Cockfighter (30 page)

Omar laughed. “If there's any influencing going on, Mr. Middleton, it's Frank working on me, not the other way around.”

“Well, come on in,” Ed entered the hall ahead of us. “I'm not the official greeter here, Mr. Baradinsky. I'm only filling in for Mrs. Pierce. She had to go downtown to get something or other.” Ed snapped his fingers at a grinning Negro boy of fourteen or fifteen in a white short jacket. “Take the bags out of the station wagon to Number Five upstairs.”

“Yes, sir!” the boy said quickly. He had been eager enough to get our luggage, but the three of us had blocked his way.

While Omar and I signed the guest register, Ed Middleton surprised me again.

“I'm not here as a spectator, Frank,” he explained. “I'm the referee, and don't think I won't be watching every move you make in the pits.” He turned to my partner. “I retired a while back from active cockfighting, Mr. Baradinsky, but I decided later that I was too young to quit.”

Ed laughed, and then he looked at me, staring directly into my eyes. “I promised Martha I'd quit, as you know, Frank”—he shrugged—“but now the promise doesn't mean anything—now that she's passed away. And I know damned well she wouldn't want me sitting around all day by myself.”

I nodded sympathetically and smiled. Two full and active days on his feet could very well kill Ed Middleton. And yet, I was still glad to see him and delighted to learn that he was the Number One pit official. Suppose he did keel over dead? That was a much better way to go than eating his guts out with boredom while he stared at a grove of orange trees.

“Say, Frank,” Ed snapped his fingers as we started to go upstairs, “did your partner ever see the senator's flock of fancy chickens?”

“No, I haven't, Mr. Middleton,” Omar said, “although I've heard enough about them.”

“Good! Mrs. Pierce'll be back soon, and I'll take you on a ten-cent guided tour.”

We climbed the stairs to the second floor to where the Negro boy held the door open. I gave him a five-dollar bill, which was plenty, but Omar gave him a five as well. The boy was so astonished by the size of the two gratuities, he returned to our room in less than three minutes with four additional bath towels, a bowlful of ice cubes and a pitcher of orange juice.

Omar glanced critically around the room and eyed the cut-glass chandelier in the high ceiling. “I'll say this much, Frank,” Omar said, “the rag rug on the floor isn't made of rags, the furniture wasn't made in Grand Rapids, and that calendar on the wall above my bed wasn't placed there by any Baptist.”

I opened my suitcase on my bed and unpacked, putting my extra black button-down shirts and white socks into the high walnut dresser between our beds. Omar pushed open the double French windows and looked out, his hands clasped behind his back.

“There's a good view of the cockpit from here, Frank,” he said. “The dome has turned rose in the afternoon sun. Take a look at it.”

I joined him at the window. A half mile away, the dome was pink on one side, and on the other side, away from the sun, the shadows were a dark purple. The twenty separated concrete cockhouses formed a U on the southern side of the circular pit. The Atlanta architect who had built the cockpit had settled for concrete blocks, but had incorporated many of the features of the Royal Cockpit at Whitehall Palace into the structure. The long narrow windows, recessed deeply into the walls, were traditional, but they didn't let in enough light. The five strong electric lights over the pit had to be turned on for both day and night fighting.

The square squat ugly restaurant, with a white asbestos tile roof, had been added ten years after the cockpit had been finished and was connected to the pit by a screened-in breezeway. The restaurant was entirely out of keeping with the general design, and I had always thought it a pity that it hadn't been built in the first place by the original architect.

The interior of the two-story pit held circular tiers rising steeply to the rim of the dome, and seated four hundred People. The judge's box was to the right of the connecting hall to the drag pit, and the press box was directly above this exit. Including the new doorway that had been cut through the wall leading to the restaurant, there were five arched doorways to the pit.

I finished my unpacking and slipped on my jacket again in preparation to go out. Omar turned away from the windows and poured a glass of orange juice.

“I want to tell you something, Frank.” The husky tone of his voice stopped me before I reached the door. “Whether we win the tourney or not, I want you to know that I'll always be grateful to you for getting me this far. This is truly the greatest experience of my life.”

