He turns on his heel and stalks off before I can answer, which is just as well because I have no idea what to say.
“Who is Kid Testosterone?” asks Mtepwa.
“It is possible that he is the worst fighter who ever lived,” I say. “At the very least, he is the worst fighter still licensed to get his brains beat out. He has fought forty-seven times, and has been knocked out forty-six times. His greatest triumph was when he lost a unanimous decision to Glass Jaw Malone eleven years ago.”
“I see,” said Mtepwa.
“So what are we going to do?” I say. “The Goniff never backs down on a threat. If the Kid doesn’t win, I won’t be alive the next morning.”
“No problem,” says Mtepwa.
“No problem for you, Mtepwa,” I say. “But what about me?”
“I’ve got twenty-eight hours to figure it out,” he says. “And I wish you’d start calling me Cool Jumbo Cool. Mtepwa just doesn’t seem right in this venue.”
“Just get the Goniff and his zombie off my case once and for all, and I’ll call you anything you want,” I promise.
“Every occupation has its hazards,” he says. “You shouldn’t let this upset you.”
“I don’t mind being upset,” I tell him. “It’s being dismembered that bothers me.”
I am just as upset when we show up at the Garden the next night. Mtepwa has gone into some kind of African swami trance, and only comes out of it an hour before the fight. I ask him what he was doing, and he says he was napping, that he’s a 683-year-old man and he’s had a lot of excitement and he needs his sleep.
“Did you solve our problem?” I ask.
“Well, actually, it’s your problem,” he explains. “Nobody’s going to bother me no matter how the fight comes out.”
“All right, did you solve my problem?” I say.
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, work faster!” I snap. “If the Kid wins, I’m broke, and if he loses, I’m dead!”
“Fascinating problem,” he said. “Rather like Fermat’s Unfinished Theorem. Of course, if he’d simply paid me the five cattle and the virgin, I’d have shown him how to solve it.”
“Will you please concentrate on Harry the Book’s Unfinished Theorem?” I say pleadingly.
Before he can answer, I sense a presence hovering over me, and I turn and there is Sam the Goniff, smoking one of his five-dollar cigars, and with him is a guy who smells kind of funny and whose eyes seem to be staring sightlessly off into the distance and who has a lot of dirt under his fingernails, and I know that this is Dead End Dugan.
“Hi, Harry,” says the Goniff. “I’m glad to see you’re a fight fan. I’d hate to think that I’d have to go looking for you after the Kid knocks out Terrible Tommy.”
“I’ll be right here,” I say pugnaciously, but that is only because I know that hiding from the Goniff is like hiding from the IRS, only harder.
“I’ll count on it,” he says, and heads off to his ringside seat with Dugan, and I notice that Seldom Seen Seymour is already there waiting for him, just in case he needs a little help collecting after the fight.
“Have you come up with anything yet?” I ask Mtepwa.
“Yes,” he says.
“What is it?” I ask eagerly.
“I’ve come up with a sinus problem, I think,” he answers. “Too much cigar smoke in here.”
“What about Kid Testosterone?” I demand. “If he loses I die!”
“Then he can’t lose, can he?” says Mtepwa.
“But if he wins, I’m not only broke, but I haven’t got enough cash to cover the Goniff’s bet, and Seldom Seen Seymour will take me apart piece by piece.”
“Then he can’t win, can he?” says Mtepwa.
“I’ve got it!” I say. “You’re going to shoot him before the fight starts!”
Mtepwa just gives me a pitying look, and turns to concentrate on the ring, where they are carrying out what’s left of the Missouri Masher, and then Kid Testosterone and Terrible Tommy Tulsa enter the ring, and the ref is giving them their instructions, such as no biting or kicking or low blows, and because this is New York he also tells them no kissing, and then they go to their corners, and the bell rings and they come out and Tommy swings a haymaker that will knock the Kid’s head into the fourth row, but somehow his timing is off and he misses, and the Kid delivers a pair of punches that couldn’t smash an empty wine glass but sudden Tommy’s nose is bleeding, and he blinks his eyes like he can’t believe that the fight is thirty seconds old and the Kid is still standing.
But the Kid is still on his feet at the end of the round, and it later turns out that one of the three judges actually gives him the round, and another calls it even, and that is the way the fight goes for three rounds, but I am not watching the fight, I am watching Sam the Goniff, and between the third and fourth round he somehow gets the Kid’s attention and holds his fist out with his thumb down and I know he has just signaled the Kid to end it in the fourth round.
I am not the only one who has seen it. Mtepwa is staring right at the Goniff, and he just smiles, and I know he’s got something up his sleeve besides his arm, but I don’t know what.
The bell rings and the fighters come out for the fourth round. Terrible Tommy connects first, a blow to the solar plexus that should double the Kid over in pain, but instead Tommy screams and pulls his hand back like he’s just broken it punching a concrete wall, and then they circle around until the Kid’s back is to me, and suddenly Mtewpa starts mumbling again, and the Kid throws his money punch, and I look, figuring this is the end and Terrible Tommy is going down for the count, but it’s not Terrible Tommy, it’s the Goniff, and he takes the punch on the point of his chin and goes reeling around the ring, and the Kid starts pummeling him, and it occurs to me that the Kid looks a lot more like Rocky Marciano and a lot less like Kid Testosterone.
Every time he delivers what looks like a knockout blow, Mtepwa starts mumbling again, and no matter how much punishment the Goniff takes he stays on his feet. Finally the Kid winds up and knocks him through the ropes and he falls to the floor right in front of me.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me before you climb back into the ring?” I ask pleasantly.
“I ain’t climbing back in there!” he mutters through bleeding lips.
“Yes you are,” says Mtepwa, and against his will the Goniff gets to his feet and turns to face the ring.
“All right, all right!” he says. “I cancel the bet!”
“You don’t even have to cancel,” says Mtepwa before I can stop him. “Just promise you’ll never bet with Harry again, or use Dead End Dugan to hex a sporting event.”
“I promise,” says the Goniff.
The instant the words are out of his mouth he collapses, the referee declares Kid Testosterone the winner, and the Goniff is carted off to the hospital.
“Thanks for nothing!” I say to Mtepwa. “We didn’t cancel, so I still have to pay off! The bet was that the Kid would knock Terrible Tommy out, and he did!”
“The evening’s not over yet,” he replies, and indeed it isn’t, because the Kid fails a urine test, which doesn’t surprise anyone given that he made it all the way to the fourth round, and the fight is declared a draw-not a non-contest where I would have to return the Goniff’s money, but a draw, where everyone who bet on either fighter loses and only those who bet there’d be a draw win.
And that’s the story.
Well, not quite all of it. I’m not a bookie anymore. I took on a full partner-Cool Jumbo Cool, who eventually decided that this was the payment he wanted-and these days we head a pretty successful betting syndicate.
Jumbo’s really gotten into the swing of things; he likes this millieu. Tonight he’s hexed the big game between the Montana Buttes and the Georgia Geldings. I gave Benny Fifth Street a promotion, and we’ve even got a couple of new runners. In fact, I have to close now. It’s time to pass my money to Dead End Dugan and the Goniff and tell them where to lay our bets.