True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne

Author:John Gregory Dunne [JOHN GREGORY DUNNE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2012-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

He turned into the lot at the Figueroa Auditorium and parked in a space marked Matchmaker. In the shadows of the parking lot, a raucous crap game was going on. He turned on his headlights to see the game better. A uniformed police officer was standing over the kneeling players with a handful of dollar bills. The policeman told him to turn off his fucking lights.

“You can’t park there, buddy.” The voice belonged to a thickset Mexican with balloons of scar tissue over both eyes.

“Fuck off,” Tom Spellacy said.

The Mexican circled slowly, moving with difficulty, looking for an opening, his hands in the fighting position. Corinne clung to the automobile, afraid to speak. Tom Spellacy crouched, waiting. Suddenly the Mexican was inside his guard, pummeling him in the stomach. Tom Spellacy tied him up. The Mexican stepped back, a smile on his face.

“You always were a fucking petunia, Tom.”

“How’s it going, Polo?”

“Good, Tom, good.” He motioned toward the crap game. “I got the game. I hear things, I get a little down now and then.”

“Who’s going in the water tonight, Polo?”

“Anyone goes, it’s the negrito in the semi.” Polo looked at Corinne. She smiled at him tentatively. Tom Spellacy made no effort to introduce them. “You want a ticket? Give you two for a dollar. They’re two-fifty each at the box office.”

“Swell, Polo,” Tom Spellacy said. He gave him a dollar and took the two tickets. Polo limped off toward the crap game.

“He’s scalping for less than they cost,” Corinne said.

“To last week’s fight,” Tom Spellacy said. He tore up the tickets. “A big night, he gets away with it.” He shrugged. “Other nights, his friends help him out.”

They walked into the auditorium. It smelled of piss and liniment. The walls of the arena were covered with faded tinted photographs of old-time strongmen and wrestlers and fighters and announcers.

“Then he’s a friend of yours,” Corinne said.

“In a way,” Tom Spellacy said. “He took me out in the fourth round one night at Legion Stadium in El Monte.” They stopped in front of a tinted photograph of a welterweight skipping rope in trunks and a tank shirt. The identification marker said, “The Ever Popular Enrique ‘Polo’ Barbera.” There was no scar tissue over his eyes. “He didn’t even work up a sweat.”

They made their way through the jostling crowd. Their seats were at ringside, on the aisle in the second row. On the other side of the ring, George Brent was signing autographs.

“I thought sure he was going to get the shot in the ball park, Polo, the night he beat that colored guy here. The one it was like punching fog, trying to hit him. Mercury. Mercury Johnson. He punched his ticket, Polo. He was a great fighter that night.”

Corinne said, “What happened, he didn’t get it?”

“He was supposed to go in the water, it turns out. There was a lot of money riding on it. He just got carried away, Polo. And a lot of people got burned.”

“And?”

“They broke his knees with a baseball bat.

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