by Irwin Shaw
“Rudolph was the brightest pupil I ever taught,” Miss Lenaut said, rolling her eyes. “I was certain that he would rise in the world. It was plain in everything he did.”
“You are too kind,” Rudolph said, and they walked on. He grinned. “I used to write love letters to her when I was in her class. I never sent them. Pop once called her a French cunt and slapped her face.”
“I never heard that story,” Gretchen said.
“There’re a lot of stories you never heard.”
“Some evening,” she said, “you’ve got to sit down and tell me the history of the Jordaches.”
“Some evening,” Rudolph said.
“It must give you an awful lot of satisfaction,” Johnny said, “coming back to your old town on a day like this.”
Rudolph reflected for an instant. “It’s just another town,” he said offhandedly. “Let’s go look at the merchandise.”
He led them on a tour of the shops. Gretchen’s acquisitive instinct was, as Colin had once told her, subnormal, and the gigantic assembly of things to buy, that insensate flood of objects which streamed inexorably from the factories of America saddened her.
Everything, or almost everything that most depressed Gretchen about the age in which she lived, was crammed into this artfully rustic conglomeration of white buildings, and it was her brother, whom she loved, and who softly and modestly surveyed this concrete, material proof of his cunning, who had put it all together. When he told her the history of the Jordaches, she would reserve one chapter for herself.
After the shops, Rudolph showed them around the theater. A touring company from New York was to open that night in a comedy and a lighting rehearsal was in progress when they went into the auditorium. Here, old man Calderwood’s taste had not been the deciding factor. Dull-pink walls and deep-red plush on the chairs softened the clean severity of the interior lines of the building and Gretchen could tell, from the ease with which the director was getting complicated lighting cues, that no expense had been spared on the board backstage. For the first time in years she felt a pang of regret that she had given up the theater.
“It’s lovely, Rudy,” she said.
“I had to show you one thing of which you could approve,” he said quietly.
She reached out and touched his hand, begging forgiveness with the gesture for her unspoken criticism of the rest of his accomplishment.
“Finally,” he said. “we’re going to have six theaters like this around the country and we’re going to put on our own plays and run them at least two weeks in each place. That way each play will be guaranteed a run of three months at a minimum and we won’t have to depend upon anybody else. If Colin ever wants to put on a play for me …”
“I’m sure he’d love to work in a place like this,” Gretchen said. “He’s always grumbling about the old barns on Broadway. When he gets to New York I’ll bring him up to see it. Though maybe it’s not such a good idea …”
“Why not?” Rudolph asked.
“He sometimes gets into terrible fights with the people he works with.”
“He won’t fight with me,” Rudolph said confidently. He and Burke had liked each other from their first meeting. “I am deferential and respectful in the presence of artists. Now for that drink.”
Gretchen looked at her watch. “I’m afraid I’ll have to skip it. Colin’s calling me at the hotel at eight o’clock and he fumes if I’m not there when the phone rings. Johnny, do you mind if we leave now?”
“At your service, ma’am,” Johnny said.
Gretchen kissed Rudolph good-bye and left him in the theater, his face glowing in the light reflected from the stage, with Miss Prescott changing lenses and clicking away, pretty, agile, busy.
Johnny and Gretchen passed the bar going toward the car and she was glad they hadn’t gone in because she was sure that the man she glimpsed, in the dark interior, bent over a drink, was Teddy Boylan, and even after fifteen years she knew he had the power to disturb her. She didn’t want to be disturbed.
The phone was ringing when she opened the door to her room. The call was from California, but it wasn’t Colin. It was the head of the studio and he was calling to say that Colin had been killed in an automobile accident at one o’clock that day. He had been dead all afternoon and she hadn’t known it.
She thanked the man on the phone calmly for his muted words of sympathy and hung up and for a long while sat alone in the hotel room without turning on the light.
