Beggarman, Thief

by Irwin Shaw

  She raised her eyes, looking at him. “I knew where I could find you,” she said levelly, “if I had piss-all to say to you.”

  Bunny came back with the brandy and two fresh glasses of pastis. Rudolph watched as they poured the water into the glasses and the pastis turned milky yellow. Rudolph raised his glass mechanically. “To …” He stopped, laughed uncertainly. “To nothing, I guess.”

  Dwyer raised his glass, but Kate just slowly twirled her glass on the table.

  The brandy was raw and Rudolph gasped a little as it struck his throat. “There have been certain developments that I think you ought to know about …” I must stop sounding as though I’m addressing a board meeting, he thought. “I’m glad I found you both together …” Then, as clearly as he knew how, he explained the meaning of what Heath had told him about the estate. They listened politely, but without interest. Don’t you care what happens to your lives? he wanted to shout at them.

  “I don’t want to be, what’s the word …?” Kate said slowly.

  “Executrix.” Heath had told him that was probably what the judge would do.

  “Executrix. I don’t know tuppence about executrix,” Kate said. “Anyway, I plan to go back to England. Bath. My ma’s there and I can go on the National Health for the baby and my ma can watch after it when I go out to work.”

  “What sort of work?” Rudolph asked.

  “I was waitress in a restaurant,” Kate said, “before I listened to the call of the sea.” She laughed sardonically. “A waitress can always find work.”

  “There’ll be some money left,” Rudolph said, “when the estate’s settled. You won’t have to work.”

  “What’ll I do all day, sit around and look at the telly?” Kate said. “I’m not an idler, you know.” Her tone was challenging, the implication clear that he and his women were idlers all. “Whatever money there is, and I don’t imagine there’ll be much after the lawyers and them others, I’ll put aside for the kid’s education. Educated, if it’s a girl, maybe she won’t have to wait on table and iron ladies’ dresses in a steaming ship’s laundry, like her ma.”

  There was no arguing with her. “If you ever need anything—money, anything,” he said, without hope, “please let me know.”

  “There won’t be any need,” she said, lowering her eyes again, still twirling her glass on the table.

  “Just in case,” Rudolph said. “Maybe, for example, one day you’d like to visit America.”

  “America’s no attraction for me,” she said. “They’d laugh at me in America.”

  “Wouldn’t you want to see Wesley again?”

  “Wouldn’t mind,” she said. “If he wants to see me, there’re planes every day from America to London.”

  “In the meantime,” Rudolph went on, trying to keep the note of pleading out of his voice, “while the estate’s being held up, you’ll need some money.”

  “Not me,” she said. “I have my savings. And I made Tom pay me my wages, just like before, even when we were sleeping in the same bed and fixing to marry. Love is one thing, I told him,” she said, a proud declaration of categories, “and work is another.” She finally lifted her glass and sipped some of the pastis.

  “I give up.” Rudolph couldn’t help sounding exasperated. “You sound as if I’m your enemy.”

  She stared at him, blank pueblo eyes. “I don’t rightly remember saying anything that could be construed like enemy. Did I, Bunny?”

  “I wasn’t really paying much heed,” Dwyer said uneasily, “I couldn’t pass judgment.”

  “How about you?” Rudolph turned to Dwyer. “Don’t you need money?”

  “I’ve always been a saving type of man,” Dwyer said. “Tom used to tease me, saying I was mean and miserly. I’m well set, thank you.”

  Defeated, Rudolph finished his brandy. “At least,” he said, “leave me your addresses. Both of you. So I can keep in touch.”

  “Leave Wesley’s address with the shipyard here,” Kate said. “I’ll drop them a line from time to time and they’ll pass on a card. I’d like to let him know whether he’s got a sister or brother when the time comes.”

  “I’m not sure where Wesley will be,” Rudolph said. He was beginning to feel hoarse, his throat rasped by the brandy and the effort of talking to these two evasive, stubborn human beings. “If you write to him care of me, I’ll make sure he gets the letter.”

  Kate stared at him for a long moment, then lifted the glass to her lips again. She drank. “I wouldn’t want your wife to be reading any mail of mine,” she said, putting down her glass.

  “My wife doesn’t open my mail,” Rudolph said. He couldn’t help sounding angry now.

  “I’m glad to see she’s a woman of some character,” Kate said. There was just the hint of a malicious glint in her eye, or was he imagining it?

