Luxuriously, they slept late the next morning and when they sailed out of the harbor in the sunlight, they even took time off to do a little sight-seeing. They went out to the Châteaud if and walked around the fortress and saw the dungeon where the Count of Monte Cristo was supposed to have been chained. Kate had read the book and Thomas had seen the movie. Kate translated the signs that told how many Protestants had been imprisoned in the place before being sent to the galleys.
“There’s always somebody sitting on somebody else’s back,” Dwyer said. “If it’s not the Protestants sitting on the Catholics, it’s the Catholics sitting on the Protestants.”
“Shut up, you Communist,” Thomas said.
“Are you a Protestant?” he asked Kate.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to imprison you in my galley,” he said.
By the time they got back onto the Clothilde and started East, the last whiff of perfume had vanished from the main cabin.
They sailed without stopping, with Dwyer taking eight full hours at night at the wheel so that Thomas and Kate could sleep. They reached Antibes before noon. There were two letters waiting for Thomas, one from his brother, and one in a handwriting he didn’t recognize. He opened the letter from Rudolph first.
“Dear Tom,”—he read,—“I finally got news of you after all this time and I must say it sounds as if you’re doing all right for yourself. A few days ago I received a call at my office from a Mr. Goodhart, who told me he had been on your boat, or ship, as I believe you fellows like to call it. It turns out that we have done some business with his firm, and I guess he was curious to see what your brother looked like. He invited Jean and myself over for a drink and he and his wife turned out to be charming old people, as you must know. They were most enthusiastic about you and about your ship and the life you lead. Maybe you’ve made the best investment of the century with the money you made on Dee Cee. If I weren’t so busy (it looks as though I’m going to allow myself to be talked into running for mayor of Whitby this fall!), I’d take a plane with Jean immediately and come over to sail the deep blue sea with you. Maybe next year. In the meantime, I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting renting the Clothilde (as you see the Goodharts were most explicit about everything) to a friend of mine who is getting married and would like to spend his honeymoon on the Mediterranean. Perhaps you remember him—Johnny Heath. If he bothers you, put him adrift in a raft.
“But seriously, I am very happy for you and I’d like to hear from you and if there’s anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to let me know what it is. Love, Rudolph.”
Thomas scowled as he read the letter. He didn’t like to be reminded that it was because of Rudolph that he now owned the Clothilde. Still, the letter was so friendly, the weather was so fine, and the summer was going so well, it was silly to spoil things by remembering old grudges. He folded the letter carefully and put it in his pocket. The other letter was from Rudolph’s friend and asked if he could charter the Clothilde from September fifteenth to the thirtieth. It was the end of the season, and they had nothing on the books, and it would be found money. Heath said he only wanted to sail up and down the coast between Monte Carlo and St. Tropez, and with only two people on board and very little mileage to cover, it would be a lazy way to end the season.
Thomas sat down and wrote a letter to Heath, telling him he’d meet him either at the Nice airport or the Antibes station on the fifteenth.
He told Kate about the new charter and how it was his brother who had arranged it, and she made him write a letter of thanks to Rudolph. He had signed it and was just going to seal the envelope, when he remembered that Rudolph had written him that if there was anything he could do for him not to hesitate to let him know what it was. Well, why not, he thought. It couldn’t do any harm. In a P.S. he wrote, “There’s one thing you can do for me. For various reasons I haven’t been able to come back to New York so far but maybe those reasons don’t hold any more. I haven’t had any news of my kid for years and I don’t know where he is or whether I’m still married or not. I’d like to come over and see him and if possible take him back here with me for awhile. Maybe you remember the night you and Gretchen came back after my fight in Queens, there was my manager, a man I introduced you to called Schultzy. Actually his name is Herman Schultz. The last address I had for him is the Bristol Hotel on Eighth Avenue, but maybe he doesn’t live there any more. But if you ask somebody in the Garden office if they know where you can lay your hands on Schultzy they’re bound to know if he’s still alive and in town. He’s likely to have some news about Teresa and the kid. Just don’t tell him where I am for the time being. But ask him if the heat’s still on. He will understand. Let me know if you find him and what he says. This will be a real good turn and I will be really grateful.”
He air-mailed the two letters at the Antibes post office and then went back to the ship to get it ready for the English party.
Chapter 4
I
Nobody had remembered Herman Schultz at the Bristol Hotel, but somebody in the publicity department at Madison Square Garden had finally come up with the address of a rooming house on West Fifty-third Street. Rudolph was getting to know Fifty-third Street very well. He had been there three times in the last four weeks, on every trip he had made to New York in the month of August. Yes, the man at the rooming house said, Mr. Schultz stayed there when he was in New York, but he was out of town. He didn’t know where out of town. Rudolph left his telephone number with him, but Schultz never called him. Rudolph had to suppress a quiver of distaste every time he rang the bell. It was a decaying building in a dying neighborhood, inhabited, you felt, only by doomed old men and derelict young men.
A shuffling, bent old man with a twisted hair piece opened the peeling door, the color of dried blood. From the gloom of the hallway he peered nearsightedly at Rudolph standing on the stoop in the hot September sun. Even with the distance between them, Rudolph could smell him, mildew and urine.
“Is Mr. Schultz at home?” Rudolph asked.
“Fourth floor back,” the old man said. He stepped aside to allow Rudolph to enter.
As he climbed the steps, Rudolph realized that it wasn’t only the old man who smelled like that, it was the entire house. A radio was playing Spanish music, a fat man, naked to the waist, was sitting at the head of the second flight of steps, his head in his hands. He didn’t look up as Rudolph squeezed past him.
The door to the fourth floor back was open. It was stifling hot, under the roof. Rudolph recognized the man he had been introduced to as Schultzy in Queens. Schultzy was sitting on the edge of an unmade bed, grayish sheets, staring at the wall of the room, three feet across from him. Rudolph knocked on the framework of the doorway. Schultzy turned his head slowly, painfully.
“What do you want?” Schultz said. His voice was reedy and hostile.
Rudolph went in. “I’m Tom Jordache’s brother.” He extended his hand.
Schultz put his right hand behind his back. He was wearing a sweat-stained skivvy shirt. He still had the basketball of a stomach. He moved his mouth uneasily, as though he was wearing plates that fit badly. He was pasty and totally bald. “I don’t shake hands,” Schultz said. “It’s the arthritis.” He didn’t ask Rudolph to sit down. There was no place to sit down except on the bed, anyway.