Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

“Dat’s de Doc. He’s de guy who discovers de Angel from some place. Dat Doc is sure a smart cookie, boss.”

The Saint smiled agreeably.

“You can say that again.”

The salient features of the estimable Doc Spangler’s history passed through Simon Templar’s mind in swift procession — a record which, among many others, was filed with inexorable clarity in the infinite index of a memory whose indelibility had time and again proven one of the more useful tools of his profession.

“In fifteen fights,” Hoppy expounded, “he brings de Angel from nowhere to a fight wit’ de Champ free weeks from now!”

Pat lifted an eyebrow.

“Even if Torpedo Smith beats him?”

“Aaah!” Hoppy chortled derisively. “Dat bum ain’t got a chanst! De Angel’ll moider him! You wait and see.”

The Champ, having shaken hands with the two contenders, climbed out of the ring and resumed his seat beside Connie Grady, and the fighters rose from their corners as the referee waved them to the centre of the ring for instructions.

Pat, wide-eyed, shook her head unbelievingly.

“Simon, that man with the mask — he... he’s fantastic! Those arms — his gloves are touching his knees!”

“A fascinating example of evolution in reverse,” Simon remarked.

The Masked Angel was indeed a remarkable specimen. With his arms dangling alongside his enormous hairless body he was the very antithesis of the classic conception of an athlete, his sagging breasts and vast pink belly undulating in rolls, billows, and pleats of fat; and though his hips narrowed, wasp-like, to the negligible proportions of a bull gorilla’s, his flabby thighs ballooned out like a pair of mammoth loose-skinned sausages, tapering to a pair of stubby tree-trunk legs.

“A freak,” Pat decided. “He wears that ridiculous mask because he’s a pinhead.”

“But even he can do somebody some good. You’ve got to admit that he makes Hoppy look like a creature of svelte and sprightly beauty.”

“In dis racket, boss,” Hoppy mulled with a heavy concentration of wisdom, “you don’t have to be good-lookin’.” Suddenly he sat up straight and strained forward. “Well, for cryin’ out loud!”

“What’s the matter?” The Saint followed his gaze to the ring.

Hoppy waved a finger the size of a knockwurst in the general direction of the two contestants and their handlers standing in the middle of the ring listening to the referee.

“Lookit, boss! Standin’ behind Torpedo Smith — his handler! It’s me old chum, Whitey Mullins!”

The fighters and their seconds were turning back to their respective corners. Whitey Mullins, a slender, rubbery-faced little man with balding flaxen hair, wearing a turtle-neck sweater and sneakers, convoyed Smith to his corner and climbed out of the ring, taking the stool with him. The Saint recognised him as one of the professional seconds connected with the Manhattan Arena.

“One of the Torpedo’s propellers, I take it?”

Hoppy nodded.

“He works a lot wit’ me when I am in the box-fight racket, boss.” Fond memories of yesteryear’s mayhem lit his gorgon countenance with reminiscent rapture. “Cyclone Uniatz, dey called me.”

“That, no doubt, explains why you never get up before the stroke of ten,” Simon observed.

“Huh?”

Pat giggled as the bell clanked for the first round.

The Angel shuffled forward slowly, his arms held high, peering cautiously between his gloves at the oncoming Torpedo Smith. Smith, who had crashed into the top ranks of pugilism via a string of varied victories far longer than the unbroken string of knockouts boasted by the Masked Angel, moved warily about his opponent, jabbing tentative lefts at the unmoving barrier of arms that the Angel held before him. The Angel turned slowly as Smith moved around him, the fantastic black cupola of his masked head sunk protectively between beefy pink shoulders, the little eye-slits peering watchfully. He kept turning, keeping Smith before him without attempting a blow. The Torpedo moved about more deliberately, with a certain puzzlement, as though he couldn’t understand the Angel’s unwillingness to retaliate, but was himself afraid to take any chances.

There was a stillness in the crowd, a sense of waiting as for the explosion of a bomb whose fuse was burning before their very eyes.

Pat spoke at last.

“But, Simon, they’re just looking at each other.”

The Saint selected another cigarette and tapped it on his thumb.

“You can’t blame them. It’ll probably take a round for them just to get over the sight of each other.”

Hoppy lifted a voice that rang with the dulcet music of a foghorn with laryngitis.

“Come on, you Angel! Massecrate de bum!” But the Angel, without supreme indifference to encouragement, merely kept turning, shuffling around to meet the probing jabs of Torpedo Smith, peering through his sinister mask, tautly watchful.

The crowd broke into a roar as the Torpedo suddenly drove a left hook to the Angel’s stomach, doubling him up, and, casting caution to the winds, followed with a swift onslaught of lefts and rights. The Angel, arms, gloves, and elbows shielding his exposed surfaces, merely backed into a corner and crouched there until the bell punctuated the round.

Pat shook her head bewilderedly.

“Simon, I don’t understand. This Masked Angel doesn’t look as if he can fight at all. All he did was make like a turtle while that other man tried to find some place to hit him.”

“Oh, you just wait.” Hoppy growled reassuringly. “Dis fight ain’t over yet. De smart money is bettin’ free to one de Angel kayoes Smith insida six rounds. He wins all his fights by kayos.”

The Saint was watching the two gladiators being given the customary libations of water and between-round advice by their handlers. He smiled thoughtfully.

“The Masked Angel has a very clever manager.”

The bell for the second round brought Torpedo Smith out with a rush. Gaining confidence with every blow, he drove the quivering hulk of the Angel back on his heels, bringing the crowd to its feet in a steady roar of excitement.

“Hoppy,” the Saint spoke into Hoppy’s ear, “has the Angel ever been cut under that black stocking he wears over his head?”

“Huh? Naw, boss! His fights never last long enough for him to get hoit.” Hoppy’s eyes squinted anxiously. “Chees! Why don’t he do sump’n? Torpedo Smith is givin’ him de woiks!”

Pat was bouncing in her seat, the soft curve of her lips parted with excitement as she watched.

“I thought the Angel was so wonderful,” she gibed. “Come on, Torpedo!”

“Dey’re bot’ on de ropes!” Hoppy exclaimed hoarsely.

The Saint’s hawk-sharp eyes suddenly narrowed. No, it was Torpedo Smith who was on the ropes now. With the Angel in control!.. Something had happened. Something he hadn’t seen. He gripped Hoppy’s arm.

“Something’s wrong with Smith.”

Something was very definitely wrong with Torpedo Smith. He stood shaking his head desperately as if to clear it, holding on to the top strand with one hand and with the other trying to push away the black-masked monster who was now opening up with the steady, relentless power of a pile-driver.

“De Angel musta hit him!” Hoppy yelled. “I told ya, didn’t I? I told ya!” His foghorn bellow rose over the mob’s fierce blood cry. “Smith’s down!”

Torpedo Smith, obviously helpless, had slumped beneath the repeated impact of the Angel’s deliberate blows and now lay where he had fallen, face down, motionless, as the referee tolled him out.

The sea of humanity began ebbing like a tide towards the exits, the vast drone of their voices and shuffling feet covered by the reverberating recessional of a pipe-organ striking up “Anchors Aweigh” from somewhere in the bowels of the coliseum.