  “I’m only trying to be of help,” Rudolph said wearily. “I feel an obligation …” He stopped, but it was too late.

  “I thank you for your intentions,” Kate said, “but you’re under no obligation to me.”

  “I say we just would do better not to talk about it, Mr.… Rudy,” Dwyer said.

  “All right, let’s not talk about it. I’m going to be in Antibes for at least a week. When do you plan to leave for England, Kate?”

  Kate smoothed the wrinkles in the lap of her dress with her two hands. “As soon as I get my things together.”

  Rudolph remembered the single, scuffed, imitation-leather suitcase Wesley had carried off the Clothilde for her. It probably couldn’t take her more than fifteen minutes to get her things together. “How long do you think that will take?” Rudolph asked patiently.

  “Hard to tell,” Kate said. “A week. A fortnight. I have some goodbyes to make.”

  “I’ll have to have your address here, at least,” Rudolph said. “Something may come up, may have to be signed in front of a notary …”

  “Bunny knows where I am,” she said.

  “Kate,” Rudolph said softly, “I want to be your friend.”

  She nodded slowly. “Give it a little time, mate,” she said harshly. The kiss of parting in the saloon of the Clothilde had been one of numbness. A week’s reflection had embittered her. Rudolph couldn’t blame her. He turned to Dwyer. “How about you,” he asked, “how long do you expect to stay?”

  “You’ll know that better than I do, Rudy,” Dwyer said. “I mean to stay until they throw me off. They’ll be arriving any day now with the new shaft and the new screw and that’ll mean hauling her up on dock for at least three days, that is if the insurance comes in.… You could do me a favor—get after the insurance. They’re slow as shit if you don’t get after them. And you’d know how to talk to them better than me. So if …”

  “Goddamn the insurance,” Rudolph said, letting go. “You handle the insurance yourself.”

  “No need to yell at poor old Bunny,” Kate said placidly. “He’s just trying to keep the ship in shape so that when you sell it you won’t have a rotten hulk on your hands.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rudolph said. “I’ve been going through a lot …”

  “To be sure, you have,” Kate said. If it was ironic, there was no telling it from her tone.

  Rudolph stood up. “I have to go back to the hotel now. What do I owe here?”

  “The drinks’re on me,” Dwyer said. “My pleasure.”

  “I’ll keep you posted about what’s going on,” Rudolph said.

  “That’s kind of you,” said Dwyer. “I’d like to see Wesley before he leaves for America.”

  “You’ll have to see him at the airport,” Rudolph said. “He’s going right there from the jail. With a policeman.”

  “French cops,” Dwyer said. “It don’t pay to let them get their hands on you, does it? Tell Wesley I’ll be at the airport.”

  “Take care of yourselves,” Rudolph said. “Both of you.”

  They didn’t answer, but sat there in silence with their glasses in front of them, in shadow now, bec
ause the sun was going down and the building across the street was blocking it out. Rudolph made a little gesture and walked back toward the Agence de Voyages near the square where he could buy the three plane tickets for tomorrow’s flight.

  Husband and wife, he thought bitterly, as he passed the antique shops and the cheese shops and the shops that sold newspapers, they’d make a good pair. What’s wrong with me? What makes me so goddamn sure I can take care of anybody? Everybody? I’m like those idiotic dogs at the greyhound races. Show me a responsibility, mine, not mine, anybody’s, and I’m off after it, like the dogs after the mechanical rabbit, even if they never catch it, know they never can catch it. What disease infected me when I was young? Vanity? Fear of not being liked? A substitute for denied religion? It’s a lucky thing I never had to fight a war—I’d be dead the first day, shot by my own men, stopping a retreat or volunteering to go for the ammunition for a lost and surrounded gun. My project for the next year, he told himself, is to learn how to say, Fuck you, to one and all.

