Eight Million Ways to Die

Chapter 4

He wasn't hard to recognize. His suit was a dove gray flannel and with it he wore a bright red vest over a black knit tie and another white dress shirt. He had sunglasses on, dark lenses in metal frames. Danny Boy contrived to sleep when the sun was out- neither his eyes nor his skin could take it- and wore dark glasses even at night unless he was in a dimly lit place like Poogan's or the Top Knot. Years ago he'd told me that he wished the world had a dimmer switch and you could just turn the whole thing down a notch or two. I remember thinking at the time that that was what whiskey did. It dimmed the lights and lowered the volume and rounded the corners.

I admired his outfit. He said, "You like the vest? I haven't worn it in ages. I wanted to be visible."

I already had our tickets. The ringside price was $15. I'd bought a pair of $4.50 seats that would have put us closer to God than to the ring. They got us through the gate, and I showed them to an usher down front and slipped a folded bill into his hand. He put us in a pair of seats in the third row.

"Now I might have to move you gentlemen," he said, "but probably not, and I guarantee you ringside."

After he'd moved off Danny Boy said, "There's always a way, isn't there? What did you give him?"

"Five dollars."

"So the seats set you back fourteen dollars instead of thirty. What do you figure he makes in a night?"

"Not much on a night like this. When the Knicks or Rangers play he might make five times his salary in tips. Of course he might have to pay somebody off."

"Everybody's got an angle," he said.

"It looks that way."

"I mean everybody. Even me."

That was my cue. I gave him two twenties and a ten. He put the money away, then took his first real look around the auditorium. "Well, I don't see him," he said, "but he'll probably just show for the Bascomb fight. Let me take a little walk."

"Sure."

He left his seat and moved around the room. I did some looking around myself, not trying to spot Chance but getting a sense of the crowd. There were a lot of men who might have been in the Harlem bars the previous night, pimps and dealers and gamblers and other uptown racket types, most of them accompanied by women. There were some white mob types; they were wearing leisure suits and gold jewelry and they hadn't brought dates. In the less expensive seats the crowd was the sort of mixed bag that turns up for any sporting event, black and white and Hispanic, singles and couples and groups, eating hot dogs and drinking beer from paper cups and talking and joking and, occasionally, having a look at the action in the ring. Here and there I saw a face straight out of any OTB horse room, one of those knobby on-the-come Broadway faces that only gamblers get. But there weren't too many of those. Who bets prizefights anymore?

I turned around and looked at the ring. Two Hispanic kids, one light and one dark, were being very careful not to risk serious injury. They looked like lightweights to me, and the fair-skinned kid was rangy with a lot of reach. I started getting interested, and in the final round the darker of the two figured out how to get in under the other kid's jab. He was working the body pretty good when they rang the bell. He got the decision, and most of the booing came from one spot in the audience. The other boy's friends and family, I suppose.

Danny Boy had returned to his seat during the final round. A couple minutes after the decision, Kid Bascomb climbed over the ropes and did a little shadowboxing. Moments later his opponent entered the ring. Bascomb was very dark, very muscular, with sloping shoulders and a powerful chest. His body might have been oiled the way the light glinted on it. The boy he was fighting was an Italian kid from South Brooklyn named Vito Canelli. He was carrying some fat around the waist and he looked soft as bread dough, but I had seen him before and knew him for a smart fighter.

Danny Boy said, "Here he comes. Center aisle."

I turned and looked. The same usher who'd taken my five bucks was leading a man and woman to their seats. She was about five five, with shoulder-length auburn hair and skin like fine porcelain. He was six one or two, maybe 190 pounds. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, trim hips. His hair was natural, short rather than long, and his skin was a rich brown. He was wearing a camel's-hair blazer and brown flannel slacks. He looked like a professional athlete or a hot lawyer or an up-and-coming black businessman.

I said, "You're sure?"

Danny Boy laughed. "Not your usual pimp, is he? I'm sure. That's Chance. I hope your friend didn't put us in his seats."

He hadn't. Chance and his girl were in the first row and a good deal closer to the center. They took their seats and he tipped the usher, acknowledged greetings from some of the other spectators, then approached Kid Bascomb's corner and said something to the fighter and his handlers. They huddled together for a moment. Then Chance returned to his seat.

