“You’re a pretty good shot, I Suppose?” Brant said, his head down and his yellow hair plastered flat by the rain.
“Me?” George laughed, delighted with Brant’s interest. “I was considered to be fair enough. I could split a playing- card edge on at twenty-five yards. Bit out of practice now, of course.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Brant said, hunching his shoulders. “I bet you’ve bumped off a few guys in your day.”
George opened his mouth, saw the trap just in time, and walked on without speaking. It would he stimulating to brag that he had been a killer, but not to Brant. It was safe enough to tell Ella. She wouldn’t talk, but Brant might.
“What’s it like, killing a guy?” Brant asked, after a moment’s pause.
“That’s something I don’t talk about,” George returned, shortly.
Brant glanced at him. “Kelly killed a lot of men, didn’t he?”
That was safer ground. “A good few,” George said, shrugging his big shoulders carelessly. “It was us or them in those days.”
“But you didn’t, eh?”
Again George resisted the temptation. “That’s something I keep to myself,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitation, he added gruffly, “Lay off, will you?”
“That’s all right,” Brant said quickly. “I guess that’s something no one would talk about.”
“Now you’re smart,” George returned, surprised at his own audacity.
At the street corner they paused..
“Well, you better take your money,” Brant said. There was a note of reluctance in his voice, but he held out the crumpled roll of notes willingly enough.
George hesitated; at the back of his mind, although he was loath to admit it, he knew he would not have had the nerve to have taken the money. He knew that Brant expected him to share it with him, and after a mental tussle, he took the notes, hurriedly counted ten from the roll, and offered them to Brant.
“Here,” he said, his face hot with embarrassment, “we’ll share on this. After all, you helped get them.”
“Fair enough,” Brant said, and took the notes, putting them in his pocket.
George was rather taken aback by this cool acceptance of what was rightly his.
“Well, I’ll he getting off,” Brant said, before George could recover. “I don’t think we’ll have any further trouble with Robinson. We’ll work the territory and send the orders direct to the Company. If Robinson starts trouble—well, we’ll introduce him to your gun.”
George nodded. “That’s the idea,” he said eagerly. “I’ll put the wind up him all right.”
Before Brant went, he put his hand on George’s arm and actually smiled at him. “You’re all right, George,” he said, pinching George’s massive muscles. “You’re going to go places.”
It took George some time before he could settle to sleep that night. Even the regular, soothing sound of Leo’s purring failed to lull him. He felt that Brant no longer regarded him with contempt. He felt somehow that he had impressed Brant—a difficult, almost impossible person to impress. It was risky, of course, to have told Brant about the gun, but he just could not have let him get away with his home-made sticker.
George spent a long time reconstructing the scene with Robinson, only this time it was he who played the leading part. It was he who intimidated Robinson and made him hand over the money, and it was Brant who stood speechless, his grey-blue eyes alight with admiration.
The next evening George met Brant in a pub opposite Wembley underground station. It was quite startling how Brant’s attitude towards George had changed. He now seemed to regard George as the leader, and although he still had the same cold, bored expression in his eyes, and the thin hardness about his mouth, he was diffident, almost ingratiating, in his manner To George’s relief, the gun was not mentioned.
“We’d better get to work,” George remarked, after calling for a second pint. “Have another lemonade while I explain things to you.”
Brant shook his head. “Not for me,” he said, “but don’t let that stop you.”
“We can manage without Robo all right,” George went on, after he had taken a pull from his tankard. “I had a word with Head Office. I told them we preferred to work together, and Robo was willing. They don’t care one way or the other so long as they get the orders.” He lit a cigarette, and for a moment enjoyed the feeling that he was now the head salesman, instructing a novice. “The first thing you have to do when you’re canvassing is to get into the house. It’s easy once you know how. For instance, if you knock on the door and say ‘Is Mr Jones at home?’ the old girl is hound to ask ‘Who is it?’ If he isn’t in, then you have to tell her the whole story, and the old man is tipped off when he does come home. That means he’s ready for you when next you call. Don’t forget the surprise visit gets the business.” George took another pull from his tankard, and then went on, “If, on the other hand, you knock on the door, and when the old girl comes you raise your hat and begin to move away, and at the same time you say, ‘I suppose Mr Jones is not in?’ then she’ll answer nine times out of ten, ‘No, he isn’t.’ You then say, ‘I’ll look in some other time’, and by that time you’re halfway to the gate without telling her what you want.”
Brant shifted restlessly. “I don’t know if all that’s so important,” he said.
“But it is,” George returned. “You try it and see. Robinson worked out all the angles, and they’re worth studying. Now, if the old man is at home, your question, ‘I suppose Mr Jones isn’t in?’ gets the answer, ‘Oh yes, he is’, and as like as not she starts yelling for him. When he turns up, you’ll find he’ll lean against the doorpost, blocking your entrance and ask what you want. You mustn’t tell him until you’re inside the house.”
Brant had a far-away look in his eyes. He Seemed hardly aware of George’s droning voice at his elbow.
“You must get inside before you start your sale, so you say, ‘I’ve come to talk to you about Johnny’s education.’ That usually gets you in,” George went on. “If he still won’t ask you in, you put it to him straight. ‘I wonder if I might come in? I can’t very well talk to you on the doorstep.’”
“You’ve certainly got it wrapped up haven’t you?” Brant said. “Well, let’s see it work. Come on, I’m sick of this pub.”
George consulted his packet of names and addresses. “All right,” he said. “Let’s try Mr Thomas. He’s got two kids: Tommy and Jean. It’s important to know the children’s names. The old man thinks you’re a school inspector if you mention the kids by name, and you’re inside before he finds out you’re not.”
They walked along the wide arterial road, housed on either side by box-like Council dwellings. They were an odd-looking couple, and the women standing in the doorways, the men in their gardens and the children playing in the road, stared curiously at them.
“Here we are,” George said, uneasy under the battery of inquisitive eyes. He paused outside a drab little house, pushed open the wooden gate, and together they walked up the path.
George rapped on the door. There was a rush of feet and the door jerked open. Two small children, a boy and a girl, stared up at them with intent, wondering eyes.
“Is your father in?” George asked, smiling down at them. They did not move nor speak, but continued to gape at them.
Brant said, “Get someone, can’t you? Don’t stand there gaping at me.” His voice snapped viciously, and the two children immediately turned and ran hack down the passage.
“Ma… Ma… there’re two men…”
George and Brant exchanged glances.
“It’s always the same,” George said. “Damn kids…”