Beggarman, Thief

by Irwin Shaw

  After the final fade-out, the applause was loud and sustained, greater than that at any of the other movies Billy had heard about since the festival opened. Then people began turning around and applauding, and he saw that they were applauding his mother, who was standing, smiling tremulously, at the railing of the balcony. Billy, near tears himself, clapped with the heartiest of the people around him. As he filed out of the hall, moved by his mother’s accomplishment, he wondered what had driven him to be such a bastard with his mother for all those years.

  Outside, on the Croisette, he saw a cluster of young people getting autographs from a man who was standing with his back toward him. Whoever it was, he was almost obscured by a tall, bulky boy in blue jeans. Curiously, Billy went toward the group. Then he stopped. The man who was autographing programs and notebooks and scraps of paper was Wesley. Billy grinned. The ham, he thought, I should have known he couldn’t resist seeing himself. He pushed his way, as politely as possible, through the little crowd around Wesley, who was bending over, signing a notebook held out to him by a short girl in a gypsy skirt. “Mr. Jordan,” Billy said, lisping in a high, feminine voice, “will you sign my program for me? I think you’re just wonderful.”

  Wesley looked up from the notebook. “Go fuck yourself, Billy,” he said. But there was a pleased smile on his face.

  Billy took Wesley’s arm firmly. “That’s all for the moment, boys and girls,” he said loudly. “Mr. Jordan has to go upstairs for the press conference. Come with me, sir.” He started off, still holding Wesley’s arm. Wesley held back for a moment, then walked beside him. “You’re just what my mother needs today,” Billy said, “and you can’t let her down.”

  “Yeah,” Wesley said. “Jesus, she’s a wonder, isn’t she?”

  “A wonder,” said Billy. “And you’re going to tell her so. You were pretty wonderful yourself in there, too, you know.”

  “Not too bad,” Wesley said complacently, the smile now permanently glued on his face.

  As they waited for the elevator to take them up to the conference room, Billy said in a low voice, “Any luck in finding the man?”

  Wesley shook his head.

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you forgot all about it?”

  Finally, Wesley stopped smiling. “No, it’s not time.”

  “Movie stars don’t go around murdering people,” Billy said.

  “I’m not a movie star,” Wesley said shortly.

  “Everybody in Cannes knows your face by now,” said Billy. “You won’t be by yourself long enough to swat a fly without witnesses, let alone kill a man.” Then he had to keep quiet because two other people joined them waiting for the elevator.

  Gretchen was just beginning to speak in the conference room, crowded with journalists and cameramen, as Billy and Wesley came in. She saw them immediately and broke off what she was saying. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her voice not under full control, “I have just had a most pleasant surprise. One of the most promising young actors I have ever seen has just walked into the room. Wesley, will you come up here, please.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Wesley muttered under his breath.

  “Get up there, idiot.” Billy pushed him toward the raised platform where Gretchen was standing. Slowly, Wesley made his way through the crowd and stepped onto the platform. Gretchen kissed him and then, addressing the room, said, “I have the honor to introduce Wesley Jordan.”

  There was hearty applause and flashbulbs going off everywhere and the smile, now a little glassy, reappeared on Wesley’s face. Billy slipped out of the room. He could hear the applause continuing as he walked quickly toward the elevators.

  Outside, he left the Croisette and went into a café and ordered a beer, took a sip, asked for a token for the telephone, then went downstairs where the booth was located. He looked in the directory for the préfecture de police, found the number and dialed it. A man’s voice said, “Allo.”

  “This evening at six o’clock at a café called the Voile Vert, on the rue d’Antibes,” Billy said in French, with a harsh Midi accent, which he had only used before to amuse people at parties, “you will find a man sitting at a table with a copy of L’Express in his hands and a copy of Le Nouvel Observateur on the table in front of him …”

  “One moment.” The policeman’s voice was excited and he stumbled over the words. “Who is this? What do you want?”

  “On the floor under the table,” Billy went on, “you will find a bomb.”

