Canvas Coffin (8 page)

“Up there in the hills,” I went on, “a modern house, with a nice sun deck. I could lay there all day and — ”

“Lie
there,” Sally corrected me. “Would you be alone?”

“On the sun deck, I’d be alone. You’d be in the house, sweeping and dusting and like that.”

“You wouldn’t need me. Charley could bring over a couple of floozies.”

“Oh, lay off, or lie off, or what the hell it is. Jesus, did I suggest any floozies? Have I ever fiddled with floozies since we met?”

“I don’t know. How would I know?”

“If you don’t believe in me,” I said, “leave me. Don’t needle me, just walk out. I wanted to get married. You’re the one who doesn’t want to get married.”

Silence, and then I could hear her slide over, and then a hand was on my knee, squeezing. “I’m sorry, honey. First, that ridiculous bed this morning, and then that nasty Michael Lord and then those peroxide pukes Charley had waiting for you. It’s been an awfully depressing day.”

“I probably didn’t use the bed,” I pointed out, “and you didn’t marry Michael Lord and even if you hadn’t come to town I’d have had nothing to do with Vera or Vickie. You’re just a natural sour puss.”

“Well, then, what about the underwear crack? You know why that hurts, don’t you? Because it’s true.”

“Well, quit it, then. Go back to serious painting.”

“And starve to death? No, thanks.” Then she squeezed my knee again. “Look, Luke — seals!”

On the opposite side of the road, here, a seafood place. And next to it, well floodlighted, a huge concrete tank. Three seals were silhouetted against the lights, their necks arched, their heads back, as though baying at the moon.

The road was clear; I swung in a U-turn and pulled into the parking-lot flanking the tank.

As I got out of the car, I was facing the road, and I saw this sedan going by in the direction I’d been traveling. It was only through a lucky combination of light and reflection that the face of the driver was momentarily clear.

It was the big redheaded cop, Sergeant Nolan.

There were one male and two females, barking their hoarse barks, stretching their necks toward us.

“We can get fish at the store here,” Sally said. “Let’s feed them.”

“We’re being followed,” I said. “Sergeant Nolan just went by.”

“Who cares? I’ll get the fish.”

The three seals stared at me, making not a sound. Then the male arched his neck toward one of the females and groaned some message. She answered, and I got the feeling they were talking about me. And not favorably. They continued to stare.

Sally brought the fish, and we put the seals to work. They flopped and flipped and stretched their smooth necks as they waddled along the board runways. They dove for those we threw in the water, and made general asses of themselves.

“I feel better now,” I said. “When they were laughing at me, I felt kind of inferior, but look how silly they get over a few fish.”

“Look how silly we all get over a few fish,” she said. “Money, money, money — We even do underwear advertisements.”

“Honey,” I said soothingly, “it sells underwear, as you told Michael. And that puts a lot of people to work. You’re contributing to the welfare of all the people who make underwear. Besides, you’re not gifted, as you admitted.”

We were back in the ear now, and she was wiping her hands on a piece of Kleenex. “Don’t be so patronizing. Just because you’re the champion in your trade, and you know it, don’t be so damned lofty and-logical.”

“I don’t know if I’m champ, or not,” I said. “That’s why I’m going to fight Giani.”

“I thought
that
was why. All the other reasons were a lot of rationalizing. You like the top of your little ant heap, don’t you?”

“Mmmm-hmm. And so would you, and just about everybody else. We built a whole civilization on it.”

“Please,” she said. “You sound like the NAM. I like you better when you talk about things you understand.”

“To hell with you,” I said.

I jabbed the starter button, goosed the flivver in reverse, scattering gravel.

She was chuckling. “The road-show Walter Lippmann.”

I burned quietly, making the flivver hum. The radio had gone on with the ignition; Dixieland blared at us.

Traffic was thin and the Ford logging. Sally reached over to soften the blare of the Dixieland. “I’m sorry, Luke. I’m honestly sorry. But you sounded so — pompous. And I feel so — so unworthy, since dinner.”

