Read 1950 - Mallory for Free Online

said, ‘We would pay a thousand pounds. Half now and half when the job is done.’
    The words moved at the back of Corridon’s mind as he sat in the armchair and listened to Ranleigh’s voice. ‘Half down and half when the job is done.’ He had grown accustomed to listening to such a proposition. Whenever there was an off-coloured job to be done they always began like that. It had been astonishingly easy for him to acquire a reputation for doing such jobs successfully. His war record, his appearance and the exaggeration of others had led to the belief that he would undertake any kind of shady job. Men who were afraid to risk their own skins came to him: fat, dark men; thin nervous men; tall and short, but all with a bundle of dirty five-pound notes in their pockets and greed in their bright, beady eyes.
    He had listened to them as he was listening to Ranleigh, bargaining shrewdly, raising the price, explaining how he would do the job while they secretly envied him his confidence, his apparent disregard of danger and his strength; congratulating themselves on coming to him. The right man for the job, they said to themselves. Look at his record. If he can’t do it, no one can. And they were so carried away by his forthright manner and the simplicity and daring of his plan that they willingly parted with half the promised money, as a sign of their faith in him. Half down. Then the expectant wait, and the realization that they had been tricked. A day or so later, after the bargain had been made, he would wander into a pub where they happened to be, perhaps drinking to his success, and smile at them. The jeering smile sent a sudden cold shiver of apprehension up their spines. He had changed his mind, he told them, his broad-shouldered bulk resting against the bar, his foot on the brass rail, a cigarette between his hard, thin lips.
    They’d have to find someone else for the job, or, better still, forget about it. Some had the courage to ask for their money back, making a joke of it as he surveyed them with his deepset, cold grey eyes. He always gave them the same answer: ‘You’d better sue for it!’ And he would stroll away, his hands in his pockets, his hat pulled down over his eyes, the bored, jeering expression in his eyes. ‘Half down and the rest when the job is done’ propositions made him a lot of easy money, and listening to Ranleigh he saw no reason why this shouldn’t be yet another gift from the gods.
    But this job they wanted him to do wasn’t like the other jobs he had been offered. Nor were these three like the others who had come to him. He felt, however, that the principle was the same, and listening with a polite, interested expression on his face that he could so easily switch on, and that had deceived so many people.
    Jeanne had left them. Ranleigh had said to her: ‘I think I can put this over better alone. But, of course, if you would rather stay . . .’
    She had left the room without looking at Corridon, and he had been surprised to find that there was a certain emptiness in the room when she had gone.
    Ranleigh produced from a cupboard a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
    ‘It’s a bit early for a drink,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have one, won’t you?’ He measured out two drinks, handed a glass to Corridon.
    ‘Now she’s gone I can talk more freely. The whole thing’s a bit rum.’ He raised his glass. ‘Well, cheerio.’
    Corridon nodded to him and drank a little of the whisky. He was thinking that if he could persuade Ranleigh to part with five hundred pounds he could get Effie’s mouth fixed. The operation could be over and done within a couple of weeks. It pleased him to think of Effie’s delighted surprise. If he played his cards carefully there was no reason why he shouldn’t walk out of this room with the money in his pocket.
    ‘It’s the sort of thing you might read about in a novel,’ Ranleigh was saying. ‘You wouldn’t expect to run into it in real life. But