Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

He drank a second beer, paid the barman, started out, stopped for a moment to watch the crap game. A guy who looked like a small-town undertaker had a pile of chips about a foot high in front of him. The dice were hot. Thomas took out the envelope and bought chips. In ten minutes he was down to ten dollars and he had sense enough to hold on to that.

He got the doorman to beg a ride for him from a guest to his hotel downtown, so he wouldn’t have to pay taxi fare. His hotel was a grubby one, with a few slot machines and one crap table. Quayles was staying at the Sands, with all the movie stars. And his wife. Who lay around the pool all day getting stoned on Planter’s Punches when she wasn’t sneaking down to Thomas’s hotel for a quick one. She had a loving nature, she said, and Quayles slept alone, in a separate room, being a serious fighter with an important bout coming up. Thomas wasn’t a serious fighter any more and there were no more important bouts for him so it didn’t make much difference what he did The lady was active in bed and some of the afternoons were really worth the trouble.

There was a letter on the desk for him. From Teresa. He didn’t even bother to open it. He knew what was in it. Another demand for money. She was working now and making more money than he did, but that didn’t stop her. She had gone to work as a hatcheck and cigarette girl in a nightclub, wiggling her ass and showing her legs as high up as the law allowed and raking in the tips. She said she was bored just hanging around the house with the kid with him away so much of the time and she wanted to have a career. She thought being a hatcheck girl was some sort of show business. The kid was stashed away with her sister in the Bronx and even when Thomas was in town Teresa came in at all hours, five, six in the morning, with her purse stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. God knows what the did. He didn’t care any more.

He went up to his room and lay down on his bed. That was one way to save money. He had to figure how to get from today to Friday on ten bucks. The skin under his eyes smarted where

Quayles had peppered him. The air conditioning in the room was almost useless and the desert heat made him sweat.

He closed his eyes and slept uneasily, dreaming. He dreamt of France. It had been the best time of his life and he often dreamt about the moment on the shore of the Mediterranean, although it had been almost five years ago now, and the dreams were losing their intensity.

He woke, remembering the dream, sighed as the sea and the white buildings disappeared and he was surrounded once more by the cracked Las Vegas walls.

He had gone down to the Cote d’Azur after winning the fight in London. It had been an easy victory and Schultzy had got him another bout in Paris a month later, so there was no sense ,in going back to New York. Instead he had picked up one of those wild London girls. She had said she knew a great little hotel in Cannes and since Thomas was rolling in money for once and it looked as though he could beat everybody in Europe with one hand tied behind him, he had taken off for the weekend. The weekend had stretched into ten days, with frantic cables from Schultzy. Thomas had lain on the beach and eaten two great, heavy meals a day, developed a taste for vin rose, and had put on fifteen pounds. When he finally got to Paris, he had just managed to make the weight the morning of the fight and the Frenchman had nearly killed him. For the first time in his life he had been knocked out and suddenly there were no more bouts in Europe. He had blown most of his money on the English girl, who happened to like jewellery, aside from her other attractions, and Schultzy hadn’t talked to him all the way back to New York.

The Frenchman had taken something out of him and nobody was writing that he should be considered for a shot at the title any more. The time between bouts became greater and greater and the purses smaller and smaller. Twice he had taken a dive for walking-around money and Teresa closed him off entirely and if it hadn’t been for the kid he’d have just gotten up and left.

Lying in the heat on the wrinkled bed, he thought of all these things and remembered what his brother had told him that day at the Hotel Warwick. He wondered if Rudolph had followed his career and was saying, to his snooty sister, ‘I told him it would happen.’

Screw his brother.

Well, maybe on Friday night, there’d be some of the old juice in him and he’d score spectacularly. People would start

hanging around him again and he’d make a comeback. Plenty of fighters - older than he - had made comebacks. Look at Jimmy Braddock, down to being a day labourer and then beating Max Baer for the heavyweight championship of the world. Schultzy just had to pick his opponents for him more carefully - keep him away from the dancers, give him somebody who came out to fight. He’d have to have a talk with Schultzy. And not only about that. He had to get some money in advance before Friday, to keep alive in this lousy town.

Two, three good wins and he could forget all this. Two, three good wins and they’d be asking for him in Paris again and he’d be down on the C6te sitting at a sidewalk cafe, drinking vin rose and looking out at the masts of the boats anchored in the harbour. With real luck he might even get to rent one of them, sail around, out of reach of everybody. Maybe only two, three fights a year just to keep the bank balance comfortable.

Just thinking about it made him cheerful again and he was just about to go downstairs and put his ten bucks on the come at the crap table when the phone rang.

It was Cora, Quayles’s wife, and she sounded demented, screaming and crying into the phone. ‘He’s found out, he’s found out,’ she kept saying. ‘Some lousy bellboy got to him. He nearly killed me just now. I think he broke my nose, I’m going to be a cripple the rest of my life …’ ‘Go easy now,’ Thomas said. ‘What has he found out?’ ‘You know what he found out. He’s on his way right now to … ‘ ‘Wait a minute. What did you tell him?’ ‘What the hell do you think I told him?’ she screamed. ‘I told him no. Then he clouted me across the face. I’m blood all over. He doesn’t believe me. That lousy bellboy in your hotel must’ve had a telescope or something. You’d better get out of town. This minute. He’s on his way over to see you, I tell you. Christ, knows what he’ll do to you. And later on, to me. Only I’m not waiting. I’m going to the airport right now. I’m not even packing a bag. And I advise you to do the same. Only stay away from me. You don’t know him. He’s a murderer. Just get on something and get out of town. Fast’

Thomas hung up on the terrified, high-pitched babble. He looked at his one valise in a corner of the room, then stood up and went to the window and peered out through the Venetian blinds. The street was empty in the four o’clock afternoon desert glare. Thomas went over to the door and made sure it was unlocked. Then he moved the one chair to a corner. He didn’t want to get charged and sent backward over the chair in the first rush.

He sat on the bed, smiling a little. He had never run away from a fight and he wasn’t going to run away from this one. And this one might be the most enjoyable fight of his entire career. The small hotel room was no place for jabbers and dancers.

He got up and went over to the closet and took out a leather windjacket and put it on, zipping it up high and turning the collar up to protect his throat. Then he sat on the edge of the bed again, waiting placidly, hunched over a little, his hands hanging loose between his legs. He heard a car screech to a halt in front of the hotel, but he didn’t move. One minute later there were steps outside in the hall and then the door was flung open and Quayles came into the room, stopping just inside the doorway. ‘Hi,’ Thomas said. He stood up slowly, Quayles closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.