Ahead a traffic light turned red and I slowed the car.

“That’s where Sunset ends,” Sally said. “Let’s take Sunset back. I like the way it winds.”

I cut over to the left lane, saying nothing.

“Don’t sulk,” Sally said. “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“We could still see a movie. There’s a good one at the Bay. I noticed it this morning.”

This morning seemed like a hundred years away. To our right, as we climbed Sunset, was a cult of some sort, and for a moment, I thought I saw a windmill in the moving flash of the headlights.

Then there was a break in the foliage around the pond, and the lights of a car coming down the hill revealed the windmill at the edge of the water.

Sally saw it, too. “Luke, look — ”

“I saw it.”

“Anything?”

“Nothing.”

Her hand was back on my knee. “Friends?”

“I guess.”

The old Bernheimer Gardens to our right, the new houses to our right and left, not cheap, but looking raw and temporary. Lights dotting the hills to our left, more new houses, with a view of the sea to the front and the hills all around them.

“Lord, this town has grown,” Sally said. “George used to go deer-hunting in those hills, up there.”

“Who cares about George?”

“Sears Roebuck. There’s the place, Luke.”

Redwood and pastel-yellow stucco, the four-unit building that had housed Mary Kostanic, known as Brenda Vane.

Sally imitated the landlady’s Midwestern nasal. “Nothing cheap about Brenda.” And in her own voice, “Maroon silk sheets. Well, they probably don’t show spots.”

“I had some maroon silk trunks once. They showed spots.”

Nothing from her. A grade and a curve and then climbing, and outlined against the supermarket, the blue neon windmill revolving.

I wondered if we’d lost the sergeant, or if he had been traveling the road on some other business. It didn’t seem possible he could have been tailing us all day. He couldn’t have; he’d been at the station when I’d phoned this afternoon.

“Here’s the show,” Sally said. “There’s a parking-lot on the other side of it.”

It was a sentimental picture, and we held hands. We came out after twelve, and took Sunset all the way back to the hotel. I was bushed, emotionally and physically spent by the day behind us.

As we walked into the hotel, she said, “We haven’t learned anything, have we? Chasing around like a couple of nitwits — ”

“We learned some things at
Harry’s Hoot Owl Club.
Not much after that.”

She got her key from the desk. Max was already in the room, so our key was up there.

She was on our floor; we went up together in the elevator. I wondered if there was a way I could ask Sergeant Sands about the light in Brenda’s apartment.

If the light was off, when she was discovered, someone had been there after I had. The killer. Though turning out a light wouldn’t be proof of murder. And there wasn’t any way I could think of to ask Sands without implicating myself.

We were walking along the hall now, and we came to Sally’s door. I stopped and looked at her inquiringly.

She put a hand on her lips, and then on mine. “Don’t brag, Champ; you’re as tired as I am. Pretend you’ve started your training.”

Her smile was weary. The door closed behind her.

I
N THE DREAM
they were sewing this body in canvas. It was the deck of a ship, but you couldn’t see the water. There was a big seam right up the middle of the canvas, and now only the face was still uncovered.

Harry Bevilaqua stood next to me on the deck of the ship. He was telling the men how to sew. Then he turned to me. “You want to get a last look at the face, Champ? We’re about ready to dump him.”

I came closer and bent to see the face in the dim moonlight.

It was my own.

I opened my eyes and saw the shadows in the room. The bed beneath me was damp, and my pajamas were wet. Max snored in a ragged rhythm.

My mind went back over the Giani fights I’d seen, the brawling, bloody, anything-goes battles he’d fought, trying to get to me. A buller and a hitter, a flat-footed slugger, knocking over anything that stood in his way, the shadow of the mob over him like the broad top of a tornado.

Young. And ready. Never out of shape. Carrying a grudge for Luke Pilgrim, a cheese champ in his mind. Cherishing the crown, scorning the man who held it.

