One! Two! One! Two!

Crunch! Crunch!

With each impact the smaller, heavier-set guy made, I winced in my seat. I do not like the fights. I never have. That night my prejudices were confirmed as I watched two men, their chests glimmering with sweat and effort, smashing the hell out of each other as all around, fatter, greasier men cheered and yelled.

One of the fat greasy men – the man who brought me here – turned his head and said to me, ‘That’s what you call manhood, right?’

‘Did you used to fight?’

‘Me? I tried. I gotta glass jaw.’

I nodded and tried to pretend like I was enjoying the fight. The smaller set man, the one doing all the real damage, was called Bobby Freeman and – not that I’m really a judge – he was good. I remember reading somewhere how you need to be light on your feet in boxing. Half the secret is in avoiding the other guy’s punches, apparently, before you land in a humdinger of your own. Like I say, though, I’m no expert.

Sidney Bonhard turned back to me and said, ‘You got good build. You ever consider going in the ring?’

‘No,’ I said. I kept my eye on the fight, watching the technique, watching the rhythms; distancing myself from the violence as much as I could.

A guy in the row behind yelled right into my ear, ‘Rip his heart out, champ!’

Sid bent his head close to mine again and said, ‘You got reasonable rates.’

‘You got a reasonable job?’

‘Yeah. That’s why I axed you here.’

‘Yeah?’ I feigned a disinterest. In all honesty, I was willing to take anything that came my way. That’s how business was getting. I suppose it was that time. Hollywood had been releasing a lot of movies about crooked PIs and those in the business had clearly been suffering as a result. I wasn’t crooked. Well, not entirely. In our line of business you can’t always operate strictly within the law, I suppose. No, the kind of people who want the law on their side tend to straight to the eighth precinct and ask for Sergeant Sipkowickz.

‘Freeman’s a good kid. He’s from the ghetto, but you can’t help your background, huh?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Most of these people who drift into boxing, you see, they’re good kids from bad neighbourhoods. Fightin’s a way of life there or somethin’.’ I got the impression that when he said bad neighbourhood, the words “bad” and “black” were pretty interchangeable. ‘Freeman’s a good kid and he’s a good boxer. Hell, he’s the best.’ Looking at the ring I could see what Sid was saying. I gave Freeman another four maybe five hits before he knocked the bigger guy down to the dust. ‘He’s indestructible, know what I’m saying?’

That was what the local rags had been saying as well. Freeman was becoming something of a local celebrity, a black Rocky fighting his way to the top. He was clean cut – as much as you can be when you’re a boxer by profession – and that broken nose gave him a kind of rugged appearance that I’m sure the ladies went mad for.

Sid felt my upper arms, gripping them tight. ‘Hey, you got good muscular structure. You sure you’ve never thought about the fights?’

‘Sure.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘Leave it to the professionals.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Freeman’s split from his woman. The stupid bitch is going to the local press with some kind of shit about how he used to beat her.’

‘Did he?’

‘What difference does that make?’

There was a roar from the crowd. Freeman’s opponent was down, slamming against the floor, his head bouncing off the ground and then back down again. He lay still as a dead man; not that anyone really gave a shit. They crowd were going wild. The Referee was leading Freeman on a ring-lap, holding the man’s hand high in the air. Freeman looked about ready to go down himself. During the fight he’d been steady, assured and indestructible. The fight over, he was small, tired and close to collapse. It was an amazing transformation.

The guy in the row behind leant forward and shouted in my ear, ‘Helluva fight, huh?’

I shouted back, ‘Yeah!’ and left it at that.

Sid said, ‘You doin’ this?’

I said, ‘Did he hit her?’

