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Hankleman stood up and walked out of his office. His first two mistakes he would take care of himself. In another fifteen minutes he’d be meeting with the man they called Solly the Hawk. That would be the first step towards rectifying his third mistake.

Chapter Four
    S olly the Hawk sat at his desk in the office that he shared with his partner, Big Moishie Mandelberg. He glanced over at the big man who was busy haranguing someone on the telephone. The Hawk looked at his watch. The man, Morrie Hankleman, would be there soon, probably to discuss a collection, the Hawk thought. Why else would he want to see him?
    He thought back to the party at Bregman’s office the night before. It had been nice seeing some of his friends and acquaintances from the old days, and they had been happy to see him as well, he thought, or at least some of them had. A few had looked at him somewhat nervously. Of course, he could understand it. A kind of myth had grown up around him over the years and often when he was introduced to people for the first time, they would look at him with what Solly knew was fear in their eyes. Then they would just mumble or stammer a few unintelligible words as though afraid to say anything that might offend him and incur his wrath which, to their minds, could be unleashed violently and unpredictably. Some would simply keep a respectful distance; others would hang around and ass kiss.
    The ass kissers, he disliked. They wanted something from him. It was as though they were trying to insure themselves for the future—just in case. No, he didn’t like the ass kissers. As for the others—if they were afraid of him, that was their problem.
    The truth was that he hated violence. In all the hundreds of times that he had gone out on a collection, he had actually resorted to physical violence only seven times. He remembered each incident in clear detail. He had never on any of these occasions initiated the action, but in each case had merely defended himself against violent men who, for one reason or another, had reacted crazily to his request for payments owed. In fact, in all those instances where he had fought, he would gladly have walked away to avoid a confrontation had he been able to. In many cases that was exactly what he had done; simply walked away. But on those seven occasions, he’d had nowhere to walk away to.
    Of course, he had to admit that in a way he had helped promote his image. He enjoyed collecting and he loved talking about his various jobs. He enjoyed telling a story to the boys. He liked to make them laugh and he felt good when he was talking and saw how they hung on his every word.
    Since they always seemed to want to hear about those jobs where violence was used, the Hawk accommodated them, but he never lied. Sometimes he added certain embellishments to make the stories more appealing but the kernel of each story was the truth.
    Since he had only seven stories involving violence and since he was continually being called upon to relate them, Solly the Hawk was able to perfect each one to the point where it was a perfect masterpiece. Every story combined a basic conflict between good and evil. Elements of greed, envy, lust, were always involved. He was always able to inject a large dose of humour into each one.
    The Hawk knew these stories were repeated to others by his audience, so when he sometimes wondered why such a myth had grown up around him, he knew that, to some degree, he had no one to blame but himself. Now, as he sat at his desk, he couldn’t help smiling at his own little weakness. If that would be his worst weakness, he would be happy.
    His thoughts turned to Morrie Hankleman again and he looked at his watch. Hankleman’s appointment was for ten o’clock. It was now a quarter to ten.
    The Hawk was anxious to find out what kind of proposition Hankleman would have. He had already made up his mind that if the job was straightforward, he would take it