Eye in the Ring Page 2

  “Packy, a short leash, huh?” I said aloud. He nodded, but you couldn’t stop Benny from getting a drink if he wanted one. At least at Packy’s he was among friends.

  “I’ll see you later, Ben,” I told him, climbing down off my stool. I wanted to go and find Lucas Pratt. I was interested in who my mysterious benefactor was from the night before. I owed him a hearty thank you.

  I grabbed the subway to Times Square and made my first stop the gym.

  “Willy, you seen Lucas today?” I asked one of the trainers.

  Without taking his eyes from the boy in the ring, he told me, “Not today, Jack.” Then he did look at me and added, “Hey, Jack, you took too long figuring that guy out last night, much too long.”

  “But I did, didn’t I?” I pointed out.

  He shook his head. “Don’t fight no more southpaws until you get more experience, Jack. And dump Benny. He ain’t doing you no good.”

  “Easy, Willy.”

  “Hell, boy, I’m telling you for your own good. Keep your brother around if you want, but get yourself a decent manager and a decent trainer.”

  Willy Wells was about fifty-five or so, a little bantamweight of a man who’d managed some top contenders in his time. He had thinning, sandy-colored hair and a pair of thick glasses on his nose, and he had never gotten along with Benny. Benny had wanted Willy to train him some years back, but Willy had come right out and told Benny that he didn’t have what it took and he couldn’t afford to spend the time on him. Benny never forgave him for that, especially since he had turned out to be right.

  “Like you, Willy?”

  “I don’t think so, kid. You got too much of your brother in you, but there’s a few guys around that I know are interested in you.”

  “I’ll see you around, Willy,” I told him, and walked away. He went back to watching his boy in the ring, shouting out instructions.

  I asked around some more and went and checked the locker room to see if Lucas was sweeping up. He wasn’t around. When I came out of the locker room I saw Willy talking to two guys, pointing in my direction. The two guys were wearing suits and you could smell cop all over them, even from across the room. They started walking toward me, and I waited.

  “You Miles Jacoby?” the older one asked. He pronounced it the same way the ring announcer had pronounced it the night before. He had a salt-and-pepper crew cut, which looked funny in this day and age. His face was a mass of wrinkles with a cigar sticking out of one of them. I assumed it was his mouth. The other guy was about ten years younger, maybe thirty-five, taller and lighter.

  “I am. What can I do for you?” I answered.

  “My name’s Detective Hocus. This is my partner. Detective Wright. Understand you’re looking for Lucas Pratt?”

  “That’s right, I am. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “You could say that; he’s dead.”

  “Dead,” I repeated, and it took a moment to sink in. “Dead? What the hell happened? Did he OD?”

  “Maybe. Why do you ask that?”

  “It’s no big secret that Lucas is a junkie,” I told them. “What do you mean by ‘maybe’?”

  “It means, maybe, maybe not. He was found in an arcade on Thirty-Fourth Street. He had a needle sticking out of him, but the coroner said he died before the stuff could go completely through his system. There were traces of stuff, but not enough to kill him. The M.E. says it was possible, but not probable.”

  “Then what’s probable?”

  “It’s highly probable that he died as a result of his injuries.”

  I felt like I was being led by the nose, but I asked, “What injuries?”

  “Somebody worked him over real good, somebody who was good with his fists.” He looked me over deliberately and before I could reply added, “From the looks of you,that description doesn’t necessarily apply.”

  I kept my cool.

  “Somebody beat him to death, so naturally you come down here looking for a likely suspect. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, Detective. Lucas was a regular here, he never got in anyone’s way. Look somewhere else for your murderer, that’s my advice.”

  “Oh, that’s your advice, is it? You a detective as well as a, uh, fighter?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, taking out my license and showing it to him, “I am.”

  “Well, well, a private eye,” he remarked to his partner, then checking the date of issue added, “and spanking brand-new, too. Well, Mr. Jacoby, I hope you can detect better than you can fight.” He handed the license back and said, “We’ll be in touch—in case we need any more advice, that is.”

  I watched them as they walked out and then went over to Willy and said, “Thanks, Willy.”

  “For what? They asked for somebody who knew Lucas. You just asked me about him, so I told him to talk to you. At least now you know where Lucas is, right? He’s at the morgue.”

  “Yeah, the morgue. I wonder who made the I.D.?” I mused.

  “Who knows? Everybody knew him. He had no family, so one I.D. was good as the next, I guess.” He turned away and cursed at his fighter for taking a left from his sparring partner. “You do that in a fight and you’re gonna hit the canvas, sucker!”

  I walked away without saying anything.

  I was sorry Lucas was dead. He had been harmless, but he was also my link to the guy I was looking for. Now my link was gone.

  I headed back to Packy’s, hoping I would get to Benny before he fell off his stool.

  Chapter Four

  When I got back to Packy’s, Benny was gone.

  “Packy, where’d my brother go?”

  Packy shrugged. “You got me, Jack. He left about ten minutes after you did.”

  “He didn’t say where he was going?”

  “Not a word, but he was negotiating pretty good.”

  “Thanks.”

