Rich Man, Poor Man (57 page)

Oh, Christ, he thought, another county heard from. He had just come in and had found the letter waiting for him on the table in the hallway. He heard Teresa clanging pots in the kitchen and the kid making gobbling sounds.

‘I’m home,’ he called and went into the livingroom and sat down on the couch, pushing a toy fire engine out of the way. He sat there, on the orange-satin couch Teresa had insisted upon buying, holding the letter dangling from his hand, trying to decide whether or not to throw it away then and there.

Teresa came in, in an apron, a little sweat glistened on her make-up, the kid crawling after her.

“You got a letter,’ she said. She was not very friendly these days, ever since she had heard about his going to England and leaving her behind.

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s a woman’s handwriting.’ ‘It’s from my mother, for Christ’s sake.’ ‘You expect me to believe that?’ ‘Look.’ He shoved the letter under her nose. She squinted to read. She was very nearsighted but refused to wear glasses. ‘It’s awful young handwriting for a mother,’ she said, retreating reluctantly. ‘A mother, now. Your family is growing in leaps and bounds.’

She went back to the kitchen, picking up the kid, who was squalling that he wanted to stay where he was.

To spite Teresa, Thomas decided to read the letter and see what the old bitch had to say.

‘Rudolph described the circumstances of your meeting’ - he read - ‘and I must say I was more than a little shocked at your choice of a profession. Although I shouldn’t be surprised, considering your father’s nature and the example he set you with that dreadful punching bag hanging out in the back yard all the time. Still, it’s an honest living, I suppose, and your brother says you seem to have settled down with a wife and a child and I hope you are happy.

‘Rudolph did not describe your wife to me, but I hope that your family life is happier than your father’s and mine. I don’t know whether Rudolph mentioned it to you but your father just vanished one fine night, with the cat.

‘I am not well and I have the feeling my days are numbered. I would like to come to New York City and see my son and my new grandson, but travelling is very difficult for me. If Rudolph saw fit to buy an automobile instead of the motorcycle he charges around town on perhaps I could manage the trip. He might even be able to drive me to church one Sunday, so I could begin to make up for the years of paganism your father forced me to endure. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. Rudolph has been very kind and takes good care of me and has got me a television set which makes the long days bearable. He seems to be so busy on his own projects that he barely comes home to sleep. From what I can tell, especially from the way he dresses, he is doing quite well. But he was always a good dresser and always managed to have money in his pocket. ‘I cannot honestly say that I would like to see the entire family reunited, as I have crossed your sister from my heart, for good and sufficient reason, but seeing my two sons together again would bring tears of joy to my eyes.

‘I was always too tired and overworked to meet your father’s drunken demands to show the love I felt for you, but maybe

now, in my last days, we can have peace between us.

I gathered from Rudolph’s tone that you were not very friendly with him. Perhaps you have your reasons. He has turned into a cold man although a thoughtful one. If you do not wish to see him, I could let you know when he is out of the house, which happens more and more often, for days on end, and you and I could visit with each other undisturbed, Kiss my grandson for me. Your loving Mother.’

Holy God, he thought, voices from the tomb.

He sat there, holding the letter, staring into space, not hearing his wife scolding the kid in the kitchen, thinking of the years over the bakery, years when he had been more thoroughly exiled although he lived in the same house than when he had been sent away and told never to show his face again. Maybe he would go to visit the old lady, listen to her complaints, so late in coming, about her beloved Rudolph, her fair-haired boy.

He would borrow a car from Schultzy and ride her over to church, that’s what he would do. Let the goddamn family see how wrong they were about him.

Mr McKenna went out of the hotel room, aldermanic, benign, ex-cop on pension now pursuing private crime, having taken the report from a neat, black-seal briefcase and laid it on Rudolph’s desk. ‘I am quite certain this will provide all the information you need about the individual in question,’ Mr McKenna had said, kindly, plump, rubbing his bald head, his sober, grey-felt hat, neatly rimmed, on the desk beside him. ‘Actually, the investigation was comparatively simple, and unusually short for such complete results.’ There had been a note of regret in Mr McKenna’s voice at Willie’s artless simplicity, which had required so little time, so little professional guile to investigate. ‘I think the wife will find that any competent lawyer can get her a divorce with no difficulty under the laws of the State of New York dealing with adultery. She is very clearly the injured party, very clearly indeed.’

