warmed up in the gym under Waller’s supervision when Petelli’s two muscle-men came in.
Later I was to learn their names were Pepi and Benno. Pepi was a slick-looking Wop,
wearing a pencil-lined moustache like his boss, while Benno was fat and blue-chinned and
vicious.
They marched in like they owned the place, and Waller froze at the sight of them. All right,
I admit it, there was something about those two that made my flesh creep.
“Come on,” Pepi said, jerking his thumb at me, “get your clothes on. The boss wants you.”
“I’m busy,” I said. “He’ll find me here if he wants me that badly.”
I heard Waller catch his breath. He was looking at me as if he thought I was crazy.
21
“Don’t give me that stuff,” Pepi snarled, his pinched face vicious. “Get your clothes on and
come!”
He was a head shorter than I was, and I didn’t want to hit him, but hit he was going to be if
he didn’t change his tone.
“Get out of here!” I said. “Both of you, before I toss you out.”
“Toss us out,” Benno said, and a blue-nosed automatic jumped into his hand. “You heard
us the first time. Get your clothes on or you’ll stop a slug with your belly!”
His still glittering eyes warned me he wasn’t bluffing.
Without moving his lips, Waller mumbled, “Don’t be a fool, Farrar. Go with them. I know
these two.”
Pepi smiled.
“Wise guy. Sure he knows us. He knows Benno’s been mixed up in three shooting
accidents already this year. Better not make a fourth.”
I got dressed while they stood around and watched me, then we went down the alley to
where a big Cadillac was parked. Benno kept the gun in his hand. There was a cop standing
on the edge of the kerb right by the car. He looked at Benno, looked at the gun, then hurriedly
walked away. That told me faster than anything that had yet happened just what kind of a jam
I was in. I got into the car and sat beside Pepi who drove. Benno sat at the back and breathed
down my neck. It took less than a minute to reach the Ocean Hotel. We went in by a side
entrance and rode up in a gilt-painted elevator. Neither Benno nor Pepi said anything, but
Benno kept the gun pointing at me. We walked down a long corridor to a polished mahogany
door marked Private. Pepi tapped, turned the handle and walked in.
The room was small, oak-panelled, and fitted up like an office.
A blonde sat pounding a typewriter, and chewing gum. She glanced up, gave me a swift,
indifferent stare, seemed to think nothing of the gun in Benno’s hand, and jerked her blonde
head to the door behind her.
“Go on in,” she said to Pepi. “He’s waiting.”
Pepi scratched on the door panel with his fingernails, opened the door and glanced in.
Then he stood aside.
22
“In on your own steam,” he said to me, “and behave.”
I walked past him into one of those vast rooms you rarely see outside a movie set. The
enormous expanse of bottle-green carpet was thick enough to cut with a lawn-mower. A
couple of dozen lounging chairs, two big chesterfields, a number of lamp standards and an
odd table or two scarcely dented the space they were supposed to fill. Around the walls hung
gilt-framed mirrors that caught my reflection as I moved forward, and reminded me how
shabby I looked.
At a desk, big enough to play ping-pong on, sat Petelli. He was smoking a cigar, and the
white slouch hat he had worn when he had come to the gym still rested at the back of his
head. He waited, sitting forward, his elbows on the desk, until I was within a yard of him,
then he stopped me by pointing his cigar at me.
“I’ll do the talking; you do the listening,” he said, his voice curt and cold. “You’re a good
fighter, Farrar, and I could have used you, but Brant tells me you want to stay out of the
game. Right?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“The Kid is a good boy, too, but I don’t think he’s got the punch you carry. Well, if I can’t
have you, I’ll have to make do with him. This will be his first fight as far north as Pelotta. It
wouldn’t look good for him to get licked, so he’s got to win. I’ve ten grand spread on the
fight, and I don’t intend to lose it. I told Brant you’re to take a dive in the third round. Now
I’m telling you. Brant says you don’t like the idea. Well, that’s your own private grief, not
mine. You’ve had your chance to come in with me and you’ve passed it up,” He paused to tap
ash on the carpet. “This happens to be my town. I run it, see? What I say goes. I have an
organization that takes care of guys who don’t do what I tell them. We’ll take care of you,
too, if we have to. From now on you’ll be watched. You’re not to leave town. On Saturday
night you’ll fight the Kid and you’ll put up a convincing show. In the third round the Kid’ll
catch you, and you’ll go down and stay down. Those are my orders, and you’ll obey them. If
you don’t you’ll be wiped out. I mean that. I don’t intend to lose ten grand because some bum
fighter is too proud to take a dive. Double-cross me and it’s the last double-cross you pull.
And don’t bother about police protection. The police do what I tell them. Now you know the
set-up, you can please yourself what you do. I’m not arguing about it. I’m telling you. Take a
dive in the third or a slug in the back. Now get out!”
He wasn’t bluffing. I knew unless I obeyed orders he’d wipe me out with no more
hesitation than he would have squashed a fly.
There wasn’t anything I could think of to say. He had put the cards on the table. It was now
23
up to me. Come to think of it, there wasn’t anything to say. I turned and went out of the room,
closing the door gently behind me.
The blonde still pounded the typewriter. Pepi and Benno had gone. Without pausing or
looking up, she said, “Sweet type, isn’t he? Can you wonder he hasn’t any friends?”
Even to her I hadn’t anything to say. I went on out, down the long corridor to the elevator.
When I reached the street I spotted Benno across the way. He strolled after me as I made my
way back to the gym.
V
For the next four days and nights Benno or Pepi followed me wherever I went, not letting
me out of their sight for a moment. I played with the idea of slipping out of town and making
my way to Miami as best I could, but I soon discovered there was no safe way of doing it.
Those two stuck to me like an adhesive bandage.
I kept the set-up to myself. It was only when Tom Roche told me he was going to bet his
shin on me that I gave him a hint of what was in the wind.
“Don’t do it, and don’t ask questions,” I said. “Don’t bet either way.”
He stared at me, saw I meant it, started to say something, but changed his mind. He was no
fool, and must have guessed what was brewing, but he didn’t press me.
I didn’t tell Brant that I had seen Petelli, but he knew all right. He avoided me as much as
he could, and when we did run into each other he seemed nervous, and didn’t appear to like
the way I was working to get into some kind of shape.
Waller didn’t ask questions either, but he did everything he could to get me fit. By the
evening of the third day I was picking my punches, and my breathing no longer bothered me.
I could see both Waller and Brant were impressed by my speed and hitting power.
Petelli certainly made a swell job of the advance publicity. He had the local papers working
on it, and a string of loud-mouthed guys going around the bars shouting my praise. This
concentrated drive soon began to influence the betting, and by the morning of the fight I was