= The Big Knockout
  A Picasso Smith story
  by Hugh Lessig


Prologue, April 12, 1948

I am sitting at ringside when Fighter A lands a ponderous right to the chin of Fighter B. That's all they meant to me at first: two nameless pugs on the undercard of a fund-raiser for the Police Athletic League.

Fighter B loses his knees. He wobbles toward my side of the ring and I am close enough to smell his sweat. That's how you covered fights in those days. You lugged an Underwood to the ring apron and did a running account that ran in the newspaper the next day.

Fighter B leans against the ropes. His mouthpiece drops onto my copy paper. He falls slowly through the ring until his chin comes to rest against my typewriter. It is a graceful fall, the kind you could set to violins. He closes his eyes like a rambunctious child pretending to be asleep.

"Hey brother," I say. "You'll need a better act than that."

This fight is fixed; I knew as much coming in. Two days ago, a note showed up on my desk predicting it would end in the fourth round, and damn if this wasn't the fourth. The note said bad people were involved, and damn if the bleachers weren't crawling with Cosa Nostra guys in various stages of distasteful dress. These days, people associate The Family with New York but back then, they operated in 25 or 26 cities. San Jose. Buffalo. I guess they liked the weather in Frisco.

"Hey brother," I try again. "How much are you getting for this act?"

People laugh. Fighter B tries to get up. Then his chin quivers uncontrollably and his head flops forward. Suddenly my typewriter is a mess of blood and spit and sweat and I'm starting to think this is not funny. Fighter B looks at me with clear and terrifying eyes.

"Bennies," he says. "Bennnnnn...."

His eyes roll up white and he is gone.

Everyone is laughing now. People huddle around me -- ring people, mostly. A handler puts a towel under the man's chin. He and I stand in the eye of the hurricane that whirls around us. We share this quiet space for a moment.

"What's his name?" I ask.

The handler looks at me with eyes that have seen two wars. "What do you mean, what's his name? You're a reporter. Don't you know his name?"

"I don't normally cover sports," I say truthfully. "I told our sports guy he didn't have to come."

The handler shakes his head and says: "His name is George MacAndrew. He lost the tips of two fingers at Okinawa in 1945. No offense, but he deserves a real sportswriter."

People start elbowing me aside. Cops. Security types. Mob vultures. A large hand comes to rest on my shoulder and tries to push me forward. Someone drags MacAndrew to the center of the ring and I crane my neck to see what's happening. Things are breaking down.

People are smelling trouble.

The large hand pushes harder. I can feel the callouses through my shirt. I turn around and see two familiar people: Police Chief Ronald "Rottweiler" Barnes and his sidekick Lawrence LeStone, commissioner of the Police Athletic League.

The callouses belong to Barnes. He is 300 pounds of rock-solid gristle and hatred. LeStone is probably 300 pounds, too, but he looks like a pillow stuffed into a sausage casing. Years later, I would interview Truman Capote after he wrote "In Cold Blood." Now that I think of it, LeStone reminds me of him, but without Capote's sparkle. Barnes just reminded me of Barnes. There was only one of him.

Now Barnes is in my face, showing teeth. "What's going on? What's wrong with that man? Smith, why the hell are you covering a boxing match?"

LeStone rises on tiptoes and sweats and makes whimpering noises.

MacAndrew's head lolls back and forth like a rag doll. The handler bursts into tears when he sees this. He yells for a doctor the way a Marine might have yelled for a corpsman on Okinawa when he knew it was too late.


Chapter 1

I humped the George MacAndrew story for three days. It was fresh stuff and it had legs.

Day one: Fifteen column inches of nuts and bolts, straight-lined. Some color from bystanders. The other fighter, Paul Massey, is held in "protective custody" because of threats made against him. Commissioner LeStone keels over after the fight. The diagnosis: a mild heart attack. Chief Barnes swears unquotable quotes.

Day two: Twenty inches to lead A-1. Leads with medical examiner saying it "appeared" MacAndrew died of "unexplained heart failure." Detail of funeral arrangements. Color quotes from fellow boxers who knew MacAndrew. Failed attempts to reach known mob bosses to comment on their attendance. Massey still unavailable. Chief Barnes unavailable. Very strange.