  “A bomb!” the man shouted. “What are you saying? A bomb for what?”

  “It will be timed to go off at nine forty-five tonight,” Billy said. “Six this evening, the Voile Vert.”

  “Wait a minute. I must …” the policeman shouted more loudly.

  Billy hung up the phone and went up to the bar and finished his beer.

  « »

  They were in Gretchen’s salon after the evening showing of the picture, drinking champagne, and Simpson, the publicity man, was saying, “We’re going to take home everything—best picture, best actress, best supporting actor. I guarantee it.” He was a tall gaunt man, with a mournful, seamed face and he waved his hands as he talked. “I usually have a tendency to look at the worst side of things, but this time …” He shook his head wonderingly, as though the immensity of the treasure entrusted to him was beyond his comprehension. “I’ve been coming to Cannes for fifteen years and I tell you that was one of the most enthusiastic audiences I’ve ever seen down here. As for you, young man,” he turned to Wesley, who was sitting next to Billy on a small sofa, dressed in a dinner jacket that was too tight and too short that the publicity man had borrowed for him for the evening, “as for you, I’d bet my left nut that you’re going home with a prize.”

  Wesley just sat there, a glass of champagne in his hand, the permanent glassy smile on his face. Billy got up and poured himself his fifth glass of champagne. He had sat through the beginning of the picture staring blankly at the screen. The images had made no sense to him and the dialogue had seemed to come out of the actors’ mouths in spurts of nonsense syllables. He had kept looking at his watch until nine forty-five and then had slumped in his seat and closed his eyes.

  Gretchen looked pale and drawn, nervously pulling a ring on and off her finger. The champagne that Billy had poured for her lay untouched in the glass on the end table beside her. She had said hardly a word all night. From time to time Rudolph, who was sitting next to her on the sofa, reached out and patted her arm soothingly. Donnelly, standing leaning against the fireplace, tugged at his beard and seemed annoyed at the publicity man’s effusions.

  “Tomorrow,” Simpson said, “is going to be a full day for you, Gretchen, and for Wesley. Everybody, but everybody, will be wanting to talk to you and take photos. I’ll give you the schedule at nine in the morning and …”

  Rudolph and Donnelly exchanged glances and Rudolph stood up and broke in on Simpson. “If it’s going to be a big day I think Gretchen had better get some rest. We all ought to leave her alone now.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Donnelly said.

  “Of course,” said Simpson. “It’s just that I’m so excited with what we have here that …”

  “We understand, old man,” Rudolph said. He bent and kissed Gretchen. “Good night, Sister,” he said.

  She smiled wanly up at him. As they all prepared to leave she stood up and went over to Donnelly and took his hand. “David,” she said, “could you stay on for a little while?”

  “Of course,” Donnelly said. He stared sternly at Billy.

  Billy tried to smile, then kissed Gretchen’s cheek. “Thanks, Mother,” he said, “for a marvelous day.”

  Gretchen gripped his arm, briefly, then broke into a sob. “Forgive me,” she said. “It’s just that it’s—well—it’s all too much for me. I’ll be all right in the morning.” Wesley opened the door and was about to go out when Gretchen called to him. “Wesley, you’re not going to disappear again, are you?”


  “No, ma’am,” Wesley said. “I’m just two floors down if you need me.” Rudolph had tried to put him in the same room with Billy, but Billy had said he was afraid of sleeping in the bed next to Wesley’s, there was no telling what that crazy boy might do, even on a night like this. He hadn’t told Rudolph what he really was afraid of and with any luck Rudolph would never find out.

  As the door closed behind the four men and they went down the corridor, Rudolph said, “I’m not sleepy. I have a bottle of champagne in my room, too. Would you like to help me with it?”

  “I have some people to see about tomorrow,” Simpson said, “but you boys drink hearty.” He stood against the back of the elevator wall, gaunt and mournful, doomed to praise other people and never himself all his life, as he raised an eloquent hand in a parting salute to the uncle and two nephews who were going to continue the evening’s celebration with a bottle of champagne while he prepared the morning.

  As Rudolph wrestled with the cork of the champagne bottle, he noticed Wesley eyeing the locked bag on the chair near the window. “I bet,” Wesley said, as the cork popped and Rudolph began to pour, “I bet it’s right in there.”

  “What’s right in there?” Rudolph said.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Wesley said.

  “Drink your champagne.” Rudolph raised his glass.

  Wesley put his glass down deliberately and reached into the pocket of the borrowed dinner jacket and brought out a small pistol. “I don’t need it anymore,” he said evenly. “Keep it as a souvenir.”

  “Crazy as ever,” Billy said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Wesley said.

  They drank.

  Wesley put the pistol back in his pocket.

  “So,” Rudolph said, “you were sitting there in the hall watching yourself act and taking bows with that thing on you all night.”

  “Yep,” Wesley said. “You never know when a target might show up.”

  Rudolph paced around the room, frowning. “Wesley,” he said, “what if I told you that the matter will be taken care of without your having to do anything about it?”

  “What does that mean? Taken care of?”

  “It means that right now, as we drink champagne in this room, a professional killer is looking for your man.”

  “I’d say I don’t want anybody to do the job for me,” Wesley said coldly, “and I don’t want any more gifts from you or anyone else.”

  “I intend to stay here in Cannes until the end of the festival,” Rudolph said. “That’s only ten days. If the job isn’t done by then, I’m going home and calling it quits. All I want from you is a promise that you won’t do anything until then. After that, you’re on your own.”

  “I’m not promising anything,” Wesley said.

  “Wesley …” Billy said.

  Wesley turned on him sharply. “You keep out of this. You’ve meddled enough already.”

  “Calm down,” Rudolph said. “Both of you. Another thing, Wesley. Your friend Miss Larkin called the other day. You owe her a lot, too.”

  “More than you know,” Wesley said. “What did she have to say?”

  “She wants to come over here. She thinks she can get leave from the magazine for two weeks. She’s waiting for a call from you.”

  Wesley finished his glass of wine. “Let her wait,” he said.

  “She said you knew she might come over. That you wanted her to come.”

  “I thought the whole thing would be over by now,” Wesley said. “Well, it isn’t over. I’ll see her some other time.”

  “Ah, the hell with it,” Rudolph said. “I’m not going to play Cupid with all the other things I’m doing. Let’s finish the bottle. I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “What’re you going to do now?” Billy asked Wesley when they were alone in front of the hotel.

  “Night patrol,” Wesley said. “Want to come along?”

  “No.”

  Wesley looked quizzically at Billy. “What do you think of all this?” he asked.

  “I’m scared shitless,” Billy said. “For all of us.”

  Wesley nodded solemnly.

  “I’ll walk with you as far as the parking lot,” Billy said. “I forgot to put the top up on the car and it looks as though it might rain.”

  Wesley helped as they put the top up and Billy rolled up the windows. “Wesley,” Billy said, “it still would be a nice idea if we two drove up to Paris, with a few stops for tennis and feasts along the way. You could ask your girl to meet you there. They’ll drive you bats down here in the next ten days. How much harm can another ten days do after all this time?”

  “I’ll play tennis all right with you, Billy,” Wesley said. “Down here. Good night, pal.”

  Billy watched the tall figure in the dark suit with the little bulge in the pocket stride off. He shook his head and walked back to the hotel. In his room he double-locked the door.

  The next morning he awoke early and sent down for the newspapers. Along with the special sheets put out for the festival, the bellboy brought a copy of Nice-Matin. On the front page there was a photograph of a man who looked familiar. The man was wearing dark glasses in the photograph and he was between two policemen. It was Monika’s frozen-food friend from Diisseldorf. In the accompanying story, Billy read that he had been arrested on an anonymous tip over the telephone and that he had been caught with a bomb in his possession hidden in a motion picture camera case. The man who had phoned in the tip, the article continued, had spoken in a pronounced Midi accent.