"I think I'll leave now," Danny Boy said. "I don't really want to watch these two fools pummel each other. I hope you don't need me to introduce you?" I shook my head. "Then I'll slip out before the mayhem commences. In the ring, that is. Will he have to know I fingered him, Matt?"

"He won't hear it from me."

"Good. If I can be of further service-"

He made his way up the aisle. He probably wanted a drink and the bars in Madison Square Garden don't stock ice-cold Stolichnaya.

The announcer was introducing the fighters, calling out their ages and weights and hometowns. Bascomb was twenty-two and undefeated. Canelli didn't figure to change his status tonight.

There were two seats empty next to Chance. I thought about taking one but stayed where I was. The warning buzzer sounded, then the bell for round one. It was a slow, thoughtful round, with neither fighter anxious to commit himself. Bascomb jabbed nicely but Canelli managed to be out of range most of the time. Nobody landed anything solid.

The pair next to Chance were still empty at the round's end. I walked over there and sat next to him. He was looking very intently at the ring. He must have been aware of my presence but didn't indicate it if he was.

I said, "Chance? My name is Scudder."

He turned, looked at me. His eyes were brown flecked with gold. I thought of my client's eyes, that unreal blue. He'd been at her apartment last night while I was barhopping, dropped in unannounced to pick up some money. She'd told me about it earlier, called me at the hotel around noon. "I was afraid," she'd said. "I thought, suppose he asks about you, asks me some kind of questions. But it was cool."

Now he said, "Matthew Scudder. You left some messages with my service."

"You didn't return my calls."

"I don't know you. I don't call people I don't know. And you've been asking around town for me." His voice was deep and resonant. It sounded trained, as if he'd gone to broadcasting school. "I want to watch this fight," he said.

"All I want is a few minutes conversation."

"Not during the fight and not between rounds." A frown came and went. "I want to be able to concentrate. I bought that seat you're sitting in, you see, so I'd have some privacy."

The warning buzzer sounded. Chance turned, focused his eyes on the ring. Kid Bascomb was standing and his seconds were hauling the stool out of the ring. "Go back to your seat," Chance said, "and I'll talk to you after the fight ends."

"It's a ten-rounder?"

"It won't go ten."

It didn't. In the third or fourth round Kid Bascomb started getting to Canelli, punishing him with the jab, putting a couple of combinations together. Canelli was smart but the Kid was young and fast and strong, with a way of moving that reminded me a little of Sugar Ray. Robinson, not Leonard. In the fifth round he staggered Canelli with a short right hand to the heart and if I'd had a bet on the Italian I'd have written it off then and there.

Canelli looked strong by the end of the round but I'd seen the expression on his face when the blow landed, and I wasn't surprised a round later when Kid Bascomb dropped him with a looping left hook. He was up at three and took an eight-count, and then the Kid was all over him, hitting him with everything but the ring posts. Canelli went down again and got right up and the ref jumped between the two of them and looked in Canelli's eyes and stopped it.

There was some halfhearted booing from the diehards who never want a fight stopped, and one of Canelli's cornermen was insisting his fighter could have gone on, but Canelli himself seemed just as happy the show was over. Kid Bascomb did a little war dance and took his bows, then climbed nimbly over the ropes and left the ring.

On his way out he stopped to talk to Chance. The girl with the auburn hair sat forward and rested a hand on the fighter's glossy black arm. Chance and the Kid talked for a moment or two, and then the Kid headed for his dressing room.

I left my seat, walked over to Chance and the girl. They were standing by the time I got there. He said, "We're not staying for the main bout. If you'd planned on watching it-"

The top of the card matched two middleweights, a Panamanian contender and a black boy from South Philadelphia with a reputation as a spoiler. It would probably be a good bout, but that wasn't what I'd come for. I told him I was ready to leave.

"Then why don't you come with us," he suggested. "I have a car nearby." He headed up the aisle with the girl at his side. A few people said hello to him and some of them told him that the Kid had looked good in there. Chance didn't say much in reply. I tagged along, and when we got outside and hit the fresh air I realized for the first time how stale and smoky it had been inside the Garden.

