Read Online The Harder They Fall by Budd Schulberg - Free Book Online
Authors: Budd Schulberg
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Speedy goes over the hump and starts going downhill. Danny goes back on the flit again.
By this time Danny has made a couple of hundred thousand, gone mostly to the horses. He is also a great little cheque-grabber and highly vulnerable to the touch, especially when it comes from one of the fighters who used to win for him. Like Izzy Greenberg. Danny put fifteen thousand in a haberdashery business Izzy was starting, and six months later the business went the way of all Greenberg enterprises. He is not nearly the flash in business he was in the ring. But Danny gave him ten thousand more and he went into ladies’ wear on Fourteenth Street.
The crash put the finisher on Danny’s chips. The only chance he saw of getting it back fast was the horses, and the only way of getting enough for the horses was finding a friend to put it on the cuff. Nick Latka turned out to be the friend, and he seemed to be all cuff where Danny was concerned. Danny didn’t know there was a catch to it until he was into Nick for around twenty Gs. ‘Who’s worried about it?’ Nick had said every time Danny mentioned something about hoping to clean up enough soon to pay some of it back. Then one day Nick sends for Danny and all of a sudden wants his dough. Danny is just back from Belmont, where his tips have been worse than his hunches. So Nick says, ‘Tell you what I’ll do with you, baby. You come to work for me for two fifty a week, building up a stable and handling the boys. You keep a C for yourself and one and a half cuts back to me until we’re even. And just to show you how I feel about you, I’ll put you down for a bonus of ten per cent on everything we make over fifty Gs a year.’
So that’s where Danny’s been ever since. Even if he developed another Greenberg or a Sencio it wouldn’t be his any more. So the incentive to say no to the bottle is practically nil. Now it’s reflex action for him to reach for one in the morning, and he tosses them off in quick nervous motions until somebody puts him to bed. He has never been known to come in loaded on fight night when he is working a corner. But when he is sober everybody wishes he would take one to relax. He’s so sober he gets the shakes. It’s really a heroic and terrible effort for Danny to be sober, but he does it, because, for all the disappointments, he’s still got his heart in the game. There’s nobody hops into a ring at the end of a round faster than Danny and there is something wonderful about the loving way he leans over his fighters, rhythmically rubbing the neck, the small of the back, with his thin, nervous lips close to his boy’s ear, keeping up a quiet running patter as he improvises new tactics for the boy’s defence and spots holes in the opponent’s.
A great manager, Danny McKeogh, in the big tradition of great managers. Johnston, Kearns, Mead. Or at least he was a great manager before Nick Latka brought him into bondage.
As I stood there looking down at him, thinking about him, a fly lit on his nose, was brushed away, only to return to his forehead. Danny shook his head, let a crack of light into his eyes and saw me standing there. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes.
‘Hello, laddie.’
Everybody he liked he called laddie. For people he didn’t like, it was mister.
‘Hello, Danny. How’s the boy?’
Danny shook his head. ‘Pretty tough,’ he said, ‘pretty tough.’
‘By the way, Miss Reynolds, Mr McKeogh.’
Danny began to tuck one foot under him as if he were going to rise. Beth put her hand out to stop him. ‘You look much too comfortable,’ she said. ‘I’m not used to such gallantry.’
That kind of courtesy was part of Danny, drunk or sober. He had that big Irish thing about women, reverent when he mentioned his mother, sore at guys who profaned in the presence of ladies, which was the entire opposite sex in Danny’s book, regardless of rep or appearance. But Danny didn’t have that other Irish thing, the three-drink
By this time Danny has made a couple of hundred thousand, gone mostly to the horses. He is also a great little cheque-grabber and highly vulnerable to the touch, especially when it comes from one of the fighters who used to win for him. Like Izzy Greenberg. Danny put fifteen thousand in a haberdashery business Izzy was starting, and six months later the business went the way of all Greenberg enterprises. He is not nearly the flash in business he was in the ring. But Danny gave him ten thousand more and he went into ladies’ wear on Fourteenth Street.
The crash put the finisher on Danny’s chips. The only chance he saw of getting it back fast was the horses, and the only way of getting enough for the horses was finding a friend to put it on the cuff. Nick Latka turned out to be the friend, and he seemed to be all cuff where Danny was concerned. Danny didn’t know there was a catch to it until he was into Nick for around twenty Gs. ‘Who’s worried about it?’ Nick had said every time Danny mentioned something about hoping to clean up enough soon to pay some of it back. Then one day Nick sends for Danny and all of a sudden wants his dough. Danny is just back from Belmont, where his tips have been worse than his hunches. So Nick says, ‘Tell you what I’ll do with you, baby. You come to work for me for two fifty a week, building up a stable and handling the boys. You keep a C for yourself and one and a half cuts back to me until we’re even. And just to show you how I feel about you, I’ll put you down for a bonus of ten per cent on everything we make over fifty Gs a year.’
So that’s where Danny’s been ever since. Even if he developed another Greenberg or a Sencio it wouldn’t be his any more. So the incentive to say no to the bottle is practically nil. Now it’s reflex action for him to reach for one in the morning, and he tosses them off in quick nervous motions until somebody puts him to bed. He has never been known to come in loaded on fight night when he is working a corner. But when he is sober everybody wishes he would take one to relax. He’s so sober he gets the shakes. It’s really a heroic and terrible effort for Danny to be sober, but he does it, because, for all the disappointments, he’s still got his heart in the game. There’s nobody hops into a ring at the end of a round faster than Danny and there is something wonderful about the loving way he leans over his fighters, rhythmically rubbing the neck, the small of the back, with his thin, nervous lips close to his boy’s ear, keeping up a quiet running patter as he improvises new tactics for the boy’s defence and spots holes in the opponent’s.
A great manager, Danny McKeogh, in the big tradition of great managers. Johnston, Kearns, Mead. Or at least he was a great manager before Nick Latka brought him into bondage.
As I stood there looking down at him, thinking about him, a fly lit on his nose, was brushed away, only to return to his forehead. Danny shook his head, let a crack of light into his eyes and saw me standing there. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes.
‘Hello, laddie.’
Everybody he liked he called laddie. For people he didn’t like, it was mister.
‘Hello, Danny. How’s the boy?’
Danny shook his head. ‘Pretty tough,’ he said, ‘pretty tough.’
‘By the way, Miss Reynolds, Mr McKeogh.’
Danny began to tuck one foot under him as if he were going to rise. Beth put her hand out to stop him. ‘You look much too comfortable,’ she said. ‘I’m not used to such gallantry.’
That kind of courtesy was part of Danny, drunk or sober. He had that big Irish thing about women, reverent when he mentioned his mother, sore at guys who profaned in the presence of ladies, which was the entire opposite sex in Danny’s book, regardless of rep or appearance. But Danny didn’t have that other Irish thing, the three-drink
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