Rich Man's Weather

It was Cold up in the bow of the ship, but Thomas liked to be there alone, staring out at the long gray swells of the Atlantic. Even when it wasn't his watch, he often went up forward and stood for hours, in all weathers, not saying anything to the man whose watch it happened to be, just standing there silently, watching the bow plunge and come up in a curl of white water, at peace with himself, not thinking consciously of anything, not wanting or needing to think about anything.

The ship flew the Liberian flag; but in two voyages, he hadn't come close to Liberia. The man called Pappy, the manager of the Hotel Aegean, had been as useful as Schultzy had said he would be in helping Thomas get out of the country after the trouble in Las Vegas. Pappy had fitted him out with the clothes and sea bag of an old Norwegian seaman who had died in the hotel and had gotten him the berth on the Elga Andersen, Greek ownership, taking cargo at Hoboken for Rotterdam, Algeciras, Genoa and Piraeus. Thomas had stayed in his room at the Aegean all the time he was in New York--eight days--and Pappy had brought him his meals personally, because Thomas had said he didn't want any of the help to see him and start asking questions. The night before the Elga Andersen was due to sail, Pappy had driven him over to the pier in Hoboken himself and watched while he signed on. The favor that Pappy owed Schultzy from Schultzy's days in the merchant marine during the War must have been a big one.

The Elga Andersen had sailed at dawn and anybody who was looking for Tommy Jordache was going to have a hard time finding him.

The Elga Andersen was a Liberty ship, 10,000 tons. It had been built in 1942 and had seen better days. The vessel had gone from owner to owner, for quick profits, and nobody had done more maintenance than was absolutely necessary to keep it afloat and moving. Its hull was barnacled, its engines wheezed, it hadn't been painted in years, there was rust everywhere, the food was miserable, the captain an old religious maniac who knelt on the bridge during storms and who had been beached during the War for Nazi sympathies. The officers had papers from ten different countries and had been dismissed from other berths for drunkenness or incompetence or theft. The crew was from almost every country with a coast--Greeks, Yugoslavs, Norwegians, Italians, Moroccans, Mexicans, Americans, most of them with papers that could not stand inspection. There were fights almost every day in the messroom, where a poker game was always in progress, but the officers carefully refrained from interfering.

Thomas kept out of the poker game and the fights and spoke only when necessary and answered no questions and was at peace. He felt that he had found his place on the planet, plowing the wide waters of the world. No more climbing into rings with fast, eager kids on the way up, just because he needed a payday; no women, no worrying about weight, no pissing blood in the morning, no scrambling for money every end of the month.

He heard steps behind him but didn't turn around.

"We're in for a rough night," said the man who had joined him in the bow."We're going right into a storm."

Thomas grunted. He recognized the voice. A young guy named Dwyer, a kid from the Middle West who somehow managed to sound like a fag.

"It's the skipper," Dwyer went on. "Praying on the bridge. You know the saying--you have a minister on board, watch out for lousy weather."

Thomas didn't say anything.

"I just hope it's not a big one," Dwyer said. "Plenty of these Liberty ships have just broke in half in heavy seas. And the way we're loaded. Did you notice the list to port we got?"

"No."

"Well, we got it. This your first voyage?"

"Second."

Dwyer had signed on in Savannah, where the Elga Andersen had put in after Thomas' first return voyage on her.

"It's a hellhole," Dwyer said. "I'm only on it for the opportunity."

Thomas wanted to ask Dwyer what opportunity, but just stood there, staring out at the darkening horizon.

"You see," Dwyer went on, when he realized Thomas wasn't going to talk, "I've got my third mate's papers. On American ships, I might have to wait years before I moved up top. But on a tub like this, with the kind of scum we got as officers, one of them's likely to fall overboard drunk or get picked up by the police in port, and then it'd be my opportunity, see?"

Thomas grunted. He had nothing against Dwyer, but he had nothing for him, either.

"You planning to try for mate's papers, too?" Dwyer asked.

"Hadn't thought about it." Spray was coming over the bow now as the weather worsened and Thomas huddled into his pea jacket. Under the jacket, he had a heavy blue turtleneck sweater. The old Norwegian who had died in the Hotel Aegean must have been a big man, because his clothes fit Thomas comfortably.

"The only thing to do," Dwyer said. "I saw that the first day I set foot on the deck of my first ship. The ordinary seaman or even the a.b. winds up with nothing. Lives like a dog and winds up a broken old man at fifty. Even on American ships, with the union and everything and fresh fruit. Big deal. Fresh fruit. The thing is to plan ahead. Get some braid on you. The next time I'm back, I'm going up to the Coast Guard in Boston and I'm going to take a shot at second mate's papers."

Thomas looked at him curiously. Dwyer was wearing a gob's white hat, pulled down all around, a yellow sou'wester and solid new rubber-soled high working shoes. He was a small man and he looked like a boy dressed up for a costume party, with the new, natty, seagoing clothes. The wind had reddened his face, but not like an outdoors-man's face, rather like a girl's who is not used to the cold and has suddenly been exposed to it. He had long dark eyelashes over soft black eyes and he seemed to be begging for something. His mouth was too large and full and too busy. He kept moving his hands in and out of his pockets restlessly.

