“Well, who is he?”
The columnist shrugged. “No one knows. If I knew anything more about it, I’d do a column. The name was mentioned by a retired referee one night when he was drunk. He sobered up and wouldn’t say a word about it. But stories get started.”
“Let’s go!” Max, the trainer, said. “Enough gabbing for now.”
Connie stood up and waved a hand. “I’ll be watching. Good luck—Champ.”
“Thanks,” Jim said with a smile and stepped into the dim outer corridor that led up to the arena. This was his night, his moment. Even Connie knew it.
There was a great roar from the unseen crowd, and Max put a hand on his shoulder. The seconds and others clustered around as they halted a moment at the arena entrance. Former champions were being introduced—Clay and Liston and Patterson and someone else—and each name brought a renewed roar from the crowd.
Then it was Jim Figg’s turn. He walked steadily down the aisle as the crowd’s approval built to a shattering ovation. Big Dan had never been a popular champion, and the people had come to see him lose. Jim climbed through the ring ropes, the sweaty male odor of the previous fighters assaulting his nostrils.
Big Dan Anger always entered the ring late, and the chanting and foot stamping had already begun when he strode into view, a towering hulk of a man who’d been the heavyweight champion of the world for two and a half years. He looked more like a wrestler than a boxer, with close-cropped black hair and deep-set eyes that seemed constantly sleepy outside the ring.
The referee spoke quickly to the two men, running over the rules they both knew by heart. Then, with a suddenness that never failed to surprise Jim, the bell sounded and the crowd hushed momentarily—only to explode into shouting again as Big Dan landed his first blow to Jim’s shoulder.
The fight went well for two rounds, with Jim circling and dancing, getting in a few good blows for points. He figured the first round as a draw and the second round probably his. At the beginning of the third, the champion was sweating, and Jim managed to open a little cut over one eye. Then he took a hard right to the jaw that shook him, staggering him against the ropes as Anger moved in for the kill.
The lights were a blur for an instant as Jim slid along the ropes and waited for the blow that would finish him. Then, somehow, his vision cleared. He blocked Big Dan’s descending right glove and followed through with a right and a left of his own. The champion, caught by surprise, staggered backward and started to topple. Jim landed one more blow to send him on his way and then retreated to a neutral corner.
Big Dan Anger tried to rise at the count of seven, but his legs wouldn’t respond. The referee counted him out on his knees, and the crowd went wild.
Jim Figg was the heavyweight champion of the world.
Back in the dressing room, the shouts of admirers ringing in his ears, Jim stretched out on the rubbing table while Max and the others went to work on him. He felt tired but with the power of accomplishment growing somewhere within him. He had done it, for Sue and Max and Connie Claus and all the rest who had believed in him.
“Message for you, Champ,” Max said, passing him an envelope from the door.
“Somebody else congratulating me.” Jim ripped open the envelope and stared down at the message.
You are invited to meet Mr. Roderick Blanco, it said. A car will call for you tomorrow evening.
“What in hell’s this?” Jim said, tossing it aside.
The corridor door opened under the pressure of the crowd and Big Dan Anger hurried in, already in his street clothes. He seemed somehow smaller, deflated, vulnerable. “It was a good fight, kid,” he mumbled. “You deserved to win.”
“Thanks, Dan.”
“Can I sneak out your back door? Claus is after me for an interview.”
“Sure. Go ahead.” Then Jim’s eye caught the message he’d discarded, and he remembered Connie Claus’s earlier words. “Dan, tell me something—who is Roderick Blanco?”
Anger’s face seemed to freeze at the name. He stared down at Jim for a moment and then answered, “You’ll find out, kid. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Jim Figg slept most of the following day, and when he finally awoke sometime after noon, it was to see the sports section of the newspaper propped up at the foot of the bed. FIGG FLOORS ANGER FOR CHAMPIONSHIP! the headline screamed, and there was a half-page picture of him landing his final blow to Big Dan’s jaw. Jim smiled and rolled over in bed, feeling good all over. Maybe tonight he’d even ask Sue to marry him.
