THE IRON MAN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19237, 26 November 1930, Page 15

THE IRON MAN.

By

W . R. Burnett.

'( Copyright.)

CHAPTER XLII (Continued.) “Much obliged,” he said. “But I ain t eating at night now.” He glanced apprehensively at t.ie clock. “Coke,” said Rose, “are you sure enough in good shape? Paul says he don’t know.” “He don’t know nothing,” said Coke. “He’s a hell of a manager. I got to do all the work. Sure I’m in good shape. I’ll lick that Irishman till he begs for mercy.” “Good,” said Rose, kissing him. “Well,” said Coke, “I guess I better be hauling myself back. I wish to God I could stay in here all night with you, honey.” “I do too,” said Rose. “But that’s against the rules.” “Yeah,” said Coke, smiling. “Well, see you after the fight.” “All right, honey,” said Rose, holding the door open for him. She seemed in a sort of hurry to Coke, but he didn’t say anything.. He kissed her again and went out. When he left the elevator he saw Riley and a couple of his friends standing in the lobby. Riley turned and said: “Well, if it ain’t the champion himself. What you doing out this time of night? I thought they had you buried down in Ash Harbour.” Coke shook hands with Riley and the other men, both big gamblers. Riley asked him if he wouldn’t sit and talk to them for a little while as they were waiting for some women and had some time to kill. “I got to be getting back to camp,” said Coke. “I just run in to see my wife. She ain’t feeling well.” Riley winked at the men behind Coke’s back “That’s too bad,” said Riley. “Sit down, champ. Let’s have a session. We ain’t had a good jaw together since you left Chicago.” “No,” said Coke,” that’s a fact!” They all sat down. Coke felt guilty and from time to time looked at his watch: but one of the gamblers, Joe Stein, kept telling one story after another and they were all funny. Coke laughed long and loud, for the first time in weeks. He began to feel very friendly toward Mr Stein, a man who could tell such funny stories with such a solemn face. The other gambler, a Texan named Ray, had nothing to say and sat staring at his shoes, smiling slightly at Stein’s stories. Forty-five minutes passed before Coke could prod himself into going. Finally he got to his feet. “Going?” Riley inquired. “Yeah,” said Coke. “The boys out at the camp'll be turning handsprings.” “Say,” said Stein, “if you wait till the women show we’ll drive ) r ou out. We can go for the ride.” “What’s keeping ’em?” Coke wanted to know. “It’s like this,” said Stein. “They’re show girls and one’s got a husband and the other two ha\ r e got redhot sweeties they got to ditch. So we just have to be patient.” “Well,” said Coke, “I got Jimmy Pappa’s Ford out here anyway. I’m going. I sure did enjoy the session. I ain’t laughed like that since I can remember. Drop out to the camp and see me, all of you.” He shook hands all round and left them. As he was passing the elevator, the doors opened and Lewis stepped out. Seeing Coke, Lewis made a slight, convulsive movement as if to climb back into the elevator, then, smiling, he held out his hand. “Well, champ,” he said, “this is an unexpected pleasure.” Coke kept his hands in his pockets and stared at Lewis, tie was in a very bad humour. The transition from his mood of a moment ago, a mood induced by the stories of Mr Stein, was so abrupt that he wasn’t sure just why he felt like hitting something hard, like arguing loudly and disagreeing violently. His irritation fastened on Lewis’s clothes. He was wearing a big, floppy panama with a narrow black band; his suit was made of some summer material, gray with a white pin stripe; the coat was double-breasted and the trousers full and long. He was carefully shaved and powdered, and his black sideburns were so symmetrical that they looked as if they had been cut out with scissors and pasted on. “Well,” said Coke, “you sure are dressed to kill. Where you been?” j Lewis smiled and touched Coke on the leg with his cane. “Is that a nice question?" Coke stared at him. “I might know you been,” he said. “Fooling around with some woman. Don’t you never get sick of that?” “Well,” said Lewis, “that’s my weakness.” “Yeah,” said Coke. “Some day somebody’s gonna ketch you at it and then they’ll bury you. Why don’t you leave Mrs Wills alone?” Lewis seemed very much surprised. “Why ... !” he Laid. “Don’t try to lie to me,” said Coke. “I know all about it. Ain’t you ashamed of yourself acting that way? I don’t see how you can sit and talk to Marty the way you do and then act like that.” Lewis smiled and swung his cane. “You seem to know so much about it,” he said. “I won’t say a word.”^ “No use lying to me,” said Coke. “I know. I got the dope straight.” “I’m not saying a word,” said Lewis. CHAPTER XLIII. Coke stood looking at Lewis for a moment, then he said: “Well, I got to be moving back to camp.” “Yeah,” said Lewis. _ “I was wondering what you were doing out this time of night.” “That’s my business,” said Coke, looking for trouble. “Certainly,” said Lewis. “I’m not arguing with you. I just wondered.”. “I came in to see my wife,” said Coke. “I got lonesome.” “I know just how you feel,” said Lewis. “I don’t blame you a bit.” Coke shifted, feeling better now, then he grinned. ‘“Well, Paul,” he said. “I’m on my way. Want to ride downtown in a Ford?” “No,” said Lewis, “I got a taxi ordered.” Coke turned to go, but Lewis put his hand on his shoulder. “By the way, champ,” he said. “You got rid of Regan at just the right time. He got himself in an awful mess the other night, and they tell me he owes everybody in town.” “I know,” said Coke. Coke and Lewis walked out of the hotel together. Lewis's cab was waiting. He offered his hand and Coke shook it. ■ “I’ll be out to-morrow afternoon,” said Lewis. “We’ll talk things over.” “All right,” said Coke. “So long.” He tried to make his voice sound friendly, but he succeed. Lewis irritated him with his immaculate sideburns, his £arefully pressed clothes, hi 9 oily manner. Lewis wasn’t his kind. He climbed into the Ford and stepped on the starter.

