Rich Man, Poor Man

“I am.”

“It’s a shame what happened, isn’t it?”

“Terrible,” Hubbell said.

“They just buried his ashes in the sea,” the old man volunteered. “As good a place to be buried as anywhere else for a sailor. I wouldn’t mind it myself.” Even in midseason, the port captain had plenty of time for conversation.

Hubbell thanked the man and walked around the port and sat down on an upturned dory near the place on the quay into which the Clothilde was being maneuvered. He saw the two figures in back at the stern, with the American flag rippling in the breeze behind them. He saw a short, tight-muscled man working on the chain forward and a tall blond boy spi

Hubbell got up from where he was sitting on the dory, feeling clumsy and heavy after the display of sea-going agility, and started up the gangplank. The boy looked at him sullenly.

“I’m looking for Mr. Jordache,” Hubbell said.

“My name is Jordache,” the boy said. He had a deep, nonadolescent voice.

“I believe I mean that gentleman over there,” Hubbell said, gesturing toward Rudolph.

“Yes?” Rudolph came over to the head of the gangplank.

“Mr. Rudolph Jordache?”

“Yes.” The tone was short.

“I’m from Time Magazine …” Hubbell saw the man’s face set. “I’m very sorry about what happened.…”

“Yes?” Impatiently, questioning.

“I don’t like to intrude on you at a moment like this …” Hubbell felt foolish, talking at a distance, blocked off by the invisible wall of the boy’s hostility, and now the man’s. “But I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about …”

“Talk to the chief of police. It’s his business now.”

“I have talked to him.”

“Then you know as much as I do, sir,” Rudolph said and turned away. There was a cold, small smile on the boy’s face.

Hubbell stood there another moment, feeling that perhaps he had been wrong in his choice of a profession, then said, “I’m sorry,” to nobody in particular because he couldn’t think of anything else to say or do and turned around and walked toward the entrance to the port.

When he got back to his hotel, his wife was sitting on the small balcony outside their room in a bikini, working on her tan. He loved her deeply, but he couldn’t help noticing that she looked absurd in a bikini. “Where’ve you been all afternoon?” she asked.

“Working on a story,” he said.

“I thought this was going to be a vacation,” she said.

“So did I,” he said.

He got out his portable typewriter, took off his jacket and began to work.

«  »

CHAPTER 2

FROM BILLY ABBOTT’S NOTEBOOK—

THE TELEGRAM FROM MY MOTHER CAME TO MY APO NUMBER. YOUR UNCLE TOM HAS BEEN MURDERED, THE TELEGRAM READ. SUGGEST YOU TRY TO COME TO ANTIBES FOR FUNERAL. YOUR UNCLE RUDOLPH AND I ARE AT THE H—TEL DU CAP ANTIBES. LOVE, MOTHER.

I HAD SEEN MY UNCLE TOM ONCE, THE TIME I HAD FLOWN FROM CALIFORNIA TO WHITBY FOR MY GRANDMOTHER’S FUNERAL WHEN I WAS A BOY. FUNERALS ARE GREAT OCCASIONS FOR FAMILIES TO GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER AGAIN. I WAS SORRY MY UNCLE TOM WAS DEAD. I HAD LIKED HIM THE NIGHT WE HAD SPENT TOGETHER IN MY UNCLE RUDOLPH’S GUEST ROOM. I WAS IMPRESSED BY THE FACT THAT HE CARRIED A GUN. HE THOUGHT I WAS SLEEPING WHEN HE TOOK THE GUN OUT OF HIS POCKET AND PUT IT AWAY IN A DRAWER. IT GAVE ME SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT DURING THE FUNERAL THE NEXT DAY.

IF AN UNCLE HAD TO BE MURDERED, I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED IT TO BE RUDOLPH. WE WERE NEVER FRIENDLY AND AS I GREW OLDER HE SHOWED ME, VERY POLITELY, THAT HE DISAPPROVED OF ME AND MY VIEWS ON SOCIETY. MY VIEWS HAVE NOT CHANGED RADICALLY. JELLED, MY UNCLE WOULD PROBABLY SAY, IF HE TOOK THE TROUBLE TO EXAMINE THEM. BUT HE IS RICH AND THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN SOME MENTION OF ME IN HIS WILL, IF NOT OUT OF ANY FONDNESS FOR ME THEN OUT OF BROTHERLY LOVE FOR MY MOTHER. THOMAS JORDACHE WAS NOT THE TYPE OF MAN TO LEAVE A FORTUNE BEHIND HIM.

I SHOWED THE TELEGRAM TO THE COLONEL AND HE GAVE ME TEN DAYS OF COMPASSIONATE LEAVE TO GO TO ANTIBES. I DIDN’T GO TO ANTIBES, BUT I SENT A TELEGRAM OF CONDOLENCE TO THE HOTEL AND SAID THAT THE ARMY WOULDN’T LET ME OFF FOR THE FUNERAL.

MONIKA GOT TIME OFF FROM HER JOB, TOO, AND WE WENT TO PARIS. WE HAD A MARVELOUS TIME. MONIKA IS EXACTLY THE SORT OF GIRL YOU WANT TO HAVE WITH YOU IN PARIS.

«  »

“I’m afraid the time has come,” Rudolph said, “to discuss a few things we’ve avoided up to now. We have to talk about what we’re going to do next. The legacy. Painful as it is, we’re going to have to talk about money.”

They were all in the saloon of the Clothilde, Kate in a dark dress that was obviously old and now too tight for her, with her scuffed, imitation-leather suitcase on the floor next to her chair. The saloon was painted white, with blue trim and blue curtains at the portholes and on the bulkhead old prints of sailing ships that Thomas had picked up in Venice. Everybody kept looking at Kate’s suitcase, although no one had said anything about it yet.

“Kate, Bu

“He never said anything to me about a will,” Kate said.

“Me, neither,” said Dwyer.

“Wesley?”

Wesley shook his head.

Rudolph sighed. Same old Tom, he thought, consistent to the end. Married, with a son and a pregnant wife, and never took an afternoon off to write a will. He himself had drawn up his first will in a lawyer’s office when he was twenty-one years old and five or six later ones since then, the last one when his daughter Enid was born. And now that Jean was spending more and more time in drying-out clinics he was working on a new one. “How about a safety-deposit box?” he asked.

“Not that I know of,” Kate said.

“Bu

“I’m pretty sure not,” Dwyer said.

“Did he have any securities?”

Kate and Dwyer looked at each other, puzzled. “Securities?” Dwyer asked. “What’s that?”

“Stocks, bonds.” Where have these people been all their lives? Rudolph wondered.

“Oh, that,” Dwyer said. “He used to say that was just another way they’d figured out to screw the workingman.” He had also said, “Leave stuff like that to my goddamn brother,” but that was before the final reconciliation between the two men and Dwyer didn’t think this was the time for that particular quotation.

“Okay, no securities,” Rudolph said. “Then what did he do with his money?” He tried not to sound irritated.

“He had two accounts,” Kate said. “A checking account in francs at the Crédit Lyo

Rudolph nodded. At least his brother hadn’t been totally devoid of financial sense.

“The bankbook and the last statements from the Crédit Lyo

Wesley went forward toward the captain’s cabin.

“If I may ask, Bu

“He didn’t,” Dwyer said. “We were partners. At the end of the year, we split up what was left over.”

“Did you have any kind of papers—a contract, some kind of formal agreement?”