He made a few phone calls and talked to not a few reporters and began that afternoon to discover the price of sudden fame. A weekly television show wanted him to appear the following Sunday evening, a newsmagazine wanted a portrait for their cover; suddenly everybody wanted something from him.
He decided to eat alone and pick up Sue afterward. It was on the way to her house that the sleek black sedan appeared from somewhere and edged his car to the curb. He climbed out, fists balled, and faced two men he’d never seen before. They were young and well built, but he knew he could take them both with ease.
“You boys need some driving lessons,” he told them.
“We have Mr. Blanco’s car. You were forgetting your engagement with him.”
Something—could it be fear?—ran down Jim’s spine. “I don’t know any Blanco. I have an appointment.”
“You have one, all right. With Roderick Blanco.”
Jim took a step forward, and the nearest one slipped a small revolver from his pocket. They weren’t kidding. Whatever this was, it was the real thing.
They drove for a long time, across the state line, coming finally to a walled estate somewhere near the ocean. Jim was led inside, to a high-ceilinged drawing room where a handsome young woman waited. She had long dark hair and was wearing an evening gown that sparkled when the light hit it.
“Good evening, Mr. Figg,” she said, speaking the words clearly but with just the trace of an accent. “I’m so glad you could join us.”
“It wasn’t through choice. What is all this, anyway?”
She ignored the question. “I’m Sandra Blanco. My husband will be joining us shortly. Could I get you a drink in the meantime?”
“A little Scotch might taste good.” He watched her walk to the sideboard and found himself admiring her hips beneath the tight red hostess gown. “I hope you and your husband know the penalty for kidnapping,” he said.
“Oh, come now! That’s much too strong a word for it. You could walk out of this house right now if you wanted to.”
“And walk all the way back to the city, too, I suppose. Anyway, people are going to notice I’m missing quickly enough. I’m sorta newsworthy these days, you know.”
“I saw the fight on television,” she said, returning with the drink. “You have a wonderfully developed body.”
“I could probably say the same for you. Aren’t you drinking?”
She smiled down at him. “I’ll wait till my husband joins us.” She lit a cigarette. “You know, you’re very different from the others.”
“Others?”
“Other fighters. Other champions. You seem quite… educated.”
“I’ve been around. I started boxing in college, actually. Never graduated, though.” The drink was good and Sandra Blanco was quite charming, but he was growing restless. “Just where is your husband, anyway?” he asked finally.
A deep, powerful voice behind him said, “Right here, Mr. Figg. Sorry for the delay.”
Jim got to his feet and faced the newcomer. Roderick Blanco was a dark-haired young man of perhaps thirty. He had the broad shoulders and massive chest of a fighter, and for the first time Jim began to wonder if there was any thread of truth in what Connie Claus had been hinting at. “Maybe you can explain all this,” Jim said, purposely not shaking hands.
“Didn’t you get my message after the fight?” Blanco tilted his head a bit to one side as he spoke, almost as if listening to some far-off sound.
Blanco turned to his wife. “Leave us alone, please, Sandra.” She left the room without a word, apparently used to being ordered about. Blanco watched her go and then turned back to Jim. “My invitation to you here was in the nature of a challenge,” he said.
“A challenge?”
Roderick Blanco smiled thinly. “I am the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. The real champion.”
“That’s crazy. Counting television, probably twenty million people saw me beat Anger last night.”
The smile didn’t change. “For your information, Mr. Figg, I knocked out Big Dan Anger in thirty-five seconds of the fifth round. This happened more than two years ago—to be exact, on the fourth evening that he held the championship.”
“You expect me to believe that? Where was the fight held? Who witnessed it?”
