The Best American Mystery Stories 2002

“What does that have to do with me?” Gene nodded his head to take in Billie. “With us?”

“We’re going to heist the fight.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe the million-dollar-gate hype,” said the banker. “But figure it’s half that, and figure our plan will get us half of that half. A quarter of a million dollars split up among we five won’t make us famous, but these days, that much cash will still buy us some sweet years.”

“You’re nuts!”

“No, I’m the inside man. If these locals knew the strings I’ve been pulling the last few years, they’d lynch me. I’ve been a public naysayer on this fight, but a whisper here, a question phrased just so, and suddenly people get an idea they think is their own. That’s how I put this in place, that’s how we’ll take it.”

“To make it work,” said the toad, “we all need to be insiders. I inspired the idea that to perfect our glorious Dempsey-Gibbons fight, we need a preliminary bout: the heavyweight championship of Shelby. That’ll put us all on the inside. That’s how we’ll rip it off.”

“You want me to be your man in that prelim fight. Your boxer.”

“Don’t care if you win,” said the pudgy banker in the lantern-lit farmhouse. “Don’t care if you lose. All we care about is that you fight, that you make it go the distance, and that you climb out of the ring alive with enough left in you to do the job.”

“Getting out of the ring alive seems like a good idea,” said Gene.

“We’re good idea men,” said the banker. “The question is whether you got the guts and the smarts to be one, too. You can say no, walk out of here right now. If you’re dumb enough to tell anybody what’s what, we’ll call you crazy and a liar. They’ll believe us, not you.”

“This hard world is hell on liars.” The black-haired man reclined on the couch, made a show of keeping his eyes on Gene and the .45 automatic on his lap.

“How is it on crazies?” said Gene.

“Depends.” Norman Doyle didn’t smile.

“What if they have to carry me out of the ring?”

Doyle said: “Don’t bother to wake up.”

The hophead beside Gene looked at nobody.

“So what’s it going to be?” said the banker. “Yes or no?”

“Never happen.” Gene shook his head: “Forget about whether the heist would work, the crime thing isn’t what I do.”

“Then you can say goodnight and leave,” said the toad. “Your Billie girl will drive you back to that charming boarding house. Say goodbye to her, then, too. She’ll be leaving town.

“You see,” continued the toad, “there’ve been expenses. Bringing Doyle up from Butte. Guaranteeing debts Harry incurred ’round the state. He was the one who knew of your fondness for his sister. She’s a hell of a woman. A fine worker. But schoolmarming and waitressing won’t settle Harry’s debts. Bankruptcy foreclosure from the people Harry owes is permanent. So if our scheme ‘never happens,’ then Doyle will drive her to Butte so she can work buying her brother’s lifeblood a few dollars at a time in an establishment whose proprietor I happen to—”

Gene was on his feet, the folding chair spinning behind him before he knew it, but not before Doyle’d filled his hand with the .45.

“You did this whole thing!” he told the banker.

“Let’s say I brought elements together for a successful business venture,” said Taylor. “Now you choose. What do you want that business to be?”

The black hole of the .45 watched Gene’s heart. The banker watched his eyes. Harry Larson slumped with his face in his hands.

His sister stood behind him. Gene saw her soft cheek he’d never touched now scarred by a wet line.

Must have been deep into the twenty-first century before he said: “Who do I have to fight?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Doyle.

“No,” said Gene, “I guess it doesn’t. How long do I have to get ready?”

“Seven weeks and change. You fight on the Fourth of July.”

“That’s not enough time.”

“Make it be,” said Taylor. “Inspired local sponsors ‘found’ Doyle to manage you. The mayor’s sending an offer. Accept it. Also, cultivate your mustache: in your pictures, that’s what we want people to see and remember, for your sake. Tomorrow, Billie will fetch you out to the old Woon ranch. The four of you will live there while you train.”

“One of you might be able to run aw ay for a while,” said Doyle. “I’d catch you, but you’d have a while. But the three of you... easy pickings.”

“I have enough running to do for the fight,” said Gene.

“Good,” said Taylor. He raised his whiskey glass: “And good luck... champ.”

She drove him back to town. They didn’t talk. The envelope with the offer from the mayor was in his mailbox. Gene scrawled OK, signed his name, and gave the clubfooted desk clerk two bits to deliver it. Gene settled his tab through the morning and stretched out on his last honest bed. Trains clattered through town on the tracks fifty yards from where he lay, but he let them go without him to clean forests and seaside towns.