Chapter 2
1960
The bell rang for the last round of the sparring session and Schultzy called, “See if you can crowd him more, Tommy.” The boxer Quayles was going to meet in five days was a crowder and Thomas was supposed to imitate his style. But, Quayles was a hard man to crowd, a dancer and jabber, quick and slippery on his feet and with fast hands. He never hurt anybody much, but he had come a long way with his cleverness. The bout was going to be nationally televised and Quayles was getting twenty thousand dollars for his end. Thomas, on the supporting card, was going to get six hundred. It would have been less if Schultzy, who handled both fighters, at least for the record, hadn’t held out for the money with the promoters. There was Mafia money behind the fight and those boys didn’t go in for charity.
The training ring was set up in a theater and the people who came to watch the sessions sat in the orchestra seats in their fancy Las Vegas shirts and canary-yellow pants. Thomas felt more like an actor than a fighter up there on the stage.
He shuffled toward Quayles, who had a mean flat face and dead-cold pale eyes under the leather headguard. When Quayles sparred with Thomas, there was always a little derisive smile on his lips, as though it was absurd for Thomas to be in the same ring with him. He made a point of never talking to Thomas, not as much as a good morning, even though they were both in the same stable. The only satisfaction Thomas got out of Quayles was that he was screwing Quayles’s wife and one day he was going to let Quayles know it.
Quayles danced in and out, tapping Thomas sharply, slipping Thomas’s hooks easily, showing off for the crowd, letting Thomas swing at him in a corner and just bobbing his head, untouched, as the crowd yelled.
Sparring partners were not supposed to damage maineventers, but this was the last round of the training schedule and Thomas attacked doggedly, ignoring punishment, to get just one good one in, sit the bastard down on the seat of his fancy pants. Quayles realized what Thomas was trying to do and the smile on his face became loftier than ever as he flicked away, danced in and out, picked off punches in mid-air. He wasn’t even sweating at the end of the round and there wasn’t a mark on his body, although Thomas had been hacking away trying to reach him there, for a solid two minutes.
When the bell rang, Quayles said, “You ought to pay me for a boxing lesson, you bum.”
“I hope you get killed Friday, you cheap ham,” Thomas said, then climbed down and went into the showers, while Quayles did some rope skipping and calisthenics and worked on the light bag. He never got tired, the bastard, and he was a glutton for work, and would probably wind up middleweight champion, with a million bucks in the bank.
When Thomas came back out after his shower, his skin reddened under the eyes by Quayles’s jabs, Quayles was still at it, showing off, shadow boxing, with the hicks in the crowd in their circus clothes oh-ing and ah-ing.
Schultzy gave him the envelope with the fifty bucks in it for his two rounds and he walked quickly through the crowd and out into the glare of the searing Las Vegas afternoon. After the air-conditioned theater the heat seemed artificial and malevolent, as though the entire town were being cooked by some diabolical scientist who wanted to destroy it in the most painful way possible.
He was thirsty after the workout and went across the blazing street to one of the big hotels. The lobby was dark and cold. The expensive hookers were on patrol and the old ladies were playing the slot machines. The crap and roulette tables were in action as he passed them on his way to the bar. Everybo
dy in the whole stinking town was loaded with money. Except him. He had lost over five hundred dollars, almost all the money he had earned, at the crap tables in the last two weeks.
He felt the envelope with Schultzy’s fifty in his pocket and fought back the urge to try the dice. He ordered a beer from the barman. His weight was okay and Schultzy wasn’t there to bawl him out. Anyway, Schultzy didn’t much care what he did any more, now that he had a contender in the stable. He wondered how much of Schultzy’s end of the purse he had to give to the gunslingers.
He drank a second beer, paid the barman, started out, stopped for a moment to watch the crap game. A guy who looked like a small-town undertaker had a pile of chips about a foot high in front of him. The dice were hot. Thomas took out the envelope and bought chips. In ten minutes he was down to ten dollars and he had sense enough to hold onto that.
He got the doorman to beg a ride for him from a guest to his hotel downtown, so he wouldn’t have to pay taxi fare. His hotel was a grubby one, with a few slot machines and one crap table. Quayles was staying at the Sands, with all the movie stars. And his wife. Who lay around the pool all day getting stoned on Planter’s Punches when she wasn’t sneaking down to Thomas’s hotel for a quick one. She had a loving nature, she said, and Quayles slept alone, in a separate room, being a serious fighter with an important bout coming up. Thomas wasn’t a serious fighter any more and there were no more important bouts for him so it didn’t make much difference what he did. The lady was active in bed and some of the afternoons were really worth the trouble.
