side of his nose, a cut under his right eye, and there were great red patches on his ribs where I
had socked him.
I trapped him in a corner and nailed him bang on his damaged nose. Blood spurted from his
face as if I’d slammed a rotten tomato against a wall. The crowd screamed itself hoarse as he
wilted and fell into a clinch. I had to hold him up or he would have gone down. I wrestled
him around, trying to make it look good until he got a grip on himself.
35
“Okay, playboy,” I said in his ear. “Throw your best punch.”
I broke and stepped back. He shoved out a left that wouldn’t have dented a rice pudding. I
ducked under it and came in, wide open. Somehow he managed to screw up enough strength
to let go with an upper-cut. I went down on one knee. I wasn’t hurt but if I were going to take
a dive I had to prepare the way for it.
I bet the yell that went up from the crowd could have been heard as far south as Miami.
The referee stood over me and began his count. I looked over at the Kid. The relief on his
face was comic. He leaned against the ropes, blood dripping from his cuts, his knees
buckling.
I shook my head as if I were dazed, and at six I got up. The Kid’s face was a study. He had
been sure I was going to stay down. Instead of coming in, he began to back away, and that
got a jeering laugh from the crowd. His seconds yelled for him to go in and finish me, and
with pitiful reluctance he changed direction and came at me. I made out I was wobbly, but I
slipped the left he threw at me and landed another jab on his gashed face. At least he was
going to earn his victory. Gasping with pain and fury, he lashed out as I dropped my guard.
He caught me on the side of the jaw. Down I went.
I had walked right into it, intending to catch it, and I caught it.
For the first three seconds I was out, then I opened my eyes and found myself flat on my
face, looking right down at her. She was standing up, her eyes like twin explosions, and as
our eyes met, she screamed furiously, “Get up and fight! Get up, you quitter!”
She was so close she could have touched me. Half the ringside; customers were on their
feet, yelling at me, but I had ears only for her voice.
“Get up, Johnny!” she screamed at me. “You can’t quit now!”
The anger, contempt and disappointment on her face electrified me. It was all I needed. It
flashed through my mind I had never intended to obey Petelli’s orders anyway, and that
scornful, screaming voice and the black, furious eyes clinched it.
I heard the referee call “… seven … eight …”
I got lip somehow, beating his down-sweeping arm by a split second, and as the Kid rushed
in, I grabbed his arms and hun on like grim death. I knew by the desperate way he struggled
to get free he realized I was going to double-cross Petelli, and he was going to lose the fight
36
unless he could nail me before I had shaken off the effects of his punch.
I hung on in spite of all he did, and in spite of the referee trying to tear us apart. I only
needed four or five seconds to get my head clear, and when I did decide it was safe to break, I
stabbed my left into the Kid’s cut-up face before he could get set to throw a finishing punch.
Panting and wild he came at me, but I weaved away, back-pedalled, and left him
floundering. He was as wild as a rogue elephant now, and kept rushing at me while I dodged
and retreated until I was good and ready to take him. Then as he came in for the fourth time I
stopped in my tracks and brought over the right book. It smashed against his jaw and down he
went in a flurry of blood, rolled over and stiffened out.
It was a waste of time to count him out, but the referee went through the motions. When he
reached ten, the Kid was still lying on his back as motionless as a corpse. White and scared
looking, the referee moved over to me and lifted my glove as if it was loaded with dynamite.
“Farrar’s the winner!”
I looked at her. She was standing up, flushed and excited, and she blew me a kiss. Then the
ring became crammed with pressmen and photographers, and I lost sight of her.
Petelli appeared out of the crowd. He was smiling, but his eyes were hot and intent.
“Okay, Farrar,” he said. “Well, you know what to expect.”
He moved away to speak to the Kid’s manager, and Waller, his face grey and his eyes
rolling, came over to me and dropped my dressing-gown across my shoulders.
As I climbed out of the ring I caught sight of Pepi, a tight little grin on his face, waiting at
the top of the ramp.
VII
I felt safe enough so long as the dressing-room was crowded with pressmen and fans who
had come to shake hands with me and to tell me what a fine fighter I was, but when they
began to drift away I knew trouble was creeping up on me.
Waller had returned to the dressing-room with me. He was scared all right, and as soon as
he had finished rubbing me down, he began to cast nervous and longing glances at the door.
Tom Roche had been in, but I got rid of him quickly. I didn’t want him mixed up in any
trouble.
37
There were now only a couple of pressmen and three fans left, and they were arguing in a
corner about who had the heaviest punch among the old heavyweights, and they weren’t
paying any attention to me.
“Okay, Henry,” I said, as I fixed my tie. “Don’t wait. Thanks for all you’ve done.”
“There ain’t anything I can do for you,” Waller said. “You’d better get out fast. Don’t let
them catch you alone.” He wiped his shiny face with the back of his hand. “You shouldn’t
have done it.”
“Shouldn’t have done - what?”
A creepy sensation ran up my spine as I turned. There she was in her apple-green linen suit,
her big black eyes looking into mine, a cigarette between her white-gloved fingers. “What
shouldn’t you have done, Johnny?”
Waller edged away and slid out of the room, leaving me staring at her like a paralysed deaf
mute. The little group in the corner stopped talking and eyed her hungrily.
One of the pressmen said, “Let’s go, boys: this is the one time a fighter really likes to lose
his friends.”
They all laughed as if he had cracked the best joke in the world, but they went. The little
room seemed suddenly vast and empty as the last of them drifted through the doorway.
“Hello,” I said, and reached for my coat. “Did you win any money?”
She smiled. Her teeth were small and even and sharply white against her scarlet lips.
“A thousand, but you gave me a heart attack when you went down. I had to lay out four and
I thought I was going to lose it.”
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I wasn’t concentrating. There was a girl at the ringside who took
my mind right off my business.”
“Oh!” She looked at me from under her eyelashes. “How did she do that?”
“She happened to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
“You should tell her that. Girls like being told things like that.”
“I am telling her.”
38
“I see.” She continued to smile, but her eyes hardened. “That’s very flattering, but I don’t
believe it. It looked like a dive to me.”
My face reddened.
“What do you know about dives?”
“All the signs were on the wall. The funny little men whispering in your ear, the way you
left yourself open. I go to all the fights. It happens every now and then. What made you
change your mind?” -
“The girl,” I said, “and the thought of all the little mugs who were betting on me.”
“This girl seems to have had quite an influence on you,” she said, studying me, then she