Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) (2 page)

The left shot out and the bag jumped with the explosive force of the blow. Tandy Moore looked thoughtful.

It worked when Gus threw it, no question about that. Well, the least he could do was humor the guy. He was beginning to like Gus Coe. The big, easygoing ex-fighter was shrewd and thoughtful. And Briggs ...

Briggs puzzled Tandy. He was quiet, so quiet you almost forgot he was around, but somehow he always gave Tandy the feeling of being dangerous. He was a man you would never start anything with. Tandy also knew that Briggs carried a gun. He had seen him with it, a small Browning automatic in a shoulder holster.

This training was nonsense. The exercise was okay, it got your muscles in shape, but as for the rest of it, Tandy shrugged mentally. You could either fight or you couldn't. Just let him get in the ring with one of those fancy Dans. He'd show them a thing or two!

That night Tandy stayed up late talking to his two new companions. He watched them closely, trying to figure out just what it was they were up to.

"What's the angle?" Tandy finally demanded. "I mean, down there in the jungle, Briggs said something about maybe I was the guy?"

Gus dropped on the rooming-house bed opposite him.

"It's like this, kid. A guy gave me an awful jobbing a while back. The guy is a big-shot manager and he's got money. The Portland and Seattle gamblers are with him, and that means a lot of muscle men, too. He got to one of my fighters, and one way and another, he broke me an' got me run out of town. Briggs knows all about it."

"But where do I come in?" Tandy asked.

"Both of us figured we might get a fighter and go back an' try him again. The best way to get to him is to whip his scrapper ... take his money on the bets."

"Who's his fighter?" Tandy asked.

Gus grinned at him. "A Portland boy, Stan Reiser," he said.

"ReiserI" Tandy Moore came off the chair with a jump.

"Sure." Gus nodded. "He's probably one of the three top men on the coast right now, but you don't take him on your first fight." He looked at Tandy. "I thought you wanted to fight those guys? That you figured you could run any of them out of the ring?"

"It ain't that," Moore said, quieter now. "It's just that it isn't what I expected." His face turned grim and hard. "Yeah," he agreed, "I'll go along. I'd like to fight that guy. I'd like to lick him. I'd like to beat him until he couldn't move!"

Turning abruptly, Tandy walked out of the room and they heard his feet going down the stairs. Briggs stared at the door.

"What do you make of that?" Gus asked.

Briggs shrugged. "That kid's beyond me," he said. "Sometimes he gives me cold chills."

"You, too?" Gus looked understanding^ at Briggs. "Funny, a kid like that making us feel this way."

Briggs rubbed out his cigarette. "Something's eatin' him, Gus. Something deep inside. We saw it this morning an' we may have just hit on it again, though what it has to do with Reiser or your situation I ain't gonna guess."

They walked into a hotel restaurant the night of the fight. It was early, late afternoon really. The wind whipping in off the Pacific in blasts that slammed the door closed as they came through. In these new surroundings, they looked, shabby and out of place. This was blocks from the cheap rooming house where they lived, blocks from the beanery in which they had been eating.

They sat on stools at the restaurant counter, and a girl brought the menus. Tandy Moore looked up, looked into the eyes of the girl beyond the counter.

She smiled nervously and asked, "What can I get for you?"

Tandy jerked a thumb at Gus. "Ask him," he said, and stared down at his knuckles. He was confused for there had been something in the girl's eyes that touched him. It made him feel scared and he hated it.

She looked from Gus to Briggs. "Who is this guy?" she asked. "Can't he order for himself? What do you do, poke it to him with a stick?"

Tandy looked up, his eyes full of sullen anger. That closed-in feeling was back. Gus dropped a hand on his arm.

"She's ribbin' you, kid. Forget it." He glanced down at the menu and then looked up. "A steak for him, an' make it rare. And just coffee for us."

When she turned away, Tandy looked around and said, low-voiced, "Gus, that'll take all the dough we've got! You guys eat, too. I don't need that steak."

