The Bruiser (16 page)

“What a boy! what a boy!” crooned Daniel Muldowney. “It's our duty, Tim, to save such lads—the world needs its fighters.”

“It does that,” returned Tim.

“Can I have the letter, Timothy?”

“Yes, Dan.”

He put it in his pocket, saying, “Goldfinger, Gold-finger, Goldfinger and Riley,” and then, “let's have some coffee, Tim. It's not two o'clock, and I'm afraid I'll get sleepy.”

Daily and Berniece met at the Royal Hotel.

“Does he still think I'll vamp his fighter?” asked Berniece.

“Oh, yes—everything's one color to Tim.”

He led her to a table, “But he'll get over it.”

He watched her eyes. “Cheer up, Kid, everybody gets hit once. You'll get over it by the time it touches your heart.”

“Why do you say that—do you think I'm that cold?” she asked.

“Not exactly.” Hot and Cold Daily was silent a moment before he asked, “Why do certain types of women go for fighters?”

“What do you mean—
certain types
—I've known a dozen fighters and you've never seen me excited.”

“That's right—stopped again. I will say he's different.” He took his elbows from the table. “And, my God, how he can fight—I didn't think a panther could lick Jones as quick as he did.”

“And yet he's like a child—maybe that's the combination women like.”

“They like every combination they can't work.” He leaned back.

Berniece smiled whimsically. “For a fellow who knows so much, you know so little,” she said. “I knew
if I ever met him I'd go for him—my dad used to talk so much about him, I guess. I'd do more for him than his manager—if he'd only understand.”

“Well, you'd never make Tim understand. He's of the old school—women are poison to fighters and that's that—but I'll help you meet Rory now and then.”

His belligerent chin dropped. With an effort, it was firm again. He looked straight at her.

“Do you know much about men?”

“I think I do.”

“Well, you don't—no woman does; all the little surface tricks, maybe.”

She frowned prettily, pondering the words. “Maybe you're right.”

“Now let me tell you something, kid—get this first-memorize it—there's nobody smarter than Mrs. Daily's pug-nosed son.”

Berniece smiled. “It's marvelous the way you hate yourself.”

“You mean the way I know myself. But anyhow, get this—I got a tip from the coast—a little girl out there was all set to take Rory for a ride—Old Tim doesn't know I know it. Well, she went off a cliff in an automobile. You see, kid, if Tim's not dumb, neither's Rory. Blinky Miller trusts me—it's funny, some people do—I know a newspaperman's a louse and a what have you, but he's human, and if one of them's your friend—well anyhow, Blinky told me that after Rory sent the money to bury the little punk, he said to him, ‘that little devil would of framed me some day—I've been expectin' it ever since I got in the money'—so you see,
he's not so dumb. He met this gal in a restaurant, took her to Frisco from Cheyenne before he joined Haney. You see, baby, newspapermen and God are the only people who know everything. You can't get your head up as high as Rory's without guys like us peggin' you—that's our business.”

“Well, well, I suppose you also know who the other girl is—the one with a name like a Pullman car, Mr. Solomon?”

“Yes, Berniece—but that's a private affair. When a man cracks up, it's not a matter of record in our books. But we know it—we'd be suckers if we didn't. Old Tim pullin' that Oregon woods stuff! Everybody in this world's got to talk to somebody. Rory's committed no crime, and if his heart's heavy and Old Tim freezes him up, what's more natural than talkin' to Blinky Miller, and Blinky half the time is as unconscious as a city editor—so one night he told me where Rory'd been. I got on the ‘phone and sent a Minneapolis man out to peg the story—and boy, it would make your heart ache—and the girl—with the name like the Pullman car—she has to talk to someone also—and of all the people in the world, to an old Danish washer-woman with paralyzed ankles. Our man can't move in on her, so we send a young Dane cub to work the old racket—peddlin' chromos. He shuffles a few pictures of people in the neighborhood till he comes to this girl's; he goes back and forth—and we get the story—all in Danish. He brings a picture of Rory in fightin' togs—she knew him, you know, and the young Dane says, ‘you know he's part Dane.' I think that's a lie—he's part Nor
wegian, I think—but no matter, she told the story—and I think it's the damnedest thing I ever heard.

“The old lady lives in a three-room shack near the Grainsville stockyards. Everything's supplied her by the girl's people—and she's closer to the girl than anybody, except her father—and it's another Tim Haney and Rory affair—the fighter spills his heart to Blinky and the girl does to the old lady. I didn't know there was a love story left in the world, but, by God, there's one. The old lady saw her come roarin' down the road in a big yellow roadster and stop, then come hurrying in sobbing, ‘Oh, Granny, Granny, hold me, Granny.' The old lady kept cold towels on her forehead, and the girl kept mumblin' all the time, ‘My baby—my baby.' I suppose meanin' the guy who paralyzed Torpedo Jones—if you figure women out you can pass on into heaven—you're too bright for this world. The kid met her, sellin' chromos. He says she's beautiful as hell.”

Berniece shuddered; Daily resumed, “He'd been there four or five years before—he was a husky, good-lookin' kid, and he reminded her of her dad, and she got stuck on him. He got to be kind of like a body servant. She went to college and he breezed away without sayin' a word. Then he floats back after he blew the fight to Sully. It started all over again. Then she goes out of town to tell some high-powered gink it was all off—that she was coming back to Rory, a wheat-tosser on the farm, hidin' out, and when she got there he was gone. Anyhow, old lady Jorgensen kept the girl with her a day and a night before she'd go home—and then Mrs. Jorgensen had to go with her. It's a little
jumbled the way I tell it—but you get the drift of the thing.

“The picture of that old Danish washer-woman, big around as a barrel, and hobblin' on paralyzed ankles, lettin' that girl sob herself to sleep in her arms has got anything licked I ever heard of. I remember lookin' at him, and me drunk as an owl on sacred wine—and thinkin' ‘what a handsome, big bruiser you are' and me lecturin' him like he was a kid because he blew to Sully—you know, I write doggerel for pastime—it keeps me from writin' poetry. I wrote about the Dublin Slasher:

Berniece looked up, “That's nice.”

“I'll say.”

He motioned for a waiter.

“When I think of those two punks whipped around like a couple of doves in a gale, it makes my heart ache. I often wonder who started the whole business anyhow. It might have been Tim Haney—but the boys out Minneapolis way tell me this gal's a lolapalooza. She's made Rory suffer. He don't know it, for that's all he knows—what a hell of a miracle he is—Jack Gill told me about him out in Kansas when he was just a tramp fighter. Everybody in the camp liked him the first day. He was Gill's sparring partner—in the first clinch he said in Gill's ear, ‘Can I throw 'em?' Can you imagine
that—and Gill, a champion? Gill said ‘yes' quick and stepped back, and he told me he was damned lucky he did—the kid went to work. Gill liked him so much he moved him in on Buck Logan over in Omaha—well there's not enough snow in the mountains to make a whiter man than Buck was—and Rory was like his son. You know, I meet all the boys—and most of the girls—I guess it's because I'm a sympathetic cuss. I just look at every man and say to myself, ‘Gee, he's got to die,' and right away I'm sorry.

“When Bangor Lang fought him the second time, he tells me Rory said to him, ‘Bangor, if I lose to you, I won't be too sorry—you were swell to me after you cracked my jaw'—you see, Rory's got a left jab that's strong as a pile driver. I'm telling you it
would
knock an ox down—he hunches over and moves it up and down and pushes it out. If it lands solid, you go down—well, he got Bangor. When Bangor got up, Rory moved in for the kill. ‘I was never hit so hard and often in my life,' said Bangor. ‘It was like razors cutting through my brain.' And when it was over Rory said, ‘I thought it was the decent thing to do, Bangor; Hot and Cold Daily told me I had too much mercy with Sully.'”

Daily's mind was crossed with a fleeting wonder at life.

“How long have I known you, Berniece?”

“Too long—five years—I was nearly eighteen when I had the misfortune to meet you.”

He laughed, “Come to think of it, I've never seen you dissipate.”