“It was held in this house, in the basement. The referee was a professional—now retired—who was well paid for his services. I can show you his signed statement, if you wish, and also a document signed by Anger after the fight.” The broad shoulders moved beneath his smoking jacket. “I have defeated every heavyweight champion for the past ten years.” There was a note of pride in his voice as he spoke, and somehow Jim knew it was true.
“But why? Why this secret business? Why kidnap me at gunpoint?”
Roderick Blanco walked the length of the room, then turned and started back. There was a strange sparkle in his eyes, like that of a small boy on his way to a ball game. “My father was the richest man in the state, Mr. Figg. Rich men’s sons don’t go in for professional boxing. When I tried a few fights in college, he almost threw me out of the house.” He cocked his head a bit to one side. “Even today, his fortune is tied up in a trust fund until I’m thirty-five. If I should engage in professional boxing before that time, I lose everything.”
“Fantastic!”
“My father was a fantastic man.” Now he really seemed to be listening, perhaps to a voice only he could hear. “He died in an asylum. Cut his throat with a piece of chicken bone and died before the guards could reach him. But enough of my story—you must be anxious to see the ring!”
“I’m not going to fight you,” Jim told him, not moving from his chair.
“But of course you are! Tomorrow evening! You’ll be my guest until that time. You can even work out with one of the servants tomorrow if you wish, though I imagine you’re still in condition from last night’s fight.”
“If I refuse?”
“None of them ever refused.”
“I’m refusing.”
The dark-haired man spread his arms in a gesture of resignation. “Why, then, I’ll just have to keep you here until you change your mind.”
“Hold me prisoner, you mean? At gunpoint?”
“But it needn’t be that way! The others were all willing to fight me! And afterward they returned to the public as if nothing had happened.” He smiled at Jim ever so slightly. “No one will ever know that I have beaten you.”
“And what if I win?”
“That has never happened.”
Jim sat silently for a moment, weighing the possibilities. It was something of a challenge, and he had never been one to run away from a fight. Besides, fighting the man seemed the simplest way of gaining his freedom. “All right,” he decided. “I’ll fight you.”
“Ah!” It was almost a sigh.
“But I’m expected in town tonight. I’ll have to make a phone call.”
“All right. But no tricks, please.”
“No tricks.”
Jim was hoping that Connie Claus would still be at the paper, writing his morning column. He dialed the area code and then the familiar number, while Blanco stood at his side. “Claus, please,” he tried to mumble into the receiver when the switchboard answered.
After a moment’s buzzing, Connie was on the line. “Claus here,” he answered tonelessly, sounding bored or busy.
“Jim Figg, Connie.”
“How are you, Champ?”
“Look, I can’t keep our date for tonight.”
“Huh?”
“Will you tell Max and Sue?”
“What are you talking about?”
Jim glanced into Blanco’s deep brown eyes. “I’m spending a couple of days at the shore. With Snow White.”
“Huh? What you talking about, Champ?”
Roderick Blanco’s hand came down, breaking the connection. “That was foolish,” he said. “White for Blanco. I doubt if he even understood you.”
“I doubt it, too,” Jim agreed sadly.
“Don’t try anything like that again.”
“I only thought you might want somebody from the press here to witness the fight.”
Blanco shook his head. “No one from the press.”
“What about a referee?”
“That has been arranged. An older retired gentleman, no longer active in ring work, will be paid a good sum to referee the fight.”
“And spectators?” Jim asked.
“Only my wife and my servants. As I said, it is a private affair. Now come, and I’ll show you the ring.”
He led Jim down a wide stairway to the basement, a surprisingly high-ceilinged room that was brilliantly lit by overhead fluorescent tubes. In the very center of the room was a regulation-size boxing ring, flanked by a single row of theatre-type seats for spectators.
“The ring ropes are black,” Jim observed.
“My one concession to good taste. The ropes are regulation, but they are covered in velvet.”
“I see.”
“Do you find it to your liking?”
“Sure. At least I won’t have to worry about a lot of the crowd mobbing me in the ring afterward.”
