Call for the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 10

  I was reminded of this when the Saint radio show started on the air in 1945, and the prospective need for an endless (if you took an optimistic view of the future) number of original stories, at the relentless rate of one a week, stretched rather frighteningly ahead. In the first feverish struggle to line up a reserve of scripts, I was squeezing my memory for every unused idea I ever had, and this was one of the first to come back to me.

  Of course I was not writing all the shows myself—to have done that, as well as producing them, as well as running a publishing business on the side, as I was then, as well as doing other writing of my own, would have been the schedule of a human dynamo, which I have never resembled. But I was supplying most of the ideas, and working closely with the writers who put the scripts together.

  The collaborator I picked for this one was a solid radio writer named Irvin Ashkenazy, and it is about time he got some of the credit for it.

  I picked him because in his earlier and hungrier days in New York he fought several professional fights. He was never a threat to Jack Dempsey, and never aspired to be: it simply seemed like a relatively easy way to pick up a few honest dollars, which he badly needed. But it gave him the necessary background to do a good job on this subject, and any fortuitous air of authenticity this story may have it certainly owes to him.

  Later I developed the radio script into the novelette you are about to read, and it was published in The American Magazine, and afterwards in a book.

  But the thing that I treasure most that came out of that association with Mr Ashkenazy could not find a place in the radio script, or the subsequent novelette, and has had to remain my private joy until now.

  It is that when Mr Ashkenazy was fighting these curtain-raisers, he felt perhaps understandably bashful about letting the fact be known to his family, his employers, or his more dignified acquaintances. Therefore he fought under an alias which, while it preserved traces of his own name, undoubtedly served to conceal his identity from anyone who might have happened on it in the sport sections of the newspapers. And one of the things for which I shall always love the guy is that he devised for himself a name that must be unique in the annals of the ring—the wonderful, the gorgeous, the superb nom de guerre of Izzy Ashcan.

  —Leslie Charteris (1951)

  1

  At this moment Simon Templar was not quite enjoying the thrill of a lifetime.

  Relaxed as much as the immediate carpentry would permit in his ringside seat between Hoppy Uniatz and Patricia Holm, he blended the smoke of his own cigarette with the cigar-and-sweat aroma of the Manhattan Arena, and contemplated the dying moments of the semi-final bout with his sapphire eyes musing under lazily drooping lids. Never addicted to obtaining his thrills vicariously, the man who was better known to the world as “the Saint” would have found small cause for excitement even if he had been addicted to such sedentary pursuits. Being there anyhow, he slouched in easy grace, the clean-cut lines of his face etched in a bronze mask of sardonic detachment as he watched two gladiators move about the ring with all the slashing speed of ballet dancers in leg-irons performing under water, and dedicated himself uncomplainingly to whatever entertainment the soiree of sock might provide.

  In the great world outside there were uncountable characters who would have considered his presence there with no equanimity. Some of them, who in one way or another had participated in much shadier promotions than prize fights, would have considered it a personal injustice that anyone like Simon Templar should still be at large when so many of their best friends were not. Others, whose standard of righteousness was vouched for by at least a badge, would have moaned just as loudly that there was nothing basically unhappy about a policeman’s lot except what the Saint might plant in it.

  If Inspector Fernack, for instance, had seen him there, that bulldogged minion of the law would have pondered darkly. He would have sensed from long experience in previous encounters with this amazing modern buccaneer that the Saint could have no orthodox interest in such a dreary offering of Promoter Mike Grady’s salon of swat. Of course the main bout between Torpedo Smith and the celebrated Masked Angel would probably be more interesting, but Simon Templar wasn’t there just for the entertainment. That was something John Henry Fernack would never have believed.

  And on this occasion, for instance, he would have been right.

  Jeers swept in derisive breakers over the two Ferdinands in the ring without in the least disturbing the equilibrium of their mitt minuet. The massed feet of the cash customers began to stamp in metronomic disapproval, and Simon’s chair jumped as the box-car brogans on his left added their pile-driving weight to the crashing cantata. Their owner’s klaxon voice lifted in a laryngismal obligate, a brassy, belly-searching ululation with overtones reminiscent of the retching bellow of a poisoned water buffalo. This, the Saint recognised, was merely Hoppy Uniatz’s rendition of a disgusted groan.

