The round was over. Frankie staggered, sick, to his corner and slumped down. The handlers worked over him. He looked at Milt. But Milt neither sent nor returned his gaze. Milt sat looking grimly off into space and seemed older and wearier than time itself.
Then Frankie knew. Milt had sold him out!
The shocking truth stunned him even more than Nappy's punches. Milt had sold him out! There had been rare cases of such things. When money meant more than honor to a veteran. But Milt!
Numbed, Frankie pondered the ghastly thought. After all, Milt was old. Old men needed money for their later years. But how could he? How could he do it?
Suddenly Frankie hated. He hated Nappy and Pop and every one of the millions of people looking silently on around the world. But most of all, he hated Milt. It was a weird, sickening thing, that hatred. But only a mentally sickening thing. Physically, it seemed to make Frankie stronger, because when the bell rang and he got up and walked into a straight right, it didn't hurt at all.
He realized he was on the floor; the gong was sounding; he was getting up, moving in again. There was blood, a ringing in his head.
But above all, a rage to kill. To kill.
He remembered going down several times and getting up. Not caring how he had swung under Milt's control—only wanting to use his fists—to kill the thing weaving in front of him.
Nappy. A grinning, weaving, lethal ghost.