Part 1

jingle in the jungle

BY ALDO GIUNTA

_When even the Fight Commission is in on the plot, and everyone knows that the "fix" is on, when no one will help him, what can a man do--except help himself?_

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Charlie Jingle walked into the long room with the long table and long Commissioners' faces in it. He went to a chair at the head of the table, and sat down, a small man in loose, seedy clothing looking rather lost in a high-backed chair with a regal crest carved in the wood.

"You," asked one of the Commissioners, "are Charles Jingle?"

Charlie nodded his head, a small nod from a small man sitting in a big man's chair.

"You are aware of course ..." began the Commissioner, but Charlie Jingle waved his fingers and cut him off.

"Sure, sure, let's can the bunko and get down to cases."

"You have been summoned here ..." began the same Commissioner, and Charlie Jingle waved his fingers again.

"But I ain't gonna anyway," said Charlie Jingle. The Commissioners stirred, cleared their throats, slid their bottoms with unease on their chairs.

"You understand," said the Commissioner, "that your license may be revoked if you insist on being uncooperative?"

"Sure," said Charlie Jingle. "I understand."

A bulky man, who had been standing at a window with his back to the seated members of the Commission while they talked with Charlie, turned to face them. A man with a heavy, grey face that had no humor in it. Charlie Jingle watched him slowly cross to the table and recognized him as Commissioner Jergen, head of the Fight Commission.

"Jingle," said the man in a dry voice, "I'm going to make an example of you if you don't come across. I'm going to smear your name from coast to coast. I'm going to blackball you so hard you won't get a job anyplace, at anything! Get the message?"

Charlie Jingle got up from his chair and walked to the door. "This the way out?" he asked.

"Hold on!" roared Commissioner Jergen, and Charlie Jingle stopped with his hand on the knob, looking back with polite inquisitiveness at him.

"You goddam people think you can pull quick deals on the Public and on the Fight Commission. I'm here to prove you can't!"

Charlie Jingle laughed.

"You're here to make a big noise, and scare all the scrawny citizens into a confession, Jergen. Don't kid me!"

"I suppose you've got too many contacts to be frightened?"

"Contacts? No, I don't have a single damn contact. All I got is my two hands, and you already told me I ain't gonna be able to make a livin' with them, so why should I stick around here anymore?"

Commissioner Jergen pulled a chair forward.

"Siddown, Charlie. Let's talk like reasonable men," he said. Charlie Jingle searched his face for a lie or a trick. Finding none, he went back to the table and sat down.

The Commissioner waited a moment, and then said earnestly:

"Listen, Jingle. Seventy years ago this country outlawed prize-fighting. It was barbarous, they said. Men shouldn't fight men. Men shouldn't capitalize on other men as if they were animals. Okay. They changed it. Now we got the Pug-Factories. But we also have the same thing that went on before. We have the grifters and the shysters and the fixers operating at full tilt all over the place. There's a few honest guys in the game. I hear you're one of them. All we want is to nail the crooks! We want to bust the Fix Syndicate wide open, get me? Now, if you love the game the way I hear you do--not for the money, but for the smell and the excitement--why won't you help us bust them wide?"

Charlie Jingle shook his head.

"You got it wrong, Jergen. I know about the fixers. But I never consorted with them. If I did, I could've retired a rich man a long time ago."

"Then how about that Saturday night fiasco at the Golum Auditorium? You call that a straight fight?"

Charlie Jingle shrugged his shoulders.

"All I know is I sent my boy in there. He's a Tank, okay. He's up against the newest fighting machine invented. Okay. He drops him. I'm as much surprised as you. All the odds read against me. I got a rebuilt Tank in the ring. But he flattens one of the flashiest pugs in the business. Sure, I admit, it looks suspicious. Fifteen minutes after the upset, one of the biggest fixers in the game walks into my boy's dressing-room ... But don't forget, I'm the best trainer in the business. I take a chunk of worn out fighting machine and make it over into something that buys me bread and coffee. So maybe I create a freak. How do I know? Maybe I twisted a wire wrong, and my Tank's the toughest thing punching."

"You're trying to tell me that fight was on the level, is that it?"

"So far as I'm concerned, it's level. So far as you're concerned...." Charlie Jingle shrugged.

"How is it you happened to have your boy handy when the other fighter couldn't go on?" asked the Commissioner.