“Damn dude that’s all he is,” he said. “Just a damn dressed up dummy always playing around with somebody else’s women. He better never get funny with the wife or I’ll slug him good and proper, and then where”ll he be with his pretty hair!” He spun the Ford in the middle of the street and was cursed by a taxi driver, who scraped fenders with him. “Get out of your cab and say that,” yelled Coke, but the taxi driver didn’t even look back. When Coke got out of the heavily travelled district, he pushed the accelerator to the floor, thinking that it was a good thing the boys at camp couldn’t see him. 116 thought about Tim Morgan and how sore he’d be if he knew that his prize drawing-card was hitting fifty miles an hour at this time of night. Out beyond the city limits, he passed several roadhouses surrounded by parked automobiles; a little further on, the estates of the rich began to appear with their tall mansions set back from the highway. Coke glanced at them in passing, slowing down for a mile or two. “Some day I’m gonna have me a dump like that,” he said. “Then maybe Rose’ll be satisfied.” For no reason that he could discover, a sudden suspicion crossed his mind. He tried to shake it off and laugh, but it was no use; it clung. Why had Rose been so flushed and mussed up? Why had she been so * anxious to get him out of the apartment? Why had Lewis tried to step back into the elevator as if to hide? He remembered all of Regan’s insinuations, and as he drove along, slowly now, he went back oyer all that Regan had ever said to him about Rose. He recalled their quarrel after the Prince Pearl go, when Regan had said something about a part-time boy-friend and he had been on /the point of slugging him. He recalled Regan’s repeated warnings of what would happen to him if he took Rose back. He thought of the many times that Rose had gone out_ with Coon and Lewis; of how one night he had said to Mrs Lewis “them guys are playing tag with my wife” and Mrs Lewis had replied that they had been doing it all evening. lie recalled seeing Lewi3 and Coon arguing in his apartment one afternoon, when the rest had gone, and how, even at that time, he had thought that it was queer for a millionaire like Coon to be arguing over money. Still there was Mrs Wills. When he drove into camp Pappas was sitting on the porch alone, softly playing his mouth organ. Coke parked the Ford and climbed the stairs slowly. “Well,” said Jimmy, “I was just getting ready to send the police out looking for wou.” Coke sat down on the steps. “I went in to see the missus,” he “We figured maybe you woulcf," said Jimmy. Coke looked up at him, but said nothing. “Yeah,” said Jimmy, “we wasn t worried much. We figured yOu was getting pretty lonesome for the missus.” He paused, but as Coke made no comment, he added: “She’s getting better looking every day.” , Coke sat silent for a while, then he got up and went into the house. “Good-night, champ,” said _ Jimmy. “How about to-morrow morning ? ” “Regular time,” said Coke. “0.K.,” said Jimmy, then he started playing his mouth organ again, more softly than before. Coke undressed and got into bed, where he lay turning from side to side. He remembered the night in Chicago a few days before the Prince Pearl go, when he had laid awake half the night, thinking about Rose. He had her now, but here he was lying awake just the same. “Funny,” he said. # He began to feel drowsy, and in the midst of this drowsiness a comforting thought came to him. It was the training. When he was training he always looked on the dark side of things and was inclined to be suspicious and irritable, tb be bothered with attacks of the blues. “That’s it,” he thought, relieved. ‘ It s the training, that’s all.” In a few minutes he was snoring. ss :: Coke, in a sweater, an old.pair of pants, and a cap, strode up and down the room, while Jimmy Pappas, Ruby Hall, Jeff Davis and Lewis argued. One said Coke ought to take it easy the first few rounds and wear the Rattler down; another said he ought to try for a knockout in the first part of the fight, as the Rattler was a limit fighter and tough as they make them; Lewis had qualifications and suggestions no matter who was talking, and Ruby Hall declared that nobody knew anything, implying that he was the one to be consulted. Coke listened with growing irritation. He remembered Regan's curt orders and the silent way that they were received by the other men. Regan was bossy and pig-headed and hard to get along with, a drunkard and a tough guy, but he knew his business, and if anybody tried to tell him what to do he shut them up. Coke looked at Lewis. There he sat in a white flannel, double-breasted suit, his panama at just the proper angle, languidly tapping his foot with his cane, and occasionally making an indecisive gesture with a manicured hand. Regan would have been dominating them, ridiculing them, laughing in their faces; with a dirty straw hat on the back of his head and his shirt open at the neck. Coke stopped and stood listening to the clamour for a moment, then he hit the table with his fist. “Watch your hand,” said Jimmy, starting half out of his chair. (To be continued next Saturday.)