"You fight tonight, not us," Gus replied, grinning. "All we ask is that you get in there and throw them."

The waitress came back with their coffee. She had caught the word "fight."

"You're fighting tonight?" she asked Tandy.

He did not look up. "Yeah," he said.

"You'd not be bad-looking," she said, "if you'd shave." She waited for a response, then glanced over at Gus, smiling. "Is he always like this?"

"He's a good kid," Gus said.

She went off to take another order but was back in a moment and, glancing around cautiously, slid a baked potato onto his plate. "Here's one on the house. Don't say I never gave you anything."

He didn't know how to reply so he mumbled thanks and started to eat. She stood there watching him, the tag on her uniform said "Dorinda."

"Come back and tell me about it." She looked at Tandy. "If you're able," she added.

"I'll be able!" he retorted. Their eyes met, and he felt something stir down deep within him. She was young, not over nineteen, and had brown hair and blue eyes. He looked at her again. "I'll come," he said, and flushed.

When they finished dinner, they walked around the block a couple of times to start warming up, then headed for the dressing room.

An hour and a half later Gus Coe taped up Tandy's hands. He looked at the young man carefully.

"Listen, kid, you watch yourself in there. This guy Al Joiner can box and he can punch. I would've got you something easier for your first fight, but they wanted somebody for this Joiner. He's a big favorite in town, very popular with the Norskies."

He cleared his throat and continued.

"We're broke, see? We get fifteen bucks more out of this fight; that's all. It was just twenty-five for our end, and we got ten of it in advance. If we win, we'll get another fight. That means we'll be a few bucks ahead of the game.

"I ain't goin' to kid you; you ain't ready. But you can punch, and you might win.

"You're hungry, kid. You're hungry for things that money can buy, an' you're mad." His eyes bored into Tandy's. "Maybe you've been mad all your life. Well, tonight you can fight back. Dempsey, Ketchell, lots of hungry boys did it in there. You can, too!"

Tandy looked down at Gus's big, gnarled hands. He knew the kindly face of the man who spoke to him, knew the worn shirt collar and the frayed cuffs. Gus had laundered their clothes these last days, using a borrowed iron for pressing.

Suddenly he felt very sorry for this big man who stood over him, and he felt something stirring within him that he had never known before. It struck him suddenly that he had a friend. Two of them.

"Sure," he said. "Okay, Gus."

In the center of the ring, he did not look at Joiner. He saw only a pair of slim white legs and blue boxing trunks. He trotted back to his corner, and looked down at his feet in their borrowed canvas shoes.

Then the bell rang and he turned, glaring across the ring from under his heavy brows and moving out, swift and ready.

Al Joiner was taller than he was with wide, powerful shoulders. His eyes were sharp and ready, his lips clenched over the mouthpiece. They moved toward each other, Joiner on his toes, Tandy shuffling, almost flat-footed.

Al's left was a darting snake. It landed, sharp and hard, on his brow. Tandy moved in and Al moved around him, the left darting. A dozen times the left landed, but Tandy lunged close, swinging a looping, roundhouse right.

The punch was too wide and too high, but Joiner was careless. It caught him on the side of the head like a falling sledge and his feet flew up and he hit the canvas, an expression of dazed astonishment on his face. At seven he was on his feet and moving more carefully.

He faded away from Tandy's wild, reckless punches. Faded away, jabbing. The bell sounded with Tandy still coming in, a welt over his left eye and a blue mouse under the right.

"Watch your chance an' use that left you used on me," Gus suggested. "That'll slow this guy down. He's even faster than I thought."

The bell sounded and Tandy walked out to meet a Joiner who was now boxing beautifully, and no matter where Tandy turned, Joiner's left met him. His lips were cut and bleeding, punches thudded on his jaw. He lost the second round by an enormous margin.

The third opened the same way, but now Joiner began . to force the fighting. He mixed the lefts with hard right crosses, and Tandy, his eyes blurred with blood, moved in, his hands cocked and ready. Al boxed carefully, aware of those dynamite-laden fists.

