fighters is merely a hobby with me. Sign with me and I'll pay your room and board, buy you some clothes, give you modest spending coin. But don't think I'm a sucker; it will be a loan. I'll get it back from your purses.”
“Know what I took down last night? Nineteen bucks!”
Arno shrugged. “Since it's my money and my hobby, let me worry about it. When you fight for me, you'll be well paid.” He pulled a folded contract from his pocket, then counted out two hundred dollars—an imposing pile of five-dollar bills. “I want you to sign this, after you read it. Legally I won't be your manager of record, for reasons I'll explain some other time. But this states that I'm staking you, buying a sort of interest in your career. You agree to give me twenty per cent of your purses until the money I loan you is paid. It's legal. Show it to a lawyer, if you wish. Take this money and pay your rent here, buy a suit, and be at my hotel, the Southside, at nine in the morning. We're leaving to train in the country for a few weeks. Buying that?”
“Yes sir! Listen, Mr. Brewer, you'll see I still got the stuff, the fastest left in the racket.”
Jake, standing by the door, laughed silently.
Arno got to his feet, knocked over one of the empty bottles. “Lay off the booze, for now. Don't let me down.”
“Don't you worry, Mr....”
“Cut the mister line. Call me Arno.”
“Don't you worry, Arno, I'll be on the ball,” Tommy said, getting out of bed, a comical little man in crumpled and stained underwear.
“We don't worry, Pops.” Jake's voice managed to sound sharp and cold in the stale air of the tiny room.
“Let's make that ten a.m. tomorrow,” Arno said, walking toward the door, ducking under the string on which Tommy's trunks were drying. “Give you time to buy some clothes. When we return to town you'll be staying at the hotel. I want you to look like a coming champ. Meantime, keep this quiet. I'll explain that later, too. Sign the contract, get yourself straight. I don't want a cent of my money spent on booze. We understand each other?”
“You bet. You can trust me, Arno. I'll be at the Southside tomorrow, ten o'clock.”
“Sharp,” Jake said, opening the door for Arno.
Outside in the hallway Jake whispered, “You shouldn't have given him so much dough. He'll drink himself stiff.”
“Don't talk loud,” Arno said. “Sure he'll drink. Is that bad? Main thing, he took the dough, he's into us.”
“But he hasn't signed the contract yet?”
“Leave the thinking to me. He'll sign.”
“But we're running low on dough? Two hundred...”
“Let me handle this end, you just start training. Run your legs off instead of your dumb mouth. There's an East Indian restaurant I want to try—once I get the stink of this dump out of my chest.”
Tommy got out his shower shoes, stuffed the money inside his underwear, and clopped down the hallway to the John. Returning to his room he locked the door, put the one chair against it, and counted the money. Then he put the bills in his underwear again and stretched out, slept for awhile.
He awoke an hour later and counted the money once more. It was still two hundred bucks. It wasn't a dream. For a split second he considered giving May a hundred and fifty for the apartment she wanted so badly, but dismissed the idea just as quickly. No point in risking Arno getting sore at him. He'd already goofed. Beside, within a couple of months he'd buy May a regular house if she wanted it.
He dressed and packed all his stuff, including the damp ring togs. It didn't take more than a few moments. Downstairs he paid the two week's rent he was behind, told the astonished and unshaven elderly man behind the desk he was moving. The cold night air took all the wine-sleep out of his head. He stopped at a laundry to leave his dirty clothes, opening the battered suitcase on the counter. The old woman running the shop insisted on a dollar deposit and Tommy flashed his roll, to spite her. He stopped for a fast cup of coffee and a buttered roll. The wall clock said it was twenty after seven, and he raced across town to a pawn shop which closed at eight. Here he purchased a decent suitcase for fifteen dollars and a small leather bag for six, and took out a suit and overcoat he'd put in pawn during the summer—as a means of safe storage. It cost him thirty-two dollars to redeem the clothes. He carefully packed all his things into the new bag, except the gym clothing, which he placed in the smaller bag.
Once outside, Tommy shoved his old suitcase into a comer trash basket, took a bus uptown to a shop near the gym where he bought new boxing shoes, socks, underwear, shirts, and a pair of cheap black dress shoes. He dropped into a coffeepot for supper, picked up a paper and put two dollars on a horse called Green Face running in the nightly trotter races. He had exactly ninety-eight dollars left, including two dollars from the nineteen Becker had paid him.
