Stan Hicks rushed into the Model Garage
shop, his eyes as big as brake drums. "Hey, boss!" he said breathlessly to
Gus Wilson, "Jack Cross is outside in a big sporty coupe! He wants to see
you!"
Gus grinned tolerantly at the grease
monkey. He was a boxing fan himself, and he understood the thrill Stan got
out of being spoken to by our town's only famous prize fighter.
Jack Cross never won the welterweight
crown, but he came within a second of it the night 10 years ago when he had
the champ stretched on the canvas and the gong clanged at the count of
nine. He was still rated as a hazard any youngster had to pass before he
could get a crack at the title.
"I'm going to see him fight Buzz Billings
tonight," Gus said with deliberate nonchalance. "In their last scrap Buzz
had him in trouble, but Jack knew too much for him and won the decision.
Tell him to drive in."
"But, boss," Stan gasped. "It's Jack
Cross! Hadn't you better go out?"
"Scram," Gus laughed. "I've know Jack
Cross since you were in three-cornered pants."
A moment later a flashy, newly painted
coupe of the late '30's was driven in, and a solidly built man climbed out
and swung over to Gus with his hand extended. His face was scarred, his
nose was crooked, one ear was thickened, his wide smile displayed expensive
and extensive bridgework, but when he spoke his voice was surprisingly
gentle.
"Hello, there, Gus," he greeted.
"Haven't seen you since Napoleon was a corporal. What do you think of this
jalopy I bought?"
Gus eyed the coupe. "It was a good car,"
he said, "but I can't tell if it still is."
There was a bitter note in Cross's laugh.
"Like me, isn't it? Did you see me in
there with Buzz Billings last month?"
"Sure," Gus told him. "I was rooting for you, but you had me worried for a
while."
"You were worried!" the fighter said, his
smile vanishing. "How do you think I felt?
I'm fighting him again tonight, but maybe
I ougthtn't to. It may be time for me to quit - I don't want to end up by
walking on my heels and telling people I'm training to fight Mickey Walker.
Buzz hurt me with that right, Gus. I've been hearing funny noise since he
smacked me with it - and I want you to tell me whether they're in this car
or in my head."
Gus stared. "Trying to kid me, Jack?"
Cross shook his head. "I never felt less
like kidding in my life," he said grimly.
"O.K.," Gus told him. "What's this about
noises? When did you first hear them?"
"The first time I drove the car," Cross
replied. "I bought it from a dealer in the city and had him recondition
it."
"That proves the noises are in the car
and not in your head," Gus reasoned.
"No, it doesn't," Cross disagreed. "They
delivered the car the morning after the fight.
"You must know," Gus argued, "whether the
car made the noises before you bought it."
"I never drove it before I bought it,"
Cross admitted. "My old bus had to be junked and I took the salesman's word
that this one would be thoroughly reconditioned. The morning after the
fight I wanted a vacation. I phoned the dealer to send the car around to
the hotel, and I started to drive it down to Atlantic City. In about a
block I began to hear the noise - a sort of low tick-tick-tick.
When I got out on the road and speeded up
it got louder, and the ticks began to come closer together until the noise
was pretty near continuous."
"What did you do?" Gus asked.
"After I had listened to the noise for
about an hour," the boxer told him, "it began to get on my nerves, so I
stopped at a garage. The mechanic said that the speedometer cable was shot
and put in a new one. But I heard the noise again as soon as I got out on
the road. I stopped at another garage. That fellow said it was caused by a
wheel bearing and spent an hour putting in a new one. But the noise got
louder and louder, and after I'd gotten to Atlantic City and checked in at
the hotel I kept on hearing it - all night."
"I've had the same thing happen to me,"
Gus put in. "Just nerves."
"You think so?" Cross asked. "Listen to
the rest of it. Next day I took my bus to a big repair shop. I got it back
in two days with a big bill and a song and dance about the transmission -
and the tick was still there.
Driving back from Atlantic city, it
sounded sometimes as if it was in one part of the car and sometimes in
another, and after an hour I was sure it was in my head. When I got to the
city I took the car to the place I'd bought it. The manager drove with me
for a block and said I was imagining things."
Gus scowled.
"I was so scared I couldn't say
anything," Cross went on. "Since then I've kept on hearing the noise - in
the car and out of it - but I haven't told anyone but you. Maybe I
shouldn't fight Buzz again - they're building the kid up and figure he'll
kayo me. You know your business, Gus, and I know you're on the level.
Locate that noise and cure it, and I'll know I'm all right. If you say
there's no noise, I'll know I've taken too many punches."
"That's easy to decide," Gus told him.