There was a letter at the desk for him. From Teresa. He didn’t even bother to open it. He knew what was in it. Another demand for money. She was working now and making more money than he did, but that didn’t stop her. She had gone to work as a hatcheck and cigarette girl in a nightclub, wiggling her ass and showing her legs as high up as the law allowed and raking in the tips. She said she was bored just hanging around the house with the kid, with him away so much of the time and she wanted to have a career. She thought being a hatcheck girl was some sort of show business. The kid was stashed away with her sister in the Bronx and even when Thomas was in town Teresa came in at all hours, five, six in the morning, with her purse stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. God knows what she did. He didn’t care any more.
He went up to his room and lay down on his bed. That was one way to save money. He had to figure how to get from today to Friday on ten bucks. The skin under his eyes smarted where Quayles had peppered him. The air conditioning in the room was almost useless and the desert heat made him sweat.
He closed his eyes and slept uneasily, dreaming. He dreamt of France. It had been the best time of his life and he often dreamt about the moment on the shore of the Mediterranean, although it had been almost five years ago now, and the dreams were losing their intensity.
He woke, remembering the dream, sighed as the sea and the white buildings disappeared and he was surrounded once more by the cracked Las Vegas walls.
He had gone down to the Côte d’Azur after winning the fight in London. It had been an easy victory and Schultzy had gotten him another bout in Paris a month later, so there was no sense in going back to New York. Instead he had picked up one of those wild London girls. She had said she knew a great little hotel in Cannes and since Thomas was rolling in money for once and it looked as though he could beat everybody in Europe with one hand tied behind him, he had taken off for the weekend. The weekend had stretched into ten days, with frantic cables from Schultzy. Thomas had lain on the beach and eaten two great, heavy meals a day, developed a taste for vin rosé, and had put on fifteen pounds. When he finally got to Paris, he had just managed to make the weight the morning of the fight and the Frenchman had nearly killed him. For the first time in his life he had been knocked out and suddenly there were no more bouts in Europe. He had blown most of his money on the English girl, who happened to like jewelry, aside from her other attractions, and Schultzy hadn’t talked to him all the way back to New York.
The Frenchman had taken something out of him and nobody was writing that he should be considered for a shot at the title anymore. The time between bouts became greater and greater and the purses smaller and smaller. Twice he had to take a dive for walking-around money and Teresa closed him off entirely and if it hadn’t been for the kid he’d have just gotten up and left.
Lying in the heat on the wrinkled bed, he thought of all these things and remembered what his brother had told him that day at the Hotel Warwick. He wondered if Rudolph had followed his career and was saying, to his snooty sister, “I told him it would happen.”
Screw his brother.
Well, maybe on Friday night, there’d be some of the old juice in him and he’d score spectacularly. People could start hanging around him again and he’d made a comeback. Plenty of fighters—older than he—had made comebacks. Look at Jimmy Braddock, down to being a day laborer and then beating Max Baer for the heavy weight championship of the world. Schultzy just had to pick his opponents for him more carefully—keep him away from the dancers, give him somebody who came to fight. He’d have to have a talk with Schultzy. And not only about that. He had to get some money in advance, before Friday, to keep alive in this lousy town.
Two, three good wins and he could forget all this. Two, three good wins and they’d be asking for him in Paris again and he’d be down on the Côte sitting at a sidewalk café, drinking vin rosé and looking out at the masts of the boats anchored in the harbor. With real luck he might even get to rent one of them, sail around, out of reach of everybody. Maybe only two, three fights a year just to keep the bank balance comfortable.
Just thinking about it made him cheerful again and he was just about to go downstairs and put his ten bucks on the come at the crap table when the phone rang.
It was Cora, Quayles’s wife and she sounded demented, screaming and crying into the phone. “He’s found out, he’s found out,” she kept saying. “Some lousy bellboy got to him. He nearly killed me just now. I think he broke my nose, I’m going to be a cripple the rest of my life …”
“Go easy now,” Thomas said. “What has he found out?”
