They were introduced, went to the center of the ring for the usual instructions, returned to their corners, shed bathrobes, stretched on the ropes, the gong rang, and the scrap was on.
Cooper was a clumsy bum. He had a pair of wide swings that might have hurt when they landed, but anybody with two feet could have kept away from them. Bush had class–nimble legs, a smooth fast left hand, and a right that got away quick. It would have been murder to put Cooper in the ring with the slim boy if he had been trying. But he wasn’t. That is, he wasn’t trying to win. He was trying not to, and had his hands full doing it.
Cooper waddled flat-footed around the ring, throwing his wide swings at everything from the lights to the corner posts. His system was simply to turn them loose and let them take their chances. Bush moved in and out, putting a glove on the ruddy boy whenever he wanted to, but not putting anything in the glove.
The customers were booing before the first round was over. The second round was just as sour. I didn’t feel so good. Bush didn’t seem to have been much influenced by our little conversation. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dinah Brand trying to catch my attention. She looked hot. I took care not to have my attention caught.
The room-mate act in the ring was continued in the third round to the tune of yelled Throw-em-outs, Why-don’t-you-kiss-hims and Makeem-fights from the seats. The pugs’ waltz brought them around to the corner nearest me just as the booing broke off for a moment.
I made a megaphone of my hands and bawled:
“Back to Philly, Al.”
Bush’s back was to me. He wrestled Cooper around, shoving him into the ropes, so he–Bush–faced my way.
From somewhere far back in another part of the house another yelling voice came:
“Back to Philly, Al.”
MacSwain, I supposed.
A drunk off to one side lifted his puffy face and bawled the same thing, laughing as if it were a swell joke. Others took up the cry for no reason at all except that it seemed to disturb Bush.
His eyes jerked from side to side under the black bar of his eyebrows.
One of Cooper’s wild mitts clouted the slim boy on the side of the jaw.
Ike Bush piled down at the referee’s feet.
The referee counted five in two seconds, but the gong cut him off.
I looked over at Dinah Brand and laughed. There wasn’t anything else to do. She looked at me and didn’t laugh. Her face was sick as Dan Rolff’s, but angrier.
Bush’s handlers dragged him into his corner and rubbed him up, not working very hard at it. He opened his eyes and watched his feet. The gong was tapped.
Kid Cooper paddled out hitching up his trunks. Bush waited until the bum was in the center of the ring, and then came to him, fast.
Bush’s left glove went down, out–practically out of sight in Cooper’s belly. Cooper said, “Ugh,” and hacked away, folding up.
Bush straightened him with a right-hand poke in the mouth, and sank the left again. Cooper said, “Ugh,” again and had trouble with his knees.
Bush cuffed him once on each side of the head, cocked his right, carefully pushed Cooper’s face into position with a long left, and threw his right hand straight from under his jaw to Cooper’s.
Everybody in the house felt the punch.
Cooper hit the floor, bounced, and settled there. It took the referee half a minute to count ten seconds. It would have been just the same if he had taken half an hour. Kid Cooper was out.
When the referee had finally stalled through the count, he raised Bush’s hand. Neither of them looked happy.
A high twinkle of light caught my eye. A short silvery streak slanted down from one of the small balconies.
A woman screamed.
The silvery streak ended its flashing slant in the ring, with a sound that was partly a thud, partly a snap.
Ike Bush took his arm out of the referee’s hand and pitched down on top of Kid Cooper. A black knife-handle stuck out of the nape of Bush’s neck.