Roma had plenty of company. The mob was out in force. Charlie Blanda was there, the Smaldone brothers. The Carlino brothers would have been in their usual spot at ringside, but some of them had been bumped off. Maybe all of them. Killed by Little Caesar, folks said. Jake couldn’t keep track from one fight to the next, which mobsters were dead and which were still laying bets. Guys would come in while he was sparring, shake hands, wish him luck, strut around in their pin-striped suits with the bulges under the jackets, and before fight time rolled around they’d be all shot up, their bodies on the front pages of the papers.

Moe Spitzer took his seat near Joe Roma. Moe was so fat he wheezed sitting still. He would try to hijack half of Jake’s purse for expenses before he paid up. They’d argue, Jake would lose. But he was a square shooter, Moe. Always told you what he was going to do before he did it. You hit people, you dumb fuck. That’s what you do. I take your money. It’s what I do. It was hot as hell under the lights, but Moe wore a long fur coat buttoned up to the neck. Why the fuck wouldn’t I wear it? You know what this fuckin coat cost? More’n you’ll make if you fight a hundred years. I pay that much for a coat, I’m gonna wear the fuckin thing, I don’t give a fuck if it’s ringside in the Sahara desert.

Jake leaned over to Bucky Betz. “What’s keepin Lionel Kane, Bucky?”

“How the fuck do I know? You expect me to keep track of every jigaboo in Denver?”

The little trainer was always nettlesome and peevish before a fight. Tonight he was sour as a dill pickle, worried because King Kane was a hard case. He had killed a man in the ring, but the other fighter was colored too, so nobody paid much attention except Bucky. Bucky noticed because that was his job.

There was an ugly murmur in the back of the crowd. Kane was on his way to the ring. The boos rang from every part of the arena, except an upper gallery where the shoeshine boys and hospital orderlies and Pullman porters sat together, staying quiet, trying not to provoke the mob. Jake stood in the ring with his head down, embarrassed. He wondered what it must be like to be King Kane, to hear this crowd baying for blood, knowing they would just as soon lynch him as watch him fight.

Kane climbed through the ropes. He wore a purple robe trimmed with gold. A ring of fat hung over his belt. Jake winked at Bucky, mouthed the word. Fat.