LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

halting the popular march of Pixie the card girl to the bitter disappointment of the whole auditorium. “I wish to file an objection. On deep background,” added Viddi as the crowd remonstrated with abandon.

      “Get back to your corner before I DQ your drunken heinie,” thundered Referee Thorndigger.

      “I’m claiming unfair distraction in breach of the letter and spirit of the Queensberry Rules and the Tammany Hall Regulations of Fistic Fighting.”

      “Stop your yappin’ and get back to your corner, pronto.”

      “The ringading’s shaking her tush at my guy much more than she’s sashaying for the house fighter. That’s dirty pool.”

      “Never mind her tush. Get out of my ring.”

      Distraught, Pixie returned to her seat only to find Mercy Beaucoup firmly in place between Trixie and Lulu claiming to be a model scout from Nouvelle Vouge.

      “Why you piss off referee, Viddo?” For the first time, Scuzzy seemed to be taking an interest in the proceedings as Rhino spilled more Alabama Mama down his gob.

      “Psychological warfare, my friend. Boxing’s a battle of minds,” quoth Viddi, pointing to his forehead as he liberated the bottle from Rhino and partook of it unstintingly.

      For the last three rounds, Mambo le Primitif had pounded his opponent with every fiber in his body and then some. Yet he had never witnessed boxing tactics as exhibited in this match and grown more and more apprehensive, mindful of stories of boxers from strange lands resorting to hemlocked gloves and breathing garlic into their adversary’s eyes.

      As Mambo paused for the briefest of flashes to appraise Scuzzy’s Lithuanian defense pose, popular at the Prussian Kriegsakademie in 1805, the Bucharest Brawler appeared to melt down into the canvas before emerging again with a nuclear left uppercut, leaving Mambo suspended in air for a twinkling. Once landed, Mambo—who had never tasted the canvas—adopted the peekaboo stance while Scuzzy proceeded to pummel him into the corner.

      Before he could scarcely walk, Viddi’s grandmother Amma Hia (who upon a time spent her entire lottery winnings on stock in the Hindenburg) taught him the Nordic adage, “You can’t fool the country pumpkin.” He was not raised to be taken in by such threadbare shenanigans just as his careful study of the manly art of self-defense was about to bear fruit. Immune to the transparent posturing of Mambo and his handlers, Viddi shot to the ringside table. “I demand this travesty be paused for deliberations.”

      Bert Yulson, the New York boxing commissioner, thought he recognized the rather obstreperous gentleman with the funny hat from somewhere.

      “My fighter’s shoelace is practically undone and the referee ain’t doing a blessed thing about it,” complained Viddi.

      “I don’t see anything wrong with his shoelace.” Mr. Yulson was as calm as Bournemouth in winter.

      “It’s coming apart any minute. That bum’s playing possum, just waiting for my guy to slip on his own shoelace.”

      Mambo had yet to respond to the last three overhead rights from Scuzzy as the crowd clamored for the fight to be stopped when Viddi, seeing through their pathetic ruse, jumped over the ropes as Referee Thorndigger was just about to step in.

      “I demand my guy be allowed to tie his shoelace,” roared Viddi as every soul in the auditorium rose in protest to his intervention.

      “Are you out of what passes for your mind?” growled Referee Thorndigger in disbelief.

      “But I make Mambo kaput,” objected Scuzzy.

      A ruckus broke out, the scope of which was unheard of in the annals of the noble art of self-defense. The ensuing melee lasted almost fifteen minutes, with the crowd in attendance throwing everything not bolted to the floor into the ring while Viddi argued with Referee Thorndigger and Referee Thorndigger argued with the boxing commission and the boxing commission argued with Viddi whether Scuzzy should be disqualified for Viddi’s stepping in as Viddi tugged at Referee Thorndigger’s sleeve expounding the letter and spirit of the Queensberry rules and those of the Ukrainian Athletic Association to which the U.S. was a signatory member since the 1896 Athens Olympics while Beardy emptied the last dregs of Alabama Mama, no longer having to share the murderous mead with Viddi.

      Before starting the fight once again, Referee Thorndigger gave Scuzzy a long, harder-than-granite look and grumbled, “Whatever you’re paying this guy, it’s too much.” Without further ado Scuzzy resumed his biffing of Mambo.

      “Too bad Mambo doesn’t have the presence of mind to employ the same tactic I did,” Mercy Beaucoup muttered rather loudly, already making quite an impression on the ring girls.

      “You fought the Hungarian?” squeaked Pixie. “What happened?” echoed Trixie.

      “All I say is, good thing it was stopped,” answered Mercy Beaucoup, his shiner lending credence to the grandeur of his statement.

      “Ooooo,” cooed Pixie and Trixie in saucy unison.

      As the bell rang for the last time, Mambo was held up by his tribal dignity alone while Referee Thorndigger’s scowl betrayed his concern.

      Alas, the last of the Alabama Mama had somewhat diminished Viddi’s and Beardy’s professional acumen. “Stop the bleeding,” commanded Viddi, stepping with force on Scuzzy’s toe. As the boxer howled like a Steppenwolf, desperate to extricate his foot from under his trainer’s heel, Viddi rose to the occasion. “Hurry up. Can’t you see he’s in pain?”

      Beardy, wasting no time, missed the miniscule drop of blood on the champion’s nostril by an inch with his Q-Tip, sinking it right into Scuzzy’s left eye.

      As the buzzing pain shot through bone and marrow, Scuzzy rocketed off his stool, oblivious to Viddi’s foot on his own, plummeting facefirst onto the canvas.

      “You okay, comrade?” inqueried Viddi, snarling at Beardy before Scuzzy could answer. “You broke his beak, you muttonhead.” Viddi brandished the empty Alabama Mama bottle at his cutman-in-training. “You KO’d our guy, you dumb beatnik. Gimme that smelling salt.”

      “Eh, strictly speaking…” Beardy looked around, furtively.

      “We have but one recourse,” slurred Viddi, pointing to Scuzzy’s snoot.

      “Is always this way?” Prompted by some avatistic sense of caution, Scuzzy covered his nose with his glove.

      In the opposite corner, Referee Thorndigger took a hurried peek at Mambo’s mangled face and shook his head as the sullen cornermen administered to the scars of defeat covering his proud visage.

      “No two ways about it. We’re seeing this thing through.” Viddi grabbed Scuzzy’s nose with both hands. “One day you’ll thank me for this,” reassured Viddi as he began realigning Scuzzy’s nozzle.

      “What’s up with Scooter?” asked Referee Thorndigger as Scuzzy tried desperately to extricate his nose from Viddi’s grasp.

      “He’s just excited to be in America.” Viddi’s response was drowned by the cracking of Scuzzy’s nose.

      With the blood from his cleft schnozzle spouting profusely all over the canvas, the Bucharest Brawler sprinted in wild pursuit of Viddi around the ring, peppering him with expletives seldom heard even in the roughest nautical haunts of the Rumanian capital.

      Before Thorndigger waved the match off, Mambo had long left the ring, pronouncing his professional integrity compromised.

      A postfight medical examination of YMCU champion Dimitri Sciatscu, the Bucharest Brawler, revealed the most formidable amount of illegal substances found in any athlete in recorded history—absinthe, tequila, Norwegian wormwood liquor, PCP, peyote juice, lighter fluid, motor oil, juniper sapling juice, nitroglycerine, liberal doses of Danish Jolly Cola, barnyard cocaine, Grand Marnier, Old Spice, and six substances yet to be identified. The Katzenjammer Twins contemplated instituting legal proceedings against

Скачать книгу