"I got my stable a block away from the arena. When I heard about Kid Congo getting smashed up in an auto accident, I called the arena. Before the fight, I had twelve cents in my pocket, a dime of which I used to call the arena. They told me 'Sure, bring him down quick, Charlie'. So there I was...."

"So they put your Tank in against the Contender. Just like that?"

Jingle snapped his fingers.

"Like that."

"And Harry Belok had nothing to do with the upset?"

"Ask Harry Belok."

"Why did he come to see you when the fight was over?"

Charlie Jingle laughed.

"He come to pay me off...."

The Commissioner looked at a sheet of paper on the table in front of him.

"Nineteen thousand seven hundred and thirty two dollars worth of pay-off?"

Charlie Jingle nodded.

"And thirteen cents. You got the thirteen cents down?"

"I've got the thirteen cents down. But how come he pays off so much money to somebody's completely broke, Charlie-boy?"

"Easy," said Charlie Jingle. "The Tank's end of the purse is four hundred bucks, win or lose. Before the fight, I bet the Tank's end against Harry, at house odds. You figure it up, and see if it don't figure out to the penny."

Charlie watched one of the Commissioners scribble quick numbers on a piece of blank paper. In a moment the man looked up, and handed the sheet across to Commissioner Jergen. Jergen looked at it quickly and grunted.

"Okay?" asked Charlie Jingle.

"Okay," growled Jergen.

"When we fight the Champ, I'll send a couple tickets around free. See ya'...." Charlie Jingle went out.

* * * * *

Charlie Jingle came out of the underground tubes and walked down a block of chipped brick and colored plastic buildings, past picket fences and an empty street. He looked at the street, the pavement--dark, quiet, uncluttered by garbage, devoid of kids. On the roofs of the buildings was a jungle of neatly bent, squarely twisted, staunchly mounted aerials. The kids were under them, behind the picket fences, watching five-foot-square screens that flashed stories and news and the life histories of ring heroes like himself. A nice, clean-cut, handsome actor would act the part of Charlie Jingle, his fights, loves and disappointments, all ending up in one glorious, stirring message. Charlie Jingle made it. From rags to riches in a single swipe.... So can _you_.

He stopped in front of Hannigan's Gym, looked up and down the street, and cautiously spat into the gutter. Then he went past the swinging doors into the building's interior.

Inside the door, he breathed deep the stale smell of oil and leather that permeated the atmosphere. Opening his eyes, he looked into the flat, grinning face of Emil McPhay. McPhay had been chalking schedules on a blackboard when he spotted the rapt expression of Charlie Jingle's face.

"As I live and panhandle!" exclaimed McPhay, his eyes rolling in their fat sockets.

"Anybody to see me, Emil?"

"Well you know as well as me somebody is, Charlie. The lovin' picture-makin' people 're here. Got a whole staff wit 'em." He leaned close, rolling his eyes shyly. "You gonna give 'em the story of yer bloody life, Charlie?"

Charlie strode toward his shop at the back of the gym.

"Not unless they make me lead man. And _you_ the leading lady!"

He went past a row of smoked-glass doors to the last one with C. JINGLE, TRAINER printed on it, opened it, and went in. As Emil McPhay had said, the room was mobbed with smoking, suntanned Californians. An elegant-looking man rushed forward and jerked his hand up and down.

"Glad ... so glad.... Pictures.... Hope.... Contract.... Of course. Your boy.... Mister Jingle.... Famous...."

Nobody had called Charlie Jingle mister for ten years. In one night, he'd graduated from flop to mister. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the sweat on them. His eyes took in the walls painted their flat, drying green, the racks of tools on them, the pictures of great fighting machines all over them, the electrical diagrams, the Reflex-Analyses Patterns mapped out next to each one. Then he lowered his eyes to take in the grinning, smooth-faced men around him, doing nervous things with their faces and hands. He looked at the man in front of him, his mouth flapping open and closed, contorting this way and that, and suddenly Charlie shut his eyes tight, drew in a blast of air, screwed his mouth open, and yelled "Shaddap!" good and loud.

There was stunned silence. Charlie looked around at them, at their poised, waiting faces.

"Scram!" he yelled, and jerked his finger to the door.

Slowly, the suntanned Californians drifted out of the room, watching him closely lest he maul them or loose another violation of the success story at them. One man broke the spell.

