also touched Bobby for a ten spot. They went to a movie which had a stage show and cost a dollar-eighty each. May enjoyed it except she was so tired she slept during most of the motion picture. Then they went out and had Chinese food and May even took a cocktail. Although she was unhappy about going to his hotel, she went, and the room clerk never even glanced at her. They slept late, Tommy skipping his roadwork, but in the morning she cried in his arms, begging him to leave Arno, find a job. “Tom, Tom, don't you see, it can be like this every night if we have our own place, steady money coming in. The bus boys get forty dollars a week in my restaurant, and meals. Shall I ask for you?”
“Gee, May, it means I'm through. May, why can't we wait a little longer? Give my luck its last fling. One or two main events and I'll have a couple thousand to put down on a rooming-house. Well be in business for...”
“And maybe I'll be a widow!”
“That's no way to talk. Look, neither Alvin or Walt have come up with any real proof. You think I want to get myself killed? Let's make a deal. You said we can't get this apartment right away, the tenant may not move for a month or so. Okay, by the time the guy is ready to move, if Arno hasn't done anything for me, or if Walt comes up with any real facts, then I'll quit the ring and get a job.” Tommy added, to himself, “If I can get a job.”
“I'm afraid for you.”
“For Irish Cork? Remember, you were afraid when I first started fighting. Honey, I can handle myself in the ring, you know that. There's another thing, if I quit now—I mean if Arno isn't the one who gives up on me—why I'm into him for nearly sixteen hundred bucks. I guess he could sue me, take it out of my salary each week, if I had a job. Then where would we be?”
“Then it's hopeless.”
“No, no. Look, with the hard time I'm having getting bouts because I looked so sharp in my last fight, why in a month or two, Arno may see he can't work his deal and break things off himself. But if he should get me bouts, or start building Jake up, why... Then we'll take the apartment anyway! This hotel room rents for twenty-eight dollars a week, and he gives me eating money. Ill work out a deal where he gives me the dough and I live and eat with you in the apartment. I'll be bringing home as much as if I was working. Honey, you tell the cook today we'll take the place! Either way, we'll make it.”
“You make it sound good. But I worry so. If you took a job now...”
“And be sued? Don't forget, I still may be champ!”
“I never forget. Be a champ, Tom.” May turned away and he ran his hand over her tiny, thin breasts, marveling as he always did at the pale pink of her nipples.
“Hon, the crazy way things are in the game, within a year I can be up in the money. I'll buy you a big house of your own. And we'll even take that trip to Ireland.” He kissed her nipples as he asked, “Would you like seeing Ireland?”
“I suppose so. Yes, I'd love that,” May said, holding back her tears. Suddenly she pushed his mouth back on her breasts, said quietly, “Ah, kiss me again. It makes me feel so... so young and... pretty. Ah, my Tom, my Tom.”
At noon they dressed and went downstairs and had breakfast. Tom said, 'Isn't this something, living in a nice hotel?”
May nodded. “I'll only take coffee. Sinful to spend money on food when I can eat on my job. Tom, I feel good, like singing.”
“Well do plenty of singing yet, May. You wait and see.”
“Yes, we will. I believe it. Right this minute I believe God will grant us happiness. I believe... Look at the time. I have to scoot.”
Tommy felt so swell himself he went over to the gym but didn't train, merely hung around, pestering Bobby for a bout. He put two bucks on a horse named Deep Green, sat around and read a morning paper. Alvin asked how he'd liked the TV show and Tommy said it had been great. Later in the afternoon he returned to his room and took a few nips out of a pint Arno had given him. He listened to the radio for a while, thought about entering a contest, and went to sleep. It was midnight when he awoke and although he was hungry, he merely took a warm bath, a few more shots of whiskey, and went back to sleep.
When he got up in the morning he felt dizzy from lack of food but couldn't eat if he was going to run. He took a last sip of the bottle to keep him going and went over to the park. After running a few blocks he felt tired and walked for a half hour. On the way back to the hotel he stopped into a cheap stool joint, had coffee and a sandwich.
He saw the car parked in front of the hotel and found Arno and Jake in the hallway outside his room. Jake had a slight mouse under his left eye. Arno said, talking indirectly to Jake, “See, here's a man who won't be puffing after the fifth round. I told Jake you were out on the road.”
“You have a bout?” Cork asked.
Jake nodded and said, “All this driving has left me bushed. I'm going to hit the sack.” He shut the door to their room and Arno followed Tommy into his, asked, “Got a drink handy?”