Christ, Thomas thought, is that why he's come up here to talk to me and always smiles at me when he passes me? I better put the bastard straight right now. "If you're such an educated hotshot," he said roughly, "with mate's papers and all, what're you doing down here with all us poor folks? Why aren't you dancing with some heiress on a cruise ship in your nice white officer's suit?"

"I'm not trying to be superior, Jordache," Dwyer said. "Honest, I'm not. I like to talk to somebody once in a while and you're about my age and you're American and you got dignity, I saw that right awaymdash;dignity. Everybody else on this ship--they're animals. They're always making fun of me; I'm not one of them, I've got ambition, I won't play in their crooked poker games. You must've noticed."

"I haven't noticed anything," Thomas said.

"They think I'm a fag or something." Dwyer said. "You didn't notice that?"

"No, I didn't." Except for meals, Thomas stayed out of the messroom.

"It's my curse," Dwyer said. "That's what happens when I apply for third mate anywhere. They look at my papers, my recommendations, then they talk to me for a while and look me over in that suspicious way and they tell me there's no openings. Boy, I can see that look coming from a mile off. I'm no fag, I swear to God, Jordache."

"You don't have to swear anything for me," Thomas said. The conversation made him uncomfortable. He didn't want to be let in on anybody's secrets or troubles. He wanted to do his job and go from one port to another and sail the seas in solitude.

"I'm engaged to be married, for Christ's sake," Dwyer cried. He dug into the back pocket of his pants and brought forth a wallet and took out a photograph. "Here, look at this." He thrust the snapshot in front of Thomas' nose. "That's my girl and me. Last summer on Narragansett Bay." A very pretty, fullbodied young girl, with curly blonde hair, in a bathing suit, and beside her, Dwyer, small but trim and well muscled, like a bantamweight, in a tightly fitting pair of swimming trunks. He looked in good enough shape to go into the ring, but, of course, that meant nothing. "Does that look like a fag?" Dwyer demanded. "Does that girl look as though she was the type to marry a fag?"

"No," Thomas admitted. The spray coming over the bow sprinkled the photograph. "You better put the picture away," he said. "The water'll ruin it."

Dwyer took out a handkerchief and dried the snapshot and put it back in his wallet. "I just wanted you to know," he said, "that if I like to talk to you from time to time, it's nothing like that."

"OK," Thomas said. "Now I know."

"As long as we have matters on a firm basis," Dwyer said, almost belligerently. "That's all." Abruptly, he turned away and made his way along the temporary wooden catwalk built over the oil drums stowed forward as deck cargo.

Thomas shook his head, feeling then sting of spray on his face. Everybody has his troubles. A boatload of troubles. If everybody on the whole goddamn ship came up and told you what was bothering him, you'd want to jump overboard there and then.

He crouched in the bow, to escape the direct blows of spray, only occasionally lifeting his head to do his job, which was to see what was ahead of the Elga Anderson.

Mate's papers, he thought. If you were going to make your living out of the sea, why not? He'd ask Dwyer, offhandedly, later, hoiw you went about getting them. Fag or no fag.

• • •

They were in the Mediterranean, passing Gibraltar, but the weather, if anything, was worse. The caption, no doubt, was stil praying to God and Adolf Hilter on the bridge. None of the officers had gotten drunk and fallen overboard and Dwyer still hadn't moved up top. He and Thomas were in the old naval gun crew's quarters at the stern, seated at the steel table riveted to the deck in the common room. The antiaircraft guns had long since been dismounted, but nobody had bothered to dismantle the crew's quarters. There were at least ten urinals in the head. The kids of the gun crew must have pissed like mad, Thomas thought, every time they heard a plane overhead.

The sea was so rough that on every plunge, the screw came out of the water and the entire stern shuddered and roared and Dwyer and Thomas had to grab for the papers and books and charts spread on the table, to keep them from sliding off. But the gun crew's quarters was the only place they could get off alone and work together. They got in at least a couple of hours a day and Thomas, who had never paid any attention at school, was surprised to see how quickly he learned from Dwyer about navigation, sextant reading, star charts, loading, all the subjects he would have to have at his finger tips when he took the examination for third mate's papers. He was also surprised how much he enjoyed the sessions. Thinking about it in his bunk, when he was off watch, listening to the two other men in the cabin with him snore away, he felt he knew why the change had come about. It wasn't only age. He still didn't read anything else, hardly even the newspapers. The charts, the pamphlets, the drawings of engines, the formulas were a way out. Finally, a way out.

Dwyer had worked in the engine rooms of ships, as well as on deck, and he had a rough but adequate grasp of engineerinng problems; and Thomas' experience around garages made it easier to understand what Dwyer was talking about.

