Rich Man, Poor Man (38 page)

‘Cut it out, kid,’ Dominic said. ‘I don’t want no jokes.’

‘Why pick on me? Thomas asked.

‘I told you. It only started since you came to work here. Ah, Christ, they’re talking about putting padlocks on all the lockers. Nobody’s ever locked anything here for a hundred years. The way they talk they’re in the middle of the biggest crime wave since Jesse James.’

‘What do you want me to do? Quit?’

‘Naah.’ Dominic shook his head. ‘Just be careful. Keep in somebody’s sight all the time.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe it’ll blow over. That bastard Greening and his lousy ten bucks … Come on out with me.’ He stood up wearily and stretched. ‘I’ll buy you a beer. What a lousy day.’

The locker room was empty when Thomas came through the door. He had been sent out to the post office with a package and he was in his street clothes. There was an interclub squash match on and everybody was upstairs watching it. Everybody but one of the members called Sinclair, who was on the team, but who had not yet played his match. He was dressed, ready to play, and was wearing a white sweater. He was a tall, slender young man who had a law degree from Harvard and whose father was also a member of the club. The family had a lot of money’ and their name was in the papers often. Young Sinclair worked in his father’s law office in the city and Thomas had overheard older men in the club saying that young Sinclair was a brilliant lawyer and would go far.

But right now, as Thomas came down the aisle silently in his tennis shoes, young Sinclair was standing in front of an open locker and he had his hand in the inside pocket of the jacket hanging there and he was deftly taking out a wallet. Thomas wasn’t sure whose locker it was, but he knew it wasn’t Sinclair’s, because Sinclair’s locker was only three away from his own on the other side of the room. Sinclair’s face, which was usually cheerful and ruddy, was pale and tense and he was sweating.

For a moment, Thomas hesitated, wondering if he could turn and get away before Sinclair saw him. But just as Sinclair got the wallet out, he looked up and saw Thomas. They stared at each other. Then it was too late to back away. Thomas moved quickly toward the man and grabbed his wrist. Sinclair was panting, as though he had been running a great distance.

‘You’d better put that back, sir,’ Thomas whispered.

‘All right,’ Sinclair said. ‘I’ll put it back.’ He whispered too?

Thomas did not release his wrist. He was thinking fast. If he denounced Sinclair, on one excuse or another, he would lose his job. It would be too uncomfortable for the other members to be subjected daily to the presence of a lowly employee who had disgraced one of their own. If he didn’t denounce him . Thomas played for time. ‘You know, sir,’ he said, ‘they suspect me.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Thomas could feel the man trembling, but Sinclair didn’t try to pull away.

‘You’re going to do three things,’ Thomas said. ‘You’re going to put the wallet back and and you’re going to promise to lay off from now on.’

‘I promise, Tom. I’m very grateful…’

‘You’re going to show just how grateful you are, Mr Sinclair,’ Thomas said. ‘You’re going to write out an IOU for five thousand dollars to me right now and you’re going to pay me in cash within three days.’

‘You’re out of your mind,’ Sinclair said, sweat standing out on his forehead.

‘All right,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ll start yelling.’

‘I bet you would, you little bastard,’ Sinclair said.

‘I’ll meet you in the bar of the Hotel Touraine, Thursday night at eleven o’clock,’ Thomas said. ‘Pay night.’

‘I’ll be there.’ Sinclair’s voice was so low that Thomas could barely hear it. He dropped the man’s hand and watched as Sinclair put the wallet back into the jacket pocket. Then he took out a small notebook in which he kept a record of petty expenses he laid out on errands and opened it to a blank page and handed Sinclair a pencil.

Sinclair looked down at the open notebook thrust under his nose. If he could steady his nerves, Thomas knew, he could just walk away and if Thomas told anybody the story he could laugh it off. But never completely laugh it off. Anyway, his nerves were shot. He took the notebook, scribbled in it.

Thomas glanced at the page, put the notebook in his pocket

and took back the pencil. Then he gently closed the locker door and went upstairs to watch the squash.

Fifteen minutes later Sinclair came on to the court and beat his opponent in straight games.

In the locker room later, Thomas congratulated him on his victory.

