Cliff Chatsworth waited on the corner of Franklin and Hennepin for the street-car to take him across the river to Pig’s Eye.
It
was still dark and there wasn’t any activity on the street, with the exception
of old-blind Arnie setting-up his newsstand.
There was a fellow helping him who
Cliff recognized from Gibbon’s Gym, or The Rose as the fighters called it, in
the basement of the Hamm’s Brewery where he did some coaching.
Johnny
Holiday was his name, and Cliff thought he was a promising boxer, even though at
this moment he was moving about like a drunk. It was an early start to the day,
probably just a late night for the boy, he thought to himself...but
still, booze and boxing don’t mix, may as well be pouring talent in the gutter.
He couldn’t make out their
conversation but they were laughing a good bit. It appeared to him that the two
of them knew each other well, and Johnny was being of service, which he took as
a sign of good character.
Cliff had gotten his paper before
Johnny had pulled up in his convertible. He held it folded tight and read a
column off the front page, and he allowed his mind to wander…
It
had been five days since the last gunfight in the city, and there had been no
other murders to speak of. These violence-free days were the longest stretch
since January, when Karl Thorrson’s war with Colonel Forrester had begun…and which
now appeared to be over, with the Giant Thorrson having gotten the upper-hand.
Cliff had worked for the Colonel
when he was younger, not directly, but he had met and spoken to him a couple of
times…though never about business. At sixteen he had taken a post as a road
agent, their objective was to stop commerce along the Mississippi, Minnesota
and Red Rivers, the full length of the border Minnesota shared with the Lakota
Confederacy.
After that Cliff had spent a dime in
the Stillwater Penitentiary for Bank Robbery, a job he had done on the Colonel’s
behalf. He never got any help from the old man, not even so much as a word of
thanks for his service.
Those were the breaks, Cliff told
himself while he did his time.
He
might have had a great life as a gangster, he certainly enjoyed it while it
lasted; he might also have ended up in an early grave like so many of the fellows
who had lost their lives in the year of terror St. Anthony had just gone
through.
Cliff tried to shake these thoughts
from his head.
There
was no escaping the past, and he had learned to box in prison…coaching came
natural; that’s what they told him down at the gym. He was on the straight path
now, following the sweet-science, and through it he had found his purpose, so
he had no regrets.
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