Day three: Fifteen inches, downpage on A-1. Says the case is closed. Massey still in protective custody, but not considered a suspect. LeStone's condition upgraded to fair. Eating fudge ripple in his hospital bed. A few grab quotes from the funeral. Chief Barnes comes out of hiding and urges everyone to cool off. Publicly berates Frisco Foil for "stirring things up."

I kept the name "Bennies" out of the paper. I don't know why. Maybe it would've raised too many eyebrows. Bennies was a term for amphetamines back then -- I guess it still is -- because Benzedrine was the brand name. Chief Barnes didn't seem to think this was foul play. Chief Barnes didn't seem to care one way or the other. Chief Barnes' attitude made me hinky. Maybe MacAndrew took uppers or maybe someone slipped them in his water. That wasn't what bothered me. It was the image of his spastic head bouncing up and down on my typewriter and me being the last face he saw.

On the fourth day, the facts ran dry and the story needed its second wind. I drove out to MacAndrew's apartment to knock on doors.

MacAndrew lived in a turn-of-the-century building that once had class. It stood five stories tall, its windows filled with broken screens. MacAndrew's place was in the basement. I knocked once, waited, then opened the door. I came into a dimly-lit living room and a kitchen. A man in a dirty white T-shirt stood over a sink with a bottle of cleanser.

"You want something?" he asked.

"Is this where George MacAndrew lived?"

"Who wants to know?"

I told him who I was.

"The Frisco Foil? You got good crossword puzzles. I'm the super. I gotta come in and clean out this mess."

The super had an accent, maybe Italian or Greek. He was perhaps the hairiest man I had ever seen. He turned and showed me a pink scar under his chin. It cleaved the black bristle of his beard.

"You see this? George MacAndrew did that to me."

"Really?"

"Really. I come to collect the rent two weeks ago? He throws a plate. Pretty soon I'm digging glass out of my neck. He almost cut my throat. He never has money."

I got out my notebook and scribbled something.

"Hey," the super said. "Don't go putting anything in the paper."

"Did you know him very well?"

The super hesitated. "I used to be a fighter. We worked out at the same gym. But don't go putting me in the paper. I don't bother with the tenants' private lives."

I continued to scribble. I wanted to describe MacAndrew's apartment. He had a framed front page of the second Louis/Schmelling fight, a ratty couch that probably doubled as a bed, an oversize Grundig radio....

I was still writing when the super's fist connected with my jaw. It sent me tumbling over the coffee table and onto the floor. White spots of pain clouded my vision. It was a good, solid punch and the super stayed to look over his work.

"If my name goes in the paper, you're a dead man."

His voice shook -- more out out of fear than anger. I picked myself up and left without saying another word. On the first floor, I stopped to reread the list of tenant names. The fifth floor listed one tenant.

Benny Ambrozzi, Superintendent.


Chapter Two

The next day, contrary to Benny's wishes, I put something in the paper.

The story said George MacAndrew's last word in the ring was "Bennies." Just for giggles, I raised the drug angle and played it out, talking to some sports types about boxers who use drugs. I found an old boxer who copped a drug plea, and he went on the record about how many boxers use uppers. Chief Barnes gnashed his teeth and said he had no comment. That helped kill the pain in my jaw.

We dragged the story six columns across the top of A-1. Benny Ambrozzi's name didn't make the paper. I figured maybe he would see the story on his way to the crossword puzzle and come talk to me.

The afternoon edition rolled off the press at 10:30 a.m. The copy boy threw one on my desk. I rolled up my cuffs so they wouldn't turn black from the fresh ink and began to turn the pages. Then my intercom buzzed and the voice from hell emoted.

"Smith. Jesus H. Christ."

I closed my eyes and and swallowed. "Yes, Mr. Forbes."

"Stop congratulating yourself and get in here."

Foil editor Walter "Spit" Forbes. Large head, hawk nose. Looks like a big man when sitting behind his desk. In fact, he is small and quick and he walks like someone leaning against the wind. I entered his office and closed the door. He held the newspaper in front of his face. His tiny feet were propped up on the desk. His voice came from behind the newspaper like Frank Morgan in the Wizard of Oz.

"Smith, your jaw looks like hell. Who socked you?"

