Beggarman, Thief (48 page)

“Bath.” She shrugged. “It’s seen better days. The quality used to come here for the season and take the waters and marry off their daughters and gamble. Now it’s mostly tourists. It’s a little like living in a museum. I don’t know where the quality goes these days. Or if there’s any quality left.”

“Do you miss the Mediterranean?”

She dropped her hand from his arm and stared reflectively ahead of her as she walked. “Some things about the Med, yes.…” she said. “Other things not at all. Let’s not talk about it, please. Now, tell me what you’ve been up to.”

By the time he had told her about what he’d been doing in America, they had walked over a good part of the small city. She shook her head sadly when he told her about Indianapolis and became pensive when he told her about the people he had talked to about his father and stared at him with a kind of respectful awe when he described his part in Gretchen’s movie.

“An actor,” she said. “Who would have ever thought? You going to keep it up?”

“Maybe later on,” he said. “I have some things I have to attend to in Europe.”

“What parts of Europe?” She stared at him suspiciously. “Cannes, for instance?”

“If you must know,” he said, “yes. Cannes.”

She nodded. “Bunny was afraid that finally you’d come to that.”

“Finally,” Wesley said.

“I’d like to take revenge on the whole fucking world,” she said. “But I serve drinks in a bar. Revenge has to stop somewhere, Wesley.”

“Revenge has to
start
somewhere, too,” he said.

“And if you get yourself killed, who’ll revenge
you?”
Her voice was bitter and harsh.

“Somebody else will have to figure that out.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. You’re too much like your father. I never could argue him out of anything. If nothing will stop you, I wish you well. Do it smart, at least. And supposing you do it and suppose you get away with it, which is a lot of supposing, what’ll you do then?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Wesley said. “With the money I get from the inheritance and the money I may be able to make in the movies, in a couple of years I might have enough to buy a boat, something like the
Clothilde,
anyway, and charter.…”

Kate shook her head impatiently. “You can be your father’s son,” she said, “but you can’t
be
your father. Lead your own life, Wesley.”

“It’ll be my own life,” he said. “I even thought that with the money you’re getting from the estate, maybe you’d like to come in with me as a partner and crew the ship, with me. By the time we can buy a ship, the kid, Tommy …” He stumbled over the name. “He’d be old enough to be safe on board and …”

“Dreams,” she said. “Old dreams.”

They walked in silence for half a block.

“I have to tell you something, Wesley,” she said. “My money’s gone. I don’t have it anymore.”

“Gone?” he said incredulously. “The way you live …”

“I know the way I live,” she said bitterly. “I live like a fool. There’s a man who says he wants to marry me. He’s in business for himself, he owns a small trucking business in Bath. He said he needed what I had to keep from going into bankruptcy.”

“And you gave him the dough?”

She nodded. “I thought I was in love with him. You’ve got to understand something about me. I’m not a woman that can live without a man. I see him just about every afternoon when the pub closes. I was supposed to go to his place this afternoon and he’ll be mortal mad when he comes around this evening and I tell him I spent the afternoon with Tom’s son. He won’t even
look
at the baby when he comes home to take me out.”

“And you want to marry a man like that?”

“He wasn’t like that until after he lost the money,” she said. “He was plain wonderful until then. With me, the baby, my mother …” She sighed. “You’re young, you think things are black and white.… Well, I’ve got news for you. For a woman my age, my family, working at lousy jobs all my life, not pretty, nothing is easy.” She looked at her watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock. I make a point of having at least an hour with Tommy before I have to go back to work.”

They walked back to her mother’s house in silence. There was a car parked in front of the house, with a man at the wheel. “That’s him,” Kate said. “Waiting and fuming.”

The man got out of the car as Kate and Wesley came up to the house. He was a big, heavy man, red-faced and smelling from drink. “Where the fuck you been?” he said loudly. “I been waiting since three o’clock.”

“I took a little walk with this young gentleman,” Kate said calmly. “Harry, this is Wesley Jordache, he came to visit me. Harry Dawson.”

“Took a little walk, did you?” Dawson ignored the introduction. He slapped her, hard. It happened so suddenly that Wesley had no time to react.

“I’ll teach you to take little walks,” Dawson shouted and raised his hand again.

