“How about announcing that he’s matched to box Teddy Walsh in the next big show?” said Luke.
“Announce it if you want to as long as you don’t mean it.”
“Of course I don’t mean it. But people will take more notice of him if he’s got a good match in sight. And I’ll get Walsh to sprain his wrist or something and force an indefinite postponement.”
“The postponement will have to be more than indefinite. It’ll have to be endless. Because no matter how hard Walsh tried not to, he’d just naturally murder my pet snake.”
“What time of day does he work?”
“The Viper? All day long, three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. I don’t let up on him a minute.”
“I’d like to see him box sometime.”
“So would I,” said Willie Troy.
The clash between Barney Williams and Red Burke was supposed to be one of the trials, though Luke Lewis had no intention of allowing either of them to cut in on the big money that the outdoor season promised. They were at least as good as any of the other contenders—barring Donohue and Brock, whose poverty of bulk made them undesirable—but they had not always been loyal to Luke. So he hoped their engagement would result in a double knockout, eliminating them both.
However, he temporarily forgot his grudge against them in delight over the ovation accorded the immigrant Ivan when the latter was conducted into the Arena ring by Willie Troy and introduced by the official announcer as “The Ven-ominous Viper of the Vodka.” Ivan all but took his first dive while trying to negotiate the unaccustomed ropes, but the fans overlooked his awkwardness and cheered him to the echo because he was new and bore such a striking resemblance to a fight crowd’s common grandpa, the ape.
Ivan wanted to stay and see the windup, but Troy hustled him out of the building, saying the Arena air was bad for a man in training, and besides it was way past his bedtime. This strategy was well advised, for the Williams-Burke battle would have dissuaded a much stouter-hearted youth than the Viper from pursuing the manly art as a means of livelihood. The contestants were in dead earnest and went at it like a pair of vicious dogs. There were four spills and much letting of blood before Burke ended it by knocking his opponent into the lap of one of the judges. All this in the first, and last, round of fighting.
Willie Troy had long since given up hope of imbuing his pupil either with gladiatorial spirit or sparring skill. He was a clever boxer himself and had been a successful instructor of many green and awkward but willing young men. The Viper was as unwilling as he was awkward and green and Troy soon came to the conclusion that it was a waste of time and effort to try to teach him blocking, ducking, footwork or any of the other requisites of an effective defense. He decided to concentrate on the development of a punch, which seemed comparatively simple in the case of a man with arm and shoulder muscles as mighty as Ivan’s. However, it took all Willie’s powers of persuasion to get his charge to cut loose and strike with his full strength, and even then the only dangerous wallop educed was a roundhouse swing that only a sound sleeper or a paralytic could have failed to evade.
Luke Lewis was becoming impatient and it was impossible to stall him any longer.
“Here it is February, the winter is half gone and your Viper ain’t even matched,” he complained.
“Well, go ahead and match him,” said Willie resignedly. “But I warn you that they ain’t a man living he can beat without the man’s consent.”
“I’ll get the consent all right,” promised Luke. “All I ask is for you to have your fella ready to show the newspaper boys something. If they don’t see him work out, they’ll smell a rat.”
“They’ll smell a whole lot less fragranter rat if they do,” said Troy.
At this stage of the proceedings they got a lucky break. Duke Wallace, manager of Manuel Martinez, paid Troy a visit. Martinez, an import from Indiana, had “come over” three or four years ago and won high public favor by beating all the domestic setups in a series of bouts marked by brevity and bloodshed. With a glowing future, he had suddenly announced his retirement and had given no reason. Now, said Wallace, he wanted to reenter the ring.
“He’s hard up,” his manager explained. “He wants just one more match so his family won’t starve. I heard you was developing some new foreigner and I wondered if we couldn’t get together.”
They could and did.
“Luke will favor fifteen rounds,” said Wallace, “but if it’s the same to you, we’ll hold out for ten. The truth is that the Rugged Rock has got galloping consumption and it might be risky to keep him in there too long.”
“It would certainly be a bad thing for the game in this state to have a man die fighting,” said Troy, “but it looks to me like the best idea is to let both Luke and the public think the bout is for fifteen rounds and Martinez can save himself a lot of punishment by taking his dive in Round One.”
This arrangement proved satisfactory to the Rock’s manager.
“And listen,” added Troy. “It’s understood that your man mustn’t hit mine under any circumstances, and he must stand perfectly still or my man is sure to miss him.”
Wallace said this was all right provided Troy would come across afterwards with five thousand dollars of whatever amount Lewis gave the Viper.
The fans were delighted with the news that at last they were going to get a look at the Russian marvel and particularly that they would see him in action against a fighter who had always given them a run for their money. A packed Arena was
