“You about to lose it?”
“That could happen. And it isn’t my fault. Things looked better when I sewed myself up with this house. And of course, you have to belong to clubs. It takes money to live these days. A hell of a lot. And I’ve always felt you got to spend a buck to make a buck. Sports cars are pretty hot these days. About eight months ago I took on a line of them. It was okay with the regular outfit, you know, non-competing. Appeals to a different market. I extended myself. Went into hock to swing it. Then, about six weeks ago, everything went to hell in a bucket. All at once.”
He counted on thick fingers. “One — the steel strike cut my new car deliveries. Two — the bottom fell out of the used-car market. Three — the Bureau of Internal Revenue jumped me with a tax bill for ’47, ’48, ’49 and ’50. It goes way back to those tanker operations, Lew, and it’s a big debt. No question of fraud, you understand. Just a question of interpretation. My lawyers tell me I’m dead. Okay, I scrounged. I mortgaged everything on the floor, everything in the lot, got a second mortgage on this house, sold the kid’s bonds, some jewelry I bought Ivy, and some business property I was holding. The agency is in hock. Man, I’m in hock all the way up to here, and the only thing I was able to buy with all that was time. I go around in circles, wondering what I’m going to do. I can’t borrow any more. I’ve got to make some — make a bundle! And make it fast. I’ve even borrowed to the hilt on insurance. I’m forty, Lew. I can’t let them lick me now. It would be too tough starting over. With you, it’s different; you’re only thirty-three and—”
“Thirty-five, Jack.”
“By God, you don’t look it. Anyway, you’ve got only yourself to look out for, and you got an edge in years. As I say, I was driving myself nuts trying to find some way to get hold of a good piece of money. I was too restless to sit still and worry. I went downtown six weeks ago. They were having a card at the River Stadium, so I wandered over and bought a ringside. Hell, it was like old times. All the prelims were punks. The main was a boy named Sammy Hode. I sat up when I saw that kid. A sweet build. The way he moved, it made me think of you. He was in there against Red Hacklin. He knocked old Red kicking in the fourth. Red could get up, but it was a TKO. I got into the dressing-room afterward and talked to the kid. It was his fourteenth pro bout, and he’s taken twelve by knockouts, and it wasn’t set up for him, either.”
Jack poured himself another shot. His face was flushed with excitement. “By luck, I’ve walked in just right. Sammy is sore at his manager. It’s like this. With the New York crowd, his manager is poison. He’s a little screwball named Morgan. He won’t sell to the New York crowd because he hates them worse than he loves money. The kid had told Morgan he was through. Morgan couldn’t get him good heavies to knock down, and the kid knew he was more than ready for the big time. I started a sales job on the kid and on Morgan. I walked out with a contract. It costs me eight thousand to buy it from Morgan.”
“Where did you get eight thousand?”
“I’m glad you asked me that. I took my reserve — the last dime of it. It left me dead broke for cash.”
“I don’t like what I think is coming, Jack. I don’t like it at all.”
“Now give me a chance, dammit. From the old days I know the New York contacts. The next morning I was on the phone. Yes, they knew of the kid’s record. Yes, he looked like a good boy, but he’d never been up against anybody who counts. You see my idea. I wanted to build the kid further and then unload all of my interest, or a good part of it for a decent profit. I know a good boy when I see one. The best I could get right away was an offer of ten thousand, and that’s no good. That would have given me two thousand which, in my condition, is peanuts. Two weeks ago I matched Sammy with a local. He half killed the guy in the first round. My end was seventeen hundred. I phoned again. They upped it to twelve-thousand-five, which still wasn’t sweet enough. Then, believe me, Lew, right there when I was talking over the phone, I said, right off the top of my head, ‘What if I match him with Lew Barry and the kid wins?”
“Now wait—”
“Let me finish. First they said it couldn’t be done. You’ve been contacted, they said, and you won’t fight. Then they remembered we’re friends. I got a halfway promise. If I can arrange the match, and if we can give it enough publicity, and if the kid wins, they’ll talk in terms of big money. And I mean big, Lew. They’re starving for a colorful heavy. You know that. They’ve got nothing but zombies. Now here it is. The River Stadium, August first. That gives you six weeks to sharpen up enough to make it look good. Your end should be about eight thousand. I don’t know how the odds will figure, but if we want to bet a specific round for a knockout, we can make plenty. When it’s all over, I cut you in on the sale of the kid. There it is, on the line. I don’t want to beg you to do it, Lew. But if you turn me down... well, I don’t mind so much for myself. Ivy and the kid aren’t going to have it so good.”
“I’m out of it,” Lew said hoarsely. “I’ve been out for five years. They’ve all forgotten. It doesn’t mean a damn’ thing if the kid knocks me out.”
“Don’t kid yourself. The public has a long memory. You’re m the record books. And one thing. You’ve been knocked down, but you were never knocked out. That means something to them. It’s a buildup for the kid.”
“I was never knocked out, and I never went in for tank jobs.”
“Wait until you see Sammy go. This won’t be a tank job. The kid can hit.”
“I can’t get back in shape.”
“You’re in shape right now. You look like a rock.”
“You know better than that, Jack. It’s the timing, the reflexes. I can’t get that edge back. It’s gone forever. I quit before they had me talking to myself. No dice, Jack.”
Jack brought the shot glass over and sat on the bed beside Lew. Jack sighed heavily and looked down at the floor between his stockinged feet. He said softly: “When you were up there at the top, I was just a guy hanging around the fringes, Lew. We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, you and me and Ivy. Then after that last fight you walked out. You let us read about your retirement in the papers. You know, boy, I always had it figured that you and Ivy— I mean, I was head-over-heels, but you always seemed to have the inside track. That’s the way I had it figured.”
“Drop it!”
“This is something I want to say. I got her on the rebound, Lew. She’s never admitted it, but I know it’s true.”
“I walked out,” Lew said harshly. “That’s right. I walked out. I started saving money too late in the game. What the hell did I know? Nothing but box-fighting. Nothing else in the world. Louis took it out of me. He took all there was left. He came after me, stalking me the way he always used to work, and he got me in a neutral corner and he spoiled me. I didn’t have anything left. She didn’t want a beat-up pug with about eleven thousand bucks to his name, and no way of earning any more unless he let the kids on the way up knock him punchy and blind him and fix him up finally with a tray of dollar ties to sell at two bucks a copy in the Third Avenue bars. So I walked out and she married you — and it was a good thing.”
“It has been a good thing. Correction-past tense. If I can get sixty thousand dollars together, maybe it can keep on being a good thing. But if I don’t, I have to go through bankruptcy and they won’t leave me the proverbial pot. Okay, you won’t fight, you say. Can you raise sixty thousand? Can you mortgage those trucks of yours? Make it forty-eight thousand or so, and I’ll unload the kid for twelve and see if I can work my way out of the hole and pay you back one of these days.”