"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 320 - Reign of Terror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

The ring was cleared.

The first of the middleweights, the contender, came down the aisle. Now the seats were all filled. The
last, last minute bets had been made. The men in the seats eyed the man in the bathrobe. A lot of money
was riding on him.

He climbed up through the ropes. The white harsh lights bit down into his face making the ring scars on it
stand out like primitive sculpture. He bowed to the audience. There was a cocky little smile twisting the
corners of his mouth. It disappeared as his handler put the rubber mouthpiece in place.

There was a roar welling up in the arena. That meant the champ was coming down. The contender didn't
even look around. He hunched his shoulders.
The champ got into the ring and bowed. If he was frightened he didn't show it. He looked out into the
audience. But there was no help there. There was no help anywhere. Those guys who had come into his
dressing room. He clenched his hands inside the adhesive tape. If he could only get his fists on them...
But if he had clouted them there would have been others. Always others... more and more of them. You
couldn't fight them all.

He sighed. He'd had his orders. He looked over at the contender and wondered if the contender knew
the fight was in the bag. Ah, what difference did it make? The only thing was to make it look good, so the
stink didn't attract too much attention.

The sixth round he'd been told to flop.

From the audience the champ looked as if he was raring to go. He slipped off his bathrobe. His body
was peculiar. Long bodied and short legged he looked like some link with man's past.

He had a primitive sort of energy that had carried him to triumph over the prostrate bodies of men much
his superior in boxing skill. Forty-seven k.o.'s, three decisions, and one draw. That was his record and
up to twenty minutes ago it had been his proudest boast.

The time keeper clanged the bell. The two men came from their corners and the huge arena was quiet.
This was what twenty thousand people had paid a small fortune to see. It has been said that no coward
ever gets in the ring because no coward can force himself into that white square. There is a feeling of
isolation there, of being back in the dark ages when man was pitted against man or beast...

The contender felt his man out. His left tapped out almost delicately. The champ's guard came up
instinctively. There was a flurry of blows.

The third man in the ring, watching closely, couldn't see anything wrong and yet the contender could feel
it. The champ was off. Just a split second off, but he was off. The contender relaxed a bit.

The referee circled around the men. He hoped it would be a clean fight and a quick one. He was tired
and he wanted to go home and go to bed. He thought maybe he had a cold coming on.

The champ hunched his head into his shoulders and held his guard a little higher than usual. Just because
he was going to take a dive there was no sense in taking a real beating.

The contender landed one that jolted the champ. He sucked wind in. That had hurt. He backed away.
The contender came in faster now, surer of himself. The champ smiled to himself. He knew just how the