“You haven’t had him long, have you?”
“Hell, no. I don’t owe him anything. I should throw him out, but I can’t do it. There’s something about him that gets you. He’s like a stray puppy coming around and wagging his tail, being so friendly and eager that you haven’t the heart to kick him back down into the alley where he belongs. He’d be all right out on a ranch somewhere, and it might do him good, but he’s permanently punch drunk. They pounded him enough so they jarred his brains out of plumb, got him so he thinks on the bias. When do you want him?”
“I may want him right away.”
“As soon as he comes in, have him come up here and I’ll tell him. What do you want him for, or is it any of my business?”
I met his inquisitive eyes. “I want him,” I said, “to teach me how to box.”
“He’s yours,” Breckenridge said, but he was no longer smiling, and his eyes were squinted in concentration as I shook hands and walked out of the office.
Chapter Eleven
My first knock on the door of apartment 2-A was a gentle, insistent tapping.
A woman’s voice called, “Yes? Who is it, please?”
She seemed trying to keep the fright out of her voice.