Beggarman, Thief (11 page)

“No,” he said shortly, “it’s never occurred to me.”

“I admire you, Brother,” Gretchen said, although there was no admiration in the manner in which she said it. “I admire you and I wonder at you.”

“You
don’t have to stay, you know.”

“I know,” she said. “And I don’t intend to stay forever. I suppose you will, if necessary.”

“If necessary.” He had no job to go back to, nobody was calling him from New York.

“Add pity to what I just said, Brother,” Gretchen said. “I am now going to go down to the sea and bask in the sunshine.”

Kate had not yet called from her hotel and he was thankful to her for that. But he dreaded the moment when he would have to go to her and tell her what had to be done and what it would mean for her.

Poor Bunny Dwyer, he thought, as he walked slowly once again through the narrow streets of the old city toward the lawyer’s office—old companion, old partner, unprovided for by law or custom, friendship and the work of years not bearing the weight of a feather in any legal balance.

The only thing that had kept him sane was the two afternoons in a hotel in Nice with Jeanne. No complications, no iron cables of love or duty to consider, only the unthinking satisfactions of the flesh to make forgetfulness possible for an hour or two in a darkened room rented in a strange town.

Was that really the reason he was willing to stay, for those precious afternoons in Nice? For the selfish sport of double adultery? Was he being admired and pitied for a lie?

His steps were heavy as he approached the lawyer’s office and the bright sunlight made him sweat uncomfortably.

The lawyer had his office in his own house along the ramparts, in two of the old humble stone buildings now turned into a single exquisite mansion, where once the fishermen who sailed out of Antibes had lived, but which, converted and modernized, now were owned by people who had never cast a net, had never pulled an oar or survived a squall. Contrary to established economic doctrine, Rudolph thought, the rich follow the poor, not the other way around. At least to the good spots the poor have accidentally found, where they in times past had been the first citizens of the town exposed to pirates, enemy fire and the erosion of storms.

The lawyer’s office was impressive, the walls lined with calf-bound legal books, the furniture elegant, dark, eighteenth-century pieces, gleaming with wax, the wide window opening on a view of the sea that lapped at the rampart walls. The lawyer was an old man, but straight and as impressive as his surroundings, beautifully dressed, with large, well-kept hands, sprinkled with liver spots. He had a shining bald pate over a large-nosed, sharp face, and sad eyes. Why shouldn’t he be sad, Rudolph thought, as he shook the old man’s hand, think of what he must have been through to arrive in this room.

“I have considerable news for you,” the lawyer said when Rudolph had seated himself across the great polished desk from him. He spoke English slowly but with care. He had let Rudolph know from the beginning that he had spent the war years in England. His voice was juicy. “First, about your wife. I have her passport here.” He opened a drawer, bent a little, produced the passport and pushed it gently across the desk toward Rudolph. “The police have found Danovic, the man they wished to question further. They assure me their interrogation was—er—vigorous. Unfortunately, while he has a police record of previous arrests for various crimes, he has been discharged each time without going to trial. Besides, his alibi has stood up. He was in Lyon all day, having his teeth fixed. The dentist’s records are irrefutable.”

“That means what?”

The lawyer shrugged. “That means that unless the police can prove that the dentist lied or that Danovic had accomplices whom he directed or ordered or conspired with to commit the murder they cannot arrest him. So far, there is no evidence that he knew anything about it. The police would like to continue to question him, of course, but there is no way at the present time that they can hold him. Unless …” He paused.

“Unless what?”

“Unless your wife wishes to place a charge of attempted rape against him.”

Rudolph groaned. He knew that it would be impossible to get Jean to do anything of the kind. “All my wife wants,” he said, “is to go home.”

The lawyer nodded. “I quite understand that. And of course, there are no witnesses.”

“The only witness was my brother,” Rudolph said, “and he’s dead.”

“In that case, I think the best thing your wife could do would be to leave for home as soon as possible. I can imagine the ordeal …”

No, you can’t, old man, Rudolph thought, not for a minute. He was thinking of himself more than of his wife.

“In any case, rape cases are most difficult to sustain,” the old man said. “Especially in France.”