“You know what he found out. He’s on his way right now to …”
“Wait a minute. What did you tell him?”
“What the hell do you think I told him?” she screamed. “I told him no. Then he clouted me across the face. I’m blood all over. He doesn’t believe me. That lousy bellboy in your hotel must’ve had a telescope or something. You’d better get out of town. This minute. He’s on his way over to see you, I tell you. Christ knows what he’ll do to you. And later on, to me. Only I’m not waiting. I’m going to the airport right now. I’m not even packing a bag. And I advise you to do the same. Only stay away from me. You don’t know him. He’s a murderer. Just get on something and get out of town. Fast.”
Thomas hung up on the terrified, high-pitched babble. He looked at his one valise in a corner of the room, then stood up and went to the window and peered out through the Venetian blinds. The street was empty in the four o’clock afternoon desert glare. Thomas went over to the door and made sure it was unlocked. Then he moved the one chair to a corner. He didn’t want to get charged and sent backward over the chair in the first rush.
He sat on the bed, smiling a little. He had never run away from a fight and he wasn’t going to run away from this one. And this one might be the most enjoyable fight of his entire career. The small hotel room was no place for jabbers and dancers.
He got up and went over to the closet and took out a leather windjacket and put it on, zipping it up high and turning the collar up to protect his throat. Then he sat on the edge of the bed again, waiting placidly, hunched over a little, his hands hanging loose between his legs. He heard a car screech to a halt in front of the hotel, but he didn’t move. One minute later there were steps outside in the hall and then the door was flung open and Quayles came into the room, stopping just inside the doorway.
“Hi,�
�� Thomas said. He stood up slowly.
Quayles closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.
“I know all about it, Jordache,” Quayles said.
“About what?” Thomas asked mildly, keeping his eyes on Quayles’s feet for the first hint of movement.
“About you and my wife.”
“Oh, yes,” Thomas said. “I’ve been screwing her. Did I forget to mention it?”
He was ready for the leap and almost laughed when he saw Quayles, that dandy and stylist of the ring, lead with a blind long right, a sucker’s punch if ever there was one. Because he was ready, Thomas went inside it easily, tied Quayles up, held onto him, with no referee to part them, and clubbed at Quayles’s body, with delicious, pent-up ferocity. Then, old street fighter with all the tricks, he rushed Quayles to the wall, ignoring the man’s attempt to writhe out of his grasp, stepped back just far enough to savage Quayles with an uppercut, then closed, wrestled, hit, held, used his elbows, his knee, butted Quayles’s forehead with his head, wouldn’t let him drop, but kept him up against the wall with his left hand around Quayles’s throat, and pounded at his face with one brutal right hand after another. When he stepped back, Quayles crumpled onto the blood-stained rug and lay there on his face, out cold.
There was a frantic knocking on the door and he heard Schultzy’s voice in the hall. He unlocked the door and let Schultzy in.
Schultzy took the whole thing in with one glance.
“You stupid bastard,” he said, “I saw that bird-brained wife of his and she told me. I thought I’d get here in time. You’re a great indoor fighter, aren’t you, Tommy? You can’t beat your grandmother for dough, but when it comes to fighting for nothing you’re the all-time beauty.” He knelt beside Quayles, motionless on the rug. Schultzy turned him over, examined the cut on Quayles’s forehead, ran his hand alongside Quayles’s jaw. “I think you broke his jaw. Idiots. He won’t be able to fight this Friday or a month of Fridays. The boys’re going to like that. They’re going to like it a lot. They’ve got a big investment tied up in this horse’s ass—” He prodded the inert Quayles fiercely. “They’re going to be just overjoyed you took him apart. If I was you I’d start going right now, before I get this—this husband out of the room and into a hospital. And I’d keep on going until I got to an ocean and then I’d cross the ocean and if I wanted to stay alive I wouldn’t come back for ten years. And don’t go by plane. By the time the plane comes down anywhere, they’ll be waiting for you and they won’t be waiting for you with roses in their hands.”