Ed Lacy - Breathe No More My Lady
“You have good shoulders—are you a fight buff, Mr. Connor?”
“Norm is the name. No, I'm a handball player, of sorts.”
“Perhaps I should tell you what I mean, it might help you understand what writers like Matt never understood—that pro boxing is an act of desperation. In my case I simply wasn't desperate enough. After I knocked out Al Nelson, I fought him again some three months later. I was a bug on physical culture. Al entered the ring completely out of shape. It wasn't any secret he had done most of his conditioning in a bar. I had him groggy at the end of the first round. The next thing I knew, I was on the dressing room table and Danny was stroking my battered face with an ice bag.”
“You were flattened?”
“Aha, but in the 5th round. As Danny tried to tell me, I stopped a right cross and was out on my feet for four rounds. So was Al. Yet fat and puffing Al Nelson, his blood full of whiskey, was staggering around the ring in the 5th, while with all my better conditioning, I was flat on my face. I couldn't understand that until Danny said sadly, 'He was hungrier than you, Henry, that gave him more of a fighting heart. You got some book learning, there's other things you can do beside box. But, rummy Al, even if his noggin was fogged, he knew he had to win to get another fight. And if he doesn't fight he just won't eat.' Odd what sticks in a mind: I never forgot those words. And I never boxed again—as a pro. That's why Matt, London, Hemingway, even old G. B. Shaw, they can't catch the true picture offering because they fail to understand it isn't glory that males men fight, but hunger. You can't pretty up the brutal.”
“Then you think only former pugs can write about the ring?”
“No, no. But a writer can't write about anything—that is, real writing, unless he understands his subject. Most of those who write about the ring, the bull fighters, about war, they get sidetracked in the obvious violence. They try to put their own personal desire to escape from life into their boxers, and that's false because a boxer hasn't time to think of escape, he can only worry about eating. My, I'm off on a lecture.”
“Please continue. I think this is what I'm after.”
“I don't mind, although literature isn't my dish. But I've been giving much thought to the Matt Anthonys. We live in a highly disillusioned world of greed and violence and we try to escape the banality of life through narcotics, TV quiz programs, abstract study, drinking, speeding, advertising (a mock bow in my direction), making money for money's sake, travel. The longing for death, for suicide, of course is the strongest drug of all. In fact, for the intellectual—and I use the word loosely—the desire for self-destruction becomes a stabilizing personal philosophy. In short, nothing matters, he believes in nothing. They feel secure only when they are involved in romantic and daring action, with the basic motive being a secret hope that this time it will end in death. At the same time they lack the nerve to flaunt conventions. A drunk speeds at 100 miles an hour, a Matt Anthony sails the ocean alone, charges with a machine gun —all conventional ways of dying.”
“Wait up, you can't place them all on the same level. A drunken brawl is one thing, a war correspondent taking a gun is a form of bravery.”
Brown flashed his old teeth in a quick smile. “Courage, bravery have become confused words without much meaning. Take Matt Anthony rushing the Nazis with a machine gun during the war—was that an act of heroism or cowardice? I think it was merely a subconscious attempt to take his own life. You see it in his writing, even in his hack junk... in all such writing.”
“I never saw anything like that.”
“Those writers who are preoccupied with courage and violence, it is but a thin veil for their own personal escape. Not even that, for even the most confused must admit there isn't any escape from death. And if one wishes to find death, it is always waiting.” Brown hesitated, walked over to the small window and stared out. “Perhaps I am not making myself too clear. Look: we call hunting and bull fighting, for example, sports. We find them exciting because death is concerned. But the reality of the situation is that this is all a cowardly fallacy. With modern rifles there is little danger to the hunter. Even in the bull ring the matador first, and with great care, tires the bull, teaches him to follow his cape before he attempts the kill.”
“But matadors are gored to death and hunters killed.” I cut in.
“Accidents. There's an element of danger in everything— many people die from slipping in the bath tub too. The point is this: the matador, the fighter, they at least are doing it out of sheer need, although even for them it can also become an escape from reality. But what is there to be said for the idiots they call fans, including writers, who glorify such things with hoarse yells and words? What is there to be said except that in their hearts they are cowards? They cannot fight the bull, but they dream they want to. The truth is they do not even dare fight for the bread and security that would change their drab fives. That they are even afraid to dream about it! The writer who can not face the reality of our world, who lacks the courage to write honestly about what he sees, his out is to become intoxicated with the cruel tragedy of the bull, of the bloody boxer. It is an easy task for he can see the violence, sincerely feel sorry for the bull, without seeing the whole stupid picture. His books become bloody bar ads, and in time his own words lose all meaning. For him the 'moment of truth' is another shot of rye; sex is rape; violence becomes a way of life—and all of it is but the trimmings of his own desperate desire to die, to escape from a life that bewilders and frightens him.”
