“Ya,” said Sven, rubbing his jaw, “you got to go tell her I can’t come, Steve.”
“Aw, well,” I said, “all right. I’ll tell her you fell off the docks and sprained your ankle. Where’s she live?”
“She dances at the Striped Cat Cabaret,” said Sven.
After downing a finger of Old Jersey Cream, I tightened my belt and me and Mike sauntered forth.
Bill followed me out into the street and said: “Dawg-gone it, Steve, you ought not to go cruisin’ off this way, with the fight just a few hours in the offin’. That Ruffian crew is crooked as a buncha snakes — and you know what a soft head you are where women is concerned.”
“Your remarks is highly insultin’, Bill,” I returned with my well-known quiet dignity. “I don’t reckon no woman ever made a fool outa me. I know ’em like a book. Anyhow, you don’t think I’d fall for a dame as encouraged a sap like Sven, do you? Heck, she’s probably some big fat wench with a face like a bull terrier. What’d he say her name was — oh, yes, Gloria Flynn. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be at the American in plenty uh time.”
It was after dark when me and Mike got to the Striped Cat Cabaret which is located in a tough waterfront section of the city. I asked the manager for Gloria Flynn, and he said she’d just finished a dance and was in her dressing room, changing to street clothes. He told me to wait for her at the back exit, which I done. I was standing there when the door opened and some girls come out. I said, taking off my cap, politely, “Which one of you frails is Gloria Flynn, if any?”
You could of knocked me over with a pile-driver when the snappiest, prettiest one of the bunch up and said, “I’m her — and what of it?”
“Well,” I said, eyeing her with great admiration, “all I can say is, what does a girl like you want to waste her time with such tripe as Sven Larsen when they is men like me in port?”
“Don’t get fresh!” she snapped.
“Oh, I ain’t fresh,” I assured her. “I just come to tell you that Sven fell off a dock and broke his neck — I mean sprained his ankle, and he can’t make the date tonight.”
“Oh,” she murmured. Then looking close at me, she said, “Who are you?”
“I’m Steve Costigan, the fellow that licked him,” I replied thoughtlessly.
“Oh!” she said, kind of breathlessly. “So you’re Steve Costigan!”
“Yeah, I am,” I said, having spilled the beans anyway. “Steve Costigan, A. B. mariner, and heavyweight champion aboard the trader Sea Girl. I knowed you didn’t know me, or you wouldn’t of persuaded your boy friend to risk his life by takin’ a swing at me.”
She looked kind of bewildered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” I hastened to assure her. “Sven told me about you urgin’ him to climb me, but it’s natural for a frail to want her fellow to be a champ of somethin’. What I can’t understand is, what you see in a galoot like Sven.”
She gave a kind of hysterical laugh. “Oh, I see. Why, Mr. Costigan—”
“Call me Steve,” I beamed.
“Well — Steve,” she said with a little embarrassed laugh, “I didn’t urge him anything of the sort. I just said he was such a big fellow I bet he could whip anybody aboard his ship — and he said one of the other sailors, Steve Costigan, was champion, and I said I was surprised that anybody could lick him — Sven, I mean. Why, I had no idea he’d get it into his head I wanted him to fight anybody. I do hope you didn’t hurt the poor boy.”
“Oh, not much,” I said, unconsciously swelling out my huge chest, “I always handle my shipmates easy as possible. Though uh course, I’m so powerful some times I hit harder’n I intend to. But say, sister, I know a swell little girl like you wasn’t takin’ that big squarehead serious. You was just sorry for him because he’s so kind of big and awkward and dumb, wasn’t you?”
“Well,” she admitted, “that was the way of it; he looked lonesome—”
“Well, that’s mighty fine of you,” I said. “But forget about him now; after the beltin’ I give him, he won’t want to come back to you, and anyway, he’ll find a native girl or a Chinese or somethin’. He ain’t like me; a woman’s a woman to him and he’ll fall for anything in skirts that comes along. Me, I’m a one-woman man. Anyway, kid, it ain’t right for you to trail around with a galoot like him. You owe it to yourself to keep company with only the best — me, for instance.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, with downcast eyes.