“Wait a minute, pal,” Wesley said and grabbed the man’s arm and pushed him away from Kate, who was standing, bent over, her two hands up to protect her face.”

“Let go of me, you fucking Yank,” Dawson said, trying to pull his arm free.

“You’ve done all the hitting you’re going to do today, mister.” Wesley pushed Dawson farther back with his shoulder. Dawson wrenched his hand free and punched Wesley high on the forehead. Wesley nearly went down from the force of the blow, then grunted and swung. He hit Dawson square in the mouth and Dawson grappled with him and they both fell, tangled, to the pavement. Wesley took two more punches to the head before he could knee the man in the groin and use his hands on the man’s face. Dawson went limp and Wesley stood up, over him. He kicked Dawson viciously in the head, twice.

Kate, who had been standing, bent over, without making a sound as the men fought, now ran at him and put her arms around him, pulling him away from the man on the ground. “That’s enough now,” she cried. “You don’t want to kill him, do you?”

“That’s just what I want to do,” Wesley said, trembling with rage. But he allowed Kate to lead him away.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, still with her arms around him.

“Nah,” he said, although his head felt as though he had been hit with a brick. “Nothing much. You can let go of me now. I won’t touch your goddamn friend.”

“Wesley,” Kate said, speaking swiftly, “you have to get out of here. Go on right back to London. When he gets up …”

“He won’t do any more harm,” Wesley said. “He learned his lesson.”

“He’ll come back at you,” Kate said. “And not alone. And he’ll bring some of the men from his yard with him. And they won’t come barehanded. Go, please, go right now.…”

“How about you?”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be all right. Just go.”

“I hate to leave you with that miserable, thieving bastard.” He looked down at Dawson, who was beginning to move, although his eyes were still closed.

“He won’t come near me again,” Kate said. “I’m finished with him.”

“You just saying that to get me out of here?” Wesley said.

“I swear it’s the truth. If he ever tries to come near me again, I’ll have the police on him.” She kissed Wesley on the mouth. “Good-bye, Tommy.”

“Tommy?” Wesley laughed.

Kate laughed, too, putting her hand to her face distractedly. “Too much has happened today. Take care of yourself, Wesley. I’m so sorry you had to get mixed up in this. Now go.”

Wesley looked at Dawson, who was trying to sit up and was fumbling blearily at his bloody lips. Wesley knelt on one knee beside Dawson and grabbed him roughly by his necktie. “Listen, you ape,” he said, his face close to Dawson’s puffed ear, “if I ever hear you touched her again, I’ll be back for you. And what you got today will seem like a picnic compared to what you get. Do you understand?”

Dawson blubbered something unintelligible through his cut lips.

Still holding the man’s tie, Wesley slapped his face, the noise sharp and loud. He heard Kate gasp as he stood up.

“End of chapter,” Wesley said. He kissed Kate on the cheek, then walked down the street without looking back. His head still hurt, but he strode lightly along, feeling better and better, the memory of the fight making him feel wonderfully at peace with the world. He felt wonderful on the train, too, all the way to London.

«  »

Billy was playing with Carmen, this time without malice, when a young man in blue jeans, with streaked blond hair, a backpack on his shoulders, appeared at the court, stood watching the game for a while, then took off the backpack and sat down on the grass outside the court to watch in comfort. Travelers with backpacks were not a usual sight at El Faro and Billy found himself glancing over at the young man with curiosity. The expression on the young man’s face was grave and interested, although he showed no signs of either approval or disapproval when Carmen or Billy made particularly good shots or committed errors.

Carmen, Billy noticed, seemed equally curious and also kept glancing frequently at the spectator sitting on the grass. “Do you know who that boy is?” she asked, as they were changing courts between games.

“Never saw him before,” Billy said, as he used the towel to dry off his forehead.

“He’s an improvement on that Hitzman woman,” Carmen said. Monika had taken to appearing a little after four o’clock, which was the hour at which they started every day, and watching Carmen and Billy play. “There’s something peculiar about that woman, as though she’s not interested in the tennis, but somehow in
us.
And not in a nice way.”

“I give her a lesson every morning,” Billy said, remembering that his father had also said there was something peculiar about Monika when he had seen her in Brussels. “Maybe she’s decided to become a student of the game.”

