by Irwin Shaw
“Let’s go upstairs,” Rudolph said. He didn’t want to have to think about what to do about his mother’s dying in a crowded Roman hotel lobby.
They went up in the elevator and watched while the clerk who had accompanied them opened the shutters and let in the late sunlight and the roar of Rome.
“I hope you enjoy your stay,” the clerk said, and left.
They watched the porters come in and arrange their luggage. The porters went and they stared at the unopened bags. They had planned to stay in Rome at least two weeks.
“No,” Rudolph said. “We’re not going to see if there’s a plane tonight. The old lady is not going to do me out of Rome completely. We’ll leave tomorrow. I’ll take one day for you and me. She’ll be alive when I get there. She wouldn’t do herself out of the pleasure of dying before my eyes for anything in the world. Unpack.”
Chapter 7
I
As soon as he got back on board the Elga Andersen in Genoa, he knew he was in for trouble with Falconetti. Falconetti was the bully of the ship, a huge, ham-handed man, with a small turnip-shaped head, who had been in jail for armed robbery. He cheated at cards, but the one time he had been called on it by an oiler from the engine room he had nearly strangled the oiler before he was pulled away from the man’s throat by the rest of the men in the mess room. He was free and dangerous with his fists. At the beginning of each voyage he made a point of picking fights with four or five men and beating them up brutally, so that there would be no doubt about his position below decks. When he was in the mess room, no one else dared touch the radio there and everybody listened to the programs of Falconetti’s choice, whether they liked it or not. There was one Negro on board by the name of Renway, and when Falconetti came into the mess room he slipped away. “I don’t sit in any room with a nigger,” Falconetti had announced the first time he saw the man in the mess room. Renway hadn’t said anything, but he hadn’t moved, either.
“Nigger,” Falconetti said, “I guess you didn’t hear me.” He strode over to where the man was sitting at the table, grabbed him under the armpits, carried him to the door and hurled him against the bulkhead. Nobody said or did anything. You took care of yourself on the Elga Andersen, and the next man took care of himself.
Falconetti owed money to half the crew. Theoretically they were, loans, but nobody expected to see his money again. If you didn’t lend Falconetti a five- or ten-dollar bill when he asked for it, he wouldn’t do anything about it at the time, but two or three days later, he would pick a fight with you and there would be black eyes and broken noses and teeth to spit out.
Falconetti hadn’t tried anything with Thomas, although he was much larger than Thomas. Thomas was not looking for trouble and stayed out of Falconetti’s way, but even though he was taciturn and pacific and kept to himself, there was something about Thomas’s manner that made Falconetti pick on easier targets.
But the first night out of Genoa, Falconetti, who was dealing a poker hand in the mess room, said, when Thomas and Dwyer came in together, “Ah, here come the love-birds,” and made a wet, kissing noise. The men at the table laughed, because it was dangerous not to laugh at Falconetti’s jokes. Dwyer turned red, but Thomas calmly poured himself a cup of coffee and picked up a copy of the Rome Daily American that was lying there, and began to read it.
“I’ll tell you what, Dwyer,” Falconetti said, “I’ll be your agent. It’s a long way home and the boys could use a nice piece of ass to while away the lonely hours. Couldn’t you, boys?”
There were little embarrassed murmurs of assent from the men around the table.
Thomas read his paper and sipped his coffee. He knew that Dwyer was trying to catch his eye, pleading, but until it got much worse he wasn’t going to get into a brawl.
“What’s the sense in giving it away free like you do, Dwyer,” Falconetti said, “when you could make a fortune and distribute happiness at the same time just by setting yourself up in business with my help. What we have to do is fix a scale—say five bucks for buggering, ten bucks for sucking. I’ll just take my ten per cent, like a regular Hollywood agent. What do you say, Dwyer?”
Dwyer jumped up and fled. The men at the table laughed. Thomas read his paper, although his hands were trembling. He had to control himself. If he beat up on a big thug like Falconetti, who had terrorized whole shiploads of men for years, somebody would begin to wonder who the hell he was and what made him so tough and it wouldn’t take too long for somebody to recognize his name or remember that he had seen him fight somewhere. And there were mob members or hangers-on everywhere along the waterfront, just waiting to rush to some higher-up with the news that he’d been spotted.