Noodles wanted to be ringside when Patsy beat my brains out. Who else would sit with Noodles, waiting for the ax? All the half-wise guys, the gents who got a word here and there and fashioned it into a belief that prevented their full knowing.

But that wouldn’t include Max. And how about the sports writers? In most towns, the sports writers know only a little more than the true fans. In Los Angeles, they knew considerably less. In Los Angeles, the publicity town, even the sports writers believed their own ridiculous publicity. Unless they weren’t leveling in their columns. Which could be.

It’s a name-conscious town, and I was the champion of the world. The fight would get ink; the fight would draw, and pay. Even wrestling was profitable in this sports-hungry town. Even wrestling got ink, though there was a story about that.

So, win or lose, it would be big money. Isn’t that what I wanted?

No, I wanted to see him go down. I wanted to hit him, and see him fold. I wanted to kill him.

Max stopped in mid-snore, gurgled, and turned over.

“The bastards,” Max mumbled. “Dirty bastards.” His breathing was heavy and uneven.

“Hit ‘im again, Max, he’s Irish,” I said.

He started to snore.

I stretched and turned, trying to relax. The memory of the dream came to me, and I forced it from my mind. As a kid, going to church, the thought of death hadn’t brought the shivers. Sally had said only cowards believed in God. Sally said if we hadn’t had a God, we’d have invented one. But Sally said a lot of damn-fool things.

A muscle twitched in my thigh; it felt like something crawling on me, and I jerked. I was wide awake and nervous. My God, I was actually scared.

I went into the main room and turned on a light and picked up the paper Max had evidently bought tonight. It was tomorrow morning’s
Times
and there was a piece about the possibility of my fighting Giani. The writer thought it could easily be the battle of the century.

I stretched out on the davenport with the rest of the paper. And fell asleep.

It was Max’s voice that wakened me, arguing on the phone. “Nothing’s definite, yet. What the hell kind of statement can I give you when nothing’s definite? Sure, sure, when it is, I will. That’s what we live on, publicity.”

He turned from the phone to look at me. “How long you been there? You know you can catch cold, sleeping like that? You ain’t got a damned bit of sense.”

“Relax,” I told him. “You’re like a crazy man lately.”

“Somebody’s got to worry,” he said. He sat down in one of the twin chairs and stared across the room at me. “You act like nobody’s died.”

“You’re not implicated in that, Max. You’re clear.”

His face hardened. He said nothing.

“You used to be so cheerful, Max. And why do you quibble with Sally all the time? Sally’s a good kid.”

He said, “You’re determined to fight that son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you? You’ve got some idea you can lick him.”

“I want to know. But I won’t try it without you, Max. I wouldn’t fight anybody without you in the corner.”

He looked away from me, looking at nothing, his eyes sad. He looked back. “They’d like to make it as soon as possible. That sport bowl’s about done, and they’d like to get the title as quick as they can.”

“That’s all right. Every day I get older. See if you can find a training-spot near Malibu, huh? We’ll give it the big treatment, charge for workouts. They love that crap out here. We’ll milk it, Max. Smile, huh? You don’t look right without a smile.”

“Why Malibu?”

“There’s some seals I like to watch out there. No, I want to be near the water. Smile, Max?”

Sort of half-smile, but better than nothing. “Phone Sally. We’ll all eat together here. Go ahead, call her.”

“Boy, you’re sure charged up this morning.” He went to the phone, shaking his head, as I went for a shower and shave.

Hit ‘em, hit ‘em, hit ‘em — how I love to hit ‘em. And Patsy is a boy who can be hit. Maybe not hurt, but he could be hit. The shower dug at me and the room filled with steam and I felt about eighteen years old.

I was dressed when Sally came. She kissed Max on the nose and he patted her rump, and we all sat down, friends again.

Max said, “We can make ‘em bleed. We can get a piece of his next two fights; we can hog the gate. They’re hungry for that title.”

“And a rematch if I lose.”

He smiled at me. “If?”

“If.”

“Sure, that, too. D’Amico’s coming over this morning. With Patsy.”

“And Krueger?”