“They’re not so easy in America, either,” Rudolph said.

“It’s a crime in which the law finds itself in an uncomfortable position,” the lawyer said. He smiled, aged and used to injustice.

“She’ll be on the plane tomorrow,” Rudolph said.

“Now—” The lawyer smoothed the shining surface of his desk with a loving gesture, his white hand reflecting palely off the wood, one problem neatly disposed of. “About your nephew.” He looked obliquely, pale eyes in yellowing pouches of wrinkled skin, at Rudolph. “He is not a communicative boy. At least to me. Or to the police, either, for that matter. Under questioning, he refuses to divulge his motive for attacking the man in the bar. Perhaps he has said something to you?” Again the oblique, old, shrewd glance.

“Not to me,” Rudolph said. “I have some notions, but …” He shrugged. “Of course they wouldn’t mean anything in a court of law.”

“So—there is no defense. No extenuating circumstances. Physical attacks are regarded seriously under French law.” The lawyer breathed heavily. A touch of asthma, Rudolph thought, or a sign of approval, an unspoken pride in the civilized nature of France where hitting a man with a beer bottle was considered a matter of utmost gravity, as compared with the frontier attitude of America, where everybody struck everybody else with unpunishable lightness of heart. “Luckily,” the lawyer went on, regaining his breath, “the Englishman is well out of danger. He will be discharged in a few days from the hospital. He, himself, has had several brushes with the local police regulations and is not disposed to bring charges. Also, the
juge d’instruction
has taken into consideration the age of the boy and the loss he has recently suffered and in a spirit of mercy has merely indicated that the boy will be taken to the nearest border or to the airport in the next eight days. Forgive me—that is one week in French.” He smiled again, doting on his native language. “Don’t ask me why.” He smoothed the desk again, making a small, papery noise. “If the boy wishes to come back to France, to continue his education, perhaps—” With a little genteel snuffle into a handkerchief, the old man implied, with perfect politeness, that education was a rare commodity in America. “I am sure that after a year or so, when it has all been forgotten, I could arrange for him to be allowed back.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Rudolph said. “From what his father and Mr. Dwyer have told me, he likes it here and has done very well in school.”

“He should continue on at the
lycée,
at least until he gets his
baccalauréat.
If he ever wants to get anyplace in the world that, I would say, in our day and age, is the minimum requirement.”

“I’ll think about it. And, of course, talk it over with the boy.”

“Good,” the old man said. “I trust, my dear friend, that you consider that I have served you well and faithfully and, if I may say so, have used what small influence I have in this—this—” For once he hesitated over the English word “—in this
pays—
this section of the coast—to good effect.”

“I thank you very much,
Maître,”
Rudolph said. At least he had learned how to address a lawyer in France. “How will it all be arranged?” he asked. “I mean—taken to the nearest border?” He frowned. “I mean, nobody I’ve ever known has been taken to the nearest border before.”

“Oh, that,” the old man said airily. It was an old, commonplace story for him. “If you will be at the Nice airport with a ticket for the boy one week from today, he will arrive accompanied by a detective who will make certain that he boards a plane for some other country. The United States, if you wish. Since the man will not be in uniform, it will arouse no curiosity: he will seem like an uncle, a friend of the family, wishing the boy
bon voyage.”

“Has the boy been told?” Rudolph asked.

“I informed him myself this morning,” the lawyer said.

“What did he say?”

“As usual, nothing.”

“Did he seem happy, sad?” Rudolph persisted.

“He seemed neither happy nor sad.”

“I see.”

“I took the liberty of looking at the schedules of the American airlines that serve Nice. The most convenient would be the plane that will leave at eleven-thirty in the morning.”

“I’ll be there,” Rudolph said. He reached out for Jean’s passport and put it in his pocket.

“I must compliment you,
Monsieur
Jordache,” the old man said, “on the calm, the gentlemanly equilibrium with which you have endured this painful episode.”