"Hop in, and we'll take a ride."
Cross looked at the shop clock. "I can't
- I've got to get down to the city," he said.
"My manager's waiting outside. Keep the
car, and I'll be in tomorrow. Coming to the scrap tonight? Win or lose,
it'll be my last. I'd like to wind up with a win, but I'm not going to give
Buzz a chance to nail me with that right again - not with me hearing funny
noises in my head!"
"Sure, I'm going to the fight," Gus
laughed. "And forget the noises. I'll prove they're in the car and not in
your head."
After Cross had hurried out, Gus jumped
into the coupe and headed up the highway. He heard the noise at once - a
well spaced tick-tick-tick that grew louder when he increased speed
and became a fast, loud buzz when he worked it up to 50. At first it
sounded as if it came from the transmission, then from the rear end, then
from the front wheels.
"The noise is there, just the way Jack
heard it," he told Stan when he got back. "But finding the cause may take
quite a while. If I could tell Jack what it is before he goes into the ring
it would ease his mind and maybe help him win. Let's get busy!"
Working quickly but carefully, he checked
and rechecked - but after an hour the source of the noise still was unfound.
"We're not getting anywhere," Gus said.
He lighted his pipe and blew clouds of gray-blue smoke as he stared at the
coupe and dug into his memory for the cause of each mysterious car noise
he'd had to run down.
"That could be it," he muttered after
five minutes of concentration. "that must be it... He, Stan - forget your
dinner and help me pull off this torque-tube assembly."
It was long job, but when it was finished
Gus grinned with satisfaction.
"There's what made Jack Cross think he
was going nuts," he told Stan, pointing to the taper pin which in that car
holds the drive shaft to the driving pinion in the rear end. "The pin is
driven tight at the factory but sometimes works loose the way this one did.
It can't drop out because of the torque tube, so the shaft still drives the
gear, but the rotating pin strikes the tube and makes a ticking noise that
is so hard to locate that most mechanics miss it."
He pulled out the loose pin, examined the
taper hole in which it had been seated, and checked the torque tube.
"That's good," he told Stan. "The hole
hasn't worn, so all we have to do is drive the pin back good and hard.
Sometimes a pin cuts a groove so deep you have to install a new tube."
"I get your - I guess," the youth
muttered. Gus climbed into his own old roadster. "Jump in," he called to
Stan. "I'll buy you a ticket to the fight."
But they had worked so long, the
Cross-Billings bout had gone six rounds by the time they reached the arena.
"How's it going?" Gus asked the man next
to him as the gong sounded for the seventh.
"Billings all the way," he was told.
"Cross seems to be washed up."
Gus watched as Cross came out of his
corner. He was brisk enough but painfully cautious, constantly circling to
his right in an obvious attempt to keep out of range of his opponent's
Sunday punch. Billings, confidently aggressive, snapped the veteran's head
back with stinging left jobs.
It was that way all through the seventh
and eight rounds. Only Gus knew that Cross was worried sick by fear of
becoming punch drunk.
"If I could only tell him!" Gus muttered.
In the ninth, he could stand it no longer
and began to work his way toward the ring. An usher ordered him back, but
he kept going. He got to Cross's corner as the round ended. A cop grabbed
at him and missed.
"Jack!" he yelled. "I've got to talk to
you!"
Cross, sitting dejectedly on his stool,
recognized his voice above the roar. He turned, saw Gus, and said something
to a second, who beckoned. Gus climbed the ring steps.
"Those noises aren't in your head," he
said in Cross's ear. "They're in your car - a loose pin. That's on the
level, Jack. You aren't getting punchy. Forget it - and go in and lick
this kid!"
The veteran's cut lips twisted in a grin,
and he managed a wink with a puffed eye.
"Thanks, Gus," he muttered. "Watch me."
The gong clanged. They met in mid-ring
and touched gloves in the traditional final-round handshake. Then, his
right cocked and his extended left ready, Buzz glided forward, expecting to
tag Cross with another jab as he circled away from his right. But this time
Jack didn't circle. He stood firm. His left flashed out, and his glove
smacked into the pit of his opponent's stomach.
Buzz gasped, and he doubled over and
tried to wrap his arms around Cross. But Jack slid back - then forward
again - and let go his right. The punch landed on the side of Buzz's jaw.
His knees buckled, and he pitched forward on his face.
The referee's arm rose and fell with the
count, "... eight... nine...ten!"
He grabbed Jack's right hand and held it
up.
"The winnah - Jack Cross!" Jack grinned
crookedly at Gus. "I get the credit, but you won the fight."
"O.K.," Gus said. "I'll put it on the
bill."
END
