A week before the fight I got the phone call from Rocky. He said, “It’s all set, Stevey, and I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”
I was in no mood to discuss it. I thanked him and hung up.
I got word to Jeanie to tip off Big John somehow that I wanted to see him at his apartment at eleven o’clock. It would depend on John to get out of his room and get to his home. If he wasn’t able to make it, I’d have to depend on Jeanie to give him his instructions, and that wouldn’t be so good.
I was in Jeanie’s kitchen drinking coffee at eleven o’clock when Big John arrived. He came stomping out into the kitchen, worried and looking almost haggard from the weight he had lost.
“I’m sure glad to see you, Mister Cooley. They give me hell about the way I handled those two fights. They sure did. Boy!”
“Are you scared of Sailor Henderson?” I asked him.
“Mister Cooley,” he said, with dignity, as he sat in the other chair, “I’m not scared of no man in this wide world in the ring. But I know this boy Henderson, he can lick me. He’s a better man in the ring. That’s all.”
I didn’t give him any part of the story except what he had to do in the Henderson fight. I didn’t want to give him any more of it, because I didn’t want to worry him too much. Feeling like a damn fool, I got up in the middle of the kitchen and showed him just about how he had to do it. He caught the idea and went through the motions.
“Now do you think you can lick Henderson?” I asked him.
“If he does what you say he’s going to do, I can clip him so he won’t get up right quick, but how do you know he’s going to act that way?”
“I’m going to go see him and make sure he does.”
“I don’t follow that, Mister Cooley.”
“Never mind about it. You just do like I tell you.”
“But how is this going to make me stop fighting? I should think if it works I’ll be fighting more than ever.”
“Let him worry about that, honey,” Jeanie said. Big John shrugged and went silent on me. After a time he promised to do it just like I told him to do it. He began to cheer up, even finding the light-heartedness to chuckle at Henderson’s probable surprise.
I drove him back down and dropped him off a block or so from the gym. He hurried off down the street and I U-turned out of there.
The big arena at Philadelphia was packed. Everybody was loaded with dough and Christmas spirits. I was in the third row from ringside, bathed in cold sweat. I realized that I had gone sentimental and staked everything on a great big clown that would probably get slammed out of the ring before he could put my plan in motion.
I had talked with Henderson in his room in the Trevor in the middle of the afternoon. He had scared me. The man moved like a big cat, and his fists looked like boulders. His eyes were the color of fractured steel. He had listened to me and thanked me. He had been sitting on the bed, thinking hard, when I left.
I didn’t notice the preliminaries. They were just bobbing, weaving figures that my eyes were looking at, while my mind was busy in other places. I glanced down at the palms of my hands and saw the curved grooves that my fingernails had cut into them.
Finally the stools were hauled around to what had been the neutral corners, the referee sprinkled some fresh rosin and some kind of master mechanic checked and tightened the ropes. Big John came striding down the aisle, his gay yellow robe trailing out behind him, the big muscles of his thighs bunching as he walked.
Henderson made him wait about ten minutes. John slumped in the stool while Baum and Williams puttered around him, patting his shoulders and whispering to him. Suddenly the crowd roared and I knew Henderson was coming down to his corner.
He vaulted the ropes and stood up and down on his toes, high strung, nervous and tough as old leather. The crowd quieted down for the announcement, and yelled again as each man was introduced. The seconds checked the bindings and the gloves were put on. Baum took Big John’s robe off, and he stood in the middle of the ring with a towel around his shoulders as the referee gave the standard instructions to the two of them. Henderson didn’t look at Big John.
They turned and went back to their corners. Baum grabbed the towel and the stool. At the bell, both men whirled and touched gloves in the middle of the ring.
Henderson danced lightly, stooping into a low crouch and then bobbing up, looking for an opening. Big John shuffled around. The hot white lights burned down on them. The crowd was so quiet that I could hear Big John’s shoes scraping the canvas.
Henderson opened up with three fast, hard, left jabs, slamming Big John’s head back. The crowd murmured and Big John circled away. Henderson found him again with some more left jabs. Big John covered, and pawed out of the cover with that blundering right. Henderson moved out of range and grinned. There were some loud boos from the crowd.
As soon as Big John came out of cover, Henderson stepped in with two quick jabs. When Big John’s guard lifted, Henderson slammed a right to John’s middle that boomed like a drum. People at ringside gasped along with Big John. That wasn’t according to the book. I think it was at that moment, I stopped breathing.
Big John lowered his guard a little, and Henderson hooked the heavy right to John’s jaw. I went up onto the edge of the seat. Keeping his hands fairly high, John started to fall forward. Henderson hovered, looking for another spot to slug in the right hand and make it look better. Big John fell forward until it seemed he couldn’t possibly recover. At the last moment, as I had showed him in the kitchen, the big left leg came out, bracing him, and the right arm shot out like a mortar shell. It had all of Big John’s shoulders and back in it. It hit a Henderson standing almost wide open.
Henderson flew clear off the floor, into the ropes. He rebounded off the ropes and rolled limply back almost to the center of the ring. He was on his face and motionless. At the count of ten, he hadn’t begun to stir.
Baum and Williams climbed up onto the edge of the ring, white and shaken. Big John hauled Henderson over to his corner. I remembered to start breathing again.
I found Rocky and two of his boys in the club car. I was surprised to see him. He was a hired man in the picture. It was no skin off his nose either way. We went out between cars and he handed me the stuff. I looked it over and stashed it away. Then he said, “Stick out your hand, Stevey.”
I did so. He licked a fat thumb and counted off some bills into my hand. “One hunnert, two, three, four and five. How’s ’at look?”
“Wonderful, Rocky. What’s it for?”
“Commission. I rode along with you and got some good odds.”
“But I didn’t broker it for you.”
“If I’d lost, maybe I’d have the boys work you over some dark night. You know how it is.” I shoved the money into my pocket. Later I even bought him a couple of drinks out of it.
The next morning Jeanie gave me a nice smile when she opened the door for me. Big John was drinking coffee in the kitchen. One eye was a little puffed from the fight, and that was all. He didn’t seem very cheery. I waved him down when he started to stand up. I sat opposite him.
“How does it look now, John?” I asked him.
“I can’t truly say. I found out last night that Dicky Wing, he lost my contract to Mr. Rocky LaPorte. He bet it on the fight, betting against me. Looks like I’m going to have to start fighting for Rocky now. He’s worse than Wing I hear.”