Rudolph looked at the neatly typed report with distaste. Tapping telephone wires, it seemed, was as easy as buying a loaf of bread. For five dollars, hotel clerks would allow you to attach a microphone to a wall. Secretaries would fish out torn love letters from waste baskets and piece them together carefully for the price of a dinner. Old girls, now rejected, would quote chapter and verse. Police files were open, secret testimony before committees was available, nothing was unpleasant enough to be disbelieved. Communication, despite what poets were saying at the moment, was rife.

He picked up the phone and asked for Gretchen’s number. He listened as the operator dialled. The busy signal, that snarling sound, came over the wire. He hung up and went over to the window and parted the curtains and looked out. The afternoon was cold and grey. Down below pedestrians leaned against the wind, hurrying for shelter, collars up. It was an ex-policeman’s kind of day.

He went back to the phone, asked for Gretchen’s number again. Once more, he heard the busy signal. He slammed down the instrument, annoyed. He wanted to get this miserable business over with as quickly as possible. He had spoken to a lawyer friend, without mentioning names, and the lawyer friend had advised him that the injured party should move out of the communal habitation with the child before bringing any action, unless there was some way of keeping the husband out of the apartment completely from that moment on. Under no conditions should the injured party sleep one night more under the same roof with the defendant-to-be.

Before he called Willie and confronted him with the detective’s report, he had to tell Gretchen this and tell her also that he intended to speak to Willie immediately.

But again the phone rang busy. The injured party was having a chatty afternoon. With whom was she talking - Johnny Heath, quiet, bland lover, constant guest, or one of the other ten men she had said she no longer wanted to sleep with? The easiest lay in New York. Sister mine.

He looked at his watch. Five minutes to four. Willie would undoubtedly be back in his office by now, happily dozing off the pre-lunch martinis.

Rudolph picked up the phone and called Willie’s number. Two secretaries in Willie’s office wafted him along, disembodied sweet voices, electric with public relations charm. ‘Hi, Merchant Prince,’ Willie said, when he came on the line. To what do I owe the honour?’ It was a three-martini voice this afternoon.

‘Willie,’ Rudolph said, ‘you have to come over here to my hotel right away.’

‘Listen, kid, I’m sort of tied up here and …’

‘Willie, I warn you, you’d better come over here this minute.*

‘Okay,’ Willie said, his voice subdued. ‘Order me a drink.’

Drinkless, Willie sat in the chair the ex-policeman had used earlier, and carefully read the report. Rudolph stood at the window, looking out. He heard the rustle of paper as Willie put the report down.

Well,’ Willie said, ‘it seems I’ve been a very busy little boy. What’re you going to do with this now?’ He tapped the report. Rudolph reached over and picked up the clipped together sheets of paper and tore them into small pieces and dropped the pieces into the wastebasket. “What does that mean?’ Willie asked. ‘It means that I can’t go through with it,’ Rudolph said. “Nobody’s going to see it and nobody’s going to know about it. If your wife wants a divorce, she’ll have to figure out another way to get it.’ ‘Oh,’ Willie said. ‘It was Gretchen’s idea?’ “Not exactly. She said she wanted to get away from you, but she wanted to keep the kid, and I offered to help.’ ‘Blood is thicker than marriage. Is that it?’ ‘Something like that. Only not my blood. This time.’ ‘You came awfully close to being a shit, Merchant Prince,’ Willie said, ‘didn’t you?’ ‘So I did.’

‘Does my beloved wife know you have this on me?’ ‘No. And she’s not going to.’

‘In days to come,’ Willie said, ‘I shall sing the praises of my shining brother-in-law. Look, I shall tell my son, look closely at your noble uncle and you will be able to discern the shimmer of his halo. Christ, there must be a drink somewhere in this hotel.’

Rudolph brought out the bottle. With all his jokes, if ever a man looked as though he needed a drink, it was Willie at this moment. He drank off half of the glass. ‘Who’s picking up the tab for the research?’ he asked. ‘I am.’

‘What does it come to?’ ‘Five hundred and fifty dollars.’

‘You should’ve come to me,’ Willie said. ‘I’d’ve given you the information for half the price. Do you want me to pay you back?’

‘Forget it,’ Rudolph said. ‘I never gave you a wedding present. Consider this my wedding present.’

