After hurrying and scurrying, much telephoning and bad language, a night
session was held in Kelly's office. Kelly was rushed with business;
also, he was unlucky. He had brought Danny Ward out from New York,
arranged the fight for him with Billy Carthey, the date was three
weeks away, and for two days now, carefully concealed from the sporting
writers, Carthey had been lying up, badly injured. There was no one to
take his place. Kelly had been burning the wires East to every eligible
lightweight, but they were tied up with dates and contracts. And now
hope had revived, though faintly.
“You've got a hell of a nerve,” Kelly addressed Rivera, after one look,
as soon as they got together.
Hate that was malignant was in Rivera's eyes, but his face remained
impassive.
“I can lick Ward,” was all he said.
“How do you know? Ever see him fight?”
Rivera shook his head.
“He can beat you up with one hand and both eyes closed.”
Rivera shrugged his shoulders.
“Haven't you got anything to say?” the fight promoter snarled.
“I can lick him.”
“Who'd you ever fight, anyway!” Michael Kelly demanded. Michael was the
promotor's brother, and ran the Yellowstone pool rooms where he made
goodly sums on the fight game.
Rivera favored him with a bitter, unanswering stare.
The promoter's secretary, a distinctively sporty young man, sneered
audibly.
“Well, you know Roberts,” Kelly broke the hostile silence. “He ought to
be here. I've sent for him. Sit down and wait, though f rom the looks of
you, you haven't got a chance. I can't throw the public down with a bum
fight. Ringside seats are selling at fifteen dollars, you know that.”
When Roberts arrived, it was patent that he was mildly drunk. He was a
tall, lean, slack-jointed individual, and his walk, like his talk, was a
smooth and languid drawl.
Kelly went straight to the point.
“Look here, Roberts, you've been bragging you discovered this little
Mexican. You know Carthey's broke his arm. Well, this little yellow
streak has the gall to blow in to-day and say he'll take Carthey's
place. What about it?”
“It's all right, Kelly,” came the slow response. “He can put up a
fight.”
“I suppose you'll be sayin' next that he can lick Ward,” Kelly snapped.
Roberts considered judicially.
“No, I won't say that. Ward's a top-notcher and a ring general. But he
can't hashhouse Rivera in short order. I know Rivera. Nobody can get
his goat. He ain't got a goat that I could ever discover. And he's a
two-handed fighter. He can throw in the sleep-makers from any position.”
“Never mind that. What kind of a show can he put up? You've been
conditioning and training fighters all your life. I take off my hat to
your judgment. Can he give the public a run for its money?”
“He sure can, and he'll worry Ward a mighty heap on top of it. You
don't know that boy. I do. I discovered him. He ain't got a goat. He's a
devil. He's a wizzy-wooz if anybody should ask you. He'll make Ward sit
up with a show of local talent that'll make the rest of you sit up. I
won't say he'll lick Ward, but he'll put up such a show that you'll all
know he's a comer.”
“All right.” Kelly turned to his secretary. “Ring up Ward. I warned
him to show up if I thought it worth while. He's right across at the
Yellowstone, throwin' chests and doing the popular.”
Kelly turned back to the conditioner. “Have a drink?”
Roberts sipped his highball and unburdened himself.
“Never told you how I discovered the little cuss. It was a couple of
years ago he showed up out at the quarters. I was getting Prayne ready
for his fight with Delaney. Prayne's wicked. He ain't got a tickle of
mercy in his make-up. I chopped up his pardner's something cruel, and
I couldn't find a willing boy that'd work with him. I'd noticed this
little starved Mexican kid hanging around, and I was desperate. So
I grabbed him, shoved on the gloves and put him in. He was tougher'n
rawhide, but weak. And he didn't know the first letter in the alphabet
of boxing. Prayne chopped him to ribbons. But he hung on for two
sickening rounds, when he fainted. Starvation, that was all. Battered!
You couldn't have recognized him. I gave him half a dollar and a square
meal. You oughta seen him wolf it down. He hadn't had the end of a bite
for a couple of days. That's the end of him, thinks I. But next day he
showed up, stiff an' sore, ready for another half and a square meal. And
he done better as time went by. Just a born fighter, and tough beyond
belief. He hasn't a heart. He's a piece of ice. And he never talked
eleven words in a string since I know him. He saws wood and does his
work.”
“I've seen 'm,” the secretary said. “He's worked a lot for you.”
“All the big little fellows has tried out on him,” Roberts answered.
“And he's learned from 'em. I've seen some of them he could lick. But
his heart wasn't in it. I reckoned he never liked the game. He seemed to
act that way.”
“He's been fighting some before the little clubs the last few months,”
Kelly said.
“Sure. But I don't know what struck 'm. All of a sudden his heart got
into it. He just went out like a streak and cleaned up all the little
local fellows. Seemed to want the money, and he's won a bit, though his
clothes don't look it. He's peculiar. Nobody knows his business. Nobody
knows how he spends his time. Even when he's on the job, he plumb up and
disappears most of each day soon as his work is done. Sometimes he just
blows away for weeks at a time. But he don't take advice. There's a
fortune in it for the fellow that gets the job of managin' him, only he
won't consider it. And you watch him hold out for the cash money when
you get down to terms.”
It was at this stage that Danny Ward arrived. Quite a party it was.
His manager and trainer were with him, and he breezed in like a gusty
draught of geniality, good-nature, and all-conqueringness. Greetings
flew about, a joke here, a retort there, a smile or a laugh for
everybody. Yet it was his way, and only partly sincere. He was a good
actor, and he had found geniality a most valuable asset in the game
of getting on in the world. But down underneath he was the deliberate,
cold-blooded fighter and business man. The rest was a mask. Those who
knew him or trafficked with him said that when it came to brass tacks
he was Danny-on-the-Spot. He was invariably present at all business
discussions, and it was urged by some that his manager was a blind whose
only function was to serve as Danny's mouth-piece.