"Of course, Mister Jingle, one's life history is certainly something to be treasured. Not to be treated lightly. But I assure you we--my company, that is--we will make certain that we adhere to the facts, in our fashion. There will be no unnec--"

Charlie Jingle grabbed the man's jacket-front with his left hand, his trouser-seat with the other, and, taking advantage of the man's total unpreparedness, threw him bodily out of the room, in the same motion kicking the door shut so hard, the glass cracked and a piece jumped out of the upper left hand corner.

Then Charlie Jingle stormed into his shop, where Tanker Bell awaited him.

* * * * *

When Tanker saw Charlie come into the room fuming mad, he shut off the reflex-machine and turned to watch him. Charlie Jingle paced back and forth in the room, in the small space between work-bench and wall. Suddenly he stopped, spun savagely to face Tanker. "Well? What the hell you lookin' at?"

Tanker Bell grinned. "You, Charlie. I like to watch you when you're mad."

"You do, eh?"

Tanker watched the rage build up to a good healthy flush on Charlie's skin.

"Jeez," Tanker jibed, "you look as red as those beets they sell over in the Old-Methods Market."

"Listen you! Just because you dropped that flashy character last night. Don't let it go to your head! You get me sore, by God, I'll have you piled up in the yard along with yesterday's rusty pugs!"

Tanker laughed.

Charlie Jingle glared at the Tanker a moment, drew a deep breath, snorted it out, and paced twice. Then he faced the Tanker again.

"Sorry, kid. They got me goin' today. First the fight commission. Then these soap-peddlers from Hollywood. Sorry I blew off."

"How'd it go with the Commission?"

"Okay, okay. Jergen knows about me. He's just hungry for a bust, you know? Wants to nail the Fixers."

The Tanker took a step toward Charlie.

"The Champ call?" he asked, voice trembling. Charlie shook his head in the negative.

"Why don't you sucker him, Charlie? Force his hand!"

"You want a bout with the Champ?"

"Sure! Don't you?"

Charlie sat down on the work-bench and pulled the Tanker down next to him.

"Listen, Tank. Last night was a freak, you understand? Something happened last night, I don't know what. But you ain't the boy to fight the Champ--My God, boy, you're older than me!"

Tanker Bell looked at Charlie, his face puckering like a child's.

"No, now wait. Lemme make it clear, Tank," said Charlie Jingle softly. "You'n me been together fourteen years. We've fought in some pretty ancient Tank-towns. We've fought young and old alike, and you know as well as me that it was always an even toss whether or not you would get knocked cold. We're mediocrities, Kid. When I bought you, you'd already seen your best days. Am I right?" Tanker Bell nodded, his head down on his chest.

"Look, Tanker, I ain't tryin' to hurt you. I just don't wanna see you get killed!"

"Well who said anything about gettin' killed, for God's sake!" bawled the Tanker.

"Look at it this way. You've been knocked to pieces a dozen times, and I've gone to work and put you back together a dozen times. I've twisted your wires, re-shaped your reflex plan, doubled your flexibility and your punch-power, co-ordinated and re-co-ordinated you and re-analyzed your nervous-pattern until I've exhausted every possible combination. You're a fighting machine, and a good one, kid. But machines grow old. They get outdated, like me. I'm a Mechanical Engineer. Okay! There's lots of new stuff I don't know that these college kids know. What happens to them? They go to work for Pugilists Inc., inventing new machines with new systems. They got systems that I never dreamed of. Do you know that?"

"Well what's that got to do with me fightin' the Champ, for God's sake?"

"Everything! They put machines in the ring now that are worth Five Hundred Thousand dollars! They're almost indestructible!"

"How come that punk I fought last night wasn't so indestructible, then? How come about that, Charlie?"

"I dunno, I dunno. Somethin' musta gone wrong. Maybe he shorted out."

"Or _maybe_ for once you hit the _right_ combination, how about that, Charlie? Maybe I'm real ripe, now, after all these years of tankin' around!"

"But Tanker! Use your head! The Champ's brand new, spankin' young. He's the newest-styled fighting machine in existence. What chance you think we stand against that?"

"Listen. I fought that bum last night with ease, you know that? There I was, just glidin' around him, punchin' him at will--"

"Maybe it was an accident! Maybe somethin' went wrong with his system last night...."

