bound up by fat and I leaned away from it. He lost balance for a fraction of a second and I clipped him on the ear as hard as I could while on the retreat. If I thought that’d win me a little respect I was wrong; he rushed at me like a bull crowding a matador into a barrio. He half-caught me but I twisted free and ground my elbow into the same ear. It didn’t seem to bother him; he circled with his arms outstretched and seemed to cut off half the room.
I backed away and cornered myself again over by the table where the elders had been playing cards. I stumbled against a chair and he came forward and threw a right at my belly. He was more than half a foot shorter than me and the punch was straight and full-forced. I rode back from it a bit but it knocked wind out of me and jellied my legs. He came on and I cocked my right for a haymaker to the head. He couldn’t have cared less and kept coming. I braced myself and swung my foot short and hard up into his crotch. He doubled over. He’d expected a fancy fist fight and I didn’t give him a chance to correct his mistake. I shuffled fast and delivered the foot again to the same spot. He started to crumble and I bunched my fingers and drove into his fleshy neck below the ear. I felt the muscle under the skin resist and then the knuckle bit into the veins and cartilage. He dropped in a heap and crashed his head on a table edge on the way down. As he fell, the breath wheezed out of him and I had a flash of memory about the sound. It was like the noise I’d heard in the car in the split second before my head caved in.
Williams hadn’t moved from the door. I eased my way out from the table and went across to the bar. I reached over it and pulled up a schooner glass which I filled with beer from the tap-gun the woman had left lying on the rusty tray. I took a deep drink and waited for my heart to settle back to a normal pace. Tommy was lying with his feet drawn up to his bulging belly. I set the glass down next to him. His eyes were open and he was concentrating everything he had on his pain. His dark skin had a yellowish tinge and some veins had broken in the whites of his eyes making them a murky pink. The harsh breath was coming regularly but with enormous effort. I was safe from him for at least ten minutes. A sound behind me made me turn as the barmaid came through her door at the back of the bar. She stared down at the man on the floor and then up at me with a new respect.
“Jesus,” she breathed. “What did you hit him with?”
“This.” I held up my fist which was swollen from the neck-punch and bleeding around the knuckles from the earlier tap.
“Jesus, do you know who that is?”
I looked at him again and tried to imagine him years younger and without the fat, as a chunky welterweight perhaps. But I couldn’t place him.
“No. Fighter was he?”
“That’s Tommy Jerome,” Williams said quietly.
I let out my breath in a whistle and felt back for the support of the bar. The jelly feeling had come back into my legs and I suddenly felt very, very tired. Tommy Jerome had killed two men in the ring and had beaten others so savagely that he’d run out of opponents. He was number one contender for the Australian welter and middleweight titles for a couple of years but he never got a shot at the titles because no fight manager wanted his meal ticket wrecked that badly. The championships changed hands a couple of times while Jerome sat there at number one. I’d read that he’d gone to England and lost a few fights there which could have only one explanation. That was ten or more years ago and he’d gone to seed badly. Still, I was glad I hadn’t known who he was before I hit him.
“I got lucky,” I said to the barmaid. “He thought I’d fight fair.”
“Lucky? Fair or unfair, you’re lucky to still have teeth.” She lit a cigarette and looked across at Williams. If it was a challenge he wasn’t taking it up. There’d been enough talking, now I had to get something done. I reached for my change on the bar and detached two dollars. I went around the bar and made her a gin and tonic and pulled a middy for Williams. I gave them the drinks and dropped the money on the till. There was a rattle at the locked door but we ignored it. Neither Williams nor the barmaid was happy with the situation but they seemed to have run out of ideas. They took the drinks.
“Right. Now I want Jimmy Sunday. Where is he?”
They drank but didn’t answer.
“Look,” I said to Williams. “I gave you a wrong name. OK, I’m sorry but I had reasons. Get Sunday here and you’ll see what I mean.” I jerked my thumb at Jerome who was lying crumpled and still. “What do I have to do, eat his kidney fat?”
“I’ll get Jimmy for you.” The barmaid moved off to the phone.
“Where is he?”
“Sharkey’s.”
“Call him.”
She did. A voice came on the line and I grabbed the phone. Sunday didn’t sound surprised to hear me and said he’d come straight down to the pub. The barmaid had picked up a cloth and begun polishing glasses. She was humming “Get me to the church on time”. I went over and slid down the door bolt and opened the door. Sunday was jogging easily down the street and I stood back with the door open and waved him in. The barmaid flicked some money out of my change and pulled a beer. She slid it along the counter to Sunday who grabbed it and went over to look at Jerome. He’d straightened up a bit and was trying to prop his back against the wall. He made it and massaged his crotch with both hands. A vein was throbbing hard in his forehead and there were bubbles of saliva at the corner of his mouth. I stepped quietly across and handed him the two-thirds-full schooner. He wrapped a big, dark hand around it and lifted it to his mouth.
“This is the guy who bashed me the other night,” I said to Sunday. “He came back for a second go and got careless.” I took Sunday by the arm and steered him to a chair. I got the makings out, made a cigarette and put the tobacco on the table like a peace offering. “Now, you tell me what’s going on around here,” I waved to indicate the room and the world outside, “and I’ll tell you what’s going on in here.” I rapped my bleeding knuckles against the side of my head.
Sunday looked at my fist and took a long pull on his beer. “Silly bastard Tommy,” he said. “I told him you were alright.”
“You’re a fuckin’ Uncle Tom, Jimmy,” Jerome rasped out from his position against the wall. “Always were.”
“Will you knock it off,” I snarled. “Jimmy, can you tell me what all this heavy stuff is in aid of?”
Sunday mused for a second, then lifted his hand. “Sadie, four beers and a drink for yourself. You’ve got a say in this. Come on over here.” He reached into his pocket. The barmaid got the drinks and carried them over on a tin tray. She asked Jerome if he could get up.
“Yeah, if I have to.” He pulled himself up from the wall and eased his bulk into a chair. I reached down for the schooner and put it on the table. He drained it in a gulp. He still hadn’t spoken to me. Sadie distributed the drinks and Sunday rolled a cigarette from my makings.
“Ever heard of a bloke named Coluzzi?” he asked me.
“Heard of him and met him,” I said.
“Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Jerome muttered. Sadie hushed him. “Let him talk.”
Sunday drew in smoke and gagged on it. “Shit, this stuffs terrible. Well, this Coluzzi’s trying to take over the fights. Reckons he can get boxing back on TV. Whole thing’s been very quiet lately.”
“Yes,” I said, “since that Yank was killed.”
Sunday nodded. “Right, well we’re all for more fights, but we hear this dago wants to set it up all his way.”
“He told me he wanted to match Italians and Aborigines. Good for the gate.”
“Yeah,” Jerome snorted, “how many do you reckon the Kooris’d win?”
“He was vague on that point,” I admitted.
“I’ll bet he was,” Sadie spat. “I’ve got a son, he’s just starting in clubs, they tell me he’s good.”
Jerome and Sunday nodded solemnly.
“I hate bloody boxing,” Sadie went on. “I reckon it’s ruined more good men than anything except the war. Still, my Chris’s dead keen on it and I want him to get a fair go. He’ll have to lose more’n he’ll win if this Coluzzi gets hold of it.”
“It’s nothin’ new,” Jerome said bitterly. “Everyone has to throw a few on the way up… used to, anyway. I threw ‘em on the way down.”
“That’s right Tommy,” Sunday said soothingly. “That’s why it’s got to change, especially now.”
