Beggarman, Thief

by Irwin Shaw

  “Yes.” He was surprised that the young man knew his name. He certainly didn’t look as though he could afford tennis lessons at El Faro.

  “I’m your cousin,” the young man said, “Wesley Jordache.”

  “Well, now,” Billy said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” They shook hands. Billy noted that his cousin’s hand was a workingman’s hand, hard and powerful.

  “I’ve heard considerable about you, too,” Wesley said.

  “Anything favorable?”

  “Not particularly.” Wesley grinned. “You play a pretty hot game of tennis.”

  “Rosewall isn’t worried,” Billy said, although he was pleased at the compliment.

  “That girl, too,” Wesley said. “She really can run, can’t she?”

  “She’s in good shape,” Billy said.

  “In more ways than one,” Wesley said. “She sure is beautiful.”

  “Skin deep,” Billy said. Carmen’s treatment of him since their argument about the admiral still rankled.

  “Deep enough,” Wesley said. “That’s not a bad job you have, if all the people you get paid to play with look like that.”

  “They don’t. Where’re you staying?”

  “Noplace. I’m on the road,” Wesley said.

  “What brings you here?”

  “You,” Wesley said soberly.

  “Oh.”

  “I thought it would be a good idea finally to see what the other male half of this generation of Jordaches was like.”

  “What do you think so far?”

  “You’ve got a good service and you’re a demon at the net.” They both laughed.

  “So far, so good,” Billy said. “Listen, I’m dying for a beer. Will you join me?”

  “You’re my man,” Wesley said, shouldering his pack.

  As they walked toward the hotel, Billy decided he liked the boy, even though he envied him his size and the obvious strength with which he swung his pack onto his shoulders.

  “My—our Uncle Rudolph told me you knew my father,” Wesley said, as they walked in the direction of the hotel.

  “I met him only once,” Billy said, “when I was a kid. We slept in the same room for a night in our grandmother’s house.”

  “What did you think of him?” Wesley’s tone was carefully noncommittal.

  “I liked him. He made everybody else I’d known seem soft. He’d lived the sort of life I thought I would like to have—fighting, going to sea, seeing all kinds of faraway places. Then—” Billy smiled. “He didn’t sleep in pajamas. Everybody else I ever knew always slept in pajamas. I suppose that became some crazy kind of symbol for me of a freer way of life.”

  Wesley laughed. “You must have been a weird kid,” he said.

  “Not weird enough,” Billy said as they went into the bar and ordered two beers.

  Carmen was there, sitting with her father at a table. She looked up curiously at them, but made no sign of welcome or recognition.

  “The way it turned out,” Billy said, as they drank their beers, “I never had a fight, I never wandered around, and I always sleep in pajamas.” He shrugged. “One other thing impressed me about your father,” he said. “He carried a gun. Boy, oh, boy, I thought when I saw it, there’s at least one person in the family who has guts. I don’t know what he ever did with it.”

  “Nothing,” Wesley said. “It wasn’t within reach when he needed it.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “I’m awfully sorry, Wesley,” Billy said gently, “about what happened, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” Wesley said.

  “What’re your plans?” Billy asked. “I mean from here on in.”

  “I don’t have any real plans just yet,” Wesley said. “See what comes up.”

  Billy had the impression that Wesley knew what he wanted to do, but was evading the question. “My mother,” Billy said, “writes she thinks you could have a great future as a movie actor.”

  “I’m open to offers,” Wesley said, “but not just yet. I’ll wait and see how the picture turns out.”

  “My mother writes that it’s being considered for the festival in Cannes this year.”

  “That’s news to me,” Wesley said. “I’m glad for her sake. She’s really something, your mother. If you don’t mind my butting in, I think it’s about time you were nice to her. I know if she was my mother, I’d do everything I could for her. Maybe it would be a good idea, if they really are going to show the picture in Cannes, to visit her there.”

  “That’s a thought,” Billy said reflectively. “Would you be going?”

  “Yes. I have some other business in Cannes, too.”

  “Maybe we could drive up together,” Billy said. “When is it?”

  “In May. Toward the end of the month.”

  “That’d be about six weeks from now. It’s a good season for traveling.”

  “Can you get away from here?”

  Billy grinned. “You ever hear of tennis elbow?”

  “Yes.”

  “I feel a bad case of tennis elbow coming on. A crippling case, which would take at least two weeks of absolute rest to cure. What’d you be doing until then?”

  Wesley shrugged. “Don’t know. Hang around here for a while, if it’s all the same to you. Maybe take some tennis lessons from you. Maybe get a few weeks’ work down at the harbor.”

  “Do you need dough?”

  “I’m not down to the bone yet,” Wesley said, “but a little dough would come in handy.”

  “The guy who works at the pool here—cleaning it up, putting out the mats, stuff like that, with a little lifeguarding on the side—quit two days ago. Can you swim?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Want me to ask if the job’s still open?”

  “That might be fun,” Wesley said.

  “I have two beds in my room,” Billy said. “You could camp in with me.”

  “Don’t you have a girl?”

  “Not at the moment,” Billy said. “And nothing, as far as I can tell, on the horizon.”