“I don’t know about Dutch. There’s a rumor he’s out. D’Amico’ll probably put some stooge in as a noodle. They probably figure you’re going to dive.”

“Let ‘em.”

Max shook his head. “No. That I want stated, by you, before we sign anything.”

“Okay. Isn’t Sally pretty this morning?”

“Sally’s always pretty,” Max said. “God knows why she sticks to a bullhead like you.”

“I’m not sticking to either of you this morning,” she said. “I had too much masculine company yesterday. Today I shop alone.”

“Any time you go shopping, it will be alone,” I agreed. “Even after we’re married.”

She kissed us both, before she left. And asked me, why didn’t I fill in the time until D’Amico came with a little reading?

There wasn’t that much time. He came about fifteen minutes after Sally left. Four of them came, crowding the room, D’Amico, Wald, Patsy. And Johnny.

Patsy shook my hand like a brother Elk, and said genially, “It’s about time, eh, Champ?”

“About,” I said. “Where’s Dutch?”

Patsy’s big shoulders shrugged, and his flat, attractive face grimaced skeptically. “I don’t know about the politics, Champ. Wald’s my new noodle.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Wald.

Wald’s tanned face flushed a bit. “I don’t intend to be a handler, too. We can hire all the boys we want for that.”

“Not like Dutch, you can’t,” Max said. “But that’s your business.”

Johnny stood near the door, staring at nothing, as usual.

D’Amico said, “Well, let’s get the axes out.”

“One thing, first,” I said. “Yesterday, I may have given you boys a bad steer. I’ve got to have Max in the corner, and any time Max is there, it’s on the up and up. No other deal.”

I looked at D’Amico as I said this, letting him read whatever he wanted to read in my blank face. He was smiling when I’d finished.

Patsy said, “Hell, Champ, all of us want it straight. That’s the way it’s always been with me.”

Clean, flat face, young eyes, and he could lie without a quiver. What a phony. Until he pulled the gloves on.

D’Amico chuckled. Johnny looked his way. Wald frowned, and I could guess he was trying to figure me.

“Before we start,” Max said, “this you guys know. I could keep you from that title the rest of your lives. You all understand that?”

Wald frowned, and started to say something. But D’Amico said, “I guess you’re right, Max.
You’re —
clean enough. You’re solid, all right.”

But Max didn’t do the fighting. And
me,
they thought they had over a barrel.

The chiseling started. I was as silent as Johnny, which put Max up against the three of them. Or two and a half of them; Patsy didn’t offer much. All Patsy really wanted was me in a ring. At any price.

Max came out on top, as usual. Max threw names around like Winchell, filling the room with prominence.

When they’d left, he went around opening windows. The deal was all oral, so far, and they’d probably try to chisel when it came to typing it up, but Max and our lawyer would be ready for that, too.

He opened the last of the windows, and turned to face me. “I never thought I’d see this day,” he said.

“You’d better phone the newspapers.”

“Wald’s handling that.
That,
he knows.”

I laughed. “Sam Wald, manager. Golly. I wonder if he’s ever
seen
a fight?”

“I wonder what’s happened to Dutch. Maybe we could get to him, think?”

“I don’t know. You know as much about Giani as Dutch does. You never missed one of his fights, did you?”

“None I could help. That’s why I ducked him, among other reasons.”

“All I can do is lose. He isn’t going to kill me.”

“You hope. I’m going to take a hot bath. I’m jumpy.” He started to peel off his shirt. “That Johnny — ”

I took off my shirt, too, and went out to the patio for some more sun. There was no sun; it was clouding up and too cool to enjoy.

I came in and stretched out on the davenport. I was sleepy, now that everything was settled. Against the monotone of the water running in the tub, I dozed. Later I heard Max on the phone, and still later the beat of the rain on the windows.

It was a corker. The water was curb-high in less than an hour. In two hours, Sepulveda was closed by a slide and there’d been a two-lane slide on the Pacific Coast Highway.

“We’d better forget about getting to Malibu today,” Max complained.

