I grunted.
Benno swung the Cadillac into the vast parking-lot, and we all got out. We walked quickly
across the tarmac to a side door. As Pepi pushed it open, a blast of hot, sweat-stinking air
came out to meet us.
“It’s packed solid in there,” Brant said. “Not a seat to be had.”
We climbed a flight of concrete steps, meeting people as they moved to their seats. Some of
the guys recognized me and slapped me on the back, wishing me luck. At a gangway I paused
to look into the arena. One of the preliminary fights was on. The ring, under the dazzling
white lights, looked a mile away, and the roar of the crowd seemed to shake the whole
building.
“Some house,” Brant said. “Better get changed, Farrar.”
There was the usual mob of pressmen and hangers-on waiting outside my dressing-room,
but Brant wouldn’t let them in. He got the door shut with difficulty, leaving Pepi outside to
talk to them.
28
Waller was waiting to take charge of me.
“Don’t wait,” I said to Brant. “Henry can do it all.”
“Now, look …” Brant began, but I cut him short.
“I don’t want you around, and I don’t want you in my corner. Henry can do all that’s
necessary.”
Brant shrugged his fat shoulders. His face turned crimson.
“Well, okay, if that’s the way you feel. But there’s no need to get sore at me. I can’t help
it.”
“Maybe you can’t, but you got me into this, and I don’t want you in my comer.”
As he turned to the door, he said, “Don’t pull anything smart, Farrar. You’re in this now up
to your ears, and there’s no out for you.”
“Dust!”
When he had gone I began to strip off. Waller stood around, a worried expression on his
ebony face.
“You relax, Mr. Farrar,” he said. “This ain’t no way to go into the ring.”
“Okay, okay, don’t bother me, Henry,” I said, and stretched out on the rubbing-table. “Lock
the door. I don’t want anyone in here.”
He locked the door, then came over and began to work on me.
“Are you going to win this fight?” he asked presently.
“How do I know? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I don’t think so.” He went on kneading my muscles for a while, then he said, “Mr.
Petelli’s been around too long. I reckon he’s done a lot of harm to the game in this town. Is
this another fixed fight?”
“You know it is. I should have thought the whole damned town knows it by now. What else
can you expect when Petelli lays ten grand on the Kid? I’ve been told to go in the third.”
Waller grunted. We didn’t look at each other.
29
“You shouldn’t get sore with Mr. Brant,” he said. “He’s a good guy. What can he do
against Mr. Petelli? If Mr. Petelli says for you to dive in the third, what can Mr. Brant say? If
he says no, those two gunmen will fix him. Mr. Brant’s got a wife and kids to think of.”
“Lay off, Henry. Maybe Brant can’t help it, but I’d just as soon not have him around. You
can take care of me, can’t you?”
“If you’re going in the third, you don’t need taking care of,” Waller said sadly.
There was some truth in that.
“Suppose I don’t take a dive?” I said. “Suppose I fight the Kid and lick him? What chance
have I got of getting out of here alive?”
Waller looked uneasily around the room as if he feared someone might be listening.
“That’s crazy talk,” he said, his eyes rolling. “Get that idea, out of your head.”
“No harm in wondering. Where’s that window lead to?”
“You relax. There’s no sense talking this way.”
I slid off the table, crossed the room and looked out of the window. A good thirty feet
below me was the car-park. I leaned out. A narrow ledge ran below the window to a stack
pipe, leading to the ground. It wouldn’t be difficult to get down to the car park, but that didn’t
mean I could get away.
Waller pulled me from the window;
“Get back on the table. This ain’t the way to act just before a fight.”
I got on to the table again.
“Think those Wops would shoot me, Henry, or is it bluff?”
“I know they would. They shot Boy O’Brien for pulling a double-cross a couple of years
back. They bust Bennie Mason’s hands when he got himself knocked out after Mr. Petelli had
bet he’d go the distance. They threw acid in Tiger Freeman’s face for winning in the seventh.
Sure, they’d shoot you if that’s what Mr. Petelli wants them to do.”
I was still churning it over in my mind when Brant yelled through the door it was time to
get down to the ring.
30
Henry helped me into the scarlet and blue dressing-gown Petelli had sent over for me to
wear. It was a gaudy affair, with Johnny Farrar stitched in big white letters across the
shoulders. At one time I would have been proud and happy to have worn it, but right now it
made me feel bad.
As I reached the top of the ramp leading into the arena, they played the Kid in with a
fanfare of trumpets. The crowd was giving him a big hand, and when he vaulted over the
ropes into the ring, they howled their appreciation.
Brant joined me. He was sweating and worried.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said. “You first; the rest of us behind you.”
The rest of us consisted of Brant, Waller, Pepi and Benno. I walked down the ramp towards
the ring. It was a long walk, and the crowd stood up and yelled ail the way. I wondered
bleakly what kind of noise they’d be making on my return trip.
I reached the ring, ducked under the ropes and went to my corner. The Kid, in a yellow
dressing-gown, was clowning in his corner, making out he was bow-legged, and then
pretending to throw punches at his handlers. The crowd enjoyed it more than his handlers did.
I sat down, and Henry began putting on the tapes. The Kid’s fat manager stood over me,
watching, and breathing whisky and cigar fumes in my face. It was because of his vile breath
that I turned my head and looked at the crowd just below me, and it was then that I saw her.
VI
The announcer, a bald-headed little runt in a white suit a little too big for him, was bawling
into a hand mike, but I didn’t hear what he was saying. Even when he introduced me Waller
had to prod me before I stood up to acknowledge the yells of the crowd.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off the woman who was sitting just below my corner: near enough,
if we both stretched out our arms, for us to touch fingers. Even as I waved to the crowd, I
continued to stare at her, and she was worth staring at.
I’ve seen a good many beautiful women in my time, on the movies and off, but never one
like this. Her hair was jet black and glossy, parted in the centre, a thin white line as exact as if
it had been drawn with a sharp-edged tool and a ruler in marble. Her eyes were big and black
and glittering. Her skin was like alabaster, and her mouth wide and scarlet. She was lean and
lovely and hungry-looking.
31
Unlike the other women sitting at the ringside, she wasn’t wearing an evening gown. She
had on an apple-green linen suit, a white silk blouse and no hat. Her shoulders were broad,
and to judge from her long, slim legs, she would be above the average height when she stood
up. Under that smart, cool and provocative outfit was a shape that drove the fight, Petelli and
the rest of the set-up clean out of my mind.
She was looking up at me, her eyes wide and excited, and we exchanged glances. The look
she gave me turned my mouth dry and sent my pulse racing. Even a Trappist monk would
have known what that look was saying, and I wasn’t a Trappist monk.