  “I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

  “That’s what cousins are for,” Billy said. “To be nuisances to each other.”

  The next day, Wesley started working at the pool. At night, under the lights, Billy began teaching him how to play tennis. Wesley was very fast and a natural athlete, and soon he was hitting the ball harder than anybody on the courts. He played with abandon, his face intent, his eyes narrowed, and slugged the ball as though he was disposing of enemies. Although Billy was proud of Wesley’s constant improvement under his tutelage, the sober ferocity with which Wesley played made him uneasy and at times he wanted to say, “Remember, it’s only a game.” He had the disturbing impression that nothing in his young cousin’s life was ever a game.

  Billy enjoyed having Wesley around and soon discovered that he was an ideal roommate, keeping everything neat and shipshape, which, after Monika’s messy housekeeping, was refreshing. The manager of the hotel was pleased with Wesley’s work and congratulated Billy for having found him. After Billy had introduced Wesley to Carmen, her attitude changed, too, and she soon was inviting them both to dinner at one of the small restaurants on the port when her father wasn’t with her at the hotel. Wesley’s manner with Carmen was grave and courteous, and Billy found that Carmen, who had until then not been addicted to swimming, was spending the best part of the hot mornings at the pool. After Billy had told her that his mother had directed Wesley in a movie, Carmen even began to show a moderate respect for Billy and his opinions, and when a movie that she wanted to see was playing in town, took them both with her to see it. She was partial to gory films, with sad endings, and liked to come out of the theater with her cheeks streaked with tears.

  Best of all, after the second week of her lessons, Monika told him she was discontinuing her daily hours, as she was leaving the next morning. But, she said coldly, as she gave him a generous tip, she would be coming back, although she didn’t tell h
im when. “We look forward to seeing you again,” she said, although she didn’t tell him who the “we” were.

  “Don’t you want to hear what happened on the rue du Gros-Cail-lou?” Billy asked her, as she gathered up her things.

  “I know what happened on the rue du Gros-Caillou,” she said. “The wrong man got killed. Among several others.”

  “I tried to call you,” he said.

  “You didn’t leave a forwarding address,” she said. “Don’t make that mistake again. Do you intend to be a small-time tennis pro in this miserable country all your life?”

  “I don’t know what I intend,” he said.

  “How did you meet that boy at the pool?”

  “He just wandered in one day,” Billy lied. He had told no one that Wesley was his cousin and he didn’t want him to get mixed up with a woman like Monika.

  “I don’t believe you,” Monika said calmly.

  “I can’t help that.”

  “He has a good face,” Monika said. “Strong and passionate. Someday I must have a long talk with him.”

  “Keep your hands off him.”

  “I don’t take instructions from you,” Monika said. “Remember that.”

  “I remember a lot of things about you,” he said. “Some of them delicious. How is your memory these days?”

  “Bad,” she said, “very bad. Thank you for being so patient with me on the tennis court, even though it wasn’t much help, was it?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re hopeless.”

  “I hope you have more success with your other pupils. That blond Spanish bitch, for example. How much does she pay you to be her gigolo? Do you have to have a union card for that profession in Spain?”

  “I don’t have to listen to crap like that from anybody,” he said angrily.

  “You may have to get used to it, laddy,” she said, “after a few years at the game. Adiós! Johnny.”

  He watched her walk away. His hands were shaking as he pocketed the tip Monika had given him and picked up his racket to start the next lesson. With it all, he couldn’t help hoping she would turn around and. come back and give him the number of her room and ask him to come up after midnight.

  Wesley was writing a letter at the desk in their room as Billy dressed for a party two weeks later. It was to be a flamenco party with a group of gypsies hired for the occasion, and the guests had been asked to dress in Spanish clothes. Billy had bought a frilled shirt and borrowed some tight black pants, a bolero jacket and high-heeled boots from one of the musicians in the band. Wesley had been invited, too, but had said he’d rather write some letters. Besides, he said, he’d feel like a fool in a get-up like Billy’s.

  He had received a letter from Gretchen that morning, in which she had written that Restoration Comedy had been chosen for a showing at the Cannes Festival and asking him to come there and take a bow and share in the kudos. Rudolph was coming over with her and David Donnelly. Frances Miller, as the star of the picture, was going to try to come for at least three days. It promised to be an interesting two weeks. She was pleased, Gretchen wrote, that he had finally met Billy and that they liked each other and she wondered if he could influence Billy to come to Cannes, too.

  “Billy,” Wesley said as Billy was struggling into the musician’s boots, “I’m writing to your mother. She would like us both to come to Cannes. What should I tell her?”

  “Tell her …” Billy hesitated, one boot on, the other still off, “tell her … Okay, why not?”

  “She’ll be pleased,” Wesley said.

  “What the hell,” Billy said, getting into the second boot and standing up, “I suppose once every ten years a man can do something to please his mother. How do I look?”

  “Ridiculous,” Wesley said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Billy said agreeably. “Well, I’m off to the gypsies, tra-la, tra-la.” He did a little stamping step and they both laughed.

  “Have a good time,” Wesley said.