He said this so warmly that I hit him fondly on the arm with my fist. I was tempted to tell my partner about my wow of silence, but this wasn't the time to tell him. If he knew that my voice was riding on the prospect of being awarded the Cockfighter of the Year award, he would have goten more nervous about the outcome than he was already.

“Well,” he said cheerfully, clearing his throat, “isn' it about time to take a look at those fancy chickens?”

I wagged my chin and pointed to his chest. I couldn't go with him, but I knew he would enjoy seeing them. Senaor Foxhall had one of the finest collections of fancy game fowl in the world. He had turned fancier, after getting too old to fight chickens in the pit. He raised purebred Galus Bankivas, the original wild jungle fowl from which all game fowl are descended, Javanese cocks with tails ten feet long, miniature bantams from Japan—beautiful little creatues not much larger than quail—and many other exotic breds. If Mary Elizabeth came to the meet, I intended to show them to her. But I couldn't go with Ed and Omar right then. I had to drive to Milledgeville.

I had wired the Sealbach Hotel and reserved four rooms, but with the crowd of visitors expected the next day I knew the manager wouldn't hold them for me unless I paid for them in advance. I wrote a short note for Omar, telling him where I was going and why.

“
If you want me to, I'll go with you.”

I shook my head.

“Okay. But rest easy about your guests, Frank. I'll see that they're well taken care of, don't worry. Didn't I ever tell you that I was once a vice-president in charge of public relations?”

I waved a hand in his direction, and drove into town.

By seven thirty that evening all the official entries had signed in, and the great downstairs hall was crowded as we waited for Senator Foxhall to come downstairs to lead the way into the dining room. On time, the old man came down the wide stairs, clutching his housekeeper's arm tightly for support. A slight, spare man, not much taller than a fifteen-year-old boy, he still managed to hold himself rigidly erect. In his old-fashioned, broad-lapeled dinner jacket and white piqué vest, he had an almost regal appearance. His pale blue eyes, deeply recessed now in his old age, were still alert and friendly behind his gold-rimmed glasses as he passed through the crowd. Somehow, he had preserved his hair, and his ivory mane was combed straight back from his high forehead in a well-groomed pompadour.

Ed Middleton, my partner and I were standing together. When the senator reached us, Ed introduced the old man to Omar.

Oh, yes. Baradinsky? You're a Russian, aren't you?”

“No, sir,” Omar replied. “Polish.”

“You look like a Russian.”

“It's probably the beard,” Omar said self-consciously. “Maybe so. Anyways, you're in good hands with Frank Mansfield.” The senator smiled in my direction, exposing his blue-gray false teeth. “You'll teach him our American ways, won't you, son?”

Smiling in return, I nodded my head. Omar's great-great-grandfather had emigrated to the United States, but it would have been useless to explain this fact to the senator.

Senator Foxhall nodded his head thoughtfully about twenty times before speaking again.

“Frank is a good man, Mr. Baradinsky. I knew his granddaddy. You listen to Frank and you'll learn something about gamecocks. Did you ever hear of Polish poultry?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, they don't come from Poland! I'll bet you didn't know that, did you?”

“No sir, I didn't.”

“I didn't think you did,” the old man said gleefully. “Not many people do. Did you know that, Ed?”

“I sure did, Senator,” Ed said, with rueful laugh. “I once tried to cross some frizzle-haired Polish cocks, and after losing three in the pit, I found out that they wouldn't face when they were hurt.”

“You should've come to me,” the old man said. “I could've told you that and saved you some money.” He turned back to Omar. “Cockfighting in Poland has never been up to standard, Mr. Baradinsky. They don't feed them right. Same thing with Ireland. Gamecocks can't fight on raw potatoes, Mr. Baradinsky.”

“I'll remember that,” Omar said blandly.

Mrs. Pierce, the senator's housekeeper for more than thirty years, tugged on the old man's arm. “We'd better go in to dinner now,” she reminded him. As the old couple turned away from us to lead the way into the dining room, Omar shrugged his shoulders helplessly, and winked at me. I grinned and nodded my head. Actually, my partner had shown considerable restraint. The senator had been correct in everything he said. If Omar had tried to argue with him, the old man would have cut him to shreds.

