Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) (4 page)

In the center of the ring during the referee's briefing, he got his first look at Buster Crane, a heavyweight with twenty more pounds than his own one-ninety, but almost an inch shorter, and with arms even longer.

When the bell rang, he shut his jaws on his mouthpiece and turned swiftly. Crane was moving toward him, his eyes watchful slits under knitted brows. Crane had a shock of white blond hair and a wide face, but the, skin was tight over the bones.

Crane moved in fast, feinted, then hooked high and hard. The punch was incredibly fast and Tandy caught it on the temple, but he was going away from it. Even so, it shook him to his heels, and with a queer kind of thrill, he realized that no man he had ever met had punched like Buster Crane. He was in for a battle.

Tandy jabbed, then jabbed again. He missed a right cross and Crane was inside slamming both hands into his body. He backed up, giving ground. He landed a left to the head, drilled a right down the center that missed, then shook Buster up with a short left hook to the head.

From there on, the battle was a surging struggle of two hard-hitting young men filled with a zest for combat. The second round opened with a slashing attack from Crane that drove Tandy into the ropes, but his long weeks of schooling had done their job and he covered up, clinched, and saved himself. He played it easy on the defensive for the remainder of the round.

The third, fourth, and fifth rounds were alike, with vicious toe-to-toe scrapping every bit of the way. Coming out for the sixth, Tandy Moore could feel the lump over his eye, and he was aware that Crane's left hook was landing too often. Thus far, Crane was leading by a margin, and it was that hook that was doing it.

A moment later the same left hook dropped out of nowhere and Tandy's heels flew up and he sat down hard.

Outside the ring, the crowd was a dull roar and he rolled over on his hands and knees, unable to hear the count. He glanced toward his corner and saw Gus holding up four, then five fingers. He waited until the ninth finger came up, and then he got to his feet and backed away.

Crane moved in fast and sure. He had his man hurt and he knew it. He didn't look so good or feel so good himself, and was conscious that he wanted only one thing, to get this guy out of action before he had his head ripped off.

Crane feinted a left, then measured Moore with it, but Tandy rolled inside the punch and threw a left to the head, which missed. Crane stepped around carefully and then tried again. This time he threw his left hook, but Tandy Moore was ready. He remembered what he had been taught, and when he saw that hook start, he threw his own right inside of it.

With the right forearm partially blocking, his fist crashed down on Crane's chin with a shock that jarred Tandy to the shoulder!

Buster Crane hit the canvas on his face, rolled over, and then climbed slowly to his knees. At nine he made it, but just barely.

Tandy walked toward him looking him over carefully. Crane was a puncher and he was hurt, which made him doubly dangerous. Tandy tried a tentative left, and Crane brushed it aside and threw his own left hook from the inside. Tandy had seen him use the punch in the newsreel pictures he had studied, and the instant it started, he pulled the trigger on his own right, a short, wicked hook at close range.

Crane hit the canvas and this time he didn't get up.

When he was dressed, Tandy walked with Gus Coe to the promoter's office to get the money. Briggs strolled along, his hands in his pockets, just behind them.

When they opened the door, Tandy's skin tightened, for Stan Reiser and Bernie Satneck were sitting at a table with a tall, gray-haired man whom Tandy instantly recognized as "Nevada" Johnson, the biggest fight promoter in the Northwest.

The rest of the room was crowded with sportswriters.

"Nice fight, tonight, Moore," Johnson said. "We've been waiting for you. How would you like to fight for the title?"

"The championship?" Tandy was incredulous. "Sure, I'd like to fight for it! But don't I get to fight him first?"

He gestured at Reiser and saw the big heavyweight's eyes turn ugly.

"See?" Nevada Johnson said to Satneck. "He's not only ready, but anxious to fight your boy. You say that Reiser deserves a title bout. Six months ago, I would have said the same thing, but now the situation has changed. Moore has made a sensational rise from nothing, although knowing Coe was his manager, I'm not surprised."

