Allison was incredibly quiet and demurring the next morning at work. She dressed in a simple frock and when Tom spoke to her, she dropped her eyes and murmured deferential replies.
Tom noticed that she was walking with a bit of difficulty and seemed to have trouble making herself comfortable when she sat.
Tom, Allison and Gilson hadn't exchanged more than a half-dozen words from the moment they'd wakened to the time they were let off at their respective destinations after the long rush hour drive into the city. When Tom got back to his office, Allison had the coffee and rolls waiting for him at his desk.
Just before noon, Gilson called and announced that he would consider Tom's proposal when he got back to Texas.
All for nothing! Tom fumed inwardly. Gilson had fucked Janet to his heart's content – and obviously, Tom added with mental disgust, her heart's content, too – had accepted his hospitality, gone through the entire visit letting Tom think he was ready to spring for the deal. And then he'd said in effect, that he was going to start all over again from scratch.
Then Tom realized that he was going to have a payment to make to a certain gentleman who'd lent him money and the payment was going to be due soon.
"Where's Penny?" he asked.
It was the first time he and Janet had spoken since the night before. She picked up her paper napkin, patted her lips and looked across at her husband.
"She's at a girl friend's house," Janet said, and then resumed her meal. They did not speak again during their meal.
After dinner, Tom was in the garage checking his tools. He was considering killing some time by putting together a little telephone stand for his daughter's new phone.
Janet stepped into the garage. "Tom," she said quietly.
He turned. She was wearing shorts again, these not as tight as those she'd worn the night before. Her top was a simple T-shirt. She was wearing a bra, the seamless, non-supporting type, and Tom could clearly make out the lines of it through the cotton shirt. He was immediately aroused.
"What?"
"There's a man here to see you," she said.
"What?"
"That's all he said." She turned and disappeared from his sight, leaving only the memory of the sudden tautening of shorts across her backside.
Tom wiped his hands on a rag and went into the house. The man waited in the living room, standing near the fireplace. He was admiring the pictures of Tom's family on the mantle.
"What can I do for you?"
The man shrugged. He was of average height and weight, and the bulge beneath his left armpit was almost totally concealed by the expert tailoring of the jacket. He was of indeterminate age. He might have been a salesman, at first glance.
Tom knew better.
"I'm here to remind you that a payment will be due, soon."
Tom nodded grimly. "Yes, I know," he said, making his voice calm.
"Fine. We like to remind the customers a little ahead." The man paused. "You're sure you wouldn't have any difficulty meeting the installments?"
"I'm sure," Tom lied. "Why don't you have a cup of coffee or a drink."
The man shook his head. "No, going to making a little visit oh a past-due account."
"Anything else I can do for you?"
Again the man shook his head. He started for the door and then stopped. "Yeah, there is," the guy said. "Your wife got any sisters?"
Tom smiled slowly. "No, I'm afraid not."
Suddenly, the man's face changed, his expression shifted subtly. "Well, I'll tell you what. You ever have any trouble with an installment, or you get in the hole, you give me a call." He handed Tom a card. There was a phone number on it. Nothing else. "And I guarantee we can work something out – you, me… and your wife. If you know what I, er, mean?"
Tom said nothing for a long moment. "I follow. I'll keep that in mind."
"Yeah, well, don't wait until your installment is past due. Get to me before it's due. Be seeing you."
Later, Janet asked about the man. Tom told her almost everything and then, as a last stroke, told her the man's suggestion.
She recoiled in horror.
"You wouldn't dare even think of it!" she yipped. Her outrage was obvious.
"Don't pull that shit on me, Janet. Not after the way you've been fucking everything with a cock that comes through the door."
"All right, Goddammit!" she snapped. "So I did a trick with Sid Koenig. But I only took on Gilson because it was such an important account. If I hadn't let him stick his dick in me, then we'd have a good reason to worry about this bastard that came around tonight and his shitty little propositions!"
"Well, I've got news for you, my hot little cunt," Tom sneered, "Gilson didn't take the deal."
