Moe handed Jake an envelope with a thousand dollars in cash tucked inside. It was supposed to be fifteen hundred, but Moe had deducted five hundred dollars in expenses for two sparring partners who earned five dollars a day for two weeks. Jake didn’t think it added up, but he was too beat to argue. He counted out Bucky’s two hundred, but before he could stuff the rest in his pants, Thelma Pearl snatched it out of his hand.

“I’ll take this, you big palooka. The shape you’re in, you’ll lose it. I’ll see you at Boodles Speak. Bucky, clean him up. He’s enough to make a girl sick.”

She turned on her heel, left without another word. Didn’t even ask if he was all right. Jake drew back his fist, smashed it into the brick wall, didn’t feel a thing.

“Goddamn that little hussy. I swear, one of these days I’m goin to break her up in pieces.”

Bucky clucked his tongue, watching Herb work on Jake’s split eyebrow.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. You know what she is, woman who sits on her moneymaker.”

Jake had seen the look on her puss, the look she had worn every day since she got the manacle on his finger. The look that said, If you start losing, I’ll take this sweet little chassis to the first sucker who can keep me in style. No matter how mad he was, he could never say no to her. She would run a fingernail the color of blood along his zipper. She’d pout those red Clara Bow lips. Honey, I could do you real sweet right now, but the only thing gets my motor going is if I know I can buy that little red dress you promised me. What was it they said? The screwin you get aint worth the screwin you get. Only with Thelma, that wasn’t exactly true. She had a tight little quim, fit like a deerskin glove. Made his eyes cross every time. But she knew he had lost the fight. She would know how bad he had lost and where, all the places he had been hurt. Sooner or later, she would light out for Reno or Salt Lake or Seattle.

Bucky peeled the sweat-soaked gloves off his broken hands, cleaned off some of the blood, slipped his shoes and socks off. Jake sat there in his trunks, his taped hands dangling between his knees, his chest still heaving fifteen minutes after the fight, trying to get enough strength to hit the showers. When he needed to take a leak, his hands were so busted up that he had to ask Bucky to come pull his trunks down. When he managed to pee, he had blood in his urine.