  “Boss,” Hoppy heaved, “dis is moider!” The narrow strip of wrinkles that passed for Hoppy’s forehead were deep with scorn. “I oughta go up dere and t’row ’em outta de ring.”

  Hoppy’s impulses were beautiful in their straightforward simplicity and homicidal honesty. The small globule of protoplasm that lurked within his rock-bound skull, serving the nominal function of a brain, piloted his anthropoidal body exclusively along paths of action, primitive and direct, unencumbered by any subtleties of thought or teleological considerations. The torture of cerebration he left entirely to the man to whose lucky star he hitched his wagon. For, to Hoppy, the Saint was not of this ordinary world; he was a Merlin who brought strange wonders to pass with godlike nonchalance, whose staggering schemes were engineered with supernatural ease to inevitable success through miracles of intellect which Hoppy followed in blind but contented obedience.

  The Saint smiled at him tenderly.

  “Relax, chum. This isn’t the fight we came to see, anyway.”

  The dream with the spun-gold hair on Simon’s right smiled.

  “Never,” admonished Patricia Holm, “look gift horses in the mouth.”

  “To coin a phrase,” the Saint observed dryly.

  “Huh?” Hoppy stared at the Saint’s lady in open-mouthed perplexity. “Horses?” His face, which bore a strong family resemblance to those seen on totem poles designed to frighten evil spirits, was a study in loose-lipped wonder. “What horses?”

  “After all,” Pat said, “we’re here as guests and—”

  The clanking of the bell terminated both the fight and the need for further explanation. The sound pulled the trigger on a thunderclap of boos as the unfatigued gladiators were waved to their respective corners to wait the decision. It came swiftly. A well-booed draw.

  “What a clambake,” Hoppy muttered.

  “No hits, no runs, no fight,” Simon murmured sardonically.

  “They had a lot of respect for each other, hadn’t they?” Pat observed innocently.

  “Respect!” Hoppy exploded. “Dem bums was dogging it. I could beat bot’ deir brains out togedder wit’ bot’ hands tied behind me.” He simmered with righteous outrage. “I only hope de Masked Angel don’t knock out Torpedo Smith too quick. We oughta let him stay for at least a coupla rounds so maybe we’ll see some fightin’.”

  “If there’s any fighting to be seen,” Simon said absently, “at least we’re in a good position to see it.”

  The chiselled leanness of cheekbone and jaw were picked out vividly as he lighted a cigarette. Pat, glancing at the flame momentarily reflected in those mocking blue eyes, felt a familiar surge of yearning and pride. For he was a very reincarnation of those privateers who once knew the Spanish Main, a modern buccaneer consecrated to the gods of gay and perilous adventure, a cavalier as variable as a chameleon, who would always be at once the surest and the most elusive thing in her life.

  “Yeah,” Hoppy agreed grudgingly. “Dey ain’t nut’n wrong wit’ de seats. Ya must have some drag with de promoter, boss.”

  “I’ve neve
r even met him.”

  Simon wasn’t listening really. His eyes were angled to his left, gazing through a meditative plume of smoke to where Steve Nelson was rising about a dozen seats away and climbing into the ring to be introduced as the champion who would defend his title against the winner of tonight’s bout. However, it wasn’t Nelson whom Simon was watching. It was the girl in the seat beside Nelson—a girl with curly raven hair, big green eyes, and a nose whose snub pertness was an infinitely lovelier reproduction of her Irish sire’s well-publicised proboscis.

  “I suppose he just thought this would be a nice way to introduce himself,” Patricia mocked. “Three little ringside tickets, that’s all. Sent by special messenger, no less. Compliments of Mike Grady and the Manhattan Arena!”

  The girl with the raven hair had turned and, for a brief instant, met Simon’s gaze. He spoke without taking his eyes off her.

  “Pat, darling, you’re taking too much for granted. It wasn’t Mike who sent them.”

