The stranger shook his head, as though to clear it. He sneered, "The
famous Joe Mauser, eh? The brave soldier-boy. Well, lemme tell you
something, soldier-boy, you don't look so tough to me with your cute
little mustache and your fancy-pants uniform. You look like a molly to
me."
"That's too bad," Joe bit out. "And now, if you'll just go away." He
turned his face from the other.
"Joe...!" Nadine said in an alarmed warning.
The other's contemptuous cuff, unsuspected, nearly bowled Joe
completely from his chair. As it was, he barely caught himself.
His attacker shuffled backward and Joe recognized the trained step of
the professional boxer. The other's identity now came to him, although
he was no follower of pugilism, a sport largely out of favor since the
rapid growth of Telly scanned fracases. Boxing at its top had never
been more than an inadequate replacement of the games once held in the
Roman area.
Joe was on his feet, instantly the fighting man under attack. The
table that he and Nadine occupied was a ringside one, and in open view
of half the room, but that meant nothing. He was under attack and for
the nonce surprised, on the defensive.
"How'd you like them apples, soldier-boy?" the professional pugilist
chuckled nastily. His left flicked forward and Joe barely avoided its
connecting with his face.
He threw aside, for the time, any attempt to explain the other's
uncalled for aggression. Unless he did something, and quick, he was
going to be a laughing stock, rather than the hero into which Freddy
Soligen was trying to build him.
Nadine said, Anxiously, "Joe ... please ... the waiters will deal
with--".
He didn't hear her.
Joe Mauser, with all his hospital studies, had never heard of the
Marquis of Queensbury. But even if he had, it would never have
occurred to him to be bound by that arbiter of fisticuffs. In fact, he
had no intention even of being restricted to the use of his hands as
fists. The Japanese, long centuries before, had proven the fist less
than the most effective manner in which to pursue hand-to-hand combat.
Joe Mauser, working coolly, fast and ruthlessly, now, a trained combat
man exercising his profession, moved in for the kill, his shoulders
hunched slightly forward, his hands forward and to the sides, choppers
rather than sledges.
Joe stepped closer, as quick as a jungle cat. His left hand leapt
forward to the other's neck, hacked, came back into another blurring
swing, hacked again. His opponent grunted agony.
But a man does not become heavyweight champion without being able to
take as well as give punishment. Joe's attacker tucked his chin into
his shoulder, fighter style, and moved in throwing off the effects of
the karate blows. Somehow, he seemed considerably less drunk or
over-tranked than he had short moments before, and there was rage in
his face, rather than glaze.
One of the blows caught Joe on a shoulder and sent him reeling back.
At the same time, behind the other, Joe could see the maitre d'hotel
flanked by three waiters, hurrying up. He was going to have to do
something, and do it quickly, or be branded a boorish Middle who had
intruded into a domain of the Uppers only to participate in a brawl
and have to be expelled by the establishment's servants.
The former champ, his eyes narrowed in confidence of victory, came
boring in, on his toes, quick for all of his bulk. Joe turned
sideways, his movements lithe. He lashed out with his right foot, at
this angle getting double the leverage he would have otherwise, and
caught the other on the kneecap. The pugilist bent forward in agony,
his mouth opening as though in protest.
Joe stepped forward, quickly, efficiently. His hands were now knitted
together in a huge double fist. He brought them upward, crushingly,
into his opponent's face, with all the force he could achieve, and
felt bone and cartilage crush. Before even waiting for the other to
fall, he turned, righted his chair, and resumed his seat facing
Nadine, his breath coming only inconsiderably faster than before.
Her eyes were wide, but she hadn't organized herself as yet to the
point of either protest or praise.
The maitre d' was at their table. "Sir----" he began.
Joe said curtly, "This barroom brawler attacked me. I'm surprised you
allow your patrons to get into the shape he is. Please bring our
bill."
The head waiter stuttered, his eyes going about in despair, even as
his assistants were lifting the fallen champion to his feet and
hustling him away.
An occupant of one of the nearby tables spoke up, collaborating Joe's
words. The action had been fast, though brief, and had won the
fascinated attention of that half of the patrons of the Exclusive Room
near enough to see. Somebody else called out, too. And it came to Joe
cynically, that a brawl in an establishment exclusive to Uppers,
differed little from on of Middle or even Lower caste.
But it was impossible that they remain. He had looked forward to this
evening with Nadine Haer, had planned to lay the foundations for a
future campaign, when, as a newly created Upper, he would be in the
position to mention marriage. He fumed, inwardly, even as he helped
her with her wrap, preparatory to leaving.
Nadine, now that she had recovered composure, said coldly, "I suppose
you realize you broke that man's nose and injured his eye to an extent
I'd have to examine him to evaluate?"
Behind her, he rolled his eyes upward in mute protest. He said, "What
was I supposed to do, hand him a rose from our table bouquet?"
"Violence is the resort of the incompetent."
"You must tell that, some time, to a jungle animal being attacked by a
lion."
"Oh, you're impossible!"