Читать книгу Glory Boys - Harry Bingham - Страница 36

The weekend was everything that Willard’s life once used to be and now wasn’t.

Although he carried twelve hours’ worth of paperwork in his briefcase, he touched none of it. Deliberately choosing to ignore the difficulties that hemmed him in, he didn’t think about his debts, didn’t think about Powell Lambert, didn’t think about his future. Instead, he did all those things he had once taken for granted. He played tennis, sailed and swam. He was outgoing, charming and easy. He didn’t ‘score a confirmed hit’, as he expressed it to his eldest sister, Lucinda, but he ‘winged one or two machines, for sure’ – his phrase for petting that stopped just short of the bedroom door.

‘One or two?’ she teased him. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Two then.’

‘Must have been some very slow machines then. Slow and ugly.’

He laughed. ‘Fast and pretty. And exceptionally keen for me to call on them in New York.’

But all too soon the weekend ended. On Sunday evening, as the light began to ebb, Willard found himself on the station platform with his father. The train, headed by a steam locomotive painted a sombre black and purple, groaned its way into the station. The two men, travelling first class, found a compartment empty but for one other traveller, a man absorbed in his leather-bound Bible.

Willard, who always found time alone with his father awkward, was relieved at the third man’s presence. The two Thorntons settled into seats opposite each other. The older man produced some business papers, and began to read. Willard, loathing the thought of touching any of his hated paperwork, reached his bag down arid did so anyway. The train lurched off into the twilight.

The silence in the compartment and the clattering darkness outside began to knit together in one clotted mass. The thoughts Willard had kept at bay all weekend began to swarm in on him: his debts; his lack of prospects; the hopelessness of his situation. He also thought about those other things: the man whose death had been so conveniently timed, the Irish rabbis, Willard’s strange but beautiful burglar. Without premeditating his action, he dropped his papers and said, ‘Father?’

Junius Thornton and the other traveller lowered their reading matter at the interruption. Then the Bible-reader rose, claimed his bag from the rack, and left the compartment. On the way out, he gave Willard a look which implied that if speaking on a Sunday weren’t illegal, then it certainly ought to be. Junius Thornton stacked and bookmarked his papers, but didn’t put them away, as though to suggest that any break in the silence were only provisional.

‘Yes?’

Willard didn’t know what he intended to say. If he could have undone his first impulsive exclamation, he would have. But since he had now to say something, he said the first thing that came into his head.

‘You know Powell fairly well, I think.’

‘Certainly.’

‘And you’d trust him, of course? I mean, you don’t believe he’d do anything that a gentlemen shouldn’t?’

Junius Thornton stared at his son. The older man’s thick features were hard to read at the best of times; still harder in the moving carriage and the uncertain light. ‘I believe Powell to be a reliable man, yes. Am I to know what makes you ask such a peculiar question?’

‘Oh nothing!’ Willard threw himself back in his seat, annoyed at himself for asking. ‘Just one or two odd things have happened lately. Things Powell might not have liked if he’d known about them.’

Junius Thornton continued to examine his son, waiting to see if any further explanation was forthcoming. It wasn’t. The old man shrugged slightly. ‘Powell likes money. He likes it very much. As far as I know, that’s the only thing he likes.’

Willard stared sulkily from the window. ‘Well, it’s a good job he runs a bank then.’

‘Yes,’ said his father, deliberately mishearing, ‘he does a good job.’

‘And do you think…?’

His father, impassive, waited for Willard to finish his sentence. Willard made no attempt to do so, and the older man let his glance stray back to the documents he’d abandoned. The glance prompted Willard to continue.

‘Well, I must say, I’m not at all sure he’s playing quite fair with me.’

‘Oh?’

‘I mean it was understood – quite plainly – I mean, that was the point of the whole arrangement – that I’d work off the loan. Not just pay interest for the rest of my life.’

‘I see. You were clear about the matter with him, of course?’

‘He said…’ Willard struggled to remember what Powell had said exactly. It had been vague and general, for sure, but the tone had been optimistic and reassuring. ‘He said there was money to be made on Wall Street. Plenty of it. He said those with the gift would always make money.’

‘Indeed. Those propositions seem true enough.’

Willard said nothing, just sat back, petulantly folding his arms and jerking his chin. His father stared for a moment, then tried a different tack.

‘And what was stipulated in the contract?’

‘Oh nothing – nothing that helps. But it’s not just about contracts. It’s about – I don’t know – I thought he was a gentleman, that’s all.’

The older man’s expression was never easy to read. Sometimes, Willard thought, it was because he didn’t have an expression. Just because somebody owns two eyes and a mouth doesn’t mean they register emotions in the normal human way. But that wasn’t the case now. There was something alive in the businessman’s face. There was a flicker of something in his mouth, some fleeting look in the shadows of his eyes. But the moment didn’t last. The older man didn’t let it. He clamped his lips and picked up the waiting stack of papers. But before he closed the discussion, he looked squarely at his son and said, ‘You ought to know that Powell is pleased with you. He tells me you’re doing good work. Well done.’

‘Gosh! Thank you, Father.’

Willard was astonished that Powell had noticed his presence in the bank, let alone found favour with it. But his astonishment was doubled by his father’s rare administration of praise. Hope leaped unreasonably up. Willard thought about the Firm; renewed the strength of his desire to live up to the family name, to claim the family crown. He felt elated and clasped the feeling in silence all the way to New York City.

His mood lasted until eight twenty-seven on Monday morning. When he arrived at work, he found everyone already there, except Charlie Hughes. The atmosphere was silent and heavy. Willard tried to lighten it. He stood by the hat stand.

‘What’s this revolting object?’ he said, picking up Claverty’s pale grey fedora. ‘Miss Hooper, kindly dispose of it.’ He threw Claverty’s hat across the room and hung his own in its place. Nobody smiled, nobody laughed. Annie Hooper picked up the fallen hat and came over.

‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘Charlie Hughes. He was arrested last night.’ Her voice trembled. ‘It seems he was found with sixteen cases of gin in his apartment. They’re charging him under the Volstead Act. Oh, Willard! He’s going to prison…’

Her tears burst forth. Willard put his arm around her and felt her nestle in like a little, lost bird. He wanted to press his lips to the top of her head, but didn’t. He held her as she cried. Charlie Hughes! A bootlegger! It was impossible.

When Willard looked up, he found Leo McVeigh staring at him: dark, brutal, intimidating, fierce.