“And you never will either—women can't drink—it's like pouring nitro-glycerine in a cream puff, and then lighting it.”

With a sudden shift, “So your dad used to know Rory's, huh—did he ever tell you what he was like?”

“Yes—he liked him—a big, good-looking man, a stone-mason. Shane couldn't have been fourteen when he ran away West; no one ever heard of him till his name got in the papers—naturally when he got to be a good fighter, other neighbors remembered how bright he was—and all about his sister—people are like that—but my dad talked about him long before he was known.”

“That's a great story. I'd like to write it—but it belongs in a novel—and I'm all in when I write a column.”

“So am I when I read it.”

Hot and Cold Daily chuckled. “How'd you happen to get in this racket?”

“Texas Guinan knew my mother and daddy. She's been like a mother to me. She took charge of everything when dad died—and all the bills. I paid her back, thank God.”

“Tex, eh? White people!” Daily held his glass.

“I'll say so! What a world if everyone was like her,” Berniece mused.

“You wouldn't want 'em all like her,” Hot and Cold Daily put in; “it's just right as it is—with most of the world suckers. What the devil would a woman like Texas do if everybody was as smart as she was?”

“I hadn't thought of that,” laughed Berniece. “They might smarten her up even more.”

“She was a fine woman. She never let anybody down,” said Hot and Cold Daily.

“And strict as a convent,” returned her protégé. “But nobody knew it—she kept her soul in a private room—and she never let the suckers in.”

Hot and Cold Daily half smiled, “What'll you do if you crack up from lovin' this guy?”

“No danger—the other girl met him first. Besides,” with slight weariness, “my mother always said I'd never get any place till I found someone I couldn't have.”

After a week's clamor in the newspapers, Shane was matched with Sully for the Heavyweight Championship of the World.

Silent Tim selected a training camp near a small lake in New Jersey, forty miles from New York.

The same cook had been at the camp for twenty years. In that time she had prepared meals for many famous pugilists. She called them “my boys.”

Shane, with Blinky Miller, and two sparring partners, was introduced to her by Silent Tim Haney.

“You'll feed him well, now, Mother.”

“Indeed I will—no man ever lost through my meals.”

“They win in spite of 'em.”

She laughed with Silent Tim.

The camp consisted of many buildings. At one end was an outdoor ring, surrounded by many tiers of wooden seats.

A small ticket window was nearby. Fifty cents was charged those who desired to watch the challenger train. A room containing typewriters and telegraph instruments for the use of newspapermen, overlooked the lake. A saloon and dance-hall was at the entrance.

Silent Tim had chosen Random Lake for several reasons, the principal one being it was free of expense. A celebrated fighter drew large crowds who spent
money freely. All money taken at the ticket window went toward salaries for the sparring partners and other incidentals.

Satisfied with all, Silent Tim left Shane in Blinky's care. Before leaving for New York, he said,

“Make your mind up hard, Shane—and remember Sully has his own mind made up too—that's what makes a great fight. And remember again that Sully has the edge on the psychic stuff—there's a man in the world to get all our goats—and Sully's had yours twice—it's not how
you
figure—it's how
he
figures. It was me that sat an hour on the Dublin Slasher's bed before he fought Jack Dolan. It's the nerve strain you must watch. I saw the great Stanley Ketchell weep before his fight with Jack Johnson. He was a better man, but lighter. You and Sully are about the same weight. It'll be the last wild drive in you that'll win—and it's as much your heart as your mind—for you both can't cross on the same track—one of you's got to get off—and don't mind what the papers say about what Sully'll do to your jaw. Torpedo Jones didn't do it—lightning never strikes twice in the same place—I remember before the Slasher went in with Dolan—young Dolan had never been knocked out but once—a solar plexus—I had Wild Joe Ryan go to him and say, ‘I'm givin' you a tip, Jack—watch your solar plexus—he'll play for you there.' It's all bunk, pay no attention to any of it—you've got to whip Sully—you've got to whip him if you're dead when you do it. He knows what you did to Jones—and Torpedo might of beat him—but Sully's still a harder nut for you to crack—it's the game—that's
the way it goes, and no one's got the time to figure it all out. Sully may not be a better man than the Nigger,
but he is for you
, and you're the one that's fightin' him, and that makes all the difference. I can't watch your mind, but I can your body—and you'll be in the best shape of your life when you get inside the ropes with Sully.”