I told him about my encounter with Benny Ambrozzi. There was a grunt and the whack-twing of tobacco juice hitting a spittoon.

"You write a story about a dead boxer whose last word was Bennies. You get slugged by a man named Benny, who was the boxer's landlord." The paper rustled angrily. "Why am I not reading the name Benny Ambrozzi in this afternoon's Frisco Foil? I knew there was something wrong with this story."

"I figured Ambrozzi might read the story and talk to me. Then I'll shake him down."

"You figured? It's insider baseball, Smith. You force people to read between the lines. Maybe they'll get a prize. Do we give out prizes, Smith? Does this look like a Cracker Jack factory to you?"

"You're mixing metaphors, boss," I said. "Baseball and Cracker Jack."

"Baseball and Cracker Jack are pretty goddamn close, which is more than I can say for you. This story was a clean miss, Smith."

He ranted for a while. I watched with some interest as drops of tobacco juice arched over the newspaper and landed on his desk. It made me think of George MacAndrew's blood on my typewriter. I counted to thirty and walked out. By then, Forbes was talking to the wall about Ted Williams.

At 3 p.m., Benny Ambrozzi called and said he wanted to talk in person. I asked if he planned to hit me again. He made a self-effacing noise and said, "That was just a love tap, Mr. Smith. Why don't you come over here? George MacAndrew's not the story in all this. I'm fed up. Any guy can make a mistake."

I jumped in my coupe and drove to the apartment building. The fifth floor consisted of a single hallway with Benny Ambrozzi's door at the end. The door had a pane of milky white glass. Someone had punched a hole in it near the knob. When I pushed on the door, it gave like a broken bone. I walked in and my shoes crunched over glass pebbles.

"Benny?"

I found him in the kitchen.

His head was on the kitchen table and his arms dangled at his sides. Small, round dimples covered the back of his head, the kind that come from a ballpeen hammer. His head was turned away from me. Blood leaked from his mouth. He hadn't been dead long.

In the living room, a cat rested comfortably on the couch. Next to the couch was a bowl of cat food, and in the cat food was Benny Ambrozzi's severed tongue.

The cat got up and rubbed against my ankles. Then it went into the kitchen and stepped gingerly around the broken glass like a woman on high heels.

I could never figure cats.

Nothing in the apartment suggested what Benny Ambrozzi wanted to tell me. He read fight magazines. He never vacuumed. His refrigerator contained several bottles of beer, three kinds of mustard, a shoe box full of luncheon meat and what was once a Genoa salami.


Chapter Three

I called the cops from a pay phone and left an anonymous tip. Thirty minutes later, I showed up at the building and flashed my press badge. I hit yellow tape at Ambrozzi's door. Lt. Brosious looked up and waved me in. He had a dark weathered face with frown lines and his eyes were always moving, not in a nervous kind of way, but in a way that betrayed intelligence. For a cop, Brosious was as good as I've found.

"Smith! Before you ask, yes, we canvassed the building and yes, we searched the apartment. We're not stupid, despite what the Frisco Foil says."

"And?" I took out my notebook.

"This poor bastard knew something that killed him. The murderer cut out his tongue while he was still alive, and that wasn't good enough. You should see the back of his head."

I scribbled away and tried to think of what I would normally ask. "Did you find the tongue?"

"What kind of question is that? No, it's gone."

We went over nuts and bolts. The coroner pegged the time of death about one hour before the anonymous call came in. Benny Ambrozzi was not married and he had no immediate family. His tenants didn't particularly like him or hate him. Everyone was current with their rent. Everyone had a relatively clean record. He hadn't evicted anyone recently.

"The fighter angle interests me," Brosious said. "You been doing stories on that other guy who was killed. Sensational stuff."

I forced a sarcastic smile and kept my eyes on my notebook.

"That fighter lived in this building," Brosious said evenly. "George MacAndrew was his name, wasn't it?"

I pretended to write something down. Brosious reached out and put a hand on my notebook. He spoke quietly.

"Smith, you were here yesterday morning. Somebody ID'd you from your column mug. You went to the basement, where MacAndrew lived. You stayed there for 10 minutes and walked out. You looked to be in pain. Now your jaw looks like someone socked you. Care to comment?"

