Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/79



months of my sentence was up and I had three months more to serve when I got time off for good behavior. No, I ain't been in jail, though I might as well of been for all the liberty I got. Out of bed, 6.30 a. m. In bed, 9 p. m. In between, work like a field hand, with a couple of scowling, bull-necked huskies ready to climb my back the second I showed signs of dogging it.

I been training for my first professional box fight.

Where this scuffle was going to take place, how many rounds and how much I was going to get for doing my stuff, was all mysteries to me for a long time. I didn't even know who I was going to battle till a few days before the fight. These little details was in the hands of Nate Shapiro, and it's exactly as easy to get information out of Nate as it is to get sunburned in a coal mine.

While I'm training for my first brawl in a ring, I sit up reading till almost midnight as usual, with the keyhole plugged and a rug stuffed under the door, so's if Nate happens to pass my room he won't see the light. If he'd had any idea that I wasn't pounding my ear, he'd been fit to be tied. Nate ain't much of a reader.