“And that's Matt Anthony?”
“In my opinion, to a T. I said most writers of violence are big men. They write about the bull ring, the boxing racket, about murder, best when they reach middle age. For then they are 'safe,' in the sense they are no longer physically capable, hence do not have to carry the secret shame they felt when they were young and physically able, at least, to do the things they write about so smoothly. Now do you understand what I mean by being cowardly?”
“Yes and no. Let's say you've given me a lot to think about.”
“What are you going to do about Mart's books?”
“I'm not sure yet. As I said before, it isn't so much what we're going to do as how to do it.”
“Do you want me to show you the can?”
“What?”
“Beer makes me run,” Brown said with his aged smile. “Sign of old age, your kidneys weaken. I see it doesn't bother you. I'll be right back.”
I had about seventy dollars on me and when he left the room I had a wild idea of leaving the money in his drawer, or in his bags. But I knew that would be a wrong move.
I was putting on my coat when he returned. “Prof... Hank... it's almost noon. Can you have lunch with me?'
“Thanks, but I'm supposed to see an old friend. Job hunting is such a bore.”
“We'll get together again, soon.”
“I see you don't value your job.”
“I'll chance that.”
He put on a jacket and we went downstairs. He was going east and I told him to get in the car. As we drove toward the park I asked, “If you think Matt is entirely innocent, do you think he signed the confession to protect somebody else?”
“I don't know. No, I don't think Matt would do that. I have no ideas on why he signed that confession. Maybe they tricked him, beat him, or it can even be some sort of 'heroic' gesture on his part. Or he may feel certain, as I do, that the trial will prove his innocence. Knowing Matt, this could all be a big practical joke. I said could be. I doubt it, though.”
He asked me to drop him at 93rd and Lexington. As he got out and we shook hands, I told him, “Thank you for your time, Hank.”
“An old saw goes, I'm wealthy with time at the moment. But I am glad we met, Norm.”
“Tell me—and I hope it doesn't sound like a stupid question, but I keep thinking about your career as a fighter—if you were younger, are you desperate enough now, to use your own words, to be a good fighter?”
“Oh, my, no. I still have a number of alternatives before me. I can beg from friends, I can also turn informer and be a 'professor' again. A true fighter must be one without any choice. Good day, Norm, I have to run.”
I watched him walk down Lexington Avenue. In the middle of the block he turned, saw me watching him, and I thought he frowned. He ducked into a drugstore. I wondered if he suspected me of following him?
Driving back to the apartment—for no reason—I thought about Professor Brown. For one thing, I got the impression he was quite a radical, maybe even a fanatic. And he sure had some odd theories—including the one that Matt had nothing to do with his wife's death. If that was true, it opened up a whole batch of new ideas. Who did kill Francine Anthony? Wilma might have done it. I laughed at myself in the rear view mirror over the windshield.
That was a fantastic idea. Still, a babe like Wilma with her intense drive could do something like that. Suppose she was giving me hot air last night about not going for Matt, knocked off Francine and Matt took the fall for her?
That was absurd: I was thinking like a character in Matt's books. The big deal was—what was I going to do with myself over the weekend?
I went upstairs and made myself a mild drink, considered latching on to Frank and Liz, but let it drop. If Joel was still up on his do-it-yourself cloud, I could try Wilma again. No sex, but to be with. Only I couldn't figure if being with Wilma was any better than the heat and silence of the apartment. The damn living room looked so orderly and impersonal—as though Michele had never lived here.
The outside bell buzzed and I jumped a foot. For a frantic moment all I could think of was Brown's remark about they might come 'knocking on my door.' Buzzing back, I wondered just what I'd do if it was the FBI.
I stood by the open door to greet a sweaty mailman holding out a card. He said, “Special Delivery for Norman Con-nor. You?”
We exchanged a dime tip for the card. It was an air mail from Paris. On one side a picture of an Alsatian restaurant in Pigalle where we'd often gone for their cheese cake. On the other side Michele thanked me for the flowers.