“Sure, I’m always right,” I answered modestly. “Now what say we go in and lap up something. All this talkin’ I been doin’s got my throat dry.”
“Oh, I never drink intoxicants,” she said with a bright smile. “If you don’t mind let’s go over here to this ice-cream parlor.”
“O.K. with me,” I said, “but first lemme introduce you to Mike who can lick his weight both in wildcats and dog biscuits.”
Well, Mike, he shook hands with her but he wasn’t particular enthusiastic. He ain’t no ladies’ dog; he treats ’em politely but coldly. Then we went over to the joint where they sold ice cream, and while we was dawdling over the stuff, I let my eyes wander over my charming companion. She was a beauty, no doubt about it; curly yellow hair and big trusting violet eyes.
“What’s a nice girl like you doin’ workin’ in a dump like the Striped Cat?” I asked her, and she kind of sighed and hung her head.
“A girl has to do lots of things she don’t like to,” she said. “I was in a high class stock company which went broke here on account of the manager getting delirium tremens and having to be sent back to his home in England. I had to eat, and this was the only job open for me. Some day I’m going home; my folks live on a dairy farm in New Jersey, and I was a fool ever to leave there. Right now I can see the old white farm house, and the green meadows with the babbling brooks running through them, and the cows grazing.”
I thought she was going to cry for a minute, then she kind of sighed and smiled: “It’s all in a lifetime, isn’t it?”
“You’re a brave kid,” I said, touched to my shoe soles, “and I wanta see more of you. I’m fightin’ some guy at the American Arena in a little while. How about holdin’ down a nice ringside seat there, and then havin’ supper and a little dancin’ afterwards? I can’t dance much, but I’m a bear at the supper table.”
“Oh,” said she, “you’re the man that’s going to fight Red Roach?”
“Is that his name?” I asked. “Yeah, if he’s the man from the Ruffian.”
“I’d like to go,” she said, “but I have to go on in another dance number in half an hour.”
“Well,” I said, “the fight can’t last more’n three or four rounds, not with me in there. How ‘bout me droppin’ around the Striped Cat afterwards? If you ain’t through then, I’ll wait for you.”
“That’s fine,” she said, and noting my slightly unsatisfied expression, she said: “If I’d known you were going to fight so soon, I wouldn’t have let you eat that ice cream.”
“Oh, that won’t interfere with my punchin’ ability any,” I said. “But I would like a shot of hard licker to kind of settle it on my stummick.”
That’s the truth; sailors is supposed to be hawgs about ice cream and I have seen navy boys eat it in digusting quantities, but it’s poor stuff for my belly. Mike had ate the bowl full I give him, but he’d a sight rather had a pan of slush.
“Let’s don’t go in any of these saloons,” said Gloria. “These waterfront bars sell you the same stuff rattlesnakes have in their teeth. I tell you, I’ve got a bottle of rare old wine not very far from here. I never touch it myself, but I keep it for my special friends and they say it’s great. You’ve time for a nip, haven’t you?”
“Lead on, sister,” I said, “I’ve always got time to take a drink, or oblige a beautiful girl!”
“Ah, you flatterer,” she said, giving me a little push. “I bet you tell that to every girl you meet.”
Well
, to my surprise we halted before a kind of ramshackle gymnasium, and Gloria took out a key and unlocked the door.
“I didn’t tell you I had a kid brother with me,” she said in answer to my surprised glance. “He’s a weakly sort of kid, and I have to support him as well as myself. Poor kid, he would come with me when I left home. Well, Mr. Salana, who owns the gym, lets him use the equipment to build himself up; it’s healthy for him. This is the boy’s key. I keep the wine hidden in one of the lockers.”
“Ain’t this where Tony Andrada trains?” I asked suspiciously. “‘Cause if it is, it ain’t no place for a nice girl. They is fighters and fighters, my child, and Tony is no credit to no business.”
“He’s always been a perfect gentleman towards me,” she answered. “Of course I come here only occasionally when my brother is working out—” She opened the door and we went in and then she shut it. To my slight surprise I heard the click as she locked it. She switched on a light and I seen her bending over something. Then she swung around and — wow! — I got the most unexpected, dumfounding surprise of my life to date! When she turned she had a heavy Indian club in both hands, and she heaved it up and crashed it down on my head with everything she had behind it!
