Here’s how the story goes: Two hit men, Al and Max, enter Henry’s “lunch-room” in a town outside Chicago, looking to kill a former heavyweight prizefighter “for a friend.” The ex-boxer, a Swede named Ole Anderson, doesn't show up, so, after holding those in the diner hostage, the gangsters leave, giving a customer, young Nick Adams, time to go warn Ole Anderson at the local “rooming-house” where he lives. Lying in a bed that’s too short for him, the ex-boxer is resigned to his grim fate, knowing that running away from the hit men or going to the police won’t do any good. ...