Half-Past Eternity

Chapter One Stolen Lives

The kid didn’t talk. Nat February talked. Which is what you might have expected.

The kid had a punch like the business end of a mule, sure, and he kept boring in, shuffling flat-footed, game all the way through. But everybody on the Beach knew that the kid, who, by the way, at thirty-one was a kid no longer, had suffered slow degeneration of the reflexes to the point where his Sunday punch floated in like a big balloon and he could be tagged at will.

The way the bout happened to be set up was on account of Jake Freedon, a fast, vicious young heavy, not being able to get his title bout. The champion was justly leery of young Jake and the only thing for Jake’s managers to do was to line up every pug in the country and let Jake knock them over. Sooner or later the pressure would grow heavy enough for the title match to be a necessity.

The Garden crowd was slim. There was no question about Jake Freedon winning. The kid was all through in the fight game although nobody had told him that yet. The odds hovered around twelve to one.

This old man had come to Nat February, having been guided to him after three or four days of asking questions. Nat was hard at work on a cheese blintz and resented the intrusion. He had his usual little group with him and Nat was about to give the brush to the old gentleman when same old gentleman said with tremulous dignity that he wished to speak alone to Nat February. So saying, he pulled a wad of currency out of his wallet that looked entirely capable of choking the fabulous cow.

Nat gave the sign and his cohorts cleared out.

“I,” said the old man, “wish to bet on Mr. Goth in the contest tomorrow night.”

“Mr. Who?”

“Goth. He is scheduled to box a gentleman named Freedon.”

“Oh! The kid! Let me get this. You want to bet on the kid. A poor old guy like you with holes in his socks wants to bet the wrong way. You’re going to make me feel like the guy with his mitt in the poor box, uncle.”

“Your emotional reaction is of little interest to me, Mr. February. I understood that if I stated my wager clearly, you would take my money and give me a slip of paper testifying as to my wager. I understand that in your — ah — profession, you are considered to be one of the most thoroughly ethical and — ah — well financed.”

“What have you got there, uncle?” February asked.

“Thirty-two hundred and fourteen dollars. I had hoped to bet thirty-two hundred and twenty-five, but my expenses were higher than I had planned and it has taken longer to locate you.”

“The whole wad on the kid, eh?” February was not at all troubled by removing the funds from the old gentleman. It appeared to him that if he did not do so, someone else would.

“Yes, young man. All of this I would like to bet on the circumstance of Mr. Goth striking Mr. Freedon unconscious during the first three minutes of their engagement.”

“Holy mice, uncle! The kid to knock Jake out in the first round?”

“Exactly. They told me you would quote the odds on that particular thing happening.”

“I don’t want to take your money.”

“I insist, Mr. February.”

“Okay. Thirty to one.”

“You will please write out the paper for me, Mr. February, and tell me where I can find you directly after the fight. I shall expect you to have ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty dollars with you. I am not — ah — superstitious about thousand-dollar bills.”

“You’ll bring a satchel, eh? Maybe a carpet bag?”

“If you consider it necessary.”

For a fraction of a second Nat February’s calm was shaken. But he quickly reviewed the past record of both the kid and Jake Freedon. It seemed highly probable that if the two of them were locked in a phone booth, it would take the kid more than three minutes to lay a glove on Freedon, much less chill him.

“What’s your name, uncle?”

“Garfield Tomlinson.

Nat wrote out the slip, counted the money, pocketed it, pushed the slip across (he table. Tomlinson picked it up, examined it, sighed, put it in his wallet, now almost completely empty.

“And where will I find you?”

“Right here, uncle. In this same booth. They save it for me. I don’t wish you any had luck, but I hope you won’t be looking for me.”

Nat February had bad dreams that night. In the morning, trusting more to dreams than to judgment, he shopped around town until he found odds of fifty to one. He placed a thousand of Tomlinson’s money there, accepting the jeers of the wise ones. In doing so he cut his maximum profit to twenty-two hundred and fourteen dollars, but his maximum loss went down to forty-six thousand four hundred and twenty He still felt uneasy. He looked up Lew Karon in the afternoon, talked Lew into offering sixty to one and placed a bet of eight hundred twenty-five. Now, if the old man’s bet was bad, he still had a profit of thirteen hundred and eighty-nine. But if the old man had a reliable crystal ball — and he had acted like a man who at least had access to one — Nat would profit to the extent of three thousand and eighty dollars. If the old boy got wise and misted on getting his original bet back, which he had every right to do, as well as the ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty, then Nat would be out one hundred and thirty-four bucks. He felt comfortably covered.

