Beggarman, Thief

by Irwin Shaw

  As they walked out onto the court together, Billy said in a low voice, “Monika, what sort of game are you up to?”

  “My name is Señorita Hitzman,” she said coldly, “Mr. Abbott.”

  “If you want the money I took to Paris—and the other—the other part of the package,” Billy said, “I can get it for you. It would take some time, but I could do it …”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Abbott.”

  “Oh, come on, now,” he said, irritated. “Mr. Abbott. You didn’t call me Mr. Abbott when we were fucking all afternoon in Brussels.”

  “If you go on like this, Mr. Abbott,” she said, “I’ll have to report you to the management for wasting valuable time in conversation instead of doing what you’re supposed to do—which is to teach me how to play tennis.”

  “You’ll never learn to play tennis.”

  “In that case,” she said calmly, “that will be another failure for you to remember when you grow old. Now, if you please, I would like to start the lesson.”

  He sighed, then went to the other side of the court and started lobbing balls onto her racket. She was no better at returning them than she had been the morning before.

  When the lesson was over, she said, “Thank you, Mr. Abbott,” and walked off the court.

  That afternoon he beat Carmen six-love, six-three, maliciously mixing his game with lobs and dropshots to make her run until she was red in the face. She too walked off the court with one curt phrase: “You played like a eunuch.” She did not invite him to have a drink with her.

  Spain, he thought, as he watched her stride toward the hotel, her blond hair flying, is becoming much less agreeable than it used to be.

  « »

  Wesley took the train from London to Bath, enjoying looking out the window at the neat green countryside of rural England. After the tensions and uncertainties of America, it had been soothing to walk around London, where he knew no one and no one expected anything of him. He had been having lunch standing up at the bar of a pub when the voice of the barmaid had reminded him of the way Kate spoke. Suddenly he realized how much he had missed her. He finished his sandwich and went to the railroad station and took the first train to Bath. She would be surprised to see him. Pleasantly surprised, he hoped.

  When he got to Bath, he gave the address to a taxi driver and sat back and stared curiously at the neat streets and graceful buildings of the town, thinking, This sure has Indianapolis beat.

  The taxi stopped in front of a narrow small house, painted white, one of a whole row of similar small houses. He paid the taxi driver and rang the doorbell. A moment later the door opened and a short woman with gray hair, wearing an apron, said, “Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” Wesley said. “Is Kate home?”

  “Who are you, please?”

  “Wesley Jordache, ma’am.”

  “Well, Good Lord.” The woman smiled widely. She put out her hand and he shook it. It was a callused workingwoman’s hand. “I’ve heard all about you. Come in, come in, boy. I’m Kate’s mother.”

  “How do you do, Mrs. Bailey,” Wesley said.

  The door opened directly on the small living room. On the floor a baby crawled around in a playpen, cooing to itself. “That’s your brother, Wesley,” Mrs. Bailey said. “Leastwise, your half brother. Tom’s his name.”

  “I know,” Wesley said. He eyed the baby with interest. “He seems like a nice, healthy kid, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s a love,” Mrs. Bailey said. “Happy all the day long. Can I fix you a cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’d like to see Kate if she’s home.”

  “She’s at work,” Mrs. Bailey said. “You can find her there. It’s the King’s Arms Pub. It’s just a few blocks away. Lord, she’ll be glad to see you. Will you be staying for supper?”

  “I’ll see how things work out with Kate. Hey, Tommy,” he said, going over to the playpen, “how’re you doing?”

  The baby smiled up at him and made a gurgling sound. Wesley leaned over and put his hand out to the baby, one finger outstretched. The baby sat up, then grabbed the finger and stood up, wobbling, as Wesley gently raised his hand. The baby laughed triumphantly. Wesley was surprised at how strong the little hand felt around his finger. “Tommy,” he said, “you’ve got one powerful grip.”

