Rich Man, Poor Man (87 page)

They went to bed early, because they were going to set out for St Tropez at four in the morning, before the wind sprang up. Kate had made up the big bed in the master cabin for herself and Thomas for the night, because there were no clients on board. It was the first time they had a chance to make love in comfort and Kate said she wasn’t going to miss it. In the cabin

they shared forward, they had two narrow bunks, one above the other.

Kate’s stocky, solid, full-breasted body was not made for showing off clothes, but her skin was wonderfully soft and she made love with gentle avidity and as Thomas lay later, with her in his arms in the big bed, he was grateful that he was not old, that his girl was not in Boston, that he had allowed himself to be persuaded by Pinky to have a woman on board.

Before she went to sleep, Kate said, ‘Dwyer told me tonight that when you bought the boat you changed the name. Who was Clothilde?’

‘She was a queen of France,’ Thomas said. He pulled her closer to him. ‘She was somebody I knew as a boy. And she smelled like you.’

The cruise to Spain wasn’t bad, although they hit some weather off Cap Cruz and had to stay in port for five days at a stretch. The French couples consisted of two paunchy Parisian businessmen and two young women who were definitely not their wives. There was some trading going on between the couples in the after cabins, but Thomas hadn’t come to the Mediterranean to teach French businessmen how to behave. As long as they paid their bills and kept the two ladies from walking around in high heels and poking holes in the deck, he wasn’t going to interefere with their fun. The ladies also lay on deck with the tops of their bikinis off. Kate took a poor view of that, but one of the ladies had really sensational tits and it didn’t interfere with the navigation too much, although if there had been any reefs on the course while Dwyer was at the wheel, Dwyer would have most likely run them aground. That particular lady also made it clear to Thomas that she wouldn’t mind sneaking up on deck in the middle of the night to have a go with him while her Jules was snoring away below. But Thomas told her he didn’t come with the charter. You got into enough complications with clients without any of that.

Because of the delay caused by the storm, the two French couples got off at Marseilles, to catch the train up to Paris. The two businessmen had to meet their wives in Paris to go to Deauville for the rest of the summer. When they paid Thomas off at the dock in front of the Marie in the Vieux Port, the two Frenchmen gave Thomas fifty thousand francs as a tip, which wasn’t bad, considering they were Frenchmen. After they had gone, Thomas took Kate and Dwyer to the same restaurant that Dwyer and Thomas had eaten at when they first came to Marseilles on the Elga Andersen. It was too bad that the Elga Andersen wasn’t in port. It would have been satisfying to sail across her rusty bows in the shining white-and-blue Clothilde and dip the flag in salute to the old Nazi captain.

They had three days before picking up the next charter in Antibes, and again Kate made up the big bed in the master cabin for herself and Thomas. She had had the portholes and the doors wide open all evening to get out the smell of perfume.

‘That poule,’ Kate said as they lay in the darkness. ‘Parading around naked. You had a hard on for three weeks running.’

Thomas laughed. There were times when Kate talked like any sailor.

T don’t like the way you laugh,’ Kate said. ‘Let me warn you - if I ever catch you grabbing any of that stuff, I’m going to go out and jump into the kip with the first man I see as I walk off the boat.’

‘There’s one sure way,’ Thomas said, ‘that you can keep me honest.’

Kate then made sure that he was going to be honest. That night, anyway. As she lay in his arms he whispered, ‘Kate, every time I make love to you I forget one more bad thing in my life.’ A moment later he could feel her tears on his shoulders.

Luxuriously, they slept late the next morning and when they sailed out of the harbour in the sunlight, they even took time off to do a little sightseeing. They went out to the Chateau d’lf and walked around the fortress and saw the dungeon where the Gount of Monte Cristo was supposed to have been chained, Kate had read the book and Thomas had seen the movie. Kate translated the signs that told how many Protestants had been imprisoned in the place before being sent to the galleys.

‘There’s always somebody sitting on somebody else’s back,’ Dwyer said. ‘If it’s not the Protestants sitting on the Catholics, it’s the Catholics sitting on the Protestants.’

‘Shut up, you Communist,’ Thomas said.

‘Are you a Protestant?’ he asked Kate.

“Yes.’

‘I’m going to imprison you in my galley,’ he said.

