Finally I said, 'I don't know what I'll do with this, Jackie. Hell, I don't even know what it means. But sooner or later it will mean something and sooner or later I'll do something.'
Jackie sat for a minute. Then he stood and put on his coat and hat. He looked at me for a moment and nodded and turned and went out without saying anything else.
I got up and stood at the window and looked down at the wet street and the cars going along with their wipers moving steadily back and forth. Diagonally across from me the grass around Louis' was still bright green and glistening under the early fall rain and somewhere in this great land was somebody who knew something about what was going on. But I didn't and I didn't know who did.
CHAPTER 39
The sweat had soaked through Susan's black spandex leotard and made a dark blotch in the small of her back. The muscles in her bare shoulders and back moved intricately as she did a set of rows on the Cybex machine.
'Don't bend back,' I said.
'Sit up straight. Use your arms.'
'Are you sure I'm not just building up my arms?' she said.
'You're using mostly the lats,' I said.
She finished the exercise and put her hand on her back a little above the hip bone.
'Right here,' she said.
'I need to get rid of this.'
'Your hip?' I said.
'No, of course not. Right here, this disgusting roll of fat.'
I couldn't see any sign of fat. But we'd had that argument before and I saw no reason to lose it again. We'd also had the discussion about the impossibility of spot reducing.
'Think of it as a beauty mark,' I said.
We were in Susan's club surrounded by men and women, though more women, fighting age and weight. Many of them did not seem to be winning the fight, but none of them appeared ready to surrender. Susan's trainer was in Wellfleet with her boyfriend, almost certainly in sinful congress, and I had been enlisted to train Susan. Enlisted is probably not the right word. Drafted is probably the right word.
'Would the back machine help me?' Susan said.
'It'll strengthen your lower back,' I said.
'I doubt that it will reduce your vast corpulence.'
'Show me how it works.'
We worked on the back machine for a while. We did some lat pull downs. Susan declined the trunk twister.
'I've heard that people develop muscle there and their waist thickens.'
'I doubt that,' I said.
'I don't want to take the chance,' Susan said.
'Of course you don't,' I said.
'Let's work on the bicep thing-y,' Susan said.
Women don't bulk up as easily as men, and they don't define as easily, but Susan had visible muscles. She had as much back fat as Akeem Olajuwon. She did three sets on the curl machine and went for a drink of water.
'Nice to see you drinking from the water fountain,' I said, 'instead of carrying your own personal bottle around.'
'Woman of the people,' Susan said.
'Have you made any progress on Bibi Whatshername?'
'Anaheim,' I said.
'Is regress a word?'
'Yes, but probably not appropriate in this context.'
'Well anyway, I'm accumulating information on the relationships among the players in the Boston mob scene, and I've learned that Shirley Ventura and Marty Anaheim were an item.'
'Bibi's husband?'
'The same,' I said.
'And how does that help you with Bibi?'
'It doesn't.'
'But maybe it will,' Susan said.
'But maybe it will.'
'Do you have any idea how?'
