Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page B

door here. Know what I mean?”
    “I saw you fight Packy Carl for the California middleweight title in …”
    “September 4, 1916, Stockton,” he answered. “Stopped him in the fifth with a combination. Voom, voom, right to the gut. Always went for the gut. I remember every punch I ever threw, every punch. Don’t ask me what I done this morning, but every punch in eighty-three fights I could tell you, believe me.”
    “I believe you,” I said. “Hey, is Al Parkman around today?”
    “Every day,” Rogers said. A kid, who looked like a Mexican about sixteen or seventeen, came up the stairs and handed Rogers two dimes and walked past me. China Rogers examined the change.
    “Where is he, Parkman?” I asked.
    “Back in the corner, by the ring,” Rogers said. “Little guy with a mustache. Nice duds. You’ll see him. But he’s not taking on any fighters old as you. Needs ’em bad, but guys like us is too old.”
    Then it hit me. I knew what was strange about Reed’s Soldier’s Gym. All the boxers looked like high school kids or their fathers. The young guys were all gone, gobbled up by the Army or Navy.
    “I’ll see you around, China,” I said.
    “You really saw me fight Carl?” he asked, looking at me with a grin that showed broken teeth.
    “You were great,” I said.
    “Went for the gut,” he said as I walked away.
    The strongest sensation in the room came not from the moving bodies but from the smell. Sweat and tobacco filled my nose and eyes. There were a few open windows, but they didn’t help much. The closest smell I could think of was the squadroom of the Wilshire District Police Station, which had the added odor of old food and things I didn’t like thinking about. I eased past a kid who looked as if he were twelve or thirteen working on a bag while a guy who looked like he was seventy yelled at him, “Faster, faster, faster.” I dodged two other older guys in short sleeves, arguing their way toward the door. One guy was waving both hands and shouting, “A finiff, five. That much you can take, no more.” The guy with him had his hand on the angry guy’s shoulder, kneading his sweaty cotton shirt, trying to calm him.
    The ring wasn’t elevated. It was a floor-level mat with three strands of rope around it. The rope was covered with a badly worn material that looked like black velvet. I spotted Al Parkman with no trouble. He was standing next to a Negro with white hair. The Negro was about sixty, with strong arms and a little belly. He wore a short-sleeved blue shirt on the back of which was written Teeth Guzman . Parkman was about the same age as the other man, but he was pale and white with dark hair and a pencil mustache so dark it had to be dyed. He wore a suit with a gray background and thin yellow stripes. He looked like a modern painting gone all to hell. His collar was open and his tie, a red thing with some kind of animal on it, dangled over his shoulder.
    “There,” Parkman said to the Negro. “You see? You see? His left is down to here.”
    “I see,” the Negro said patiently. “I tell him and tell him. I shows him and tell him some more, but that boy don’t have the brain to take it in. That’s the truth. He’s simple.”
    Parkman spotted me, let his eyes run up and down my suit, and decided that he couldn’t figure me out. He decided to play it without commitment.
    “Josh’s right,” he said to me, nodding at the Negro and looking over at the two guys in the ring. “Kid’s no good. Jerry in there with him was over the hill ten years ago, and if I let him go, he’d send the kid to Little Nemo land. You know?”
    “I know,” I said.
    Josh took the opportunity of my appearance to ease away from Parkman and concentrate on his fighter in the ring.
    “So,” Parkman said, rubbing his nose with his thumb. “So are you fighter, promoter, or what? We’re in the market for talent, but you’re …”
    “… too old,” I said. Parkman’s head was bobbing up and