Night My Friend (41 page)

“But murder!”

“It would not be the first time. There was an old referee who worked the last fight—one with Anger. He got drunk one night and talked, enough to start some rumors around the city. Roderick had him… run over by a car.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“But I am. If you win that fight tomorrow, he’ll kill you.”

Then, as quickly as she’d come, Sandra Blanco stood up and moved to the door. It opened and closed behind her, leaving him alone with the echo of her words.

When morning came, and Jim went down to breakfast, Roderick Blanco was nowhere in sight. Sandra Blanco dined with him, but there was no hint on her face of their midnight conversation.

“Where’s your husband?” Jim asked, munching on a piece of toast. “Will he be joining us?”

“You won’t see him until tonight. He’s working out, getting in condition for the fight.”

“In just one day?”

“That’s all he needs.”

Jim sipped his orange juice, glancing out at the heavy autumn clouds that were drifting in over the beach. “How did you ever meet Blanco?” he asked.

She glanced at the servant hovering nearby and answered, “That’s a long story, and I won’t bore you with it. I always wanted security; you can see I have it here.”

“Yes.”

“He’s very good to me, really.” She stared down at the breakfast crumbs on her plate. “And who knows? There may not be another champion he has to fight for years. After tonight.”

“After tonight,” Jim repeated.

“Do you want to work out with a sparring partner or something?”

“I should get the feel of the ring,” he said.

“I’ll have one of the servants take care of you, show you the dressing room and things.” She left the table and went off into the depths of the large house.

Left alone at the table, Jim gazed out the window at the sea and suddenly realized the impossibility of the situation. Here, in the basement of a seaside mansion, he was going to fight a rich man’s deranged son for the secret championship of the world! And if he won, he would be killed!

Jim rose from the table and walked quickly to the front door. The whole charade was just too ridiculous in the light of morning. He opened the door and started down the wide, curving driveway to the distant street. He was almost to the half-open gates when a voice called out, “Just a moment, Mr. Figg!”

It was one of the men who’d brought him there, and the gun was back in his hand. “You weren’t thinking of leaving us, were you, Mr. Figg?”

Jim spent the rest of the day in the basement, resignedly punching and skipping rope. He went two quick rounds in the velvet-roped ring with one of the Blanco servants, easily flooring the man four times before calling it quits. There was about the whole affair an overhanging of unreality, as if at any moment an unseen director might end the play and call the whole thing off. Even the servants of Roderick Blanco contributed to the sense of unreality, moving through the endless corridors of the big house with frozen faces and soft-soled shoes.

“Will you be having dinner?” Sandra Blanco asked him late in the day.

“I never eat before a fight,” he said. “Afterward, maybe.”

She paused by the ring, staring up at him, and he almost thought she was about to say something else. But the moment passed and she was gone.

At seven-thirty some servants came to help him with the final preparations, and promptly at eight he was escorted into the big basement room with its velvet-roped ring. Sandra Blanco occupied one of the seats, and the various servants filled the others. There were perhaps twenty of them in all, including the two men who had brought him there.

He climbed between the ropes, feeling the increased beat of his heart. It was the old sense of chilly anticipation he’d known so many times before. Only this time it was a bit different. This time, in a way, the game was for keeps.

The room was silent with pause, waiting—and then all at once Roderick Blanco was striding across the floor to the ring, shedding his robe to a handler as he walked. His massive chest was matted with curly black hair, and he wore dark blue trunks over firm thighs. In that moment, he looked like a champion.

He nodded to Jim and said, “Our referee,” indicating a small balding man who’d followed them into the ring. “His name is Walters, and he handled two championship fights in the forties. Before your time.”

The referee ran quickly through the standard rules of the bout, averting his eyes uncertainly from the participants, as if somehow doubting his own part in this affair. Then they stepped apart, returned to their corners, and waited until one of the servants acting as timekeeper rang the bell for round one.

Blanco moved out of his corner fast, keeping low, looking for an opening. Jim danced back a few steps, trying to figure the man’s style, and realizing for the first time how difficult it was to fight someone he’d never seen before in the ring. They clenched quickly, and the referee pulled them apart. Jim landed a glancing blow on Blanco’s shoulder, but the round ended without any damage to either man.