The fourth started fast. Tandy went out, saw the left move and threw his right, and the next thing he knew he was flat on his back with a roaring in his head and the referee was saying "Six!"

Tandy came off the canvas with a lunge of startled fury. A growl exploded from him as he swept into the other fighter, smashing past that left hand and driving him to the ropes. His right swung for Joiner's head and Al ducked, and Tandy lifted a short, wicked left to the liver and stood Joiner on his tiptoes.

Tandy stabbed a left at Joiner's face, then swung a powerful right. Joiner tried to duck and took the punch full on the ear. His knees sagged and he pitched forward on his face.

The referee made the count, then turned and lifted Tandy's hand. The fighter on the floor hadn't moved.

In the dressing room, Tandy stared bleakly at his battered face. "For this I get twenty-five bucks!" he said, grinning with swollen lips.

"Don't worry, kid!" Gus grinned back at him. "When you hit me with your left that day in the woods, I knew you had it. It showed you could think on your feet. You'll do!"

When they came out of the dressing room suddenly Gus stopped and his hand on Tandy's arm tightened. Two men were standing there, a small man with a tight white face and a big cigar, and a big younger man.

"Hello, Gus," the man with the cigar said, contempt in his voice. "I see you've got yourself another punk!"

Tandy's left snaked out and smashed the cigar into the small man's teeth, knocking him sprawling into the wall, and then he whirled on the big man, a brawny blond whose eyes were blazing with astonishment.

"Now, you!" he snarled. His right whipped over like an arrow, but the big man stepped back swiftly and the right missed. Then, he started to step in, but Briggs ]| stopped him.

"Back up, Stan!" he said coldly. "Back up unless you want lead for your supper! Lift that scum off the floor. It's lucky the kid didn't kill him!"

Stan Reiser stooped and lifted his manager from the floor. The black cigar was mashed into the blood of his split lips and his face was white and shocked, but his eyes blazed with murderous fury.

"I'll get you for this, Coe!" His voice was low and vicious. "You an' that S. O. " His voice broke off sharply as Tandy Moore stepped toward him.

Moore glanced at Reiser. "Shut him up, Stan. I don't like guys who call me names!"

Reiser looked curiously at Tandy. "I know you from somewhere," he said thoughtfully, "I'll remember ..."

Tandy's face was stiff and cold. "Go ahead!" he said quietly. "It will be a bad day for both of us when you do!"

Outside on the street, Gus shook his head. "What the hell is up with you?" he asked. "You shouldn't have done it, but nothin' ever did me so much good as your hittin' that snake. I don't believe anybody ever had nerve enough to sock him before, he's been king of the roost so long." Both Gus and Briggs looked at him quizzically.

"It's my business," Tandy growled and would say no more.

He said nothing but he was thinking. Now they had met again, and he did not know if he was afraid or not. Yet he knew that deep within him, there was still that memory and the hatred he had stifled so long, it was a feeling that demanded he face Reiser, to smash him, to break him.

"How would I do with Reiser?" he asked suddenly.

Gus looked astonished. "Kid, you sure don't know the fight game or you'd never ask a question like that. Stan is a contender for the heavyweight title."

Tandy nodded slowly. "I guess I've got plenty to learn," he said.

Gus nodded. "When you know that, kid, you've already learned the toughest part."

Chapter
Ill Three weeks later, after conniving and borrowing and scraping by on little food, Tandy Moore was ready for his second fight. This one was with a rough slugger known as Benny Baker.

The day of the fight, Tandy walked toward the hotel. There would be no steak today, for they simply hadn't money enough. Yet he had been thinking of Dorinda, and wondering where she was and what she was doing.

She was coming out of the restaurant door as he walked by. Her eyes brightened quickly.

"Why, hello!" she greeted him. "I wondered what had happened to you. Why don't you ever come in and see me?"

He shoved his hands in the pockets of the shabby trousers. "Looking like this? Anyway, I can't afford to eat in there. I don't make enough money. In fact" he grinned, his face flushing "I haven't any money at all!"