Except for Omar and myself, the guests seated around the dinner table were a rather eccentric group. I had known most of them for years, but even to me it seemed like an unusual gathering of people. All of us wore our entry numbers on the backs of our coats. We needed these numbers in the pit as identification for the benefit of the spectators. But we also had to wear them at all times for Senator Foxhall. He knew our names, and he knew them well, but sometimes he had a tendency to forget them. When he did forget, he checked his typewritten list of entries against our numbers so he could address any one of us by name without embarrassment.

Senator Foxhall sat at the head of the long table, and Mrs. Pierce was seated at the opposite end. Ed Middleton and Peach Owen were seated on either side of the senator. Next to Ed was Buddy Waggoner, the second referee, who would preside over the drag pit.

By their entry numbers, the remaining guests were seated around the table, clockwise from Buddy Waggoner.

No. 1.
Johnny McCoy and Colonel Bob Moore, USAF (Retired). Johnny McCoy and his partner, Colonel Bob, flew to meets all over the U.S. from their fifty-thousand-acre ranch near Dan's Derrick, Texas, in a Lear jet. Colonel Bob, although he had been retired for at least ten years, still wore his Air Force blue uniform at all times. Only two days before, this Texas partnership had fought in the Northwest Cockfighting Tourney in Seattle, Washington. From there, they had flown back to Dan's Derrick and picked up fresh, newly conditioned gamecocks. They then had flown in to Macon. The senator's limousine and private game-fowl trailer had brought them from Macon to Milledgeville.

No. 2
. Pete Chocolate, Pahokee, Florida. Except for the senator, Pete Chocolate was the only male guest wearing dinner clothes. He had spoiled the effect, however, by wearing a blue-and-white T-shirt under his black tuxedo jacket. And around his neck he wore an immaculate cream-colored ascot scarf.

No. 3
. Dirty Jacques Bonin, Biloxi, Mississippi. There was nothing “dirty” about Jacques Bonin's appearance. His suit was flawlessly tailored, and his spatulate nails were freshly manicured. Clean shaven and soberly attired, he looked like, and was, a church deacon. He had earned the appellation of Dirty Jacques during World War II when he had organized the gang of strike breakers who killed or maimed eighty striking longshoremen on the Mobile docks. He had never lived the name down, although his full-time occupation was now the breeding and fighting of Louisiana Mugs.

No. 4
. Jack Burke. Dody sat beside her husband, and I sat next to her—one of Mrs. Pierce's ideas. Dody spoke to me once, and only once, during dinner.

“Jack told me to apologize for kicking you at Plant City,” she whispered.

I waited politely for her to continue, but that was all she said.

Jack Burke also spoke to me during dinner, leaning forward in his chair and twisting his head in my direction.

“Let's make it an even thousand bet between Little David and your chicken, Frank. I've okayed it with Ed and Peach to have the hack immediately after the last tourney fight while the judges tote up the final scores. All right?”

When I nodded in agreement, he sat back in his chair.

No. 5.
The English-Polish team of Mansfield and Baradinsky.

No. 6
. Roy Whipple and his son, Roy, Jr. Mr. Whipple was the old cockfighter who had shared the velvet love seat with me in the bridal suite of the Southerner Hotel in Chattanooga. He had lost a bundle in the holdup, but it hadn't dented his bankroll. The old man owned three Asheville, North Carolina, resort hotels. Roy, Jr. was a senior at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and had obtained special permission from the dean of men to assist his father at the meet.

No. 7.
Baldy Allen, of Columbus, Georgia, was the owner of several liquor stores. Breeding and fighting milk-white Doms was not only a sideline for Baldy, it was a profitable enterprise. His gregarious wife, Jean Ellen, who did his betting for him, accompanied Baldy everywhere.

No. 8.
Johnny Norris, Birmingham, Alabama. Johnny was famous as a conditioner of game fowl, but I didn't consider him a first-rate handler. For fifteen years he had conditioned cocks for the late Ironclaw Burnstead. When Mr. Burnstead died, he left Johnny three hundred thousand in cash and his entire flock of game fowl. In the past three years, Johnny had gained a reputation as an all-around cocker, and this was his first entry in the S.C. Tourney.