Well, I was so utterly dumfounded I just stood and gaped at her, and Mike, he nearly had a fit. I’d always taught him never to bite a woman, and he just didn’t know what to do. Gloria was staring at me with eyes that looked like they was going to jump right out of her head. She glanced down at the broken fragments of the Indian club in a kind of stunned way, and then the color all ebbed out of her face, leaving her white as a ghost.
“That’s a nice way to do a friend!” I said reproachfully. “I don’t mind a joke, but you’ve made me bite my tongue.”
She cringed back against the wall and held out both hands pitifully: “Don’t hit me!” she cried, “please don’t hit me! I had to do it!”
Well, if I ever seen a scared girl, it was then. She was shaking in every limb.
“You don’t need to insult me on top of busting a club on my skull,” I said with my quiet dignity. “I never hit no woman in my life and I ain’t figurin’ on it.”
All to once she began to cry. “Oh,” said she, “I’m ashamed of myself. But please listen — I’ve lied to you. My brother is a fighter too, and he just about had this fight with Red Roach, when the promoter at the American changed his mind and signed you up instead. This fight would have given us enough to get back to New Jersey where those cows are grazing by the babbling meadows. I — I — thought, when you told me you were the one that’s going to fight Roach, I’d fix it so you wouldn’t show up, and they’d have to use Billy — that’s my brother — after all. I was going to knock you unconscious and tie you up till after the fight. Oh, I know you’ll hate me, but I’m desperate. I’ll die if I have to live this life much longer,” she said passionately. And then she starts to bawl.
Well, I can’t see as it was my fault, but I felt like a horse thief anyhow.
“Don’t cry,” I said. “I’d help you all I can, but I got all my jack sunk on the imbroblio to win by a k.o.”
She lifted her tear stained face. “Oh, Steve, you can help me! Just stay here with me! Don’t show up at the Arena! Then Billy will get the fight and we can go home! Please, Steve, please, please, please!”
She had her arms around my neck and was fairly shaking me in her eagerness. Well, I admit I got a soft spot in my heart for the weaker sex, but gee whiz!
“Great cats, Gloria,” I said, “I’d dive off the Statue uh Liberty for you, but I can’t do this. My shipmates has got every cent they got bet on me. I can’t throw ’em down that way.”
“You don’t love me!” she mourned.
“Aw, I do too,” I protested. “But dawg-gone it, Gloria, I just can’t do it, and please don’t coax me, ‘cause it’s like jerkin’ a heart-string loose to say ‘No’ to you. Wait a minute! I got a idee! You and your brother got some money saved up, ain’t cha?”
“Yes, some,” she sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with a foolish little lace handkerchief.
“Well, listen,” I said, “you can double it — sink every cent you got on me to win by a kayo! It’ll be a cinch placin’ the dough. Everybody on the waterfront’s bettin’ one way or the other.”
“But what if you lose?” said she.
“Me lose?” I snorted. “Don’t make me laugh! You do that — and I can’t stay another minute, kid — I’m due at the Arena right now. And say, I’ll have some dough myself after the battle, and I’m goin’ to help you and your brother get back to them green cows and babblin’ farm houses. Now I got to go!”
And before she had time to say another word, I kicked the lock off the door, being in too big a hurry to have her unlock it, and the next second me and Mike was sprinting for the Arena.
I found Bill tearing his hair and walking the dressing room floor.
“Here you are at last, are you, you blankety-blank mick dipthong!” he yelled blood-thirstily. “Where you been? You want to make a nervous wreck outa me? You realize you been committin’ the one unpardonable sin, by keepin’ the crowd waitin’ for fifteen minutes? They’re yellin’ bloody murder and the crew which is all out front in ringside seats, has been throwin’ chairs at the Ruffian’s men which has been howlin’ you’d run out on us. The promoter says if you ain’t in that ring in five minutes, he’ll run in a substitute.”
“And I’ll run him into the bay,” said I, sitting down and shucking my shoes. “I gotta get my wind back a little. Boy, we had Sven’s girl down all wrong! She’s a peach, as well as bein’ a square-shootin’—”
“Shut up, and get into them trunks!” howled Bill, doing a war-dance on the cap I’d just took off. “You’ll never learn nothin’. Listen to that crowd! We’ll be lucky if they don’t lynch all of us!”