  The baby laughed again, then let go and flopped back on his behind. Wesley looked down at him, a peculiar emotion, one he had never felt before, seizing him, tender and at the same time obscurely anxious. The baby was happy now. Maybe he himself had been happy at that age, too. He wondered how long it would last for his brother. With Kate as his mother, maybe forever.

  “Now,” he said to Mrs. Bailey, “if you’ll tell me how to find the pub …”

  “Left as you go out of the house,” Mrs. Bailey said, “for three blocks and you’ll see it on the corner.” She opened the front door for him. She stood next to him, barely coming up to his shoulder, her face sweet and plain. “I must tell you, Wesley,” she said soberly, “the time my daughter was with your father was the loveliest. She’ll never forget it. And now would it be too much to ask if I said I’d like one big hug?”

  Wesley put his arms around her and hugged her and kissed the top of her head. When she stepped back, he saw her eyes were wet, although she was smiling. “You mustn’t be a stranger,” she said.

  “I’ll be back,” Wesley said. “Somebody’ll have to teach him how to play baseball instead of cricket and it might as well be me.”

  Mrs. Bailey laughed. “You’re a good boy,” she said. “You’re just as Kate said you were.”

  She stood at the open door watching him as he turned down the sunny street.

  The King’s Arms was a small pub, paneled in dark wood, with small casks for sherry and port high up behind the bar. It was almost three o’clock, closing time, and there was only one old man seated at a small round table dozing over a pint of bitter. Kate was rinsing glasses and a man in an apron was putting bottles of beer onto shelves as Wesley came in.

  He stood at the bar, not saying anything, waiting for Kate to look up from her work. When she did, she said, “What would you like, sir?”

  Wesley grinned at her.

  “Wesley!” she cried. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Dying of thirst.”

  “Would you really like a beer?”

  “No. I just want to look at you.”

  “I’m a mess,” she said.

  “No, you’re not.” She looked very much as he had remembered her, not as brown perhaps, and a little fuller in the face and bosom. “You look beautiful.”

  She looked at him solemnly. “It’s not true,” she said, “but it’s nice to hear.”

  The clock over the bar struck three and she called, “Time, gentlemen, please.” The old man at the table shook himself awake, drained his glass, stood up and went out.

  Kate came out from behind the bar and stopped a few feet from Wesley to examine him. “You’ve become a man,” she said.

  “Not exactly,” Wesley said.

  Then she kissed him and held him for a moment. “I’m so glad to see you again. How did you know where to find me?”

  “I went to your house. Your mother told me.”

  “Did you see the baby?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Stupendous.”

  “He’s not stupendous, but he’ll do.” Wesley could see she was pleased. “Let me throw on a coat and we’ll go for a nice long walk and you’ll tell me everything that’s happened to you.”

  As they went out the door she called to the man behind the bar, “See you at six, Ally.”

  The man grunted.

  “This is a pretty town,” Wesley said, as they strolled in the mild sunshine, her hand lightly on his arm. “It looks like a nice place to live.”

  “Bath.” She shrugged. “It’s seen better days. The quality used to come here for the season and tak
e the waters and marry off their daughters and gamble. Now it’s mostly tourists. It’s a little like living in a museum. I don’t know where the quality goes these days. Or if there’s any quality left.”

  “Do you miss the Mediterranean?”

  She dropped her hand from his arm and stared reflectively ahead of her as she walked. “Some things about the Med, yes.…” she said. “Other things not at all. Let’s not talk about it, please. Now, tell me what you’ve been up to.”

  By the time he had told her about what he’d been doing in America, they had walked over a good part of the small city. She shook her head sadly when he told her about Indianapolis and became pensive when he told her about the people he had talked to about his father and stared at him with a kind of respectful awe when he described his part in Gretchen’s movie.

  “An actor,” she said. “Who would have ever thought? You going to keep it up?”

  “Maybe later on,” he said. “I have some things I have to attend to in Europe.”

  “What parts of Europe?” She stared at him suspiciously. “Cannes, for instance?”

  “If you must know,” he said, “yes. Cannes.”

