Rich Man, Poor Man (88 page)

He had Rudolph’s cable in his pocket when he got off the plane at Kennedy and went with hundreds of other passengers through the Health and Immigration formalities. The last time he had been at the airport it had been called Idlewild. Taking a bullet through your head was an expensive way of getting an airport named after you.

The big Irishman with the Immigration badge looked at him as though he didn’t like the idea of letting him back into the country. And he thumbed through a big, black book, full of names, hunting for Jordache, and seemed disappointed that he couldn’t find it.

He went into the Customs hall to wait for his bag. The whole population of America seemed to be corning back from a holiday in Europe. Where did all the money come from?

He looked up at the glass-enclosed balcony where people were lined up two and three deep waving at relatives down below that they had come to meet. He had cabled Rudolph his flight number and time of arrival, but he couldn’t pick him out in the crowd behind the glass window. He had a moment of irritation. He didn’t want to go wandering around New York hunting for his brother.

The cable had been waiting for him for a week when he came back to Antibes after the charter with Heath and his wife. ‘Dear Tom,’ the cable read. ‘Everything OK for you here Stop Believe will have sons address soonest Love Rudolph.’ He finally saw his bag in the bin and grabbed it and went and stood in line to go through the Customs counter. Some idiot from Syracuse was sweating and telling a long story to the inspector about where he had gotten two embroidered dirndls

and whom they were for. When it was his turn, the inspector • made him open his bag and went through everything. He had no gifts for anyone in America, and the inspector passed him through.

He said no to a porter who wanted to carry his bag and carried it through the exit doors himself. Standing bareheaded among the crowd, looking cooler than anybody else in a pair of slacks and a seersucker jacket, Rudolph waved at him. They shook hands and Rudolph tried to take the bag from him, but Thomas wouldn’t let him.

‘Have a good trip?’ Rudolph asked him as they walked out of the building. ‘Okay.’

‘I’ve got my car parked near here,’ Rudolph said. ‘Wait here. I’ll just be a minute.’

As he went for the car, Thomas noted that Rudolph still walked in that peculiar gliding way, not moving his shoulders. He opened his collar and pulled his tie down. Although it was the beginning of October, it was stinking hot, wet smoggy heat, smelling of burned kerosene. He had forgotten the climate of New York. How did anyone live here?

Five minutes later Rudolph drove up in a blue Buick coupe. Thomas threw his bag in the back and got in. The car was air-conditioned, which was a relief. Rudolph drove at just the legal speed and Thomas remembered being picked up by the state troopers with the bottle of bourbon and the Smith and Wesson in the car on the way to his mother’s deathbed.- Times had changed. For the better. ‘Well?’ Thomas said.

‘I found Schultz,’ Rudolph said. ‘That’s when I sent you the wire. He said the heat’s off. Everybody’s dead or in jail, he said. I didn’t inquire what that meant.’ ‘What about Teresa and the kid?’

Rudolph fiddled with the air-conditioning levers, frowning. ‘Well, it’s a little hard to begin.’ ‘Come on. I’m a big, strong fella.’

‘Schultz didn’t know where either, of them was. But he said he saw your wife’s picture in the newspapers. Twice.’

‘What the hell for?’ For a moment, Thomas was rattled. Maybe the crazy dame had finally made it on the stage or in a nightclub.

‘She was arrested for soliciting in a bar. Twice,’ Rudolph said. ‘I hate to be the one who has to tell you this, Tom.’ ‘Forget it,’ Thomas said roughly. ‘It figured.’

‘Schultz said she was using another name, but he recognised her,’ Rudolph said. T checked. It was her. The police gave me her address.’

‘If I can afford her prices,’ Thomas said, ‘maybe I’ll go around and give her a screw. Maybe she’s learned how to do it by now.’ He saw the pained expression on Rudolph’s face, but he hadn’t crossed the ocean to be polite. ‘How about the kid?’

‘He’s up at a military school near Poughkeepsie,’ Rudolph said. T just found out two days ago.’

‘Military school,’ Thomas said. ‘Christ. Do the officers get to bang his mother on manoeuvres?’

Rudolph drove without speaking, allowing Thomas to get his bitterness out.

That’s just what I want my kid to be,’ Thomas said. ‘A soldier. How did ycu get all this good news?’

‘A private detective.’

‘Did he talk to the bitch?’

‘No.’

‘So nobody knows I’m here?’

‘Nobody,’ Rudolph said. ‘Except me. I did one other thing. I hope you won’t mind.’