Read your goddamn newspaper, Thomas said to himself, and keep your mouth shut.
“Hey, lover.” Falconetti made the wet kissing noise again. “You going to let your boy friend cry himself to sleep all by his little itsy-bitsy self?”
Methodically, Thomas folded the paper, put it down. He walked slowly across the room, carrying his coffee cup. Falconetti looked at him from across the table, grinning. Thomas threw the coffee into Falconetti’s face. Falconetti didn’t move. There was dead silence at the table.
“If you make that noise once more,” Thomas said, “I’ll slug you every time I pass you on this ship from here to Hoboken.”
Falconetti stood up. “You’re for me, lover,” he said. He made the kissing noise again.
“I’ll be waiting for you on deck,” Thomas said. “And come alone.”
“I don’t need no help,” Falconetti said.
Thomas wheeled and went out onto the stern deck. There would be room to move around there. He didn’t want to have to tangle with a man Falconetti’s size in close quarters.
The sea was calm, the night balmy, the stars bright. Thomas groaned. My goddamn fists, he thought, always my goddamn fists.
He wasn’t worried about Falconetti. That big fat gut hanging over his belt wasn’t made for punishment.
He saw the door open onto the deck, Falconetti’s shadow thrown on the deck by the light in the gangway. Falconetti stepped on deck. He was alone.
Maybe I’m going to get away with it, Thomas thought. Nobody’s going to see me take him.
“I’m over here, you fat slob,” Thomas called. He wanted Falconetti to rush him, not take the chance of going in on him and perhaps being grappled by those huge arms and wrestled down. It was a cinch Falconetti wasn’t going to fight under Boxing Commission rules. “Come on, Fatso,” Thomas called. “I haven’t got all night.”
“You asked for it, Jordache,” Falconetti said and rushed at him, flailing his fists, big round house swings. Thomas stepped to one side and put all his strength into the one right hand to the gut. Falconetti sounded as though he was strangling, teetered back. Thomas stepped in and hit him again in the gut. Falconetti went down and lay writhing on the deck, a gurgling noise bubbling up from his throat. He wasn’t knocked out and his eyes were glaring up at Thomas as Thomas stood over him, but he couldn’t say anything.
It had been neat and quick, Thomas thought with satisfaction, and there wasn’t a mark on the man and if he didn’t say anything none of the crew would ever know what happened out on the deck. It was a cinch Thomas wasn’t going to do any talking. Falconetti had learned his lesson and it wouldn’t do his reputation any good to pass the news around.
“All right, slob,” Thomas said. “Now you know what it’s all about. Now you’ll keep that toilet of a mouth of yours shut.”
Falconetti made a sudden move and Thomas felt the big hand gripping at his ankle, bringing him down. There was a gleam in Falconetti’s other hand and Thomas saw the knife there. He gave suddenly and dropped onto Falconetti’s face with his knees, hard, grabbing at the hand with the knife, twisting. Falconetti was still fighting for his breath and the fingers holding the knife handle weakened quickly. Thomas, now with his knees pinning Falconetti’s arms to the deck, reached the knife, pushed it away. Then he methodicall
y chopped at Falconetti’s face for two minutes.
Finally, he stood up. Falconetti lay inert on the deck, the blood black on the starlit deck around his head. Thomas picked up the knife and threw it overboard.
With a last look at Falconetti, he went in. He was breathing hard, but it wasn’t from the exertion of the fight. It was exultation. Goddamn it, he thought, I enjoyed it. I’m going to wind up a crazy old man fighting orderlies in the Old Folks’ Home.
He went into the mess room. The poker game had stopped, but there were more men in there than before, as the players who had seen the clash between Thomas and Falconetti had gone to tell their bunkmates and bring them back to the mess room to get the dope on the action. The room had been alive with talk, but when Thomas came in, calmly, breathing normally now, no one said a word.
Thomas went over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. “I wasted half the last cup,” he said to the men in the mess room.
He sat down and unfolded the paper again and continued reading.
