Rich Man, Poor Man

by Irwin Shaw

  “You can tell me the rest of the story when I get there,” Rudolph said. “I’m getting the first plane out of Washington.”

  “I thought that’s what you would do,” Walter said, “and I took the liberty of sending Scanlon down with your car. He’ll be waiting at La Guardia.”

  Rudolph picked up his bags and hurried down to the lobby and checked out. Billy Abbott’s military career would have to hang in abeyance for awhile.

  Scanlon was a fat man who wheezed when he talked. He was on the police force, but was nearly sixty years old and was scheduled for retirement. He suffered from rheumatism and it was almost as an act of mercy that he had been assigned as chauffeur to Rudolph. As an object lesson in civic economy Rudolph had sold the former mayor’s car, which had been owned by the town, and used his own car.

  “If I had it to do all over again,” Scanlon said breathily, “I swear to God I’d never sign on any police force in a town where there was college students or niggers.”

  “Scanlon, please,” Rudolph said. He had been trying to correct Scanlon’s vocabulary since the first day, with little success. He was sitting up front with the old patrolman, who drove at a maddeningly slow pace. But he would have been offended if Rudolph took the wheel.

  “I mean it, sir,” Scanlon said. “They’re just wild animals. With no more respect for the law than a pack of hyenas. As for the police—they just laugh at us. I don’t like to tell you your business, Mr. Mayor, but if I was you, I’d go right to the Governor and ask for the Guard.”

  “There’s time enough for that,” Rudolph said.

  “Mark my words,” said Scanlon. “It’ll come to it. Look what they’ve done down in New York and out in California.”

  “We’re not New York or California,” Rudolph said.

  “We got students and niggers,” Scanlon said stubbornly. He drove silently for awhile. Then he said, “You shoulda been at your house last night, Mr. Mayor, then maybe you’d know what I was talking about.”

  “I heard about it,” Rudolph said. “They trampled the garden.”

  “They did a lot more than that,” Scanlon said. “I wasn’t there myself, but Ruberti was there, and he told me.” Ruberti was another policeman. “It was sinful what they did, Ruberti told me, sinful. They kept calling for you and singing dirty-minded songs, young girls, using the dirtiest language anybody ever heard, and they pulled up every plant in your garden and then when Mrs. Jordache opened the door …”

  “She opened the door?” Rudolph was aghast. “What did she do that for?”

  “Well, they started throwing things at the house. Clods of dirt, beer cans, and yelling, ‘Tell that motherfucker to come out.’ They meant you, Mr. Mayor, I’m ashamed to say. There was only Ruberti and Zimmermann there, the whole rest of the force was up at the college, and what could just two of them do against those howling wild Indians, maybe three hundred of them. So like I said, Mrs. Jordache opened the door and yelled at them.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Rudolph said.

  “You might as well hear it now from me as later from somebody else,” Scanlon said. “When Mrs. Jordache opened the door, she was drunk. And she was stark naked.”

  Rudolph made himself stare straight ahead at the tail lights of the cars ahead of him and into the blinding beams of light of the cars going the other way.

  “There was a kid photographer there, from the school paper,” Scanlon went on, “and he took some flashlight pictures. Ruberti went for him, but the other kids made a kind of pocket and he got away. I don’t know what use they think they’re going to make of the pictures, but they got them.”

  Rudolph ordered Scanlon to drive directly to the university. The main administration building was brilliantly floodlit and there were students at every window, throwing out thousands of pieces of paper from the files and shouting at the line of policemen, alarmingly few, but armed with their clubs now, who cordoned off the building. As he drove up to where Ottman’s car was parked under a tree, Rudolph saw what use had been made of the photograph of his wife taken naked the night before. It had been enormously blown up and it was hanging from a first-story window. In the glare of the floodlights, the image of Jean’s body, slender and perfect, her breasts full, her fists clenched and threatening, her face demented, hung, a mocking banner, over the entrance of the building, just above the words carved in the stone, “Know the truth and the truth shall make ye free.”

