The Barbarous Coast

Chapter 6

I RELAYED as little as possible of this to George Wall, who showed signs of developing into a nuisance. On the way to Los Angeles, I turned into the drive of the Channel Club. He gave a wild look around, as though I was taking him into an ambush.

“Why are we coming back here?”

“I want to talk to the guard. He may be able to give me a lead to your wife. If not, I’ll try Anton.”

“I don’t see the point of that. I talked to Anton yesterday, I told you all he said.”

“I may be able to squeeze out some more. I know Anton, did a piece of work for him once.”

“You think he was holding out on me?”

“Could be. He hates to give anything away, including information. Now you sit here and see that nobody swipes the hubcaps. I want to get Tony talking, and you have bad associations for him.”

“What’s the use of my being here at all?” he said sulkily. “I might as well go back to the hotel and get some sleep.”

“That’s an idea, too.”

I left him in the car out of sight of the gate, and walked down the curving drive between thick rows of oleanders. Tony heard me coming. He shuffled out of the gatehouse, gold gleaming in the crannies of his smile.

“What happened to your loco friend? You lose him?”

“No such luck. You have a nephew, Tony.”

“Got a lot of nephews.” He spread his arms. “Five-six nephews.”

“The one that calls himself Lance.”

He grunted. Nothing changed in his face, except that he wasn’t smiling any more. “What about him?”

“Can you tell me his legal name?”

“Manuel,” he said. “Manuel Purificación Torres. The name my brother give him wasn’t good enough for him. He had to go and change it.”

“Where is he living now, do you know?”

“No, sir, I don’t know. I don’t have nothing to do with that one no more. He was close to me like a son one time. No more.” He wagged his head from side to side, slowly. The motion shook a question loose: “Is Manuel in trouble again?”

“I couldn’t say for sure. Who’s his manager, Tony?”

“He don’t got no manager. They don’t let him fight no more. I was his manager couple years ago, trained him and managed him both. Brought him along slow and easy, gave him a left and taught him the combinations. Kept him living clean, right in my own house: up at six in the morning, skip-the-rope, light and heavy bag, run five miles on the beach. Legs like iron, beautiful. So he had to ruinate it.”

“How?”

“Same old story,” Tony said. “I seen it too many times. He wins a couple-three fights, two four-rounders and a six-rounder in San Diego. Right away he’s a bigshot, he thinks he’s a bigshot. Uncle Tony, poor old Uncle Tony, he’s too dumb in the head to tell him his business. Uncle Tony don’t know from nothing, says lay off muscadoodle, lay off dames and reefers, sell your noisy, stinky motorcycle before you break your neck, you got a future. Only he wants it now. The whole world, right now.”

“Then something come up between us. He done something I don’t like, I don’t like it at all. I says, you been wanting out from me, now you can get out. We didden have no contract, nothing between us any more, I guess. He clumb on his motorcycle and tooted away, back to Los Angeles. There he was, a Main Street bum, and he wasn’t twenty-one years old yet.

“My sister Desideria blamed me, I should go after him on my hands and knees.” Tony shook his head. “No, I says, Desideria, I been around a long time. So have you, only you’re a woman and don’t see things. A boy gets ants in his pants, you can’t hire no exterminator for that. Let him do it the hard way, we can’t live his life.

“So one of these crooks he wants to be like – this crook sees Manny working out in the gym. He asks him for a contract and Manny gives it to him. He wins some fights and throws some, makes some dirty money, spends it on dirty things. They caught him with some caps in his car last year, and put him in jail. When he gets out, he’s suspended, no more fights – back where he started in the starvation army.”

Tony spat dry. “Long ago, I tried to tell him, my father, his grandfather, was bracero. Manny’s father and me, we was born in a chickenhouse in Fresno, nowhere, from nothing. We got two strikes on us already, I says, we got to keep our nose clean. But would he listen to me? No, he got to stick his neck under the chopper.”

“How much time did he serve?”

“I guess he was in all last year. I dunno for sure. I got troubles of my own then.”

His shoulders moved as if they felt the entire weight of the sky. I wanted to ask him about his daughter’s death, but the grief in his face tied my tongue. The scars around his eyes, sharp and deep in the sun, had been left there by crueller things than fists. I asked a different question: “Do you know the name of the man that held his contract?”

“Stern, his last name is.”

“Carl Stern?”

“Yeah.” Squinting at my face, he saw the effect of the name on me. “You know him?”

“I’ve seen him in nightclubs, and heard some stories about him. If ten per cent of them are true, he’s a dangerous character. Is your nephew still with him, Tony?”

“I dunno. I bet you he is in trouble. I think you know it, only you won’t tell me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I seen him last week. He was all dressed up like a movie star and driving one of those sporty cars.” He made a low sweeping motion with his hands. “Where would he get the money? He don’t work, and he can’t fight no more.”

“Why didn’t you ask him?”

“Don’t make me laugh, ask him. He wooden say hello to his Uncle Tony. He is too busy riding around with blondes in speedy cars.”

“He was with a blonde girl?”

“Sure.”

“Anybody you know?”

“Sure. She used to work here last summer. Hester Campbell, her name is. I thought she had more brains, to run around with my nephew Manny.”

“How long has she been running with him?”

“I wooden know. I got no crystal ball.”

“Where did you see them?”

“Venice Speedway.”

“Wasn’t the Campbell girl a friend of your daughter’s?”

His face set hard and dark. “Maybe. What is this all about, mister? First you ask for my nephew, now it’s my daughter.”

“I just heard about your daughter this morning. She was a friend of the Campbell girl, and I’m interested in the Campbell girl.”

“I’m not, and I don’t know nothing. It’s no use asking me. What do I know?” His mood had swung heavily downward. He made an idiot face. “I’m a punchy bum. My brains don’t think straight. My daughter is dead. My nephew is a crooked pachuco. People come and punch me in the nose.”