He got to the bar of the Touraine at five to eleven. He was dressed in a suit with a collar and tie. Tonight he wanted to pass for a gentleman. The bar was dark and only a third full. He carefully sat down at a table in a corner, where he could watch the entrance. When the waiter came over to him, he ordered a bottle of Budweiser. Five thousand dollars, he thought, five thousand … They had taken that amount from his father and he was taking it back from them. He wondered if Sinclair had had to go to his father to get the money and had had to explain why he needed it. Probably not. Probably Sinclair had so much dough in his own name he could lay his hands on five thousand cash in ten minutes. Thomas had nothing against Sinclair. Sinclair was a pleasant young man, with nice,’ friendly eyes and a soft voice and good manners who from time to time had given him some pointers on how to play drop shots in squash and whose life could be ruined if it became known he was a kleptomaniac. The system had just worked out that way.

He sipped his beer, watching the door. At three minutes after eleven, the door opened and Sinclair came in. He peered around the dark room and Thomas stood up. Sinclair came over to the table and Thomas said, ‘Good evening sir.’

‘Good evening, Tom,’ Sinclair said evenly and sat down on the banquette, but without taking off his topcoat.

‘What are you drinking?’ Thomas asked, as the waiter came over.

‘Scotch and water, please,’ Sinclair said with his polite, Harvard way of talking.

‘And another Bud, please,’ said Thomas.

They sat in silence for a moment, side by side on the banquette. Sinclair drummed his fingers briefly on the table, scanning the room. ‘Do you come here often?’ he asked.

‘Once in a while.’

‘Do you ever see anybody from the Club here?’ ‘No.’

The waiter came over and put down their drinks. Sinclair took a thirsty gulp from his glass. ‘Just for your information

Sinclair said, ‘I don’t take the money because I need it’

‘I know,’ Thomas said.

‘I’m sick,’ Sinclair said. ‘It’s a disease. I’m going to a psychiatrist.’

That’s smart of you,’ Thomas said.

‘You don’t mind what you’re doing to a sick man?’

‘No,’ Thomas said. ‘No, sir.’

‘You’re a hard little son of a bitch, aren’t you?’

‘I hope so, sir,’ said Thomas.

Sinclair opened his coat and reached inside and brought out a long, full envelope. He put it down on the banquette between himself and Thomas. “It’s all there,’ he said. ‘You needn’t bother to count it.’

‘I’m sure it’s all there,’ Thomas said. He slipped the envelope into his side pocket

‘I’m waiting,’ Sinclair said. Thomas took out the IOU and put it on the table. Sinclair glanced at it tore it up and stuffed the shreds into an ashtray. He stood up. “Thanks for the drink,’ he said. He walked towards the door past the bar, a handsome young man, the marks of breeding, gentility, education, and good luck clearly on him.

Thomas watched him go out and slowly finished his beer. He paid for the drinks and went into the lobby and rented a room for the night. Upstairs, with the door locked and the blinds down, he counted the money. It was all in hundred dollar bills, all new. It occurred to him that they might be marked, but he couldn’t tell.

He slept well in the big double bed and in the morning called the Club and told Dominic that he had to go to New York on family business and wouldn’t be in until Monday afternoon. He hadn’t taken any days off since he’d started working at the Club, so Dominic had to say okay, but no later than Monday.

It was drizzling when the train pulled into the station and the grey, autumnal drip didn’t make Port Philip look any better as Thomas went out of the station. He hadn’t brought his coat, so he put up the collar of his jacket to try to keep the rain from going down his neck.

The station square didn’t look much different. The Port Philip House had been repainted and a big radio and television shop in a new, yellow-brick building was advertising a sale in portable radios. The smell of the river was still the same and Tom remembered it

He could have taken a taxi, but after years of absence he

preferred to walk. The streets of his native town would slowly prepare him - for just what he was not quite sure.

He walked past the bus station. The last ride with his brother Rudolph. You smell like a wild animal.

He walked past Bernstein’s Department Store, his sister’s rendezvous point with Theodore Boylan. The naked man in the livingroom, the burning cross. Happy boyhood memories.

He walked past the public school. The returned malarial soldier and the samurai sword and the Jap’s head spouting blood.

Nobody said hello. All faces in the mean rain looked hurried, closed, and unfamiliar. Return in Triumph, Welcome, Citizen.

