Читать книгу Jacobs Beach. The Mob, the Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing онлайн

36 страница из 104

All in all, you'd prefer to believe Runyon's stories than not. Masterson—for whom the cards fell kindly through the dexterity of his mind and fingers—knew both father and son and liked both, but he was in awe of Runyon the younger, who aspired to be remembered as America's twentieth-century reincarnation of Mark Twain. Masterson believed what Runyon said: that life was mainly 6-5 against, that the little guy always had it tough.

They were all addicted to aphorisms.

“There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I can't see it that way.”

Those were the words stuck on a slip of copy paper in Masterson's typewriter when they found him dead at his desk on the evening of Tuesday, October 25, 1921, in the offices of the New York Morning Telegraph.

In all likelihood, Masterson was down at the Pioneer Sporting Club earlier that evening to watch Gene Tunney stop Wolf Larsen in seven. If he were not, Runyon would have had him ringside in any account he wrote. Runyon loved Bat Masterson and everything anarchic and wild he stood for. Years afterward, he would resurrect his friend as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls.