Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

Rudolph couldn’t help laughing, and the others laughed with him. ‘Well, you don’t, Miss Soames,’ he said. Tin prepared to swear to that’

They all laughed again.

‘Mr Jordache the daredevil motorcycle rider, the Wall of Death, sees all, knows all, feels all’ Miss Soames said. ‘Oh, Christ, I can’t keep on calling you Mr Jordache. Can I call you Young Master? Or will you settle for Rudy?’

‘Rudy,’ he said. If there had been nobody else mere, he would have grabbed her, kissed that flushed small tempting face, the glistening, half mocking, half inviting lips.

‘Rudy, it is,’ she said. ‘Call him Rudy, Sonia.’

‘Hello, Rudy,’ Miss Packard said. It didn’t mean anything to her. She didn’t work at the store.

‘Benny,’ Miss Soames commanded.

Larsen looked beseechingly at Rudolph. ‘She’s loaded,’ he began.

‘Don’t be silly, Benny,’ Rudolph said. ‘Rudy,’ Larsen said reluctantly.

‘Rudy, the mystery man,’ Miss Soames went on, sipping at her wineglass. ‘They lock him away at closing time. Nobody sees him except at work, no man, no woman, no child. Especially no woman. There are twenty girls on the ground floor alone who weep into their pillows nightly for him, to say nothing of the ladies in the other departments, and he passes them by with a cold, heartless smile.’

‘Where the hell did you learn to talk like that?’ Rudolph asked, embarrassed, amused, and, at the same time flattered. ‘She’s bookish,’ Miss Packard said. ‘She reads a book a day.’ Miss Soames ignored her. ‘He is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, as Mr Churchill said on another occasion. He has been reported running at dawn followed by a young coloured boy. What is he running from? What message does the coloured boy have for him? He is reported as having been seen in New York, in low neighbourhoods. What sins does he commit in the big city? Why doesn’t he commit his sins locally?’ ‘Betsy,’ Larsen said weakly. ‘Let’s go skiing.’ ‘Tune in on this same station next Sunday and perhaps all these questions will be answered,’ Miss Soames said. ‘You may now kiss my hand.’ She held out her hand, the wrist arched, and Rudolph kissed it, blushing a little..

‘I’ve got to get back to town,’ he said. The check was on the table and he put down some bills. With tips, it came to fifteen dollars.

When they went outside, a light snow was falling. The mountain was bleak and dangerous looking, its outlines only suggested in the light swirl of snow.

“Thanks for the lunch, Mr Jordache,’ Larsen said. One Rudy a week was enough for him. ‘It was great.’

‘I really enjoyed it, Mr Jordache,’ Miss Packard said, practising to be Larsen’s wife. ‘I mean I really did.’

‘Come on, Betsy,’ Larsen said, ‘let’s bit the slope, work off some of that wine.’

‘I am returning to town with my good and old friend, Rudy, on his death-defying machine,’ Miss Soames said. ‘Aren’t I, Rudy?’ ‘

‘It’s an awfully cold ride,’ Rudolph said. She looked small and crushable in her parka, with her oversized goggles incongruously strapped on to her ski cap. Her head, especially with the goggles, seemed very large, a weighty frame for the small, wicked face.

‘I will ski no more today,’ Miss Soames said grandly. ‘I am in the mood for other sports.’ She went over to the motorcycle. ‘Let us mount,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to take her if you don’t want to,’ Larsen said anxiously, responsible.

‘Oh, let her come,’ Rudolph said. ‘I’ll go slow and make sure she doesn’t fall off.’

‘She’s a funny girl,’ Larsen said, still worried. ‘She doesn’t know how to drink. But she doesn’t mean any harm.’

‘She hasn’t done any harm, Benny.’ Rudolph patted Larsen’s thick, sweatered shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. And see what you can find out about that barn.’ Back in the safe world of business.

‘Sure thing, Mr Jordache,’ Larsen said. He and Miss Packard waved as Rudolph gunned the motor cycle out of the restaurant parking lot, with Miss Soames clinging on behind him, her arms around his waist.

The snow wasn’t thick, but it was enough to make him drive carefully. Miss Soames’s arms around him were surprisingly strong for a girl so lightly made, and while she had drunk enough wine to make her tongue loose, it hadn’t affected her balance and she leaned easily with him as they swept around curves in the road. She sang from time to time, the songs that she heard all day in the record department, but with the wind howling past, Rudolph could only hear little snatches, a phrase of melody in a faraway voice. She sounded like a child singing fitfully to herself in a distant room.

He enjoyed the ride. The whole day, in fact He was glad his mother’s talk about church had driven him out of the house.

At the outskirts of Whitby, as they were passing the university, he slowed down, to ask Miss Soames where she lived. It wasn’t far from the campus and he zoomed down the familiar streets. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, but the clouds overhead were black and there were lights to be seen in the windows of the houses they passed. He had to slow down at a stop sign and as he did so, he felt Miss Soames’s hand slide down from his waist, where she had been holding on, to his crotch. She stroked him there softly and he could hear her laughing in his ear.

‘No disturbing the driver,’ he said. ‘State laws’

But she only laughed and kept on doing what she had been doing.

They passed an elderly man walking a dog and Rudolph was sure the old man looked startled. He gunned the machine and it had some effect. Miss Soames just held on to the place she had been caressing.

He came to the address she had given him. It was an old, one-family clapboard house set on a yellowed lawn. There were no lights on in the house.

‘Home,’ Miss Soames said. She jumped off the pillion. ‘That was a nice ride, Rudy. Especially the last two minutes.’ She took off her goggles and hat and put her head to one side, letting her hair swing loose over her shoulders, ‘Want to come inside?’ she asked. There’s nobody home. My mother and father are out visiting and my brother’s at the movies. We can go on to the next chapter.’

He hesitated, looked at the house, guessed what it was like inside. Papa and Mama off on a visit but likely to return early. Brother perhaps bored with the movie and coming rattling in an hour earlier than expected. Miss Soames stood before him, one hand on her hip, smiling, swinging her goggles and ski cap in the other.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘Some other time, perhaps,’ he said.

‘Scaredy-cat,’ she said, and giggled. Then she ran up the front walk towards the house. At the door she turned and stuck out her tongue at him. The dark building engulfed her.

Thoughtfully, he started the motorcycle and drove slowly towards the centre of the town along the darkening streets. He didn’t want to go home, so he parked the machine and went into a movie. He hardly saw the movie and would not have been able to tell what it was about when he got out.

He kept thinking about Miss Soames. Silly, cheap little girl, teasing, teasing, making fun of him. He didn’t like the idea of seeing her in the store next morning. If it were possible he would have had her fired. But she would go to the union and complain and he would have to explain the grounds on which he had fired her. ‘She called me Mr Frigidaire, then she called me Rudy and finally she held my cock on a public thoroughfare.’

He gave up the idea of firing Miss Soames. One thing it all proved - he had been right all along in having nothing to do with anybody from the store.

He had dinner alone in a restaurant and drank a whole bottle