Dwyer had grown up on the shores of Lake Superior and had sailed small boats ever since he was a kid; and as soon as he had finished high school, he had hitchhiked to New York, gone down to the Battery, to see the ships passing into and out of port, and had got himself signed onto a coastal oil tanker as a deck hand. Nothing that had happened to him since that day had diminished his enthusiasm for the sea. Strangely enough, the many ports he had visited seemed to have very little interest for him. Land, cities, meant complications for him that the monotonous routine of a ship under way did not have. He was annoyed when new men on board made fun of him for the slight and almost unnoticeable effeminacy of his manner; but he had learned that if he kept his temper under control and watched his language, the joke soon wore off and he was treated like everybody else.

He didn't ask any questions about Thomas' past and Thomas didn't volunteer any information. Out of gratitude for what Dwyer was teaching him, Thomas was almost beginning to like the little man.

"Someday," Dwyer said, grabbing for a chart that was sliding forward, "you and I will both have our own ships. Captain Jordache, Captain Dwyer presents his compliments and asks if you will honor him and come aboard."

"Yeah," Thomas said. "I can just see it."

"Especially if there's a war," Dwyer said. "I don't mean a great big one, like World War Two, where, if you could sail a rowboat across Central Park Lake, you could get to be skipper of some kind of ship. I mean even a little one like Korea. You have no idea how much money guys came home with, with combat-zone pay, stuff like that. And how many guys who didn't know their ass from starboard came out masters of their own ships. Hell, the United States has got to be fighting somewhere soon and if we're ready, there's no telling how high we can go."

"Save your dreams for the sack," Thomas said. "Let's get back to work."

As they bent over the chart, the door to the gun crew's quarters opened with a gust of wind that sent papers scattering all around the cabin. A seaman called Falconetti came in and slammed the door against the wind. He was carrying a pot of paint and a brush. He grinned as he saw Thomas and Dwyer grabbing at the papers sliding around on the deck. "Sorry, boys," he said. "I didn't know you were playing house."

"Why the hell didn't you at least knock?" Dwyer asked angrily.

"I'm just doing my job," Falconetti said. He was a big, ham-handed man with a small, turnip-shaped head, who had been in jail for armed robbery. "I thought maybe the paint might need some touching up in here." He strolled around the room, whistling loudly and slopping paint from his brush onto the deck as he stabbed at cracked spots on the walls.

"This place hasn't seen a drop of fresh paint for five years," Dwyer said, "We're busy. Why don't you get out of here?"

Thomas knew that Dwyer wouldn't have been so Falconetti. Falconetti was the bully of the ship and demanded respect. He cheated at cards, but the one time he had been called on it by an oiler from the engine room, he nearly strangled the man before the others in the messroom could break his fists. At the beginning of each voyage, he made a point of picking fights with four or five men and beating them up brutally, so that there would be no doubt about his position below decks. When he was in the messroom, no one else dared touch the radio and everybody listened to the programs of Falconetti's choice, whether or not they liked them. There was one Negro on board by the name of Renway; and when Falconetti came into the messroom, he slipped away. "I don't sit in any room with a nigger," Falconetti had announced the first time he saw the man in the room. Renway hadn't said anything, but he hadn't moved, either.

"Nigger," Falconetti said, "I guess you didn't hear me." He strode over to where the man was sitting at the table, grabbed him under the armpits, carried him to the door and hurled him against the bulkhead. Nobody said or did anything. You took care of yourself on the Elga Andersen and the next man took care of himself.

Falconetti owed money to half the crew. Theoretically, they were loans, but nobody expected to see his money again. If you didn't lend Falconetti a five- or ten-dollar bill when he asked for it, he wouldn't do anything about it at the time, but two or three days later, he would pick a fight with you and there would be black eyes and a broken nose and teeth to spit out.

Falconetti hadn't tried anything, although he was much larger than Thomas. Thomas was not looking for trouble and stayed out of the other's way; but even though Thomas was taciturn and pacific and kept to himself, there was something about his manner that made Falconetti pick on easier targets.

(continued on page 172)Rich man's weather(continued from 70)

Falconetti continued his whistling and, in his trips across the room, stopped to look over Thomas' shoulder at the charts he was studying. The man unnerved him and he couldn't concentrate. He swung around on his chair. "Listen, Falconetti," he said, "you going to hang around all day?"

"There's a good possibility I will, man," Falconetti said, "A very good possibility,. It's cozy in here."

Thomas began to put the papers together. "Come on," he said to Dwyer. "Work's over for the day."

As they went out, Falconetti grinned victoriously at them. He had gained another piece of territory.

• • •

It was in Marseilles that the idea hit Thomas. It was nearly midnight and he and Dwyer had had dinner together at a seafood place on the Vieux Port. Thomas as remembered that this was the south coast of France and they had drunk three bottles of pink wine because they were on the south coast of France, even though Marseilles hardly could be considered a tourist resort. The Elga Andersen was due to lift anchor at five A.M. and as long as they got back on board before that, they were Ok.

After dinner, they had walked around, stopping in several bars, and now they were at what was going to be their last stop, a small dark bar off the Canebière. A jukebox was playing and a few fat whores at the bar were waiting to be asked if they wanted a drink. Thomas wouldn't have minded having a girl, but the whores were sleazy and probably had the clap and didn't go with his idea of the kind of lady you ought to have on the south coast of France.