"This kid isn't good enough," Satneck protested. "The fans won't go for it. They'll think he's just a flash in the pan and it won't draw!"

Johnson looked around at the sportswriters and asked, "What about that?"

"If Bernie will forgive me," Hansen of the Telegraph said quietly, "I think he's crazy! A Tandy Moore and Stan Reiser fight will outdraw either of them with the champ, as long as we mention that the winner goes for the title. It's a natural if there ever was one."

"Frankly," Coe said quietly, "I can understand how Satneck must feel. After all, he's brought Reiser a long way, and it seems a shame to get his fighter whipped when the title is almost in his hands."

"Whipped?" Satneck whirled on Coe. "Why, that stinking little ..." He looked at Tandy and his voice faded out and he flushed.

"I'd like to fight him," Tandy said, pleasantly enough. "I'd like nothing better than to get Reiser where he could take a poke at me when my back's not turned!"

Johnson and several of the sportswriters sat forward.

Reiser's face went dead-white but his eyes were thoughtful. He turned to his manager.

"Sign it!" he snapped. "Let's get out of here!"

Satneck glanced from Stan's face to Tandy's, and then at Gus, who was grinning mysteriously.

"What was that about?" the reporters asked, but Tandy just shook his head. Without another word, he grabbed the fountain pen that Johnson offered and signed.

At the hotel that night, when Tandy was in bed, B/iggs and Gus sat in Gus's room. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"I dug it up," Briggs said quietly. "An' don't worry, Tandy's okay. His old man was a rummy, he worked down here at the factory by the bridge. He was a better than fair street-scrapper when sober. Satneck's brother got lippy with him once, an' Tandy's old man mopped up the floor with him. Then, one night when he was tight, an' all but helpless, two of them held him while Reiser beat him up. It was an ugly mess. The kid came up on them and they slugged him."

"What about the kid?" Gus said, impatient.

"I was coming to that," Briggs said. "They knocked him out. Reiser did it, I think, with a sap. But when the kid came out of it, his old man was all bloody and badly beaten. Tandy got him home and tried to fix him up. When his old man didn't come to, Tandy called a doctor. The kid's father had a bad concussion and never was quite right after that. The slugging they gave him affected his mind and one side of his body. He could never work again."

"Did it go to court?"

"Uh-huh, but Tandy was one against a dozen witnesses, and they made the kid out a liar and he lost the case. The father died a couple of years ago. The kid's not quite ten years younger than Reiser, and couldn't have been more than a youngster when it all happened. I guess he's been on the bum ever since."

"The kid's hungry to get Stan Reiser into a ring with him," Gus said slowly.

"It's easy to see why Reiser didn't recognize him," Briggs said. "Tandy must have changed a lot since then. As far as that goes, look how much he's changed since we met him. You'd never know he was the same person. He's filled out, hardened up, and he looks good now."

"Well, I'm glad that's all there was," Gus said thoughtfully. "I was worried."

Briggs hesitated. "It isn't quite all, Gus," he said. "There is more."

"More?"

"That wasn't the first time the kid and Reiser met. They had a scrap once. Reiser was always mean, and he teased Tandy once when the kid was selling papers on a corner out here on Albina Street. The kid had spunk and swung on him, and I guess the punch hurt, because Stan darn near killed him with his fists. I think that's what started the row with his father."

Gus Coe scowled. "That's not good. Sometimes a beating like that sticks in the mind, and this one might. Well, all we can do is to go along and see. Right now, the kid's shaping up for this fight better than ever.

"You know, one of us has got to stay with him, Briggsie. Every minute!"

"That's right." Briggs sat down. "Bernie won't stand for this. We just blocked him from the championship and no matter what Reiser thinks, Bernie is scared. He's scared Tandy can win, and as he used every dirty trick in the game to bring Stan along, he certainly won't change now." Gus nodded.

"You're right. He'll stop at nothing. The kid got under Reiser's skin tonight, too, and once in that ring, it will be little short of murder ... for one or the other of them."

Briggs nodded. "You know, Gus, maybe we should duck Reiser."