  “No?”

  “No. It was his daughter Connie. Third from the aisle in the front row.”

  She followed his gaze.

  There was no hint of coquetry in the eyes of the raven-haired girl. There was something in them quite different—a swift glow of gratitude tempered by an anxiety that shadowed her clear elfin beauty. Then she turned away.

  Pat smiled with feline sweetness.

  “I see. How nice of her to think you might need some excitement!”

  Hoppy’s porcine eyes blinked.

  “Boss, ain’t she de Champ’s girl friend?”

  “So I’ve heard.” Simon smiled and blew a large smoke-ring that rose lethargically over the seat in front of him and settled about the bald pate of its occupant like a pale blue halo.

  A scattered burst of cheering greeted Torpedo Smith’s entrance into the ring.

  “Shouldn’t you be more careful about picking your leading ladies?” Pat inquired with saccharine concern.

  “I have to face the hazards of my profession,” Simon explained, with a glint of scapegrace mockery in his blue eyes. “But there may be some excitement at that—although I don’t mean what you’re thinking, darling.”

  The memory of Connie’s visit, her confused plea for him to see the fight, lingered in his mind like the memory of strange music, a siren measure awakening an old familiar chill, prescient and instinctive, warning of danger that was no less perilous because it was as yet unknown.

  The crowd broke into a thunderous roar.

  “It’s de Angel!” Hoppy proclaimed. “He’s climbin’ in de ring!”

  The current sensation of the leather-pushing profession was indeed mounting the punch podium. He squeezed his hogshead torso between the ropes, and as he straightened up the Saint saw that the mask was really nothing more than a black bean-bag that fitted over his small potato head with apertures for eyes, nose, and mouth, and fastened by a drawstring between chin and shoulder at the place where a normal person’s neck would ordinarily be, but which in the Angel was no more than an imaginary line of demarcation. He shambled to his corner like a hairless gorilla and clasped his bandaged hands over his head in a salute to the enraptured mob.

  Patricia shuddered.

  “Simon, is it—is it human?”

  The Saint grinned.

  “He’ll never win any contests for the body beautiful, but of course we haven’t seen his face yet. He may be quite handsome.”

  “Dere ain’t nobody seen his face,” Hoppy confided. “Dese wrestlers what pull dis gag wit’ de mask on de face, dey don’t care who knows who dey really are, but Doc Spangler, he don’t let nobody see who his boy is. May be it’s for luck. De Masked Angel ain’t lost a fight yet!”

  “Doc Spangler?”

  Hoppy’s head bobbed affirmatively. He pointed to a well-dressed portly gentleman who looked more like a bank president out for an evening’s entertainment than a fighter’s manager, who was standing in smiling conversation with one of the Angel’s seconds.

  “Dat’s de Doc. He’s de guy who discovers de Angel from some place. Dat Doc is sure a smart cookie, boss.”

  The Saint smiled agreeably.

  “You can say that again.”

  The salient features of the estimable Doc Spangler’s history passed through Simon Templar’s mind in swift procession—a record which, among many others, was filed with inexorable clarity in the infinite index of a memory whose indelibility had time and again proven one of the more useful tools of his profession.

  “In fifteen fights,” Hoppy expounded, “he brings de Angel from nowhere to a fight wit’ de Champ free weeks from now!”

  Pat lifted an eyebrow.

  “Even if Torpedo Smith beats him?”

  “Aaah!” Hoppy chortled derisively. “Dat bum ain’t got a chanst! De Angel’ll moider him! You wait and see.”

  The Champ, having shaken hands with the two contenders, climbed out of the ring and resumed his seat beside Connie Grady, and the fighters rose from their corners as the referee waved them to the centre of the ring for instructions.

  Pat, wide-eyed, shook her head unbelievingly.

  “Simon, that man with the mask—he…he’s fantastic! Those arms—his gloves are touching his knees!”

  “A fascinating example of evolution in reverse,” Simon remarked.