Shane's heavy arm pulled Silent Tim to him, “All right, Grandma—now don't worry.”

“My God,” snapped Tim, “it's time to worry with a coupla million in your lap.”

Tim had chosen wisely in Blinky.

No mother watched a sleeping child with more care than he did Shane. If the covers slipped from his shoulders, Blinky adjusted them.

He had the ego of a child and magnanimity not found in many greater men.

Why he was alive, or the forces that controlled his existence, were mysteries he did not consider. His life was made up of people and events connected with the ring.

He held no animosity toward Shane for the knockout long ago in Council Bluffs. He seemed to consider it an honor to have been beaten by so great a man. Though he fought Shane as a ringer, he had the knockout by him placed in his record. Other fights had followed. The record ended with “k.o. by Shane Rory.”

Blinky's ears were shapeless. The muscles of his face were broken from the pounding of many gloves. Slightly punch-drunk, with a rasping voice, he was
balmy as spring and gentle as a dying wind. Without the bitterness of defeat, like all those close to Rory, he became deeply attached to him.

Though Silent Tim Haney was often doleful as doom, Blinky was silent as sunlight when need be, and as cheerful.

He often mentioned the hundred dollars given him by Shane.

“Forget it, Blinky—it's the best investment I ever made.”

“I'm glad you feel that way, Champ—there ain't no more like you. They've forgot how to make 'em.”

In a few days he would again mention the money.

When Silent Tim Haney said to him jokingly, “You mighta licked Shane in your day,”—“Not the best two days I ever lived,” returned Blinky.

Shane gave Blinky ten thousand dollars after the fight with Torpedo Jones.

Silent Tim groaned at the news. “You'll spend it in a week. Let me take care of it for you,” he suggested.

“All right.”

“You'll never see it again,” Tim smiled.

“That's okeh—I've lost more in my time.”

The words touched Tim, and he said, “It's yours though—here's my receipt.”

“You keep that too—your word's all I want.”

“Suppose I die?”

“Shane'll still be alive.”

Each morning after his road work, Shane would have his “rub down” and breakfast.

He enjoyed the pounding and rubbing of his body,
and the odor of the soothing witch hazel that Blinky used. The one-eyed fighter's fingers had magic in them. While rubbing Shane's muscles, he would talk of different pugilists' weaknesses in disclosing an attack. “Jerry Wayne'd make his legs rigid, and then begin to dance … and always watch Torpedo Jones' left eye—Bangor Lang shifted before starting an uppercut—I don't know why. No matter how fast a guy is, his brain's got to be faster.”

Sully was the master, the combination fighter and boxer, in Blinky's opinion. No one knew how or when he started a blow. Even in the heat of battle he left less to chance than any other fighter. Shane agreed with him. Yet Sully lost a close verdict to Torpedo Jones.

Shane would sit nude in the sun for twenty minutes. Blinky would then rub him with vinegar and oil and five minutes later soak his body in beef brine.

This gave him a tan that verged on black, and made his flesh tough as leather.

The newspapers contained many items concerning his deadly left hook. It was training camp strategy. His right was just as powerful.

He had learned one trick that few pugilists knew. It had won many victories for Silent Tim Haney.

If two men aimed with their right, both would land. It was even possible for them to knock each other out.

Shane had been taught to move his left foot four or five inches to the left as he threw his right. The blow meant for Shane's jaw would go over his shoulder, while Shane's would land with brain-jarring force.

“A smart fighter often falls for an old trick if he
thinks you're too smart to use it—maybe you can get Sully to throwin' right hands—like you threw them against Torpedo Jones,” said Silent Tim.

“That's right,” agreed Blinky Miller, “but don't try it too early in the fight—his brain'll be too clear then.”