‘Better than a silver platter. I thank you, brother-in-law. Is there more in that bottle?’ Rudolph poured. ‘You’d better keep sober,’ he said. ‘You’re

going to have some serious conversation ahead of you.’

‘Yeah.’ Willie nodded. ‘It was a sorrowful day for everybody when I bought your sister a bottle of champagne at the Algonquin bar.’ He smiled wanly. ‘I loved her that afternoon and I love her now and there I am in the trash basket.’ He gestured to where the shreds of the detective’s report lay scattered in the tin bucket, decorated with a hunting print, riders with bright-red coats. ‘Do you know what love is?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do I.’ Willie stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you. Thanks for an interesting half hour.’

He went out without offering to shake hands.

He was incredulous when he came to the house. He looked again at the piece of paper Rudolph had given him to make sure that he was at the right address. Still over a store. And in a neighbourhood that was hardly any better than the old one in Port Philip. Seeing Rudolph in the fancy room at the Hotel Warwick and hearing him talk you’d think that he was just rolling in dough. Well, if he was, he wasn’t wasting any of it on rent.

Maybe he just kept the old lady in this joint and had a rich pad for himself in some other part of town. He wouldn’t put it past the bastard.

Thomas went into the dingy vestibule, saw the name Jordache printed next to a bell, rang. He waited, but the buzzer remained silent. He had called and told his mother he was coming to visit today, and she said she’d be at home. He couldn’t make it on a Sunday, because when he suggested it to Teresa, she’d started to cry. Sunday was her day, she wept, and she wasn’t going to be done out of it by an old hag who hadn’t even bothered to send a card when her grandson was born. So they’d left the kid with a sister of Teresa’s up in the Bronx and they’d gone to a movie on Broadway and had dinner at Toots Shor’s, where a sportswriter recognised Thomas, which made Teresa’s day for her and maybe it was worth the twenty bucks the dinner had cost.

Thomas pushed the bell again. Still, there was no response. Probably, Thomas thought bitterly, at the last minute Rudolph called and said he wanted his mother to come down to New

York and shine his shoes or something, and she’d rushed off, falling all over herself with joy.

He started to turn away, half relieved that he didn’t have to face her. It hadn’t been such a hot idea to begin with. Let sleeping mothers lie. He was just about out of the door when he heard the buzzer. He went back, opened the door and went up the steps.

The door opened at the first floor landing and there she was, looking a hundred years old. She took a couple of steps towards him and he understood why he had to wait for the buzzer. The way she walked it must have taken her five minutes to cross the room. She was crying already and had her arms outstretched to embrace him.

‘My son, my son,’ she cried, as her arms, thin sticks, went around him.’ I thought I’d never see your face again.’

There was a strong smell of toilet water. He kissed her wet cheek gently, wondering what he felt.

Clinging to his arm, she led him into the apartment. The living room was tiny and dark and he recognised the furniture from the apartment on Vanderhoff Street. It had been old and worn-out then. Now it was practically in ruins. Through an open door he could look into an adjoining room and see a desk, a single bed, books everywhere.

If he can afford to buy all those books, Thomas thought, he sure can afford to buy some new furniture.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ she said excitedly, guiding him to the one threadbare easy chair. ‘What a wonderful day.’ Her voice was thin, made reedy by years of complaint. Her legs were swollen, shapeless, and she wore wide, soft, invalid’s shoes, like a cripple. She moved as though she had been broken a long time ago in an accident. ‘You look splendid. Absolutely splendid. He remembered those words she used, out of Gone With the Wind. ‘I was afraid my little boy’s face would be all battered, but you’ve turned out handsomely. You resemble my side of the family, that’s plain to see, Irish. Not like the other two.’ She moved in a slow awkward flutter before him as he sat stiffly in the chair. She was wearing a flowered dress that blew loosely about her thin body. Her thick legs stuck out below her skirt like an error in engineering, another woman’s limbs. ‘That’s a lovely grey suit,’ she said, touching his sleeve. ‘A gentleman’s suit. I was afraid you’d still be in a sweater.’ She laughed gaily, his childhood already a romance. ‘Ah, I knew Fate couldn’t be so unkind,’ she said, ‘not letting me see my child’s face before I die. Now let me see my grandson’s face. You must have a picture. I’m sure you carry one in your wallet, like all proud fathers.’ Thomas took but a picture of his child. ‘What’s his name?’ his mother asked. ‘Wesley,’ Thomas said.