“I’ve got a couple of pair of gloves with me,” Hemingway said, looking at me with a clear challenge. “Luis doesn’t fight, can’t because of his head, and Coop can’t throw a punch.”
“Never had a fight in my life,” Cooper admitted from the window. “Never learned to throw a punch. Still have trouble faking a reasonable-looking punch for a picture.”
“My friend can’t fight or play baseball,” Hemingway said with mock pity. “But he can sure act What do you say, Peepers? Just a little limbering up, no one gets hurt?”
I declined a few more times, and Hemingway upped the ante. In a few minutes he might actually slap me in the face with one of the gloves and give me his Authors’ Guild card, if he had one. Hemingway was younger than I, heavier than I and probably a better boxer than I. He fished out some gloves and took his shirt off before putting on his pair. His chest was hairy and his shoulders broad. His stomach was a little fuller than he might have liked. Castelli pushed back the furniture and the rug and helped me put on the gloves. Hemingway got his on quickly and easily. Beware a man who carries his own boxing gloves and can put them on alone.
“That’s a bullet wound,” Hemingway said, staring at the scar on my stomach.
“One of those nonwars I was in,” I said.
Cooper looked over at us and shrugged hopelessly in my direction to make it clear he didn’t condone his buddy’s idea of fun, but what could you do when an acknowledged genius wanted to play games. I marveled that Cooper could get all that into a little shrug, but that was his trade. Mine was staying alive.
Hemingway’s arms were longer than mine, and he tapped me gently a few times. I pawed his hands away. Neither of us danced. Castelli stood to the side, leaning against the wall and watching silently. We went on doing nothing for a few minutes until I thought Hemingway had had enough.
“Let’s call it a workout,” I said, dropping my hands. Hemingway popped me in the face, not too hard, but not too friendly. If it was going to be the end, he was going to have the last whack, just as he probably insisted on having the last word. I threw a hard right at his stomach and came back with a left to his mouth. Blood welled around one of his upper teeth.
“That’s enough,” said Cooper, but Hemingway was happy now. This was real. This was earnest for Ernest. I let him hit me with a solid right to the side of the head, hoping it would satisfy him, but it didn’t. He followed with a pair to my chest and a left to my head. The gloves were light and the punches hurt. I felt like reminding Hemingway that we were on the same side.
Hemingway had everything on his side, but I had a singular advantage. It was the one thing that probably made me a reasonable detective and a pain in the ass to have around. I just didn’t give up. Hemingway continued to pop at my head, sending me back over the chair. I came up and went for him. For every five punches he gave me, I gave him one, but I was sure mine hurt. I went for the kidneys and the stomach. I got in a good rabbit punch when he ducked down.
“You crazy bastard,” he said, unsure of whether to laugh or get angry. “There are rules to this game.”
“This isn’t a game,” I said and went for him again. I thought I was Henry Armstrong. I probably looked like a bad imitation of an irate Donald Duck, but it was wearing Hemingway down. I doubted if he had ever been in a real use-what-you-can battle. Hell, I had been in one the day before. Pain was part of the job. For Hemingway, pain was something you learned to endure. You even enjoyed it. At least that’s what he said in his books. I’d lied. I’d read more than one of them.
Hemingway began to pant and lower his guard.
“We’ll call it a draw,” he said.
“You call it what you like,” I answered, putting the right glove between my legs to pull it off. “I call it a bunch of horseshit.”
The rest of the afternoon was spent in silence, with each of us taking turns at the window. Eventually Hemingway began to ask me questions about being a private detective and a cop. He listened like no one I had ever met. His eyes told me that his mind was registering everything, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being converted into a character for future use.
By dinner time we were so bored that we said the hell with watching the window for a few minutes and all pitched in to cook the roast Cooper had brought with him. Dinner was better than lunch, and Hemingway was mellow. We shared sad stories about former wives who misunderstood us, and were on the way to being besieged buddies. After dinner Cooper took apart and reassembled his rifle.
“Knows a hell of a lot about guns,” Hemingway said, nodding at Cooper, “but not about how to shoot them.”
“Maybe so,” agreed Cooper, “but I’ll outshoot you blindfolded.”
Since I knew I couldn’t shoot at all and had proven it as a cop and a detective, I let them rattle on and turned them off. They decided to test their abilities in an evening hunt. I suggested that they put it off till the morning to be sure I wasn’t followed, but they would have no part of such cowardice. Out they went, rifles in hand. Castelli stayed behind, and I followed the pair further up the hill. The sun was setting but still had maybe an hour to go.
“Watch for rattlers,” Cooper warned, taking long strides with his eyes on the ground.
I watched and followed them to the top of the hill, where they or someone had dug out a little pit to sit in. On the other side of the pit was a clearing for about seventy yards, and then woods.
Cooper settled in and pointed to the clearing.
“Water hole just beyond the trees,” he whispered. “Pigs sometimes stick their snouts into the clearing.”
“One hundred a pig,” said Hemingway. Cooper agreed, and I checked my holster and.38, which could surely not kill a pig at fifty yards. We sat waiting with the mosquitoes and the calls of birds. Something that might have been a grunt sounded in the trees, and both Hemingway and Cooper sat up.
“How’ll you know which one killed the pig?” I said.
“Dig out the bullet,” Hemingway whispered. “Quiet.”
Both men raised their rifles, and a miracle happened. The pigs shot first. A bullet dug up ground in front of the pit and a second one buzzed over our heads.
“Get down,” I said, and both men ducked into the pit.
“They found us,” said Cooper.
“Who?” said Hemingway. “The ones after you or the ones after Luis?”
“Got us nailed down,” said Cooper through clenched teeth.
“We have the high ground,” said Hemingway. “We can wait till dark and …”
“We have to get the hell out of here,” I said. “It’s as simple as that. We’ve got to get behind them, or they’re going to keep us on this hill till they kill us. Do you have a phone in that cabin?”
“No,” said Cooper.
“Is there some nice safe way down where someone can’t hide and wait for us?” I asked.
“No,” said Cooper.
“See my point?” I said. “One of you can stay up here and keep them busy. The other one can come with me and go around behind them.”
“Right,” agreed Cooper. “I couldn’t make it down behind them without making a lot of noise, not with my back and hearing. I’ll stay up here and keep them busy.”
“I think I’d better stay here,” said Hemingway. “My leg would slow you up.”
I looked at both of them, and they looked back at me. Good-bye was in their eyes. It was my job and welcome to it, but there weren’t going to be any words.
“Hell,” said Cooper after a long pause and another bullet from the woods. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” I said, rolling over the side of the hill, away from the woods. Hasn’t every private detective stalked killers in woods infested with wild pigs and rattlesnakes? This wasn’t my jungle, but I was stuck with it.
The sun went down on one side of the hill and I went down the other. I got to the bottom before the sun. My feet had picked up about twenty pounds each and were taking on ounces fast as I made my way around the hill, trying to look for snakes and at the same time not be killed by hidden Fascists or some combination of Fargo, Gelhorn, Bowie and Lombardi, a firm with which I wanted no further business.
CHAPTER TEN