Tommy mailed May a ten spot and took a two dollar room at a Turkish bath. He sweated the last of the wine out in the steam room, swam in the ice water pool, left a call for eight in the morning, and fell into a happy sleep.
He was up before seven, took another swim, shaved, and dressed in his new clothes. The suit and coat were practically new, although he'd bought them months before. On the spur of a drunken Saint Patrick's-Day moment, Tommy had put a couple dollars on an impossible long shot named Loud Bean. (He'd thought it read Green.) When he sobered up, Tommy found he'd purchased the suit and overcoat. He had to hock them within the month.
After a big breakfast he walked over to the Southside, a modest, first-rate hotel, phoned, and went up to the room Arno was sharing with Jake. Tommy looked so good Arno stared at him with dismay. The men were dressing and after they packed their bags, they all went down to the car. Arno and Jake had breakfast while Tommy sat in the car. He remembered the contract, glanced through it and decided it was okay, signed it. He felt swell; the good clothes, the contract, and sitting in a flashy auto.
Jake took the wheel and after stopping while Arno shopped for the cans of Chinese food and special nuts and candies he was fond of, they left the city, driving north. Tommy sat up front while Arno dozed in the back seat or nibbled tiny bits of ginger. The only time Arno talked during the two-hour ride was to say, “Glad you laid off the rotgut, Tommy. You look sharp.”
“Told you I wasn't a lush. You'll see, I still got it. My legs aren't too bad, I'm not a bleeder, and my left is as fast as ever.” He went through the motions of breathing deeply. “Air smells sweet. You know, I haven't been to a training camp in years—since the time I trained for Robinson.”
Jake asked, surprised, “You was in with Sugar Ray?”
Tommy was just as startled. Everybody in the fight game knew that. “Sure. I was TKO'd in the eighth.” As an afterthought he added a moment later. “I was out-boxing him most of the way, was ahead on points. But he had too much experience for me. One punch took me out.”
“Soon as I saw you the other night,” Arno said, “despite the pasting you were taking, I told myself this fellow has the makings of a great fighter. You still have time to make it.”
“You bet,” Tommy said happily.
They drove to an old-time health resort which had a few customers during the summer. Now it was empty and the owner in Florida, but he had arranged for a local couple to keep the place open, cook and clean. The big house impressed Tommy, as did the barn with its old ring, heavy and light bags. All of it was set on the side of a small mountain, with a full view of the valley and a river covered with ice.
Tommy had a room of his own and while he was unpacking Jake came in. “Arno wants us to do some light sparring, before lunch. Tomorrow we start real training.”
“Sure. You done much fighting?”
“Naw, mostly amateurs—out West,” Jake said, talking in his hard clipped manner, as if cutting off each word with a razor.
“What's the deal with Arno?”
“What do you mean? What deal?” Jake asked slowly.
“What goes with him? I never saw a manager lay out dough like this. Cost a bundle to rent this set-up.”
“No deal. The guy is loaded and wants to be a fight manager. Anything wrong in that?”
“I'm all for it. What's he do for pork chops?”
“I never asked. Think he's retired, had a string of vending machines. What diff does it make?”
“None.”
“Pops, all we got to do is train regularly. Arno plans to build us up slowly. Mostly we'll fight in small out-of-town clubs and... He wants the contract. You sign it?”
“Aha.”
“Let me have it.”
“You managing me, too?” Tommy asked, pulling the contract from his pocket, tossing it on the bed.
“He told me to get it,” Jake said simply, picking it up and walking out of the room.
Tommy hung up the rest of his things, humming a pop tune, thinking, Jake isn't over-bright. Looks about twenty-three, twenty-four, should have been out of the amateurs long ago, if he's any good. He looks like a fighter, though, even if he knows from nothing. Never heard of me being in there with Robinson I All this talk about boxing in small clubs. What clubs are left? Hell, outside the Golden Gloves, not even amateur cards around. But if Arno is some retired business cat wanting to play at being a manager, I'll go along. Give me a chance to get back in shape.
Tommy took his ring things into the barn. Everything was neat and well-kept, but terribly old. Even the framed pictures on the walls were of fighters who'd been active before Tommy was born. The barn was unheated and Tommy undressed quickly. He didn't have any sweat pants and didn't want to wear his long underwear. He bandaged his hands and began working on the light bag to keep warm.
Wearing a heavy white turtleneck sweater under his overcoat and a
