Snatch Page 28

  “Look, Marie. Down here by the jelly. It says the King. The King of England!”

  Frankie Savallo, his eyes big, turned the wheelchair and came closer to Robby. “You the kid in the newspaper?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I haven’t read the newspaper. But I do know Mr. Thadeus—”

  “Of course he is, Frankie. Look at his clothes.”

  Frankie squinted at the Wolsley School emblem.

  “Why is that moose trying to knock over that tree?”

  “Moose, sir?”

  “Elk, whatever it is. That big goat on your coat.”

  Marie Savallo was standing beside Robby. “Tailor-made clothes, Frankie. For a child who’ll outgrow them before spring.”

  “What’s tailor-made?”

  “Everything, Frankie. Take off your overcoat, sonny. You must be warm.”

  She ignored Robby’s overcoat when he tried to hand it to her.

  Her fingers unbuttoned his blazer.

  “Look at that, Frankie. A tailor-made jacket for a little boy.”

  Her fingers went between the collar of Robby’s shirt and his neck.

  “His shirt is hand-sewn, Frankie. And him about to grow like a Jerusalem artichoke.”

  “I want to know about the moose tryin’ to knock over that tree. What does it mean?”

  “It means he’s very high up, Frankie.”

  “He’s an orphan! Who’s gonna pay ransom for an orphan?”

  “Well, darlin’, someone paid for these clothes. Hand-me-downs they’re not.”

  “Listen, kid.” Frankie stuck his finger in Robby’s chest. “Are you the kid in the newspaper, or not?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir. May I read the newspaper?”

  “You can read?”

  “Slowly, sir.”

  “Sure, kid.” Frankie wheeled backwards and aside. “Read.”

  Marie brought a chair upon which Robby knelt as he read, elbows among the coffee grounds. I think I’ll let you be surprised in the morning, Thadeus Lowry had said. Read The New York Star. Robby should be very surprised indeed. Robby was very surprised indeed.

  At the top of the page was a huge picture of Robby, cap, necktie, blazer, short pants, kneesocks, sitting on his suitcase. There was no background in the picture. Robby appeared to be sitting in space, or on a cloud, or in the land of nowhere. His chin was on his hand, and his elbow on his knee. The expression on his face (which was actually one of curiosity as to how the photographer’s big camera worked) looked questioning, pleading, yearning. He looked tired, which he was, and hungry, which he was.

  On either side of Robby’s picture, in cameo, were the photographs of Robby’s parents he had given Thadeus Lowry from his wallet. Their evening wear, and the formal compositions of the portraits made the parents look far removed from the pathetic reality of their son. Too, as their eyes were wide open for their formal sittings, the effect of the arrangements of photographs on the page was that they were considerably concerned, if not startled, at seeing their offspring displayed so prominently within millimeters of their noses.

  The photographic layout was held together with the headline:

  THE LORD IS AN ORPHAN

  Under the photographic display the caption read: Robert Duke of Pladroman, aged 10, as he arrived in New York from war-torn England yesterday.

  And the story read:

  The poor little duke!

  The War ravaging the world is toppling thrones, unsettling the high and the mighty, and making many another distinguished seat uneasy.

  Not just the people of every nation are distressed.

  The 10-year-old holder of one of England’s most awesome titles arrived in New York yesterday, a homeless orphan, a waif, his eyes hollow from his personal brush with current world history.

  While other reporters spent the day in pursuit of presidents, dictators and military leaders, your correspondent for The New York Star struggled through blistering snow to a cold and windswept East Side dock to discover Robert James St. James Burnes Walter Farhall-Pladroman (Duke of Pladroman), aged 10, lost and lonely, trembling with trepidation at these cold shores of a new land, grievous with grief at the recent loss of his beloved parents, victims of war, a small and discouraged figure sitting astride his only remaining possession in the world, a small, black cardboard suitcase (see picture above).

  “Call me Robby,” he said, extending the democracy of childhood while extending a cold and uncertain hand to your New York Star correspondent.

  LARK

  Weeks ago, happy as a lark, the 10-year-old boy gamboled on England’s green glades, the playing fields of his family’s public (private boarding) school, Wolsley School, in England.

  Like any other, healthy, high-spirited, 10-year-old boy, he loved to play rugby (football) and cricket (baseball).

  The airplanes flying over the school on their flights over the English Channel to deal death blows to the Axis Powers meant no more to him than to any other healthy, happy, 10-year-old boy.

  Then came the terrible news that shattered Robby’s safe and noble world.

  A bomb in the night—a Nazi bomb—emblazoned with the dreaded swastika, directly hit London’s famous and fashionable Pladroman House, Mayfair—Robby’s home—killing both parents instantly.

  Robby’s dad, the Duke of Pladroman, a well-decorated hero of World War One, was a distinguished member of the House of Lords (Senate). His mum, the Duchess, was one of London’s most noted and loved hostesses, admired for her fragile beauty.

  All lost in a single stroke—a school, a home, a family, a way of life.

  HAEC

  “Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit,” said the poor little Duke, with a shrug of his thin shoulders, which roughly translates from the vulgate as “I can take anything.”

  His schoolmates and schoolmasters were open in their sympathy for the noble waif. They tried to assure him their love and friendship were steady in the face of his terrible loss.

  But the decision was made in England’s highest corridors of power that the young Duke must be evacuated to the shores of England’s staunchest ally, the United States of America, for safekeeping.

  “We are fighting this terrible evil not for ourselves alone,” intoned the English Prime Minister (President) Winston Churchill, “but for the next generation, and the next, and the next. We are fighting for the preservation of our good English way of life.”

  By dark, heavily curtained trains and devious routes, Robby was brought to his ship in the middle of the night.

  SPECIAL

  Dodging bombs, his car, without benefit of any headlights at all, sought out the docks and the special ship, His Majesty’s Ship Scaramouche.

  Fearful days at sea followed his nightmare ashore.

  Submarines, with their fearful torpedoes, lurked beneath every wave.

  Mid-winter North Atlantic storms were no friends to His Majesty’s Ship Scaramouche, her captain, crew, and their special human cargo.

  Dodging torpedoes, the storm-tossed little vessel limped into New York Harbor yesterday, her stern in the water.

  Asked for his first impression of America, the 10-year-old Duke said, “We are all very grateful for what the people of the United States are doing for the besieged people of Britain. His Majesty, the King, has asked me to transmit his thanks.”

  CORRESPONDENT

  Having no other course to follow, your correspondent for The New York Star had the poor little Duke accompany him to his own home last evening. There he was warmly greeted by the family and friends of your correspondent.

  The poor little Duke has come to safe harbor, at last, in the warm bosom of your correspondent’s family.

  When Robby finished reading, slowly, he looked up, slowly, into the blue eyes of Marie Savallo. Slowly he turned his head and looked into the brown eyes of Frankie Savallo.

  11

  Worthiness

  Picking slowly through Thadeus Lowry’s account of Robby’s narrow escape from peace, h
e had not been listening closely to the continuing debate between Frankie and Marie Savallo concerning whether Robby had been worth kidnapping, having already been kidnapped. Frankie Savallo continued to exercise the characteristic of an operatic basso profundo: Each new fragment of information which came his way he not only assimilated slowly, he took personally. Every aspect in the affair drew from him thirty-two bars in the lower registers. Counterpoint to the depth of his emotions, Marie Savallo’s conversational flights fled from her mouth and flittered around the room like so many glib canaries.

  Finally the garbage on the newspaper turned Robby away by the nose. He sat facing the room on the kitchen chair. He did think it splendid of Thadeus Lowry to give him such a resounding phrase to say on behalf of the King. Too, Headmaster would be so pleased at Robby’s introducing Latin to America. It might enspirit him.

  Marie Savallo had removed her coat and hat and now was sitting, sagging, on the other side of the kitchen table, awaiting the teapot to sound. Frankie sat in profile to them, arms folded across his great chest, as if to defend his heart from any further incursions that day.

  Their conversation repeated Marie’s contention that she hadn’t meant to kidnap Robby, Frankie’s insistence she shouldn’t have kidnapped Robby, and their joint indecisiveness about what to do with the kidnapped Robby.

  Frankie twisted his neck further than Robby thought humanly possible, to face him, and said, “Well?”

  “Well, sir?”

  “Is what the newspaper says about you the truth?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then what’s true?” Frankie shouted.

  “I’m eight, sir.”

  “What?”

  “I’m eight, sir. Not ten. Eight.”

  “Columbus!”

  “He’s eight years old,” said Marie Savallo. “The little darlin’. Hardly old enough to wash between his own toes, he is.”

  “Dammit, shuddup, Marie! Are you the poor little Duke or not?”

  “My name’s Burnes, sir. Robby Burnes, S.Nob.”

  “You know, Frankie,” confided Marie, “even his name’s familiar to me. I swear I’ve heard it somewhere.”

  “Is it true you know the Prime Minister and the King of England?”

  Robby asked, “Sir?”

  “What?” Frankie said mildly. Then Frankie said not so mildly: “What?”

  “Is the Prime Minister the man who rolls instead of walks and talks as if he were upstairs and he wants you to hear him downstairs?”