On the street he said, "Sonya, this is Matthew Scudder. Mr. Scudder, Sonya Hendryx."

"It's nice to meet you," she said, but I didn't believe her. Her eyes told me she was withholding judgment until Chance cued her in one way or the other. I wondered if she was the Sunny that Kim had mentioned, the sports fan Chance took to ball games. I wondered, too, if I would have pegged her for a hooker if I'd met her in other circumstances. I couldn't see anything unmistakably whorish about her, and yet she didn't look at all out of place hanging on a pimp's arm.

We walked a block south and half a block east to a parking lot where Chance collected his car and tipped the attendant enough to get thanked with more than the usual degree of enthusiasm. The car surprised me, just as the clothes and manner had surprised me earlier. I was expecting a pimpmobile, complete with custom paint and interior and the usual wretched excess, and what showed up was a Seville, the small Cadillac, silver on the outside with a black leather interior. The girl got in back, Chance sat behind the wheel, and I sat in front next to him.

The ride was smooth, silent. The car's interior smelled of wood polish and leather. Chance said, "There's a victory party for Kid Bascomb. I'll drop Sonya there now and join her after we've concluded our business. What did you think of the fight?"

"I thought it was hard to figure."

"Oh?"

"It looked fixed but the knockout looked real."

He glanced at me, and I saw interest in his gold-flecked eyes for the first time. "What makes you say that?"

"Canelli had an opening twice in the fourth round and he didn't follow it up either time. He's too smart a fighter for that. But he was trying to get through the sixth and he couldn't. At least that's how it looked from my seat."

"You ever box, Scudder?"

"Two fights at the Y when I was twelve or thirteen years old. Balloon gloves, protective headgear, two-minute rounds. I was too low and clumsy for it, I could never manage to land a punch."

"You have an eye for the sport."

"Well, I guess I've seen a lot of fights."

He was silent for a moment. A cab cut us off and he braked smoothly, avoiding a collision. He didn't swear or hit the horn. He said, "Canelli was set to go in the eighth. He was supposed to give the Kid his best fight until then, but not to get out in front or the knockout might not look right. That's why he held back in round four."

"But the Kid didn't know it was set up."

"Of course not. Most of his fights have been straight until tonight, but a fighter like Canelli could be dangerous to him, and why chance a bad mark on his record at this stage? He gains experience fighting Canelli and he gains confidence by beating him." We were on Central Park West now, heading uptown. "The knockout was real. Canelli would have gone in the tank in the eighth, but we hoped the Kid might get us home early, and you saw him do that. What do you think of him?"

"He's a comer."

"I agree."

"Sometimes he telegraphs the right. In the fourth round-"

"Yes," he said. "They've worked with him on that. The problem is that he generally manages to get away with it."

"Well, he wouldn't have gotten by with it tonight. Not if Canelli had been looking to win."

"Yes. Well, perhaps it's as well that he wasn't."

We talked boxing until we got to 104th Street, where Chance turned the car around in a careful U-turn and pulled up next to a fire hydrant. He killed the motor but left the keys. "I'll be right down," he said, "after I've seen Sonya upstairs."

She hadn't said a word since she told me it was nice to meet me. He walked around the car and opened the door for her, and they strolled to the entrance of one of the two large apartment buildings that fronted on that block. I wrote the address in my notebook. In no more than five minutes he was back behind the wheel and we were heading downtown again.

Neither of us spoke for half a dozen blocks. Then he said, "You wanted to talk to me. It doesn't have anything to do with Kid Bascomb, does it?"

"No."

"I didn't really think so. What does it have to do with?"

"Kim Dakkinen."

His eyes were on the road and I couldn't see any change in his expression. He said, "Oh? What about her?"

"She wants out."

"Out? Out of what?"

"The life," I said. "The relationship she has with you. She wants you to agree to… break things off."

We stopped for a light. He didn't say anything. The light changed and we went another block or two and he said, "What's she to you?"

"A friend."

"What does that mean? You're sleeping with her? You want to marry her? Friend's a big word, it covers a lot of ground."

"This time it's a small word. She's a friend, she asked me to do her a favor."