  Billy smiled as he read that. Wesley, he thought, was not the only actor in the family.

  « »

  They played tennis the next morning, driving over to a quiet club in Juan-les-Pins in the little open car, Wesley, in blue jeans and faded cotton shirt and a tweed jacket with frayed cuffs, not looking so much like an actor who had been acclaimed in the press as a man with an exciting career ahead of him. Billy had touched the little bulge in the pocket with distaste and had said, “Can’t you leave that damn thing at home even when you play tennis? It gives me the willies. I have the feeling you’ll take it out and shoot me if I ace you once too often.”

  Wesley smiled benignly. “Where I go, it goes,” he said. And when they went out to the court he wore the jacket over his tennis clothes and before they started to play laid it carefully over a bench near the net, where he could see it at all times.

  The first day Wesley played with the same old wild abandon, hitting the ball savagely, more often than not into the net or to the backstop. After two hours of that Billy said, “That’s enough for today. If you acted like that they wouldn’t let you as much as see a movie even if you paid for the ticket.”

  Wesley grinned. “Youthful high spirits,” he said, putting on the tweed coat over his soaked shirt. “I promise to reform.”

  “Starting when?”

  “Starting tomorrow,” Wesley promised.

  When they went in to take their showers, although there was nobody else in the locker room, Wesley insisted that Billy stay in the room and watch his jacket while he took the first shower.

  “I’ve done some foolish things in my time,” Billy complained, “but this is the first time I’ve hired out as a coat watcher.” He sat down on the bench in front of the lockers as Wesley stripped, the big muscles of his back standing out clearly, the long legs heavy, but perfectly proportioned. “If I had a build like yours,” Billy said, “I’d be in the finals at Wimbledon.”

  “You can’t have everything,” Wesley said. “You have brains.”

  “And you?”

  “None to brag about.”

  “You’ll go far in your chosen profession,” Billy said.

  “If I choose it,” Wesley said, as he went into the shower room.

  A moment later, Billy heard, over the splash of the water, Wesley’s voice, singing, “Raindrops keep falling on my head …” He had a strong, true voice and an accurate talent for phrasing on the lyrics. That, too, Billy t
hought, along with everything else he has. There was one sure thing, Billy thought, if anyone came into the locker room and saw and heard him, as though he hadn’t a care in the world, they’d never guess in a million years that he carried a pistol around with him day and night.

  As they went to where the car was parked behind the clubhouse in the shadow of the trees there, Billy said, “If you piss it all away, my mother will never forgive you. Nor will I.”

  Wesley didn’t say anything, but just plumped himself down in the bucket seat, whistling a melody from the score of his picture.

  The next day Wesley kept his promise and played more calmly. Suddenly, he seemed to have found a sense of the tactics of the game and mixed up his shots, playing the percentages and not trying to kill every ball. At the end of the two hours Billy was exhausted, even though he had won all four sets. Wesley wasn’t even breathing hard, although he had run twice as much as Billy. And once again, he made Billy watch his coat while he took his shower.

  The third day they could only play an hour because Billy had promised to get back early so that Donnelly and Gretchen could have the car to drive to Mougins for a quiet lunch. Since the running of the picture there was no chance of even a quiet fifteen minutes in Cannes for Gretchen, and she was showing the strain.

  It took the whole hour just to play one set and Billy had to fight for every point, even though he won six-three. “Whew,” he said as they walked toward the locker room, “I’m beginning to feel sorry I asked you to calm down. You’ll wear me down to the bone if you keep this up.”

  “Child’s play,” Wesley said complacently.

  They were dressing after their showers when they heard the explosion outside.

  “What the hell was that?” Billy asked.

  Wesley shrugged. “Maybe a gas main,” he said.

  “That wasn’t any gas main,” Billy said. He felt shaky and had to sit down for a moment. He was sitting there shirtless when the manager of the club came running into the locker room. “Monsieur Abbott,” he said, babbling, his voice high and frightened, “you’d better come quick. It was your car.… It’s horrible.”