The Big Fix - Ed Lacy

     Walt shook his head.

     “Before my day, too. He's in the insurance business now. While I was talking to Tommy, Maxie walks over to our booth and asks Cork why he hadn't given him the business. Seems this rich character took out a policy on Tommy, told Tommy it was protection for both of them in case Tommy was hurt. It seems he has lent Tommy about three hundred and fifty dollars to date. Naturally Brewer is the beneficiary. But it's odd, if this fellow is so wealthy, to cover for a few hundred...”

     “You mean it's only an accident policy?” Walt asked, glancing at his watch. It was five-forty-eight. If Ruth hadn't phoned by now, perhaps she was coming home after all.

     “As Coney explained, it's an expensive policy covering accidents, most kinds of disability, and of course, death. I imagine the company was hesitant about insuring an old pug, even though Tommy passed the physical. They called in Coney to look at the policy, which is how he happened to know about it. Well... Please don't look at your watch again, Mr. Steiner. I won't take up much more of your time, and it drives me nervous.”

     “Sorry. I'm... eh... expecting a call from my wife. Did Coney okay the policy?”

     “Yes, with some changes in the disability payments. But that's not important. When Maxie asked Tommy, again, why he hadn't come to him with the business, Tommy said this Brewer had arranged things, and besides, it was only a small policy—twenty-five hundred dollars. This is where my suspicions went into orbit. Coney told him, 'No, you're wrong, it's for twenty-five thousand dollars.' Tommy said Maxie must be mistaken, but Irish admitted he hadn't ever actually read the policy, merely signed where Brewer told him. Since this is Coney's job, and he was positive, the policy must be for twenty-five grand. That didn't upset Tommy. He said it only proved how rich Brewer was. Irish was more upset over our knowing about the deal, swore us to secrecy. I talked to Coney later and he told me there's also a double indemnity clause in the policy!”

     “I thought they didn't have double indemnity any more?”

     “Not in the average policy, but Coney said you can have it, if you pay. Do I have to draw a blueprint? After putting on the worst fight of his career, Tommy is signed by Brewer. And now it turns out the old boy is worth fifty grand to Brewer—dead!”

     Walt rubbed his shoulder muscles, for the first time taking some interest in Alvin's chatter. “You think there's going to be some sort of car accident to Cork?”

     Alvin stood up, and for a moment it was a jack-in-the-box movement, and it seemed his head might hit the ceiling. He paced the room nervously, sucking on his dead pipe. “Perhaps. Brewer has a sport car he lets Tommy use. Also he's a food nut and always having Irish try strange dishes. But I think there's even a better gimmick here. When I voiced some of my... doubts, to Tommy, he let me in on the rest of the supposed secret. Brewer has another fighter, a welter named Jake Watson. Now Tommy's had over a hundred bouts, has fought and/or sparred with thousands of fighters. Irish claims Jake is absolutely sensational, the best he's ever seen. Not only as good as Robinson, Olson, and LaMotta, but a combination of all three. Tommy actually raved about Jake, said he was strong as a bull, a fast, flashy boxer, and packs the wallop of a heavyweight. Why Tommy told me in their first sparring session, Jake knocked him cold. He was out for ten minutes, despite using heavy gloves and a headguard.” Alvin turned abruptly, facing Walt, his intense thin face waiting for a reply.

     Walt looked blank. “You lost me on one of the turns. What's all this add up to?”

     “Don't you see their plan? Here's Tommy, an alcoholic shell of his old self, a pug on the verge of having his license revoked because he's physically unfit. Now, assuming Jake is the belter Tommy claims—and I've never heard Irish rave so about a fighter—what's to stop Tommy being killed in the ring? Being beaten to death in a sparring session?”

     Walt shook his head slowly. “That's too difficult to count on, too far-fetched.”

     “Is it? There have been plenty of ring deaths.”

     “Not recently.”

     “Only because there aren't many clubs operating, fewer fights. Also the automatic eight count, and the three knockdown rule has helped. But they don't go in a sparring session. If Jake can really hit, and Irish has no reason to yeast it up, what's to stop Jake from beating a has-been like Tommy to death?”

     “Come on now, a fist isn't a gun. You can belt a guy hard as you can and still not be sure you'll drop him, much less kill him. Also, as you said, Tommy isn't a novice. He probably isn't easy to hit.”