I uncocked my pen and folded my arms. Brosious and I held each other's gaze. He gave me an audible cop sigh and tried again.

"According to your story, the boxer's last word was 'Bennies.' The murder victim is named Benny, and now they're both dead, and you've been snooping around this building."

The cat strolled in from the living room. It looked very full.


Chapter Four

I left Brosious with a 'no comment' and returned to the newsroom. I pounded out 12 column inches on the murder of Benny Ambrozzi. I mentioned the missing tongue but left out the cat.

I reminded readers of George MacAndrew's last word and noted he had lived in the same building as "Benny." I said police refused to link the deaths of George MacAndrew and Benny Ambrozzi. I reminded readers the MacAndrew death had not been thoroughly investigated. I went home and barely slept. The next day, I walked into the newsroom two hours late, expected to see several messages stuck on my spike.

Instead, I found Lawrence LeStone sitting in front of my desk.

He wore a dark suit and sunglasses and a Police Athletic League pin. His complexion varied between sickly pink and zombie white. His foot tapped nervously, creaking the floor boards. A large shopping bag sat by his chair. He started to get up when he saw me, then seemed to think better of it. He tried to smile, but that didn't work, either.

"Mr. Smith," he wheezed. "I'm so glad I caught you."

"You can't catch me, Mr. LeStone, but I'm here all the same. What can I do for you?"

LeStone folded his pudgy hands in front of him -- he didn't have a lap, per se -- and tried to hold my gaze with his sunglasses. I could see tiny reflections of myself in them. I waved at myself. LeStone acted like a fly had buzzed him.

"We both want the same thing, Mr. Smith. We both want closure. You want to write a big story about how it all turns out, and I want to put this behind me. The commissioner of the Police Athletic League doesn't like it when his fights are fixed. It's bad for the image. Bad for my stress. Bad for everything."

LeStone looked genuinely ill. If they had measured cholesterol levels back then, I would've loved to see the numbers. Maybe LeStone would flip for me.

"All right, Mr. LeStone. You want to help me? Here's what I want. I want a full autopsy on George MacAndrew to see if he had any drugs in his system. I want a list of every member of La Cosa Nostra who was in attendance that night and which ones are big into gambling. I want to know about that fight being fixed, and when the police knew about it."

His eyes widened behind his sunglasses. "We didn't know a thing. It was a shock to all of us."

"Hell, LeStone. I knew it. And by the time I know stuff, it's been around the block a few times. Either you or Chief Barnes had to know this fight was rotten. It even makes sense in an ugly way. Gamblers would love to make your Police Athletic League look bad."

LeStone pursed his lips. "Tell me, Mr. Smith. How did you know the fight was fixed?"

I saw no reason to hold my cards. I handed him the anonymous note I received two days before the fight. LeStone looked at and seemed to study the handwriting. His face turned hard. The shopping bag rustled, and he looked down. "Now, kitty," he said.

Kitty?

The cat from Benny Ambrozzi's apartment jumped out of the bag and onto LeStone's leg.

LeStone petted it.

The cat squinted in satisfaction.

Over the years, I'd developed many tricks to hide my shock. Biting down on my back teeth, coughing loudly, that sort of thing. When I saw the cat, I dropped my pencil and leaned down to get it. Pitching forward, I rammed my head into the corner of the desk. It made a nice, hollow sound.

"Mr. Smith. You shouldn't drink before breakfast. Isn't that right, Pookie?"

I straightened up and wiped a drop of blood from my forehead. Damn, that really hurt. The cat looked at me with the droll look that a cat sometimes gets. LeStone lifted it gently and put it back in the shopping bag, where it nestled among some clothes. LeStone pushed himself up with great ceremony, and his pudgy fist closed around the anonymous note.

"LeStone, that's my piece of paper."

"Oh, this?" He looked at the note. "I think I'll keep this for evidence, Mr. Smith. Yes, it's evidence. After all, we both want closure on this. This could help us get to the truth. That's what we want, yes?"

He tried to suppress his glee, but a smile crept onto his face. LESTONE KNOWS WHO WROTE THE NOTE.

He started to walk away. Actually, it was more like strutting. LeStone was in fine fettle, feeling good now.

Someone's handwriting. HE'S SEEN IT SOMEWHERE.

