The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (32 page)

“Bantams, welters, lightweights, and one middleweight bout to wind up.”

“So what?”

“So the card's too light. The fans came here to see two big guys slaughter each other. They don't want to be annoyed by a bunch of gnats—even good gnats.… Hi, Happy.”

“Who's that?” asked Miss Paris curiously.

“Happy Day,” the Inspector answered for Maguire. “Makes his living off bets. One of the biggest plungers in town.”

Happy Day was visible a few rows off, an expensive Borsalino resting on a fold of neck fat. He had a puffed face the color of cold rice pudding, and his eyes were two raisins. He nodded at Maguire and turned back to watch the ring.

“Normally, Happy's face is like a raw steak,” said Maguire. “He's worried about something.”

“Perhaps,” remarked Mr. Queen darkly, “the gentleman smells a mouse.”

Maguire glanced at the great man sidewise, and then smiled. “And there's Mrs. Champ herself. Ivy Brown. Some stuff, hey, men?”

The woman prowled down the aisle on the arm of a wizened, wrinkled little man who chewed nervously on a long green cold cigar. The champion's wife was a full-blown animal with a face like a Florentine cameo. The little man handed her into a seat, bowed elaborately, and hurried off.

“Isn't the little guy Ollie Stearn, Brown's manager?” asked the Inspector.

“Yes,” said Maguire. “Notice the act? Ivy and Mike Brown haven't lived together for a couple of years, and Ollie thinks it's lousy publicity. So he pays a lot of attention in public to the champ's wife. What d'ye think of her, Paula? The woman's angle is always refreshing.”

“This may sound feline,” murmured Miss Paris, “but she's an overdressed harpie with the instincts of a she-wolf who never learned to apply make-up properly. Cheap—very cheap.”

“Expensive—very expensive. Mike's wanted a divorce for a long time, but Ivy keeps rolling in the hay—and Mike's made plenty of hay in his time. Say, I gotta go to work.”

Maguire bent over his typewriter.

The night deepened, the crowd rumbled, and Mr. Ellery Queen, the celebrated sleuth, felt uncomfortable. Specifically, his six-foot body was taut as a violin string. It was a familiar but always menacing phenomenon. It meant that there was murder in the air.

The challenger appeared first. He was met by a roar, like the roar of a river at flood tide bursting its dam.

Miss Paris gasped with admiration. “Isn't he the one!”

Jim Coyle was the one—an almost handsome giant six feet and a half tall, with preposterously broad shoulders, long smooth muscles, and a bronze skin. He rubbed his unshaven cheeks and grinned boyishly at the frantic fans.

His manager, Barney Hawks, followed him into the ring. Hawks was a big man, but beside his fighter he appeared puny.

“Hercules in trunks,” breathed Miss Paris. “Did you ever see such a body, Ellery?”

“The question more properly is,” said Mr. Queen jealously, “can he keep that body off the floor? That's the question, my girl.”

“Plenty fast for a big man,” said Maguire. “Faster than you'd think, considering all that bulk. Maybe not as fast as Mike Brown, but Jim's got height and reach in his favor, and he's strong as a bull. The way Firpo was.”

“Here comes the champ!” exclaimed Inspector Queen.

A large ugly man shuffled down the aisle and vaulted into the ring. His manager—the little wizened, wrinkled man—followed him and stood bouncing up and down on the canvas, still chewing the unlit cigar.

“
Boo-oo-oo
!”

“They're booing the champion!” cried Paula. “Phil, why?”

“Because they hate his guts,” smiled Maguire. “They hate his guts because he's an ornery, brutal, crooked slob with the kick of a mule and the soul of a pretzel. That's why, darlin'.”

Brown stood six feet two inches, anatomically a gorilla, with a broad hairy chest, long arms, humped shoulders, and large flat feet. His features were smashed, cruel. He paid no attention to the hostile crowd, to his taller, bigger, younger opponent. He seemed detached, indrawn, a subhuman fighting machine.

But Mr. Queen, whose peculiar genius it was to notice minutiae, saw Brown's powerful mandibles working ever so slightly beneath his leathery cheeks.

And again Mr. Queen's body tightened.

When the gong clamored for the start of the third round, the champion's left eye was a purple slit, his lips were cracked and bloody, and his simian chest rose and fell in gasps.

