Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man. Beggarman, Thief

“If there was anyone else but us three here,” Gretchen said, “maybe a party would be called for. But I don’t want to be the only one to accept the kudos, if there are going to be any kudos to accept, or the only one to see the long faces of all those people if the picture flops. If Frances Miller and Wesley were here, I’d say yes, but that little bitch couldn’t take the trouble to come and you can’t find Wesley for me and I’m too old for parties anyway.…”

“Okay,” Rudolph said. “No party. We’ll have a nice little foursome for supper—us three and Billy—and congratulate each other.” He looked at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I suggest you go to bed and try to get some sleep.” He kissed Gretchen good night and started toward the door.

“I’ll go along with you,” Donnelly said, “I need some sleep, too. Unless you want me to stay, Gretchen …?”

“No, thanks,” Gretchen said. “See you in the morning.”

In the corridor, on the way to the elevator, Donnelly said, “I have to talk to you about her, Rudy. I’m worried. She’s taking it too hard. She can’t sleep and she’s dosing herself with pills and she has crazy crying fits when she’s alone with me and I don’t know how to stop her.”

“I wish I were a woman,” Rudolph said. “I’d like to break down and cry myself.”

“I thought you felt fine about the picture.” Donnelly sounded surprised.

“I do,” Rudolph said. “It’s not that. It has nothing to do with the picture.”

“What then?”

“Some other time,” Rudolph said.

“Can I help?”

“Yes,” said Rudolph. “Take care of Gretchen.”

“Maybe,” Donnelly said, “it would be a good idea, after the showing, if I got into a car with her and took her on a little sight-seeing trip—get out of this madhouse for a couple of days.”

“I’d be for that,” Rudolph said, “if you could convince her.”

“I’ll try in the morning.”

“Good man,” Rudolph said, as the elevator door opened. “Good night, David. Sleep well.” Donnelly walked back along the corridor and stopped in front of the door to Gretchen’s salon. There was no sound from the room. Donnelly put out his hand to rap on the door, then stopped himself. Tonight, he thought, it’s probably better if she sleeps alone. He went back toward the elevator and took it down to the ground floor where he strode into the bar. He hesitated when the bartender asked him what he wanted. He ordered a whiskey and soda. The wine route could wait for another time.

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The phone was ringing when Rudolph unlocked the door to his room. He hurried over to the phone and picked it up to say hello. “Monsieur Jordache …?” It was a man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“L’avocat d’Antibes,” the man said, “m’a dit que vous voulez me parler …”

“Do you speak English?” Rudolph said. If it was the man he thought it was he had to understand every word he said. He might just barely be able to arrange a murder in English, but never in high-school French.

“A leetle,” the man said. He had a hoarse, low voice. “The lawyer of Antibes, he say per’aps we do a leetle business together …”

“When can we meet?”

“Now,” the man said.

“Where?”

“A la gare. Z’ station. I stand by z’ bar in z’ buffet.”

“Ten minutes,” Rudolph said. “How will I recognize you?”

“I am dressed z’ following,” the man said. “Blue pantalons, jacket brown, I am small man, w’z grand belly.”

“Good,” Rudolph said. “Ten minutes.” He hung up. Blue pants, brown jacket, big belly. Well, he wasn’t picking the man for his beauty or his taste in clothing. He unlocked his bag, peered in. The automatic was still there. He closed the bag, locked it and went out.

Downstairs, he went into the cashier’s room behind the desk and had his safety-deposit box opened. He had had ten thousand dollars sent over from his bank in New York and had converted them into francs. Whatever was going to happen, good or bad, he knew would cost money. He looked down at the neat bundles of bills, considered for a moment, then took out five thousand francs. He put the remaining bundles back in the box and locked it. Then he went out of the hotel and got into a taxi. “La gare,” he said. He tried to think of nothing on the short trip to the station. He fumbled as he pulled some ten-franc notes out of his pocket and his hand was shaking as he took the change and tipped the driver.

He saw the fat little dark man in the blue pants and brown jacket standing at the bar, a glass of pastis in front of him. “Good evening, monsieur,” he said as he went up to the man.

The man turned and looked soberly at him. He was dark, with a fat face and small, deep-set black eyes. His lips were thick and wet. An incongruous baby-blue cotton golf hat that was too small for him sat back from his domed and wrinkled forehead. It was not a prepossessing face or one that in other circumstances Rudolph would have been inclined to trust. “Per’aps we go for walk,” the man said. He had a strong Provençal accent. “Z’ light here bad for z’ eyes.”

They went out together and walked away from the station and along a narrow, dark, deserted street. It could have been a thousand miles away from the bright, crowded bustle of the festival.

“I listen proposal,” the man said.

“Do you know a man called Danovic?” Rudolph asked. “Yugoslav. Small-time hoodlum.”

“’oodlum?” the man said. “What z’ ’oodlum?”

“Voyou,” Rudolph said.

“Ah.”

“Do you know him?”

The man walked ten paces in silence. Then he shook his head. “Per’aps under different name. Where you t’ink ’e z’?”

“Cannes, most likely,” Rudolph said. “Last time he was seen it was in a nightclub here—La Porte Rose.”

The man nodded. “Bad place,” he said. “Varry bad.”

“Yes.”

“If I find him, what ‘appens?”

“You will get a certain number of francs if you dispose of him.”

“Dispose?” the man said.

“Kill.” Good God, Rudolph thought, is it me who is saying this?

“Compris,” the man said. “Now we talk money. What you mean certain number of francs?”

“Say—fifty thousand,” Rudolph said. “About ten thousand dollars, if you want it in dollars.”

“’ow much advance? Now? To find z’ man.”

“I have five thousand francs on me,” Rudolph said. “You can have that.”

The man stopped. He put out a pudgy hand. “I take money now.”

Rudolph took out his wallet and slipped out the bills. He watched as the man carefully counted them by the dim light of a streetlamp thirty feet away. I wonder what he would say, Rudolph thought, if I asked him for a receipt. He almost laughed aloud at the thought. He was dealing with a world where the only guarantee was vengeance.

The man stuffed the bills into an inside pocket of his coat. “When I find him,” he said, “’ow much I get?”

“Before or after the … the job?”

“Before.”

“Twenty thousand,” Rudolph said. “That would make half the total.”

“D’accord,” the man said. “And after, how I make sure I am paid?”

“Any way you want.”

The man thought for a moment. “When I say I find him,” he said, “you put twenty-five thousand in hands of lawyer. The lawyer read in Nice-Matin he is … what word you used?”

“Disposed of,” Rudolph said.

“Dispose,” the man said, “and a friend of me go to lawyer office for rest of money. We shake on deal?”

Rudolph had shaken hands on a variety of deals in the past and had celebrated after. There would be no celebration after this handshake.