Drinking, a little blearily, at a table along the wall, looking at the girls with their fat legs showing under loud, imitation-silk dresses, Thomas remembered the ten best days in his life, the time in Cannes with the wild English girl who liked jewelry.

"Say," he said to Dwyer, sitting across from him, drinking beer, "I got an idea."

"What's that?" Dwyer was keeping a wary eye on the girls, fearful that one of them would come over and sit down next to him and put her hand on his knee. He had offered earlier in the evening to pick up a prostitute to prove to Thomas, once and for all, that he wasn't a fag; but Thomas had said it wasn't necessary, he didn't care whether he was a fag or not and, anyway, it wouldn't prove anything, because he knew plenty of fags who also screwed.

"What's what?" Thomas asked.

"You said you had an idea."

"An idea. Yeah. An idea. Let's skip the fucking ship."

"You're crazy," Dwyer said. "What the hell'll we do in Marseilles without a ship? They'll put us in jail."

"Nobody'll put us in jail," Thomas said. "I didn't say for good. Where's the next port she puts into? Genoa. Am I right?"

"Ok, Genoa," Dwyer said reluctantly.

"We pick her up in Genoa," Thomas said. "We say we got drunk and we didn't wake up until she was out of the harbor. Then we pick her up in Genoa. What can they do to us? Dock us a few days' pay, that's all. They're shorthanded, as it is. After Genoa, the ship goes straight back to Hoboken, right?"

"Yeah."

'So we don't lose any shore time, them keeping us on board in a port. I don't want to sail on that lousy tub anymore, anyway. We can always pick up something better in New York."

"But what'll we do between now and Genoa/" Dwyer asked worriedly.

"We tour. We make the grand tour," Thomas said. "We get on the train and we go to Cannes. Haunt of millionaires. I been there. Time of my life. We lay on the beach, we find ourselves some dames. We got our pay in our pocket--"

"I'm saving my money," Dwyer said.

"Live a little, live a little" Thomas said impatiently. By now, it was inconceivable to him that he could go back to the gloom of the ship, stand watches, chip paint, eat the garbage they handed out, with Cannes so close by, available, waiting.

"I don't even have my toothbrush on me," Dwyer said.

"I'll buy you a toothbrush," Thomas said. "Say, you're always telling me what a great sailor you are, how you sailed a dory all over Lake Superior when you were a kid--"

"What's Lake Superior got to do with Cannes?"

"Sailor boy...." It was one of the whores from the bar, in a spangled dress showing most of her bosom. "Sailor boy, want to buy nize lady nize little drink, have good time, wiz ozzer lady later?" She smiled, showing gold teeth.

"Get outa here," Thomas said.

"Salaud," the woman said amiably and spangled over to the jukebox.

"'What's Lake Superior got to do with Cannes?" Thomas said. "I'll tell you what Lake Superior's got to do with Cannes. You're hot small-boat sailor on Lake Superior--"

"Well, I--"

"Are you or aren't you?"

"For Christ's sake, Tommy," Dwyer said, "I never said I was Christopher Columbus or anybody like that. I said I sailed a dory when I was a kid and--"

"You know how to handle boats. Am I right in supposing that or ain't I right?" By now, Thomas was set on going to Cannes and he was going to get Dwyer to go with him.

"Sure, I can handle small boats," Dwyer admitted. "I still don't see--"

"On the beach at Cannes," Thomas said, "they got sailboats you can rent by the hour. I want to see with my own eyes how you rate. You're big on theory, with charts and books. All right, I want to see you actually get a boat in and out of someplace. Or do I have to take that on faith, too, like your not being a fag?"

"Tommy!" Dwyer said, hurt.

'You can teach me," Thomas said."I want to learn from an expert. Ah--the hell with it--if you're too yellow to come with me, I'll do it myself. Go on back to the boat, like a nice little boy."

"Ok," Dwyer said. "I never did anything like this before. But I'll do it. The hell with the ship." He drained his beer.

"The grand tour," Thomas said.

• • •

It wasn't as good as he'd remembered it, because he had Dwyer with him, not that wild English girl. But it was good enough. And it certainly was a lot better than standing watch on the Elga Andersen and eating that slop and sleeping in the same stinking hole with two snoring Moroccans.

They found a cheap little hotel that wasn't too bad behind the Rue d'Antibes and went swimming off the beach, although it was springtime and the water was so cold you could only stay in a little while. But the white buildings were the same, the pink wine was the same, the blue sky was the same, the great yachts lying in the harbor were the same. And he didn't have to worry about his weight or fighting some murderous Frenchman when the holiday was over.

They rented a little sailboat by the hour and Dwyer hadn't been lying, he really knew how to handle small boats. In two days, he had taught Thomas a great deal and Thomas could slip a mooring and come up to it dead, with the sail rattling down, nine times out of ten.