"By talking to me."

"That's right."

"Why couldn't she talk to me herself? I see her frequently, you know. She wouldn't have had to run around the city asking after me. Why, I saw her just last night."

"I know."

"Do you? Why didn't she say anything when she saw me?"

"She's afraid."

"Afraid of me?"

"Afraid you might not want her to leave."

"And so I might beat her? Disfigure her? Stub out cigarettes on her breasts?"

"Something like that."

He fell silent again. The car's ride was hypnotically smooth. He said, "She can go."

"Just like that?"

"How else? I'm not a white slaver, you know." His tone put an ironic stress on the term. "My women stay with me out of their own will, such will as they possess. They're under no duress. You know Nietzsche? 'Women are like dogs, the more you beat them the more they love you.' But I don't beat them, Scudder. It never seems to be necessary. How does Kim come to have you for a friend?"

"We have an acquaintance in common."

He glanced at me. "You were a policeman. A detective, I believe. You left the force several years ago. You killed a child and resigned out of guilt."

That was close enough for me to let it pass. A stray bullet of mine had killed a young girl named Estrellita Rivera, but I don't know that it was guilt over the incident that propelled me out of the police department. What it had done, really, was change the way the world looked to me, so that being a cop was no longer something I wanted to do. Neither was being a husband and a father and living on Long Island, and in due course I was out of work and out of the marriage and living on Fifty-seventh Street and putting in the hours at Armstrong's. The shooting unquestionably set those currents in motion, but I think I was pointed in those directions anyway and would have gotten there sooner or later.

"Now you're a sort of half-assed detective," he went on "She hire you?"

"More or less."

"What's that mean?" He didn't wait for clarification. "Nothing against you, but she wasted her money. Or my money, according to how you look at it. If she wants to end our arrangement all she has to do is tell me so. She doesn't need anyone to do her talking for her. What's she plan to do? I hope she's not going back home."

I didn't say anything.

"I suspect she'll stay in New York. But will she stay in the life? I'm afraid it's the only trade she knows. What else will she do? And where will she live? I provide their apartments, you know, and pay their rent and pick out their clothes. Well, I don't suppose anyone asked Ibsen where Nora would find an apartment. I believe this is where you live, if I'm not mistaken."

I looked out the window. We were in front of my hotel. I hadn't been paying attention.

"I assume you'll be in touch with Kim," he said. "If you want, you can tell her you intimidated me and sent me slinking off into the night."

"Why would I do that?"

"So she'll think she got her money's worth from you."

"She got her money's worth," I said, "and I don't care whether she knows it or not. All I'll tell her is what you've told me."

"Really? While you're at it, you can let her know that I'll be coming to see her. Just to satisfy myself that all of this is really her idea."

"I'll mention it."

"And tell her she has no reason to fear me." He sighed. "They think they're irreplaceable. If she had any notion how easily she can be replaced she'd most likely hang herself. The buses bring them, Scudder. Every hour of every day they stream into Port Authority ready to sell themselves. And every day a whole slew of others decide there must be a better way than waiting tables or punching a cash register. I could open an office, Scudder, and take applications, and there'd be a line halfway around the block."

I opened the door. He said, "I enjoyed this. Especially earlier. You have a good eye for boxing. Please tell that silly blonde whore that nobody's going to kill her."

"I'll do that."

"And if you need to talk to me, just call my service. I'll return your calls now that I know you."

I got out, closed the door. He waited for an opening, made a U-turn, turned again at Eighth Avenue and headed uptown. The U-turn was illegal and he ran the light making his left turn on Eighth, but I don't suppose it worried him much. I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen a cop ticket anyone for a moving violation in the city of New York. Sometimes you'll see five cars go on through after a light turns red. Even the buses do it these days.

After he made his turn I took out my notebook, made an entry. Across the street, near Polly's Cage, a man and woman were having a loud argument. "You call yourself a man?" she demanded. He slapped her. She cursed him and he slapped her again.

