“I have two partners waiting for me in Tijuana.”
“And what division are you assigned to?”
I lied big. “Metropolitan.”
“You are very young for such prestigious duty.”
I picked up the photo. “Nepotism, Captain. My dad’s a deputy chief and my brother’s with the consulate in Mexico City. Good night.”
“And good luck, Bleichert.”
o o o
I rented a room at a hotel within walking distance of the nightclub/red light strip. For two dollars I got a ground-floor flop with an ocean view, a bed with a pancake-thin mattress, a sink and a key to the community john outside. I dumped my grip on the dresser, and as a precaution on the way out, yanked two hairs from my head and spit-glued them across the door-doorjamb juncture. If the fascisti prowled the pad, I would know.
I walked to the heart of the neon smear.
The streets were filled with men in uniform: brownshirts, U.S. marines and sailors. There were no Mex nationals to be seen, and everyone was quite orderly–even the knots of jarheads weaving drunk. I decided that it was the walking Rurale arsenal that kept things pacified. Most of the brownshirts were scrawny bantamweights, but they were packing firepower grande: sawed-offs, tommmys, .45 automatics, brass knucks dangling from their cartridge belts.
Fluorescent beacons pulsated at me: Flame Klub, Arturo’s Oven, Club Boxeo, Falcon’s Lair, Chico’s Klub Imperial. “Boxeo” meant “boxing” in Spanish–so I made that dump my first stop.
Expecting darkness, I walked into a garishly lit room crowded with sailors. Mexican girls danced half naked on top of a long bar, dollar bills tucked into their G-strings. Canned marimba music and catcalls made the joint a deafening pocket of noise; I stood on my tiptoes looking for someone with the air of proprietor. At the back I saw an alcove papered with fight publicity stills. It drew me like a magnet, and I threaded my way past a new shift of nudies slinking to the bar to get to it.
And there I was, in great light heavyweight company, sandwiched between Gus Lesnevich and Billy Conn;
And there was Lee, right next to Joe Louis, who he could have fought if he’d dived for Benny Siegel.
Bleichert and Blanchard. Two white hopes gone wrong.
I stared at the pictures for a long time, until the raucousness around me dissipated and I wasn’t in some upholstered sewer, I was back in ’40 and ’41, winning fights and rutting with giveaway girls who looked like Betty Short. And Lee was scoring knockouts and living with Kay–and, strangely, we were a family again.
“First Blanchard, now you. Who’s next? Willie Pep?”
I was back in the sewer immediately, blurting, “When? When did you see him?”
Whirling around, I saw a hulking old man. His face was cracked leather and broken bones–a punching bag–but his voice was nothing like a stumblebum’s: “A couple of months ago. The heavy rains in February. We musta talked fights for ten hours straight.”
“Where is he now?”
“I ain’t seen him since that one time, and maybe he don’t want to see you. I tried to talk about that fight you guys had, but Big Lee won’t have any. Says ‘We ain’t partners no more’ and starts tellin’ me the featherweights are the best division pound for pound. I tell him, nix–it’s the middles. Zale, Graziano, La Motta, Cerdan, who you kiddin’?”
“Is he still in town?”
“I don’t think so. I own this place, and he ain’t been back here. You lookin’ to settle a grudge? A rematch maybe?”
“I’m looking to get him out of a shitload of trouble he’s in.”
The old pug measured my words, then said, “I’m a sucker for dancemasters like you, so I’ll give you the only piece of skinny I’ve got. I heard Blanchard caused a ruckus over at the Club Satan, had to bribe his way out big with Captain Vasquez. You walk over five blocks to the beach, there’s the Satan. You talk to Ernie the cook. He saw it. You tell him I said to be kosher with you, and take a deep breath when you walk in, ’cause there ain’t nothin’ like that place where you’re comin’ from.”