rooney’s trainer could see why.

Rooney was obviously afraid he was going to die, and probably with good reason. Rooney, from everything Simpson, the trainer, could see, was no longer much of a fighter.

Oh, there had undoubtedly been a time when Rooney had been respected enough giving and taking in the ring, but he had probably always been one of those men who look more ferocious than they really are. Harold Simpson had been watching Rooney work out the past three days. If he were Rooney, he’d be afraid, too.

The liniment smelled of alcohol and another sharp odor. In the tiny dressing room the odor was overpowering.

“You probably should talk.”

“Huh?” Rooney said, glancing up from his reverie.

“Talk. It would probably be good for you. You’re real tight.”

“I was remembering this fishing hole in Arkansas.”

“Nice, huh?”

“Biggest snappers a man ever saw. And the water so blue and cold in the morning with steam coming up off the lake.”

“Sounds pretty.”

“Real pretty. Real pretty.”

“You remember what I told you about his right hand. The son of a bitch comes up from nowhere.”

But Rooney wasn’t listening. “Then when it got hot you could lay back on the shore and look at the clouds. I never had it so peaceful before or since.” Rooney was still back there fishing in Arkansas.

“You got to keep moving, first to your left, then to your right. It’s your best chance, Rooney.” He wanted to say your only chance, but he knew how that would sound.

“Sometimes I’d stay there right through the night,” Rooney went on. “I’d get me a fire going by the shore, and I’d clean the snapper and put it in a pan and cook it right there. It was beautiful, the way the fire glowed in the darkness. Downright beautiful.”

“You keep moving and his punches won’t land clean. And if his punches don’t land clean, he’s going to get frustrated. And if he gets frustrated, you got a chance of hitting him back, Rooney.”

Rooney turned his ebony torso toward Simpson. “You ain’t been listening to me, have you?”

“You ain’t been listening to me, either, Rooney.”

“I was telling you about this fishing spot in Arkansas.”

“And I was telling you about how to get out of that ring alive.” Simpson said this with such vehemence that Rooney had no choice but to forget about Arkansas and face the situation at hand.

“I need to go fifteen rounds anyways,” Rooney said. “I need the money bad, Simpson.”

“He could hurt you a lot in fifteen rounds.”

“Not if I keep moving like you said.”

Simpson thought of the thick, ponderous body he’d seen working out yesterday. At some point in the past five years or so, Rooney had been hurt. The arms didn’t come up quite right, the legs were always wobbly, and sometimes, for no reason, he’d start to shake.

Fifteen rounds could kill him for sure.

“You ever want to go with me?”

“Where, Rooney?”

“Back to Arkansas. That’s where I’m going when this is all over.”

“You are, huh?”

“Yes, I am. I’m getting me a pole and some elderberry wine and some good cigars, and I’m going to do nothing but fish for a month and watch the steam come up off the lake every morning.”

“It sounds like it’s going to be swell.”

“It is. You wait and see.”

Simpson had the impression that Rooney was gone again, was refusing to face the battle at hand by slipping into dreamy dialogue about fishing holes in Arkansas.

But suddenly Simpson knew better.

When he looked down at Rooney, he saw him starting to cry. “I’m scared, Harold. I’m scared.”

Simpson put a white hand on the black shoulder. “It’ll be all right, Rooney. You wait and see.”

But Simpson knew better. Simpson was scared, too.

“This’ll probably be the last big box,” the guard said as he put the strongbox on the desk next to the other two strongboxes.

John T. Stoddard took the cigar from his mouth and nodded. Guild watched Stoddard as he obviously resisted the impulse to start running his hands through all the greenbacks.

Stephen Stoddard, standing next to his father, said, “Dad and Victor are certainly going to be on easy street after this one.”

Guild said, “If this is the last big strongbox, why don’t I take it all to the bank right now instead of letting it sit here the rest of the afternoon?”

John T. Stoddard turned and looked at him. “The agreement was that you’d guard the money, Mr. Guild.”

“The agreement was,” Guild said, “that I’d make sure your money was safe. It’d be a lot safer in a bank vault than here.”

“You’ve got a rifle, don’t you?”

“You know I do. You’re looking at it.”

“Then my money should be safe.”

“The banker said we could bring it in anytime up till three o’clock. That gives us forty-five minutes. If we put the strongboxes on a buckboard, we could make it.”

John T. Stoddard put the cigar back in his mouth and shook his head. “You ever do a job without offering your own opinion?”

“I’m not arguing with you. I’m just making a point.”

“Well, you’ve made your point. Now I’m making my point. I want you to stay here with the money the rest of the afternoon while Stephen and I make sure everything’s going all right in the grandstand.”

“But Dad, I told Leo I’d stay with him.”

“I want you to help me out, Stephen.” John T. Stoddard seemed to make a point of being casual. But, watching him carefully, Guild saw that his eyes had begun to flicker anxiously. “Unless you’ve got a contrary opinion like our friend Guild here.”

“I just thought I’d kind of help him out.”

“I want you to help me out, Stephen. Do you understand that? I want you to help me out, and I don’t want any more goddamn back talk about it.”

Stoddard’s attempt at casualness was now gone.