***

It was a relatively simple job. It didn’t have to get violent. I know what you’re thinking, by the way; I’m a parasite. A PI doesn’t go around acting as a heavy for a crooked boxing promoter. He solves crimes and makes sure the murderer does the time. I’d love, just once, to get involved in some shit like that. As it happens, most of the time I’m being hired by guys with dicks roughly proportionate to that of an inadequate baboon to go and find out who’s balling their wife. Its not pleasant, believe me. I spend a lot of my life in motel rooms with long lens cameras and infra-red equipment. I see a lot of bad sex. I never understood how anyone could get excited at the prospect of being a voyeur.

The thing was, as Sid told me, Freeman had never hit this woman. He was, as Sid kept reiterating over and over, ‘A good kid,’ who’d maybe made a few mistakes but that was because he came from, as Sid put it again, ‘A bad neighbourhood.’ He’d done time because, when he was younger, he’d done some bagwork for a local sleazeball. There wasn’t, apparently, a kid in the neighbourhood who hadn’t done the same. But all the time, the phrase, ‘A good kid,’ kept hitting home. It was a mantra, it was a slogan, it was Freeman as I came to know him for a time.

I never met Freeman in person, which, in retrospect, might have been a mistake. As I’ve said, I needed the money and the work didn’t need to get violent. All it involved was having a few word with Freeman’s ex and getting her to back off on the deal with the tabloids.

You ever heard the expression, “the best laid plans of mice and men”?

***

Freeman’s ex was a woman called Bonita Lane. Her friends called her Bonnie. I opted for Miss Lane when I buzzed her apartment and told her I was there on behalf of the rag she’d sold her story to. Clearly, she wasn’t too cautious and wasn’t expecting any trouble because she let me up without any hassle.

Her apartment was on the fifth floor of the building. It wasn’t too bad a neighbourhood and the building was clearly kept clean. There was no clear indication whether there was a regular janitorial cleanup or whether the residents did much of the work off their own backs.

Bonita Lane answered the door quickly when I rang the bell. She was tall and slender, with wavy hair that fell past her shoulders. Her skin was milk-chocolate and her eyes were a deep, delicious brown. She wore a sleeveless top that hugged her body in all the right places and a pair of tight blue jeans. It was a curious mixture of sophistication and ghetto cool about her that made me unable to figure out how to start talking to her.

She started the conversation by saying, ‘Its an odd time for an interview.’

I pushed my way into the apartment, just breezing past her and into the corridor. As I moved past her, taking in a whiff of her perfume, I said, ‘Can I admit to a bit of subterfuge here, Miss Lane?’

She stayed in the open doorway, on hand on her hips, the other on the doorframe. She didn’t look scared, just pissed off. ‘Who are you?’

I gave her my name. I told her I knew Sid and that he’d hired me to have a word with her.

‘Oh,’ she said. She barely batted an eyelid, but instead closed the door and walked right up to me. There was no trace of fear about her. ‘So, what’s the deal here? You gonna beat me up, tell me I’m makin’ a big mistake?’

‘I’m just going to ask you to reconsider your decision.’

‘To hell with that,’ she said, walking right on past me and into the living room. I followed her. She said, as she stood at the mini-bar, pouring herself a straight vodka, ‘This is a pretty black neighbourhood. A boy white as milk, like yourself, you’re gonna stand out in people’s memories.’

‘I’m not here to hurt you.’ I helped myself to a seat on the sofa. I sank into the soft cushions. I looked around thinking the apartment was real nice. She had money coming in from somewhere; maybe what Freeman had been making in the rings before they split. I did not even know what Bonita Lane did for a living. ‘Ask you a question?’ She didn’t say a word, so I went ahead, anyway. ‘Did he ever really hit you?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I’ve been told no.’

‘Ain’t an answer,’ she said, turning now to face me. She leaned one hand back on the bar and stood there; a classic pose.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I asked the question.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘He hit me.’

‘Do you have any proof?’

She laughed and knocked back her drink in one go. She slammed down the glass back onto the cabinet. ‘No. Other than my own good self and some of my girlfriend’s who’re gonna stand up for me.’

‘How much are the paper’s paying you?’

‘What, is he making a counter-offer?’

