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McLarnin is now staring at gnarled hands, which look unnatural outside a pair of gloves. They convey a brief history of the art of boxing. Jack Dempsey is said to have soaked his fists in salt water to toughen them; McLarnin's hands look like they were soaked in active volcanoes. His face is unblemished and he has no cauliflower ear. Jimmy obeyed only one rule in the ring: never get hit. I've met men who did it both ways, and Jimmy's way was right. He might get drunk but he is not punch drunk. As he weaves toward his wife, waiting at the door to take him home, no one makes a crack. His glare indicates those who only recognize fighters famous from motion pictures.

"We were just talking about you." Sylvia winks at Mike. "Kid wants to write your life story." "Oh, Jeez," Mike whines at Chissel. "Sylvia knows more about me than I know about myself. You got any questions, you ask her." "We were talking about Marilyn Monroe. " "That's more like it."

"Sit down and talk to us, Honey," Sylvia says. Mike obeys, schoolboy style. "Marilyn was very friendly," he tells Kid, looking at Sylvia to see if that's enough. (It isn't.) "She was particularly friendly to the members of the cast. If you made a joke, she'd laugh with you. She'd have lunch with you or something like that, but at that time she was going with... who's the guy again?" "Miiiike! Arthur Miller!" Sylvia bends confidentially to Kid and says, "Mike felt that Miller was very manipulative, and if he couldn't be the boss he wouldn't play. He wasn't a good sport."

"Did you ever talk to Miller?" Kid asks, sensing an explosive story and grasping his slim reporter's notebook with hands like grenades. "Are you kidding?" Mike fires back. "We never talked to him because we knew who he was, and we knew he was a bastard. Every time he was on the set Marilyn wouldn't mix with anyone. He'd take her on the set and take her back. This is off the record, naturally."

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