He walked past St Anselm’s, Claude Tinker’s uncle’s church. By the Grace of God, he was not observed.

He turned into Vanderhoff Street. The rain was coming down more strongly. He touched the bulge in the breast of his jacket that concealed the envelope with the money in it. The street had changed. A square prisonlike building had been put up and there was some sort of factory in it. Some of the old shops were boarded up and there were names he didn’t recognise on the windows of other shops.

He kept his eyes down to keep the rain from driving into them, so when he looked up finally he was stupidly puzzled because where the bakery had been, where the house in which he was born had stood, there was now a large supermarket, with three storeys of apartments above it. He read the signs on the window. Special Today, Rib Roast, Lamb Shoulder. Women with shopping bags were going in and out of a door which, if the Jordache house had been still there would have opened on to the front hallway.

Thomas peered through the windows. There were girls making change at the front desks. He didn’t know any of them. There was no sense in going in. He was not in the market for rib roasts or lamb shoulders.

Uncertainly, he continued down the street. The garage next door had been rebuilt and the name on it was a different one and he didn’t recognise any of the faces there, either. But near the corner he saw that Jardino’s Fruits and Vegetables was still where it had always been. He went in and waited while an old woman argued with Mrs Jardino about string beans.

When the old woman had gone, Mrs Jardino turned to him. She was a small, shapeless woman with a fierce, beaked nose and a wart on her upper lip from which sprang two long,

coarse, black hairs. ‘Yes,’ Mrs Jardino said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Mrs Jardino,’ Thomas said, putting down his coat collar to look more respectable, ‘you probably don’t remember me, but I used to be a… well… a kind of neighbour of yours. We used to have the bakery, Jordache?’

Mrs Jardino peered nearsightedly at him. “Which one were you?’

The youngest one.’

‘Oh, yes. The little gangster.’

Thomas tried a smile, to compliment Mrs Jardino on her rough humour. Mrs Jardino didn’t smile back. ‘So, what do you want?’

‘I haven’t been here for a while,’ Thomas said. “I’ve come back to pay a family visit. But the bakery isn’t there any more.’

‘It’s been gone for years,’ Mrs Jardino said impatiently, arranging apples so that the spots wouldn’t show. ‘Didn’t your family tell you?’

“We were out of touch for a while,’ Thomas said. ‘Do you know where they are?’

‘How should I know where they are? They never talked to dirty Italians.’ She turned her back squarely on him and fussed with bunches of celery.

Thank you very much, just the same,’ Thomas said and started out.

“Wait a minute,’ Mrs Jardino said. ‘When you left your father was still alive, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Thomas said,

“Well, he’s dead,’ she said. There was a certain satisfaction in her voice. ‘He drowned. In the river. And then your mother moved away and then they tore the building down and now …’ bitterly, ‘there’s a supermarket there cutting our throats.’ A customer came in and Mrs Jardino began to weigh five pounds of potatoes and Thomas went out of the shop.

He went and stood in front of the supermarket for a while, but it didn’t tell him anything. He thought of going down to fee river, but the river wasn’t going to tell him anything, either. Be walked back towards the station. He passed a bank and went in and rented a safety deposit box and put in forty-nine hundred of the five thousand dollars in the box. He figured he might as well leave his money in Port Philip as anywhere. Or throw it into the river in which his father had drowned.

He supposed he might be able to find his mother and brother

by going to the post office, but he decided against the effort. It was his father he had come to see. And pay off.

1950

Capped and gowned, Rudolph sat in the June sunlight, among the other graduates in rented black.

‘Now, in 1950, at the exact mid-point of the century,’ the speaker was saying, ‘we Americans must ask ourselves several questions: What do we have? What do we want? What are our strengths and weaknesses? Where are we going?’ The speaker was a cabinet member, up from Washington as a favour for the President of the college, who had been a friend of his at Cornell, a more illustrious place of learning.

Now at the exact mid-point of the century, Rudolph thought, moving restlessly on the camp chair set up on the campus lawn, what do I have, what do I want, what are my strengths and weaknesses, where am I going? I have a BA, a debt of four thousand dollars, and a dying mother. I want to be rich and free and beloved. My strength - I can run the two-twenty in 23:8. My weakness? I am honest. He smiled inwardly, innocently regarding the Great Man from Washington. Where am I going? You tell me, brother.