     “I told you he's already been knocked cold in a sparring session.”

     “I've heard that even champs like Patterson are sometimes floored by a sparring partner.”

     “Of course. So if Tommy is killed while sparring, it will look an accident! And what have they to lose? If a punch doesn't do it, they try again. Or resort to an auto accident, a fall, drowning, many other ways.”

     “And get themselves collared. Arranging a fatal accident isn't as simple as it may sound.”

     “Exactly!” Alvin boomed, his deep voice rattling the pictures on the wall. “Suppose, after they soften him up in these sparring sessions, they kill him in the ring! The perfect crime, with hundreds of witnesses saying it was an accident! Far as I know, there's never been a murder, or even a manslaughter conviction against a pug for killing a man in the squared circle. Think of the flexibility of it all, the way they have their victim in their pocket. They can take their time, do it in a month, or six months. They receive fifty grand, wait a year or two, start all over on some other rundown pug!”

     “Hammer, you're not writing a mystery story. A killer has to make it a sure thing, in real life.”

     Alvin shrugged. “Here's something else. I checked with the commission. There isn't any record of an Arno Brewer as a manager. Why isn't he down as manager of Tommy, or the other pug?”

     “There can be a dozen reasons. Perhaps he's ducking taxes.”

     “Well, I think it's certainly worth looking into. Jake Watson took out a license. I asked if they had checked on his fingerprints for any possible criminal record. But you know how easy-going they are in the commission's office. They said they were working on...”

     The phone rang. Walt jumped, picked up the pink receiver. “Hello?”

     Ruth Steiner said, “Walt, I won't be home for dinner tonight. I'm tied up at the printers. They messed up an article and I'll have to hang around to correct the new...”

     “Okay,” Walt said. He could hear music in the background.

     “I may be home late. I also have to check with a photographer on some last minute...”

     “Yes. Thanks for calling,” he said dully.

     There was a moment of surprised silence at her end of the phone. Then she said, “There isn't much in the refrigerator. I expected to shop on my way home. Best you eat out.”

     “I'll manage.” Walt hung up, full of hurt anger. As he sat down, Alvin resumed his pacing of the room. Walt thought, For the last three months she's been at me, digging me, torturing me. You'd think she'd found me with another woman. What the devil has changed? What's happening to us? I don't know how much more I can take. Suppose I had agreed to go to Paris with her, then what? Ruth must have understood I couldn't get a year's leave from the department. She... Hell, why doesn't she do that book and get it out of her system? She doesn't have to work on this trade magazine. She can sit home and write all day. I swear, if she was older, I'd say Ruth was going through the change of life or...

     Alvin stopped in front of Walt, asked, “What will you do about this, detective?”

     “Do? Do? I wish I knew what...” Walt rubbed his big jaw. “About Tommy Cork—what do you expect me to do? I certainly can't arrest this Arno Brewer; we have nothing working for us. Even your suspicions are full of holes. You said Tommy is looking fine, eating regularly. That contradicts your murder idea—they wouldn't be building him up, physically. Then, if this other fighter, Jake, is really such a hot pug, why monkey with an insurance swindle when Jake can make a dozen times fifty thousand in the ring?”

     “I admit I haven't absolute proof of anything definite. As to Tommy's looking good, so what? In a couple of weeks the body can't compensate for all the wine, the hunger, the beatings, it has absorbed over the years. The main question is, why should anybody want to manage a washed-up pug like Cork?”

     “You know Tommy's story could be true. There are such types as rich boxing buffs. Also, he may have taken out the policy, as he said, only to protect Tommy and himself. A well known novelist once supported a pug for years, managing him to obscurity. Some people like to keep a boxer around like a... a pet. When I was in the amateurs I had a few offers like that from wealthy jerks—a cash bonus if I attended a certain college, use of a sport car for joining a downtown athletic club.”

     “Why should Brewer pay extra for a double indemnity policy?”

     Walt shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I admit that sounds fishy. You said they'd been up at this training camp for two weeks. Did Tommy continue to spar with Jake after he was flattened?”

