Gladiator - Philip Wylie (readnow .TXT) 📗

afternoon and eight tonight. Fifty dollars will be given to any man, black or white, who can stay three rounds with him, and one hundred dollars cash money to the man who knocks out Battling Ole Swenson, the Terror of the Docks.”

“See,” Izzie said, rubbing his hands excitedly, “mebbe you could do it.”

A light dawned on Hugo. He smiled. “I can,” he replied. “What time is it?”

“Two o’clock.”

“Well, let’s go.”

They entered the lobby of the “gymnasium.” “Mr. Epstein,” Izzie called, “I gotta fighter for the Swede.”

Mr. Epstein was a pale fat man who ignored the handicap of the dank cigar in his mouth and roared when he spoke. He glanced at Hugo and then addressed Izzie. “Where is he?”

“There.”

Epstein looked at Hugo and then was shaken by laughter. “There, you says, and there I looks and what do I see but a pink young angel face that Ole would swallow without chewing.”

Hugo said: “I don’t think so. I’m willing to try.”

Epstein scowled. “Run away from here, kid, before you get hurt. Ole would laugh at you. This isn’t easy money. It takes a man to get a look at it.”

Izzie stamped impatiently. “I tell you, Mr. Epstein, I seen this boy fight. He’s the goods. He can beat your Ole. I bet he can.” His voice caught and he glanced nervously at Hugo. “I bet ten dollars he can.”

“How much?” Epstein bellowed.

“Well⁠—say twenty dollars.”

“How much?”

“Fifty dollars. It’s all I got, Epstein.”

“All right⁠—go in and sign up and leave your wad. Kid,” he turned to Hugo, “you may think you’re husky, but Ole is a killer. He’s six nine in his socks and he weighs two hundred and eighty. He’ll mash you.”

“I don’t think so,” Hugo repeated.

“Well, you’ll be meat. We’ll put you second on the list. And the lights’ll go out fast enough for yuh.”

Hugo followed Izzie and reached him in time to see a fifty-dollar bill peeled from a roll which was extracted with great intricacy from Izzie’s clothes. “I thought you hadn’t eaten for two days!”

“It’s God’s truth,” Izzie answered uneasily. “I was savin’ this dough⁠—an’ it’s lucky, too, isn’t it?”

Hugo did not know whether to laugh or to be angry. He said: “And you’d have let me take a poke in the jaw from that waiter. You’re a hell of a guy, Izzie.”

Izzie moved his eyes rapidly. “I ain’t so bad. I’m bettin’ on you, ain’t I? An’ I got you a chancet at the Swede, didn’t I?”

“How’d you know that waiter couldn’t kill me?”

“Well⁠—he didn’t. Anyhow, what’s a poke in the jaw to a square meal, eh?”

“When the other fellow gets the poke and you get the meal. All right, Izzie. I wish I thought Ole was going to lick me.”

Hugo wrote his name under a printed statement to the effect that the fight managers were not responsible for the results of the combat. The man who led him to a dressing-room was filled with sympathy and advice. He told Hugo that one glance at Ole would discourage his reckless avarice. But Hugo paid no attention. The room was dirty. It smelled of sweat and rubber sneakers. He sat there for half an hour, reading a newspaper. Outside, somewhere, he could hear the mumble of a gathering crowd, punctuated by the voices of candy and peanut-hawkers.

At last they brought some clothes to him. A pair of trunks that flapped over his loins, ill-fitting canvas shoes, a musty bath robe. When the door of his room opened, the noise of the crowd was louder. Finally it was hushed. He heard the announcer. It was like the voice of a minister coming through the stained windows of a church. It rose and fell. Then the distant note of the gong. After that the crowd called steadily, sometimes in loud rage and sometimes almost in a whisper.

Finally they brought Ole’s first victim into Hugo’s cell. He was a man with the physique of a bull. His face was cut and his eyes were darkening. One of the men heaving his stretcher looked at Hugo.

“Better beat it, kid, while you can still do it on your own feet. You ain’t even got the reach for Ole. He’s a grizzly, bo. He’ll just about kill you.”

Hugo tightened his belt and swung the electric light back and forth with a slow-moving fist. Another man expertly strapped his fists with adhesive tape.

“When do I go out?” Hugo asked.

“You mean, when do you get knocked out?” the second laughed.

“Fight?”

“Well, if you’re determined to get croaked, you do it now.”

In the arena it was dazzling. A bank of noisy people rose on all sides of him. Hugo walked down the aisle and clambered into the ring. Ole was one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life. There was no doubt of his six feet nine inches and his two hundred and eighty pounds. Hugo imagined that the man was not a scientific fighter. A bruiser. Well, he knew nothing of fighting, either.

A man in his shirt sleeves stood up in the ring and bellowed, “The next contestant for the reward of fifty dollars to stay three rounds with battling Ole and one hundred dollars to knock him out is Mr. H. Smith.” They cheered. It was a nasty sound, filled with the lust for blood. Hugo realized that he was excited. His knees wabbled when he rose and his hand trembled as he took the monstrous paw of the Swede and saw his unpleasant smile. Hugo’s heart was pounding. For one instant he felt weak and human before Battling Ole. He whispered to himself: “Quit it, you fool; you know better; you can’t even be hurt.” It did not make him any more quiet.

Then they were sitting face to face. A bell rang. The hall became silent as the mountainous Swede lumbered from his corner. He towered over Hugo, who stood up and went out to meet him like David approaching Goliath. To the crowd the spectacle was laughable. There was jeering before they