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Dominic was not curious about Tom’s past and Tom didn’t bother to tell him about the months on the road, the flophouses in Cinci
Dominic taught him how to hit the light bag and it was pleasant on a rainy afternoon, when the gym was empty, to tap away, faster and faster, at the bag, making the gym resound with the tattoo of the blows. Once in awhile, when he was feeling ambitious, and there were no members around, Dominic put on the gloves with him and taught him how to put together combinations, how to straighten out his right hand, how to use his head and elbows and slide with the punches, to keep up on the balls of his feet and how to avoid punches by ducking and weaving as he came in instead of falling back. Dominic still didn’t allow him to spar with any of the members, because he wasn’t sure about Thomas yet and didn’t want any incidents. But the squash pro got him down to the courts and in just a few weeks made a fair player of him and when some of the lesser players of the club turned up without a partner for a game, Thomas would go in there with them. He was quick and agile and he didn’t mind losing and when he won he learned immediately not to make the win too easy and he found himself collecting twenty to thirty dollars a week extra in tips.
He became friendly with the cook in the club kitchen, mostly by finding a solid co
He tactfully stayed out of all but the most desultory conversations with the members, who were lawyers, brokers, bankers, and officials of shipping lines and manufacturing companies. He learned to take messages accurately from their wives and mistresses over the telephone and pass them on with no hint that he understood exactly what he was doing.
He didn’t like to drink, and the members, as they downed their post-exercise whiskies at the bar, commented favorably on that, too.
There was no plan to his behavior; he wasn’t looking for anything; he just knew that it was better to ingratiate himself with the solid citizens who patronized the club than not. He had knocked around too much, a stray in America, getting into trouble and always finishing in brawls that sent him on the road again. Now the peace and security and approval of the club were welcome to him. It wasn’t a career, he told himself, but it was a good year. He wasn’t ambitious. When Dominic talked vaguely of his signing up for some amateur bouts just to see how good he was, he put the old fighter off.
When he got restless he would go downtown and pick up a whore and spend the night with her, honest money for honest services, and no complications in the morning.
He even liked the city of Boston, or at least as much as he had ever liked any place, although he didn’t travel around it much by daylight, as he was pretty sure that there was an assault and battery warrant out for him as a result of the last afternoon at the garage in Brookline, when the foreman had come at him with a monkey wrench. He had gone right back to his rooming house that afternoon and packed and got out in ten minutes, telling his landlady he was heading for Florida. Then he had booked into the Y.M.C.A. and lain low for a week, until he had seen the article in the newspaper about Dominic.
He had his likes and dislikes among the members, but was careful to be impartially pleasant to all of them. He didn’t want to get involved with anybody. He had had enough involvements. He tried not to know too much about any of the members, but of course it was impossible not to form opinions, especially when you saw a man naked, his pot belly swelling, or his back scratched by some dame from his last go in bed, or taking it badly when he was losing a silly game of squash.
Dominic hated all the members equally, but only because they had money and he didn’t. Dominic had been born and brought up in Boston and his a was as flat as anybody’s, but in spirit he was still working by the day in a landlord’s field in Sicily, plotting to burn down the landlord’s castle and cut the throats of the landlord’s family. Naturally, he concealed his dreams of arson and murder behind the most cordial of ma
“Here comes the biggest crook in Massachusetts,” Dominic would whisper to Thomas, as an important-looking, gray-haired gentleman came into the locker room, and then, aloud, to the member, “Why, sir, it’s good to see you back. We’ve missed you. I guess you’ve been working too hard.”
“Ah, work, work,” the man would say, shaking his head sadly.
“I know how it is, sir.” Dominic would shake his head, too. “Come on down and I’ll give you a nice turn on the weights and then you take a steam and a swim and a massage and you’ll get all the kinks out and sleep like a babe tonight.”
Thomas watched and listened carefully, learning from Dominic, useful dissembler. He liked the stony-hearted ex-pug, committed deep within him, despite all blandishments, to anarchy and loot.
Thomas also liked a man by the name of Reed, a hearty, easy-going president of a textile concern, who played squash with Thomas and insisted upon going onto the courts with him, even when there were other members hanging around waiting for a game. Reed was about forty-five and fairly heavy, but still played well and he and Thomas split their matches most of the time, Reed wi
He also told Thomas to save his money and invest in the stock market, because young legs did not remain young forever.
The trouble came when he had been there three months. He sensed that something was wrong when he went to his locker to change after a late game of squash with Brewster Reed. There were no obvious signs, but he somehow knew somebody had been in there going through his clothes, looking for something. His wallet was half out of the back pocket of his trousers, as though it had been taken out and hastily stuffed back. Thomas took the wallet out and opened it. There had been four five-dollar bills in it and they were still there. He put the five-dollar bill Reed had tipped him into the wallet and slipped the wallet back in place. In the side pocket of his trousers there were some three dollars in bills and change, which had also been there before he had gone to the courts. A magazine which he had been reading and which he remembered putting front cover up on the top shelf was now spread open on the shelf.