He sat in his usual fifth-row ringside and dozed through the preliminary bouts, making a little here, losing a little there — but always more making than losing.

When the main came on and the kid fumbled his way over the ropes, his gray battered face wearing its usual dopy look, Nat cursed himself for cutting his profit with the overlay. Jake Freedon bounced in, smiling, confident, young, alert.

After the usual formalities the house lights dimmed and they came out for the first round. The kid shuffled out, slower and dopier than ever. They touched gloves. Freedon flicked the kid with a searching, stinging left jab and danced back. The kid stood, flat-footed. The referee motioned to him to fight.

Nat’s eyes bulged and his hands clamped on the arm of the chair. He shut his eyes and shook his head.

When he opened his eyes again he saw what he thought he had seen in the first place. Freedon, spread-eagled on his face, his mouth in a puddle of blood, the referee jumping out of his stunned shock to pick up the timekeeper’s count. The referee counted to eight, then spread his arms wide and Freedon’s seconds jumped in to cart him back to the stool.

Nat shook the man beside him. “What’d you see happen?”

“Gosh!” the man said. “Gosh!”

“What happened?”

“Well, the way I see it the kid kinda jumped at Freedon, real fast. Fast as a flyweight. It looked to me like he nailed him with a left first. I can’t be sure. And I don’t know how many times he hit him on the way down. Maybe six or nine times. Every one right on the mush. Hell, his fists were going so fast I couldn’t see them.”

The doctor jumped up into Freedon’s corner. Nat read his lips as he shook his head and said, “Broken jaw.”

Nat joined the shuffling crowd heading toward the exists. He picked up two boys he sometimes used, arranged with Lew Karon for the transfer of cash in some way that would not pain the Bureau of Internal Revenue boys by focusing their attention on it, and went back to the booth.

Garfield Tomlinson was there. There was relief on his face as he saw Nat February approach.

“Think I stood you up, uncle?”

“I rather hoped you’d be here. I brought this — uh — small suitcase.”

Nat whacked the old man on the shoulder. “You’re the one! Yes sir, you’re the one. Come on, uncle. We gotta go get the sugar.”

“I trust this large loss won’t disconcert you, Mr. February.”

“Uh? Oh, no. Just a flea bite, uncle. Tomorrow I’ll have it back.”

As they climbed into the taxi, the four of them, Tomlinson said, “Should it make any difference to you, Mr. February, let me state that you could not have lost money to any more worthy venture.”

“You win it for a church?”

Tomlinson laughed dryly. “Oh dear me, no! Not at all for a church.”

They went to the hotel where February lived. The envelope was taken out of the safe and given to February. At that point the two young men became very wary, very alert.

Nat pulled Tomlinson over into a corner, shielded the transaction with a big padded shoulder. “Uncle, these are tired old thousands because the new ones are poison. I got ’em folded in packages of ten each with the rubber band on ’em. Here’s one, three, seven, eight, nine. Now check those.”

“Ninety thousand,” Tomlinson said. His voice shook a little.

“Plus one, two, three, four, five, six. Now the hundreds. These I get outa my billfold. One, two, three, four. And here’s the change. A twenty. Ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty dollars. Correct?”

“Ah — I’m not acquainted with these things. The wager was at thirty to one. Don’t I get my original wager returned?”

“Thirty to one to make it simple. You wanna be that accurate I should have told you twenty-nine to one, plus getting your bet back.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Well, I — ah — hmm, I guess I didn’t need the satchel after all. Just a joke, was it?”

“I can see you got a great sense of humor, uncle. Now don’t go running away. Don’t you think you otighta tell me how you know that clown was going to clobber Freedon in the first?”

Garfield Tomlinson gave Nat February a look of utter surprise. “But my dear fellow! He couldn’t possibly have failed to do otherwise!”

Tomlinson turned and walked out into the night. Nat handed the slimmer envelope back to the desk clerk. One of the guards licked his lips and stared hungrily after the old gentleman.