  “If I’m not back by morning, you’ll know I’ve been kidnapped. You know how those gypsies are. Don’t pay more than thirteen dollars and fifty cents in ransom.”

  He went out, whistling the toreador song from Carmen.

  The gypsies were fine, the guitar and castanets blood-tingling, the music and singing sorrowful, full of wailing passion, the dancing proud and fierce, the wine plentiful. Again, as he had felt when he first crossed the border into Spain, Billy had the feeling he had come to the right country for him.

  Why deny it, he thought, as the music boomed around him and the girls with roses in their hair flounced their skirts and advanced erotically toward their partners only to repel them, with a clatter of thick heels, at the last moment, why deny it, the pleasures of the rich are real pleasures. Carmen sat next to him most of the evening, resplendent in a dark dress that showed off her lovely shoulders and full bosom and he could see her eyes gleaming with excitement. It was a long way from the proms at the college in Whitby and Billy was happy that he had put all that distance behind him.

  One of the male dancers came over to Carmen and pulled her up from where she was sitting to join him. She danced joyously and very well; as well, Billy thought, as any of the professional dancers, her long bright hair flying, her face set in traditional proud disdain. Whatever else she felt about Spain, Billy saw, its music struck some deep, responsive, racial core in her. The dance finished and the guests applauded loudly, Billy among them. Instead of sitting down again, Carmen came over to him and pulled him up. To general laughter and handclapping, Billy began to dance with her, mimicking the movements of the male dancers. He was a good dancer and he managed to move almost like the gypsies, while at the same moment slyly making fun of his own performance. Carmen caught on to what he was doing and laughed in the middle of one of her wildest passages. When the dance was over she kissed him, although the sweat was streaming down his face.

  “I need some air,” he said. “Let’s go outside for a minute.”

  Unobtrusively, they left the room and went out onto the terrace. The sky was turbulent and dark, with black, scattered clouds moving across the face of the moon.

  “You were wonderful,” Carmen said.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Later,” he whispered, “I want to come to your room.”

  She stood still in his arms for a moment, then pushed him away from her. “I will dance with you,” she said coldly, “and play tennis with you and argue with you. But I wouldn’t dream of making love to you in a thousand years.”

  “But the way you looked at me …”

  “That was part of the fun,” she said, wiping her mouth contemptuously. “All of the fun. No more. If I were going to make love to anyone in this corrupt place it would be with the young man at the pool.”

  “I see.” His voice was hoarse with anger and disappointment. “Do you want me to tell him that?”

  “Yes,” she said. As baldly as that.

  “I’ll do just that,” he said. “As always, at your service, ma’am.”

  “My room number is 301. Can you remember that?”

  “Till my dying day.”

  She laughed. The laugh was not pleasant. “I must go back,” she said. “People noticed we left together. This is a backward country, as you know, and we put great store on appearances. Are you coming in with me?”

  “No,” he said. “I have a message to deliver. And then I’m going to sleep.”

  “Pleasant dreams,” she said and turned and went back toward the music.

  He walked slowly toward his room, the sweat getting suddenly cold on his body in the night wind and making him shiver. Beware the se-ñoritas, his father had written. Good old Dad knew what he was talking about.

  Wesley was asleep when he got to the room. He slept restlessly, moving around in sudden jerks, making a tangle of the covers and moaning from time to time, as though at night some ineradicable anguish that he avoided or disguised during the day took hold of him. Billy stood next to t
he bed, looking down at his new cousin, not knowing whether he pitied him or loved him or hated him.

  He nearly started to undress and get into the other bed, leaving Wesley to his sorrowful dreams, but finally he thought, What the hell, it’s all in the family, and shook the boy awake.

  Wesley sat up with a start. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I just came from the party,” Billy said, “and I have some news for you. If you go to room 301 you will find a lady waiting for you. Her name is Carmen. She asked me to tell you personally.”

  Wesley was completely awake now. “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “I was never more serious in my life.”

  “What in blazes made her say something like that?”

  “In your place, I wouldn’t ask any questions,” Billy said. “You’ve told me how beautiful she is. If it were me, I’d grab while the grabbing is good.”

  “I don’t love her,” Wesley said. He sounded petulant and unhappy, like a small boy being asked to perform a distasteful chore for the first time, making Billy conscious of the seven-year difference in their ages.

  “You’re playing with the grown-ups now,” Billy said. “Love is not always a prime consideration in matters like this. Are you going?”

  Wesley swung out of bed and sat on the edge, hunched over. He slept only in pajama bottoms, and the muscles of his torso gleamed in the light of the lamp Billy had turned on when he came into the room. He looks like a beaten fighter, Billy thought, who knows he’s going to be knocked out in the next round.

  “I don’t want to sound like a fool,” Wesley said, “but I can’t do it. I’m in love with someone else. A great girl. Back in New York. She’s going to try to come over to Europe to see me in a few weeks. I don’t care what that lady will think of me,” he said defiantly, “I’m waiting for my girl.”

  “You may regret this later,” Billy warned him.

  “Never. You think she’s beautiful, too, you know her a lot better than I do—why don’t you go?”

  “The lady has made it clear,” Billy said, “that she would not be pleased to see me in room 301.”