But most of the time they spent around the harbor, walking slowly around the quays, silently admiring the sloops, the schooners, the big yachts, the motor cruisers, all still in the harbor and being sanded down and varnished and polished up for the season ahead.

"Christ," Thomas said, "would you believe there's so much money in the world and we don't have any of it?"

They found a bar on the Quai St.Piêrre frequented by the sailors and captains working on the pleasure craft. Some of them were English and many of the others could speak a little English and they got into conversations with them whenever they could. None of the men seemed to work very hard and the bar was at least half full at all hours of the day. They learned to drink pastis, because that was what everybody else drank because it was cheap. They hadn't found any girls and the ones who accosted them from cars on the Croisette or back behind the port asked too much money. But for once in his life, Thomas didn't mind going without a woman. The harbor was enough for him, the vision of the life based on it, of grown men living year in and year out on beautiful ships was enough for him. No boss to bother about nine months of the year, and then, in the summer, being a big shot at the wheel of a $100,000 craft, going to places like St.-Tropez and Monte Carlo and Capri, coming into harbor with girls in bathing suits draped all over the decks. And they all seemed to have money. What they didn't earn in salary they got in kickbacks from ships' chandlers and boatyards and rigged expense accounts. They ate and drank like kings and some of the older ones weren't sober from one day to the next.

"These guys," Thomas said, after they had been in town for four days, "have solved the problems of the universe."

He even thought of skipping the Elga Andersen for good and trying to get a job on one of the yachts for the summer; but it turned out that unless you were a skipper, you most likely got hired for only three or four months, at lousy pay, and you were let go for the rest of the year. Much as he liked Cannes, he couldn't see himself starving eight months a year just to be there.

Dwyer was just as much dazzled as he was. Maybe even more so. He had never been in Cannes before, but he had admired and been around boats ever since childhood, while it was something new with Thomas.

There was one Englishman in the bar, a dark, brown-colored little man with white hair, named Jennings, who had been in the British navy during the War and who owned, actually owned, his boat, a 60-footer with five cabins. It was old and cranky, the Englishman told them, but he knew it like his own mother, and he coaxed it all around the Med--Malta, Greece, Sicily, everywhere-- as a charter captain during the summer. He had an agent in Cannes who booked his charters for him, for ten percent. He had been lucky, he said. The man who had owned the boat and for whom he had worked had hated his wife. When he died, out of spite, he had left the boat to Jennings. Well, you couldn't bank on things like that.

Jennings sipped complacently at his pastis. His motor yacht, the Gertrude II, stubby but clean and comfortable-looking, was moored across the street, just in front of the bar, and as he drank, Jennings could look fondly at it, all good things close at hand. "It's a lovely life," he said. "I fair have to admit it, Yanks. Instead of fighting for a couple of bob a day, hauling cargo on the docks of Liverpool or sweating blood oiling engines in some tub in the North Sea in a winter's gale. To say nothing of the climate and taxes." He waved largely toward the view of the mild sun tipped the gently bobbing masts of the boats moored side by side at the quay. "Rich man's weather," Jennings said. "Rich man's weather."

"Let me ask you a question, Jennings," Thomas said. He was paying for the Englishman's drinks and he was entitled to a few questions. "How much would it cost to get a fair-sized boat, say one like yours, and get into business?"

Jennings lit a pipe and pulled at it reflectively. He never did anything quickly, Jennings. He was no longer in the British navy, nor on the docks; there was no foreman nor mate to snarl at him; he had time for everything. "Ah, that's a hard question to answer, Yank," he said. "Ships're like women--some come high and some come cheap, but the price you pay has little to do with the satisfaction you get from them." He laughhed appreciatively at his own worldliness.

"The minimum," Thomas persisted, "the absolute minimum?"

Jennings scratched his head, finished his pastis. Thomas ordered another round.

"It's a matter of luck," Jennings said. "I know men put down a hundred thousand pounds, cash on the barrel head, ships designed by the fanciest naval architects, built in the best shipyards in Holland or Britain, steel hulls, teak decks, every last little doodad on board, radar, electric toilets, air conditioning, automatic pilot, and they cursed the day the bloody thing was put into the water and they would have been glad to get rid of it for the price of a case of whiskey, and no takers."

"We don't have any hundred thousand pounds," Thomas said shortly.

"We'?" Dwyer said bewilderedly. "What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Shut up," Thomas said. "Your boat never cost any hundred thousand pounds," he said to Jennings.

"No," Jennings said. "I don't pretend it ever did."

"I mean something reasonable," Thomas said.

"Reasonable aren't a word you use about boats," Jennings said. He was beginning to get on Thomas' nerves. "What's reasonable for one man is pure lunacy for another, if you get my meaning. It's a matter of luck, like I was saying. For example, a man has a nice snug little ship, cost him maybe twenty, thirty thousand pounds, but maybe his wife gets seasick all the time or he's had a bad year in business and his creditors are panting on his traces and it's been a stormy season for cruising and maybe the market's been down and it looks as though the Communists're going to take over in Italy or France or there's going to be a war or the tax people're after him for some hanky-panky; maybe he didn't tell them he paid for the ship with money he had stowed away quiet-like in some bank in Switzerland, so he's pressed, he's got to get out and get out fast and, suddenly, nobody wants to buy boats that week.... You get my drift, Yank?"

