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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 pi
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 tu
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.