During the second round, Jim began to be bothered by the silence. He was used to the roar of a crowd, to the sweat and excitement of spectators’ reactions to each blow landed. Here, before twenty people—all apparently on Blanco’s side—the roar had shrunken to an occasional murmur, the excitement to the level of a few people watching a dull motion picture travelogue. It was almost as if the end were known, and perhaps to them it was.

He landed a firm right to Blanco’s jaw during the closing seconds of the round and took up where he left off in the third. But Roderick Blanco could take an amazing amount of punishment without seeming to tire. They traded punches through two more rounds, and Jim was distressingly aware that the fight was pretty even at this point.

It was midway through the sixth round when Blanco unleashed his big guns, a rapid-fire series of blows that staggered Jim for the first time and finally drove him to his knees. With bloodied eyes he stared through the ring ropes at Sandra Blanco, saw her lips move as she told him to stay down. This was the moment he could do it. Stay down for a ten count and nobody would ever know. He was still the champion—why not let this madman have his moment of glory?

But then he was up as the count reached eight, ready to go at it again. Blanco gave him no chance but moved in for another fistic battering. This time Jim went down flat. He was just wondering what the count was when he heard the bell ending the round.

At the beginning of the seventh, Jim knew it would take everything he had just to stay on his feet. Blanco was no phony. He was real championship material. They tussled evenly through the three minutes, and then Jim returned sagging to his stool. “How long did Dan Anger last against him?” Jim asked the second.

The man hesitated a moment and then replied. “Six rounds.”

“Good, I’m lasting eight, anyway.”

In the eighth, the end came quickly. Blanco moved in to finish Jim off, somehow deceived by his bloodied face. Jim still had one punch left, the punch he’d used on Anger two nights before. Blanco took it, went back against his velvet ropes, and came looking for more. Jim saw at once that the man’s guard was down, his eyes dazed by the force of the punch. One, two, three more—and Roderick Blanco collapsed in the center of the ring, his face against the canvas. The referee had counted him out before he even began to stir.

Jim Figg was still the heavyweight champion of the world.

Later, after he’d taken off the gloves, showered, and dressed, Jim faced Blanco in the upstairs living room. There was a piece of tape over the dark man’s left eye, and the right eye was blue with swelling. He stared hard at Jim and said quietly, “You’re a good fighter.”

“Thank you,” Jim told him. “You were a strong opponent. Tougher than Anger, by far.” He could afford to be generous with his words.

Blanco was wearing his dressing gown, and both hands were buried deep in the pockets. Sandra stood to one side, her face a pale mask of apprehension. “This is the first time I have ever lost,” the dark-haired man said, almost sadly.

“Roderick…”

“Be quiet, Sandra,” he told her. “Yes, the first time. And I bow to a superior boxer—a true champion.”

Jim nodded uncertainly. “Then I’ll be going now.”

“Well,” Blanco said slowly, “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to leave this house and spread the word of your victory across every front page. No, no.”

Sandra tried to step between them, but Blanco pushed her aside. His right hand appeared, holding a gun.
“Run!”
Sandra shouted to Jim.

But already the servants were blocking the door. Jim saw that there was no way out. He glared at the gun in Blanco’s hand and wondered if it was all to end like this. “You’d kill me?”

“I must, to protect myself.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Not even your friend Claus?”

Sandra tried to run forward again, but one of the servants grabbed her and held her firm. Blanco’s gun came up a fraction of an inch. Jim glanced at the window, wondering if he’d be fast enough to dive through it, knowing already that he wouldn’t be.

“All right,” he said. “Then shoot.”

“I’m sorry,” Blanco said, and his finger whitened on the trigger.

“One more thing,” Jim said suddenly, talking fast.

“What is it?”

“Suppose I give you a return bout?”

Blanco hesitated, and his trigger finger relaxed ever so slightly. “When?”

“Before I fight anybody else.”

Silence. Then Roderick Blanco nodded slightly. “Very well. Do I have your word as a gentleman?”

“You have my word as a gentleman.”

