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

contender was feeling.

From the ringside the fight looked good. There where plenty of exchanges. The radio announcer was
working himself up into a frenzy adding artificial excitement to his words so that some of the feeling would
come across into the homes of his listening audience.

The television cameras were focused on the center of the ring where the action was at its peak.

On the screen of a television set the fight looked as if it were being fought by marionettes, by stringed
puppets. The little men in the white ring didn't seem real.

The three men who were sitting around the television set leaned forward in the soft chairs as the champ
flicked a long right out. It caught the contender right on the tip of the chin. He staggered and fell back into
the ropes.

One of the three watching men said. "Is that fool selling us out?"
The fat man who had a bowl in his lap in which he was mixing something said. "Don't be an idiot. He
wouldn't dare. Sit back, relax. When I take care of something, it stays taken care of."

The third man whose dull, blank eyes seemed to be barely focused on the scene, said, "Sure, when Ed
Corre puts a fix in, it stays fixed."

The fat man said, "You tell him, Buster."

"All right, all right," the thin man was querulous.

"That's what's the matter with you, Corbaccio," Ed Corre said, "you worry too much."

"There's a lot of my money riding on this," Corbaccio snapped.

"Sure, sure." Corre used the fork in his hand to mix the salad in the bowl more thoroughly. "Sure, a lot of
money." He grinned. It drew his soft bulbous mouth up into a Cupid-like bow.

The television announcer said, "Only thirty seconds left in the sixth round of the championship match,
folks, and... oh... oh! Watch this!"

The three men, Corre, Corbaccio, and the man called Buster leaned forward in their chairs. Corre forgot
to mix the salad in the bowl. The contender was coming in for the kill. The champ was on the ropes. He
was bleeding from the nose, from a cut over his eye. He was gasping around his rubber mouthpiece. His
lungs strained.

One blow... two... One to the head, one to the bread basket. That snapped the champ's head down right
into the path of the right that came up from the ankle. The champ's head snapped back.

His body slumped into the ropes. The elasticity of the ropes threw him forward as though rejecting him.
He fell downward on his face.

Corre reached out and flicked off the switch on the television set.

Corbaccio stammered, "Aren't you going to wait and see what happens?"