James Chase: Tell It to the Birds

At the far end of the narrow road, scarcely wide enough to take two cars and bordered by high prickly hedges, Anson finally found the house he had been looking for for the past hour. The house hid behind a barrier of overgrown shrubs that stood either side of shabby double gates. It wasn’t until Anson got out of his car and approached the gates that he had his first glimpse of the house. He didn’t immediately look at it because his attention became riveted on the garden.

Although quite small with a twenty foot square lawn as immaculate as the surface of a billiard table, the garden presented a horticultural picture seldom seen outside professional floral exhibitions.

Everything, including a miniature fountain, a tiny waterfall, massed bedding plants, blazing with colour, standard roses in perfect bloom, flowering shrubs and even a dove cot was there.

For several moments, Anson stood at the gate staring at the garden, then he looked beyond the garden to the house.

By comparison, the house was as surprising as the garden. It was a two storey brick and wooden structure with a red tiled roof. At one time, the wooden face of the house had been painted a dark green, but the rain, the wind and the sun over the years had played havoc with the paint work, and the house now presented a shabby, neglected and uncared-for appearance. The windows were streaked with dust and dirt. The brass door knocker was black with grime. To the left of the house was a two car garage with a broken window and many of its roof tiles missing.

Anson looked at the garden, then at the house, then at the garden again. He stepped back and read the name painted in crude white letters on the gate: “Mon Repos”.

He zipped open the well worn leather document case he was carrying and took from it a letter he had received that morning. He read it again:

Mon Repos.

Nr. Pru Town National Fidelity Insurance Corporation Brent Dear Sir,

I would be glad if your representative would call between two and four o’clock any afternoon this week.

I have a few pieces of jewellery worth about $1,000 which my husband thinks I should insure against theft or loss.

Yours, etc.

Anson pushed open the gates, drove the car onto the tarmac drive, then walked up the drive to the house.

Heavy,rain clouds hovered threateningly overhead. The sun, obscured by the clouds, made a faint, brave light over the spectacular garden. In an hour or so, Anson thought, as he reached for the dirt grimed knocker, it would be pouring with rain. He lifted the knocker and rapped twice.

There was a pause, then he heard quick footfalls; the door opened.

Anson remembered to the moment of his death his first meeting with Meg Barlowe.

At the age of fourteen, Anson had his first sexual experience. His parents had gone on a short trip, leaving him in charge of the hired help: a woman some twenty years older than Anson:plain, fat and a Quaker. His parents had been gone less than four hours when the woman had come into Anson’s bedroom where he tad been lolling on the bed, reading a lurid paperback. Half an hour later, Anson had moved from his youth to corrupt manhood, and from then on, the sexual hunt was ever present in his alert, active mind. This first experience left him with a conviction that didn’t last long, that all women were easy. Later, when he discovered his error, he preferred to consort with prostitutes rather than be bothered to persuade and woo. He was fastidious in his choice, and the women he went with cost him a considerable amount of his weekly earnings.

Beside this constant sexual urge, Anson had yet another weakness: a persistent and incurable urge to gamble. He had little luck. The combination of paying for his sexual pleasures and losing to his bookmaker had him continually struggling to keep solvent. His shrewdness, personality and drive had gained him a Field Agency of the National Fidelity Insurance Corporation that covered three small prosperous towns: Brent, Lambsville and Pru Town. This district offered a rich field for an energetic insurance salesman. It was a farming district, and most farmers owned two or three cars, were interested in life insurance and anxious to insure their crops and property. But what Anson earned, he threw away until he was now facing a financial crisis that alarmed even his irresponsible conscience.

Before leaving Brent for his weekly visit to Pru Town and Lambsville, he had received a telephone call from Joe Duncan, his bookmaker.

In his wheezy asthmatic voice, Duncan had said, “Listen, Anson, you know what you owe me?”

Anson had said, “Sure, Joe. Relax. You’ll get paid.”

“You owe me close on a thousand bucks,” Duncan said. “You settle on Saturday. If you don’t, Sailor will be around to talk to you.”

Sailor Hogan was Joe Duncan’s debt collector. At one time he had been the light heavy weight champion of California.

His viciousness was legend. If he failed to collect a debt, he left a permanent mark on the welsher.

But Anson wasn’t worried about a mere thousand dollars. If the worst came to the worst, he could scrape that amount up by borrowing from his friends, selling his TV. set and even hocking his car, but the pressure was now on, and as he hung up, he remembered he owed Sam Bernstein, the local money lender, eight thousand dollars and he had to the end of the year to settle or else… When he had signed I.O.U. back in June, next June seemed a long way off. He had plunged the whole of the borrowed money on a rank outsider at 100 to 1 from a tip straight from the stable boy and the horse had turned out to be exactly what it was: a rank outsider.

This day was Tuesday. Anson had five more days ahead of him in which to find a thousand dollars to keep Duncan quiet. This wasn’t an impossible task, but he flinched from the thought of how to raise eight thousand dollars for Bernstein. But here, at least he had time.

Because he was now getting anxious, Anson was a little too persistent, a little too pressing, and when a salesman gets into that state of mind, he doesn’t and never will sell insurance.

This week had begun badly, but he was a salesman enough and optimistic enough to assure himself it should finish well.

As he lifted the knocker on the shabby, paint peeled door of this shabby house standing in this extraordinary garden, he had a presentiment that his luck was about to change.

Anson looked at Meg Barlowe as she stood in the doorway, regarding him with her large, searching cobalt blue eyes.

At the sight of this woman whom he judged to be a year or so younger than himself, Anson experienced a rush of blood through his body that inevitably happened when he met any woman who awoke his sexual feelings.

She was tall: an inch or so taller than himself, and built with the strength and durability of a wooden wedge. She had broad shoulders, a provocative bust, a small waist, neat hips and long legs. She wore a close fitting orange sweater and black tight fitting slacks. Her auburn coloured hair was caught back with a strip of green ribbon. All this he took in at a glance. She wasn’t beautiful. Her mouth was a little too large, and her nose too solid for perfect beauty, but she was the most sensational and sensual looking woman Anson had ever seen.

For a long moment they stared at each other, then her red lips parted as she smiled, showing white, even teeth.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

Automatically, but with a conscious effort, Anson moved into his sales approach. His expression, schooled by years of experience, was bright, friendly and alert.

“Mrs. Barlowe? I am John Anson. National Fidelity Insurance Corporation. I have a letter from you…”