     “I don't know. Steiner, I didn't expect you to rush out and make an arrest. If I had, I would have gone directly to the police. Officially, I mean. But I can't stand by and see the little game cock killed. No point in doing something when it's too late. Knowing your interest in the sport, I thought you might look into things.”

     “Okay, I'll get a copy of this Jake Watson's prints from the commission tomorrow, see what they tell us. Of course there's a simple answer to all this. Have Tommy cancel the policy. That would prove how interested this Arno really is. Matter of fact, if you raised your suspicions to the insurance company, or had Coney do it, the company would cancel.”

     Alvin's long face became one big grin. “That's our answer! I'll get Tommy to cancel out. I couldn't, publicly, put in my two cents. I might be sued. Mr. Steiner, while...”

     “Call me, Walt, Al.”

     “Walt, as I said when I first came in, I realize this is an awkward hour to talk business. But don't you think you might get a clearer picture by speaking to Tommy himself?”

     “That would help. When can I see him?”

     “He's meeting me at the Between Rounds for supper. Of course, you're probably waiting for your wife, but perhaps tomorrow night we can...”

     “It just happens my wife is stuck in the office,” Walt said slowly. “Let me wash up and we'll get cracking. I'm hungry.”

     An hour later, sitting across the table from Tommy and Alvin in a steak house, Walt wished he hadn't come. Tommy Cork was telling Alvin, anger making his voice tremble, “What you doing, spoiling things for me? I let you in on a big secret, about how we're going to spring Jake as a surprise on the fight boys, and you swear you'll keep it to yourself. Now he's in on it. I told you, if it gets known, it's nothing, and then where am I?”

     “Tommy, Tommy, I'm not broadcasting it to the world. I had to tell Walt, so he could be filled in on all the details.”

     Walt wasn't listening. He was wondering what he was going to do about Ruth. Although they shared the same bed, they hadn't “slept” together for nearly two months. But what frightened Walt most was that he know they were heading smack for an open break. Aside from the fact Ruth was the first and only woman he'd ever been truly fond of, Walt also felt a marriage was unbreakable. It had nothing to do with his religious beliefs; he was simply a man who only expected to marry once. If things didn't come to a boil, Walt was sure, in time, whatever was biting Ruth would calm down. If she'd only tell him what was wrong, discuss things. Because he'd said he couldn't spend a year in Paris, she acted as if he was doing it all to spite...

     “Walt,” Alvin said, “explain to Tommy about canceling the policy.”

     “What?” Tommy cut in. “You guys are talking like you got paper brains. If I cancel the policy, Arno will get sore, wash his hands of me. Why if I even hinted about this crazy notion Al has, he'd be insulted. No!”

     Walt said, “Tommy, you don't have to do anything, if you want it that way. I can... suggest what Alvin thinks to the insurance company and they will cancel before the policy goes into effect. If that happened, and you'd be in the clear, and Arno gave you the brush, wouldn't that prove Alvin is right? If Arno still backed you, it would show we're wrong.”

     “No, it wouldn't show anything except I ought to have my head examined. This is my break, my Irish luck, and you guys want me to louse it up because Al has a wild hair tickling his mind. Lay off me. What if Arno is so rich he took out a twenty-five grand policy on me? Could be that's what he told me, and I didn't hear right, thought he said twenty* five hundred. What's the big diff if he took out a million dollar policy? It's his dough. Look, Walt, I appreciate you and Al thinking you're doing this to protect me, but you don't understand the deal. The day before my last bout I was so hungry I sold a pint of blood to eat. Now sixteen days...”

     “You sold your blood before that fight?” Alvin asked shocked, his face actually going pale.

     “Now, sixteen days later, I'm eating three times a day, living in a fine hotel. I have pocket money and fit into a rich cat's plans. I'm a guy with a future, suddenly. I can't risk all that. Sure, if Arno asked me to do something unreasonable, I could buck it. But when a guy is breaking his hump to help me, how would I sound saying I don't like this and that?”

     “Your life may be at stake!” Alvin thundered.

     An annoyed look crossed Tommy's small face. “Easy, AL you ain't on the air. Keep your pear-shaped tone down. Nobody says I'm in danger but you. Hell, before I was more in danger—of not eating! You think guys are falling over themselves, standing in line waiting to manage me?”

     Al said, “Can't you see?”