“There are few seats, to be sure, but every one is at ringside.”
“Yeah.”
Roderick Blanco held out his hand. “Then, until tomorrow evening? At eight?”
Jim shook his hand and watched the man walk quickly away toward the stairs. He wondered where he would spend the night, but almost immediately one of the servants was at his elbow. “You will come this way to your room, sir.”
“Sure.” He wondered if the man was armed, if he would shoot Jim at the first hint of an escape attempt. But he decided not to find out. He was going to stay and fight Roderick Blanco, because he was certain he could defeat the man.
Sleep did not come easily in the strange bed, and Jim pushed his head into the downy softness of the pillow and tried to free his mind of all thought. He was just beginning to drift off when his muscles tensed with the soft click of his door opening and closing. Someone had come into his room.
His first thought was Blanco or one of his men, but as he rolled over about to spring at the intruder, a soft voice whispered, “Don’t be alarmed. It’s Sandra Blanco.”
He sat up in bed, seeing her only vaguely in the near-total darkness. “Do you always visit men’s rooms at midnight, Mrs. Blanco?”
“I had to talk to you before tomorrow. You… seem different from the others, somehow. I think you could beat him.”
“I know I can beat him.”
He felt the weight of her body suddenly sitting on the edge of his bed. “That’s why I had to talk to you. You must let him win!”
“Why should I do that? Just so he can keep his foolish little secret championship?”
“You don’t understand! I was afraid you wouldn’t. My husband is… quite mad. If you win that fight tomorrow night, you’ll never leave this house alive.”
“Oh, come now!” Jim tried to snort in disbelief, but there was a cold shiver down his spine at her words.
“No, I’m serious! The others lost and they lived, because Roderick knew they’d never tell the story to anybody and thereby admit their defeat. But if you should win the fight tomorrow, he would have nothing to assure your silence. And if you told the newspapers about it he would not only be disgraced at losing, but he would lose his father’s trust fund as well.”
“But murder!”
“It would not be the first time. There was an old referee who worked the last fight—one with Anger. He got drunk one night and talked, enough to start some rumors around the city. Roderick had him… run over by a car.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“But I am. If you win that fight tomorrow, he’ll kill you.”
Then, as quickly as she’d come, Sandra Blanco stood up and moved to the door. It opened and closed behind her, leaving him alone with the echo of her words.
When morning came, and Jim went down to breakfast, Roderick Blanco was nowhere in sight. Sandra Blanco dined with him, but there was no hint on her face of their midnight conversation.
“Where’s your husband?” Jim asked, munching on a piece of toast. “Will he be joining us?”
“You won’t see him until tonight. He’s working out, getting in condition for the fight.”
“In just one day?”
“That’s all he needs.”
Jim sipped his orange juice, glancing out at the heavy autumn clouds that were drifting in over the beach. “How did you ever meet Blanco?” he asked.
She glanced at the servant hovering nearby and answered, “That’s a long story, and I won’t bore you with it. I always wanted security; you can see I have it here.”
“Yes.”
“He’s very good to me, really.” She stared down at the breakfast crumbs on her plate. “And who knows? There may not be another champion he has to fight for years. After tonight.”
“After tonight,” Jim repeated.
“Do you want to work out with a sparring partner or something?”
“I should get the feel of the ring,” he said.
“I’ll have one of the servants take care of you, show you the dressing room and things.” She left the table and went off into the depths of the large house.
Left alone at the table, Jim gazed out the window at the sea and suddenly realized the impossibility of the situation. Here, in the basement of a seaside mansion, he was going to fight a rich man’s deranged son for the secret championship of the world! And if he won, he would be killed!
Jim rose from the table and walked quickly to the front door. The whole charade was just too ridiculous in the light of morning. He opened the door and started down the wide, curving driveway to the distant street. He was almost to the half-open gates when a voice called out, “Just a moment, Mr. Figg!”
Night My Friend Page 32