  When Rudolph got out of the car, some of the students at the windows recognized him and greeted him with a wild, triumphant howl. Somebody leaned out the window and shook Jean’s picture, so that it looked as though she were doing an obscene dance.

  Ottman was standing beside his car, a big bandage over one eye, making his cap sit on the back of his head. Only six of the policemen had helmets. Rudolph remembered vetoing a request from Ottman for two dozen more helmets six months before, because it had seemed an unnecessary expense.

  “Your secretary told us you were on your way,” Ottman said, without any preliminaries, “so we held off on any action until you got here. They have Dorlacker and two professors locked in there with them. They only took the building at six o’clock tonight.”

  Rudolph nodded, studying the building. At a window on the ground floor he saw Quentin McGovern. Quentin was a graduate student now and had a job as an assistant in the chemistry department. Quentin was grinning down at the scene. Rudolph was sure that Quentin saw him and he felt that the grin was directed, personally, at him.

  “Whatever else happens tonight, Ottman,” Rudolph said, “I want you to arrest that black man there, the third window from the left on the ground floor. His name is McGovern and if you don’t get him here get him at his home.”

  Ottman nodded. “They want to talk to you, sir. They want you to go in there and discuss the situation with them.”

  Rudolph shook his head. “There’s no situation to be discussed.” He wasn’t going to talk to anybody under the photograph of his naked wife. “Go in and clear the building.”

  “It’s easier said than done,” Ottman said. “I’ve already called on them three times to come out. They just laugh.”

  “I said clear the building.” Rudolph was raging, but cold. He knew what he was doing.

  “How?” Ottman asked.

  “You’ve got weapons.”

  “You don’t mean you want us to use guns?” Ottman said incredulously. “As far as we know, none of them is armed.”

  Rudolph hesitated. “No,” he said. “No guns. But you’ve got clubs and you’ve got tear gas.”

  “You sure you don’t want us just to sit tight and wait till they get tired?” Ottman said. He sounded more tired himself than any of the students in the building would ever be. “And if things don’t improve, ask for the Guard, maybe?”

  “No, I don’t want to sit and wait.” Rudolph didn’t say it, but he knew that Ottman knew he wanted that picture down immediately. “Tell your men to start with the grenades.”

  “Mr. Mayor,” Ottman said slowly, “you’ll have to put that in writing for me. Signed.”

  “Give me your pad,” Rudolph said.

  Ottman gave him the pad, and Rudolph used the fender of Ottman’s car to steady it and wrote out the order, making sure that his handwriting was clear and legible. He signed his name and gave the pad back to Ottman, who tore off the top sheet on which Rudolph had written and carefully folded the piece of paper and put it in the pocket of his blouse. He buttoned the pocket of the blouse and then went along the line of police, some thirty strong, the town’s entire force, to give his orders. As he passed them, the men began to put on their gas masks.

  The line of police moved slowly across the lawn toward the building, their shadows-, in the blaze of the floodlights, intense on the brilliant green grass. They did not keep a straight line, but wavered uncertainly, and they looked like a long, wounded animal, searching not to do harm, but to find a place to hide from its tormentors. Then the first grenade was shot off through o
ne of the lower windows and there was a shout from within. Then more grenades were sent through other windows and the faces that had been there disappeared and one by one the policemen, helping each other, began to climb through the windows into the building.

  There hadn’t been enough police to send around to the back of the building, and most of the students escaped that way. The acrid smell of the gas drifted out toward where Rudolph was standing, looking up toward where Jean’s picture was still hanging. A policeman appeared at the window above and ripped it away, taking it in with him.

  It was all over quickly. There were only about twenty arrests. Three students were bleeding from scalp wounds and one boy was carried out with his hands up to his eyes. A policeman said he was blinded but that he hoped it was only temporary. Quentin McGovern was not among the group arrested.

  Dorlacker came out with his two professors, their eyes tearing. Rudolph went over to him. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Dorlacker squinted to see who was addressing him. “I’m not talking to you, Jordache,” he said. “I’m making a statement to the press tomorrow and you can find out what I think of you if you’ll buy your own paper tomorrow night.” He got into somebody’s car and was driven away.

