The 92nd Tiger Read Free

penny of what I earned. It all went straight to Sam, and he doled me out a weekly allowance. I gave up my flat in Albany, my Jack Barclay Bentley and about six clubs. I stopped buying a new suit every week, and I went home to share a house with my mother. It was like coming off a drug jag. I didn’t like it, but it’s beginning to work. Sam got the tax people off my back, and one more Tiger series would have cleared me. That’s why it’s such a bore they have to stop right now. Time for one more?’
    He squeezed his way slowly back to the bar, and Larrimore watched him go. A professional himself, he knew exactly what Hugo was up against. His reputation and fame were great, but they were very flimsy. They rested on one successful series. To the public, he was the Tiger. The hero of ninety-one half-hour episodes. Easy to view, and easy to forget. The steep bit of the road lay ahead. The road that led to real stardom. Top billing, a choice of good parts, the centre table at the Garrick Club, the New Year’s Honours. Between these delectable uplands and the deceptive foothills of television popularity there was a great gulf fixed. A gulf full of hero’s friends and heroine’s fathers, comic uncles, wedding guests and second murderers.
    Hugo arrived back with most of the drink he had been carrying still in the glasses. He said, ‘You look bloody solemn all of a sudden, Geoff.’
    ‘I’ve been thinking about life.’
    ‘A mistake. Keep your mind firmly on fantasy. It’s the only safe course. Cheers!’
    One of the group standing near them had been staring at Hugo for some time. He was a thick-set, red-faced character with sloping shoulders and a barrel of a chest. He said, ‘Well, well, well. Do my eyes deceive me, or is it the old Tiger himself?’
    He edged his way forward until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Hugo, who put down the drinks he was carrying, and smiled politely.
    ‘I always wanted to meet you. I seen those things you do, like karate and things like that, and I often thought, I bet he fakes ’em. I bet the other chap falls down. Right?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘And I thought to myself, suppose he came up against someone his own size and weight. Someone like me, frinstance. Who’d win then, frinstance?’
    ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Hugo.
    ‘Care to try?’
    ‘Certainly not.’
    ‘Yellow as well?’
    One of the man’s friends said, ‘Lay off. Cliff. You’re tight.’
    ‘Not too tight to take a poke at this big phoney.’
    The swing came so slowly that Hugo had no difficulty in avoiding it. The only thing it upset was the table. As the glasses on it hit the floor, the landlord and one of his assistants arrived, splitting the crowd like tanks going through undergrowth. They got the red-faced man by an arm each, holding him with one hand behind the elbow and the other by his collar, which they twisted, until they choked him. Then they ran him to the door. A path opened before them. One of the bystanders opened the door. The red-faced man disappeared through it with a lovely crash. The landlord came back, and said, ‘I’m sorry about that, sir. Get that broken glass swept up, Ted. We don’t want anyone hurt. I’ll fetch you two more drinks.’
    ‘Don’t bother,’ said Hugo. ‘We’re going.’
    When they got outside the red-faced man had disappeared.
    Larrimore said, ‘Do you often get trouble like that?’
    ‘Every now and then,’ said Hugo. He sounded very tired suddenly.
    The house he shared with his mother was on the river above Richmond. She had the ground floor, on account of her legs, and he had the rest of it. It was a nice house, with a garden down to the river and a view of Eel Pie Island, and was worth three times what he had given for it five years before.
    When he got there, all the ground-floor lights were out, and he let himself in quietly. On the hall table there was a single letter, which must have come with the afternoon post. The envelope was buff, and