By the time they got back on to the Clothilde and started East, the last whiff of perfume had vanished from the main cabin.

They sailed without stopping, with Dwyer taking eight full

hours at night at the wheel so that Thomas and Kate could sleep. They reached Antibes before noon. There were two letters waiting for Thomas, one from his brother, and one in handwriting he didn’t recognise. He opened the letter from Rudolph first.

‘Dear Tom,’ - he read - T finally got news of you after all this time and I must say it sounds as if you’re doing all right for yourself. A few days ago I received a call at my office from a Mr Goodhart, who told me he had been on your boat, or ship, as I believe you fellows like to call it. It turns out that we have done some business with his firm, and I guess he was curious to see what your brother looked like. He invited Jean and myself over for a drink and he and his wife turned out to be charming old people, as you must know. They were enormously enthusiastic about you and about your ship and the life you lead.’ Maybe you’ve made the best investment of the century with the money you made on Dee Cee. If I weren’t so busy (it looks as though I’m going to allow myself to be talked into running for mayor of Whitby this fall!), I’d take a plane with Jean immediately and come over to sail the deep blue sea with you. Maybe next year. In the meantime, I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting renting the Clothilde (as you see, the Goodharts were most explicit about everything) to a friend of mine who is getting married and would like to spend his honeymoon on the Mediterranean. Perhaps you remember him - Johnny Heath. If he bothers you, put him adrift in a raft.

‘But seriously, I am very happy for you and I’d like to hear from you and if there’s anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to let me know what it is. Love, Rudolph.’

Thomas scowled as he read the letter. He didn’t like to be reminded that it was because of Rudolph that he now owned the Clothilde. Still, the letter was so friendly, the weather was so fine, and the summer was going so well, it was silly to spoil things by remembering old grudges. He folded the letter carefully and put it in his pocket. The other letter was from Rudolph’s friend and asked if he could charter the Clothilde from September fifteenth to the thirtieth. It was the end of the season, and they had nothing on the books, and it would be found money. Heath said he only wanted to sail up and down the coast between Monte Carlo and St Tropez, and with only two people on board and very little mileage to cover, it would be a lazy way to end the season.

Thomas sat down and wrote a letter to Heath, telling him he’d meet him either at the Nice uirport or the Antibes station on the fifteenth.

He told Kate about the new charter and how it was his brother who had arranged it, and she made him write a letter of thanks to Rudolph. He had signed it. and was just going to seal the envelope, when he remembered that Rudolph had written him that if there was anything he could do for him not to hesitate to let him know what it was. Well, why not, he thought. It couldn’t do any harm. In a
PS.
he wrote, “There’s one thing you can do for me. For various reasons I haven’t been able to come back to New York so far but maybe those reasons don’t hold any more. I haven’t had any news of my kid for years and I don’t know where he is or whether I’m still married or not. I’d like to come over and see him and if possible take him back here with me for a while. Maybe you remember the night you and Gretchen came back after my fight in Queens, there was my manager, a man I introduced you to called Schultzy. Actually his name is Herman Schultz. The last address I had for him is the Bristol Hotel Eighth Avenue, but maybe he doesn’t live there any more. But if you ask somebody in the Garden office if they know where you can lay your hands on Schultzy they’re bound to know if he’s still alive and in town. He’s likely to have some news about Teresa and the kid. Just don’t tell him where I am for the time being. But ask him if the heat’s still on. He will understand. Let me know if you find him and what he says. This will be a real good turn and I will be really grateful.’

He airmailed the two letters at the Antibes post office and then went back to the ship to get ready for the English party.

Nobody had remembered Herman Schultz at the Bristol Hotel, but somebody in the publicity department at Madison Square Garden had finally come up with the address of a rooming

house on West Fifty-third Street. Rudolph was getting to know Fifty-third Street very well. He had been there three times in the last four weeks, on every trip he had made to New York in the month of August. Yes, the man at the rooming house said, Mr Schultz stayed there when he was in New York, but he was out of town. He didn’t know where out of town. Rudolph left his telephone number with him, but Schultz never called him. Rudolph had to suppress a quiver of distaste every time he rang the bell. It was a decaying building in a dying neighbourhood inhabited, you felt, by doomed old men and derelict young men.