  CHAPTER 6

  FROM BILLY ABBOTT’S NOTEBOOK—

  MONIKA DISTURBED ME TONIGHT. SHE WAS WORKING ON THE PRINTED PROOFS OF A SPEECH SHE HAD TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH INTO ENGLISH, WHEN SHE LOOKED UP AND SAID, I’VE JUST NOTICED SOMETHING. IN BOTH LANGUAGES—AND IN MOST OTHERS, TOO—THE VERBS—TO HAVE, TO BE, TO GO, AND TO DIE—ARE ALL IRREGULAR. IN ENGLISH—I HAVE, HE HAS, I HAD—NOT TOO MUCH OF A VARIATION, BUT THERE ALL THE SAME. MORE STRIKING IN FRENCH. J’AI, TU AS, IL A, NOUS AVONS. “TO BE” WANDERS MUCH MORE. I AM, YOU ARE, HE IS, WE WERE, YOU ARE BEING, THEY HAD BEEN, I SHALL, HE WILL. IN FRENCH, JE SUIS, TU ES, NOUS SOMMES, VOUS ÊTES, IL SERA. THEN SOIS ET SOYONS AND JE FUS AND IL FUT IN OTHER TENSES. THINK OF I GO, I WENT, I HAVE BEEN GONE. AND ALLER—JE VAIS, NOUS ALLONS, ILS VONT. DYING IS A BIT MORE IN A STRAIGHT LINE, BUT IT GIVES YOU PAUSE. I DIE. I AM DEAD. IN FRENCH, MOURIR IN THE INFINITIVE, BUT JE MEURS, NOUS MOURIONS, NOUS SOMMES MORTS. WHAT DOES THAT ALL MEAN—THAT ACTIONS—EXISTING, OWNING, MOVING FROM PLACE TO PLACE, DYING? THAT WE SEEK TO DISOWN OR DISGUISE OR FLEE FROM OUR MOST BASIC ACTIVITIES? THE VERB TO KILL, HOWEVER, IS STRAIGHTFORWARD AS COULD BE, I KILL, YOU KILL, HE KILLS. I KILLED, YOU KILLED. HE KILLED. NOTHING TO HIDE THERE OR COPE WITH UNEASILY. THE SAME WITH FUCK. IS THERE JUDGMENT THERE?

  I AM GLAD I AM NOT A TRANSLATOR, I TOLD HER. BUT IT SET ME THINKING AND I WAS UP HALF THE NIGHT WORRYING ABOUT MYSELF AND MY CONNECTION TO LANGUAGE.

  « »

  Gretchen was in the bar when Rudolph got back to the hotel. She was drinking a champagne cocktail and talking to a young man in tennis clothes. She had been doing quite a bit of drinking the last few days, which was not like her, and had been talking to any men who happened to be around, which, he thought, maliciously, was very much like her. Had he heard footsteps softly passing his door last night, past the paired shoes, in the direction of her room? Remembering Nice, he could hardly complain. And whatever diversions she found to amuse herself with in the limbo in which she found herself were at the very least excusable.

  “May I introduce my brother, Rudolph Jordache,” she said as Rudolph came over to the table at which they were sitting. “Basil—I forget your second name, dear.”

  She must have had at least three champagne cocktails, Rudolph thought, to say dear to a man whose name she’d forgotten.

  The young man stood up. He was tall and slender, actorish, dyed hair, frivolously good-looking, Rudolph decided.

  “Berling,” the young man said, bowing a little. “Your sister’s been telling me about you.”

  Berling, Basil Berling, Rudolph thought, as he nodded acknowledgment of the bow. Who has a name like Basil Berling? British, from his accent.

  “Won’t you sit down and join us?” Basil Berling said.

  “Just for a moment,” Rudolph said, without grace. “I have some things I have to discuss with my sister.”

  “My brother is a great discusser,” Gretchen said. “Beware his discussions.”

  Four cocktails, not three, Rudolph thought.

  “What will it be, sir?” Basil Berling asked, polite British member of Actors Equity, working hard on his speech, conscious that he came from a mediocre school, as the waiter came up.

  “The same,” Rudolph said.

  “Three of the same,” Basil Berling said to the waiter.

  “He’s been plying me with drinks,” Gretchen said.

  “So I see.”

  Gretchen made a face. “Rudolph is the sober one in the family,” she explained to Basil Berling.

  “Somebody has to be.”

  “Oh, dear, I fear the discussion to follow,” Gretchen said. “Basil—what is the name again, dear …?”

  She’s pretending to be further gone than she really is, Rudolph thought. To annoy me. Today I’m everybody’s target.

  “Berling,” the man said, always pleasant.

  “Mr. Berling is an actor,” Gretchen said. “Isn’t it a coincidence,” she asked, her tone girlish and drunk at the same time, “here we are at the very end of the world and we meet by sheerest jolly happenstance in a low bar and we’re both in the flicks?” She was mocking him now with a fake English accent, but the young man seemed beyond offense.

  “Are you?” The Englishman sounded surprised. “I mean in films? I say—I should have guessed.”

