Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

When the plane landed, Brad wasn’t at the airport to greet them. Instead, he had sent an assistant, a burly, tall man in a brown straw hat, a string tie, and a madras jacket, who made Mr Knight’s excuses (he was tied up in a meeting, the assistant said) and drove with them in an air-conditioned Cadillac along a road that throbbed in heat mirages, to the hotel in the centre of Dallas where Brad had rented a suit with a saloon and two bedrooms for Johnny and Rudolph.

The hotel was brand new and the rooms were decorated in what the decorator must have thought was a Lone Star improvement of Second Empire. On a long table against the wall were ranged six bottles of bourbon, six of Scotch, six of gin and vodka, plus a bottle of vermouth, a filed ice bucket, dozens of bottles of Coke and soda water, a basket of lemons, a huge bowl of oversized fruit, and an array of glasses of all sizes.

‘You’ll find beer and champagne in the refrigerator in the closet,’ the assistant said. ‘If that’s your pleasure. You’re the guests of Mr Knight.’

‘We’re only staying overnight,’ Rudolph said.

‘Mr Knight told me to make you gentlemen comfortable,’ the assistant said. ‘You’re in Texas now.’

‘If they had this stuff at the Alamo,’ Rudolph said, ‘they’d still be holding out.’

The assistant laughed politely and said that Mr Knight was almost sure to be free by five p.m. It was a little past three now. ‘Remember,’ he said, as he left, ‘if you gentlemen need anything, you call me at the office, hear?’

‘Window dressing,’ Johnny said, with a gesture for the suite and the table loaded with drink.

Rudolph felt a twinge of irritation with Johnny and his automatic reflex of suspicion in all situations.

‘I have some calls to make,’ Rudolph said. ‘Let me know when Brad arrives.’ He went into his own room and closed the door.

He called his home first. He tried to call Jean at least three

times each day. He had finally taken Gretchen’s advice and there was no liquor in the house, but Whitby was full of liquor stores and bars. No worry today. Jean was cheerful and bright. It was raining-in Whitby. She was taking Enid to her first children’s party. Two months before, she had had an accident while driving drunk with Enid in the rear seat. The car had been demolished but aside from a few scratches neither of them had been hurt. ‘What’s it like in Dallas?’ she asked.

‘All right for Texans, I suppose,’ Rudolph said. ‘Intolerable for the rest of the human race.’ ‘When will you be back?’ ‘As soon as possible.’

‘Hurry,’ she said: He hadn’t told her why he and Johnny had had to come to Texas. Sober, she was depressed by duplicity.

He then called his office at the Town Hall and got his secretary on the phone. His secretary was a young man, a little effeminate, but usually serene. He wasn’t serene this afternoon. There had been a demonstration of students that morning in front of the offices of the Sentinel because of an editorial in favour of the continued existence of the ROTC at the university. Rudolph had approved the editorial himself, as it was moderate and had not advocated compulsory military training but said it should be open to those students who felt that they wanted a career in the armed forces or even those students who felt that in case of need they would like to be ready to defend their country. The sweet voice of reason had not helped to mollify the demonstrators. A rock had been thrown through a plate-glass window and the police had had to be called. President Dorlacker, of the university, had phoned, in a black mood, the secretary said, and had said, quote, If he’s the Mayor, why isn’t he at his desk? Unquote. Rudolph had not deigned to tell the secretary the nature of his business. Police Chief Ott-man had been into the office, looking harassed. Something very, very important, Ottman had said. The Mayor was to get back to him soonest. Albany had telephoned twice. A Black delegation had presented a petition about something to do with a swimming pool.

That’s enough, Walter,’ Rudolph said, wearily. He hung up the phone and lay back on the baby-blue, slippery silk bedspread. He got ten thousand dollars a year for being Mayor of Whitby. And he donated the entire amount to charity. Public service. He got up from the bed, maliciously pleased to see that his

shoes had left a stain on the silk, and went into the living room. Johnny was sitting at a huge desk, going over his papers in his shirt sleeves. There’s no doubt about it, Rudy,’ Johnny said, ‘the sonofabitch has taken us for a ride.’

‘Later, please,’ Rudolph said. ‘I’m busy being a devoted and self-sacrificing public servant at the moment.’ He poured a Coke over some ice and went to the window and looked out at Dallas. Dallas glittered in the baking sun, rising from its desolate plain like a senseless eruption of metal and glass, the result of a cosmic accident, unconnected and arbitary.

Rudolph went back into his bedroom, and gave thenumber of the office of the Chief of Police in Whitby to the telephone operator. While waiting for the call to come through he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a man who needed a vacation. He wondered when he was going to have his first heart attack. Although in America only businessmen were supposed to have heart attacks, and theoretically he had abandoned all that. Professors lived forever, he had read somewhere, and most generals.

When he got Ottman on the phone, Ottman sounded mournful. But he always sounded mournful. His metier, which was crime, offended him. Bailey, the former Chief of Police, whom Rudolph had put in jail, had been a hearty and happy man. Rudolph often regretted him. The melancholy of integrity.

‘We’ve opened up a can of worms, Mr Mayor,’ Ottman said. ‘Officer Slattery picked up a Whitby freshman at eight-thirty this morning in a diner, smoking a marijuana cigarette. At eight-thirty in the morning!’ Ottman was a family man who kept regular hours, and the mornings were precious to him. The boy had one and one-third other ounces of the drug on him. Before we booked him, he talked and talked. He says in his dormitory there are at least fifty kids who smoke hash and marijuana. He says if we go there we’ll find a pound of the stuff at least. He’s got a lawyer and he’ll be out on bail by this evening, but by now the lawyer must have told a few people and what am I supposed to do? President Dorlacker called me a little while ago and told me to stay away from the campus, but its bound to be all over town and if I stay away from the campus what does that make me look like? Whitby University isn’t Havana or Buenos Aires, for Christ’s sake, it’s within the city limits and the law’s the law, for Christ’s sake.’

I picked a great day to come to Dallas, Rudolph thought. ‘Let me think for a minute, Chief,’ he said.

‘If I can’t go in there, Mr Mayor,’ Ottman said, ‘you can have my resignation as of this minute.’

Oh, God, Rudolph thought, honest menl Some day he was going to try marijuana himself and see what all the fuss was about. Maybe it would be just the thing for Jean.

“The lawyer for the kid is Leon Harrison’s lawyer, too,’ Ottman said. ‘Harrison’s already been in here and asked what I intend to do. He’s talking about calling a special meeting of the board of trustees.’

‘All right, Chief,’ Rudolph said. ‘Call Dorlacker and tell him you’ve spoken to me and that I’ve ordered a search for eight o’clock tonight. Get a warrant from Judge Satterlee’ and tell your men to leave their clubs at home. I don’t want anybody to get hurt. The news’ll get around and maybe the kids’ll have the sense to get rid of the stuff before you bit the dormitory.’