Rivera's way was different. Indian blood, as well as Spanish, was in
his veins, and he sat back in a corner, silent, immobile, only his black
eyes passing from face to face and noting everything.
“So that's the guy,” Danny said, running an appraising eye over his
proposed antagonist. “How de do, old chap.”
Rivera's eyes burned venomously, but he made no sign of acknowledgment.
He disliked all Gringos, but this Gringo he hated with an immediacy that
was unusual even in him.
“Gawd!” Danny protested facetiously to the promoter. “You ain't
expectin' me to fight a deef mute.” When the laughter subsided, he made
another hit. “Los Angeles must be on the dink when this is the best you
can scare up. What kindergarten did you get 'm from?”
“He's a good little boy, Danny, take it from me,” Roberts defended. “Not
as easy as he looks.”
“And half the house is sold already,” Kelly pleaded. “You'll have to
take 'm on, Danny. It is the best we can do.”
Danny ran another careless and unflattering glance over Rivera and
sighed.
“I gotta be easy with 'm, I guess. If only he don't blow up.”
Roberts snorted.
“You gotta be careful,” Danny's manager warned. “No taking chances with
a dub that's likely to sneak a lucky one across.”
“Oh, I'll be careful all right, all right,” Danny smiled. “I'll get in
at the start an' nurse 'im along for the dear public's sake. What d' ye
say to fifteen rounds, Kelly--an' then the hay for him?”
“That'll do,” was the answer. “As long as you make it realistic.”
“Then let's get down to biz.” Danny paused and calculated. “Of course,
sixty-five per cent of the gate receipts, same as with Carthey. But
the split'll be different. Eighty will just about suit me.” And to his
manager, “That right?”
The manager nodded.
“Here, you, did you get that?” Kelly asked Rivera.
Rivera shook his head.
“Well, it is this way,” Kelly exposited. “The purse'll be sixty-five per
cent of the gate receipts. You're a dub, and an unknown. You and Danny
split, twenty per cent goin' to you, an' eighty to Danny. That's fair,
isn't it, Roberts?”
“Very fair, Rivera,” Roberts agreed.
“You see, you ain't got a reputation yet.”
“What will sixty-five per cent of the gate receipts be?” Rivera
demanded.
“Oh, maybe five thousand, maybe as high as eight thousand,” Danny broke
in to explain. “Something like that. Your share'll come to something
like a thousand or sixteen hundred. Pretty good for takin' a licking
from a guy with my reputation. What d' ye say?”
Then Rivera took their breaths away. “Winner takes all,” he said with
finality.
A dead silence prevailed.
“It's like candy from a baby,” Danny's manager proclaimed.
Danny shook his head.
“I've been in the game too long,” he explained.
“I'm not casting reflections on the referee, or the present company.
I'm not sayin' nothing about book-makers an' frame-ups that sometimes
happen. But what I do say is that it's poor business for a fighter like
me. I play safe. There's no tellin'. Mebbe I break my arm, eh? Or some
guy slips me a bunch of dope?” He shook his head solemnly. “Win or lose,
eighty is my split. What d' ye say, Mexican?”
Rivera shook his head.
Danny exploded. He was getting down to brass tacks now.
“Why, you dirty little greaser! I've a mind to knock your block off
right now.”
Roberts drawled his body to interposition between hostilities.
“Winner takes all,” Rivera repeated sullenly.
“Why do you stand out that way?” Danny asked.
“I can lick you,” was the straight answer.
Danny half started to take off his coat. But, as his manager knew, it
was a grand stand play. The coat did not come off, and Danny allowed
himself to be placated by the group. Everybody sympathized with him.
Rivera stood alone.
“Look here, you little fool,” Kelly took up the argument. “You're
nobody. We know what you've been doing the last few months--putting away
little local fighters. But Danny is class. His next fight after this
will be for the championship. And you're unknown. Nobody ever heard of
you out of Los Angeles.”
“They will,” Rivera answered with a shrug, “after this fight.”
“You think for a second you can lick me?” Danny blurted in.
Rivera nodded.
“Oh, come; listen to reason,” Kelly pleaded. “Think of the advertising.”
“I want the money,” was Rivera's answer.
“You couldn't win from me in a thousand years,” Danny assured him.
“Then what are you holdin' out for?” Rivera countered. “If the money's
that easy, why don't you go after it?”
“I will, so help me!” Danny cried with abrupt conviction. “I'll beat you
to death in the ring, my boy--you monkeyin' with me this way. Make
out the articles, Kelly. Winner take all. Play it up in the sportin'
columns. Tell 'em it's a grudge fight. I'll show this fresh kid a few.”
Kelly's secretary had begun to write, when Danny interrupted.
“Hold on!” He turned to Rivera.
“Weights?”
“Ringside,” came the answer.
“Not on your life, Fresh Kid. If winner takes all, we weigh in at ten
A.M.”
“And winner takes all?” Rivera queried.
Danny nodded. That settled it. He would enter the ring in his full
ripeness of strength.
“Weigh in at ten,” Rivera said.
The secretary's pen went on scratching.
“It means five pounds,” Roberts complained to Rivera.
“You've given too much away. You've thrown the fight right there.
Danny'll lick you sure. He'll be as strong as a bull. You're a fool. You
ain't got the chance of a dewdrop in hell.”
Rivera's answer was a calculated look of hatred. Even this Gringo he
despised, and him had he found the whitest Gringo of them all.