deserted me.
Poisonville’s prize fighting was done in a big wooden ex-casino in what had once been an amusement park on the edge of town. When I got there at eight-thirty, most of the population seemed to be on hand, packed tight in close rows of folding chairs on the main floor, packed tighter on benches in two dinky balconies.
Smoke. Stink. Heat. Noise.
My seat was in the third row, ringside. Moving down to it, I discovered Dan Rolff in an aisle seat not far away, with Dinah Brand beside him. She had had her hair trimmed at last, and marcelled, and looked like a lot of money in a big gray fur coat.
“Get down on Cooper?” she asked after we had swapped hellos.
“No. You playing him heavy?”
“Not as heavy as I’d like. We held off, thinking the odds would get better, but they went to hell.”
“Everybody in town seems to know Bush is going to dive,” I said. “I saw a hundred put on Cooper at four to one a few minutes ago.” I leaned past Rolff and put my mouth close to where the gray fur collar hid the girl’s ear, whispering: “The dive is off. Better copper your bets while there’s time.”
Her big bloodshot eyes went wide and dark with anxiety, greed, curiosity, suspicion.
“You mean it?” she asked huskily.
“Yeah.”
She chewed her reddened lips, frowned, asked: