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“It’s a question of time, my dear Mrs. Burke.” Just the gentlest of rebukes at a layman’s impatience. “There’s nothing clear-cut about this case, I regret to say. The house was in your husband’s name, there is a mortgage on it, payments to be made. The size of the estate is undetermined and may remain undetermined for many years. Mr. Burke had a percentage, quite a large percentage of the three films he directed and a continuing interest in stock and foreign royalties and possible movie sales of quite a number of the plays he was co
“He only has one brother,” Gretchen said. “And he told me he didn’t want anything.” The brother had come to the cremation. He was a taut young colonel in the Air Force who had been a fighter pilot in Korea and who had crisply taken charge of everything, even putting Rudolph on the sidelines. It was he who had made sure there were no religious services and who had told her that when Colin and he had spoken about death, they had each promised the other unceremonious burning. The day after the cremation, Colin’s brother had hired a private plane, had flown out to sea and strewn Colin’s ashes over the Pacific Ocean. He had told Gretchen if there was anything she needed to call on him. But short of strafing the ex-Mrs. Burke or bombing her lawyer’s offices, what could a straightforward colonel in the Air Force do to help his brother’s widow, enmeshed in the law?
Gretchen stood up. “Thank you for everything, Mr. Greenfield,” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve taken so much of your time.”
“Not at all.” Mr. Greenfield stood, legally courteous. “I’ll keep you informed, naturally, of all developments.”
He escorted her to the door of his office. Although his face showed nothing, she was sure he disapproved of the dress she was wearing, which was pale blue.
She went down a long aisle flanked by rows of desks at which secretaries typed rapidly, without looking up, deeds, wills, complaints, summonses, contracts, bankruptcy petitions, transfers, mortgages, briefs, enjoinders, writs of replevin.
They are typing away the memory of Colin Burke, she thought. Day after day after day.
Chapter 5
It was cold up in the bow of the ship, but Thomas liked it up there alone, staring out at the long, gray swells of the Atlantic. Even when it wasn’t his watch, he often went up forward and stood for hours, in all weathers, not saying anything to the man whose watch it happened to be, just standing there silently, watching the bow plunge and come up in a curl of white water, at peace with himself, not thinking consciously of anything, not wanting or needing to think about anything.
The ship flew the Liberian flag, but in two voyages he hadn’t come close to Liberia. The man called Pappy, the manager of the Aegean Hotel, had been as helpful as Schultzy had said he would be. He had fitted him out with the clothes and seabag of an old Norwegian seaman who had died in the hotel and had gotten him the berth on the Elga Andersen, Greek ownership, taking on cargo at Hoboken for Rotterdam, Algeciras, Genoa, Piraeus. Thomas had stayed in his room in the Aegean all the time he was in New York, eight days, and Pappy had brought him his meals personally, because Thomas had said he didn’t want any of the help to see him and start asking questions. The night before the Elga Andersen was due to sail Pappy had driven him over to the pier in Hoboken himself and watched while he signed on. The favor that Pappy owed Schultzy from Schultzy’s days in the Merchant Marine during the war must have been a big one.
The Elga Andersen had sailed at dawn the next day and anybody who was looking for Tommy Jordache was going to have a hard time finding him.
The Elga Andersen was a Liberty ship, ten thousand tons. It had been built in 1943 and had seen better days. It had gone from owner to owner, for quick profits, and nobody had done more to maintain it than was absolutely necessary to keep it afloat and moving. Its hull was barnacled, its engines wheezed, it hadn’t been painted in years, there was rust everywhere, the food was miserable, the captain an old religious maniac who knelt on the bridge during storms and who had been beached during the war for Nazi sympathies. The officers had papers from ten different countries and had been dismissed from other berths for drunke
Thomas kept out of the poker game and the fights and spoke only when necessary and answered no questions and was at peace. He felt that he had found his place on the planet, plowing the wide waters of the world. No women, no worrying about weight, no pissing blood in the morning, no scrambling for money at the end of every month. Someday, he’d pay Schultzy back the one fifty he had given him in Las Vegas. With interest.
He heard steps behind him, but didn’t turn around.
“We’re in for a rough night,” said the man who had joined him in the bow. “We’re going right into a storm.”
Thomas grunted. He recognized the voice. A young guy named Dwyer, a kid from the Middle West who somehow managed to sound like a fag. He was rabbit-toothed and was nicknamed Bu
“It’s the skipper,” Dwyer went on. “Praying on the bridge. You know the saying—you have a minister on board, watch out for lousy weather.”
Thomas didn’t say anything.
“I just hope it’s not a big one,” Dwyer said. “Plenty of these Liberty ships have just broke in half in heavy seas. And the way we’re loaded. Did you notice the list to port we got?”
“No.”
“Well, we got it. This your first voyage?”
“Second.”
Dwyer had signed on in Sava
“It’s a hell hole,” Dwyer said. “I’m only on it for the opportunity.”
Thomas knew Dwyer wanted him to ask what opportunity but just stood there staring out at the darkening horizon.
“You see,” Dwyer went on, when he realized Thomas wasn’t going to talk, “I’ve got my third mate’s papers. On American ships I might have to wait years before I move up top. But on a tub like this, with the kind of scum we got as officers, one of them’s likely to fall overboard drunk or get picked up by the police in port and then it’d be my opportunity, see?”
Thomas grunted. He had nothing against Dwyer, but he had nothing for him, either.
“You pla
“Hadn’t thought about it.” Spray was coming over the bow now as the weather worsened and he huddled into his pea jacket. Under the jacket he had a heavy turtle-neck blue sweater. The old Norwegian who had died in the Hotel Aegean must have been a big man, because his clothes fit Thomas comfortably.
“The only thing to do,” Dwyer said. “I saw that the first day I set foot on the deck of my first ship. The ordinary seaman or even the A.B. winds up with nothing. Lives like a dog and winds up a broken old man at fifty. Even on American ships, with the union and everything and fresh fruit. Big deal. Fresh fruit. The thing is to plan ahead. Get some braid on you. The next time I’m back I’m going up to Boston and I’m going to take a shot at second mate’s papers.”