Before the referee could start a count, the bell went. The Kid’s handlers rushed into the ring
and dragged him to his corner.
I went slowly back to my stool and sat down. Pepi was waiting for me.
“Next round, you fixer,” he snarled in my ear. “That’s orders.”
“Get away from me!” I said, and greatly daring, Waller shoved him off the apron of the
ring and began to sponge my face. Waller was breathing heavily and grinned excitedly at me
as he worked over me.
“You’re doing fine,” he said. “Watch his right. He can still punch.”
I looked across the ring. They were working like madmen on the Kid, flapping towels at
him, holding smelling-salts under his nose and massaging the back of his neck.
“Well, I guess this is it,” I said. “Last round coming up.”
“Yeah,” Waller said. “Anyway, he’s been in a fight. You ain’t cheated anyone.”
I looked over my shoulder at her. She was smiling again, and waved to me.
The bell went, and I moved out. The Kid started to back-pedal. He had a gash down the
side of his nose, a cut under his right eye, and there were great red patches on his ribs where I
had socked him.
I trapped him in a corner and nailed him bang on his damaged nose. Blood spurted from his
face as if I’d slammed a rotten tomato against a wall. The crowd screamed itself hoarse as he
wilted and fell into a clinch. I had to hold him up or he would have gone down. I wrestled
him around, trying to make it look good until he got a grip on himself.
35
“Okay, playboy,” I said in his ear. “Throw your best punch.”
I broke and stepped back. He shoved out a left that wouldn’t have dented a rice pudding. I
ducked under it and came in, wide open. Somehow he managed to screw up enough strength
to let go with an upper-cut. I went down on one knee. I wasn’t hurt but if I were going to take
a dive I had to prepare the way for it.
I bet the yell that went up from the crowd could have been heard as far south as Miami.
The referee stood over me and began his count. I looked over at the Kid. The relief on his
face was comic. He leaned against the ropes, blood dripping from his cuts, his knees
buckling.
I shook my head as if I were dazed, and at six I got up. The Kid’s face was a study. He had
been sure I was going to stay down. Instead of coming in, he began to back away, and that
got a jeering laugh from the crowd. His seconds yelled for him to go in and finish me, and
with pitiful reluctance he changed direction and came at me. I made out I was wobbly, but I
slipped the left he threw at me and landed another jab on his gashed face. At least he was
going to earn his victory. Gasping with pain and fury, he lashed out as I dropped my guard.
He caught me on the side of the jaw. Down I went.
I had walked right into it, intending to catch it, and I caught it.
For the first three seconds I was out, then I opened my eyes and found myself flat on my
face, looking right down at her. She was standing up, her eyes like twin explosions, and as
our eyes met, she screamed furiously, “Get up and fight! Get up, you quitter!”
She was so close she could have touched me. Half the ringside; customers were on their
feet, yelling at me, but I had ears only for her voice.
“Get up, Johnny!” she screamed at me. “You can’t quit now!”
The anger, contempt and disappointment on her face electrified me. It was all I needed. It
flashed through my mind I had never intended to obey Petelli’s orders anyway, and that
scornful, screaming voice and the black, furious eyes clinched it.
I heard the referee call “… seven … eight …”
I got lip somehow, beating his down-sweeping arm by a split second, and as the Kid rushed
in, I grabbed his arms and hun on like grim death. I knew by the desperate way he struggled