Maybe he'd beat her senseless. Maybe this was a game they played five nights out of seven. Try to break up that sort of thing and as likely as not they'll both turn on you. When I was a rookie cop, my first partner would do anything to avoid interfering in a domestic argument. Once, facing down a drunken husband, he'd been assaulted from behind by the wife. The husband had knocked out four of her teeth but she leaped to his defense, breaking a bottle over her savior's head. He wound up with fifteen stitches and a concussion, and he used to run his forefinger over the scar when he told me the story. You couldn't see the scar, his hair covered it, but his finger went right to the spot.

"I say let 'em kill each other," he used to say. "It don't matter if she phoned in the complaint herself, she'll still turn on you. Let 'em fucking kill each other."

Across the street, the woman said something I didn't catch and the man hit her low with his closed fist. She cried out in what sounded like real pain. I put my notebook away and went into my hotel.

I called Kim from the lobby. Her machine answered and I had started to leave a message when she picked up the receiver and interrupted me. "I leave the machine on sometimes when I'm home," she explained, "so I can see who it is before I answer. I haven't heard from Chance since I spoke to you earlier."

"I just left him a few minutes ago."

"You saw him?"

"We rode around in his car."

"What did you think?"

"I think he's a good driver."

"I meant-"

"I know what you meant. He didn't seem terribly upset to hear that you want to leave him. He assured me that you've got nothing to fear from him. According to him, you didn't need me as your champion. All you had to do was tell him."

"Yes, well, he'd say that."

"You don't think it's true?"

"Maybe it is."

"He said he wants to hear it from you, and I gather he also wants to make some arrangements about your leaving the apartment. I don't know if you're afraid to be alone with him or not."

"I don't know either."

"You can keep the door locked and talk to him through it."

"He has keys."

"Don't you have a chain lock?"

"Yes."

"You can use that."

"I suppose."

"Shall I come over?"

"No, you don't have to do that. Oh, I suppose you want the rest of the money, don't you?"

"Not until you've talked to him and everything's settled. But I'll come over there if you want somebody on your side when he turns up."

"Is he coming tonight?"

"I don't know when he's coming. Maybe he'll handle the whole thing over the phone."

"He might not come until tomorrow."

"Well, I could hole up on the couch if you wanted."

"Do you think it's necessary?"

"Well, it is if you think it is, Kim. If you're uncomfortable-"

"Do you think I have anything to be afraid of?"

I thought for a moment, replayed the scene with Chance, assessed my own reactions after the fact. "No," I said. "I don't think so. But I don't really know the man."

"Neither do I."

"If you're nervous-"

"No, it's silly. Anyway it's late. I'm watching a movie on cable, but when it ends I'm going to sleep. I'll put the chain lock on. That's a good idea."

"You've got my number."

"Yes."

"Call me if anything happens, or if you just want to call me. All right?"

"Sure."

"Just to put your mind at rest, I think you spent some money you didn't have to spend, but it was money you held out so maybe it doesn't matter."

"Absolutely."

"The point is I think you're off the hook. He's not going to hurt you."

"I think you're right. I'll probably call you tomorrow. And Matt? Thanks."

"Get some sleep," I said.

I went upstairs and tried to take my own advice but I was wired. I gave up and got dressed and went around the corner to Armstrong's. I would have had something to eat but the kitchen was closed. Trina told me she could get me a piece of pie if I wanted. I didn't want a piece of pie.

I wanted two ounces of bourbon, neat, and another two ounces in my coffee, and I couldn't think of a single goddamned reason not to have it. It wouldn't get me drunk. It wouldn't put me back in the hospital. That had been the result of a bout of uncontrolled round-the-clock drinking, and I'd learned my lesson. I couldn't drink that way anymore, not safely, and I didn't intend to. But there was a fairly substantial difference between a nightcap and going out on a toot, wasn't there?

They tell you not to drink for ninety days. You're supposed to go to ninety meetings in ninety days and stay away from the first drink one day at a time, and after ninety days you can decide what you want to do next.

I'd had my last drink Sunday night. I'd been to four meetings since then, and if I went to bed without a drink I'd have five days.

So?

I had one cup of coffee, and on the way back to the hotel I stopped at the Greek deli and picked up a cheese danish and a half pint of milk. I ate the pastry and drank a little of the milk in my room.

I turned out the light, got into bed. Now I had five days. So?