Страница 133 из 194
“Well, what are you going to do with it?”
“You’re going to handle it for me,” she said. “I’m sorry. For us. Do whatever you think best. Just don’t talk to me about it. And don’t use it to make us lead soggy, fancy, useless lives.”
“We’ve been leading pretty fancy lives these past few weeks,” Rudolph said.
“We’ve been spending your money and you worked for it,” Jean said. “Anyway, this is a honeymoon. It isn’t for real.”
When they got to the hotel in Rome there was a cable waiting for Rudolph. It was from Bradford Knight and it read, “Your mother in hospital Stop Doctor fears end is near Stop Believe you should return soonest.”
Rudolph handed the cable to Jean. They were still in the lobby and had just handed over their passports to the clerk at the desk. Jean read the cable silently, gave it back to him. “I suppose we ought to see if there’s a plane out tonight,” she said. It had been nearly five o’clock in the afternoon when they drove up to the hotel.
“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 pla
“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 begi
“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 ma
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, gri
“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.