‘No. I’m interested.’

‘You don’t look like the muscle type. You sure as hell don’t act like it either.’

The way I was sitting on the couch, I made sure I kept my body language nice and open towards her. Mostly it was to try and gain her trust, but if I’m being honest, she was one hell of an attractive woman. Her strength and fire only added to that impression.

‘Why you suddenly gone all quiet on me?’

I stood up and walked over to her. I stood less so that less than an inch separated out faces. I could feel her hot breath hitting me. Each breath was steady, unafraid. I looked into her eyes and found the answer I wanted.

I did not know who to feel more disgusted with. In that moment I realised what I was. I suppose I’d been transposing some kind of Humphrey Bogart archetype on myself. I had seen myself as the down-at-heel detective who sometimes acted rough, but always came good in the end. I was not, I was a shitheel. I was a piece of slime. I was the kind of man who’d take on any job just so long as there was money involved.

She said to me, ‘You got sad eyes.’

I did not reply. I was thinking about Sid and how he knew that Freeman was guilty and how he still had lied to me just to make sure that someone came round to put the fear in this woman. Not that I had put the fear in her. So maybe I was a better man than I felt in those few moments when out eyes met.

She began to move closer and I backed away, turning my back on her.

‘You’re a good guy,’ she said. ‘You know when a thing ain’t right.’

I didn’t believe her.

‘So what you gonna do?’ she asked me. It was a damn good question.

***

She slept like a child, on her side, knees curled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around herself as though for protection. I sat up in the living room, watching her on the couch and thinking things through.

We’d talked through the night and most of the morning. She’d told me about Freeman, how he was some kind of boxing genius and how he had the talent and the skill to make it big. She also told me how he was a failure on a personal level and how, the closer he got to his dreams of the big time, the worse he became. He’d always been a violent man. She’d thought – as I suppose many women in her situation do – that by sticking around and loving him she could somehow change that part of his personality. He wasn’t that bad to her, after all. There were men he’d sent to the hospital before. I knew what she was talking about. His control in the ring kept him doing any real damage to his opponent, but imagine all that energy slipping loose of its reins and running wild.

She told me about the manager he had before Sid, a guy called Ed Blagley. He was in a wheelchair these days after what was officially termed a “drunken brawl”, but the truth was that Ed had been so badly hurt he couldn’t remember shit of what happened. But Bonnie could. She was there, she saw the monster inside of Freeman let loose, unleashing its full fury and damage in one punch to Ed’s jaw. Ed had gone down instantly, but that hadn’t been enough for Freeman who’d continued to beat Ed’s battered body until all that fury and hatred and seething resentment had been released. That had been the first time, too, that he’d hit Bonnie. She’d tried to intervene and got herself a broken jaw for her trouble. Freeman had been the one who’d invented the brawl story and she’d gone along with it because she knew in her heart that Freeman wasn’t a bad guy, it was just he sometimes had a bit of a temper on it.

As she told me these stories, the fire that was strong inside her seemed to die a little. Her eyes were sad, and there was something there that surprised me in her. She still loved him.

I didn’t say it, of course. I didn’t say a goddamn word, and just let the truth pour out of her. In my line of work you have to know when to take the lead and when to follow. You just gotta shut your yap, sometimes, and let the other person jaw until they get around to what you need to know.

When she was finished, she said, ‘I just don’t think I can keep quiet no more.’

‘Are you going to the papers for the money?’

‘No. Yes. No. The piece of mind, mostly, but the money doesn’t hurt.’ She was being honest and I suppose I appreciated that. ‘So, what are you gonna say to me?’

I didn’t say anything. I just sat on my sofa and turned the empty glass in my hand. I wished I had more to drink but I didn’t want to ask and I didn’t think it would be the wisest just to get up and take some more.

‘Yeah,’ she said, sidling over to me and sitting so that our knees were touching. ‘You a good man.’ She put her head on my shoulders and we stayed that way for a while. Nothing happened, not that night, anyway. Eventually she fell asleep and I carried her through to the bedroom. I stood in there a while watching her. She was lit by the lights from outside.

