Rich Man, Poor Man (94 page)

Well, he isn’t in bankruptcy yet,’ Johnny said. ‘I think it would stand up in court of law.’

‘Nothing doing,’ Rudolph said. ‘Let him throw it into the pot. And let’s get the safety-deposit box keys from him tonight, so he can’t lift the money before we can stop him-‘

Johnny sighed. ‘I was afraid you’d say that,’ he said ‘When knighthood was in flower.’

‘Just because he’s a crook,’ Rudolph said, ‘doesn’t mean that ‘I’m going to be a crook to cut my losses, as you say.’

‘I said I thought it would probably stand up in a court of law,’ Johnny said.

‘Not good enough,’ Rudolph said. ‘Not good enough for me.’

Johnny looked speculatively at Rudolph. ‘What would you do if I went to him and said, okay, I’ll take my half, and drop out of the rest of it?’

‘I’d report it at the creditor’s meeting,’ Rudolph said evenly, ‘and make a motion to sue you for recovery.’

‘I surrender, dear,’ Johnny said. ‘Who can stand up to an honest politician?’

They went back into the livingroom. Brad was standing at the window, a full glass in hand, tickets at the fifty yard line for the big game of the season in his wallet, gazing out at the rich, friendly city of Dallas. Johnny explained what they had decided. Brad nodded,” numbly, not quite understanding.

‘And we want you back here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock,’ Rudolph said. ‘Before the banks open. We’ll go around with you to those safety-deposit boxes you spoke about and we’ll take care of the money for you. We’ll give you a receipt for your files. If you’re not here by one minute before nine, I’ll call the police and make out a complaint for fraud.’

‘Rudy…’ Brad said plaintively.

‘And if you want to hold on those fancy, pearl cufflinks,’ Rudolph said, ‘you’d better hide them someplace, because by the end of the month the sheriff is going to come around to seize your property, every bit of property you own, including that pretty, frilled shirt you’re wearing, to satisfy your debts.’

‘You guys,’ Brad said brokenly. ‘You guys … you don’t know what it’s like. You’re rich, you’ve got wives with millions,

you’ve got everything you want. You don’t know what it’s like to be somebody like me.’

‘Don’t break our hearts,’ Rudolph said roughly. He had never been as angry with anyone in his whole, lif e. He had to restrain himself from jumping on the man and trying to strangle him. ‘Just be here at nine o’clock.”

‘Okay, I’M be here,’ Brad said. ‘I don’t suppose you want to have dinner with me… ?’

‘Get out of here before I kill you,’ Rudolph said.

Brad went to the door. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘have a good time in Dallas. It’s a great city. And remember … ‘ He gestured for the suite, the liquor. ‘All this on my bill.’

Then he went out.

Rudolph didn’t have time to call home next morning. Brad came oyer at nine o’clock, as ordered, red eyed and looking as though he hadn’t slept all night, with a collection of keys for safety-deposit boxes in various Dallas banks. Ottman hadn’t called the night before, although Rudolph and Johnny had dined in the hotel to be ready for his call. Rudolph took it as a sign that all had gone smoothly on the Whitby campus and that Ottman’s fears had been exaggerated.

Rudolph and Johnny, with Brad in tow, went to the office of a lawyer whom Johnny knew. There, the lawyer drew up a power of attorney, for Johnny to act as Rudolph’s representative. Johnny was going to stay in Dallas to,sort out the mess. Then, with a clerk from the lawyer’s office as a witness, they went from bank to bank and watched at Brad, not wearing his pearl cufflinks, opened the boxes and took out neat packages of cash. All four men counted the bills methodically, before the clerk made out a receipt, which Rudolph and Johnny signed, acknowledging that they had received the sum from Bradford Knight, and the date. The lawyer’s clerk would then duly witness the slip of paper, after which they would all go up to the main floor from the bank’s vault and deposit the money in a joint account in Rudolph’s and Johnny’s names, all withdrawals to be made on presentation of both signatures. Rudolph and Johnny had planned the procedure the night before, knowing that from now on anything to do With Bradford Knight would have to stand up to scrutiny.

After the last box had been emptied, the final figure stood at ninety-three thousand dollars. Brad had been almost accurate in his estimate of what he had hidden away for what he had called a rainy day. Neither Johnny nor Rudolph asked him

where the money had come from. That would be somebody else’s job.