"Yeah," Thomas said. "You don't have to draw a map."

"So he's desperate," Jennings went on "Maybe he needs five thousand guineas before Monday or the house falls in on his head. If you're there and you have the five thousand guineas--"

"What's a guinea?" Dwyer asked.

"Five thousand guineas is twenty-one thousand bucks," Thomas said. "Isn't it?"

"Give or take a few bob," Jennings said. "Or you hear about a naval vessel that's up for auction or a smuggler's vessel that the customs has confiscated. Of course, it needs refitting, but if you're clever with your hands and don't pay these pirates in the shipyards around here to do your work for you--never trust a Frenchman on the Côte, especially along the waterfront, he'll steal the eyes right out of your head--why, maybe, playing everything close and counting your money every night, maybe with luck, and getting some people to trust you till the end of the season for gear and provisions, you're in the water and ready for your first charter for as little as eight, ten thousand pounds."

"Eight, ten thousand pounds," Dwyer said. "It might as well be eight, ten million dollars."

"Shut up," Thomas said. "There're ways of making money."

"Yeah?" Dwyer said. "How?"

"There're ways. I once made six thousand bucks in one night."

Dwyer took in a deep breath. "How?"

It was the first time Thomas had given anybody a clue to his past since he had left the Hotel Aegean, and he was sorry he had spoken. "Never mind how," he said sharply. He turned to Jennings. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Anything within my power," Jennings said. "As long as it don't cost me no money." He chuckled softly; boatowner, sitting on top of the system, canny graduate of the royal navy, survivor of war and poverty, pastis drinker, wise old salt, nobody's fool.

"If you hear of anything," Thomas said, "something good, but cheap, get in touch with us, will you?"

"Happy to oblige, Yank," Jennings said. "Just write the address down."

Thomas hesitated. The only address he had was the Hotel Aegean.

"Just write the address down, lad," Jennings repeated.

"Give him your address," Thomas said to Dwyer. Dwyer got his mail at the headquarters of the National Maritime Union in New York. Nobody was looking for him.

Dwyer shrugged and wrote out his address and gave it to Jennings. His handwriting was clear and straight. He would keep a neat log, Third Mate Dwyer. If he ever got the chance.

The old man put the slip of paper into an old cracked leather wallet."I'll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open," he promised.

Thomas paid the bill and he and Dwyer started along the quay, examining all the boats tied up there, as usual. They walked slowly and silently. Thomas as could feel Dwyer glancing at him uneasily from time to time.

"How much money you got?" Thomas asked as they reached the foot of the harbor, where the fishing boats, with their acetylene lamps, were tied up, with the nets laid out along the pavement, drying.

"How much money I got?" Dwyer said querulously. "Not even a hundred bucks. Just enough to buy one millionth of an ocean liner."

"I don't mean how much money you got on you. I mean altogether. You keep telling me you save your dough."

"If you think I've got enough for a crazy scheme like--"

"I asked you how much money you got. In the bank."

"Twenty-two hundred dollars," Dwyer said reluctantly. "In the bank. Listen, Tommy, stop jerking off. We'll never--"

"Between us," Thomas said, "you and me, one day we're going to have our own boat. Right here. In this port. Rich man's weather, like the limey said. We'll get the money somehow."

There must have been something about the way Thomas said the last sentence. Dwyer stopped short and stared at him with panic in his face. "I'm not going to do anything criminal. I never got mixed up with anything like that in my life."

"Who said anything about committing a crime?" asked Thomas. But now he suddenly knew what Dwyer must have been suspecting about him--that he was a thug on the run.

So what? he thought. Thomas had never said anything about committing a crime, but he'd thought about it occasionally. During his years in the ring, he'd seen plenty of men in $200 suits, fancy broads hanging onto their arms, everybody being polite to them. Cops, politicians, businessmen, movie stars--everybody seemed glad to see those guys, even though, by Dwyer's standards, they could be called criminals. Nobody cared except a few pissants like Dwyer. But he'd need Dwyer to handle the boat; he couldn't do that alone.

Suddenly, Dwyer was running out into the roadway, yelling, "Taxi! Taxi! The gare, pronto."

Thomas groaned to himself. He took one last look at the quayside, with the old men playing boule, the harbor behind them, that protected sheet of water with millions of dollars' worth of pleasure craft, shining in the sun. He swore to himself then that he'd come back; someday he would be a part of it.

He wrenched open the door of the moving taxi and jumped in beside Dwyer. "Did you think I'd kill you for your twenty-two hundred dollars?" he asked.

• • •

The next morning, early, they caught the train to Genoa. They gave themselves an extra day, because they wanted to stop off and see Monte Carlo. Maybe they'd have some luck at the casino.

If he had been at the other end of the platform, he'd have seen his brother Rudolph getting out of one of the sleeping cars from Paris, with a slender, pretty young girl and a lot of new luggage.

• • •

The first night out of Genoa, Falconetti, who was dealing a poker hand in the messroom, looked up when Thomas and Dwyer came in together. "Ah," he said, "here come the lovebirds," and made a wet, kissing noise. The men at the table laughed, because it was dangerous not to laugh at Falconetti's jokes. Dwyer turned red, but Thomas calmly poured himself a cup of coffee and picked up a copy of the Rome Daily American that was lying there and began to read it.

"I'll tell you what, Dwyer," Falconetti said, "I'll be your agent. It's a long way home and the boys could use a nice piece of ass to while away the lonely hours. Couldn't you, boys?"

There were little embarrassed murmurs of assent from the men around the table.

Thomas read his paper and sipped his coffee. He knew that Dwyer was trying to catch his eye, pleading; but until it got much worse, he wasn't going to get into a brawl.

"What's the sense in giving it away free like you do, Dwyer," Falconetti said, "when you could make a fortune and distribute happiness at the same time, just by setting yourself up in business with my help? What we have to do is fix a scale--say, five bucks for buggering, ten bucks for sucking. I'll just take my ten percent, like a regular Hollywood agent. What do you say, Dwyer?"

Dwyer jumped up and fled. The men at the table laughed. Thomas read his paper, although his hands were trembling. He had to control himself. If he beat up on a big thug like Falconetti, who had terrorized whole shiploads of men for years, somebody would begin to wonder who the hell he was and what made him so tough and it wouldn't take too long for somebody to recognize his name or remember that he had seen him fight somewhere. And there were mob members or hangers-on everywhere along the waterfront, just waiting to rush with the news that he'd been spotted to some higher-up with a dozen gunmen at his disposal.

Read your goddamn newspaper, Thomas said to himself, and keep your mouth shut.

"Hey, lover." Falconetti made the wet kissing noise again. "You going to let your boyfriend cry himself to sleep all by his little itsy-bitsy self?"

Methodically, Thomas folded the paper, put it down. He walked slowly across the room, carrying his coffee cup. Falconetti looked at him from across the table, grinning. Thomas threw the coffee into Falconetti's face. Falconetti didn't move. There was dead silence at the table.

"If you make that noise once more," Thomas said, "I'll slug you every time I pass you on this ship from here to Hoboken."

Falconetti stood up. "You're for me, lover," he said. He made the kissing noise again.

"I'll be waiting for you on deck," Thomas said. "And come alone."

"I don't need no help," Falconetti said.

Thomas wheeled and went out onto the stern deck. There would be room to move around there. He didn't want to have to tangle with a man Falconetti's size in close quarters.

The sea was calm, the night balmy, the stars bright. Thomas groaned . My goddamn fists, he thought, always my goddamn fists.

He wasn't worried about Falconetti. That big fat gut hanging over his belt wasn't made for punishment.

He saw the door open, Falconetti's shadow thrown onto the deck by the light in the gangway.Falconetti stepped out. He was alone.

Maybe I'm going to get away with it, Thomas thought. Nobody's going to see me take him.

"I'm over here, you fat slob" Thomas called. He wanted Falconetti to rush him, not take the chance of going in on him and perhaps being grappled by those huge arms and wrestled down. Plainly, Falconetti wasn't going to fight under Boxing Association rules. "Come on, fatso," Thomas called. "I haven't got all night."

"You asked for it, Jordache," Falconetti said and rushed at him, flailing his arms, big roundhouse swings. Thomas stepped to one side and put all his strength into the one right hand to the gut. Falconetti sounded as though he were strangling, teetered back. Thomas stepped in and hit him again in the gut. Falconetti went down, lay there, writhing, on the deck, a gurgling noise bubbling up from his throat. He wasn't knocked out and his eyes were glaring up at Thomas, who stood over him, but he couldn't say anything.

It had been neat and quick, Thomas thought with satisfaction, and there wasn't a mark on the man; and if he didn't say anything, none of the crew would ever know what happened out on the deck. It was a cinch Thomas wasn't going to do any talking about it. And Faclonetti had learned his lesson and it wouldn't do his reputation any good to pass the news around.

"All right slob," Thomas said, "Now you know what it's all about. Now you'll keep your trap shut,"

Falconetti made a sudden move and Thomas felt the big hand gripping at his ankle, bringing him down. There was a gleam in Falconetti's other hand and Thomas saw the knife there. He gave suddenly and dropped onto Falconetti's face with his knees, hard, grabbing at the hand with the knife, twisting. Falconetti was still fighting for his breath and the fingers holding the knife handle weakened quickly. Thomas, now with his knees pinning Falconetti's arms to the deck, reached the knife, pushed it away. Then he methodically chopped at Falconetti's face for two minutes.

Finally, he stood up. Falconetti lay inert on the deck, the blood black on the starlit deck around his head. Thomas picked up the knife and threw it overboard.

With a last look at Falconetti, he went in. He was breathing hard, but it wasn't from the exertion of the fight. It was exultation. Goddamn it, he thought, I enjoyed it. I'm going to wind up a crazy old man fighting orderlies in the old folk's home.

