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
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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
a four to one on favourite. With ten thousand on the Kid, Petelli stood to pick up a bundle of
money.
Neither he nor his muscle-men had anything further to say to me. Our little talk in his office
seemed to them to be enough. Well, it was. I had to dive in the third round or it’d be curtains,
and I had made up my mind to dive. An outfit like Petelli’s was too big and tough to buck. If
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I obeyed orders I was set to make a good start in Miami, and that was what I really cared
about. Anyway, that’s the way I tried to kid myself, but below the surface I was seething with
rage. I was thinking of the little mugs who were putting their shirts on me. I was thinking that
after Saturday night I’d be just another crooked fighter, but what really bit deep was taking
orders from a rat like Petelli.
On the morning of the fight, Brant and I went down to the gym for the weigh-in. There was
