Insurance Corporation.
Each apartment was provided with a garage which was situated in the basement of the building and approached by a long drive-in from the road.
Anson had played bad golf, had had an indifferent dinner, but he had had a lot to drink. Now, relaxed from the exercise and slightly drunk, he drove his car down the dimly lit drive-in and expertly swung the car into the stall allotted to him.
He noticed that most of the other stalls were empty. This was the weekend. There was always a rush to get out of Brent over the weekend, and Anson liked the quiet that prevailed in the apartment block, free from the racket of television, people walking over his head and children screaming and quarrelling in the courtyard.
He cut the engine, turned off the headlights and got out of the car. As he slammed the car door shut, he became aware that he wasn't alone. He looked sharply to his right.
A tall, thick-set man had appeared out of the shadows and was now standing looking at him from the entrance of the stall. His unexpected appearance gave Anson a start. He stared into the gloom, looking towards where the man was standing.
'Hi, palsy,' the man said in a thick, husky voice. 'I've been waiting quite a long time for you to show up.'
Anson's heart skipped a beat and he felt a cold clutch of fear. He recognized this threatening, massive figure: Sailor Hogan! During the past days his mind had been so obsessed with Meg Barlowe he had entirely forgotten Joe Duncan's threat. Now he remembered what Duncan had said: You pay up on Saturday. If you don't, Sailor will be around to talk to you.
Anson recalled a story he had heard about Sailor Hogan. How he had visited a client of Joe's who had failed to pay up.
Sailor had maimed the man. Anson had actually seen the man after Sailor had dealt with him so he knew the story to be no exaggeration. Sailor, so they said, had laced his thick fingers together and had hit the man a frightful chopping blow on the back of his neck. The man was now going around in a wheel chair, looking and acting like an idiot. When the police had tried to pin the assault onto Sailor, he proved with the help of five bookmakers that he was playing poker with them in Lambsville at the time the assault had taken place.
And now here was Sailor Hogan walking slowly and deliberately towards Anson who backed away. It wasn't until he felt his heels grinding against the concrete wall that Anson came to a standstill. By now, Sailor was within four feet of him. Sailor paused, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his shapeless hat cocked over one eye, a cigarette dangling from his thick, moist lips.
'I've come to collect, palsy,' he said. 'Let's have it.'
Anson drew in a quick uneven breath.
'Tell Joe he'll have it on Monday,' he said, trying to keep his voice steady.
'Joe said for me to collect it now or else ...' Sailor said and took big, knuckly fists out of his pockets. 'Come on, Palsy, I want to get home.'
Anson felt the cold concrete wall pressing against his shoulders. He could retreat no further. He thought of the man in the wheel chair.
'I'll have the money on Monday,' he said. 'Tell Joe ... he'll understand. I'm expecting...' He broke off as Sailor sidled towards him. Suddenly more frightened than he had ever been before, he said in a high hysterical voice. 'No! Keep away from me! No!'
Sailor grinned at him.
'Palsy, you're in trouble. When I'm not working for Joe, I work for Sam Bernstein. You owe him eight grand. Sam doesn't think you'll pay him. Okay, you have time, but Sam is worried about you. Joe's worried about you too. You'd better pay Joe on Monday or I'll have to work you over.' His small white teeth gleamed in the overhead light as he smiled viciously. 'If you don't raise Sam's dough, I'll fix you till you wish you were dead. Understand?'
'Sure,' Anson said, feeling cold sweat running down his ribs.
'Okay. You pay Joe on Monday ... that's fixed, huh?'
It's going to be all right, Anson thought wildly. I've gained two days. Monday night I'll be with Meg.
But it wasn't all right for Sailor moved forward with a quick, shifting movement that left Anson helpless to defend himself.
Sailor's hammer-like fist sank into Anson's stomach with paralysing and awful violence and sent him forward in a jack-knife dive.
Anson sprawled face down on the oily concrete floor. He heard Sailor say, 'Monday, palsy. If you haven't the dough, then you're in for a real beating and remember Sam ... you don't pay him and you're as good as dead.'
Anson lay still, his hands clutching his stomach, his breath moaning through his clenched teeth. He was dimly aware of the cold ground that chilled his pain wracked body as he listened to the quick footfalls of the ex-light heavy weight champion of California as he walked briskly up the drive-in and out into the darkness of the night.
Anson lay in bed. The day was Sunday. The time was eleven fifteen a.m. Around his navel where Hogan had sunk his fist the flesh was yellow, green and black. Somehow he had managed to drag himself to the elevator and reach his apartment. He had taken three sleeping tablets and had got into bed. When he woke, the bright morning sunshine was coming around the edges of the blind. He had limped to the bathroom. His guts felt as if they were on fire. At least, he thought, I am not passing blood, but he was frightened. He thought with horror of the next meeting with Hogan if he failed to raise Duncan's money. His mind moved ahead to next June. He. must have been out of his mind to have borrowed eight thousand dollars from Bernstein. He must have been crazy to have put all that money on that goddamn horse! He felt a cold chill as he thought of the reckoning. He was certain now that he would never be able to raise that sum. He put his hand to his tender aching stomach and he cringed. Hogan would fix him. He knew it. He too would be going around looking like an idiot after Hogan had fixed him.
He lay there in a mood of frightened, black despair during the next four hours. His mind darted like a trapped mouse, searching for a way of escape.
There was one thought that kept moving into his mind and which he immediately rejected, but as the hours passed and no other solution presented itself, he finally began to consider the idea.
Up to this moment he had shied away from any criminal act to make money, but now he realized there was nothing left but to make money dishonestly.
He thought of Meg Barlowe.
She has something on her mind, he told himself. That story about an insurance swindle ... she knew that junk she called jewellery was worthless. So why did she ask me to call? Why did she tell me her husband would be away for the night on Mondays and Thursdays? This could be my way out ... this could be the chance I'm looking for.
He was still thinking about the idea when he drifted off into an exhausted sleep that took him through the night to Monday morning.
Anson walked across the vast parking lot of Framley's store with a slight dragging step. Movement caused him pain. He had to force himself to walk upright.
He pushed open the swing doors into the bustle of the store. He looked around, then asked one of the elevator attendants where he could find the horticultural department.
'Basement. Section D,' the girl told him.
There was a big crowd around the horticultural stand and Anson wasn't surprised. He recognized the same genius that had created the garden at the Barlowe house. People moved around gaping and exclaiming at the blooms, the perfect floral arrangements, the little fountains and the beautifully arranged banks of cut flowers. There were four girls, wearing green smocks, busy with their order books. Barlowe stood by a desk, a pencil behind his ear, while he watched the girls book orders.
Barlowe was so unlike the man Anson had imagined him to be that after staring at him for several seconds, he asked one of the girls if it was Mr. Barlowe. When the girl said he was, Anson moved back to the edge of the crowd. He again studied the man who was now selling a rose tree to an elderly couple. How in the world could such a sensational looking woman like Meg have come to marry such a man? Anson asked himself. From his vantage point behind the crowd, Anson studied Barlowe with increasing surprise.
Barlowe was in his early forties. He had a shock of thick black hair. He was thin and undersized. His eyes were deep set in hollows that were dark ringed. He had a thin, ill-tempered mouth and his nose was pointed and long. Examining him, Anson decided that this little shrimp of a man's only grace lay in his long, slender and artistic hands: they were beautiful hands, but there was nothing else about him that could win anyone's favour.
