“Me and Flogger don’t understand what’s being done to us right away, but our mouthpiece does, and as soon as I get a look at him I know it’s pretty bad. He’s sort of gasping.
“The rest of the dirty work takes longer, but there’s no stopping it. This old buzzard of a judge has our charges changed to ‘receiving stolen property’—a felony in that
state; we are convicted on two counts, and he slips us ten years in the big house on each, the hitches to run end to end.
“And does that old buzzard feel that the court should exercise its legal privilege of leniency and suspend our sentences? Fat chance! Me and Flogger goes over!”
HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER
I KNEW what a lot of people said about Loney but he was always swell to me. Ever since I remember he was swell to me and I guess I would have liked him just as much even if he had been just somebody else instead of my brother; but I was glad he was not just somebody else.
He was not like me. He was slim and would have looked swell in any kind of clothes you put on him, only he always dressed classy and looked like he had stepped right out of the bandbox even when he was just loafing around the house, and he had slick hair and the whitest teeth you ever saw and long, thin, clean-looking fingers. He looked
like the way I remembered my father, only better-looking. I took more after Ma’s folks, the Malones, which was funny because Loney was the one that was named after them. Malone Bolan. He was smart as they make them, too. It was no use trying to put anything over on him and maybe that was what some people had against him, only that was kind of hard to fit in with Pete Gonzalez.
Pete Gonzalez not liking Loney used to bother me sometimes because he was a swell guy, too, and he was never trying to put anything over on anybody. He had two fighters and a wrestler named Kilchak and he always sent them in to do the best they could, just like Loney sent me in. He was the topnotch manager in our part of the country and a lot of people said there was no better anywhere, so I felt pretty good about him wanting to handle me, even if I did say no.
It was in the hall leaving Tubby White’s gym that I ran into him that afternoon and he said, “Hello, Kid, how’s it?” moving his cigar further over in a corner of his mouth so he could talk.
“Hello. All right.”
He looked me up and down, squinting on account of the smoke from his cigar. “Going to take this guy Saturday?”
“I guess so.”
He looked me up and down again like he was weighing me in. His eyes were little enough anyhow and when he squinted like that you could hardly see them at all. “How old are you, Kid?”
“Going on nineteen.”
“And you’ll weigh about a hundred and sixty,” he said.
“Sixty-seven and a half. I’m growing pretty fast.” “Ever see this guy you’re fighting Saturday?”
“No.”
“He’s plenty tough.”
I grinned and said, “I guess he is.”
“And plenty smart.”
I said, “I guess he is,” again.
He took his cigar out of his mouth and scowled at me and said like he was sore at me, “You know you got no business in the ring with him, don’t you?” Before I could think up anything to say he stuck the cigar back in his mouth and his face and his voice changed. “Why don’t you let me handle you, Kid? You got the stuff. I’ll handle you right, build you up, not use you up, and you’ll be good for a long trip.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I said. “Loney taught me all I know and-”
“Taught you what?” Pete snarled. He looked mad again. “If you think you been taught anything at all you just take a look at your mug in the next looking-glass you come across.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and spit out a piece of tobacco that had come loose. “Only eighteen years old and ain’t been fighting a year and look at the mug on him!”