‘What’s that?’

T talked to a lawyer friend of mine. Without mentioning any names. You can get a divorce and custody without any trouble. Because of the two convictions.’

T hope they put her in jail and throw away the key.’

‘Just overnight each time. And a fine.’

They got some great lawyers in this city, don’t they?’ He remembered his days in the jail in Elysium. Two out of three in the family.

Took,’ Rudolph said, T have to get back to Whitby tonight. You can come with me if you want. Or you can stay in the apartment. It’s empty. There’s a maid comes in every morning to clean up.’

‘Thanks. I’ll take you up on the apartment. I want to see that lawyer you talked to first thing in the morning. Can you fix it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You got her address and the name of the school and all that?’

Rudolph nodded.

‘That’s all I need,’ Thomas said.

‘How long do you plan to stay in New York?’

‘Just long enough to make sure of the divorce and go up and get the kid and take him back to Antibes with me.’

Rudolph didn’t say anything for a while and Thomas looked out the window to his right at the boats moored in Flushing Bay. He was glad the Clothilde was in Antibes harbour and not in Flushing Bay.

‘Johnny Heath wrote me that he had a wonderful trip with you,’ Rudolph said. ‘He said his bride loved it’

‘I don’t know when she had the time to love anything,’ Thomas said. ‘She was going up and down the ladder changing her clothes every five minutes. She must have had thirty bags with her. It was lucky there were only two of them. We filled two empty cabins with her luggage.’

Rudolph smiled. ‘She comes from a very rich family.’

‘It sticks out all over her. He’s okay, though. Your friend. Didn’t mind rough weather and asked so many questions by the end of two weeks he could have sailed the Clothilde by himself right to Tunis. He said he was going to ask you and your wife to come with him on a cruise next summer.’

‘If I have the time,’ Rudolph said quickly.

‘What’s this about your running for mayor of that little one-horse town?’ Thomas asked.

‘It’s far from a one-horse town,’ Rudolph said. ‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea?’

‘I wouldn’t wipe my feet on the best politician in the country,’ Thomas said.

‘Maybe I’ll make you change your mind,’ Rudolph said.

‘They had. one good man,’ Thomas said, ‘so naturally they shot him.’

‘They can’t shoot all of them.’

‘They can try,’ Thomas said. He leaned over and turned on the radio. The roar of a crowd filled the car and then an excited announcer’s voice, saying, ‘ … a clean line drive into centre field, the runner is rounding second, it’s going to be close, close, he goes into his slide, Safe! Safe!’ Thomas turned the radio off.

‘The World Series,’ Rudolph said.

‘I know. I get the Paris Herald Tribune.’

Tom,’ Rudolph said, ‘don’t you ever miss America?’

‘What’s America done for me?’ Thomas said. ‘I don’t care if I never see it again after this time.’

T hate to hear you talk like that.’

‘One patriot in the family is enough,’ Thomas said.

‘What about your son?’

‘What about him?’

‘How long are you figuring you’ll keep him in Europe?’

‘Forever,’ Thomas said. ‘Maybe when you get elected President and straighten out the whole country and put all the crooks and generals and the policemen and judges and congressmen and high-priced lawyers in jail and if they don’t shoot you maybe I’ll send him over on a visit.’

‘What about his education?’ Rudolph persisted.

‘There’re schools in Antibes. Better than a crappy military academy.’

‘But he’s an American.’

‘Why?’ Thomas asked.

‘Well, he’s not a Frenchman.’

‘He won’t be a Frenchman either,’ Thomas said. ‘He’ll be Wesley Jordache.’

‘He won’t know where he belongs.’

‘Where do you think I belong? Here?’ Thomas laughed. ‘My son’ll belong on a boat in the Mediterranean, sailing from one country where they make wine and olive oil to another country where they make wine and olive oil.’

Rudolph quit then. They drove the rest of the way in silence to the building on Park Avenue where Rudolph had an apartment. The doorman double-parked the car for him when he said he’d only be a few minutes. The doorman gave a queer look at Thomas, with his collar open and his tie loose and his blue, wide-trousered suit and green fedora hat with the brown band that he had bought in Genoa.

‘Your doorman doesn’t approve of my clothes,’ Thomas said as they went up in the elevator. ‘Tell him I buy my clothes in Marseilles and everybody knows Marseilles is the greatest centre of haute couture for men in Europe.’

‘Don’t worry about the doorman,’ Rudolph said as he led Thomas into the apartment.

