The Green Eagle Score

8

Jake Kengle unlocked his way into his furnished room, threw his briefcase on the bed, and got the bottle of whiskey out of the bottom dresser drawer. He went to the bathroom for a glass, half-filled it, and sat down on the bed to ease his feet while he slowly drank. The briefcase sat beside him, fat and black, sternly demanding he go back to work.

The hell with it. The double hell with it. He sipped at his whiskey, he looked moodily out the window at the airshaft with its gray brick wall five feet away, and he found some small pleasure in anticipating how good it was going to feel when he finally bent over and removed his shoes. His feet tingled inside the shoes, enjoying already their coming freedom. The liquor burned warm down his throat, slightly watering his eyes. The tension across his shoulders very gradually eased.

When he did at last bend forward to remove his shoes he saw out of the corner of his eye the briefcase again, still squatting there on the bed. In sudden rage he picked it up and hurled it across the room, generally in the direction of the window and the airshaft. His aim was way off; the briefcase hit the front of the dresser and thudded to the floor. Kengle left it there.

The briefcase contained something called a “presentation”. A lot of brightly colored sheets of glossy paper, that meant; two expensive-looking loose-leaf folders, all telling how great some damn encyclopedia was.

Why would anybody buy an encyclopedia? Kengle didn’t know. He’d been ringing doorbells day and night since Tuesday on this damn job, and here it was Saturday afternoon, and he hadn’t yet found anybody stupid enough to fork over three hundred bucks for a bunch of books. And the commission on zero sales is zero dollars.

It was a stinking way to make a buck, trying to sell things door-to-door on commission. But the good ways to make a buck, the soft and easy ways, they didn’t show up all that often for the guy with a record. “In your employment resume, Mr Kengle, you give no employer for the last fifty-two months. Why is that?”

“I was in prison.”

“Oh? Mmmmmmmm.”

He’d gotten out the first of September, and here it was the twenty-sixth already, and so far he’d landed two jobs, one peddling a food-freezer plan on commission and now this book thing. He’d been lucky the second day with the freezer plan, found a family that had just moved into this stinking town and had friends with a freezer plan, so they were what the boys called pre-sold. Sixty bucks commission. Then he’d gone the next ten days without a nibble, got into a stupid argument with Nettleton, the sales manager, and that was the end of that.

And how long is sixty bucks supposed to carry a guy? Monday they’d start bitching about the rent on this place, and he just didn’t have it. So then what?

The trouble was, he wasn’t a penny-ante boy. He could hustle into a big-time caper, cut ten or twenty thousand for himself, handle his action with no trouble. But cop some old lady’s purse in the park for six dollars and thirty-seven cents? He’d never done it, he had no taste for it, and it seemed to him an ignominious thing to get the collar for. So it looked as though he was going to sit here in this room—or out in the street, if they threw him out of the room—and starve, because he couldn’t turn an honest dollar and wouldn’t turn a dishonest nickel.

The briefcase lay on the floor like a legless bug on its back. The sales manager—Smith, this one’s name was, and as phony a bastard as Nettleton—had told him the weekend was always a hot time for book sales, because of husbands and kids being home. Well, it had been crap so far today, and here it was three in the afternoon. So should he go fight it some more? Who the hell works on Saturday afternoon? Or Saturday evening, or all day Sunday? Ex-cons trying to make a commission buck, that’s who.

If that bastard lawyer hadn’t used up every penny of his stake in useless appeals things wouldn’t be so bad now. He could sit back, relax, live small but comfortable until somebody showed up with something. But no. He had to hustle books like some baggy-pants straight man in burlesque.

He finished the liquor in the glass, got to his feet and padded in his socks over to the dresser. He was reaching for the bottle when somebody knocked on the door.

Weren’t they going to wait till Monday? All set to blow his top, Kengle went over and opened the door, and there stood a tall skinny kid in an undershirt. “Phone for you,” he said, and trotted away down the hall.

This was a sweet place. One telephone on each floor, in the hall near the elevator, and a pay phone at that. When it rang it was up to anybody who heard it to go answer it and pass the word to whoever it was for. That was the kind of privacy Kengle loved.

Kengle locked his door and walked down the hall to the phone. Maybe it was Smith, checking to see if he was out hustling those books. If so, screw Smith. The voice said, “Jake?”

Kengle recognized it, and a heavy weight seemed to lift off his back. The voice belonged to Ed Dant, who ran a fleabag hotel in Atlanta and who was Kengle’s permanent address. Anybody in the business who wanted to contact him knew to call Ed Dant, who did the same thing for half a dozen other guys. When he’d moved into this place here Kengle had telegraphed Ed the address and phone number right away, because when the break came it would be coming through a call from Ed.

Keeping all trace of excitement out of his voice, Kengle said, “What’s new, pal?”

”Nothing much. Just to say hello, glad to hear you’re out see how you’re doing.”

“Fine. Got a steady job.”

“Glad to hear it. Ran into an old friend of yours the other day. Remember Marty Fusco?”

“Sure. How’s he doing these days?”

“Working here and there. He thought he might drop by and see you tomorrow. I wasn’t sure I had the address right, so I told him I’d call him back.”

Kengle reeled off his address.

They talked a little more, saying nothing, and then ended the conversation. Kengle was grinning from ear to ear when he walked back down the hall and unlocked his way into his room.

One corner of his brain said, What if the set-up’s no good?

Aloud he said, “It’s gotta be better than peddling books.”

He made one concession to good sense. He opened the window before throwing the briefcase into the airshaft.”