  I left the bar and decided to check on the unlikely possibility that Benny had gone home. That meant seeing Julie, which I didn’t mind at all.

  Julie Wilson had married my brother five years ago as his ring career was coming to an end. Why, I’ll never know. Julie was a genuine beauty, and my brother was, at best, the proverbial beast, but she married him, and that was that. I love my brother, don’t get me wrong; but the catch of the year he ain’t, so I really couldn’t understand it. Besides that, Julie had always turned me on, and still did. If I’d been around when she met Benny, it might have been different. . . .

  They had an apartment in a rundown building on Jane Street, a lot less than Julie deserved.

  I had a key to Benny’s place, but when I used it once before the results had been somewhat embarrassing. Seems Julie had just finished taking a shower when I walked in. She had been naked, the one and only time I’d ever seen her that way. She was a tall brunette, big-breasted and slim-hipped. She had nipples like cherries, and I had stared at them and the black bush between her legs while we were both frozen with surprise. She was the first to recover and had turned around, walked into her bedroom and put on a silk robe. Neither one of us ever mentioned the incident to Benny or to each other thereafter, but I hadn’t used the key since.

  I knocked on the door and waited for her to answer. When she did I got that choked-up feeling I always got when I saw her face. It wasn’t a classically beautiful face, but still it grabbed me by the throat whenever I saw her. She had dark eyes and a sensuous mouth. Her nose was a little too big, but then again it was perfect for her.

  “Miles, hi,” she greeted, backing up to allow me to enter. She showed concern over my eye, touching it lightly. I could swear it tingled where she touched it, but it had to be my imagination.

  “Congratulations on winning,” she told me. “Ben told me it was a knockout.”

  “Thanks, Julie.” She hated fighting, but always congratulated me when I won. “Is he here?”

  She looked surprised.

  “No, he hasn’t come home since he left this morning. I assumed he went to Pac
ky’s,” she added in a helpless sort of voice. She didn’t approve of Ben’s drinking habits, but her opinion didn’t make a hell of an impact on him. I knew she wasn’t happy, yet she stayed with him.

  “He was there, but he’s not now.”

  “Was he drunk?”

  “I don’t think so. He was okay when I left him, and Packy says he left ten minutes after I did. He couldn’t have been too bad.”

  She shrugged and asked, “Can I get you some coffee?”

  I would have liked to have a cup of coffee with her, but being alone in the apartment with her made me nervous as hell. I turned it down.

  “I’ve got a few things to do, Julie. I got my license, by the way.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad for you,” she told me, giving me a little hug. “I know you wanted it so badly.”

  “Thanks,” I said, backing away from her a bit. The hug had unnerved me. I got pissed at myself for feeling like a schoolboy who had just been hugged by a teacher he has a crush on. True, she was about four years older than me, but it was far from a teacher-student gap.

  She seemed puzzled by my reaction, and I wanted to get out of there before she questioned it.

  “I’ll see you soon, Julie,” I told her.

  “Come over for dinner tonight?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “A victory dinner,” she added. “We’ll have a double celebration.”

  I smiled at her and said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I’ll tell Ben you’re coming.”

  “Yeah, you do that.”

  “Miles?”

  “Yeah?” I said, with my hand on the knob.

  “Now that you’ve got your license, does that mean that you’ll stop fighting?” she asked.

  I hesitated, then replied, “It means I’ll think about it.”

  “I guess that’s good enough,” she said. “See you later.”

  I left, feeling heady, as I always did after seeing her.

  It’s a bitch-and-a-half being in love with your brother’s wife.

  Chapter Five

  I went to the bank next and deposited seven hundred bucks of my winning purse. That gave me three grand in the bank, the results of three years of saving. Isn’t that depressing? A grand a year.

  Shit.

  I hopped a train uptown, got off at Fifty-first and Lexington. I went into an office building across from the subway and rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor. I went to a door marked gallaghen enterprises and entered.

  Dick Gallaghen was a fight promoter, hustler and low-rung Mafia member. He had promoted the card I’d fought on the night before. My fight had been a prelim. The main event had been a bout between two up-and-coming light-heavies, both undefeated. They stayed that way when the judges called the ten-round bout a draw.

  It was a good setup for a return match, which would be promoted by Gallaghen, no doubt. Kind of made you think, sometimes.

  His secretary, a lovely, light-skinned black girl named Patrice, looked up as I entered.

  “Hail the conquering—and battered—hero,” she sang out.

  I gave her my “I ain’t pretty but I gets the job done” line.

  “You’re half right,” she agreed.

  I didn’t ask which half.

  “Is he in?”

  “Yes, but he’s on the phone.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  As I said that we both noticed the light on her phone go off.

  “He’s off,” she said, and picked up the phone. “Miles Jacoby is here, Mr. Gallaghen. Yes, sir.” She hung up and told me, “You can go in, Jack.”

  “Thanks.”

  I knocked once and entered.

  “Jack, my boy,” Gallaghen greeted me. He rose from behind his desk, something that didn’t come easy to a man who weighed two fifty or better and was only five six. The ever present Turkish cigarette was burning in the ashtray, with about twenty dead comrades. He smoked at least three packs a day. He’s the primest candidate for a heart attack I’ve ever known, and he’s always as healthy as an ox.

