“More nicks for the bandit, baby!”
At the bar a man in a suit was telling a used-up-looking brunette with eyes like distant fires, “Everybody’s having a good time, am I not right? The money’s going, but it’s going slow.”
“Just give me the money, I’m happy.”
“Baby, it isn’t the money, it’s having a good time.”
“With me it’s the money,” she said.
Nicky said, “She’s got bedroom eyes — pillows under cm”
Dunc nursed his ginger ale, feeling guilty about not writing more in his notebook. He’d hoped to take Grey Ghost Two out to Lake Mead and just sit there and write, but poker at the Gladiator was Ned’s relaxation, and he wanted Dunc there.
He showed up at Dunc’s elbow. “Let’s go out to the ranch, kid — I wanna turn in early.”
Gimpy Ernest had lost heavily again and had gone home also. Carny gestured Rafe out of earshot, asked Artis, “You aren’t falling for Ned, are you?”
“No, Carny, but I like him. He’s a square shooter.” That evening she was wearing yellow; on her, it looked like spun gold. Her fingernails flashed as she stubbed her Lucky, lit another. “But the kid has him working like a horse out there at the ranch. Ned’s in terrific shape.”
“So what? Gimpy owes me six grand.”
“What does that mean?”
When he didn’t answer, she snuffed out her new cigarette, went around behind Carny’s chair, took his head between her two hands, and tilted up his face so their lips were touching.
She whispered, “I’ve done what you asked me, Carny, but it seems like forever.” Her tongue darted between his lips. Her eyes were closed. “I need it tonight, baby. From you.”
Carny’s open eyes watched her face. He broke the kiss.
“You’d better go keep the big guy company, Artis. If he smelled another man on you, he’d go crazy.”
She sighed and nodded and stepped back. Rafe was turning a chip over and over across the backs of his knuckles without looking at it. After she had left, Carny sneered at the little man, “Why don’t you go into the men’s John and jerk off?” Then he chuckled coarsely. “Patience, amico, your turn will come.”
At 5:00 A.M. Pepe came out of the Gladiator and turned toward the center of town. Twelve hours straight at the piano, singing and playing in his little monkey suit while no one listened. Play your little tune and rattle your little tin cup, little monkey. He would be glad to leave this place.
The sun was reddening the sky above the casinos. Pepe went by the Golden Nugget and turned right again, up Fifth Street, turned in at his rooming house.
It was fun, just for a few moments, to think about just playing the piano, singing, cutting records...
Chapter Fourteen
It was Thursday afternoon. Nitro Ned lay facedown on the narrow massage table under the hot yellow light. Wesley Harding Jones skillfully slapped and kneaded his big, smooth, lax muscles. Gimpy Ernest came in to sit down on a wooden bench. The green lockers behind him were rusted from shower steam, the air acrid with witch hazel and the ghosts of cigarette butts dead on the floor.
“They’re saying Terlazzo’s a heavyweight Sugar Ray Robinson, hard to hit as smoke in a dark room.”
Ned’s voice was made quavery by the massage. “Then maybe he should wear lace tights an’ take dancin’ lessons.”
Gimpy jerked his head at the door. Wes Jones departed. Ned sat up to reach for his clothes as Gimpy leaned toward him.
“Remember the night the kid showed up, Carny saying you should always figure on having more than you think you’ll need? A margin for error? Well, Carny wants his margin for error.”
Ned sat in jock and socks on the training table. He had been feeling on top of the world. Now he felt lousy.
“You talkin’ fuckin’ dive here, Gimp?”
Gimpy made himself sound hurt. “Jesus, Ned, to even think I’d suggest that!” He swiped bristly jowls with a sodden handkerchief. “It’s just that, uh, Carny needs a round.”
“I don’t trust Terlazzo an’ I don’t trust Largo an’ — goddamn you Gimpy — maybe I don’t oughta trust you, neither.”
“Hear me out. Ned. You... ah, carry Terlazzo until the, um, seventh, then take him. He’s willing to do it for his price, you know what I mean? You make it look like a tough fight, but you manage to beat him. He demands a rematch — an’ you smash him. Then Marciano’s people can’t balk at a title bout.”
“I’ve always tole you. Gimp — no fixed fights, never.”
Gimpy Ernest sighed. “I’m into Carny for six K. If you don’t do this for me, I’m a dead man. Raffetto...”
“It’s a terrible thing you’re askin’ me to do. Ernie.”
“It’s terrible things they’ll do to me if you don’t, Ned.”
Friday morning. Ned, sitting on the edge of the ring, said suddenly, “Early on, kid, Jantzen ast me to carry him to help boost his career. I got double-crossed, lost the decision. He’s never tole nobody about it, ended up punchy, that’s why I use the poor bastard to spar with. I tole Gimp then, no more rigged fights, ever. Then yesterday he ast me to shade the fight.”
Dunc felt sick to his stomach. “You can’t do it. Ned.”
“Yeah, I know I can’t.” He sighed. “C’mon, let’s dance.”
Thirty seconds after they’d entered the ring. Nitro Ned knocked Dunc cold with a right cross. He came out of it sprawled on the canvas, Ned kneeling over him, face tight with remorse.
“I didn’t break no thin’, did I?”
Dunc managed a weak, lopsided grin. He was starting to remember what had happened. He’d taken the punch that had been meant for Gimpy Ernest.
Friday. July 3, 6:00 P.M., twenty-four hours before the fight. Through open windows of Carny’s suite at the Flamingo, resort sounds: laughter, voices, the splash of swimmers from the pool in the-center of the plush hotel. Carny sat with his drink balanced on the soft leather arm of the couch.
“Nick the Greek favors Ned, four-to-one. We’ll clean up.”
Sprawled on one of the twin beds, handsome lean-faced Tony Terlazzo made a derisive sound. He had a beautifully sculpted body, wide in the shoulder and narrow in the hip, was sharp and dressy in a tie-less white dress shirt and tight green pinstripe pants with pegged cuffs.
“I can take that old fart with one hand tied behind me.”
“You’ll take him when I tell you to take him.”
Artis sat beside Carny, her head back and her fine dark eyes shut. Raffetto, lounging in a leather chair across the room, had his eyes on her skirt, ridden high up on her thighs.
“Terlazzo is going to dive in the seventh, isn’t he?”
“I don’t dive, lady,” said Terlazzo. “Only on muffs.”
“Not interested,” she said coldly.
Carny pointed his cigar at Gimpy. “You had to dress it up. Couldn’t tell Ned he had to take a dive, had to—”
“Ned won’t dive even for me, Carny. But this way—”
Terlazzo cut in, “This way, in the fourth Gimpy tells Davenport to let me hit him so people don’t think it’s a fix. He thinks I’m diving in the seventh, so he opens up — whammo!"
Artis stood up, smoothed down her tight green skirt with green-tinted nails. She adjusted one of her jade earrings.
“You’re going along with this, Gimp?”
“Hey, what can I do? I owe Carny a lot of money.”
Artis nodded, sighed. “Ned, the poor sap, wants to be alone to plan his fight, so he has me doing the town with Dunc.”