  “Come on,” Rudolph said to Scanlon. “Drive me home.”

  As they drove away from the campus, ambulances passed them, their sirens going. A school bus, for the students who had been arrested, lumbered past them.

  “Scanlon,” Rudolph said, “as of tonight, I’m no longer Mayor of this town, am I?”

  Scanlon didn’t answer for a long time. He scowled as he watched the road and he wheezed like an old man when he had to turn a corner. “No, Mr. Jordache,” he finally said, “I wouldn’t think you were.”

  Chapter 7

  1968

  I

  This time, when he got off the plane at Kennedy, there was nobody there to greet him. He was wearing dark glasses and he moved uncertainly. He hadn’t written Rudolph that he was coming because he knew from Gretchen’s letters that Rudolph had enough to think about without bothering with a half-blind brother. While he was working on the boat in the Antibes harbor durjng the winter, a line had snapped and whipped across his face and the next day he had started having dizzy spells and suffering from double vision. He had pretended nothing was wrong, because he didn’t want Kate and Wesley to worry about him. He had written Mr. Goodhart for the name of an eye specialist in New York and when he received Goodhart’s answer had announced to Kate that he was going to New York to arrange finally about his divorce. Kate had been after him to marry her and he didn’t blame her. She was pregnant and was due to have the child in October and it was the middle of April already.

  She had made him buy a new suit and he was ready to face any lawyer or doorman now. He was wearing the dead Norwegian’s pea jacket because it was still in good condition and there was no sense in throwing money away.

  A planeload of people who had been on a ski holiday had landed just before him and the baggage hall was full of skis and tanned, healthy-looking, fancily dressed men and women, many of them loud and more or less drunk. He tried not to be anti-American as he searched for his bag.

  He took a cab, although it was expensive, because he felt he couldn’t cope with getting on and off the airport bus and fiddling with his bag again and struggling to find a taxi in New York.

  “The Paramount Hotel,” he said to the taxi driver and settled back wearily on the seat, closing his eyes.

  When he had checked in and gone up to his room, which was small and dark, he called the doctor. He would have liked to go over right away, but the nurse said that the doctor couldn’t see him before eleven o’clock the next day. He undressed and got into bed. It was only six o’clock New York time, but it was eleven o’clock Nice time and he had taken the plane at Nice. His body felt as though he hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours.

  “The retina is partially detached,” the doctor said. The examination had been slow and thorough and painful. “I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you over to a surgeon.”

  Thomas nodded. Another wound. “How much is it going to cost?” he asked. “I’m a working man and I can’t pay Park Avenue prices.”

  “I understand,” the doctor said. “I’ll explain to Dr. Halliwell. The nurse has your telephone number, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’ll call you and tell you when to report to the hospital. You’ll be in good hands.” He smiled reassuringly. His own eyes were large and clear, unscarred, without lesions.

  Three weeks later he was out of the hospital. His face was drained and pale and the doctor had warned him that he was to avoid any sudden movements or strenuous exertion for a long time. He had lost about fifteen pounds and his collar swam around his neck and his clothes hung loosely from his shoulders. But he wasn’t seeing double any more and he wasn’t attacked by dizzy spells when he turned his head.

  The whole thing had cost him a little over twelve hundred dollars, but it was worth it.

  He checked in again at the Paramount Hotel and called the number of Rudolph’s apartment. Rudolph answered himself.

  “Rudy,” Thomas said, “how are you?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Tom.”

  “Tom! Where are you?”

  “Right here. In New York. At the Hotel Paramount. Can I see you sometime soon?”

  “You certainly can.” Rudolph sounded genuinely pleased. “Come on right over. You know where it is.”

  When he arrived at Rudolph’s building, he was stopped by the doorman, new suit or no new suit. He gave his name and the doorman pressed a button and said, “Mr. Jordache, there’s a Mr. Jordache to see you.”