“Thank you.” The moment I leave this beautiful office, Rudolph thought, I will not be calm or demonstrate equilibrium of any kind, gentlemanly or otherwise. As he started to get up, he felt dizzy, almost as if he were going to faint, and had to steady himself by putting a hand against the desk. The old man looked at him quizzically. “A bit too much lunch?” he asked.

“No lunch at all.” He had skipped lunch for seven days.

“It is important to guard one’s health,” the old man said, “especially when one is in a foreign country.”

“Would you like my address in the United States,” Rudolph asked, “so that you can mail me your bill?”

“That will not be necessary,
monsieur,”
the old man said smoothly. “My clerk has it prepared for you in the outer office. You do not have to bother with francs. A check in dollars will do, if you will be kind enough to send it to the bank in Geneva whose address you will find on the bill.”

Impressive, able, surrounded by gleaming eighteenth-century furniture, with a view of the blue sea and an untaxed account in Switzerland, the old man stood up, slowly, careful of his advanced years, and shook Rudolph’s hand, then accompanied him to the door, saying,
“Enfin,
I must extend my sympathies to you and your family and I hope that what has happened will not prevent you from visiting this lovely part of the world in the future.”

First things first, he thought as he walked away from the lawyer’s house along the ramparts toward the port, past the Musée Grimaldi, with all the Picassos in it. The bad news to begin with. That meant Dwyer and Kate. He would have to tell them of his conversation with Heath yesterday. Together, preferably, so that there would be no misunderstanding, no suspicion of secret dealing. After that, the good news for Jean and Gretchen, that they were free now to go back home. He relished the thought of neither meeting. Then there would have to be the jail again, some decision made about where and how and with whom Wesley would stay in America. Maybe that would be the worst conversation of all. He hoped the boy had shaved by now. And taken a shower.

He stopped and looked out to sea, across the Baie des Anges toward Nice. The Bay of Angels. The French didn’t care what they named things. Antibes, for example. Antipolis, the Greek settlers had called it-Opposite the City. What city? Athens, a thousand miles away by oared galley? Homesick Greeks? He himself was homesick for no place. Lucky Greeks. What were the laws then, what had those exemplary politicians judged a fair punishment for a boy who had hit someone in a tavern with a beer bottle? What civic spirit or lust for fame or profit had driven the lawmakers among the statutes and the measured rhetoric to leave their academies and festivals to seek election, take on the burden of ruling that intelligent and warlike race? He himself had made speeches on the hustings, had cajoled, promised, heard the cheers of crowds, won and accepted office. Why? He couldn’t remember now.

There was a bustle of traffic around him, even on the narrow stone road along the top of the ramparts. Antibes had once been a sleepy, forgotten town, but it was crowded now by the beneficiaries or the victims of the twentieth century, leaving winter behind them in the rush to the climate of the south, to work and live there, not only to play. Flowers and light industry. He himself was a northern man but he could use a few years of the south himself. If what had happened here had not happened, he might have settled cosily here, anonymous, unknown, retired gratefully, as some men did, in his thirties. He had the rudiments of French—think of Jeanne—he could have worked at it, learned to read Victor Hugo, Gide, Cocteau, whatever new men were worth reading, visited Paris for the theater. Dreams. Impossible now.

He breathed deeply of the salt balmy air off the sea. Almost every place was open for him, but not this particular, haunted, beautiful place.

He started walking again, down from the ramparts toward the port. He would get Dwyer to find Kate and they could have their discussion in a café, because Kate had said she never wanted to see the
Clothilde
again. She might have changed her mind by now, with the first shock over, she was not a sentimental woman, but he was not the one who was going to force her.

Just at the entrance to the port there was a small seamen’s café. At a tiny table in front of it Dwyer was sitting with a woman, her back to Rudolph. When he called out to Dwyer the woman turned and he saw that it was Kate. She was thinner now, or was it the black dress she wore that made her look so? The nut brown of her complexion had faded and her hair was careless around her face. He felt a twinge of anger or something akin to anger. Knowing everything that he was trying to do for her, she had not even bothered to call to tell him where she was staying, and here she was sitting with Dwyer, the two of them looking like an old married couple, sharing secrets in the sunshine. She stood up to say hello to him and he was embarrassed.