Although they had spent so much time together, he knew nothing about her. He knew only that she had a job as a waitress in a steak joint, but he didn’t know where the joint was. He had tried to find out her background. It was beyond his powers to ask anything but direct questions, and she quickly blocked off the questions by curtly saying she didn’t wish to talk about herself.
In New York he found he missed her. He stayed at a cheap hotel, and each night as he undressed for bed he brooded on those past thirteen days when she was bustling about her room, not saying anything, but keeping him company by her presence, and pushing back the wall of loneliness that surrounded him.
He kept thinking of what she had said: Do you imagine kindness can be bought like something out of a grocery store? Kindness! To him it was a word in a foreign language, and yet his mind kept coming back to it. Well, he still owed her something. He was determined now to get out of her debt. He had to see her again. He knew she was desperately poor, and for some reason appeared to have no friends. In her way, she was as lonely as he was. She didn’t go to the movies or a dance or do anything girls with her looks were doing every night of their lives. Men seemed to have no place in her life. When he had asked her why she didn’t go out and enjoy herself, she had said defiantly, ‘I do enjoy myself. I don’t have to go out to do that. Anyway, I don’t want men hanging around me. They’re only after one thing, and they’re not going to get it from me!’
He had given up. She was too complicated for him to understand. Besides, it wasn’t his line to ask questions or to show interest in anyone. He felt hopelessly at sea with her, and irritated with himself for bothering about her.
But he had to see her again. Although it was after eleven o’clock when he left Eve Gil is’s apartment, it didn’t cross his mind that it was too late to cal on Anita. She got in from work at ten-thirty, and immediately went to bed. He knew she would probably be asleep by now, but he didn’t care. He made up his mind to see her that night, and that was the end of it.
On his way down town, he thought about Kile and his proposition. Ten grand to get a man out of jail!
With ten grand in his pocket, he would be on easy street for months. But what was behind all this? If he was worth ten grand to him, this man must be worth considerably more to Kile.
The job appealed to Baird: it was dangerous, difficult and well paid. It would mean a change of scenery. He felt in the mood to tackle some impossible task: it would be an outlet for his pent-up mood of savage, aimless anger that had been slowly welling up inside him for the past two weeks.
He had heard about the Bellmore State Prison Farm. It was one of the toughest prisons in the country.
Abe Golheim had been there, and Abe had told him about the place. It was surrounded by a belt of swamp land, thirty miles long and ten miles broad. Up to now no prisoner had ever got through the swamp, although a number had tried. They had either been caught by the dogs or had drowned. There had been lurid rumours that several had been eaten alive by alligators.