"And maybe I dropped him on the square, too...."

"OKAY!" shouted Charlie Jingle in desperation. "Maybe you did. And maybe, if you go in against the Champ, maybe he'll kill you! Maybe he'll smash you so hard I won't be able to put you together again. You wanna take that chance? Or you wanna settle down nice and quiet in some Pug factory, supervisin' young fighters?"

"Naw!" yelled the Tanker. "I wanna take that chance! I want you to get me a fight with the Champ!"

"Are you dumb, or what? Don't you know they never come back?"

"All I know is this," began the Tanker. "Fourteen years we bin together. Fourteen years you stuck it out and starved it out, workin' with scraps from a junk-heap, with stumble-bums like me who've seen their day. There was times when you went hungry because the junk-heap needed oil, or wiring, or a pattern-analysis, or parts. Now you got something! Now you can be on top! You know damn well you don't want any part of that Hollywood fiasco. You got a crack at _big_ money. You gonna let it go by-the-by because you're afraid a pile of wires might get killed? Naw! We fight, and that's the way it stacks!"

"You mean it, don't you, Tanker?"

The Tanker said nothing.

Charlie Jingle slowly rose, tired in his bones, tired in his joints. "Okay. I'll arrange it. But don't blame me if--"

"I won't," said Tanker Bell tightly, and Charlie went out. In the hall, the Hollywood people were still waiting for him. Charlie shouldered past them with a half-spring to his step.

* * * * *

He sat in the waiting-room of the offices of Pugilists, Inc., on a plush powder-blue lounge chair chewing gum languidly. From time to time he shot a glance at the secretary sitting inside a totally enclosed desk, operating a Mento-Writer Machine, the electrical contact-buttons fixed to her temples. He watched in sleepy fascination as, every so often, she leaned over and pushed the button marked _corrector_, and there would follow an electrical hiss as the tape on the machine slid back, eliminating wrongly-formed thoughts.

Charlie knew that somewhere in the room there was machinery observing him, measuring his pulse, emotional balance, probable intelligence, habits, and massing and digesting the general information so that Pugilists, Inc., would know what kind of man they were dealing with, and what approach would be best.

Somewhere in this building another machine was probably purring, feeding information from memory-banks, relating all known facts and incidents regarding Charlie Jingle, his birth, environment, social and political connections, moral status, business ethics, and bank account.... Not that Charlie Jingle was so important to them, this he knew. But Pugilists, Inc., kept records and histories of every and any individual having even the remotest connection with the fight game.

As Charlie Jingle sat there a smile twitched across his face. Let them figure _that_ out, he thought, and then sank into a reverie. Over in the other part of the room, across the prairie of rug, the secretary Mento wrote efficiently, the machine going ZZZ CLK SSHHHH CLK CLK ZZZZ, hypnotic in it's well-oiled quietness.

"Jingle?"

Charlie Jingle looked across the room to the secretary. "What?" he asked.

"Would you go in please, Mister Jingle?"

Charlie followed the direction of the girl's gesture to a panel in the wall. He got up and started to cross suspiciously toward it. As he slowed down, nearing it, he looked back at her, and she smiled and encouraged him on sympathetically toward the doorless wall. Just as Charlie thought _It'd be funny if I break my nose on that goddam wall_ ... the panel swung in quietly.

Charlie walked through it into a room. In it there was another veldt of rug, at the far end of which was a bar, a lounge chair, a tremendous sofa, and a low, knee-high table. The walls were decorated with modern paintings in a colorful, tasteful, executive way. Standing near the knee-high table were three men, one distinguished looking, the other two looking as if they'd stepped out of a Young Collegiate Magazine ad.

The elegant one crossed to Charlie, his face a big, pleasant, well-groomed smile, hand extended.

"Allow me, Mister Jingle. I'm Kort Gassel. These two gentlemen are Jerome Rupp and Eugene White. Would you like a drink, Mister Jingle?"

Charlie Jingle shook their hands and sat down, crossing his legs comfortably.

"You got gin, Mister ahhh--"

"Gassel," said Kort Gassel, and crossed the three feet to the bar. "Soda?" he asked.

"Straight," said Charlie Jingle, and watched the other two sit down slowly as Gassel came back with his drink.

"That's quite a drink. I know few men who enjoy straight gin, Mister Jingle. It always comes as a surprise when I--"

"You gonna give us the fight, Mister Gassel?" interrupted Charlie.

