Epstein scowled. "Run away from here, kid, before you get hurt. Ole
would laugh at you. This isn't easy money. It takes a man to get a look
at it."
Izzie stamped impatiently. "I tell you, Mr. Epstein, I seen this boy
fight. He's the goods. He can beat your Ole. I bet he can." His voice
caught and he glanced nervously at Hugo. "I bet ten dollars he can."
"How much?" Epstein bellowed.
"Well--say twenty dollars."
"How much?"
"Fifty dollars. It's all I got, Epstein."
"All right--go in and sign up and leave your wad. Kid," he turned to
Hugo, "you may think you're husky, but Ole is a killer. He's six nine in
his socks and he weighs two hundred and eighty. He'll mash you."
"I don't think so," Hugo repeated.
"Well, you'll be meat. We'll put you second on the list. And the
lights'll go out fast enough for yuh."
Hugo followed Izzie and reached him in time to see a fifty-dollar bill
peeled from a roll which was extracted with great intricacy from Izzie's
clothes. "I thought you hadn't eaten for two days!"
"It's God's truth," Izzie answered uneasily. "I was savin' this
dough--an' it's lucky, too, isn't it?"
Hugo did not know whether to laugh or to be angry. He said: "And you'd
have let me take a poke in the jaw from that waiter. You're a hell of a
guy, Izzie."
Izzie moved his eyes rapidly. "I ain't so bad. I'm bettin' on you, ain't
I? An' I got you a chancet at the Swede, didn't I?"
"How'd you know that waiter couldn't kill me?"
"Well--he didn't. Anyhow, what's a poke in the jaw to a square meal,
eh?"
"When the other fellow gets the poke and you get the meal. All right,
Izzie. I wish I thought Ole was going to lick me."
Hugo wrote his name under a printed statement to the effect that the
fight managers were not responsible for the results of the combat. The
man who led him to a dressing-room was filled with sympathy and advice.
He told Hugo that one glance at Ole would discourage his reckless
avarice. But Hugo paid no attention. The room was dirty. It smelled of
sweat and rubber sneakers. He sat there for half an hour, reading a
newspaper. Outside, somewhere, he could hear the mumble of a gathering
crowd, punctuated by the voices of candy and peanut-hawkers.
At last they brought some clothes to him. A pair of trunks that flapped
over his loins, ill-fitting canvas shoes, a musty bath robe. When the
door of his room opened, the noise of the crowd was louder. Finally it
was hushed. He heard the announcer. It was like the voice of a minister
coming through the stained windows of a church. It rose and fell. Then
the distant note of the gong. After that the crowd called steadily,
sometimes in loud rage and sometimes almost in a whisper.
Finally they brought Ole's first victim into Hugo's cell. He was a man
with the physique of a bull. His face was cut and his eyes were
darkening. One of the men heaving his stretcher looked at Hugo.
"Better beat it, kid, while you can still do it on your own feet. You
ain't even got the reach for Ole. He's a grizzly, bo. He'll just about
kill you."
Hugo tightened his belt and swung the electric light back and forth with
a slow-moving fist. Another man expertly strapped his fists with
adhesive tape.
"When do I go out?" Hugo asked.
"You mean, when do you get knocked out?" the second laughed.
"Fight?"
"Well, if you're determined to get croaked, you do it now."
In the arena it was dazzling. A bank of noisy people rose on all sides
of him. Hugo walked down the aisle and clambered into the ring. Ole was
one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life. There was no doubt
of his six feet nine inches and his two hundred and eighty pounds. Hugo
imagined that the man was not a scientific fighter. A bruiser. Well, he
knew nothing of fighting, either.
A man in his shirt sleeves stood up in the ring and bellowed, "The next
contestant for the reward of fifty dollars to stay three rounds with
battling Ole and one hundred dollars to knock him out is Mr. H. Smith."
They cheered. It was a nasty sound, filled with the lust for blood. Hugo
realized that he was excited. His knees wabbled when he rose and his
hand trembled as he took the monstrous paw of the Swede and saw his
unpleasant smile. Hugo's heart was pounding. For one instant he felt
weak and human before Battling Ole. He whispered to himself: "Quit it,
you fool; you know better; you can't even be hurt." It did not make him
any more quiet.
Then they were sitting face to face. A bell rang. The hall became silent
as the mountainous Swede lumbered from his corner. He towered over Hugo,
who stood up and went out to meet him like David approaching Goliath. To
the crowd the spectacle was laughable. There was jeering before they
met. "Where's your mamma?" "Got your bottle, baby?" "Put the poor little
bastard back in his carriage." "What's this--a fight or a freak show?"
Laughter.
It was like cold water to Hugo. His face set. He looked at Ole. The
Swede's fist moved back like the piston of a great engine into which
steam has been let slowly. Then it came forward. Hugo, trained to see
and act in keeping with his gigantic strength, dodged easily. "Atta
boy!" "One for Johnny-dear!" The fist went back and came again and
again, as if that piston, gathering speed, had broken loose and was
flailing through the screaming air. Hugo dodged like a beam of light,
and the murderous weapon never touched him. The spectators began to
applaud his speed. He could beat the Swede's fist every time. "Run him,
kiddo!" "It's only three rounds."
The bell. Ole was panting. As he sat in his corner, his coal-scuttle
gloves dangling, he cursed in his native tongue. Too little to hit.
Bell. The second round was the same. Hugo never attempted to touch the
Swede. Only to avoid him. And the man worked like a Trojan. Sweat
seethed over his big, blank face. His small eyes sharpened to points. He
brought his whole carcass flinging through the air after his fist. But
every blow ended in a sickening wrench that missed the target. The crowd
grew more excited. During the interval between the second and third
rounds there was betting on the outcome. Three to one that Ole would
connect and murder the boy. Four to one. One to five that Hugo would win
fifty dollars before he died beneath the trip-hammer.
The third round opened. The crowd suddenly tired of the sport. A shrill
female voice reached Hugo's cold, concentrated mind: "Keep on running,
yellow baby!"
So. They wanted a killing. They called him yellow. The Swede was on him,
elephantine, sweating, sucking great, rumbling breaths of air, swinging
his fists. Hugo studied the motion. That fist to that side, up, down,
now!
Like hail they began to land upon the Swede. Bewilderingly, everywhere.
No hope of guarding. Every blow smashed, stung, ached. No chance to
swing back. Cover up. His arms went over his face. He felt rivets drive
into his kidneys. He reached out and clinched. They rocked in each
other's arms. Dazed by that bitter onslaught of lightning blows, Ole
thought only to lock Hugo in his arms and crush him. When they clinched,
the crowd, grown instantly hysterical, sank back in despair. It was
over. Ole could break the little man's back. They saw his arms spring
into knots. Jesus! Hugo's fist shot between their chests and Ole was
thrown violently backward. Impossible. He lunged back, crimson to kill,
one hand guarding his jaw. "Easy, now, for the love of God, easy," Hugo
said to himself. There. On the hand at the chin. Hugo's gloves went out.
Lift him! It connected. The Swede left the floor and crumpled slowly,
with a series of bumping sounds. And how the hyenas yelled!
They crowded into his dressing-room afterwards. Epstein came to his side
before he had dressed. "Come out and have a mug of suds, kid. That was
the sweetest fight I ever hope to live to see. I can sign you up for a
fortune right now. I can make you champ in two years."
"No, thanks," Hugo said.
The man persisted. He talked earnestly. He handed Hugo a hundred-dollar
bill. Hugo finished his dressing. Izzie wormed his way in. "Fifty
dollars I won yet! Didn't I tole you, Mr. Epstein!"
"Come here, Izzie!"
The little man ran to shake Hugo's hand, but it was extended for another
reason. "I want that fifty you won," he said unsmilingly. "When a bird
tracks along for a free feed and lets another guy fight for him and has
a roll big enough to stop up a rainspout, he owes money. That lunch will
set you back just exactly what you won on me."
There was laughter in the room. Izzie whimpered. "Ain't you got a
hundred all ready that I got for you? Ain't it enough that you got it?
Ain't I got a wife wit' kids yet?"
"No, it ain't, yet." Hugo snapped the fingers of his extended hand. The
other hand doubled significantly. Izzie gave him the money. He was
almost in tears. The others guffawed.
"Wait up, bo. Give us your address if you ever change your mind. You can
pick up a nice livin' in this game."
"No, thanks. All I needed was railroad fare. Thank you,
gentlemen--and--good-by."
No one undertook to hinder Hugo's departure.