Lacey slammed a hard right into Danny’s middle. The air gasped out of Danny’s lungs. He doubled over, tried to grab the black. His gloves reached Lacey’s body, but then slipped away. Danny straightened up, turned to find Lacey, and got another stinging left in his face.
It was getting hard to breathe. No, don’t! Danny told himself. Don’t get sick! But his chest was starting to feel heavy. Another flurry of punches to his body made it feel even worse.
Danny finally grabbed Lacey and pulled himself so close that their heads rubbed together.
“You want to dance, baby?” Lacey laughed.
Then, suddenly, he blasted half a dozen punches into Danny’s guts, broke away, and cracked a solid right to Danny’s cheek. Danny felt his knees wobble.
The bell rang.
Ralph was angry. “You didn’t do nothing I told you to! You got to get in close, hold him, butt him!”
Danny gasped, “You try it.”
He sat on the stool, chest heaving. His face felt funny, like it was starting to swell. It stung.
The bell sounded for the second round, and it was more of the same. Lacey was all over the ring, grinning, laughing, popping Danny with lefts and rights. Danny felt as if he was wearing iron boots. He just couldn’t keep up with Lacey. The crowd was roaring so loudly that it hurt his ears. He tasted blood in his mouth. And Lacey kept gliding in on him, peppering him with a flurry of punches, then slipping away before he could return a blow.
Danny’s chest was getting bad now. He was puffing, gasping, unable to get air into his lungs.
It seemed as if an hour had gone by. Finally, Lacey backed into the ropes and Danny made a desperate grab for him. He locked his arms around Lacey, wheezing hard.
“Hey, you sick?” Lacey’s voice, muffled behind the mouth protector, sounded in Danny’s right ear. “You sound like a church organ.”
He pushed Danny away, but instead of hitting him, just tapped his face with a light jab and danced off toward the center of the ring. The crowd booed.
“Finish him!”
“Knock him out, Lacey!”
The bell ended round two.
Joe Tenny was at his corner when Danny sagged tiredly on the stool.
“You’d better take another pill,” he said.
Shaking his head, Danny gasped out, “Naw… I’ll be… okay…. Only one… more round.”
Tenny started to say something, then thought better of it. He went back down the stairs to his seat.
“You got to get him this round!” Ralph hollered in Danny’s ear, over the noise of the crowd. “It’s now or never! When th’ bell rings, go out slow. He thinks he’s got you beat. Soon’s he’s in reach, sock him with everything you’ve got!”
Danny nodded.
The bell rang. Danny pushed himself off the stool. He went slowly out to the middle of the ring, his hands held low. The referee was looking at him in a funny way. Lacey danced out, on his toes, still full of bounce and smiling.
Lacey got close enough and Danny fired his best punch, an uppercutting right, a pistol shot from the hip, hard as he could make it.
It caught Lacey somewhere on the jaw. He went down on the seat of his pants, looking very surprised.
The crowd leaped to its feet, screaming and cheering.
The referee was bending over Lacey, counting. But he got up quickly. His face looked grim, the smile was gone. The referee took a good look into Lacey’s eyes, then turned toward Danny and motioned for him to start fighting again.
Danny managed to take two steps toward Lacey, and then the hurricane hit him. Lacey swarmed all over him, anger and pride mixed with his punches now. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t worried about whether Danny might be sick or not. He attacked like a horde of Vikings, battering Danny with a whirlwind of rights and lefts.
Danny felt himself smashed back into the ropes, his legs melting away under him. He leaned against the ropes, let them hold him up. He tried to keep his hands up, to ward off some of the punches. But he couldn’t cover himself. Punches were landing like hail in a thunderstorm.