A shuffling, bent old man with a twisted hair piece opened the peeling door, the colour of dried blood. From the gloom of the hallway he peered nearsightedly at Rudolph standing on the stoop in the hot September sun. Even with the distance between them, Rudolph could smell him, mildew and urine.

‘Is Mr Schultz at home?’ Rudolph asked.

‘Fourth floor, back,’ the old man said. He stepped aside to allow Rudolph to enter.

As he climbed the steps, Rudolph realised that it wasn’t only the old man who smelled like that, it was the entire house. A radio was playing Spanish music, a fat man, naked to the waist, was sitting at the head of the second flight of steps, his head in bis hands. He didn’t look up as Rudolph squeezed past him.

The door to the fourth floor back was open. It was stifling hot, under the roof. Rudolph recognised the man he had been introduced to as Schultzy in Queens. Schultzy was sitting on the edge of an unmade bed, greyish sheets, staring at the wall of the room, three feet across from him.

Rudolph knocked on the framework of the doorway. Schultzy turned his head slowly, painfully.

‘What do you want?’ Schultz said. His voice was reedy and hostile.

Rudolph went in. ‘I’m Tom Jordache’s brother.’ He extended his hand. ,

Schultz put his right hand behind his back. He was wearing a sweat-stained skivvy shirt. He still had the basketball of a stomach. He moved his mouth uneasily, as though he was wearing plates that fit badly. He was pasty and totally bald. ‘I don’t shake hands,’ Schultz said. ‘It’s the arthritis.’ He didn’t ask Rudolph to sit down. There was no place to sit down except on the bed, anyway.

That sonofabitch,’ Schultz said. ‘I don’t want to hear his name.’

Rudolph took out his wallet and extracted two twenty dollar bills. ‘He asked me to give you this.’

‘Put it on the bed.’ Schultz’s expression, snakelike and livid, did not change. ‘He owes me one fifty.’

‘I’ll have him send the rest over tomorrow,’ Rudolph said.

‘It’s about fucking well time,’ Schultz said. ‘What does he want now? Did he put the boots to somebody else again?’

‘No,’ Rudolph said, ‘he’s not in trouble.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ Schultz said.

‘He asked me to ask you if the heat’s still on.’ The words sounded strange to him as they came off his tongue.

Schultz’s face became sly, secretive, and he looked sideways at Rudolph. ‘You sure he’s going to give me the rest of the money tomorrow?’

‘Positive,’ Rudolph said.

‘Nah,’ Schultz said. ‘There’s no more heat. There’s no more anything. That bum Quayles never had a good night again after your shitty brother got through with him. The one chance I ever had to make a real buck. Not that they left me much of a share, the dagoes. And I was the one who discovered Quayles and brought him along. No, there’s no heat. Everybody’s dead or in jail. Nobody remembers your goddamn brother’s name. He can walk down Fifth Avenue at the head of the Columbus Day Parade and nobody’d raise a finger. Tell him that. Tell him that’s worth a lot more than one fifty.’

T will, Mr Schultz,’ Rudolph said, trying to sound as though he knew what the old man was talking about. ‘And then there’s another question…’

‘He wants a lot of answers for his money, don’t he?’

‘He wants to know about his wife.’

Schultz cackled. That whore,’ he said, pronouncing the word in two syllables. ‘She got her picture in the papers. In the Daily News. Twice. She got picked up twice for soliciting in bars. She said her name was Theresa Laval in the papers. French. But I recognised the bitch. Some French. They’re all whores, every last one of them. I could tell you stories,

mister … ‘

‘Do you know where she lives?’ Rudolph didn’t relish the thought of spending the afternoon in the sweltering, evil-smelling room listening to Schultz’s opinions of the female sex. ‘And where, the boy is?’

Schultz shook his head. ‘Who keeps tracks? I don’t even know where I live. Theresa Laval. French.’ He cackled again. ‘Some French.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Schultz,’ Rudolph said. T won’t trouble you any more.’

‘Ain’t no trouble. Glad for a little conversation. You for sure going to send over that money tomorrow?’

‘I guarantee.’

‘You’re wearing a good suit,’ Schultz said. ‘But that ain’t no guarantee.’

Rudolph left him sitting on the bed, his head nodding in the heat. He went down the steps quickly. Even West Fifty-third Street looked good to him when he put the rooming house behind him.