so instead they just
stomped the shit out of him. They told him if he made a beef about it
they'd catch him later and kick one of his own whiskey bottles up his
ass.'
'Who were the guys?'
'The two in custody are just a couple of Biloxi beach farts
who've been in and out of Parchman on nickel-and-dime B and E's. But
dig this, the guy who got run through the propeller had some beautiful
Nazi artwork on both arms—swastikas and SS lightning bolts.'
'So do most cons in the Aryan Brotherhood,' I said.
'But here's the kicker, mon. This guy was not homegrown. The
Coast Guard found his passport on the cabin cruiser. He was from
Berlin.'
'Do the guys in custody say what they were after?'
'They were hired by the German guy, but they claim the German
guy wouldn't tell them what was down there. They thought maybe it was a
scuttled boat with a lot of dope on it. Here's the real laugh, though.
The Coast Guard says there's no boat down at that spot. What the beach
farts and the skinhead probably saw on their sonar was an oil rig that
sank there in a hurricane about twenty years ago.'
'Thanks for the information, Clete.'
'You want to talk to the guys in custody?'
'Maybe.'
'I'd do it soon. The rummy in Biloxi isn't filing charges, and
the kraut's death is going down as accidental. I don't guess anybody's
going to lose sleep over a skinhead getting turned into potted meat out
on the salt.'
'Thanks again, Clete.'
'You think they were after that sub?'
'Who knows?'
'Hippo Bimstine does. I want in on this, mon. When Streak
operates in the Big Sleazy, he needs his old podjo to cover his back.
Am I right?'
'Right. Good night, Cletus.'
I heard him pop the cap on a bottle and pour it into a glass.
'Bless my soul, I love that old-time rock 'n' roll, when the
Bobbsey Twins from Homicide made their puds shrivel up and hide,' he
said.
My palms felt stiff with fatigue, hard to fold closed, and my
eyes burned as though there were sand behind the lids. Clete was still
talking, rattling fresh ice into his glass, when I said good night a
final time and eased the receiver down into the telephone cradle.
Tommy Lonighan's Sport Center was
located on the edge of
downtown New Orleans, in a late-nineteenth-century two-story brick
building that had originally been a firehouse, then an automotive
dealership in the 1920s, and finally a training gym for club boxers who
fought for five dollars a fight during the Depression.
The interior smelled of sweat and leather and moldy towels;
the canary yellow paint on the walls was blistered and peeling above
the old iron radiators; the buckled and broken spaces in the original
oak flooring had been patched over with plywood and linoleum. The
bodybuilding equipment was all out of another era—dumbbells
and
weight-lifting benches, curling bars, even a washtub of bricks hung on
a cable for pull downs. The canvas on the four rings had been turned
almost black from scuff marks, body and hair grease, and kicked-over
spit buckets.
But it was still the most famous boxing gym in New Orleans,
and probably more Golden Gloves champions had come out of it than out
of any other boxing center in the South. In the sunlight that poured
down through the high windows, black, Latin, Vietnamese kids and a few
whites sparred in headgear and kidney guards, clanked barbells up and
down on a wide rubber pad, skipped rope with the grace of tap dancers,
and turned timing bags into flying, leathery blurs.
A small, elderly white man, with a thick ear and a flat,
toylike face, who was pulling the laces out of a box full of old
gloves, pointed out Zoot to me.
'That tall kid about to break his nose on the timing bag,' he
said. 'While you're over there, tell him he ain't carried the trash out
to the Dumpster yet.'
The boy had his mother's elongated turquoise eyes and clear,
light-brown skin. But he was unnaturally tall for his age, over six
feet, and as slim and narrow-shouldered as if his skin had been
stretched on wire. The
stomped the shit out of him. They told him if he made a beef about it
they'd catch him later and kick one of his own whiskey bottles up his
ass.'
'Who were the guys?'
'The two in custody are just a couple of Biloxi beach farts
who've been in and out of Parchman on nickel-and-dime B and E's. But
dig this, the guy who got run through the propeller had some beautiful
Nazi artwork on both arms—swastikas and SS lightning bolts.'
'So do most cons in the Aryan Brotherhood,' I said.
'But here's the kicker, mon. This guy was not homegrown. The
Coast Guard found his passport on the cabin cruiser. He was from
Berlin.'
'Do the guys in custody say what they were after?'
'They were hired by the German guy, but they claim the German
guy wouldn't tell them what was down there. They thought maybe it was a
scuttled boat with a lot of dope on it. Here's the real laugh, though.
The Coast Guard says there's no boat down at that spot. What the beach
farts and the skinhead probably saw on their sonar was an oil rig that
sank there in a hurricane about twenty years ago.'
'Thanks for the information, Clete.'
'You want to talk to the guys in custody?'
'Maybe.'
'I'd do it soon. The rummy in Biloxi isn't filing charges, and
the kraut's death is going down as accidental. I don't guess anybody's
going to lose sleep over a skinhead getting turned into potted meat out
on the salt.'
'Thanks again, Clete.'
'You think they were after that sub?'
'Who knows?'
'Hippo Bimstine does. I want in on this, mon. When Streak
operates in the Big Sleazy, he needs his old podjo to cover his back.
Am I right?'
'Right. Good night, Cletus.'
I heard him pop the cap on a bottle and pour it into a glass.
'Bless my soul, I love that old-time rock 'n' roll, when the
Bobbsey Twins from Homicide made their puds shrivel up and hide,' he
said.
My palms felt stiff with fatigue, hard to fold closed, and my
eyes burned as though there were sand behind the lids. Clete was still
talking, rattling fresh ice into his glass, when I said good night a
final time and eased the receiver down into the telephone cradle.
Tommy Lonighan's Sport Center was
located on the edge of
downtown New Orleans, in a late-nineteenth-century two-story brick
building that had originally been a firehouse, then an automotive
dealership in the 1920s, and finally a training gym for club boxers who
fought for five dollars a fight during the Depression.
The interior smelled of sweat and leather and moldy towels;
the canary yellow paint on the walls was blistered and peeling above
the old iron radiators; the buckled and broken spaces in the original
oak flooring had been patched over with plywood and linoleum. The
bodybuilding equipment was all out of another era—dumbbells
and
weight-lifting benches, curling bars, even a washtub of bricks hung on
a cable for pull downs. The canvas on the four rings had been turned
almost black from scuff marks, body and hair grease, and kicked-over
spit buckets.
But it was still the most famous boxing gym in New Orleans,
and probably more Golden Gloves champions had come out of it than out
of any other boxing center in the South. In the sunlight that poured
down through the high windows, black, Latin, Vietnamese kids and a few
whites sparred in headgear and kidney guards, clanked barbells up and
down on a wide rubber pad, skipped rope with the grace of tap dancers,
and turned timing bags into flying, leathery blurs.
A small, elderly white man, with a thick ear and a flat,
toylike face, who was pulling the laces out of a box full of old
gloves, pointed out Zoot to me.
'That tall kid about to break his nose on the timing bag,' he
said. 'While you're over there, tell him he ain't carried the trash out
to the Dumpster yet.'
The boy had his mother's elongated turquoise eyes and clear,
light-brown skin. But he was unnaturally tall for his age, over six
feet, and as slim and narrow-shouldered as if his skin had been
stretched on wire. The
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