Read Online Fit to Die by Joan Boswell - Free Book Online Page B

a vaudeville show he had seen at the Winter Garden when he and the boss were on the road. He kept a poker face as the tiny pearl handle of a gun peeked out of thebag, too. As long as she didn’t point it at the boss, it was none of his business, and a girl who went to speakeasies and talked to jailbirds and bet on prize-fights couldn’t be too careful.
    â€œYou’re throwing your money away on Dempsey,” said Ketcheson, stabbing a calloused finger at the scandalsheet still spread across the bar. “Says right here, the champ doesn’t want it like he used to. It’s more fun fighting to the top of the hill than standing up there and defending it.”
    â€œI suppose I’m not the best judge,” Miss Doyle said, crossing her legs beneath the satin and giving the brush-off to Ketcheson’s long-fingered paw. “I only get halfway up a hill when I think, cripes, why I am bothering with this stupid hill? What do you think, Gunboat, has the tattlesheet got it right?”
    Her silver charm bracelet jingled as she started to slide him the newspaper, but the boss slipped in and took it, brushing against her in a way that said he would like to brush up against more than that. He must have seen the offending hand get the bum’s rush from the first-rate knee, and another man would have said something cutting. Not the boss. He was one of nature’s gentlemen.
    â€œIt’s right about the challenger, Case, darling.” The boss pointed to a line of ink halfway down the page. “No one knows what Luis Firpo will do in the ring if he’s hurt, because no one has ever hurt him. He lets other fighters come to him and takes what they dish out. Then he bangs away until they collapse.”
    â€œDempsey is an overrated chump,” Ketcheson said. “They always say whoever holds the title is the greatest fighter of all time. Bunk and twaddle of the worst kind. Dempsey’s never been up against anything but slow-moving, slow-thinking bums.”
    â€œYou don’t say,” said the boss. If there was a note of warning in his voice, Miss Doyle didn’t hear it. Or maybe she did.
    â€œGunboat went a few rounds with the champ before the War,” she said stoutly. “The only knockout of your career, wasn’t it, Gunboat?”
    â€œSo they tell me,” said Gunboat.
    â€œI remember all right,” said Ketcheson. “They said you telegraphed your best punch.” He acted it out, drawing back his right and lifting his butt, thin in the pants that had fit him before prison, an inch from the barstool.
    â€œI heard Gunboat punched like a charging elephant,” Miss Doyle said. “A telegraph from a charging elephant doesn’t do much good.” Ketcheson had got Miss Doyle’s Irish up. “Gunboat, give me one hundred smackers on Dempsey.”
    She clicked shut the twinkling clasp, tossed the bag down as if she were packing nothing heavier than face powder and handed him a scribbled note he could not read. “You know, there’s nothing I like better than a grudge match. Two fellows going toe-to-toe to knock the chips from each others’ broad shoulders.” She fashioned her right into a tiny fist that would not have given a mosquito trouble and floated a powder puff that melted before it got halfway across the bar towards Gunboat.
    â€œCan I set you up, Lester?” the boss asked, waving towards the bottles lined up in front of the bar’s mirror.
    â€œVery open-handed of you. But I’m after more than a watered-down drink.”
    â€œFeel free to buy me one,” said Miss Doyle.
    The boss smiled and nodded, and Gunboat took the solid silver cocktail shaker from the shelf over the mirror behind the bar. In the mirror he saw Ketcheson’s dark eyes glued to his back. “As soon as I collect the money owed to me,” the jailbird said agreeably, “I’ll buy a round for the