The bag rustled slightly. The cat repositioning itself.

MY TIPSTER IS DEAD.

I waited until LeStone left the newsroom and counted to ten. I tailed him onto the sidewalk. He got into the back seat of a Hudson and it pulled away from the curb. My coupe was two blocks back, but I found the Hudson stopped at a red light. I tailed him for the next three hours. Back to the Police Athletic League headquarters, then to the Dogtown Cafe, then to an antiques place, then to Spivoni's Bakery for some cannoli, then back to the PAL building. I waited and smoked and read the racing forms.

At 5 p.m., LeStone exited the PAL headquarters in the company of a very large human. LeStone talked to him, lectured him, gave him instructions. The big man nodded his head and got into the Hudson. LeStone waved goodbye and went back inside.

The Hudson took off toward Chinatown. I didn't know where the driver lived, but I bet it wasn't Chinatown. He looked like a Visigoth.


Chapter 5

The Hudson and Igor stopped at rowhouse on the outskirts of Chinatown. I pulled over, keeping two blocks behind. Igor left the car and walked to the middle of the rowhouse carrying what looked like a doctor's bag. He knocked once, then jerked open the door and stepped inside. Five seconds later, he came running out and burned rubber going away from the curb.

I ran to the door and touched the knob.

A slow-motion whoooooshhh.

The rush of hot wind pushed me down the steps and onto the sidewalk. I fell hard against the concrete. The wind held me down and my ears stopped working. All I heard was the dull seashell roar.

Seconds passed. Maybe minutes. I got up on all fours.

Dust stung my eyes. Plasterboard lay everywhere. I looked behind me and felt the pain of a dozen tiny glass cuts to the back of my neck, the dead weight of a radio landing on my ankle.

People came out on their front porches. Mothers held their kids. Dads just home from work put hands on hips and scowled. Nothing like a bomb to ruin the neighborhood.

I limped back to my car and let everyone get a good look at me. It wouldn't hurt for the cops to be on my tail just now.


Chapter 6

I drove to PAL headquarters, hoping Igor would have to make a report. My left shoe felt like I stepped in a puddle, and it hurt every time I used the clutch. I opened the window and let the cold air slap my face to keep from passing out. When I arrived, the Hudson was parked out front.

I limped into the building and took the elevator to LeStone's office on the third floor. Most of the workers had left the building, but a red-haired receptionist was still at her desk. She saw me exit the elevator and said something -- I didn't know what, my hearing was still screwed up -- but I pushed past her and made for LeStone's office.

I pushed open the door and came upon LeStone and Igor. LeStone had opened a wall safe and was rummaging through it. Igor stood off to the side, one hand in his pocket. Something rubbed against my leg -- my friend the cat.

I reached down to pick it up. LeStone turned toward me with a fistful of papers in his hand.

"Tell me what's going on," I said, "or I'll break this cat's neck. Isn't that right, Pookie?"

I placed my had on top of the cat's head and started to twist. It squirmed frantically. Claws raked the back of my hand, but that didn't mean much now.

"Put the cat down," LeStone said quietly. "Walk out of here, and we'll forget this happened." He held what looked like bank documents in his right hand -- a general ledger, a checkbook and a small savings account book.

"With the cops on their way? I don't think so."

"The police are not coming," he said calmly.

I snuck a glance behind me. The receptionist stood in the door, looking more curious than scared. LeStone seemed pretty sure about the cops. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that no one pulled me over as I raced toward here. Maybe I was alone.

When I turned back around, Igor had moved two steps closer. His hand was at his hip. The cat had started to gnaw on my thumb, and it occurred to me this was no way to die.

"Aw hell," I said.

I flung the cat at Igor. It screamed and clung to his face like flypaper. LeStone looked away just long enough for me to reach out, grab the bank documents and run. Adrenaline pushed me past the receptionist, but she caught up with me and whispered something in my bad ears.

I heard "elevator" and "slow" and "stairs" and "to the right." It was enough.


Chapter 7

I reached The Foil in less than ten minutes. I ran into the newsroom and made it into Forbe's office. He was sitting at his desk.

"Yes, Mr. Smith?"

