“The more the newspapers hate you,” Doc Spangler expounded, “the more cash they’ll pay to see you get beaten.” He rubbed his hands, considering the Angel with all the pride a farmer might display surveying his prize hog. “Kid McCoy, for instance,” the doctor illustrated. “He made a fortune on the hatred of the mob. They paid to see him fight in the hope he would be slaughtered. Only he never was — not till after he became champion, anyway. And neither will you be, my lad. Not as long as you continue to follow my instructions.”
The Angel grunted as Karl, one of his handlers, kneaded the mountainous mesa of his belly. His naked body, a pink mass of monstrous convexities, gleamed beneath the bright incandescents with a sheen of oily sweat that high-lighted the ruby splotches where Torpedo Smith’s gloves had exploded. His flat button nose, the distorted rosette of flesh that were his ears, furnished further evidence that Dr Spangler’s discovery, far from being a supernova in the pugilistic firmament, was actually a battle-battered veteran, the survivor of an unnumbered multitude of beatings.
“I did like you said wit’ Smith, didn’t I, Doc?” the Angel mumbled.
“You did indeed! You followed my instructions to the letter tonight. Always remember to keep covered till your man seems a bit careless.” Spangler patted one beefy shoulder. “You were great tonight, my boy.”
The Angel lifted his undersized noggin, a grateful grimace on his pear-shaped face.
“Thanks, Doc.” He sank back. “I always try to do like you say.” He sighed like a deflating dirigible. “But why do the crowd gotta t’ink I’m a crum? I radder they should like me. I like them.”
Doc Spangler sighed patiently, but was spared the need for further exposition by an increased burst of banging on the door. He turned resignedly to the fox-faced thug who was unlacing the Angel’s ring shoes.
“Maxie, perhaps you’d better go out and have a word with our journalistic friends.”
Maxie nodded briefly. He went to the door, yanked it open, and stepped outside into a stream of vivid excoriation.
Doc Spangler listened a moment with admiration as the reporters’ protests faded gradually down the hall.