“Ah-ah-ah!” February said warningly. “No naughty thoughts, children.”

He sighed. “Kinda cute, wasn’t he?”

And to leave it there would have been fine. But Nat had a reputation as a wit and charming dinner companion.

By noon of the next day he was saying to a table of eight at Lidnik’s, “This little old guy comes to me and what does he want but to bet his wad on a knockout by the kid in the first. Naturally I tried to talk him out of it. Candy from babies, yet. And so—”

Jake was talking in a peculiar way. His teeth were wired together. His two managers, squat men with ugly expressions, stood by his bed.

“I tell yah,” Jake mumbled, “I never see the punch coming. Not at all. I know, I’ve been hit before, but then I seen it when it was too late to duck. This time I never even knew I was hit. I’m moving in and boom — I’m walking up the aisle with rubber knees.”

“An investment we had in you,” one of them said with disgust.

“Come on, Joe,” the other said.

They walked out and left Jake Freedon staring hopelessly at the ceiling.

In a grimy suite in a Forty-first Street hotel of a little less than third class, a tall young man glowered at Lew Karon. Taken as a whole, Sam Banth’s face was well proportioned, almost handsome. But each individual feature was oversized, heavy. The big lips rested together with a hint of ruthlessness and brutality. Pale eyes protruded slightly, and they looked coldly incapable of any change of expression. His neck and sloped shoulders were ox-heavy. In contrast to the extreme cut of sharp-nosed little Lew Karon’s clothes, Banth was dressed in quite good taste.

“Just tell me this, Lew,” Sam said, “tell me why on a sixty to one shot you didn’t cover it the other way.”

“Take it easy, kid,” Lew said loftily. “Take a look at the record. I hire you to help my collection department. You do good. You get a little stake. So I let you buy in. The piece you got of this business doesn’t give you no right to tell me how to handle the bets, does it?”

“Just tell me why, Lew,” Banth said. “That’s all.”

“Look, kid! Some sucker wants you to lay him fifty to one the Empire State Building falls down tomorrow at noon sharp. I ask you, do you cover a bet like that?”

“But it wasn’t a sucker, Lew. It was Nat February. Couldn’t you smell some kind of a fix?”

“After the investment they got in Freedon? And after the pounding everybody’s been giving the kid? It doesn’t figure, Sam.”

“How do we stand? Can we stall February?”

“I’d rather bust J. Edgar Hoover in the nose. We pay off, in full. That’ll drag the kitty down to about eleven thousand. You own a fifth of that.”

“Twenty-two hundred,” Banth said disgustedly. “I put in ten thousand.”

“These things happen,” Lew said philosophically. “All the time they happen. Look, Sam. For your own good. You got an education. Why don’t you go back to that steady job you had?”

“Maybe I’m restless.”

“I’ll give you your twenty-two hundred, Sam. You look like you don’t like the way I handle things.”

“I don’t.”

“Here. I’ll count them out right here. Three fives and seven ones. Twenty-two hundred. Better luck next time.”

Sam studied little Lew Karon for a moment. He knew what the play was. Lew wanted him to back down, refuse the money, continue the arrangement. He picked the money up, folded it casually, shoved it into his pocket.

“Get yourself a new boy, Lew. I can do better with this than you can. I thought you were shrewd.”

“Walk out! See if I care! You’ll be broke in a week.”

Sam Banth realized that he had been restless lately. Progress with Lew Karon had been too slow. The hard ambition that drove him was satisfied at first. Working with Lew had been more interesting and more profitable than work in the brokerage house. But Lew had his limitations. Sam had no intention of halting his climb at the petty gambling level.

“You’ve taught me a lot, Lew.” He moved toward the sharp-featured man.

“Stick around and you’ll learn more, kid.”

“You’re pretty happy about that slim patrician nose of yours, eh, Lew?”

“Huh? Nose?”

“Here’s for what you did to my first ten thousand bucks, Lew.”

He yanked the man close, striking as he did so. He let go and backed away, smiling without humor. Lew fell to his knees, gasping with the pain. His eyes ran tears and blood came between his fingers as he held his hand flat against the smashed nose.