"The fight? You mean with Iron-Man Pugg?"

"That's right, with Iron-Man Pugg."

"Well Mister Jingle. Since you put the matter so straightforwardly. Pugilists Incorporated only owns a small block of stock in Iron-Man Pugg, as you know. Mister Rupp and Mister White here represent the other interests involved. As you must know, Pugilists Incorporated is a large-scale business, designed to function on a large-scale basis. Now, we, the stockholders in Iron-Man Pugg, have thought this thing out. We've come to the conclusion that it would rather--well, embarrass the Company to agree to such a match as you propose."

"So you won't fight?"

"No, no, Mister Jingle, don't jump to hasty conclusions. I'm trying to explain something to you. It's not simply a matter of matching your--ah--boy against ours. But we _are_ concerned with the overall effect of such a bout. Frankly, our reputation as a manufacturing concern is more important to us than the outcome of any single bout--"

"Whadda you say you get to the point?"

"Certainly. Tanker Bell, as we understand it, has a fighting history of forty-seven years. Now, I'm afraid we'd be made a laughing-stock if Tanker Bell were set into motion against one of our products."

"Especially if he won, is that it?"

"Particularly then. But we rest secure in the fact that that outcome is highly improbable, not to state impossible."

Charlie Jingle sipped his gin, looking from one face to the other.

"So?" he asked, anticipating what was about to come.

"Suppose, Mister Jingle, you were offered a price for Tanker Bell, price far in excess of his actual worth. A price big enough to even make it possible for you to perhaps buy a second-rate fighter in good second-class condition."

Charlie Jingle closed his eyes and tapped his foot with horny, grease-monkey fingers. In a moment he opened them and slowly took in the three representatives of the champ, Iron-Man Pugg.

"Lemme get this straight. You want me to sell Tanker for much more than he's worth because you'd be humiliated at having to put one of your products in the same ring with him?"

"Exactly," said Kort Gassel.

"But you're sure your boy'd whip him in the ring?"

"Well obviously we all know the knockout victory he scored over the Contender was an accident."

Charlie Jingle nodded.

"_We_ all know it. But there's one guy in the world who don't. You know who? Tanker Bell himself."

Kort Gassel laughed.

"A robot, Mister Jingle? Surely you must be--"

Charlie Jingle shook his head.

"Can't do it, boys. I gotta consider the Tanker. You see, Mister Gassel, Tanker thinks he could take your boy. And not only does he wanna take him, but he won't take no for an answer!"

"Listen, Jingle, is this some kind of joke? What are you holding out for? A price? When I said I'd make it worth your--"

Charlie Jingle shook his head, stubbornly and firmly.

"No price, Gassel. Just an agreement-contract."

"Listen, you fool, don't you realize what's at stake here? We're big business! We can't afford to play around with lucky independents like you!"

"Can't take any chances, huh?"

"Exactly that! Can't, and won't!"

"Wanna bet?"

"If you try to--"

Charlie Jingle got up from his seat.

"Gassel ... I've been in this racket so long I've got oil in my veins instead of blood, and a Reflex-Pattern Analysis for a brain. I know every angle there is to know. If I want a fight, I'll get one. So don't go try putting your big business pressure on me. I'm too old for college-boy antics."

Kort Gassel stared at him for a long, hostile moment. Then his face broke into a smile.

"My friend, do you know what you're bucking? These are the offices of Pugilists Incorporated you're in. Don't you realize what that means?"

"Sure," said Charlie Jingle. "It means that if Tanker Bell whips Iron-Man Pugg, Charlie Jingle will one day have as big a factory and as many orders for Fighting-Machines as Pug, Inc...."

Charlie Jingle crossed the desert of rug toward the exit-panel.

"See you at Ring-side, Kids." And he went out.

* * * * *

Mischa Hannigan, owner and proprietor of Hannigan's Jungle, watched from his tiered office as Hammerhead Johnny put Tanker Bell through his paces in the ring. His eyes travelled from the laboring fighters in the ring to the crowd of spectators standing and sitting around, watching the Tank work. He was smooth and fast, without a kink, stabbing light quick jabs and those murderous body-rights that had stopped the Contender, breaking, the press had said after the fight, the metal rib-cage inside the Contender's body. Mischa Hannigan was happy.