The card was a shot in the arm. I was amazed at the speed of things. I'd only wired the flowers yesterday... or was it the day before?
Okay. The score was: Michele was thinking of me and it was still a hell of a hot Saturday and... I suddenly knew what I was going to do. Mix business with pleasure, as the trite but so true phrase went. By driving out to End Harbor, seeing the maid, have a look-see at Matt Anthony's house.
I could easily kill the weekend and get in some swimming too.
Miss May Fitzgerald
It was a 110-mile drive to End Harbor, the traffic was light, and I made it in less than three hours. The farther out I went the more I saw of beaches and boats and I kept thinking of a lot of things: The house Michele wanted me to buy, a sudden longing to be on the beach at Nice with her now... and what a queer one Prof. Brown was. Suppose he was right about Matt having nothing to do with his wife's death? And we ran ads hinting at that and then the court finds him innocent... I'd be the whitest of white-haired golden boys! That would really be playing a long shot. But all Brown had was a hunch, nothing to back it up.
I watched the fishing boats and thought about whether I could risk trying to get my broken-nosed professor a job at Longson's.... And I didn't think too much about Michele and how she loved driving in the country, swimming.
End Harbor was a fairly neat village, a couple of supermarkets and a summer theater surrounded by some very old houses and a number of expensive summer homes. I stopped a big cop in a snappy blue uniform to ask for Mart's house.
“Take the next turn, that's Bay Road. Follow it for about a mile, then you'll see his roadway on the left Can't miss it. You another reporter?”
“No.”
“Had stacks of reporters snooping out here day after it happened. The Harbor don't go for that sort of publicity.”
“Did you know Mr. Anthony?”
He nodded. “A great guy. Tops. Many a time I been on Matt's boat chumming for blues. Real regular.”
“Think he'll beat the rap?”
Caution raced across his big face. “Hey, thought you said you wasn't a reporter? Now, listen, he may have been a great guy but that don't cut no ice when it comes to doing my duty. Sure Matt was a real sport, for a big shot, but let me tell you he had a hell of a temper too. Maybe his wife was a nag. Okay, my wife has a sharp tongue but I don't go killing her.”
It was odd, and expected, the way he was already talking about Matt in the past tense. I asked, “Do you go along with the D.A. on this first degree murder bit?”
“Convictions are the D.A.'s wagon. What I think or don't think isn't important. Bay Road is the turn at the traffic light, Mac.”
Bay Road passed a yacht club that wasn't as big as the rowboat house in Central Park but there must have been a couple of million dollars in cruisers anchored off the dock. The road turned away from the bay and then there was this well-kept, narrow, oiled dirt lane leading into the pines. An oversized hacksaw hung from a post with Anthony in white metal letters welded to the saw part. It took me a moment to get it—all such pure corn—Matt Anthony, the hack.
The papers had mentioned a 'luxurious estate.' I don't know what I expected. The lane took me into a clearing and there was this squat, hideous green house built of rough cinder block. It was a two story affair with a narrow lawn and beyond that some rough piles of dirt, as though they had forgotten to finish the lawn. The whole scene was one of not belonging, including the big yellow umbrella shading some white iron outdoor furniture. There was a garage behind the house—this too looked unfinished—and a path that went into a line of fairly tall pine trees. Although I could smell the salt in the air; there wasn't any sight of the bay. The walk from the driveway to the house was lined with clam shells. I rang the polished brass ship's bell on the door and waited. When I rang again I heard a dog whine. Finally a woman's voice with a faint English accent announced, “I am not seeing any more newspaper men. So you can take your leave.”
She seemed to be pressed against the other side of the door. I asked, “Are you Miss May Fitzgerald?”
“Indeed I be. But I will not see any—”
“My name is Norman Connor. I'm from Mr. Anthony's publishers, Longson's.”
The door opened and I saw a dark skinned young Negro woman in dungarees and a thin white turtle neck sweater. She was stooped over, holding on to something behind the door. Although her jaw was a bit too heavy, she was very pretty; hair piled high in a braid, her figure tall and slim. A large green jade pin was fastened on her sweater, between the sharp outlines of small breasts, and her full lips were painted a faint pink. She had a mild, spicy perfume that didn't distract from the exotic—yet wholesome—picture. I doubted if she was 21. I said, “I'd appreciate it if you can spare me a few minutes, Miss Fitzgerald. I'd like to talk to you.”
