Sugar Pop Moon by John Florio Read Free Book Online Page B

father’s eye. She wanted to tell him she’d meet him in the lobby, but it was useless. He was too wrapped up in the doctor’s medical gibberish, which seemed to be just getting started.
    She eased out the door and walked to the mouth of the corridor, where three reporters stood laughing about the fight, taking turns imitating the way Higgins had fallen to the canvas. Each had a press card dangling from his neck. The shortest one—he had a square jaw and wore a brown derby—stepped in front of her to block her path. He must have seen her coming out of Higgins’s dressing room.
    â€œHey, Sister. How bad is he?”
    His press card identified him as Walter Wilkins of the Newark Evening-Star . His eyes were darting down the hallway with a spark that could only come from a rookie. The fellow wanted a scoop, but he wasn’t going to get one from Dorothy.
    â€œHe’ll be out soon, ask him yourself,” she said.
    â€œYou can’t tell me anything?”
    â€œI barely know the fighters’ names,” she said.
    Wilkins smirked and walked toward Higgins’s room. The other two lingered, scanning Dorothy’s body with nearly the same level of scrutiny the doc had given Higgins.
    Dorothy ignored them and made her way across the back aisle of the armory. A young guard with red hair and blue eyes policed the corridor leading to Ernie’s dressing room. Dorothy flashed him a smile and he let her pass. As she did, he straightened his back and puffed out his chest, apparently so eager to look like a competent guard that he forgot to actually be one.
    With a few more steps Dorothy found herself in front of Ernie’s dressing room, where a wrinkled Negro man with a balding pate sat guard, his large round potbelly fitting snugly between the arms of his folding chair. Dorothy recognized him as Ernie’s trainer, Willie Brooks. She’d seen him at the weigh-in, and again tonight in Ernie’s corner, holding the boxer’s water bucket, nursing his cuts, and screaming into his ear between rounds. Apparently, Willie also worked Ernie’s door. He didn’t need any help manning his post—there wasn’t a fan or reporter in sight.
    â€œExcuse me, is this Ernie Leo’s dressing room?” Dorothy asked, knowing full well it was.
    â€œWho’s asking, Miss?”
    Dorothy figured she had a few minutes before the press arrived, if they came at all.
    â€œI’m Dorothy Albright,” she said.
    Willie raised his eyebrows. He was no stranger to the surname.
    â€œEdward Albright’s daughter,” Dorothy said to close the deal.
    Willie nodded and got up. Then he pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and opened the dressing room door.

    Ernie Leo rested his battered body on a bench in the converted storage room. Dust covered the base of the floor moldings. Four chairs, taken from the auditorium and still assembled into a single row of seats, were stacked against the brick wall. A makeup table peeked out from behind a pyramid of torn cardboard boxes but Ernie didn’t go near the mirror—he couldn’t breathe through his right nostril and could only imagine how bad his face looked.
    He should have gone after Higgins harder and lower. The lowlife had butted heads with him three times, punched him in the kidneys twice, and hit him squarely below the belt right after the bell rang to end the first round. Ernie had kept it clean—he knew the ref wouldn’t look away if a Negro broke the rules, regardless of how badly he’d been taunted. It didn’t matter now, though, because lying on the bench to his right was a green leather belt with a shiny gold placard and gleaming red jewels. Ernie couldn’t read the words, but he knew the fancy script on the belt proclaimed him the New Jersey boxing champion. And with that honor came twenty dollars.
    Ernie’s hands throbbed, his neck ached, and he could barely lift his arms to his chest.