  The Masked Angel was indeed a remarkable specimen. With his arms dangling alongside his enormous hairless body he was the very antithesis of the classic conception of an athlete, his sagging breasts and vast pink belly undulating in rolls, billows, and pleats of fat; and though his hips narrowed, wasp-like, to the negligible proportions of a bull gorilla’s, his flabby thighs ballooned out like a pair of mammoth loose-skinned sausages, tapering to a pair of stubby tree-trunk legs.

  “A freak,” Pat decided. “He wears that ridiculous mask because he’s a pinhead.”

  “But even he can do somebody some good. You’ve got to admit that he makes Hoppy look like a creature of svelte and sprightly beauty.”

  “In dis racket, boss,” Hoppy mulled with a heavy concentration of wisdom, “you don’t have to be good-lookin’.” Suddenly he sat up straight and strained forward. “Well, for cryin’ out loud!”

  “What’s the matter?” The Saint followed his gaze to the ring.

  Hoppy waved a finger the size of a knockwurst in the general direction of the two contestants and their handlers standing in the middle of the ring listening to the referee.

  “Lookit, boss! Standin’ behind Torpedo Smith—his handler! It’s me old chum, Whitey Mullins!”

  The fighters and their seconds were turning back to their respective corners. Whitey Mullins, a slender, rubbery-faced little man with balding flaxen hair, wearing a turtle-neck sweater and sneakers, convoyed Smith to his corner and climbed out of the ring, taking the stool with him. The Saint recognised him as one of the professional seconds connected with the Manhattan Arena.

  “One of the Torpedo’s propellers, I take it?”

  Hoppy nodded.

  “He works a lot wit’ me when I am in the box-fight racket, boss.” Fond memories of yesteryear’s mayhem lit his gorgon countenance with reminiscent rapture. “Cyclone Uniatz, dey called me.”

  “That, no doubt, explains why you never get up before the stroke of ten,” Simon observed.

  “Huh?”

  Pat giggled as the bell clanked for the first round.

  The Angel shuffled forward slowly, his arms held high, peering cautiously between his gloves at the oncoming Torpedo Smith. Smith, who had crashed into the top ranks of pugilism via a string of varied victories far longer than the unbroken string of knockouts boasted by the Masked Angel, moved warily about his opponent, jabbing tentative lefts at the unmoving barrier of arms that the Angel held before him. The Angel turned slowly as Smith moved around him, the fantastic black cupola of his masked head sunk protectively between beefy pink shoulders, the little eye-slits peering watchfully. He kept turning, keeping Smith before him without attempti
ng a blow. The Torpedo moved about more deliberately, with a certain puzzlement, as though he couldn’t understand the Angel’s unwillingness to retaliate, but was himself afraid to take any chances.

  There was a stillness in the crowd, a sense of waiting as for the explosion of a bomb whose fuse was burning before their very eyes.

  Pat spoke at last.

  “But, Simon, they’re just looking at each other.”

  The Saint selected another cigarette and tapped it on his thumb.

  “You can’t blame them. It’ll probably take a round for them just to get over the sight of each other.”

  Hoppy lifted a voice that rang with the dulcet music of a foghorn with laryngitis.

  “Come on, you Angel! Massecrate de bum!” But the Angel, without supreme indifference to encouragement, merely kept turning, shuffling around to meet the probing jabs of Torpedo Smith, peering through his sinister mask, tautly watchful.

  The crowd broke into a roar as the Torpedo suddenly drove a left hook to the Angel’s stomach, doubling him up, and, casting caution to the winds, followed with a swift onslaught of lefts and rights. The Angel, arms, gloves, and elbows shielding his exposed surfaces, merely backed into a corner and crouched there until the bell punctuated the round.

  Pat shook her head bewilderedly.

  “Simon, I don’t understand. This Masked Angel doesn’t look as if he can fight at all. All he did was make like a turtle while that other man tried to find some place to hit him.”

  “Oh, you just wait.” Hoppy growled reassuringly. “Dis fight ain’t over yet. De smart money is bettin’ free to one de Angel kayoes Smith insida six rounds. He wins all his fights by kayos.”

  The Saint was watching the two gladiators being given the customary libations of water and between-round advice by their handlers. He smiled thoughtfully.