“And you will say nothing to the papers in the meantime?”

“Nothing.”

Another nod. “All right. But if you go back on either promise, my servants will kill you. Quite painfully.”

Jim gave a little bow as Blanco returned the gun to his pocket. “Then shall I say, until we meet again? In the ring with the velvet ropes?”

He turned and walked out of the house.

Two days later, Connie Claus joined Jim at a little table in the back room of a downtown bar. He was smiling like a newsman who scents a scoop. “You look good, Champ. How you feeling?”

“Great, Connie. Great.”

“You said you had an exclusive for me.” The little man leaned forward, resting his palms on the table. “You gonna tell me where you were for a couple of days? You gonna tell me about this Roderick Blanco?”

Jim merely smiled at him across the table. “No, I’m going to tell you that Sue and I are finally getting married.”

“You called me down here just for that?”

“That, and to tell you I’m retiring from the ring.”

“What!”
Connie Claus stared at him unbelieving.

“I always intended to, when I got married. I’m going to open a little sporting goods store, I think.”

“You’re going to retire undefeated?”

“I already have. I notified the boxing commission an hour ago. I’m no longer the heavyweight champion of the world. The title is open.”

Connie ran for the telephone, and Jim smiled as he signaled the waiter for another drink.

The telephone woke him the next morning, early. He rolled out of bed and went to answer it, thinking perhaps it would be Sue or even Max.

“Jim? This is Sandra Blanco.”

“Oh? Hello.”

“He killed himself two hours ago. He heard about your retirement on the late news last night, and he killed himself a few hours later.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you know he’d do it?”

“No,” he answered honestly.

“It was just that he could never win the title back from you now. Even if he forced you to fight again, you’re no longer the champion. You outwitted him.”

“I kept my word,” Jim told her.

“Yes, but…” Her voice was almost a sob.

“I’m sorry he’s dead. That’s all I can say.” Then, for no reason at all, he asked, “How did he do it?”

“Downstairs, in the basement. He hung himself with one of those velvet ropes.”

“I
SUPPOSE WE’RE THE OLD
boys now,” Cottrell said, surveying the stretch of familiar campus before him. “I see they’ve made some changes here since our day.”

Tom Gent hefted his overnight bag and started down the curving driveway. “Yes, that dorm is new, and so’s the gym. I hear they have an NCAA regulation pool now.”

“That’s all since the war,” Cottrell observed. “Swimming wasn’t so important in our time. I doubt if more than five of our whole class could swim.”

The class had been Aldon Prep, ’44, returning now for its 25th reunion. For many of them, it was the first time since graduation that they’d returned to the old school, the first time in twenty-five years that they’d made the train trip up from New York or down from Boston, getting off at the old station in the suburbs of Providence, then catching the bus for the twenty-minute ride to the Aldon campus.

The buses, too, had changed, of course. Now they were slick, sleek things of chrome and glass, pausing silently along the roadway to discharge a passenger with a gentle whoosh of air brakes. Cottrell and Gent had come by bus, but now they were regretting their decision when they saw Mark Wedmer pull up in a taxi. They recognized him at once, of course, even after all those years, because chubby, round-faced boys like Mark often grow into chubby, round-faced men.

“Mark! Mark Wedmer! Good to see you! I’m Charlie Cottrell—bet you don’t remember.”

Mark Wedmer nodded and extended his hand. “Of course I remember. Am I likely ever to forget? And this is… Tom… Tom Gent! Right?”

“Right you are,” Gent acknowledged, pleased to be recognized after so many years. Somehow it made him feel that he hadn’t really changed, despite the receding hairline and the beginning of a paunch.

“Nice day for it, anyway,” Cottrell said. “How’s the old place look to you, Mark?”

The round-faced man let his brown eyes wander over the landscape. “That building’s new, isn’t it?”

“Gym and swimming pool. Come on, we were just going to take a look.”

A bell rang somewhere and almost at once the doors of the various buildings began disgorging flocks of neatly dressed teen-age boys, many of them wearing the familiar blue-and-white blazers of Aldon Prep. “Reminds one,” Mark Wedmer commented.