Thirty seconds later he was cornered, a beaten animal, above their heads. They could see the ragged splotches over his kidneys, blooming above his trunks like crimson flowers.

Brown crouched, covering up, protecting his chin. Big Jim Coyle streaked forward. The giant's gloves sank into Brown's body. The champion fell forward and pinioned the long bronze merciless arms.

The referee broke them. Brown grabbed Coyle again. They danced.

The crowd began singing “The Blue Danube,” and the referee stepped between the two fighters again and spoke sharply to Brown.

“The dirty double-crosser,” smiled Phil Maguire.

“Who? What d'ye mean?” asked Inspector Queen, puzzled.

“Watch the payoff.”

The champion raised his battered face and lashed out feebly at Coyle with his soggy left glove. The giant laughed and stepped in.

The champion went down.

“Pretty as a picture,” said Maguire admiringly.

At the count of nine, with the bay of the crowd in his flattened ears, Mike Brown staggered to his feet. The bulk of Coyle slipped in, shadowy, and pumped twelve solid, lethal gloves into Brown's body. The champion's knees broke. A whistling six-inch uppercut to the point of the jaw sent him toppling to the canvas.

This time he remained there.

“But he made it look kosher,” drawled Maguire.

The Stadium howled with glee and the satiation of blood-lust. Paula looked sickish. A few rows away Happy Day jumped up, stared wildly about, and then began shoving through the crowd.

“Happy isn't happy any more,” sang Maguire.

The ring was boiling with police, handlers, officials. Jim Coyle was half-drowned in a wave of shouting people; he was laughing like a boy. In the champion's corner Ollie Stearn worked slowly over the twitching torso of the unconscious man.

“Yes, sir,” said Phil Maguire, rising and stretching, “that was as pretty a dive as I've seen, brother, and I've seen some beauts in my day.”

“See here, Maguire,” said Mr. Queen, nettled. “I have eyes, too. What makes you so cocksure Brown just tossed his title away?”

“You may be Einstein on Centre Street,” grinned Maguire, “but here you're just another palooka, Mr. Queen.”

“Seems to me,” argued the Inspector in the bedlam, “Brown took an awful lot of punishment.”

“Oh, sure,” said Maguire mockingly. “Look, you boobs. Mike Brown has as sweet a right hand as the game has ever seen. Did you notice him use his right on Coyle tonight—even once?”

“Well,” admitted Mr. Queen, “no.”

“Of course not. Not a single blow. And he had a dozen openings, especially in the second round. And Jimmy Coyle still carries his guard too low. But what did Mike do? Put his deadly right into cold storage, kept jabbing away with that silly left of his—it couldn't put Paula away!—covering up, clinching, and taking one hell of a beating.… Sure, he made it look good. But your ex-champ took a dive just the same!”

They were helping the gorilla from the ring. He looked surly and tired. A small group followed him, laughing. Little Ollie Stearn kept pushing people aside fretfully. Mr. Queen spied Brown's wife, the curved Ivy, pale and furious, hurrying after them.

“It appears,” sighed Mr. Queen, “that I was in error.”

“What?” asked Paula.

“Hmm. Nothing.”

“Look,” said Maguire. “I've got to see a man about a man, but I'll meet you folks in Coyle's dressing room and we'll kick a few gongs around. Jim's promised to help a few of the boys warm up some hot spots.”

“Oh, I'd love it!” cried Paula. “How do we get in, Phil?”

“What have you got a cop with you for? Show her, Inspector.”

Maguire's slight figure slouched off. The great man's scalp prickled suddenly. He frowned and took Paula's arm.

The new champion's dressing room was full of smoke, people, and din. Young Coyle lay on a training table like Gulliver in Lilliput, being rubbed down. He was answering questions good humoredly, grinning at cameras, flexing his shoulder muscles. Barney Hawks was running about with his collar loosened handing out cigars like a new father.

The crowd was so dense it overflowed into the adjoining shower room. There were empty bottles on the floor and near the shower-room window, pushed into a corner, five men were shooting craps with enormous sobriety.

The Inspector spoke to Barney Hawks, and Coyle's manager introduced them to the champion, who took one look at Paula and said: “Hey, Barney, how about a little privacy?”

“Sure, sure. You're the champ now, Jimmy-boy!”

“Come on, you guys, you got enough pictures to last you a lifetime. What did he say your name is beautiful? Paris? That's a hell of a name.”