“Today?” I asked. “You are in a hurry, aren’t you? Hell, Max, I’ve been fighting, right along. I’m in shape.”

“Not for Giani. You still off gin rummy?”

“No. I’ll play.”

He shuffled the cards slowly. “I keep thinking of that girl, that poor tramp. You don’t think those bastards staged this whole thing, do you?”

“Killed a girl to get a fight with me? No. Hell, no.”

I went down in four draws and caught Max with over fifty in his hand. It set the pattern for the rest of it; I butchered him. The rain was lighter, but still steady.

Max must have been thinking of the girl all the time. Because when we went down to lunch, he said, “Well, if they didn’t kill her, who the hell did?”

“I seem to be the only logical choice, so far.”

“Nuts,” Max said. “The law wouldn’t get off your neck if they thought you were mixed up in it at all.”

As we went through the lobby to the grille, I saw the big man with the red hair sitting where he had a view of the desk. Sergeant Nolan, earning his money.

The rain continued. Van Nuys was flooded. Lincoln Boulevard was under water. There’d been a slide in Topanga Canyon.

“Still love this country, Max?” I asked.

“I’m not getting wet,” he said. “That cab driver said the light was on when you left this girl’s apartment, huh?”

“That’s right. I was trying to think of a way to ask Sergeant Sands if the light was on when her body was discovered.”

“How could you ask that? You couldn’t.”

“That’s what I’ve decided.”

Up in the suite again, Max phoned and I napped. The windmills came back at me, a pair of them, this time, and Harry Bevilaqua’s mammoth face was mixed up in it somehow.

I was only half asleep and the rise and fall of Max’s voice as he phoned was in the background with the drip of the rain.

I’d waited outside for Noodles. Had Brenda put me out? Or was I waiting with blood on my hands? I remembered Sergeant Sands’s examination of my hands. What had that meant? Was some of the killer’s flesh back there when they found her? If you break any teeth with an early blow, that could happen. A broken tooth will gouge out a chunk of hand.

The stuffed owl looked at me from the back of Harry’s bar. There was something there in Harry’s bar, all right. I remembered how relieved Noodles had been when he’d learned of my blackout.

“Okay, Joe,” Max was saying. “That’s damned white of you. We’ll take good care of the place. Sounds like just the spot we want.”

He hung up the phone and snapped on the radio. I rolled over and sat up. “What’s new?”

“Got a spot, I think. In Malibu. You know, this brawl could put you on Queer Street, but good. You know that, don’t you? After that blackout you had, and all.”

“I suppose. Who’s this Joe?”

“One of my rich friends. He’s even got a scaffolding for a ring out there. Tommy Burke used to train out there when they were trying to build him into a local draw.”

“Tommy Burke,” I said, and yawned. “He’s selling roofing in Milwaukee now.”

“So? So what?”

“Nothing. Just making conversation. I wonder where Sally is?”

“Probably nosing into the murder. She didn’t fool me with that shopping gag.”

“Are you a Russian Jew or a German Jew, Max?” I asked.

“Bronx Jew. Why? You anti-Semitic, or something?”

“No, I was thinking some days you’re as hard to get along with as the Russians. Why shouldn’t Sally be shopping?”

“We’ll see what she buys,” he said. “I’ll give you even money she doesn’t come home with a thing.”

“Fifty,” I said. “Even money. You’ve got a bet.”

It wasn’t twenty seconds after that there was a knock on the door, and then it opened and Sally came in, her arms full of packages.

I started to laugh, and she said, “I’ve had a talk with Ruth, Luke. She’s Noodles’s girl friend. Imagine that.”

“No bet,” Max said. “We were both right.”

Sally looked between us. “What’s all this?”

“A bet. Who’s Ruth?”

“The girl at the end of the bar, the one reading the
Racing Form.
The one Harry made powder her nose, remember? She knows all about horses, Luke. She’s gone with a lot of jockeys. She likes small men, she told me. But Noodles, Gawd!”