Then, once I had watched her for a while I went back to the living room and sat there to think about things till morning came.

***

I was about to leave when she came through and said to me, ‘What you gonna tell your client?’

She was still dressed the same as the night before. She looked fresh; fresher than I do in the mornings, anyhow. Her hair was all over the place but somehow that just made her look all the more beautiful.

‘I’m gonna tell him I’m not doing his dirty work. He lied to me, Bonnie.’

‘And how do you I ain’t lying, huh?’

‘You’re not,’ I said. I knew in my heart and in my bones. When I think about it afterwards, maybe I felt it in my dick as well. I couldn’t say. Maybe I was just blinded by her, like all detectives are when they meet the femme-fatale the first time.

I closed the door on her and walked back to my office. It felt good to get the cool morning air, walking the streets. I went a walk along the pier and saw a homeless guy playing the saxophone. I think the saxophone was all he owned in the world. I stood a while listening to him play a blues lament. When he was done, I took some change and threw into the cap he thrown, upside down, in front of him. He said, ‘God bless you, sir,’ and smiled with a gap-tooth grin. Then he went right on back to blowing on the sax, losing himself in soulful melody.

I walked on, feeling the bite of the wind. The saxophone’s melody faded into the distance, melding with the beginnings of the days’ traffic; car horns and engines revving with anger.

***

‘Hey, pal,’ said Sid Bonhard, heartily clapping me round the shoulders. We were in his office. He looked happy as a kid who just found those presents in the attic. ‘How you doing?’

‘I’m doing fine?’

‘And our mutual friend?’

‘Miss Lane?’

‘Yeah, she still going to the papers.’

‘I’m gonna ask you once more, Sid, did he hit her?’

‘Aw, jeez!’ Sid moved away from me. He walked to the immense French Windows that dominated the front of his office. We were on the upper floor of one of the city’s skyscrapers, with a real good view over all the little below. I almost expected him to start on that speech Orson Welles made in The Third Man.

‘Okay, pal,’ he said. ‘I think even I, as old and stupid as I’m getting, know what happened last night. She came on to you, maybe sucked you off. Maybe she let you fuck her, I don’t know and to be frank, I don’t care. It ain’t my problem you know. But you ain’t getting no cash.’

I said, standing where I was, ‘Did he hit her?’

He still didn’t say a word.

‘Did he hit her?’

‘Does it matter?’ He kept his back to me, still looking out over the city. ‘They come from a poor income background. They’re black trash. Just the same as white trash but it’s an inner city problem and they don’t put trailers in the path of tornadoes. They’re the lowest of the fuckin’ low, and its only because the boy can throw a punch that he’s climbing that social ladder one bloody hand at a time. So he ain’t got all the social airs and graces that come like instinct to good, honest, middle-class people like you and me. Hell, you live like a bum, but I know you had a good life once, right? Good parents, maybe just a little too good which is why you rebelled and became the sorry sack o’ shit you are now.’

I didn’t reply, but my jaw tightened reflexively, same as would any man’s when an accusation is made concerning his past.

‘Who give a damn, right? Who gives a damn about your history when they come to you, when they ask you to do a job? Do you think people care if you came from a good Catholic family, or if your dad beat on your mom? No one gives a rat’s ass. It’s the same with Freeman. No one should give a shit if he’s had a hard life and if he’s had trouble adjusting to the new sociality that surrounds him as part and parcel of the celebrity he’s gaining every time he beats some other sucker to a pulp in the ring. I’m just doing my best to ensure that that is the case; no one does give a shit.’

‘He hit her, Sid,’ I said. ‘She’s a good woman and a decent woman.’

‘The guy’s a natural born fighter.’

‘Doesn’t give him an excuse to hit women.’

‘Doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It does not.’

