Legs Read Free

Walter
Rudolph said. "I got out of the habit in stir. Last fight I saw
was in '23. Benny Leonard whippin' a guy I don't even remember. "
    "How about you, pal?" Jack asked Lukas, the
new bar-man. "You follow the fights? You know Benny Shapiro?"
    "I see his name in the papers, that's all. To
tell you the truth, Mr. Diamond, I watch baseball."
    "Nobody knows," Jack said. He looked at
Elaine. "But Elaine knows, don't you, baby? Tell them what you
said tonight at the light."
    "I don't want to say, Jack." She smiled.
    "Go ahead."
    "It makes me blush."
    "Never mind that, just tell them what you said."
    "All right. I said Benny fights as good as Jack
Diamond makes love."
    Everybody at the bar laughed, after Jack laughed.
    "That means he's a
cinch to be champ," Jack said.
    * * *
    The mood of the club was on the rise and midnight
seemed only a beginning. But forty minutes behind the bar was enough
for Jack. Jack, though he had tended bar in his time, was not
required to do manual labor. He was a club owner. But it's a kick to
do what you don't have to do, right? Jack put on his coat and sat
alongside Elaine. He put his hand under her loose blond hair, held
her neck, kissed her once as everyone looked in other directions.
Nobody looked when Jack kissed his ladies in public.
    "Jack is back," he said.
    "I'm glad to see him," Elaine said.
    Benny Shapiro walked through the door and Jack leaped
off his chair and hugged him with one arm, walked him to a bar stool.
    "I'm a little late," Benny said.
    "Where's the girl?"
    "No girl, Jack. I told you it was a man. I owed
some insurance."
    "Insurance? You win a fight, break a man's nose,
and then go out and pay your insurance?"
    "For my father. I already stalled the guy two
weeks. He was waiting. Woulda canceled the old man out in the
morning. I figure, pay the bill before I blow the dough."
    "Why don't you tell somebody these things? Who
is this prick insurance man?"
    "It's okay, Jack, it's all over."
    "Imagine a guy like this'?" Jack said to
everybody.
    "I told you I always liked Benny," Filetti
said.
    "Get us a table, Herman," Jack said.
"Benny's here."
    Herman Zuckman, counting money behind the bar, turned
to Jack with an amazed look.
    "I'm busy here, Jack."
    "Just get us a table, Herman. "
    "The tables are all full, Jack. You can see
that. We already turned away three dozen people. Maybe more."
    "Herman, here beside me is the next welterweight
champion of the world who's come to see us, and all you're doing is
standing there making the wrong kind of noise."
    Herman put the money in a strongbox under the bar,
then moved two couples away from a table. He gave them seats at the
bar and bought them a bottle of champagne.
    "You feeling all right?" Jack asked Benny
when they all sat down. "No damage?"
    "No damage, just a little headache."
    "Too much worrying about insurance. Don't worry
anymore about shit like that. "
    "Maybe he's got a headache because he got hit in
the head," Charlie Filetti said.
    "He didn't get hit in the head," Jack said.
"Murphy couldn't find Benny's head. Murphy couldn't find his own
ass with a compass. But Benny found Murphy's head. And his nose."
    "How does it feel to break a man's nose?"
Elaine asked.
    "That's a funny question," Benny said. "But
to tell the truth you don't even know you're doing it. It's just
another punch. Maybe it feels solid, maybe it don't."
    "You don't feel the crunch, what the hell good
is it?" Jack said.
    Filetti laughed. "Jack likes to feel it happen
when the noses break, right Jack?"
    Jack mock-backhanded Filetti, who told him: "Don't
get your nose out of joint, partner"—and he laughed some more.
"I remember the night that big Texas oil bozo gave Jack lip.
He's about six eight and Jack breaks a bottle across his face at the
table, and then you couldn't stop laughing, Jack. The son of a bitch
didn't know what hit him. Just sat there moppin' up his blood. Next
day I go around to tell him what it costs to give lip to Jack and he
says he wants to