"He stalled and I've got a feeling he'd going to dump it. So don't give me that shit about doing it just so we could get the account. You sure as hell fucked him, but that didn't get us the account!"
"But that son of a bitch." Her indignation was obvious, too.
"So I got news for you. You better think about what that guy said tonight. We may have to do it!"
"You mean you may need me to do it to bail your ass out of the debts you ran up gambling."
Tom crossed the room to his wife. "Well, my dear, keep in mind that they consider my family as collateral. That means you and Penny, too. So think on that, honey."
He left her and went up to the bedroom.
She fumed.
At noon the next day, Tom called the bank officer with whom he usually transacted his business and asked what the chances were of getting more credit.
The bank officer was frank – brutally frank. At one-thirty, the afternoon mail brought Gilson's decision on the account. No. The postmark was not from Texas. It was the substation at the airport in New York. Gilson had made up his mind even before he'd left.
He wasn't going to make the installment on time.
Tom had been counting on a positive decision on the Gilson account enabling him to reopen his credit applications file at the bank with an eye towards increasing his credit limit.
He pulled the card from his jacket pocket, with the telephone number on it. Tom placed the small white tag stock in the center of his desk and stared at it for a long time.
Finally, he put the card back in his pocket. When he got home, he took it out again, and handed it to his wife.
"What's this?"
He explained.
She hit the ceiling. She almost took a swing at Tom.
But in the end, she agreed.
Penny would be sent to stay with Janet's brother, Al, in New Jersey. Al hated Tom's guts with a passion, but he would never refuse Janet and he'd always seemed to take a special liking to Penny. Besides, Al had two kids of his own, one of them a girl Penny's age.
Then Tom called the number on the card. He used the phone in the guest room, the door closed. Fifteen minutes later, he returned to the kitchen.
"Well?" Janet demanded, her voice upset, yet somehow dull.
"It's set. Tomorrow night."
"Where?"
"Here," Tom said, "like you asked."
She hadn't wanted any part of the deal if it meant going into a stranger's house.
"Okay," she said, "I just wanted to be sun."
"They weren't happy about that, though."
"What does that mean?"
Tom hesitated. "Well, they wanted a concession from us."
"And?"
"And what?"
"What was the concession? Did you agree to it?" He nodded.
"What was it, Goddammit?"
"There'll be three of them."
Janet was stunned. Three men, three strangers, all of them hoods?
"My God!" she whispered, and sat back.
It was hours later, while she lay awake in the big bed beside her sleeping husband, that Janet realized something exciting and frightening about herself.
The thought of being forced to take on three men, all of them hoods, was terrifying.
And exciting.
"That sure was a surprise, Mom," Penny said.
She sat at the kitchen table. Her mother was making scrambled eggs and had her back to Penny.
"Why, Penny," her mother said, turning to face her. "I thought you liked to go to your Uncle Al's. You're always asking when we'll visit his house."
"Sure, Mom, but it's awfully sudden, isn't it?"
"Well, if you don't want to go, you just say so." Her mother's tone was all solicitation and mildness, as if she'd thought she was doing her daughter a great favor.
"No, really, I'd love to go, Mom," Penny said quickly. "When will I leave?"
"I thought you might catch the ten-thirty bus. Your cousin Mike will meet you at the terminal in Ridgewood."
Penny looked up at the clock in the stove top. "It's almost nine, now," she said. "I'd better get packing."
"Good girl."
At ten-thirty, Penny was waving good-bye to her mother through the window of the big, air-conditioned bus. As soon as they turned onto the expressway, she found her thoughts going to her cousin, Jennifer and Mike. She and Jennifer had always gotten along rather well. She'd always wished she could get along better with Mike.
Mike was big and tall and handsome and cute and muscular and so sexy. But, Mike was also seventeen, and he'd never pay any attention to a little cousin like her.
Still, she thought, you never can tell. She leaned back and opened the book she had brought. The cover said that it was about fashion. Inside was Candy.