The visit to the lawyer’s office and the round of the banks had taken up most of the morning and Rudolph had to hurry to catch his plane, which was to leave Dallas for Washington at noon. As he rushed out of the suite, carrying his bag and small briefcase, he saw that the only bottles of the array in the saloon that had been opened had been the one Coke he had taken himself and the fifth of bourbon that Brad had drunk from.

Brad had offered him the use of his car to take him to the airport. ‘This morning, anyway,’ he had said, trying to smile, T still got my Cadillac, might as well enjoy it.’ But Rudolph had refused and called for a taxi. As he climbed into the taxi he asked Johnny to telephone his office in Whitby and tell his secretary that he couldn’t get home tonight, but would be staying over at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

On the plane he did not eat the lunch nor drink the two Manhattans. He got the Comptroller’s estimates out of his briefcase and tried to work, but he couldn’t concentrate on the figures before him. He kept .thinking about Brad, doomed, branded, bankrupt, with a jail sentence hanging over his head. Ruined for what? For a money-digging Hollywood tart. It was sickening. He loved her. Brad had said, it had been worth it. Love, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. At least in Texas. It was almost impossible to associate Brad with the emotion. He was a man born, Rudolph saw now, for saloons and brothels. Maybe he had known it all the time and had refused to acknowledge it. Still, it was always difficult to believe in the existence of the love of others. Perhaps his refusal to accept the fact that Brad actually was capable of love was condescension on his part. He himself loved Jean, he thought, but would he face ruin for her? The answer had to be no. Was he then more superficial than the blubbering, sweating man in the ruffled shirt? And was He responsible in some way for the hideous day his friend was passing through now and the even more hideous days to come? When he had killed Brad’s chances with Calderwood on the steps of the Country Club, the afternoon of the wedding, had he subconsciously prepared Brad’s fate for him? When he had invested in Brad’s business, out of guilt, hadn’t he really known that one day Brad would revenge himself, and in the only way possible to Brad, by cheating? And had he not, in fact, wanted it to happen to rid himself finally of Brad because Brad had not believed him about Virginia?

And even more disturbingly, if he had succumbed to Virginia Calderwood’s proposals and slept with her, would she have married Brad, and in marrying him, carried her husband out of the area of bis friend’s protection? For there was no doubt about it - he had protected Brad through the years, first in calling him East for a job that dozens of other men could initially have done better, then in training him carefully (and overpaying him in the process) so that in Brad’s mind at least the idea of being awarded the top post in the firm was a reasonable one. At what point was it moral to stop protecting a friend? Never?

It would have been easier to allow Johnny Heath to go down to Dallas and handle the matter alone. Johnny had been Brad’s friend, too, and the best man at his wedding, but it had never been the same thing as between Rudolph and Brad. Somehow, it had been more hurtful to Brad to have to answer to Rudolph, face to face. God knows, it would have been easy for Rudolph to have pleaded pressure of work in Whitby and sent Johnny off on his own. He had considered it, but rejected it as cowardly. He had made the trip to maintain his own self-esteem. Self-esteem might be another way of saying vanity. Had his continued success dulled his sensibilities, led him into complacency and self-righteousness?

When the bankruptcy was finally settled, he decided, he would somehow pension Brad off. Five thousand dollars a year, paid secretly, so that neither Brad’s creditors nor the government could touch it? Would the money, which Brad would so desperately need and have to accept, pay for the sting of having to accept it from a man who had turned his back on him.

The seat-belt sign went on. They were making the approach, for the landing. Rudolph put the papers back into bis briefcase, sighed, and hooked up his belt.

When he got to the Mayflower there was a message waiting for him from his secretary. It was urgent, the message read, for him to call his office as soon as possible.

He went up to his room, where nobody had bothered to supply any liquor, and called his office. Twice, the line was busy, and he nearly decided to abandon the attempt to reach his office and get in touch with the Senator who was most likely to help him in keeping Billy Abbott out of harm’s way in the United States army. It was not something that could be arranged over the phone and he hoped to make an appointment

for lunch the next day and then take an afternoon plane for New York.

On the third try, he got his secretary. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Mayor,’ Walter said, sounding exhausted, ‘but I’m afraid you’d better get up here right away. After the office closed last night and I’d gone home, all hell broke loose, I just found out about it this morning or I’d have tried to get through to you sooner.’

‘What is it? What is it?’ Rudolph asked impatiently.

