Rich Man, Poor Man

A shuffling, bent old man with a twisted hair piece opened the peeling door, the color of dried blood. From the gloom of the hallway he peered nearsightedly at Rudolph standing on the stoop in the hot September sun. Even with the distance between them, Rudolph could smell him, mildew and urine.

“Is Mr. Schultz at home?” Rudolph asked.

“Fourth floor back,” the old man said. He stepped aside to allow Rudolph to enter.

As he climbed the steps, Rudolph realized that it wasn’t only the old man who smelled like that, it was the entire house. A radio was playing Spanish music, a fat man, naked to the waist, was sitting at the head of the second flight of steps, his head in his hands. He didn’t look up as Rudolph squeezed past him.

The door to the fourth floor back was open. It was stifling hot, under the roof. Rudolph recognized the man he had been introduced to as Schultzy in Queens. Schultzy was sitting on the edge of an unmade bed, grayish sheets, staring at the wall of the room, three feet across from him. Rudolph knocked on the framework of the doorway. Schultzy turned his head slowly, painfully.

“What do you want?” Schultz said. His voice was reedy and hostile.

Rudolph went in. “I’m Tom Jordache’s brother.” He extended his hand.

Schultz put his right hand behind his back. He was wearing a sweat-stained skivvy shirt. He still had the basketball of a stomach. He moved his mouth uneasily, as though he was wearing plates that fit badly. He was pasty and totally bald. “I don’t shake hands,” Schultz said. “It’s the arthritis.” He didn’t ask Rudolph to sit down. There was no place to sit down except on the bed, anyway.

“That sonofabitch,” Schultz said. “I don’t want to hear his name.”

Rudolph took out his wallet and extracted two twenty-dollar bills. “He asked me to give you this.”

“Put it on the bed.” Schultz’s expression, snakelike and livid, did not change. “He owes me one fifty.”

“I’ll have him send the rest over tomorrow,” Rudolph said.

“It’s about fucking well time,” Schultz said. “What does he want now? Did he put the boots to somebody else again?”

“No,” Rudolph said, “he’s not in trouble.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Schultz said.

“He asked me to ask you if the heat’s still on.” The words sounded strange to him as they came off his tongue.

Schultz’s face became sly, secretive, and he looked sideways at Rudolph. “You sure he’s going to give me the rest of the money tomorrow?”

“Positive,” Rudolph said.

“Nah,” Schultz said. “There’s no more heat. There’s no more anything. That bum Quayles never had a good night again after your shitty brother got through with him. The one chance I ever had to make a real buck. Not that they left me much of a share, the dagoes. And I was the one who discovered Quayles and brought him along. No, there’s no heat. Everybody’s dead or in jail. Nobody remembers your goddamn brother’s name. He can walk down Fifth Avenue at the head of the Columbus Day Parade and no-body’d raise a finger. Tell him that. Tell him that’s worth a lot more than one fifty.”

“I will, Mr. Schultz,” Rudolph said, trying to sound as though he knew what the old man was talking about. “And then there’s another question …”

“He wants a lot of answers for his money, don’t he?”

“He wants to know about his wife.”

Schultz cackled. “That whore,” he said, pronouncing the word in two syllables. “She got her picture in the papers. In the Daily News. Twice. She got picked up twice for soliciting in bars. She said her name was Theresa Laval in the papers. French. But I recognized the bitch. Some French. They’re all whores, every last one of them. I could tell you stories, mister …”

“Do you know where she lives?” Rudolph didn’t relish the thought of spending the afternoon in the sweltering, evil-smelling room listening to Schultz’s opinions of the female sex. “And where the boy is?”

Schultz shook his head. “Who keeps track? I don’t even know where I live. Theresa Laval. French.” He cackled again. “Some French.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Schultz,” Rudolph said. “I won’t trouble you any more.”

“Ain’t no trouble. Glad for a little conversation. You for sure going to send over that money tomorrow?”

“I guarantee.”

“You’re wearing a good suit,” Schultz said. “But that ain’t no guarantee.”

Rudolph left him sitting on the bed, his head nodding in the heat. He went down the steps quickly. Even West Fifty-third Street looked good to him when he put the rooming house behind him.

II

He had Rudolph’s cable in his pocket when he got off the plane at Ke

The big Irishman with the Immigration badge looked at him as though he didn’t like the idea of letting him back into the country. And he thumbed through a big, black book, full of names, hunting for Jordache, and seemed disappointed that he couldn’t find it.

He went into the Customs hall to wait for his bag. The whole population of America seemed to be coming back from a holiday in Europe. Where did all the money come from?

He looked up at the glass-enclosed balcony where people were lined up two and three deep waving at relatives down below that they had come to meet. He had cabled Rudolph his flight number and time of arrival, but he couldn’t pick him out in the crowd behind the glass window. He had a moment of irritation. He didn’t want to go wandering around New York hunting for his brother.

The cable had been waiting for him for a week when he came back to Antibes after the charter with Heath and his wife. “Dear Tom,” the cable read, “Everything OK for you here Stop Believe will have sons address soonest Love Rudolph.”

He finally saw his bag in the bin and grabbed it and went and stood in line to go through the Customs counter. Some idiot from Syracuse was sweating and telling a long story to the inspector about where he had gotten two embroidered dirndls and whom they were for. When it was his turn, the inspector made him open his bag and went through everything. He had no gifts for anyone in America, and the inspector passed him through.

He said no to a porter who wanted to carry his bag and carried it through the exit doors himself. Standing bareheaded among the crowd, looking cooler than anybody else in a pair of slacks and a lightweight jacket, Rudolph waved at him. They shook hands and Rudolph tried to take the bag from him, but Thomas wouldn’t let him.

“Have a good trip?” Rudolph asked him as they walked out of the building.

“Okay.”

“I’ve got my car parked near here,” Rudolph said. “Wait here. I’ll just be a minute.”

As he went for the car, Thomas noted that Rudolph still walked in that peculiar gliding way, not moving his shoulders.

He opened his collar and pulled his tie down. Although it was the begi

Five minutes later Rudolph drove up in a blue Buick coupe. Thomas threw his bag in the back and got in. The car was air-conditioned, which was a relief. Rudolph drove at just the legal speed and Thomas remembered being picked up by the state troopers with the bottle of bourbon and the Smith and Wesson in the car on the way to his mother’s deathbed. Times had changed. For the better.

“Well?” Thomas said.

“I found Schultz.” Rudolph said. “That’s when I sent you the wire. He said the heat’s off. Everybody’s dead or in jail, he said. I didn’t inquire what that meant.”

“What about Teresa and the kid?”