Gus was thoughtful for a moment, and then he said, "I know. The kid may not be afraid of Reiser. But frankly, I am. I wanted to get even with Satneck and Reiser for the one they pulled on us, but that's not important anymore. Tandy is. I like him and he's goin' places." "Yeah," Briggs agreed. "I like the kid too."

Tandy Moore, his cuts healed, went back to the gym under Spivy's Albina Street Pool Room with a will. In meeting Reiser, he would be facing a man who wanted to maim and kill. Reiser had everything to lose by this fight and Tandy had all to gain. Reiser was the leading contender for the title, and was acknowledged a better man than the current champion. If he lost now, he was through.

Going and coming from the gym, and in his few nights around town, Tandy watched for Dorinda. He wanted to call and apologize for the nightclub scene, but was too proud, and despite his wish, he could see no reason for thinking he might not be right. It was possible he could be mistaken, yet it looked too obvious, and so much of that sort of thing was going on. Yet he didn't want to believe it, and deep within himself, he did not believe it.

As the days drew on and the fight came nearer, Tandy was conscious of a new tension. He could see that Gus Coe and Briggs were staying close to him; that Coe's face had sharpened and grown more tense, that Briggs was ever more watchful, and that they always avoided dark streets and kept him to well-lighted public thoroughfares.

To one who had been so long accustomed to the harsh and hard ways of life, it irritated Tandy even while he understood their feelings and knew they were thinking of him. He was realist enough to know that Bernie Satneck was not going to chance losing a fighter worth a million dollars without putting up a battle.

Bernie Satneck would stop at nothing. Nor would Stan Reiser, when it came to that.

Come what may between now and the day of the fight, Tandy Moore knew that all would be settled in the ring.

He also knew that although Reiser was a hard puncher and a shrewd, dangerous fighter who took every advantage, he was not afraid of him. This was his chance to get some revenge both for himself and his father ... and it was legal.

One day, Hansen, the reporter, dropped around to the second-floor hotel where they were staying. Tandy was lying on the bed in a robe, relaxing after a tough workout. The smell of Chinese food from the cafe downstairs drifted in through the window. The sportswriter dropped into a chair and dug out his pipe; he lit it up.

"I want to know about you and Stan Reiser," he suggested suddenly. "You knew him when you were a kid, didn't you? Out in St. John's? Wasn't there bad blood between you?"

"Maybe." Tandy turned his head. "Look, Hansen, I like you. I don't want to give you a bum steer or cross you up in any way. Whatever you learn about Stan or myself is your business, only I'm not telling you anything. Whatever differences we have, we'll settle in the ring."

"I agree." Hansen nodded, sucking on his pipe. "I've looked your record over, Tandy. Actually, I needn't have. I know Gus, and there isn't a straighter guy in this racket than Gus Coe. And Briggs? Well, Briggs is not a good man to get in the way of, not even for Bernie Satneck."

His eyes lifted, testing him with the name, and Tandy kept his face immobile.

"You've got a record since taking up with Coe that's as straight as a die," the reporter said. "If there ever was anything in your past, you have lived it down. I wouldn't say as much for Stan Reiser."

"What do you mean?" Tandy demanded. "Just this. Bernie Satneck is running a string of illegal enterprises that touches some phase of every kind of crookedness there is. I've known about that for a long time, but it wasn't until just lately that I found out who was behind him that he's not the top man himself."

"Who is?" Tandy didn't figure it really mattered, he wasn't after anything but a settling of old accounts.

"Stan Reiser." Hansen nodded as he said it. "Sure, we know; Bernie Satneck is his manager, and the manager is supposed to be the brains. Well, in this case that isn't so. Bernie is just a tool, a front man."

Hansen drew thoughtfully on his pipe. "I've been around the fight game a long time, had thirty years' experience around fighters. Once in a while, you strike a wrong gee among them. I think less so than in most professions or trades, because fighting demands a certain temperament or discipline. Despite their associations, most fighters are pretty square guys." "You say Reiser isn't?"