‘So she’s gonna blab to the papers, is she?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’

‘Right,’ said Sid. He looked oddly calm. I had expected him to blow up in my face, becoming a human Hiroshima, but instead he was like a zephyr, calm and unworried.

I remembered a poem I read somewhere about a zephyr wind killing an ant.

‘Go home,’ he said. ‘I’m in a charitable mood. I’ll let you keep your advance. Just go home, kid, and think about what you’re doing here. Think about what all that money coulda done for you.’

***

Back at my apartment, I sat on the ratty sofa I’d picked up from some small store downtown, and listened to the traffic below. I tried watching TV, but all I found were tak shows filled with trash both black and white, My mind kept drifting, always back to Bonnie. Sometimes I saw her, like she was beneath me, crying with pain or pleasure; I couldn’t tell. Other times I saw her falling to the floor, holding her face where her husband, the up-and-coming champ, had just smashed her. I pictured her in these situations with a kind of quiet but audible dignity.

Her phone number was on a crumpled bit of paper in my right pocket. My hand drifted throughout the afternoon, and I made a conscious effort at such moments not to think about her at all.

***

At eight o’clock I rang Bonnie’s pad from a payphone round the corner. My own phone had been disconnected because I refused to pay my bills.

The phone kept ringing, and when there was no answer, I held on some more out of a kind of feeble hope. She didn’t have an answering machine. I considered just hanging up and calling her back in fifteen minutes.

In fifteen minutes, said a voice in my head, she could be dead.

I grabbed a taxi on the street outside and told the guy to head for Bonnie’s apartment.

When we arrived – too long, too long, said the voice in my head, you’re gonna be too late, man – I jumped out the taxi, throwing notes at the guy and letting him to sort it out. He shouted after me, but I didn’t hear a word his ugly mouth was saying, because I was on my way upstairs to Bonita Lane’s apartment.

Her door was ajar, and I knew instantly that the worst had already happened. I turned on my hells, thinking there was nothing I could do, and walked straight into Sid Bonhard.

‘Hey, pal,’ he said. ‘How you doing?’

‘Who did you send up here.’

‘The wrong damn men, that’s who.’ I heard a silenced shot come from inside Bonnie’s apartment. I winced.

‘Don’t worry, kid,’ said Sid. ‘They ain’t shooting her. They’re shooting the dumb assholes came up here and killed her.’

I followed Sid into Bonnie’s apartment. We went into the living room and I just stood in the door, feeling sick to my stomach. Two men lay to the right, both shot quite expertly in the centre of their foreheads. In a line of fire directly across from them stood two anonymous men in suits I’d seen before at Sid’s offices.

Bonnie herself lay in what remained of the coffee table. She’d been beaten, and badly too, I assumed by the two men who now lay dead on her living room floor. She still had that air of defiance about her. Even in death, she clung to it like it was all that had ever defined her. From the stories she had told me the night before, I suppose it was. She was a fighter, the kind of person who gripped onto life for as long and as strong as she could.

‘Damn shame,’ said Sid. He turned to me. ‘You’re a good guy,’ he said. ‘Got too much of a damn social conscience, maybe, but even you can see there’s work to be done here. This wasn’t meant to happen. She wasn’t meant to die. I just wanted to impress upon her the importance of keeping quiet about a few matters.’

‘You’re a bastard,’ I said.

‘That’s true,’ said Bonhard. ‘But we’re all bastards, when all’s said and done, right? All I’m asking is that you help us a little here, clean up this mess.’

I wanted to refuse. I wanted to tell him that I was a man of principles, and the feeling grew stronger every time I looked at Bonnie’s body lying there amongst the shattered remains of her coffee table.

‘Mister Bonhard,’ I said. ‘Sid. You know, we’ll discuss my billing after this place has been cleaned out.’

‘Good man,’ he said, and shook my hand. ‘You’ve got a good grip there. Good shoulders, too. A little work and, you know, you could be something of a champ yourself.’