Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

“The minimum,’ Thomas persisted. ‘The absolute minimum?’

Jennings scratched his head, finished his pastis. Thomas ordered another round. ‘It’s a matter of luck,’ Jennings said. ‘I know men put down a hundred thousand pounds, cash on the barrelhead, ships designed by the fanciest naval architects; built in the best shipyards in Holland or Britain, steel hulls, teak decks, every last little doodad on board, radar, electric toilets, air conditioning, automatic pilot, and they cursed the day the bloody thing was put in the water and they would have been glad to get rid of it for the price of a case of whiskey, and no takers.’

‘We don’t have any hundred thousand pounds,’ Thomas said shortly.

‘We?’ Dwyer said bewilderedly. ‘What do you mean, we?’

‘Shut up,’ Thomas said. ‘Your boat never cost any hundred thousand pounds,’ he said to Jennings.

‘No,’ Jennings said. ‘I don’t pretend it ever did.’

I mean something reasonable,’ Thomas said.

‘Reasonable aren’t a word for use about boats,’ Jennings said. He was beginning to get on Thomas’s nerves. ‘What’s reasonable for one man is pure lunacy for another, if you get my meaning. It’s a matter of luck, like I was saying. For example a man has a nice snug little ship, cost him maybe twenty, thirty thousand pounds, but maybe his wife gets seasick all the time, or he’s had a bad year in business and his creditors are panting on his traces and it’s been a stormy season for cruising and maybe the market’s been down and it looks as though the Communists’re going to take over Italy or France or there’s going to be a war or the tax people’re after him for some hanky-panky, maybe he didn’t tell them he paid for the ship with money he had stowed away quiet-like in some bank in Switzerland, so he’s pressed, he’s got to get out and

get out fast and suddenly nobody wants to buy boats that

week… You get my drift, Yank?’

‘Yeah,’ Thomas said. ‘You don’t have to draw a map.’

‘So he’s desperate,’ Jennings went on. ‘Maybe he needs five thousand guineas before Monday or the house falls on his head. If you’re there and you have the five thousand guineas….’

‘What’s a guinea?’ Dwyer asked.

‘Five thousand guineas is fifteen thousand bucks,’ Thomas said. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Give or take a few bob,’ Jennings said. ‘Or you hear about a naval vessel that’s up for auction or a vessel that’s been confiscated by the Customs for smuggling. Of course, it needs refitting, but if you’re clever with your hands and don’t pay these pirates in the shipyards around here to do your work for you - never trust a Frenchman on the Cote, especially along the waterfront, he’ll steal the eyes right out of your head - why, maybe, playing everything close and counting your money every night, maybe with luck, and getting some people to trust you till the end of the season for gear and provisions, you’re in the water and ready for your first charter for as little as eight, ten thousand pounds.’

‘Eight, ten thousand pounds,’ Dwyer said. ‘It might as well be eight, ten million dollars.’

‘Shut up,’ Thomas said. ‘There’re ways of making money.’

‘Yeah?’ Dwyer said. ‘How?’

There’re ways. I once made three thousand bucks in one night.’

Dwyer took a deep breath. ‘How?’

It was the first time Thomas had given anybody a clue to his past since he had left the Hotel Aegean, and he was sorry he had spoken. ‘Never mind how,’ he said sharply. He turned to Jennings. ‘Will you do me a favour?’

‘Anything within my power,’ Jennings said. ‘As long as it don’t cost me no money.’ He chuckled softly, boat owner, sitting on top of the system, canny graduate of the Royal Navy, survivor of war and poverty, pastis drinker, wise old salt, nobody’s fool.

‘If you hear of anything,’ Thomas said. ‘Something good, but cheap, get in touch with us, will you.’

‘Happy to oblige, Yank,’ Jennings said. ‘Just write the address down.’

Thomas hesitated. The only address he had was the Hotel Aegean and the only person he had given it to was his mother. Before the fight with Quayles, he had visited her fairly regularly, when he was sure he wouldn’t run into his brother Rudolph. Since then he had written her from the ports he had touched at, sending her folders of postcards and pretending he

was doing better than he was doing. When he came back from his first voyage there had been a bundle of letters from her waiting for him at the Aegean. The only trouble with her letters was that she kept asking to see her grandson and he didn’t dare get in touch with Teresa even to see the boy. It was the thing he missed about America.

‘Just write the address down, lad,’ Jennings repeated.

‘Give him your address,’ Thomas said to Dwyer. Dwyer got his mail at the headquarters of the National Maritime Union in New York. Nobody was looking for him.

‘Why don’t you stop dreaming?’ Dwyer said.

‘Do like I say.’

Dwyer shrugged, wrote out his address, and gave it to Jennings. His handwriting was-clear and straight. He would keep a neat log. Third Mate Dwyer. If he ever got the chance.

The old man put the slip of paper into an old, cracked, leather wallet. ‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open,’ he promised.

Thomas paid the bill and he and Dwyer started along the quay, examining all the boats tied up there, as usual. They walked slowly and silently. Thomas could feel Dwyer glancing at him uneasily from time to time.

‘Haw much money you got?’ Thomas asked, as they reached the foot of the harbour, where the fishing boats with their acetylene lamps, were tied up, with nets laid out along the pavement, drying.

‘How much money I got?’ Dwyer said querulously. ‘Not even a hundred bucks. Just enough to buy one millionth of an ocean liner.’

‘I don’t mean how much money you got on you. I mean altogether. You keep telling me you save your dough.’

‘If you think I’ve got enough for a crazy scheme like …’

‘I asked you how much money you got. In the bank?’

Twenty-two hundred dollars,’ Dwyer said reluctantly. ‘In the bank. Listen, Tommy, stop jerking off, we’ll never … ‘

‘Between us,’ Thomas said, ‘you and me, one day, we’re going to have our own boat. Right here. In this port. Rich man’s weather, like the Englishman said. We’ll get the money somehow.’

‘I’m not going to do anything criminal.’ Dwyer sounded scared. ‘I never committed a crime in my life and I’m not going to start now.’

‘Who said anything about committing a crime?’ Thomas said. Although the thought had crossed his mind. There had

been plenty of what Dwyer would call criminals hanging around during his years in the ring, in two-hundred-dollar suits and big cars, with fancy broads hanging on their arms, and everybody being polite and glad to see them, cops, politicians, businessmen, movie stars. They were just about like everybody else. There was nothing so special about them. Crime was just another way of earning a buck. Maybe an easier way. But he didn’t want to scare Dwyer off. Not yet. If it ever came off, he’d need Dwyer to handle the boat. He couldn’t do it alone. Yet. He wasn’t that much of an idiot.

Somehow, he told himself, as they passed the old men playing boule on the quay-side, with the harbour behind them, the protected sheet of water crowded with millions of dollars worth of pleasure craft, shining in the sun. The one time he had been here before, he had sworn he’d come back. Well, he had come back. And he was going to come back again,

SOMEHOW.

The next morning, early, they caught the train on the way to Genoa. They gave themselves an extra day, because they wanted to stop off and see Monte Carlo. Maybe they’d have some luck at the Casino.