Olaf was not much bigger than a jockey, bald as an egg and as smart as they come.
“Hello, Vic,” he said, shaking hands. “Come on over and get drunk. Haven’t seen you for weeks. What have I done?”
I pushed my way towards the bar and winked at Mike Finnegan as he toiled under the double row of neon lights, jerking beer.
“I’ve been to the fights pretty regular,” I said as Olaf climbed up on a stool, elbowing a little space for himself with threatening gestures that no one took seriously. “Just didn’t happen to see you. That boy O’Hara shapes well.”
Olaf waved tiny hands at Finnegan.
“Whiskies, Mike,” he bawled, in his shrill, piping voice. “O’Hara? Yeah, he shapes all right, but he’s a sucker for a cross counter. I keep telling him, but he don’t listen. One of these days he’s going to meet a guy with the wind behind him, and then it’s curtains.”
We talked boxing for the next half-hour. There was nothing much else Olaf could talk about. While we talked we ate our way through two club sandwiches apiece and drank three double whiskies.
Hughson, the Herald’s sports writer, joined us and insisted on buying another round of drinks. He was a tall, lean, cynical-looking bird, going bald, with liverish bags under his eyes, and tobacco ash spread over his coat front. He was never without a cigar that smelt as if he had found it a couple of years ago in a garbage can. Probably he had.
After we had listened to three or four of his long-winded, dirty stories, Olaf said, “What was that yarn about the Dixie Kid getting into a shindig last night? Anything to it?”
Hughson pulled a face.