Sam Banth walked to the door. He ignored the half-screamed threats of Lew Karon. Out in the sunlight he squared his shoulders, smiled warmly at an at tractive girl, hailed a cruising cab and gave the name of the restaurant where he was most likely to find February.

“I know you,” Nat said. “You’re Lew’s boy.”

“Was. I heard talk about an old man who nicked you for that first-round knockout. I was wondering about him. What’s his name?”

“Garfield Tomlinson, he said. He acted like it was the first bet he ever made in his life. He sure had the right dope.”

“By the way, where can I find the kid?” Sam asked.

“Over in Jersey someplace. Find Bull Willman at Conover’s Gym and he can tell you exact. You looking for a job? I got two horse players give one of my partners bad checks. Shake it out of ‘em and you can have ten percent.”

“Haven’t you got your own people?”

“Sure, but Lew’s been bragging so much about how you operate on collections I wanted to see you work.”

“Later, maybe.”

The taxi from the Elizabeth station pulled up in front of a frame house on a quiet street. “The kid did real good in there last night,” the driver said.

“He’s still got it,” Sam said absently. He paid off the cab and walked up to the front porch. The house was jammed full of people, all in various stages of celebration. There was so much noise that Sam couldn’t tell whether the bell worked or not. He opened the door and went in. A fat little man lurched against him in the hall, grabbed his shoulder and said, “Greatest li’l ol’ battler ever was. Tipped me to bet on a knockout in the first. Spread twenny bucks around and got better’n five hunnert back.”

“Sure, sure,” said Sam, untangling Himself.

Most of the noise seemed to be coming from the kitchen. A tall slatternly girl blundered through the open door, grabbed Sam and kissed him wetly. “Wasn’ it wonnerful!” she sighed.

The kid was at the kitchen table, his gray knobbly face wearing a mild permanent grin. The table top was covered with bottles. His eyes were faraway.

“Everybody-have-’nother-drink, ” the kid said. His voice was high-pitched and he spoke so quickly that it was hard to follow him. “Gonna-be-champ-f’r-sure.”

Sam moved through the press of bodies and made himself a drink. He sipped it and watched the kid narrowly. Somebody blundered against the table and a bottle at the kid’s elbow tipped and fell. Without seeming to look the kid reached out and caught it an inch from the floor. Everybody applauded.

“Lookit that reaction time,” somebody shouted.

Sam pursed his lips. He’d watched the kid work out more than once. The kid was at that stage of punchiness where it was almost painful to watch his slow response to any stimulus. He moved around the table and with what was apparently a careless sweep of his arm sent another bottle plummeting. As before, the kid’s hand flashed out and he plucked the bottle out of the air and replaced it on the table.

Sam left the house, walking slowly, his head bent. He swung onto a bus and sat looking, unseeing, out the smeared window. At three-thirty he turned the corner on Forty-second and went into the Public Library.

At last he found the references he wanted. His hand began to tremble. Dr. Garfield A. Tomlinson — Pathologist. From the magazine index he located the Journal of American Medicine for February, 1946. Relation Between Hormone Theories and Tissue Entropy in Geriatrics. He read the article with great care. Much of it was meaningless to him, but he absorbed a few of the basic ideas.

It was no trick to find out that Dr. Tomlinson lived on R.F.D. 2 at Kingston, New York. His next step was to recontact Bull Willman.

“I was wondering where the kid trained for this last go, Bull.”

Bull frowned and inspected the wet end of his cigar. “He’s an old hand, not one of these kids you got to watch to see they get in shape. The kid always rounded himself out nice, usually right here at Conover’s. But this time he said he was going to the country. He didn’t say where. I tried once to get him through his wife but she said she didn’t know where he went.” Bull grinned suddenly. “Maybe I oughta send the whole stable to wherever he went, heh?”

“You’ve got yourself a property now, haven’t you?”

Bull shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. If I’m smart I’ll sell the contract right now. For me it looks like the peak of the market. Freedon’ll kill him next fight.”

“How does a thousand dollars for one percent sound to you?”

“Like twice the market value. I got thirty percent of him. Who wants to buy?”

“I do.” He took out his money. “Here’s a hundred on account, the balance when the papers are ready for signature.”

Bull shook his head sadly. “Everybody’s crazy these days.” He took the money.