Tommy took the bottle from the drawer and Arno said nothing about it being almost empty. He poured two drinks, killing the bottle, and smiled at Tommy as he whispered, “We're on our way! I got Jake a fight last night. Took him a few rounds to warm up, but he won by a clean knockout. Made quite an impression.”
“Where'd he fight?”
“Way out of town. Little club but they only see one TV channel there, and no fights. I can get Jake another match any time I want. The build up is on.” Arno actually rubbed his hands together. “Also had the most delicious cherry cider up there. Real spicy and...”
“How about me?”
“I have plans for you. Just remember, all this has to be kept quiet. I mentioned you to the promoter, he was interested in your record. We're moving up, Tommy lad. But not a word to anybody.”
“Who would I talk to?”
Arno stood up. “Have breakfast? I'm going down for potato pancakes.”
“Naw, I'm full of Java. Think I'll take a shower and get some sack time.”
In the gym that afternoon Tommy glanced through the morning papers, didn't see Jake's name or any out of town fight results except for a fight down in Australia. But he knew the papers usually listed only the bigger bouts. Jake wouldn't be mentioned anyway, unless he'd been in a main go.
Cork trained hard, refusing to let himself be tired. This sure proves, he thought, Arno is on the level. What a smart cookie, picking a town off TV limits—the only place a fight club can make it. Wonder how he'll build Jake up? Even if he puts me in with Jake, a main event in a hick town only means a five hundred buck purse to split. But dough don't mean a thing to Arno. He must have his angles working—perhaps this hick promoter will lure in a good welter for Jake to flatten, or I will, then we get an offer to fight here, a TV deal. But Arno will have to piece Jake off before they'll let him show here, and he said he doesn't want that. I'll have to explain to Arno about keeping Jake under wraps, not looking too great, or he'll never land us a main....
Alvin Hammer came across the floor, moving carefully between the heavy bags, by far the tallest man in the gym. He whispered like a conspirator, “Irish, anything shaking?”
Tommy had been so deep in thought as he stepped around the big bag, he hadn't seen Al. He jumped, said, “You scared the daylights out of me. Don't ever creep up on me.”
“Arno say anything new? Jake had any fights?”
“Naw,” Tommy lied.
“They'll be moving soon, old cock. You must let me or Walt know the second Jake fights, or anything new pops.”
“Sure,” Tommy said and suddenly he was full of a depressing weariness, decided to call it quits for the day.
The next few days passed in the usual routine: road-work, gym, hanging around the Between Rounds Bar and chewing the fat, having supper with May as often as she could make it—yet Tommy was full of a restless tension. He'd only felt this once before, the time when May lost the baby and was in the hospital. Now he had the same feeling of waiting for something to happen, something bad. Even in his gym workouts he was listless, always tired, and the half-filled gym gave him the feeling of training in a graveyard. Although he kept pestering Bobby, and any other promoter he saw around the gym, for a bout, and tried to keep himself in shape, in case of the last-minute need for a substitute on any card. He didn't have his heart in it, felt it was hopeless.
One afternoon Walt Steiner was waiting outside the gym and the second Walt asked if anything new had come up with Jake or Arno, Tommy snapped, “Goddamit, leave me alone! You and Al keep after me and after me, even got May doing it. You think I'm a child, an idiot? If I learn anything, I'll let you know.”
Walt said, “Don't be so jumpy. I'm only trying to...”
“I know, but lay off me for a while.” Tommy suddenly landed a mock left on Walt's shoulder. “Don't pay me no mind. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm on edge all the time.”
“Perhaps you're stale?”
Tommy's thin face brightened. “Yeah, that could be the ticket. I haven't been training this hard for a long time.”
In the hotel room, Tommy took a good hooker and stretched out on the bed. But sleep didn't come. He lay there, his mind racing; thinking of everything and nothing. When Arno came in to ask if he wanted to eat Spanish food with him for supper, Tommy said, “I haven't missed a day's training in a month now, and hitting the road every morning, I think I'm going stale. Okay if I take it easy for a few days?”
“Sure. You know all about keeping in shape. You certainly have been training faithfully and I appreciate it. Tell you what, Tommy, suppose you and I go out on the town tonight?”
“That'll be fine.”
“I'll get a couple of girls and well make the rounds of the gin mills.”
“I'm a married man. That is, skip the girls for me.”
