Patricia Holm looked up sharply, the startled pique on her lovely face giving way swiftly to disquieted resignation. She knew him too well.
“What is it, Simon? What are you up to?”
“I’ll explain later. I’m already late. Be a good girl.” He kissed her lightly. “I’ll make it up to you,” he said, and left her gazing after him as he sauntered down the long concrete ramp leading to the fighters’ dressing-rooms with Hoppy shambling in his wake like a happy bear.
Chapter two
The door of the number one dressing-room beneath the floor of the Manhattan Arena rattled and shook as the sportswriters milled about the corridor outside and protested their exclusion. Who, one of them shouted, did the big ham think he was, Greta Garbo?
Behind the locked door Kurt Spangler rubbed his shining bald head and listened benignly to the disgruntled din.
“Maybe I should oughta give ’em an interview, huh, Doc?” The pink mountain of flesh lying on the rubbing table lifted a head the general size and shape of a runt egg-plant. “I don’t want they should think I’m a louse.”
The un-Masked Angel blinked, his little brown eyes apologetic beneath the shadow of brows ridged with the compounded scar tissues of countless ancient cuts and contusions.
“Never mind what they think,” Doc Spangler beamed comfortingly. “Let them disparage you — revile you — hate you.” His sonorous voice sank confidingly. “It’s exactly what we want.”
The Angel sighed unhappily. His head dropped back on the rubbing table as the two handlers pulled off the gloves, tossed them in a corner, and proceeded to rip off the hand wrappings of gauze and tape.