Call for the Saint

Hoppy sham­bling in his wake like a happy bear.

CHAPTER TWO

The door of the number-one dressing room beneath the floor of the Manhattan Arena rattled and shook as the sportswriters milled about the corridor outside and protest­ed their exclusion. Who, one of them shouted, did the big ham think he was, Greta Garbo?

Behind the locked door, Dr. Kurt Spangler rubbed his shin­ing bald head and listened benignly to the disgruntled din.

'Maybe I should oughta give 'em an interview, huh, Doc?'

The pink mountain of flesh lying on the rubbing table lifted a head the general size and shape of a runt eggplant. 'I don't want they should think I'm a louse.'

The un-Masked Angel blinked, his little brown eyes apolo­getic beneath the shadow of brows ridged with the compound­ed scar tissue of countless ancient cuts and contusions.

'Never mind what they think,' Doc Spangler beamed com­fortingly. 'Let them disparage you-revile you-hate you.' His sonorous voice sank confidingly. 'It's exactly what we want.'

The Angel sighed unhappily. His head dropped back on the rubbing table as the two handlers pulled off the gloves, tossed them in a corner, and proceeded to rip off the hand wrappings of gauze and tape.

'The more the newspapers hate you,' Doc Spangler ex­pounded, 'the more cash they'll pay to see you get beaten.' He rubbed his hands, considering the Angel with all the pride a farmer might display surveying his prize hog. 'Kid McCoy, for instance,' the doctor illustrated. 'He made a fortune on the hatred of the mob. They paid to see him fight in the hope he would be slaughtered. Only he never was-not till after he became champion, anyway. And neither will you be, my lad. Not as long as you continue to follow my instructions.'

The Angel grunted as Karl, one of his handlers, kneaded the mountainous mesa of his belly. His naked body, a pink mass of monstrous convexities, gleamed beneath the bright incandescents with a sheen of oily sweat that highlighted the ruby splotches where Torpedo Smith's gloves had exploded. His flat button nose, the distorted rosettes of flesh that were his ears, furnished further evidence that Dr. Spangler's discov­ery, far from being a supernova in the pugilistic firmament, was actually a battle-battered veteran, the survivor of an un­numbered multitude of beatings.

'I did like you said wit' Smith, didn't I, Doc?' the Angel mumbled.

'You did indeed! You followed my instructions to the let­ter tonight. Always remember to keep covered till your man seems a bit careless.' Spangler patted one beefy shoulder. 'You were great tonight, my boy.'

The Angel lifted his undersized noggin, a grateful grimace on his pear-shaped face.

'Thanks, Doc.' He sank back. 'I always try to do like you say.' He sighed like a deflating dirigible. 'But why do the crowd gotta t'ink I'm a crum? I radder they should like me. I like them.'

Doc Spangler sighed patiently, but was spared the need for further exposition by an increased burst of banging on the door. He turned resignedly to the fox-faced thug who was un­lacing the Angel's ring shoes.

'Maxie, perhaps you'd better go out and have a word with our journalistic friends.'

Maxie nodded briefly. He went to the door, yanked it open, and stepped outside into a stream of vivid excoriation.

Doc Spangler listened a moment with admiration as the re­porters' protests faded gradually down the hall.

Karl, the other henchman, had ceased his ministrations and was listening with a certain degree of envy. 'Doc,' he sug­gested, 'maybe better I should go and help chase 'em away, yah?' His accent was a curious blend of Yorkville kraut and Bowery bum.

Doc Spangler smiled, glancing at the half-open door. Only Maxie's distant profanities were still audible, and that, too, finally ceased.

'I think Maxie has everything under control,' Spangler said pleasantly. 'Better finish taking off the Angel's shoes so he can take his shower and get dressed. We've got to have some sup­per.'

The Angel heaved up to a sitting position.

'I'm hungry,' he announced heavily. 'I wanna double por­terhouse and shoestring potaters.'

Spangler's colorless eyes flitted tenderly over the Angel's three-storied bay window.

'You'll have a triple filet mignon with truffles a la Waldorf Astoria three times a day if we win the title.'

The Angel grinned dully.

'Leave it to me, Doc. I'll take Nelson.'

'Of course you will-if you'll always remember to do exact­ly as I tell you. It was only by obeying my instructions that you got through that first round tonight-and don't forget it. I won that fight for you, my lad.'

'Congratulations,' said the Saint.

'Yeah,' Hoppy rasped, kicking the door shut behind them. 'Nice woik, Doc.'

For a paralyzed second, Dr. Spangler, Karl, and the massive Angel composed a tableau of staring surprise. Then Spangler's florid wattles grew even more crimson.

'Who the devil-'

'Forgive us,' the Saint interrupted. He took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ash reflectively, indicating Mr. Uniatz, who stood beside him with the black snout of a big automatic protruding from one hairy fist. 'My friend and I couldn't resist the temptation, Doctor-especially when your man left the door to pursue those reporters down the hall.' He forbore to add that Maxie was, at the moment, reposing peace­fully in a corridor broom closet where Hoppy had stuffed him after an exceedingly brief encounter. 'Put away the gun, Hop­py,' he reproved. 'This is strictly social.'

Hoppy obeyed slowly. He was staring at the naked mass of the Angel as if what mental equipment he possessed failed utterly to accept the evidence of his eyes.

'Ged oudda here,' Karl grated tonelessly.

His voice, like his bushy-browed eyes, was flat, dull, and deadly. The Saint appraised him with a glance-a short, squat, powerfully constructed character whose prognathous jaw matched the cubist lines of his shoulders.

'For de luvva mike!' Incredulous amazement raised Hop­py's bullfrog bass a full octave. Rapturous recognition slowly illumined his corrugated countenance like dawning sunlight on a rock pile. 'Bilinski!' he shouted. 'Barrelhouse Bilinski!'

The Angel, who had been favoring Hoppy with the same openmouthed concentration, slid slowly off the edge of the table to his feet. A reciprocal light dawned on the fuzzy hori­zon of his memory and spread over his humpty- dumpty face in a widening grin.

'For crize sake! Hoppy Uniatz!'

They practically fell into each other's arms.

'Well, well, well,' the Saint drawled. 'Old Home Week. Perhaps you two would like to be alone?'

'Are you de Masked Angel?' Hoppy burbled with hoarse delight. 'You?'

'Yea, sure. Hoppy, dat's me!'

'Boss, dis is Barrelhouse Bilinski. Barrelhouse, meet de Saint!'

'Ged oudda here!'

Karl's voice rose half a decibel, his right hand sliding toward a pocket.

'I wouldn't if I were you, comrade.' The Saint smiled depre­catingly, a glint in his eyes like summer lightning in a blue sky. His hand was thrust negligently in a pocket of his beautifully tailored sports jacket. 'I'd hate having to put a hole through this coat, but your navel is such a tempting target.'

Karl's hand dropped to his side.

'Doc, this is me old chum from way back when!' The Angel turned to Spangler eagerly. 'Hoppy Uniatz!'

'Delighted. . . . Now, Karl,' Doc Spangler said reproach­fully, 'don't be a boor.'

'Me and Barrelhouse useta beat each udder's brains out every week!' Hoppy effervesced hoarsely. 'We barnstorm all over de country oncet. One week I win, next week he wins. What a team!'

'I can imagine,' the Saint murmured.

Spangler smiled at Simon with revived benevolence.

'I might have known who you were, Mr. Templar, but you rather caught me by surprise, you know. I hardly expected a visit from the Saint at this particular moment.'