Irwin Shaw: Rich Man, Poor Man

Over the noise of the band and his own gasping he could

hear Jean screaming, but faintly, as though she were far away.

Danovic knew Thomas was hurt and tried to circle him. Thomas made himself swing around, making the leg work for him. Danovic lunged at him and Thomas hit him above the elbow. The arm dropped, but Danovic still swung the good arm. Thomas saw the opening and hit the man on the temple, not squarely, but it was enough. Danovic staggered, fell on his back. Thomas dropped on him, straddling his chest. He lifted the hammer above Danovic’s head. The man was gasping, protecting his face with his arm. Thomas brought the hammer down three times on the arm, on the shoulder, the wrist and the elbow, and it was all over. Danovic’s two arms lay useless alongside his body. Thomas lifted the hammer to finish him off. The man’s eyes were opaque with fear, as he stared up, the blood streaming down from the temple, a dark river in the delta of his face.

‘Please,’ he cried, ‘please, don’t kill me. Please.’ His voice rose to a shriek.

Thomas rested on Danovic’s chest, getting his breath back, the hammer still raised in his left hand. If ever a man deserved to get killed, this was the man. But Falconetti had deserved to get killed, too. Let somebody else do the job. Thomas reversed the hammer and jammed the handle hard into Danovic’s gaping, twitching mouth. He could feel the front teeth breaking off. He no longer was able to kill the man, but he didn’t mind hurting him.

‘Help me up,’ he said to Jean. She was sitting on the cot, holding her arms up in front of her breasts. She was panting loudly, as though she had fought, too. She stood up slowly, unsteadily, and came over and put her hands under his armpits and pulled. He rose to his feet and nearly fell as he stepped away from the shivering body beneath him. He was dizzy and the room seemed to be whirling around him, but he was thinking clearly. He saw a white-linen coat that he knew belongedto Jean thrown over the back of the room’s single chair, and he said, ‘Put on your coat’ They couldn’t walk through the nightclub with Jean’s sweater torn from her shoulder. Maybe he couldn’t walk through the nightclub at all. He had to use his two hands to pull his bad leg up, one step after another, on the staircase. They left Danovic lying on the cement floor, the hammer sticking up from his broken mouth, bubbling blood.

As they went through the archway under the Toilettes, Telephone sign a new strip-tease was starting. The entertainment was nonstop at La Porte Rose. Luckily, it was dark, outside the glare of the spotlight on the artiste, who was dressed in

a black, skirted riding habit, with derby and boots and whip. Leaning heavily on Jean’s arm, Thomas managed not to limp too noticeably and they were almost out of the door before one of the three men sitting near the entrance,with the girl spotted them. The man stood up and called, ‘Alio! Vous la. Les Americans. Arretez. Pas si vite.’

But they were out of the door and somehow they managed to keep walking and a taxi was passing by and Thomas hailed it. Jean struggled to push him in and then tumbled in after him and the taxi was on its way to Antibes by the time the man who had called out to them came out on the sidewalk looking for them.

In the cab, Thomas leaned back, exhausted, against the seat. Jean huddled in her white coat in a corner, away from him. He couldn’t stand his own smell, mingled with the smell of Danovic and blood and the dank cellar, and he didn’t blame Jean for keeping as far away from him as possible. He passed out, or fell asleep, he couldn’t tell which. When he opened his eyes again they were going down the street towards the harbour at Antibes. Jean was weeping uncontrollably in her comer, but he couldn’t worry about her any more tonight.

He chuckled as they came up to where the Clothilde was tied up.

The chuckle must have startled Jean. She stopped crying abruptly. ‘What’re you laughing about, Tom?’ she asked.

‘I’m laughing about the doctor in New York,’ he said. ‘He told me to avoid any sudden movements or strenuous exertion for a long time. I’d have loved to see his face if he’d been there tonight.’

He forced himself to get out of the cab unaided and paid the driver off and limped up the gangplank after Jean. He had a dizzy spell again and nearly fell sideways off the gangplank into the water.

‘Should I help you to your cabin?’ Jean asked, when he finally made it to the deck.

He waved her away. ‘You go down and tell your husband you’re home,’ he said. ‘And tell him any story you want about tonight.’

She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. ‘I swear I’ll never touch another drop of liquor again as long as I live,’ she said.

‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘we’ve had a successful evening, after all, haven’t we?’ But he patted her smooth, childish cheek, to take the sting but of his words. He watched as she went down through the saloon and to the main cabin. Then he painfully

went below and opened the door to his own cabin. Kate was awake and the light was on. She made a hushed, choked sound when she saw what he looked like.

‘Sssh,’ he said.

‘What happened?’ she whispered.

‘Something great,’ he said. ‘I just avoided killing a man.’ He dropped on to the bunk. ‘Now get dressed and go get a doctor.’

He closed his eyes, but he heard her dressing swiftly. By the time she was out of the room he was asleep.

He was up early, awakened by the sound of hissing water, as Dwyer and Wesley hosed off the deck. They had come into port too late the night before to do it then. He had a big bandage around his knee and every time he moved his right shoulder he winced with pain. But it could have been worse. The doctor said there were no broken bones, but that the knee had been badly mauled and perhaps some cartilage had been torn away. Kate was already in the galley preparing breakfast and he lay alone in the bunk, his body remembering all the other times in his life he had awakened bruised and aching. His memory bank.

He pushed himself out of the bunk with his good arm and stood in front of the little cabin mirror on his good leg. His face was a mess. He hadn’t felt it at the time, but when he had toppled Danovic his face had crashed against the rough concrete floor and his nose was swollen and his lip puffed out and there were gashes on his forehead and cheekbones. The doctor had cleaned out the cuts with alcohol and compared to the rest of him his face felt in good shape, but he hoped Enid wouldn’t go screaming to her mother when she got a glimpse of him.

He was naked and there were black-and-blue welts blooming all over his chest and arms. Schultzy should see me now, he thought, as he pulled on a pair of pants. It took him five minutes to get the pants on and he couldn’t manage a shirt at all. He took the shirt with him and clumped, hopping mostly, into the galley. The coffee was on and Kate was squeezing oranges. Once the doctor had assured her that nothing serious was wrong, she had become calm and businesslike. Before he had gone to sleep, after the doctor had left, he had told her the whole story.

‘You want to kiss the bridegroom’s beautiful face?’ he said.

She kissed him gently, smiling, and helped him on with his

shirt. He didn’t tell her how much it hurt when he moved bis shoulder.

‘Does anybody know anything yet?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t told Wesley or Bunny,’ she said. ‘And none of the others have come up yet.’

‘As far as anybody is concerned, I was in a fight with a . drunk outside Le Cameo,’ Thomas said. ‘That will be an object lesson to anybody who goes out drinking on his wedding night’

Kate nodded. ‘Wesley’s been down with the mask already,’ she said. There’s a big chunk out of the port screw and as far as he can tell the shaft is twisted, too.’