From the Bookshelf of Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die…

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishin

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.

There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream. The customer was middle-aged, handsomely dressed, and drunk. He wanted to talk and he couldn’t have stopped even if he hadn’t really wanted to talk. He was polite and friendly and when I heard him he didn’t seem to slur his words much, but you knew that he got up on the bottle and only let go of it when he fell asleep at night. He would be like that for the rest of his life and that was what his life was. You would never know how he got that way because even if he told you it would not be the truth. At the very best a distorted memory of the truth as he knew it. There is a sad man like that in every quiet bar in the world.

“Who’s your buddy?” I asked him.

“Big Willie Magoon,” he said thickly. “A vice squad bimbo. He thinks he’s tough.”

“You mean he isn’t sure?” I asked him politely.

I swung around and I was looking at the profile of a broad-beamed crowd-pleaser in an overdraped oxford flannel. He had the outstretched arm of the popular character and the two-by-six grin of the guy who never loses a sale.

I took hold of the outstretched arm and spun him around. “What’s the matter, Jack? Don’t they make the aisles wide enough for your personality?”

He shook his arm loose and got tough. “Don’t get fancy, buster. I might loosen your jaw for you.”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “You might play center field for the Yankees and hit a home run with a breadstick.”

He doubled a meaty fist.

“Darling, think of your manicure,” I told him.

He controlled his emotions. “Nuts to you, wise guy,” he sneered. “Some other time, when I have less on my mind.”

“Could there be less?”

“G’wan, beat it,” he snarled. “One more crack and you’ll need new bridgework.”

I grinned at him. “Call me up, Jack. But with better dialogue.”

His expression changed. He laughed. “You in pictures, chum?”

“Only the kind they pin up in the post office.”

“See you in the mug book,” he said, and walked away, still grinning.

When I got home I turned on the TV set and looked at the fights. They were no good, just a bunch of dancing masters who ought to have been working for Arthur Murray. All they did was jab and bob up and down and feint one another off balance. Not one of them could hit hard enough to wake his grandmother out of a light doze.