He walked down the gangplank with his pay in his pocket and the dead Norwegian’s seabag over his shoulder. Dwyer followed him. Nobody had said good-bye. Ever since Falconetti had jumped overboard at night, in the middle of a storm, they had given him the silent treatment on the ship. The hell with them. Falconetti had it coming to him. He had stayed away from Thomas, but when his face had healed, he’d begun to take it out on Dwyer when Thomas wasn’t around. Dwyer reported that Falconetti made the kissing sound every time he saw him and then one night, just as he was coming off his watch, Thomas heard screams from Dwyer’s cabin. The door was unlocked and when Thomas went in, Dwyer was on the floor and Falconetti was pulling his pants off. Thomas slugged Falconetti across the nose and kicked him in the ass as he went through the door. “I warned you,” he said. “You better stay out of sight. Because you’re going to get more of the same every time I lay eyes on you on this ship.”
“Jesus, Tommy,” Dwyer said, his eyes wet, as he struggled back into his pants, “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me. Not in a million years, Tommy.”
“Stop bawling,” Thomas said. “He won’t bother you any more.”
Falconetti didn’t bother anyone any more. He did his best to avoid Thomas, but at least once a day, they’d run across each other. And each time, Thomas would say, “Come over here, slob,” and Falconetti would shamble over, his whole face twitching, and Thomas would punch him hard in the gut. Thomas made a point of doing it when there were other crewmen around, although never in front of an officer. He had nothing to hide any more; after one look at what Thomas had done to Falconetti’s face that night on the deck, the men in the crew had caught on. In fact, a deckhand by the name of Spinelli had said to Thomas, “I been puzzling ever since I set eyes on you where I seen you before.”
“You never saw me before,” Thomas said, but he knew it was no use.
“Yeah, yeah,” Spinelli said. “I saw you knock out a nigger five, six years ago, one night in Queens.”
“I never been in Queens in my whole life,” Thomas said.
“Have it your own way.” Spinelli spread his hands pacifically. “It ain’t none of my business.”
Thomas knew that Spinelli would spread the news around that he was a pro and that you could look up his record in Ring Magazine, but while they were still at sea, there was nothing anybody could do about it. When they landed, he’d have to be careful. But meanwhile he had the pleasure of grinding Falconetti down to nothing. The curious thing, though, was that the men on the crew whom Falconetti had terrorized, and whom the crew now treated with contempt, hated Thomas for what he was doing. Somehow, it made them all seem ignoble in their own eyes, for having submitted to a big bag of wind who had been deflated in ten minutes by a man who was smaller than many of them and who hadn’t even raised his voice on two voyages.
Falconetti tried to stay out of the mess room when he knew Thomas would be there. The one time he got caught there, Thomas didn’t hit him but said, “Stay there, slob. I got company for you.”
He went down the gangway to Renway’s cabin. The Negro was sitting alone, on the edge of his bunk. “Renway,” Thomas said, “come on with me.”
Frightened, Renway had followed him back to the mess room. He had tried to pull back when he saw Falconetti sitting there, but Thomas pushed him into the room. “We’re just going to sit down like gentlemen,” Thomas said, “next to this gentleman here, and enjoy the music.” The radio was playing.
Thomas sat down on one side of Falconetti and Renway on the other. Falconetti didn’t move. He just sat with his eyes lowered, his big hands flat on the table in front of him.
When Thomas said, “Okay, that’s enough for tonight. You can go now, slob,” Falconetti had stood up, not looking at any of the men in the room who were watching him, and had gone out on deck and thrown himself overboard. The second mate, who was on deck at the time, had seen him, but was too far away to stop him. The ship had swung around and they had made a halfhearted search, but the seas were mountainous, the night black, and there wasn’t a chance.
The captain had ordered an inquiry, but not one of the crew had volunteered information. Suicide, causes unknown, the captain had put down in his report to the owners.