‘Not a bad little place you have here,’ Thomas said, standing in the middle of the large livingroom, with its fireplace and long, straw-coloured corduroy couch, with two winged easy chairs on each side of it. There were fresh flowers in vases on the tables, a pale-beige wall-to-wall carpet, and non-objective paintings on the dark green walls. The room faced west and the afternoon sun streamed in through the curtained windows. The air-conditioning was on, humming softly, and the room was comfortably cool.

‘We don’t get down to the city as much as we’d like,’ Rudolph said. ‘Jean’s pregnant again and she’s having a bad couple of months just now.’ He opened a cupboard. ‘Here’s the bar,’ he said. ‘There’s ice in the refrigerator. If you want to eat here,

just tell the maid when she gets in in the morning. She’s a pretty good cook.’ He led Thomas into the spare room, which Jean had made over to look exactly like the guest room in the farmhouse in Whitby, countrified and delicate. Rudolph couldn’t help but notice how out of place his brother looked in the neat, feminine room, with its four-poster twin beds and patchwork quilts.

Thomas threw his battered valise and his jacket and hat on one of the beds and Rudolph tried not to wince. On his boat, Johnny Heath had written, Tom was a stickler for neatness. Obviously, he did not carry his seagoing habits with him when he went ashore.

Back in the livingroom Rudolph poured a whiskey and soda for Thomas and himself and, while they drank, got out the papers he had collected from the Police Department and the report from the private detective and gave them to Thomas. He called the lawyer’s office and made an appointment for Thomas for the next morning at ten.

‘Now,’ he said, as they finished their drinks, ‘is there anything else you need? Do you want me to go with you when you go up to the school?’

‘I’ll handle the school on my own,’ Thomas said. ‘Don’t worry.’ ‘How are you fixed for money?’ T’m rolling,’ Thomas said. ‘Thanks.’ Tf anything comes up,’ Rudolph said, ‘call me.’ ‘Okay, mayor,’ Thomas said.

They shook hands and Rudolph left his brother standing next to the table on which lay the reports from the Police Department and the detective. Thomas was picking them up to read as Rudolph went out the front door.

Teresa Jordache, Thomas read from the police file, alias Theresa Laval. Thomas grinned. He was tempted to call her up and ask her to come over. He’d disguise his voice. ‘Apartment 14B, Miss Laval. It’s on Park Avenue between Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Street.’ Even the most suspicious whore wouldn’t think there’d be any trouble at an address like that. He would love to see her face when she rang the bell and he opened the door. He nearly went to the phone to dial the last number the detective had ferreted out, then stopped. It would be almost impossible not to give her the beating she deserved and that wasn’t what he had come to America for.

He shaved and showered, using the perfumed soap in the bathroom, and had another drink and put on a clean shirt and the blue Marseilles suit, then went down in the elevator and walked over to Fifth Avenue in the dusk. On a side street he saw a steak place and went in and had a steak with half a bottle of wine and apple pie a la mode, to salute his native country. Then he strolled over to Broadway. Broadway was worse than ever, with noise coming out of music shops and bigger and uglier signs than he remembered and the people pushing and sick looking, but he enjoyed it. He could walk anywhere, go to any bar, any movie. Everybody was dead or in jail. Music.

The Hilltop Military Academy was on top of a hill and it was military. A high, grey stone wall enclosed it, like a prison, and when Thomas drove through the front gate in the car he had rented, he could see boys in blue-grey uniforms doing close-order drill on a dusty field. The weather had turned cooler and some of the trees on the ground had began to change colour. The driveway passed close to the parade grounds and Thomas stopped the car and watched. There were four separate groups wheeling and marching on different parts of the field. The group of boys nearest to him, perhaps thirty of them, were between twelve and fourteen, just about Wesley’s age. Thomas stared at them as they passed him, but if Wesley was among them he didn’t recognise him.

He started the car again and went up the driveway to a stone building that looked like a small castle. The grounds were well kept, with flower beds and closely mown lawns, and the other buildings were large and solidly built, of the same stone as the little castle.

Teresa must get a fancy price for her services, Thomas thought, to afford a place like this for the kid.

He got out of the car and went into the building. The granite hallway was dark and chilly It was lined with flags, sabres, crossed rifles, and marble lists of the names of graduates who had been killed in the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Expedition, the First World War, the Second World War, and the war in Korea. It was like the head office of a company, with a display advertising their product. A boy with close-cropped hair and a lot of fancy chevrons on his arm was coming down the steps, and Thomas asked him, ‘Son, where’s the main office here?’