  She nodded. “Bunny was afraid that finally you’d come to that.”

  “Finally,” Wesley said.

  “I’d like to take revenge on the whole fucking world,” she said. “But I serve drinks in a bar. Revenge has to stop somewhere, Wesley.”

  “Revenge has to start somewhere, too,” he said.

  “And if you get yourself killed, who’ll revenge you?” Her voice was bitter and harsh.

  “Somebody else will have to figure that out.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you. You’re too much like your father. I never could argue him out of anything. If nothing will stop you, I wish you well. Do it smart, at least. And supposing you do it and suppose you get away with it, which is a lot of supposing, what’ll you do then?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Wesley said. “With the money I get from the inheritance and the money I may be able to make in the movies, in a couple of years I might have enough to buy a boat, something like the Clothilde, anyway, and charter.…”

  Kate shook her head impatiently. “You can be your father’s son,” she said, “but you can’t be your father. Lead your own life, Wesley.”

  “It’ll be my own life,” he said. “I even thought that with the money you’re getting from the estate, maybe you’d like to come in with me as a partner and crew the ship, with me. By the time we can buy a ship, the kid, Tommy …” He stumbled over the name. “He’d be old enough to be safe on board and …”

  “Dreams,” she said. “Old dreams.”

  They walked in silence for half a block.

  “I have to tell you something, Wesley,” she said. “My money’s gone. I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Gone?” he said incredulously. “The way you live …”

  “I know the way I live,” she said bitterly. “I live like a fool. There’s a man who says he wants to marry me. He’s in business for himself, he owns a small trucking business in Bath. He said he needed what I had to keep from going into bankruptcy.”

  “And you gave him the dough?”

  She nodded. “I thought I was in love with him. You’ve got to understand something about me. I’m not a woman that can live without a man. I see him just about every afternoon when the pub closes. I was supposed to go to his place this afternoon and he’ll be mortal mad when he comes around this evening and I tell him I spent the afternoon with Tom’s son. He won’t even look at the baby when he comes home to take me out.”

  “And you want to marry a man like that?”

  “He wasn’t like that until after he lost the money,” she said. “He was plain wonderful until then. With me, the baby, my mother …” She sighed. “You’re young, you think things are black and white.… Well, I’ve got news for you. For a woman my age, my family, working at lousy jobs all my life, not pretty, nothing is easy.” She looked at her watch. “It’s nearly five o’clock. I make a point of having at least an hour with Tommy before I have to go back to work.”

  They walked back to her mother’s house in silence. There was a car parked in front of the house, with a man at the wheel. “That’s him,” Kate said. “Waiting and fuming.”

  The man got out of the car as Kate and Wesley came up to the house. He was a big, heavy man, red-faced and smelling from drink. “Where the fuck you been?” he said loudly. “I been waiting since three o’clock.”

  “I took a little walk with this young gentleman,” Kate said calmly. “Harry, this is Wesley Jordache, he came to visit me. Harry Dawson.”

  “Took a little walk, did you?” Dawson ignored the introduction. He slapped her, hard. It happened so suddenly that Wesley had no time to react.

  “I’ll teach you to take little walks,” Dawson shouted and raised his hand again.

  “Wait a minute, pal,” Wesley said and grabbed the man’s arm and pushed him away from Kate, who was standing, bent over, her two hands up to protect her face.”

  “Let go of me, you fucking Yank,” Dawson said, trying to pull his arm free.

  “You’ve done all the hitting you’re going to do today, mister.” Wesley pushed Dawson farther back with his shoulder. Dawson wrenched his hand free and punched Wesley high on the forehead. Wesley nearly went down from the force of the blow, then grunted and swung. He hit Dawson square in the mouth and Dawson grappled with him and they both fell, tangled, to the pavement. Wesley took two more punches to the head before he could knee the man in the groin and use his hands on the man’s face. Dawson went limp and Wesley stood up, over him. He kicked Dawson viciously in the head, twice.