Well, the maddened fans was making a noise like a flock of hungry lions, but that didn’t worry me none. I’d just got into my fighting togs when the door opened and the manager of the Arena stuck a pale face in.
“I got a man in place of Costigan—” he began, when he saw me and stopped.
“Gangway!” I snarled, and as I pushed by him, I saw a fellow in trunks coming out of another dressing room. To my amazement it was Tony Andrada, which even had his hands taped. His jaw fell when he seen me, and his manager, Abe Gold, give a howl. They was two other thugs with them — Salana and Joe Cromwell — I’d been in Honolulu enough to know them yeggs.
“What do you think you’re doin’ here?” I snarled, facing Tony.
“They want me to fight Roach, when you run out—” he begun.
Bill grabbed my arm as I was making ready to slug him. “For cats’ sake!” he snarled, “you can lick him after you flatten Roach if you want to! Come on!”
“It’s mighty funny he should turn up, right at this time,” I growled. “I thought Billy Flynn was to fight Roach if I didn’t show up.”
“Who’s Billy Flynn?” asked Bill as he rushed me up the aisle between howling rows of infuriated fans.
“My new girl’s kid brother,” I answered as I clumb through the ropes. “If they’ve did anything to him, I’ll—”
My meditations was drowned by the thunders of the mob, who give me cheers because I’d got there, and razzes because I hadn’t got there sooner.
On one side of the ring the Sea Girl’s crew lifted the roof with their wild whoops and on the other side the Ruffian’s roughnecks greeted me with coarse, rude squawks and impolite remarks.
Well, I glanced over to the opposite corner and saw Red Roach for the first, and I hope the last, time. He was tall and raw-boned, and the ugliest human I ever seen. He had freckles as big as mess pans all over him; his nose was flat, and his low slanting forehead was topped by a shock of the most scandalously red hair I ever looked at. When he rose from his stool I seen he was knock-kneed and when we came to the center of the ring to pretend to listen to instructions, I was disgusted to note that he was also cross
-eyed. At first I thought he was counting the crowd, and it was slightly disconcerting to finally decide he was glaring at me!
We went back to our corners, the gong sounded, the scrap started and I got another jolt.
Roach come out, right foot and right hand forward. He was left-handed! I was so disgusted I come near lighting in and giving him a good cussing. Red- headed, cross-eyed — and left-handed! And he was the first good port- sider I’d ever met in a ring.
I forgot to say our weights was 190 for me, and 193 for him. In addition, he was six feet three, or just three inches taller’n me, and he musta had a reach of anyways fifteen fathoms. We was still so far apart I didn’t think he could reach me with a pole when — bam! his right licked out to my chin. I give a roar and plunged in, meaning to make it a quick fight. I wanted to crush this inhuman freak before the sight of him got on my nerves and rattled me.
But I was all at sea. A left-hander does everything backwards. He leads with his right and crosses his left. He side-steps to the left instead of the right ordinarily. This guy done everything a port-sider’s supposed to do, and a lot more stuff he thought up for hisself. He had a fast hard straight right and a wicked left swing — oh boy, how he could hit with that left! Seemed like every time I did anything, I got that right in the eye or the mouth or on the nose, and whilst I was thinking about that, bam! come the left and nearly ripped my head clean off.
The long, lanky mutt — it looked like if I ever landed solid I’d bust him in two. But I couldn’t get past that long straight right. My swings were all short and his straight right beat my left hook every time. When I tried trading jabs with him, his extra reach ruint that — anyway, I’m a natural hooker. My straight left is got force, but it ain’t as accurate as it should be.
At the end of the first round my right ear was nearly mangled. In the second frame he half closed my eye with a sizzling right hook, and opened a deep gash on my forehead. At the beginning of the third he dropped me for no- count with a left hook to the body that nearly caved me in. The Ruffian’s crew was getting crazier every second and the Sea Girl’s gang was yelling bloody murder. But I wasn’t worried. I’m used to more punishment than I was getting and I wasn’t weakening any.
Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four) Page 174