Who Is Brian Quinn?

Hard Right, Fast to the Jaw - Insurance sales - 3 legged dog

"To be honest I've never really liked the kid. Always knew he had something funny going on. But I never really gave him much thought." Tino lit a cigarette, blew out the match and snapped it in half. "Lotta dough riding on that little rumble."

"Yeah," quipped Heaney. "He threw that fight, boss. Sure enough. Didn't give an inch no way." Buster Heaney blew smoke out his nostrils and slapped the dough-boy table. Hours earlier, Doogan McGrath had lain on that table, Jackie Pearl his trainer patting him down, oiling the gears for the coming fight. A title match with an upper hand stakes play in the works. Nothing riding but a half-mill in the pocket. And Doogan had thrown it.

Saucy and Dill stood near the door, hands in pockets, poker faces flush and unmoving. Pearl sat in a rickety wooden chair looking forlorn and weak. His boy had bolted. No one knew where. He'd just vanished at the end of the fight. No smoke, no mirrors. Just gone.

"Well, we know where to look," remarked Tino. "No question there." He made a slight gesture and the two at the door left without a word. "What gets me," said Tino. "Is how Doogan could leave his boy, his right-hand man in the cold." He eyed Pearl. "Boggles the mind. How much'd you scrape in on this little stunt, Jackie? Three, four hundred G's?"

Jackie Pearl raised his head. "Not a cent, Tino. Not a single cent. You can check the bookies at the block. Nothing in my hand but a pair of empty gloves. Doogan split and left me to wind up." He let his head slump back down.

Tino moved in close, his face inches from Pearl's cowering mug. "That's right, Pearly. That's right. Left you to wind up." He grinned. "Never a truer word said." Tino stepped back and kicked the chair out from under Pearl who went sprawling to the floor. Then he kicked him in the ribs and once in the stomach.

Pearl gasped and rolled to the wall clutching his mid-section.

"We'll come lookin' if we get the urge," said Tino with a grim smile. He and Buster left the room.

Pearl lay on the floor wheezing, trying to catch his breath, remembering the fight. The confusion of that evening in the bleachers.

The match had pitted his boy Doogan McGrath, uncontested middle-weight champ against Mince Shelby, a younger contender with a quick right and a mouth to back it up. He talked tough, tougher than most jocks in the stall, laying it on thick in the papers and then getting soused before the semis, just barely making it into the title match. But he made it, and odds were in his favor. At least that's the way they had played it. Mince had run up a heavy debt running horses and hadn't settled in considerable time. This only made the game that much smoother.

Tino and his thugs had set it up so Mince would take the fall, getting an armload of greens to pay off on his racing debts and the boys at the top would get the fallout. Doogan would fight like a shoe-in, setting up a nice domino effect, a win-win situation for everybody, including the boys in the shadows making safe bets.

But by round ten it didn't look so cut and dried. Doogan had tired and Mince was cutting in like he was out of his mind, dodging blanks and dancing like a drunk in a thunderstorm.

Doogan obviously hadn't planned on winning. Pearl groaned and lifted himself up on his elbow. The room swung and the single bulb dangling in the center of the ceiling seemed to spin. Damn that Doogan.

Betty had listened to the fight on the radio, especially the last few rounds of it, where her husband had been battered to the floor and then disappeared. She'd turned the radio up, holding her breath, waiting for some kind of answer. But there was nothing. Just the usual post-fight wrap up, explaining away his disappearance by simply ignoring the fact, leaving it unanswered. After all, the important thing was Mince Shelby had won.