He went into the messroom. The poker game had stopped, but there were more men in there than before, as the players who had seen the clash between Thomas and Falconetti had gone to tell their bunkmates and bring them back to get the dope on the action. The room had been alive with talk, but when Thomas came in, calmly, breathing normally now, no one said a word.

Thomas went over to the coffeepot and poured himself a cup,"I wasted half the last cup," he said to the men in the room.

He sat down and unfolded the paper and started reading.

• • •

He walked down the gangplank with his pay in his pocket and the dead Norwegian's sea bag over his shoulder. Dwyer followed him. Nobody had said goodbye. Ever since Falconetti had jumped overboard at night, in the middle of a storm, they had given Thomas the silent treatment. The hell with them. Falconetti had it coming to him. he had stayed away from Thomas, but when his face had healed, he'd begun to take it out on Dwyer when Thomas wasn't around. Dwyer reported that Falconetti made the kissing sound every time he saw him; and then, one night, just as he was coming off his watch, Thomas heard screams from Dwyer's cabin. The door was unlocked and when Thomas went in, Dwyer was on the floor and Falconetti was pulling his pants off. Thomas slugged Falconetti across the nose and kicked him in the ass he went through the door. "I warned you," he said. "You better stay out of sight, Because you're going more of the same every time I lay eyes on you on this ship."

"Jesus, Tommy," Dwyer said, his eyes wet, as he struggled back into his pants, "I'll never forget what you've done for me. Not in a million years, Tommy."

"Stop bawling," Thomas said, "He won't bother you anymore."

Falconetti didn't bother anyone anymore. He did his best to avoid Thomas, but at least once a day, they'd run across each other. And each time, Thomas would say, "Come over here, slob," and Falconetti would shamble over, his whole face twitching, and Thomas would punch him hard in the gut. Thomas made a point of doing it when there were other crewmen around, although never in front of an officer. He had nothing to hide anymore: After one look at what Thomas had done to Falconetti's face that night on the deck, the men in the crew had caught on. In fact, a deck hand by the name of Spinelli had said to Thomas, "I been puzzling ever since I set you before."

"You never saw me before," Thomas said, but he knew it was no use.

"Yeah, yeah," Spinelli said. "I saw you knock out a nigger five, six years ago, one night in Queens."

"I never been in Queens in my whole life," Thomas said.

"Have it your own way." Spinelli spread his hands pacifically. "It ain't any of my business."

Thomas knew that Spinelli spread the news around that he was a pro and that you could look up his record in The Ring magazine; but while they were still at sea, there was nothing anybody could do about it. When they landed, he'd have to be careful. But meanwhile, he had the pleasure of grinding Falconetti down to nothing. The curious thing, though, was that the men of the crew whom Falconetti had terrorized now treated him with contempt, but hated Thomas for making him contemptible. Somehow, it made them all seem ignoble in their own eyes, for submitting for so long to a big bag of wind who had been deflated in ten minutes by a man who was no bigger than most of them and who hadn't even raised his voice on two voyages.

Falconetti tried to stay out of the messroom when he knew Thomas would be there and the one time he got caught there when Thomas went in, Thomas didn't hit him but said, "Stay there, slob. I got company for you."

He went down the gangway to Renway's cabin. The Negro was sitting alone, on the edge of his bunk. "Renway," Thomas said, "come on with me."

Frightened, Renway had followed him back to the messroom. He had tried to pull back when he saw Falconetti sitting there, but Thomas pulled him into the room "We're just going to sit down like gentlemen," Thomas said, "next to this gentleman here, and enjoy the music." The radio was playing.

Thomas sat down on one side of Falconetti and Renway on the other. Falconetti didn't move. He just sat with his eyes lowered, his big hands flat on the table in front of him.

When Thomas said, "OK, that's enough for tonight. You can go now, slob," Falconetti had stood up, not looking at any of the men in the room who were watching him, and had gone out on deck and thrown himself overboard. The second mate, who was on deck at the time, had seen him but was too far away to stop him. The ship had swung around and they had a halfhearted search, but the seas were mountainous, the night black, and there wasn't a chance.

The captain had ordered an inquiry, but not one of the crew had volunteered information. Suicide, causes unknown, the captain had put down in his report to the owners.

• • •

Thomas was glad to get off the ship, with its row of silent men watching him from the rail.

"What is it with those creeps?" he asked Dwyer as they walked off the dock."You'd think they would give me a bouquet of flowers for what I did for them. Instead, that goddamn silent treatment, as though I pissed on their mother's grave."

Dwyer walked in silence for a while, looking at the pavement in front of his feet. "Do you want me to tell you, Tommy?" he said finally.

"Sure I want you to tell me."

"Falconetti had it coming to him, all right," Dwyer said, "but not the way you gave it to him. No matter who a man is, Tommy, you've got to leave him some place to stand. You didn't leave that poor bastard anyplace to stand. That's why nobody said anything to you."

"How about you?" Thomas asked harshly. "You talk to me."

"I owe it," Dwyer said. "There's a taxi."