“Isn't yours Couzzi?” asked Paula coolly.

“Socko,” laughed the boy. “Come on, clear out, guys. This lady and I got some sparring to do. Hey, lay off the liniment, Louie. He didn't hardly touch me.”

Coyle slipped off the rubbing table, and Barney Hawks began shooing men out of the shower room, and finally Coyle grabbed some towels, winked at Paula, and went in, shutting the door. They heard the cheerful hiss of the shower.

Five minutes later Phil Maguire strolled in. He was perspiring and a little wobbly.

“Heil, Hitler,” he shouted. “Where's the champ?”

“Here I am,” said Coyle, opening the shower-room door and rubbing his bare chest with a towel. There was another towel draped around his loins. “Hya, Phil-boy. Be dressed in a shake. Say, this doll your Mamie? If she ain't, I'm staking out my claim.”

“Come on, come on, champ. We got a date with Fifty-second Street.”

“Sure! How about you, Barney? You joining us?”

“Go ahead and play,” said his manager in a fatherly tone. “Me, I got money business with the management.” He danced into the shower room, emerged with a hat and a camel's-hair coat over his arm, kissed his hand affectionately at Coyle, and lumbered out.

“You're not going to stay in here while he dresses?” said Mr. Queen petulantly to Miss Paris. “Come on—you can wait for your hero in the hall.”

“Yes, sir,” said Miss Paris submissively.

Coyle guffawed. “Don't worry, fella. I ain't going to do you out of nothing. There's plenty of broads.”

Mr. Queen piloted Miss Paris firmly from the room. “Let's meet them at the car,” he said in a curt tone.

Miss Paris murmured: “Yes,
sir
.”

They walked in silence to the end of the corridor and turned a corner into an alley which led out of the Stadium and into the street. As they walked down the alley Mr. Queen could see through the shower-room window into the dressing room: Maguire had produced a bottle and he, Coyle, and the Inspector were raising glasses. Coyle in his athletic underwear was—well …

Mr. Queen hurried Miss Paris out of the alley and across the street to the parking lot. Cars were slowly driving out. But the big red limousine belonging to Ollie Stearn still stood beside Maguire's roadster.

“Ellery,” said Paula softly, “you're such a fool.”

“Now, Paula, I don't care to discuss—”

“What do you think I'm referring to? It's your topcoat, silly. Didn't I warn you someone would steal it?”

Mr. Queen glanced into the roadster. His coat was gone. “Oh, that. I was going to throw it away, anyway. Now look, Paula, if you think for one instant, that I could be jealous of some oversized … Paula! What's the matter?”

Paula's cheeks were gray in the brilliant arc light. She was pointing a shaky forefinger at the blood-red limousine.

“In—in there … Isn't that—Mike Brown?”

Mr. Queen glanced quickly into the rear of the limousine. Then he said: “Get into Maguire's car, Paula, and look the other way.”

Paula crept into the roadster, shaking.

Ellery opened the rear door of Stearn's car.

Mike Brown tumbled out of the car to his feet, and lay still.

And after a moment the Inspector, Maguire, and Coyle strolled up, chuckling over something Maguire was relating in a thick voice.

Maguire stopped. “Say. Who's that?”

Coyle said abruptly: “Isn't that Mike Brown?”

The Inspector said: “Out of the way, Jim.” He knelt beside Ellery.

And Mr. Queen raised his head. “Yes, it's Mike Brown. Someone's used him for a pin cushion.”

Phil Maguire yelped and ran for a telephone. Paula Paris crawled out of Maguire's roadster and blundered after him, remembering her profession.

“Is he … is he—” began Jim Coyle, gulping.

“The long count,” said the Inspector grimly. “Say, is that girl gone? Here, help me turn him over.”

They turned him over. He lay staring up into the blinding arc light. He was completely dressed; his hat was still jammed about his ears and a gray tweed topcoat was wrapped about his body, still buttoned. He had been stabbed ten times in the abdomen and chest, through his topcoat. There had been a great deal of bleeding; his coat was sticky and wet with it.

“Body's warm,” said the Inspector. “This happened just a few minutes ago.” He rose from the dust and stared unseeingly at the crowd which had gathered.

“Maybe,” began the champion, licking his lips, “maybe—”

“Maybe what, Jim?” asked the Inspector, looking at him.

“Nothing, nothing.”