a big crowd to welcome me, but I didn’t get any kick out of the excited cheers as I pushed my
way through the double swing-doors. I spotted Tom Roche and Sam Williams, and gave them
a feeble grin as they waved to me.
Petelli stood near the scales, smoking a cigar. Pepi stood just behind him. Near by a fat,
hard-faced man in a fawn suit propped up the wall and grinned at anyone who looked at him.
He turned out to be the Miami Kid’s manager.
I ducked the back-slappers and went into one of the changing booths. By the time I had
stripped off the Kid was on show. I looked curiously at him. He was big and powerful, but I
was quick to spot he was a little thick around the middle. As I joined him he looked me over
with a sneering little grin.
I was four pounds heavier than he, and had the advantage of three inches in reach.
“So what?” he said in a loud voice to his manager. “The bigger they come the harder they
bounce.”
The crowd seemed to think that was the most original and witty thing they had ever heard,
to judge by the laugh it got.
As I stepped off the scales, the Kid, still with his sneering grin, reached out and grabbed my
arm.
“Hey! I thought you said this guy was a puncher,” he cried. “Call these muscles, chummy?”
“Take your hands off me!” I said, and the look I gave him made him take two big, quick
steps back. “You’ll know whether I’ve got muscles or not by tonight.”
There was a sudden silence, then as I walked away, a babble of voices broke out.
Brant came running after me, and as I went into the changing booth, he said excitedly,
“Don’t let him rattle you. He’s a great kidder.”
25
I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he meant. He was scared the Kid had
opened his mouth too wide and I’d sock him for it when we got into the ring. He wasn’t far
from the truth, either.
“Is he?” I said. “Well, so am I.”
The first instalment of Brant’s pay-off arrived in the afternoon. He brought it himself.
“Thought you’d better look smart, Farrar,” he said, looking anywhere but at me. He took
off the lid of a box and showed me a white linen suit, a cream silk shirt, a green and white tie,
and white buckskin shoes. “You’ll knock them dead in this outfit,” he went on, trying to be at
ease. “Better see if it fits.”
“Shove them back in the box and get out,” I said.
I was lying on the bed in the little room Roche had lent me. The curtains were half drawn,
and the light was dim. I had seven hours before I entered the ring: seven hours that stretched
ahead of me like a prison sentence without parole.
“What’s the matter with you?” Brant demanded, flushing. “Isn’t this what you want?” and
he shook the suit at me.
“Get out before I throw you out!”
When he had gone I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I kept thinking of Petelli. I
thought, too, of all the little mugs who were betting on me. I tried to convince myself there
was nothing I could do about it, but I knew I had walked into this with my eyes open. I had
kicked around in the fight racket long enough to know just how crooked it was. That was why
I had quit, and yet the first offer that came along had tempted me back. If I hadn’t had big
ideas about getting to Miami in a car with money in my pocket this wouldn’t have happened.
Suppose I double-crossed Petelli? What chance had I of avoiding a bullet? Petelli wasn’t
bluffing. He couldn’t afford to let me double-cross him and get away with it. If he did, his
grip on the other fighters would be weakened, and, besides, he wasn’t the type to allow