  “Isn’t that gallant?” Gretchen touched Rudolph’s arm flirtatiously, brother or no. “I have to admit the fearful truth. I’m in the unglamorous part.” She sipped at her new drink, smiling over the rim at Basil Berling.

  “Hard to believe,” Berling said heavily.

  Must get rid of him forthwith, Rudolph thought, before I ask the manager to throw him out.

  “Oh, yes,” Gretchen said. “Behind the scenes. I’m one of those ladies with the black fingernails. Up to my ass in acetate. Film editor. There, now, the secret’s out. Just a plain, humble cutter.”

  “You do honor to the profession,” Basil Berling said.

  God save me from the mating rites of others, Rudolph thought, as Gretchen said, “Sweet,” and patted the back of Berling’s hand. For a moment Rudolph was curious about how his sister really was in bed, how many men were in her past, her present. She’d tell him if he asked.

  “Gretchen,” Rudolph said, as Gretchen tilted her head with too much charm at the actor, “I have to go up and tell Jean she has to pack. I have her passport and she’ll want to be leaving tomorrow. I’d like a word with you first, please.”

  Gretchen made a pretty grimace. Rudolph would have liked to slap her. The day’s events had worn his nerves thin. “Drink up, dear,” Gretchen said to Berling. “My brother is a busy man, the conscientious bee going from flower to flower.”

  “Of course.” The actor stood up. “I’d better get out of these clothes, anyway. I played three sets of singles and I’ll come down with a monstrous cold if I sit around wet much longer.”

  “Thanks for the wine,” Gretchen said.

  “My pleasure.”

  Dwyer had said, “My pleasure,” too, Rudolph remembered. Everybody was enjoying himself this afternoon, he thought sourly. Except him.

  “Will I see you later, Gretchen? For dinner?” Berling said, tall, but with skinny, stringy legs, Rudolph noticed. I’d look better in tennis shorts, he thought meanly.

  “I daresay,” Gretchen said.

  “A pleasure to have met you, sir,” Berling said to Rudolph.

  Rudolph grunted. If the man was going to call him sir, as though he were on the edge of the grave, he’d be crusty, as befitted his age.

  Brother and sister watched the actor stride out, springy and virile, treading the boards.

  “God, Gretchen,” Rudolph said, when the actor had gone, “you certainly know how to pick them, don’t you?”

  “There’s very little choice at this season,” Gretchen said. “A girl has to take what comes along. Now, what unpleasant thing are you in such a hurry to tell me?” She wasn’t drunk at all, he saw.

  “It’s about Enid,” he said.
“I’d like you to get on the plane with Jean and Enid tomorrow and keep an eye on her. On both of them.”

  “Oh, God,” Gretchen said.

  “I don’t trust my daughter with Jean,” Rudolph went on doggedly.

  “What about you? Aren’t you coming along?”

  “I can’t. There’s too much still to attend to here. And when you get to New York I want you to stay with them in my apartment. Mrs. Johnson’s off on a holiday in St. Louis for another week.”

  “Come on now, Rudy,” Gretchen said. “I’m too old to take up babysitting.”

  “Damn it, Gretchen,” Rudolph said, “after all I’ve done for you …”

  Gretchen put her head back and closed her eyes as though by that physical act she was holding back an angry reply. Still in the same position, and with her eyes still closed, she said, “I don’t have to be reminded every day of what you’ve done for me.”

  “Every day?” Rudolph bit off the words. “When was the last time?”

  “Not in so many words, my dear brother.” She opened her eyes and leaned forward again. “Let’s not argue about it.” She stood up. “You’ve got yourself a baby-sitter. Anyway, it will be nice to be back again in a place where murders happen in the newspapers, not in the bosom of your own family. What time does the plane leave?”

  “Eleven-thirty. I have your ticket.”

  “Think of everything, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Everything.”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do without you, Brother,” Gretchen said. “I’d better start packing myself.” She smiled at him, but he noticed the effort. “Truce?”

  “Truce,” he said.

  On the way to the elevator he stopped at the desk to get his key. “While you were out, Mr. Jordache,” the concierge said, “a lady came by and left a letter for you.” He took an envelope out of the box and gave it to Rudolph with his key. The envelope had only his name on it, in a woman’s handwriting that he felt he had seen someplace before. In the elevator he tore open the envelope and picked the single piece of paper out of it.

  It was from Jeanne.

  Dear American,