"Boss! Lawrence LeStone is blowing up stuff! He's probably on my tail as we speak! I think they killed MacAndrew and Ambrozzi and now my poor tipster! I think my ankle's broken! And there was this redhead!"

Forbes smiled around a wad of tobacco. "That's the Picasso Smith I know. Sit down, son. I've got some news, too."

As I eased myself into a chair, Forbes hunkered forward. "You're holding bank documents, Smith. LeStone was trying to destroy them, presumably because they would mean his neck. I took a call from a woman in LeStone's office not two minutes ago. Said you might be on your way. Mentioned something about a cat."

I snapped my fingers. "The redhead!"

"Spread these papers out, Smith. We don't have much time."

Forbes had been a good reporter in his day. Between the two of us, it didn't take long to figure what all the fuss was about.

The day after the MacAndrew-Massey fight, PAL had recorded a cash deposit of $87,000. The money was funneled to something called The Strategic Planning Fund. The Strategic Planning Fund had $145,632, all from cash deposits. It also had several large withdrawals. Five grand. Eleven grand. All on a semi-regular basis.

We had several large bills. Some from a city contracting firm working on LeStone's home: greenhouse, bedroom, swimming pool. All top-shelf. Some from Armandina's Escort Service. $8,000 in three months. What they must have done for that.

I talked myself through it.

"LeStone has a slush fund within PAL. He fixes fights and bets the sure winner -- no, what am I saying? That would never work over and over. He fixes fights and lets certain people in on it, then collects a cut."

"More likely," Forbes said. "Go on, son."

"MacAndrew's a straight boxer and doesn't want to take a fall. So they drug him before the fight. Maybe they drug his water or his food. Ambrozzi had a key to the apartment. Could have fed him uppers for a week. He'd be so juiced he couldn't think straight, and he wouldn't know what to do. Benny feeds him Bennies. That's what we couldn't see."

"Except Ambrozzi slipped him too much, and it killed him," Forbes said. "When you confronted Ambrozzi, he was scared. Then he read your story and knew you were close to the truth, so he decided to talk. And LeStone...."

"The heart attack was genuine," I finished. "LeStone didn't want MacAndrew dead, either. But it happened. So LeStone had Ambrozzi killed."

Forbes looked up at me. "Say, did they ever find the tongue?"

I was about to answer when a red-faced copy boy burst into the office. He had been taking notes from the police scanner about the bombing of a rowhome near Chinatown.

"The owner of the house," he said, "is that Paul Massey guy."


Epilogue

We ran everything the next morning: the bank statements,the payoff, the bombing. LeStone was gone, a fugitive from justice. The body of Paul Massey was not found in the wreckage. Chief Barnes communicated through terse press releases.

Lt. Brosious called. The cops were exhuming the body of George MacAndrew for further tests. I told Brosious to stop by for coffee when he had results. Brosious grunted once and hung up. This whole thing had happened above him.

Later that day, Paul Massey walked into my office. Fighter A. The tipster. The giver of anonymous gold. He'd run out the back door as the bomb went off. He wasn't in on the fix, but he knew about it. But he wanted to be a cop one day, so he kept his mouth shut and funneled the dirt my way. He said he liked my Sunday column. I said it wasn't as good as our crossword puzzle.

I didn't get home until after midnight. As I opened the door to my darkened apartment, I saw movement in the hall. It was the cat who got Benny Ambrozzi's tongue.

I stiffened for a moment, then realized I was too tired to be scared. I searched my place but found nothing except an open bedroom window. I closed the window and sat down next to the cat.

"As a name, Pookie has got to go," I said, stroking his furry back.

The cat curled up in my lap. I fed him some Spam and he seemed to like it. That night, he climbed into bed with me. I wondered why LeStone had left it. Maybe he knew I wasn't really going to hurt it.

Maybe one day, LeStone was coming back. 


HUGH LESSIG, 41, is a newspaper reporter for the Daily Press in Newport News, Va. He lives in the state capital of Richmond, with his wife, Ann Marie. He writes about state government, politics and whichever elected official happens to commit news on a given day. Given his life's calling, he is a particular fan of reporter-detectives such as Frederick Nebel's "Kennedy of the Free Press."  More stories are available on his website, the River City Blade, at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/8002/.

Copyright (c) 2001 Hugh Lessig