Rich Man, Poor Man

Fifteen minutes later Sinclair came onto the court and beat his opponent in straight games.

In the locker room later, Thomas congratulated him on his victory.

He got to the bar of the Touraine at five to eleven. He was dressed in a suit with a collar and tie. Tonight he wanted to pass for a gentleman. The bar was dark and only a third full. He carefully sat down at a table in a corner, where he could watch the entrance. When the waiter came over to him, he ordered a bottle of Bud-weiser. Five thousand dollars, he thought, five thousand … They had taken that amount from his father and he was taking it back from them. He wondered if Sinclair had had to go to his father to get the money and had had to explain why he needed it. Probably not. Probably Sinclair had so much dough in his own name he could lay his hands on five thousand cash in ten minutes. Thomas had nothing against Sinclair. Sinclair was a pleasant young man, with nice, friendly eyes and a soft voice and good ma

He sipped at his beer, watching the door. At three minutes after eleven, the door opened and Sinclair came in. He peered around the dark room and Thomas stood up. Sinclair came over to the table and Thomas said, “Good evening, sir.”

“Good evening, Tom,” Sinclair said evenly and sat down on the banquette, but without taking off his topcoat.

“What are you drinking?” Thomas asked, as the waiter came over.

“Scotch and water, please,” Sinclair said with his polite, Harvard way of talking.

“And another Bud, please,” said Thomas.

They sat in silence for a moment, side by side on the banquette. Sinclair drummed his fingers briefly on the table, sca

“Once in awhile.”

“Do you ever see anybody from the Club here?”

“No.”

The waiter came over and put down their drinks. Sinclair took a thirsty gulp from his glass. “Just for your information,” Sinclair said, “I don’t take the money because I need it.”

“I know,” Thomas said.

“I’m sick,” Sinclair said. “It’s a disease. I’m going to a psychiatrist.”

“That’s smart of you,” Thomas said.

“You don’t mind doing what you’re doing to a sick man?”

“No,” Thomas said. “No, sir.”

“You’re a hard little son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

“I hope so, sir,” said Thomas.

Sinclair opened his coat and reached inside and brought out a long, full envelope. He put it down on the banquette between himself and Thomas. “It’s all there,” he said. “You needn’t bother to count it.”

“I’m sure it’s all there,” Thomas said. He slipped the envelope into his side pocket.

“I’m waiting,” Sinclair said. Thomas took out the IOU and put it on the table. Sinclair glanced at it, tore it up and stuffed the shreds into an ashtray. He stood up. “Thanks for the drink,” he said. He walked toward the door past the bar, a handsome young man, the marks of breeding, gentility, education, and good luck clearly on him.

Thomas watched him go out and slowly finished his beer. He paid for the drinks and went into the lobby and rented a room for the night. Upstairs, with the door locked and the blinds down, he counted the money. It was all in hundred-dollar bills, all new. It occurred to him that they might be marked, but he couldn’t tell.

He slept well in the big double bed and in the morning called the Club and told Dominic that he had to go to New York on family business and wouldn’t be in until Monday afternoon. He hadn’t taken any days off since he’d started working at the Club, so Dominic had to say okay, but no later than Monday.

It was drizzling when the train pulled into the station and the gray, autumnal drip didn’t make Port Philip look any better as Thomas went out of the station. He hadn’t brought his coat, so he put up the collar of his jacket to try to keep the rain from going down his neck.

The station square didn’t look much different. The Port Philip House had been repainted and a big radio and television shop in a new, yellow-brick building was advertising a sale in portable radios. The smell of the river was still the same and Tom remembered it.

He could have taken a taxi, but after the years of absence he preferred to walk. The streets of his native town would slowly prepare him—for just what he was not quite sure.

He walked past the bus station. The last ride with his brother Rudolph. You smell like a wild animal.

He walked past Bernstein’s Department Store, his sister’s rendezvous point with Theodore Boylan. The naked man in the living room, the burning cross. Happy boyhood memories.

He walked past the public school. The returned malarial soldier and the samurai sword and the Jap’s head spouting blood.

Nobody said hello. All faces in the mean rain looked hurried, closed, and unfamiliar. Return in Triumph. Welcome, Citizen.

He walked past St. Anselm’s, Claude Tinker’s uncle’s church. By the Grace of God, he was not observed.

He turned into Vanderhoff Street. The rain was coming down more strongly. He touched the bulge in the breast of his jacket that concealed the envelope with the money in it. The street had changed. A square prisonlike building had been put up and there was some sort of factory in it. Some of the old shops were boarded up and there were names he didn’t recognize on the windows of other shops.

He kept his eyes down to keep the rain from driving into them, so when he looked up finally he was stupidly puzzled because where the bakery had been, where the house in which he was born had stood, there was now a large supermarket, with three stories of apartments above it. He read the signs in the windows. Special Today, Rib Roast. Lamb Shoulder. Women with shopping bags were going in and out of a door which, if the Jordache house had been still there, would have opened onto the front hallway.

Thomas peered through the windows. There were girls making change at the front desks. He didn’t know any of them. There was no sense in going in. He was not in the market for rib roasts or lamb shoulders.

Uncertainly, he continued down the street. The garage next door had been rebuilt and the name on it was a different one and he didn’t recognize any of the faces there, either. But near the corner he saw that Jardino’s Fruits and Vegetables was still where it always had been. He went in and waited while an old woman argued with Mrs. Jardino about string beans.

When the old woman had gone, Mrs. Jardino turned to him. She was a small, shapeless woman with a fierce, beaked nose and a wart on her upper lip from which sprang two long, coarse, black hairs. “Yes,” Mrs. Jardino said. “What can I do for you?”

“Mrs. Jardino,” Thomas said, putting down his coat collar to look more respectable, “you probably don’t remember me, but I used to be a … well … a kind of neighbor of yours. We used to have the bakery. Jordache?”

Mrs. Jardino peered nearsightedly at him. “Which one were you?”

“The youngest one.”

“Oh, yes. The little gangster.”

Thomas tried a smile, to compliment Mrs. Jardino on her rough humor. Mrs. Jardino didn’t smile back. “So, what do you want?”

“I haven’t been here for awhile,” Thomas said. “I’ve come back to pay a family visit. But the bakery isn’t there any more.”

“It’s been gone for years,” Mrs. Jardino said impatiently, arranging apples so that the spots wouldn’t show. “Didn’t your family tell you?”

“We were out of touch for awhile,” Thomas said. “Do you know where they are?”

“How should I know where they are? They never talked to dirty Italians.” She turned her back squarely on him and fussed with bunches of celery.

“Thank you very much, just the same,” Thomas said and started out.