10 Short Novels Magazine — page 136: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

134 * * * Ten Short Novels Magazine old manager, and there was enough to hire Steamboat Travis, the trial-horse welter, as a spar mate. A week’s tune-up got the lightweight in shape for a top preliminary at a little club in Yonkers. Then Pop Skeggs used his remedy. It was quite simple. In the dressing room, before ring time, Fletch and Steamboat pounded each other in a spirited session with the twelve-ounce gloves, with the heavier man under orders to concentrate on the mid-section. Fletch had stamina enough for a sav- age twenty-round fight, and when he slipped through the ropes, he was breath- ing easily and dripping perspiration. Battle heat acted as a sedative for his nerves. His foe planted a murderous right in his stomach. The blow bounced off the drumtight shield of muscles. ‘Fletch uttered an exultant shout. He scarcely felt the sledging punch. Almost delirious with happiness, he barged in, measured with a jab, and clocked his op- ponent out with a chin-lifting uppercut. “T’ve been leveled by wallops that didn’t have the steam of that haymaker!” ex- claimed Fletch in the dressing room. “Good gosh, a little warm-up bout and then a slug in the darby has as much an effect on me as BB shot would have on a musk-ox!” “Remember, son, it’s only the remedy, not the cure,” cautioned Pop. ‘““High-ten- sion nerves are hereditary.” “But aren’t there others just like me?” asked Fletch. “How is it that I hold the world’s record for kissing the canvas?” “Simply because other scrapyers with @ nervous make-up like yours, didn’t have the guts to keep plugging,” said the old manager. Those pre-fight sparring mills ‘started a fistic meteor rocketing through the lightweight division. In five bouts Fletch pounded his way into a semi-windup at the Garden with a two-grand guarantee. He had time for his painting; he had time to ge out with Trina; and he was bound- lessly happy. The night of the Garden tiff, Dude Me- Cafferty sauntered in the dressing room, followed by Gahagan and a couple of heavyweight bruisers. “Get out of here!” growled Fletch. “What’s wrong, baby?” purred Mc- Cafferty. “Ain’t you happy to see your manager?” “You had your chance with the lad,” said Pop Skeggs. “Now you and your slug-nutty stooges do a vanishing act.” “Sure,” said McCafferty. He drew out a folded document that made Fletch turn white. “Just wanted to remind you that I hold a contract on Fletch Brandell. I’m cuttin’ in one-third on all your loot.” “You stole that!” yelled Fletch. “That’s my copy. You took that from my room when I was away.” But the kid was talk- ing to a closed door, for McCafferty and his bodyguards had silently departed. The kid trembled with rage. “When you and I broke up, I thought I was through,” Fletch spoke to Pop. “I didn’t think about that contract. Never noticed it was gone. Anyway, it won’t do him any good. He gave you a receipt and a note of trans- fer.” Pop shook his head sadly. “I thought we were through, too. I tore up those papers. Didn’t see any reason for keeping them.” After a workout with Steamboat Travis, the fighter entered the Garden ring and showed the fans the savagery they hadn’t seen since the Dempsy-Firpo brawl. He put the sleeper on his opponent in the fifth. But it was a victory that brought no thrill, for at the business of- fice, Fletch learned that Dude McCafferty had attached his eut. OP SKEGGS appealed to the boxing commission and he took the case to court. It was no dice. McCafferty pos- sessed a legal contract, and old Pop had neither record nor witness to prove that a conveyance had been made. The crook gave the glib explanation that he had paid the veteran to handle Fletch. “The hound played a hundred-to-one shot when he stole your contract,” Skeggs spoke savagely. “Now he doesn’t have to turn a wheel for the next three years, and he’ll coHect a fortune.” McCafferty signed Packy Gahagan over to a dummy manager, and started to do the fronting for Fletch. But the new lightweight star balked at that, threat- ened to quit. So the Dude contented him- self with hanging around the fighter’s dressing room, smirking and jeering at Fletch’s prefight bouts with Steamboat Travis, and coHecting his blood money. Fletch became the sensation of Fis- tiana. He had a mule’s kick in each hand, and none of his opponents answered the final bell. He was a natural for the space cComichbooks. com