“Immigrants, you mean.”
“Immigrants, yeah, and some others, too. The banks won’t give ’em a second look. It’s a kind of service Burke is providing.”
“Burke and his men, they’re not going to last. I’m tellin’ you, you’re put-tin’ your chips on the wrong color. He’s gonna get crushed.”
“There’s a hole out there, and Burke is filling it. Pete, this town is wide open. Somebody’s going to come along and pick up the money that’s just lyin’ in the street. We could be a part of it, you and me.”
“I don’t want to fall in with those guys,” said Karras. “I’m tellin’ you, I just don’t.”
“Sure you do. And if you keep it up with this attitude, Burke’s gonna think twice about moving us up.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn what he thinks.”
“Okay. But what the hell are you going to do if you don’t do this?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find something. Maybe I’ll take the civil service exam.”
“A government man,” said Recevo. “That’s a laugh. You’d have to get up before noon, you ever think of that?”
“I could do that.”
“Sure you could. Listen, you and me, we’re Washingtonians. Real Washingtonians, born and raised. We got nothin’ to do with those government types. Tourists is what they are. Anyway, you never gave two shits about it before. You never even voted. I mean, you ever visited the Capitol? Ever taken the White House tour?”
“I went to the Lincoln Memorial one night.”
“That was to neck with some broad.”
“I went, is all I’m sayin’.”
“And all I’m saying is, you got to stop bein’ so cocky, Pete. You got a kid on the way, don’t forget.”
“I know it,” said Karras. “But I’m gonna work it out myself. I don’t want to be falling in with someone like Burke.”
“Do me a favor, then. Play things straight tonight. Help me out with this Georgakos character, all right? You’re gonna see, things’ll fall into place after that.”
“Don’t worry, Joe.” Karras dropped his cigarette out the window. “I won’t screw up.”
They were turning them away on W Street, outside Turner’s Arena. Recevo found a spot to park the Mercury, and he and Karras went inside.
Recevo’s tickets were close to prime, eighteen rows up from the ring. Most of the crowd sported shirts and ties, guys going solo mainly, with only a smattering of dates. A haze of cigar and cigarette smoke hovered like a fog down below. They bought a couple of beers on the way to their seats.
Karras lighted a smoke. He lighted one for Recevo off the same match. They had come in on the middle of the prelims, a five-round match between two local boys, Artie Brown and Flattop Cummings.
In the fifth, the boxing got furious close in, and Cummings’s trunks began to fall below his waist. The referee tried to step in and pull the trunks back up, took a good one on the chin from Brown for his troubles.
“Would you look at that!” said Recevo, elbowing Karras in the ribs. “Brown clocked the ref right in the kisser!”
“I’ll be goddamned,” said Karras.
Brown won on points, and in the dead time before the next bout Karras looked around the plant. Chief Barrett was seated down at ringside with a couple of his lieutenants. Nearby was Emmit Warring, one of the better-known professional gamblers around town. In the row behind them, Karras could see Steve Mamakos, seated with his manager.
“Hey, Joe, there’s Mamakos!”
“Where?”
“Second row back from the ring.”
Recevo looked over at Karras. He was smiling, leaning forward, his eyes wide as a kid’s. Recevo hadn’t seen that look on Karras since way before the war.
“Maybe your boy Mamakos is thinking of steppin’ into the ring someday with Archie Moore. He’s studyin’ him, like.”
“Stop kiddin’. Mamakos is a middleweight all the way. Pound for pound, though, if all things were equal, I bet he could give Moore a fight.”
“Like he gave Tony Zale?”
“Knock it off. Zale decisioned him in thirteen in that first fight. Then it took Zale another thirteen in the second fight to drop Steve. In that one, Mamakos had both of Zale’s eyes shut at the end. I don’t think any fighter gave Zale a tougher time than Mamakos. Billy Conn didn’t. Not even Graziano.”
“All right, I get it. You don’t have to keep yappin’ about it.”
“It’s not over yet for Mamakos.”
“I said, ‘all right.’” Recevo stood from his seat. “I’m gonna go get a couple Nationals. You want?”
“Yeah, I want.”
The featherweight semiwindup, Chico Morales against Danny Russel, got under way as Recevo returned to the seats. Morales went inside quick, punctuating each combination with the snap of a short right. He kept at it, and Russel began to tire by the third.
“The Cuban’s fast,” said Karras. “You got money on him?”
“A little.”
“The Cuban’s gonna take him out.”
Morales chilled Russel in the fourth. Recevo and Karras drank their beers and smoked a couple of cigarettes. Jimmy La Fontaine and his lawyer, Charlie Ford, arrived at their ringside seats with a flourish just as the announcer was pulling down the mike to bark out the stats for the main event.
“La Fontaine looks old,” said Recevo.
“He’s what, close to eighty?”
“Around there, yeah. I hear Jimmy Boyle is workin’ the door for La Fontaine at night, over at Eastern Avenue.”
“It’s no secret.”
“A D.C. beat cop, workin’ the biggest gambling joint in the county. A little dangerous, playing both sides of the street like that, don’t you think?”
“Boyle knows what he’s doing. He’s not dirty, if that’s what you mean. La Fontaine likes to have a few cops on the payroll, makes him feel secure. Anyway, this isn’t Chicago. The payoff money funnels up here, not down to the cops in uniform. Boyle’s just ambitious. And you hear things, work-in’ in a place like that.”
“If Boyle really wants to get off the street, get his detective’s badge, maybe he oughta look into solving those hooker murders. The suits they got on the case, they haven’t turned up a thing. That one last night was the second this year.”
“Boyle’s wanted to be a cop since he was a kid. If there’s any way for him to advance, he’ll find it.”
The ring announcer introduced the fighters. Archie Moore looked slim in the hips, solid up top, his face smooth and unmarked. A loud applause went up for hometown boy George Parks.
“My God, Parks is some kind of big.”
“Moore’s giving away fifteen pounds,” said Karras. “But just you watch.”
At the bell, Archie Moore came out with a series of left jabs. Then a left hook connecting to Parks’s jaw, and a straight right after that to the same spot. Moore followed with the exact combination and sent Parks into the ropes.
Recevo pointed at the referee. “Gallagher’s gonna stop it.”
But Moore beat the ref to it and put Parks down to the canvas with a hard right. Parks took a nine count, stood up. He was bleeding freely from his nose and couldn’t find his feet.
“Parks is on Queer Street,” said Karras.
“Yeah,” said Recevo. “Parks is done.”
Moore gave Parks another flurry and Marty Gallagher stopped the fight. There were boos heard in the auditorium as Karras and Recevo filed out.
“Two minutes and change into the first round,” said Recevo. “Can you believe it?”
“What did you think was gonna happen? Anyway, we saw a couple of good fights. You win anything on Morales?”