Free Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

I changed my mind,” he said.
    “I’m not selling,” I said. “I’m buying.”
    I tried the door but it was locked.
    “Parkman, open the damned door or I’ll break it. I’ve been beaten, threatened, and lied to, and I’m in a bad mood. Normally I’m a peaceable man like Wild Bill Elliott, but there are moments in a man’s life when—”
    The latch turned in the lock on the other side of the door and I could see the outline of a figure in the frosty glass. The door opened and I stood facing Parkman, wearing a frightened look on his face and the same suit he’d had on in the morning.
    We were in a dark room with no windows, some desks, and a smell worse than the gym. Beyond the room was another room with a light, not much of a light but a light. The room looked like an office with a desk.
    Parkman stood there, waiting for me to speak.
    “Let’s go in the office,” I suggested.
    “Let’s talk here,” he said. “I’ve got work back there, a card to put together at the Olympic for Saturday. You know how hard it is to put a card together? You line up a middleweight and he can’t make the weight, or you give them a few bucks and they don’t show up. They change their names, their minds, their ages. You name it, they change it. I had one—”
    “Your office,” I insisted.
    I turned him toward the office, and he shuffled forward toward the light.
    When Parkman turned on the light of the desk lamp, I knew what was wrong, had been wrong since he had told me to go away. His eyes darted to each side of the room. I couldn’t see what he was looking at but I knew what was there. I decided to back away, but I didn’t get the chance. A bulky figure stepped in front of Parkman.
    “Just stop right there,” he said. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but he held himself like a fighter. Maybe I could outran him. I turned and found myself facing another one like the guy in the room. Only this one was bigger.
    “Back in the office,” the new one said.
    I turned and went back into Parkman’s office, where a third man was sitting in the corner. I wondered if two of them might be the ones Joe Louis had met on the beach the night before.

4
     
    T he trio reminded me vaguely of the Three Stooges, a hardened king-size version dipped in bronze. The one sitting in the chair next to Parkman’s desk wore a black turtleneck sweater and black pants with a gray jacket. Since he was sitting, I figured he was the brains of the three, at least what brains they had. The resemblance to Moe Howard was distant. He had the same angry look without the bangs on his forehead. Behind me stood one guy with a shaven head, though his head badly needed a new shave and soon. The tiny bristles made him look more like an angry Fuller brush than Curly Howard. The goon on the other side of me had curly hair, not as much as Larry Fine, but curly enough to allow the comparison if you ignored the scar that ran across his forehead and nose like a welt of red lightning. Turning the trio into the Stooges was designed to make it easier for me to deal with them. It didn’t work.
    “You wanted to see Parkman,” said the one in the chair, who reminded me less and less of Moe Howard as he talked.
    “Right,” I said. “But I can come back later when he’s not busy.”
    “Talk,” said Moe.
    “Talk,” repeated Larry with the scar. He urged me on with a jab to my kidney.
    “I just wanted to know if I could get a few tickets for the Saturday card at the Garden. My nephew has polio and it would …”
    Moe was shaking his head and Parkman was trying to make himself invisible.
    “No?” I asked the bulk in the chair.
    “No,” he said, still shaking his head. “You’ve been asking questions about this guy Ralph Howard’s friends. Those friends don’t want questions asked about them.”
    “One friend in particular?” I asked. Parkman was trying to signal me with his mustache to keep quiet, but I ignored him.
    “Forget Howard’s friends,” Moe