  I shook his pudgy hand, aware as I always was of the strength that was behind it. He dropped himself back into his chair, grabbed the burning cigarette and sucked it to death. He dropped the butt into the tray and lit another one with a gold lighter, then he invited me to sit.

  “Didn’t you get your share, or did your brother drink it up?” he asked. Gallaghen was well aware of my brother’s failings. In fact, he felt that they were all that my brother had.

  “I got it, Dick. I wanted to talk to you about something else,” I told him.

  “Congratulations on another victory. Not pretty, you know, but you got the job done. I can always count on at least one good fight when I book you, Jack.”

  “I appreciate that, Dick. Listen, there was somebody at the fight that I want to locate.”

  “Oh? What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know that. All I know is that he was sitting in the fifth row.”

  “A guy? Not a broad?”

  “It wasn’t a broad, it was a guy. He sent Benny a message through Lucas Pratt.”

  “I heard about Lucas,” he told me. “It had to happen sooner or later, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  “What was the message?”

  “That’s not important. I’d just like to find the guy and talk to him.”

  Shrugging his shoulders, he asked, “What do you want me to do? Can you describe him?”

  “No, I can’t. What I want you to do is give me a list of every ticket holder in the fifth row.”

  He knew I didn’t mean “every” ticket holder, because that was impossible. I meant every ticket holder who was somebody. This guy I was after was not just some guy out for a Tuesday night of boxing. The guy knew his stuff, which meant he had to be a pro, a somebody.

  “Okay, Jack, I don’t see why not. Check with me tomorrow; I’ll have Patrice work it up.”

  “Thanks, Dick. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem, Kid. What do we have next for you?”

  “I’ve got a bout in two months with Johnny Ricardi,” I told him.

  “That should give the eye time to heal. Ricardi’s a rough boy. Benny set that up?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ready for him?”

  “I’m ready.”

  He shook his head.

  “A decent trainer and manager could do wonders for you, Kid, you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told. I didn’t come here to discuss my brother, Dick.”

  “Hey, Kid, hey, I like your brother, I really do. Look, call me tomorrow for that list, okay? You don’t mind if I don’t get up, right?”

  “Thanks, Dick.”

  I left him looking thoughtful at his desk. As I entered the outer office I saw the light on Patrice’s phone go on.

  “Hey, how about some dinner after I heal?” I asked her, even though I knew she didn’t date fighters.

  She looked at me, eyeing me critically.

  “That might be a while,” she remarked.

  “I’m a fast healer,” I told her.

  “I’ve heard that before. I really don’t see how you men can get into a ring and pound on each other until you bleed,” she told me.

  “Hey, women are doing it too now. Besides, there are drawbacks to every profession, Pat.”

  “Don’t I know it. I thought working here would give me an opportunity to meet some eligible athletes, but all I seem to meet are fighters.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re nice, Jack. I could go for you, but you’re still a fighter.”

  “You like florists?” I asked her.

  “What?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Never mind. I’ll see you.”

  The light on her phone was still on when I left.

  Chapter Six

  I checked all of Benny’s usual hangouts but couldn’t locate him anywhere. In fact, no one had seen him all day. I went back to Packy’s, but
he hadn’t been back there either.

  He seemed to have disappeared.

  Not that I was worried. Benny could take care of himself, as long as he wasn’t drunk out of his mind.

  Well, maybe I was worried, at that.

  I checked another place, a gin mill on Eighth Avenue at Thirty-first Street. He wasn’t there, and hadn’t been. When I walked out of the joint and realized that I was only a few blocks from where Lucas Pratt’s body had been found, I decided to take a look.

  The arcade where Lucas had been found was on Thirty-fourth, across the street from Macy’s. When I entered I could smell stale urine and fresh pot. The doorway he had been found in was next to a gift shop. I went into the shop and spoke to the old man behind the counter.

  ‘This is where the body was found this morning, isn’t it?” I asked him while browsing.

  “I don’t know nothing,” he said in a bored tone.

  “You must know that much.”

  “I don’t know nothing,” he repeated, with no change in tone.

  I took out a five and folded it lengthwise.

  “Yeah, so, he was found here,” he admitted, eyeing the five.

  “By who?”

  “By me.”

  The scent of fresh weed was still in the air.

  “You call the cops?”

  “ ’Course. I’m a law abidin’ citizen.”

  “Of course. How’d you find him?”

  “Dead.”

  I stared at him.

  “Shit, man, he was just lying there, you know? He had a fuckin’ needle stickin’ out of his arm, and I knew he was fuckin’ dead. I seen dead junkies before, you know? I called the cops, and they came and got him.”

  I gave him the five and some free advice.

  “Tell your customers not to light up as soon as they make their buy. You can smell the stuff a mile away.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  Real detective work, ain’t it great? What did that tell me?

  I wondered if the arcade was a regular spot for Lucas to shoot up. I guessed only another junkie could tell me that.

  I knew a few I could ask.

  I hopped a train back to the Village and hunted one up.