They started playing once more and Billy ran out the set, using orthodox, non-eunuch shots.

“Thank you,” Carmen said, as she put on a sweater. “That was more like it.” She didn’t ask him to go up to the hotel with her for a drink and smiled at the young man on the grass as she passed him. He didn’t smile back, Billy noticed. Billy didn’t have any more lessons that afternoon, so he put on his sweater and started off the court. The young man stood up and said, “Mr. Abbott?”

“Yes.” He was surprised that the young man knew his name. He certainly didn’t look as though he could afford tennis lessons at El Faro.

“I’m your cousin,” the young man said, “Wesley Jordache.”

“Well, now,” Billy said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” They shook hands. Billy noted that his cousin’s hand was a workingman’s hand, hard and powerful.

“I’ve heard considerable about you, too,” Wesley said.

“Anything favorable?”

“Not particularly.” Wesley grinned. “You play a pretty hot game of tennis.”

“Rosewall isn’t worried,” Billy said, although he was pleased at the compliment.

“That girl, too,” Wesley said. “She really can run, can’t she?”

“She’s in good shape,” Billy said.

“In more ways than one,” Wesley said. “She sure is beautiful.”

“Skin deep,” Billy said. Carmen’s treatment of him since their argument about the admiral still rankled.

“Deep enough,” Wesley said. “That’s not a bad job you have, if all the people you get paid to play with look like that.”

“They don’t. Where’re you staying?”

“Noplace. I’m on the road,” Wesley said.

“What brings you here?”

“You,” Wesley said soberly.

“Oh.”

“I thought it would be a good idea finally to see what the other male half of this generation of Jordaches was like.”

“What do you think so far?”

“You’ve got a good service and you’re a demon at the net.” They both laughed.

“So far, so good,” Billy said. “Listen, I’m dying for a beer. Will you join me?”

“You’re my man,” Wesley said, shouldering his pack.

As they walked toward the hotel, Billy decided he liked the boy, even though he envied him his size and the obvious strength with which he swung his pack onto his shoulders.

“My—
our
Uncle Rudolph told me you knew my father,” Wesley said, as they walked in the direction of the hotel.

“I met him only once,” Billy said, “when I was a kid. We slept in the same room for a night in our grandmother’s house.”

“What did you think of him?” Wesley’s tone was carefully noncommittal.

“I liked him. He made everybody else I’d known seem soft. He’d lived the sort of life I thought I would like to have—fighting, going to sea, seeing all kinds of faraway places. Then—” Billy smiled. “He didn’t sleep in pajamas. Everybody else I ever knew always slept in pajamas. I suppose that became some crazy kind of symbol for me of a freer way of life.”

Wesley laughed. “You must have been a weird kid,” he said.

“Not weird enough,” Billy said as they went into the bar and ordered two beers.

Carmen was there, sitting with her father at a table. She looked up curiously at them, but made no sign of welcome or recognition.

“The way it turned out,” Billy said, as they drank their beers, “I never had a fight, I never wandered around, and I always sleep in pajamas.” He shrugged. “One other thing impressed me about your father,” he said. “He carried a gun. Boy, oh, boy, I thought when I saw it, there’s at least one person in the family who has guts. I don’t know what he ever did with it.”

“Nothing,” Wesley said. “It wasn’t within reach when he needed it.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I’m awfully sorry, Wesley,” Billy said gently, “about what happened, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Wesley said.

“What’re your plans?” Billy asked. “I mean from here on in.”

“I don’t have any real plans just yet,” Wesley said. “See what comes up.”

Billy had the impression that Wesley knew what he wanted to do, but was evading the question. “My mother,” Billy said, “writes she thinks you could have a great future as a movie actor.”

“I’m open to offers,” Wesley said, “but not just yet. I’ll wait and see how the picture turns out.”

“My mother writes that it’s being considered for the festival in Cannes this year.”

“That’s news to me,” Wesley said. “I’m glad for her sake. She’s really something, your mother. If you don’t mind my butting in, I think it’s about time you were nice to her. I know if she was my mother, I’d do everything I could for her. Maybe it would be a good idea, if they really are going to show the picture in Cannes, to visit her there.”