  Thomas heard his brother say, “Please tell him to come up,” and crossed the marbled lobby to the elevator, thinking, With all that protection, he still got hurt.

  Rudolph was standing in the hallway when the elevator door opened. “Lord, Tom,” he said, as they shook hands, “I was surprised to hear your voice.” Then he stepped back and regarded Thomas critically. “What’s happened to you?” he asked. “You look as though you’ve been sick.”

  Thomas could have said that he didn’t think that Rudolph looked so hot, himself, but he didn’t say it. “I’ll tell you all about it,” he said, “if you give me a drink.” The doctor had said to go easy on the drink, too.

  Rudolph let him into the living room. It looked just about the same as it had the last time Thomas had been there, comfortable, spacious, a place for comfortable small events, not decorated for failure.

  “Whiskey?” Rudolph asked, and when Thomas nodded, poured one for Thomas and one for himself. He was fully dressed, with collar and tie, as though he were in an office. Thomas watched him as he picked up the bottles from the sideboard and hit the ice in the bucket with a small silver hammer. He looked much older than when Thomas had seen him last, with lines deep around his eyes and in his forehead. His movements were hesitant, tentative. Finding the tool to open the soda water bottle was a problem. He didn’t seem to be certain about how much soda water he should put in each glass. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Tell me what brings you here. How long have you been in New York?”

  “About three weeks.” He took the glass of whiskey and sat down on a wooden chair.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” He sounded hurt by the delay.

  “I had to go to the hospital for an operation,” Thomas said. “On my eyes. When I’m sick I like to be alone.”

  “I know,” Rudolph said, sitting across from him in an easy chair. “I’m the same way myself.”

  “I’m okay now,” Thomas said. “I have to take it easy for a little while, that’s all. Cheers.” He raised his glass. Between Pinky Kimball and Kate he had learned to say cheers before drinking.

  “Cheers,” Rudolph said. He stared soberly at Thomas. “You don’t look like a fighter, any more, Tom,” he said.

  “You don’t look like a mayor any more,�
�� Thomas said, and regretted having said it, immediately.

  But Rudolph laughed. “Gretchen told me she wrote you all about it,” he said. “I had a little bad luck.”

  “She wrote me you sold the house in Whitby,” Thomas said.

  “There wasn’t much sense in trying to hang on.” Rudolph swished the ice in his drink around the glass thoughtfully. “This place is enough for us now. Enid’s out in the park with her nurse. She’ll be back in a few minutes. You can say hello to her. How’s your boy?”

  “Fine,” Thomas said. “You ought to hear him talk French. And he handles the boat better than I do. And nobody’s making him do close-order drill in the afternoons.”

  “I’m glad it turned out well,” Rudolph said. He sounded as if he meant it. “Gretchen’s boy—Billy—is in the Army in Brussels, at NATO.”

  “I know. She wrote me that, too. And she wrote me you arranged it.”

  “One of my last official acts,” Rudolph said. “Or maybe I should say, semiofficial acts.” He had a hushed, quiet way of talking now, as though he didn’t want to make any statements too positively.

  “I’m sorry the way things happened, Rudy,” Thomas said. For the first time in his life he pitied his brother.

  Rudolph shrugged. “It could have been worse,” he said. “That kid could have been killed instead of just blinded.”

  “What’re you going to do now?”

  “Oh, I keep myself busy, one way and another,” Rudolph said. “New York’s a great place to be a gentleman of leisure in. When Jean gets back maybe we’ll do a bit of traveling. Maybe even visit you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In a home upstate,” Rudolph said, making noise with the ice in his glass. “Not a home, really—more of a clinic—a drying-out place. They have a remarkable record of cures. This is the second time she’s been there. After the first time, she didn’t touch a drop for nearly six months. I’m not supposed to go up there and visit her—some goddamn doctor’s theory—but I hear from the man who runs the place and he says she’s doing very well.…” He swallowed some whiskey the wrong way and coughed a little. “Maybe I can use a little cure myself,” he said, smiling, when the coughing fit had passed. “Now,” he said, brightly, “now that the eye is all right, what are your plans?”