  Kate, who had been standing, bent over, without making a sound as the men fought, now ran at him and put her arms around him, pulling him away from the man on the ground. “That’s enough now,” she cried. “You don’t want to kill him, do you?”

  “That’s just what I want to do,” Wesley said, trembling with rage. But he allowed Kate to lead him away.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked, still with her arms around him.

  “Nah,” he said, although his head felt as though he had been hit with a brick. “Nothing much. You can let go of me now. I won’t touch your goddamn friend.”

  “Wesley,” Kate said, speaking swiftly, “you have to get out of here. Go on right back to London. When he gets up …”

  “He won’t do any more harm,” Wesley said. “He learned his lesson.”

  “He’ll come back at you,” Kate said. “And not alone. And he’ll bring some of the men from his yard with him. And they won’t come barehanded. Go, please, go right now.…”

  “How about you?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be all right. Just go.”

  “I hate to leave you with that miserable, thieving bastard.” He looked down at Dawson, who was beginning to move, although his eyes were still closed.

  “He won’t come near me again,” Kate said. “I’m finished with him.”

  “You just saying that to get me out of here?” Wesley said.

  “I swear it’s the truth. If he ever tries to come near me again, I’ll have the police on him.” She kissed Wesley on the mouth. “Good-bye, Tommy.”

  “Tommy?” Wesley laughed.

  Kate laughed, too, putting her hand to her face distractedly. “Too much has happened today. Take care of yourself, Wesley. I’m so sorry you had to get mixed up in this. Now go.”

  Wesley looked at Dawson, who was trying to sit up and was fumbling blearily at his bloody lips. Wesley knelt on one knee beside Dawson and grabbed him roughly by his necktie. “Listen, you ape,” he said, his face close to Dawson’s puffed ear, “if I ever hear you touched her again, I’ll be back for you. And what you got today will seem like a picnic compared to what you get. Do you understand?”

  Dawson blubbered something unintelligible through his cut lips.

  Still holdi
ng the man’s tie, Wesley slapped his face, the noise sharp and loud. He heard Kate gasp as he stood up.

  “End of chapter,” Wesley said. He kissed Kate on the cheek, then walked down the street without looking back. His head still hurt, but he strode lightly along, feeling better and better, the memory of the fight making him feel wonderfully at peace with the world. He felt wonderful on the train, too, all the way to London.

  « »

  Billy was playing with Carmen, this time without malice, when a young man in blue jeans, with streaked blond hair, a backpack on his shoulders, appeared at the court, stood watching the game for a while, then took off the backpack and sat down on the grass outside the court to watch in comfort. Travelers with backpacks were not a usual sight at El Faro and Billy found himself glancing over at the young man with curiosity. The expression on the young man’s face was grave and interested, although he showed no signs of either approval or disapproval when Carmen or Billy made particularly good shots or committed errors.

  Carmen, Billy noticed, seemed equally curious and also kept glancing frequently at the spectator sitting on the grass. “Do you know who that boy is?” she asked, as they were changing courts between games.

  “Never saw him before,” Billy said, as he used the towel to dry off his forehead.

  “He’s an improvement on that Hitzman woman,” Carmen said. Monika had taken to appearing a little after four o’clock, which was the hour at which they started every day, and watching Carmen and Billy play. “There’s something peculiar about that woman, as though she’s not interested in the tennis, but somehow in us. And not in a nice way.”

  “I give her a lesson every morning,” Billy said, remembering that his father had also said there was something peculiar about Monika when he had seen her in Brussels. “Maybe she’s decided to become a student of the game.”

  They started playing once more and Billy ran out the set, using orthodox, non-eunuch shots.

  “Thank you,” Carmen said, as she put on a sweater. “That was more like it.” She didn’t ask him to go up to the hotel with her for a drink and smiled at the young man on the grass as she passed him. He didn’t smile back, Billy noticed. Billy didn’t have any more lessons that afternoon, so he put on his sweater and started off the court. The young man stood up and said, “Mr. Abbott?”