Rich Man, Poor Man

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.”

“What’d you say?”

“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.”

“I won’t use it on the premises.” Thomas opened the bottle of bourbon and offered it to Pappy. Pappy shook his head. “I don’t drink. I got a delicate stomach.”

“Me, too,” Thomas said and took a long gulp from the bottle.

“I bet,” Pappy said, as he went out.

What did Pappy know? What did anyone know?

The bourbon didn’t help, although he kept swigging at the bottle. He kept remembering the silent men standing along the rail watching him and Dwyer go down the gangplank, hating him. Maybe he didn’t blame them. Putting a loudmouth ex-con in his place was one thing. Putting the boots to him so hard that he killed himself was another. Somewhere, Thomas realized, a man who considered himself a human being should know where to stop, leave another man a place to live in. Sure, Falconetti was a pig and deserved a lesson, but the lesson should have ended somewhere else than in the middle of the Atlantic.

He drank some more whiskey to try to help him forget the look on Falconetti’s face when Thomas said, “You can go now, slob,” and Falconetti had got up from the table and walked out of the mess room with everybody watching him.

The whiskey didn’t help.

He had been bitter when Rudolph had called him a wild animal when they were kids, but would he have the right now to be bitter if somebody said it to him today? He really believed that if people would leave him alone he would leave them alone. He yearned for peace. He had felt that the sea had finally relieved him of his burden of violence; the future he and Dwyer hoped for for themselves was harmless and unobjectionable, on a mild sea, among mild men. And here he was, with a death on his conscience, hiding away with a gun in a crumbling hotel room, exiled in his own country. Christ, he wished he could cry.

Half the bottle was empty when Pappy knocked on the door again.

“I talked to Schultzy,” Pappy said. “The heat’s still on. You better ship out again as soon as you can.”

“Sure,” Thomas nodded, maudlin, bottle in hand. The heat was still on. The heat had been on all his life. There had to be people like that. If only for the sake of variety. “Did Schultzy say there was any chance of sneaking a look at my kid?”

“He advised against it,” Pappy said. “This trip.”

“He advised against it. Good old Schultzy. It’s not his kid. You hear anything else about me?”

“There’s a Greek from the Elga Andersen just checked in,” Pappy said. “He’s talking in the lobby. About how you killed a certain individual called Falconetti.”

“When they have it in for you,” Thomas said, “they don’t lose any time, do they?”

“He knows you fought as a pro. You better stick close to this room until I get you a berth.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Thomas said. “Where’s that dame I asked for?”

“She’ll be here in an hour,” Pappy said. “I told her your name was Bernard and she won’t ask any questions.”

“Why Bernard?” Thomas asked irritably.

“I had a friend once by that name.” Pappy left lightly, on his wary alligator feet.

Bernard, Thomas thought, what a name!

He hadn’t been out of the room all week. Pappy had brought him six bottles of whiskey. No more girls. He had lost his taste for whores. He had started to grow a moustache. The trouble was it came out red. With his blond hair it looked more like a disguise than a false moustache. He practiced loading and unloading the revolver. He tried not to think about the look on Falconetti’s face. He paced up and down all day like a prisoner. Dwyer had lent him one of his books on navigation and he managed a couple of hours a day on that. He felt he could plot a course from Boston to Joha

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when he heard Pappy’s knock. It was a strange hour for him to come up. Usually, he only came in three times a day, with the meals.

Thomas unlocked the door. Pappy came in, light on his feet, expressionless behind his dark glasses.

“You got something for me?” Thomas asked.

“Your brother was at the desk a few minutes ago,” Pappy said.