“Right here. In New York. At the Hotel Paramount. Can I see you sometime soon?”
“You certainly can.” Rudolph sounded genuinely pleased. “Come on right over. You know where it is.”
When he arrived at Rudolph’s building, he was stopped by the doorman, new suit or no new suit. He gave his name and the doorman pressed a button and said, “Mr. Jordache, there’s a Mr. Jordache to see you.”
Thomas heard his brother say, “Please tell him to come up,” and crossed the marbled lobby to the elevator, thinking, With all that protection, he still got hurt.
Rudolph was standing in the hallway when the elevator door opened. “Lord, Tom,” he said, as they shook hands, “I was surprised to hear your voice.” Then he stepped back and regarded Thomas critically. “What’s happened to you?” he asked. “You look as though you’ve been sick.”
Thomas could have said that he didn’t think that Rudolph looked so hot, himself, but he didn’t say it. “I’ll tell you all about it,” he said, “if you give me a drink.” The doctor had said to go easy on the drink, too.
Rudolph let him into the living room. It looked just about the same as it had the last time Thomas had been there, comfortable, spacious, a place for comfortable small events, not decorated for failure.
“Whiskey?” Rudolph asked, and when Thomas nodded, poured one for Thomas and one for himself. He was fully dressed, with collar and tie, as though he were in an office. Thomas watched him as he picked up the bottles from the sideboard and hit the ice in the bucket with a small silver hammer. He looked much older than when Thomas had seen him last, with lines deep around his eyes and in his forehead. His movements were hesitant, tentative. Finding the tool to open the soda water bottle was a problem. He didn’t seem to be certain about how much soda water he should put in each glass. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Tell me what brings you here. How long have you been in New York?”
“About three weeks.” He took the glass of whiskey and sat down on a wooden chair.
“Why didn’t you call me?” He sounded hurt by the delay.
“I had to go to the hospital for an operation,” Thomas said. “On my eyes. When I’m sick I like to be alone.”
“I know,” Rudolph said, sitting across from him in an easy chair. “I’m the same way myself.”
“I’m okay now,” Thomas said. “I have to take it easy for a little while, that’s all. Cheers.” He raised his glass. Between Pinky Kimball and Kate he had learned to say cheers before drinking.
“Cheers,” Rudolph said. He stared soberly at Thomas. “You don’t look like a fighter, any more, Tom,” he said.
“You don’t look like a mayor any more,” Thomas said, and regretted having said it, immediately.
But Rudolph laughed. “Gretchen told me she wrote you all about it,” he said. “I had a little bad luck.”
“She wrote me you sold the house in Whitby,” Thomas said.
“There wasn’t much sense in trying to hang on.” Rudolph swished the ice in his drink around the glass thoughtfully. “This place is enough for us now. Enid’s out in the park with her nurse. She’ll be back in a few minutes. You can say hello to her. How’s your boy?”
“Fine,” Thomas said. “You ought to hear him talk French. And he handles the boat better than I do. And nobody’s making him do close-order drill in the afternoons.”
“I’m glad it turned out well,” Rudolph said. He sounded as if he meant it. “Gretchen’s boy—Billy—is in the Army in Brussels, at NATO.”
“I know. She wrote me that, too. And she wrote me you arranged it.”
“One of my last official acts,” Rudolph said. “Or maybe I should say, semiofficial acts.” He had a hushed, quiet way of talking now, as though he didn’t want to make any statements too positively.
“I’m sorry the way things happened, Rudy,” Thomas said. For the first time in his life he pitied his brother.
Rudolph shrugged. “It could have been worse,” he said. “That kid could have been killed instead of just blinded.”
“What’re you going to do now?”
“Oh, I keep myself busy, one way and another,” Rudolph said. “New York’s a great place to be a gentleman of leisure in. When Jean gets back maybe we’ll do a bit of traveling. Maybe even visit you.”
“Where is she?”
“In a home upstate,” Rudolph said, making noise with the ice in his glass. “Not a home, really—more of a clinic—a drying-out place. They have a remarkable record of cures. This is the second time she’s been there. After the first time, she didn’t touch a drop for nearly six months. I’m not supposed to go up there and visit her—some goddamn doctor’s theory—but I hear from the man who runs the place and he says she’s doing very well.…” He swallowed some whiskey the wrong way and coughed a little. “Maybe I can use a little cure myself,” he said, smiling, when the coughing fit had passed. “Now,” he said, brightly, “now that the eye is all right, what are your plans?”
“I’ve got to get a divorce, Rudy,” Thomas said. “And I thought maybe you could help me.”
“That lawyer I sent you to said there wouldn’t be any problem. You should’ve done it then.”
“I didn’t have the time,” Thomas said. “I wanted to get Wesley out of the country as quick as possible. And in New York, I’d have to come out with the reason. I don’t want Wesley to find out I got a divorce from his mother because she’s a whore. And even if I did get the divorce in New York, it would take too long. I’d have to hang around here and I’d miss a good part of my season and I can’t afford that. And I have to be divorced by October at the latest.”
“Why?”
“Well … I’m living with a woman. An English girl. A wonderful girl. And she’s going to have a baby in October.”
“I see,” Rudolph said. “Congratulations. The increasing tribe of Jordaches. Maybe the line can stand some English blood. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t want to have to talk to Teresa,” Thomas said. “If I see her, I’m afraid of what I’ll do to her. Even now. If you or somebody could talk to her and get her to go out to Reno or a place like that …”
Rudolph put his glass down neatly. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll be glad to help.” There was a noise at the door. “Ah, here’s Enid.” He called, “Come here, baby.” Enid came bouncing in, dressed in a red coat. She stopped short when she saw the strange man in the room with her father. Rudolph picked her up, kissed her. “Say hello to your Uncle Thomas,” he said. “He lives on a boat.”
Three mornings later, Rudolph called Thomas and made a date for lunch with him at P. J. Moriarty’s, on Third Avenue. The atmosphere there was male and plain and not likely to make Thomas feel ill at ease or give him the idea that Rudolph was showing off.
Thomas was waiting for him at the bar when he came in, a drink in front of him. “Well,” Rudolph said, as he sat down on the stool next to his brother’s, “the lady’s on her way to Nevada.”
“You’re kidding,” Thomas said.
“I drove her to the airport myself,” Rudolph said, “and watched the plane take off.”
“Christ, Rudy,” Thomas said, “you’re a miracle worker.”
“Actually, it wasn’t so hard,” Rudolph said. He ordered a martini, to get over the effects of a whole morning with Teresa Jordache. “She’s thinking of remarrying, too, she says.” This was a lie, but Rudolph said it convincingly. “And she saw the wisdom of not dragging her good name, as she calls it, through the courts in New York.”
“Did she hit you for dough?” Thomas asked. He knew his wife.
“No,” Rudolph lied again. “She says she makes good money and she can afford the trip.”