Read Online Canvas Coffin by William Campbell Gault - Free Book Online Page B

hand on his shoulder and up to meet my gaze. If he was frightened, he hid it well. “Take your hand off me. Who the hell you think you are?”
    Harry said, “Leave him go, Champ.”
    “I’ll fight both of you, if I have to,” I said. “But my neck’s involved in this business, and I don’t want any brush-offs now.”
    Harry’s big face looked sadly patient. “Champ, leave loose of him. This ain’t no ring. I’m the boss and bouncer, here, and there’s no ref around. Leave him go.”
    I tightened my grip on the little man’s shoulder, and he bent in a half-crouch, a grimace of pain tightening his face.
    From the corner of my eye, I saw Harry walking along toward the front, open end of the bar. I heard him coming up behind me, moving easily, and I could guess his feet were flat.
    Now I could see him in the mirror at the end of the room, and I released the little man and pivoted. I brought my right hand around as I did and put every one of my hundred and sixty pounds into the button try.
    I couldn’t have hit him cleaner with a rifle.
    I felt the shock of it all the way to my molars, and felt the bone go in my hand.
    I saw the man-mountain take two backward steps and then the floor shook as he crashed a chair and toppled.
    I heard Sally scream, heard a
thunk,
and turned to see Noodles going down, his knees paper, a knife gleaming in his hand.
    There was a look of pure incredulity on Sally’s face and a leaking champagne bottle in her hand.
    My hand throbbed steadily. Noodles sat in one of the booths, his head cradled in his arms, on top of the table. Kayoed by a dame; poor Noodles would live a long time with that.
    The mountain of meat known as Harry Bevilaqua sat in a chair near the booth that held Noodles, rubbing his jaw with one ridiculous hand.
    “The first time, Champ,” Harry said sadly. “First time I ever took a full count. And from a lousy middle — ” He shook his big head.
    The girl reading the
Racing Form
was still at it, working with a pencil and a scratch pad now. The two men had left.
    My hand was swelling, turning blue along a streak between the middle knuckles. I said, “What do we know now?”
    Harry looked at Noodles, and at the girl. He said to her, “Your nose is shiny, Ruth. You go and powder your nose. Take a lot of time; get it right.”
    She went out through a door at the rear of the room.
    Harry glanced again at Noodles, and then looked down at his big hands. “Well, that night, Mary called about one, said a man had passed out in her place, and was there someone around that could help? Noodles was around; he went up there. Take it away, Noodles.”
    He shook his head, cradled in the thin arms. “To hell with them. Get the cops. To hell with them.”
    “Noodles,” Harry said softly, “the champ is all right. That ain’t only my word; you could ask any of ‘em from back where it’s civilized and they’ll tell you Luke Pilgrim is aces. We didn’t do right, playing cute with him. The lady’s sorry, Noodles, but you shouldn‘t have pulled no knife on the champ.”
    The little man shivered and lifted his head. He glared at me. “You were up there, outside, sitting on the curb. I picked you up and brought you back to the hotel. And now that I told you, it’ll be all right if I tell the cops, huh, Cheese Champ?”
    “Noodles,” Harry said, “Luke’s no cheese champ. You saw that right he hit me with. Or did you?”
    “I didn’t see nothing,” Noodles said. “But I will, and I want a ringside seat when Giani beats his brains out.”
    “That we’ll see,” Harry said. “But
cops,
Noodles, what kind of people call copper? Not our kind of people.”
    Sally said, “I’m sorry I hit you, Mr. Noodles, but I love Luke and you were going to kill him. Wouldn’t you want your girl to do as much for you?”
    “I ain’t got a girl,” he said. “Lay off me.”
    I said, “For Christ’s sake, if you want to scream for the law, there’s the phone. But quit whimpering.