‘It’s all terribly confused and I’m not sure that I have the sequence of events all straight,’ Walter said. ‘But when Ottman tried to go into the dormitory last night, they had it barricaded, the students, I mean, and they wouldn’t let the police in. President Dorlacker tried to get Ottman to call the police off, but Ottman refused. Then when they tried to get in again, the students began to throw things. Ottman got hit in the eye with a stone, nothing serious, they say, but he’s in the hospital, and the police gave up, at least for last night. Then other students organised a mass march and I’m afraid they demonstrated in front of your house. I went out to your house just a while ago and the lawn is in frightful condition. Mrs Jordache is under sedation and …’

‘You can tell me the rest of the story when I get there,’ Rudolph said. Tm getting the first plane but of Washington.’

‘I thought that’s what you would do,’ Walter said, ‘and I took the liberty of sending Scanlon down with your car. He’ll be waiting at La Guardia.’

Rudolph picked up his bags and hurried down to the lobby and checked out. Billy Abbott’s military career would have to hang in abeyance for a while.

Scanlon was a fat man who wheezed when he talked. He was on the police force, but was nearly sixty years old and was scheduled for retirement. He suffered from rheumatism and it was almost an act of mercy that he had been assigned as chauffeur to Rudolph. As an object lesson in civic economy Rudolph had sold the former mayor’s car, which bad been owned by the town, and used his own car.

‘If I had it to do all over again,’ Scanlon said breathily, ‘I swear to God I’d never sign on any police force in a town where there was college students or niggers.’

‘Scanlon, please,’ Rudolph said. He had been trying to correct Scanlon’s vocabulary since the first day, with little success. He was sitting up front with the old patrolman, who drove at a

maddeningly slow pace. But he would have been offended if Rudolph took the wheel.

‘I mean it, sir,’ Scanlon said. They’re just wild animals. With no more respect for the law than a pack of hyenas. As for the police - they just laugh at us. I don’t like to tell you your business, Mr Mayor, but if I was you, I’d go right to the Governor and ask for the Guard.’

‘There’s time enough for that,’ Rudolph said.

‘Mark my words,’ said Scanlon. ‘It’ll come to it. Look what they’ve done down in New York and out in California.’

‘We’re not New York or California,’ Rudolph said.

‘We got students and niggers,’ Scanlon said stubbornly. He drove silently for a while. Then he said, ‘You shoulda been at your house last night, Mr Mayor, then maybe you’d know what I was talking about.’

‘I heard about it,’ Rudolph said. They trampled the garden.’

They did a lot more than that,’ Scanlon said. T wasn’t there myself, but Ruberti was there, and he told me.’ Ruberti was another policeman. ‘It was sinful what they did, Ruberti told me, sinful. They kept calling for you and singing dirty-minded songs, young girls, using the dirtiest language anybody ever heard, and they pulled up every plant in your garden, and then when Mrs Jordache opened the door …’

‘She opened the door?’ Rudolph was aghast. ‘What did she do that for?’

‘Well, they started throwing things at the house. Clods of dirt, beer cans, and yelling, “Tell that motherfucker to come out.” They mean’t you, Mr Mayor, I’m ashamed to say. There was only Ruberti and Zimmermann there, the whole rest^of the force was up at the college, and what could just two of them do against those howling wild Indians, maybe three hundred of them. So like I said, Mrs Jordache opened the door and yelled at them.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Rudolph said.

‘You might as well hear it from me as later from somebody else,’ Scanlon said. ‘When Mrs Jordache opened the door, she was drunk. And she was stark naked.’

Rudolph made himself stare straight ahead at the tail lights of the cars ahead of him and into the blinding beams of light of the cars going the other way.

There was a kid photographer there, from the school paper,’ Scanlon went on, ‘and he took some flashlight pictures. Ruberti went for him, but the other kids made a kind of pocket and he

got away. I don’t know what use they think they’re going to make of the pictures, but they got them.’

Rudolph ordered Scanlon to drive directly to the university. The main administration building was brilliantly floodlit and there were students at every window, throwing out thousands of pieces of paper from the files and shouting at the line of policemen, alarmingly few, but armed with their clubs now, who cordoned off the building. As he drove up to where Ott-man’s car was parked under a tree, Rudolph saw what use had been made of the photograph of his wife taken naked the night before. It had been enormously blown up and it was hanging from a first-storey window. In the glare of the floodlights, the image of Jean’s body, slender and perfect, her breasts full, her fists clenched and threatening, her face demented, hung, a’ mocking banner, over the entrance of the building, just above the words carved in the stone, ‘Know the truth and the truth shall make ye free,’