Thomas and Dwyer found a taxi near the pier and Thomas said, “Broadway and Ninety-sixth Street,” to the driver. He had said the first thing that came to his mind, but as they drove toward the tunnel, he realized that Broadway and Ninety-sixth Street was near where he had lived with Teresa and the kid. He didn’t care if he never saw Teresa again in his whole life, but the ache in him to see his son had subconsciously made him direct the driver to the old neighborhood, just on the chance.
As they drove up Broadway, Thomas remembered that Dwyer was going to stay at the Y.M.C.A. on Sixty-second Street, and to wait there for word from Thomas. Thomas had not told Dwyer about the Hotel Aegean.
The driver stopped the cab at Sixty-second Street and Thomas said to Dwyer, “Okay, you get out here.”
“I’ll be hearing from you soon, won’t I, Tommy?” Dwyer said anxiously, as he descended from the cab.
“That depends.” Thomas closed the cab door. He didn’t want to be bothered with Dwyer and his slobbering gratitude.
When they reached Ninety-sixth Street, Thomas asked the driver to wait. He got out of the cab to discover there were other children at Broadway and Ninety-sixth Street but no Wesley. Back in the cab, he ordered the driver to go to Ninety-sixth Street and Park.
At Ninety-sixth and Park, he got out of the cab, made sure the man drove off, then hailed another cab and told the driver, “Eighteenth Street and Fourth Avenue.” When they got there, he walked west one block, turned the corner and came back and walked to the Aegean Hotel.
Pappy was behind the desk, but didn’t say anything, just gave him a key. There were three seamen arguing in the lobby next to the one potted palm that was the sole adornment in what was really just a narrow hall, with a bulge in it for the desk. The seamen were talking in a language Thomas couldn’t understand. Thomas didn’t wait for them to get a good look at him. He walked quickly past them and up the two floors to the room whose number was on the key. He went in, threw the bag down, and lay down on the lumpy bed, with a mustard-colored spread, and stared up at the cracks of the ceiling. The shade had been down when he came into the room and he didn’t bother to pull it up.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Pappy’s knock. Thomas got off the bed and let him in.
“You hear anything?” Thomas demanded.
Pappy shrugged. You couldn’t tell what his expression was behind the dark glasses he wore night and day. “Somebody knows you’re here,” he said. “Or at least that when you’re in New York you’re here.”
They were closing in. His throat felt dry. “What’re you talking about, Pappy?” he said.
“A guy was in the hotel seven, eight days ago,” Pappy said, “wanting to know if you were registered.”
“I said I never heard of you.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said he knew you came here. He said he was your brother.”
“What did he look like?”
“Taller than you, slim, maybe one-fifty-five, one-sixty, black hair cut short, greenish eyes, darkish complexion, sunburned, good suit, college-boy talk, manicured nails …”
“That’s my fucking brother,” Thomas said. “My mother must’ve given him the address. I made her swear not to tell anybody. Not anybody. I’m lucky it’s not all over town. What’d my brother want?”
“He wanted to talk to you. I said if anybody by your name happened in here, I’d pass on the message. He left a telephone number. In a place called Whitby.”
“That’s him. I’ll call him when I’m good and ready. I got other matters on my mind. I never heard any good news from him yet. There’re some things I want you to do for me, Pappy.”
Pappy nodded. At his prices he was happy to be of service.
“First—get me a bottle,” Thomas said. “Second—get me a gun. Third—get hold of Schultzy for me and find out if the heat is still on. And if he thinks I can take a chance seeing my kid. Fourth—get me a girl. In that order.”
“One hundred dollars,” Pappy said.
Thomas took out his wallet and gave Pappy two fifties, from his pay. Then he gave him the wallet. “Put it in the safe.” He didn’t want to have a pocket full of cash with him drunk and some strange broad in the room, going through his clothes.
Pappy took the wallet and went out of the room. He didn’t talk more than was necessary. He did all right, not talking. He had two diamond rings on his fingers and he wore alligator shoes. Thomas locked the door behind him and didn’t get up until Pappy came back with the bottle and three cans of beer, a plate of ham sandwiches, and a Smith and Wesson British army revolver, with the serial number filed off. “I happened to have it in the house,” Pappy said as he gave Thomas the gun. He had a lot of things in the house. “Don’t use it on the premises, that’s all.”