The clean life of a supercrook stood Fay in good stead. His weight was less than half that of the Dropper’s. But he more than made up for this by the swiftness of his blows. He tormented the brute by jabs, hooks and side-stepping.
The Dropper was no novice at boxing. Once, years before, he had been Honest Abe’s chief bouncer. He had broken men’s heads and hurled derelicts from barrooms. He knew the rudiments of wrestling.
Slowly his thick brain came into action. He covered his jaw with a shelving shoulder. He put down his bulletlike head and started to bore through the rain of blows. With wild swings he forced Fay against the poker-table. It went over and rolled to the wall near where Emily crouched.
The cracksman glided around the Dropper and shadow-tormented him. He struck straight from the shoulder. He was two-fisted and agile. Each flash of his eye was marked by a stinging blow. A crescendo of effort, all to the brute’s purple face, had its effect. The Dropper started gasping. He lowered his fists. He breathed, waiting. He grunted as he followed Fay—blindly, grossly. A red gleam showed where his lids were puffing.
Fay felt his own strength waning. He called on all his latent nerve-force. He became a tiger. He leaped, drove a smashing fist between the Dropper’s gorilla-like brows, stepped back, dodged a swing, then repeated the blow. He played for this mark. The fury of his assault was like an air-hammer on a rivet. It deadened the brute’s brain. It made him all animal.
A bull’s roar filled the room. Goaded to an open defense, the Dropper abandoned science. He tried to grasp his tormentor. His huge hands groped through the air. He stumbled and searched. He fell over a chair. He rose to his knees. Fay waited, hooked a short, elbow-jab between the eyes. He followed with his left. His arm snapped in its sting. He backed, side-stepped, and started around the Dropper, delivering blows like a cooper finishing a barrel.
A red rage came to the cracksman that was terrible in its ferocity. He forgot Emily. He saw only the swollen thing before him. He wanted to kill. He sought for the opening.
Abandoning his straight jabs, he danced in and out with short-arm swings to the face and neck and eyes. He pounded the ears until they resembled cauliflowers. He made a pulp of the Dropper’s face.
The end came in less than a second. Beaten into near-insensibility, tottering and bloated—the Dropper attempted to reach the door that led to the opium-joint. He remembered a gat he had planted there. He lowered his shielding left shoulder. His jaw was exposed.