  “How do I know?” expostulated Frankie. “All I know is the King wears a funny hat with diamonds in it.”

  “Oh, I know the King all right. He comes to tea. We’re both rather keen on the strawberry marmalade and I’m always told not to pig it if His Majesty’s there. Mums says he has children at home and has to go out for his marmalade. It’s the other one I’m not sure of, the Prime Minister one.”

  “Christopher Columbus, Marie! He knows the King of England!”

  “What did you expect, Frankie? He’s a duke. Sure, even the King of England has to have somewhere to go when he goes out.”

  “Kid—”

  “He’s a duke, Frankie. You’re supposed to call him Duke So-And-So. Duke Robby, I guess, is it?”

  “We kidnapped him, didn’t we? I’ll call him any damned thing I please. What did you call your daddy, kid—your papa?”

  “Sir.”

  “What?”

  “I called my father sir, sir.”

  “And what did you call the King?”

  “Sir.”

  “You call everybody sir?” Marie asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Frankie looked shrewd. “If the King of England likes strawberry whatever-it-is, what does the Prime Minister of England like?”

  “If he’s the one I think he is, sir, he likes cigars—great, long ones—and he likes other people to light them for him, sir, as long as they don’t interrupt him when he’s talking, which means he really doesn’t smoke all that much, sir. And brandy at tea time. Nanny says it’s a sin, anyone having brandy at tea time, and that’s why we’ll lose the war for sure.”

  “We’ll lose the war because the Prime Minister of England drinks brandy?” Frankie shook his head.

  “At tea time, sir. Nanny says a little brandy at breakfast is all right because I’ve seen her take it then. Knocks on the door of the heart, she says, and tells it to move along.”

  “Isn’t he a darlin’ boy?” The teakettle was whistling. “There’s our tea now. Would you like a cup of tea yourself, Frankie?”

  “I’ll have a brandy. I need an excuse for losin’ a war.”

  “Sure, you know we haven’t had anything like that…”

  She was putting three cups and saucers and spoons on the table. “You’d like tea?” she asked Robby.

  “Oh, yes, sir, ma’am.”

  “I thought you might.”

  Frankie said, “You just can’t ship a kid across the ocean, especially on a special ship! And then just leave him there on the dock! Somebody must be expecting you.”

  “I was told I have an uncle here, sir, in New York, but I don’t.”

  “The poor darlin’. All on his lonesome.”

  “Marie.” Frankie sighed. He was enjoying dejection. “Let me try to get this through your melon one final time. If the kid don’t belong to anyone, who’s gonna pay ransom? I ask you!”

  “Sure, somebody has to care about the tyke. You should have seen him in the road, Frankie, a wee tired child lookin’ as confused as a gentle baker at a butchers’ bloody convene.”

  “Lissen, kid: You got any family? Any family at all?”

  “I have a grandaunt in Scotland, sir.”

  “Fat lot of good that’s gonna do us,” Frankie said. “From what I hear about the Scottish your grandaunt will send us a rent bill for keeping you. Columbus!” Frankie sighed again and shook his head. “Is your grandaunt rich?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, sir. I heard when the war came she had to help her gardeners herself.”

  “She has gardeners?”

  “Sure, Frankie. And we can get the ransom in turnips and squash air-mail from Scotland. Have your tea now, Your Duke-ship.” She poured steaming tea into the three chipped cups on the table. “And look what I happen to have.” Marie Savallo put an opened jar of grape jelly on the table. And a stack of bread. And a knife. “Dip your knife in that now, lad. And you won’t have to wrassle the King for it at all.”

  “Oh, thank you, ma’am.”

  “Saints, the child is starved.”

  “I missed breakfast, ma’am”—which, Robby thought, was as graceful an appraisal of his circumstances as he could muster.

  “Look at him eat, Frankie. So delicate he does it there won’t be a drop spilled!”

  Apologetically, Frankie whispered to Robby, “She can’t cook Italian.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

  Man-to-man, Frankie continued. “Wait until she gives you what she calls lasagna.”

  “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, sir.”

  “You won’t recognize it.”

  “No, sir,” Robby admitted. “I wouldn’t.”

  “The way she makes it, it looks like Mulligan stew.”

  “I’m sure that would be very nice, sir.”

  “Everything she makes looks like Mulligan stew.” Frankie looked at Marie’s back to be sure she wasn’t listening. “And it tastes—how does it taste?—it tastes like laundry.”

  Robby was halfway through the jar of grape jelly.

  “Her agnello dorato? Mulligan stew with lamb. Scaloppine di vitello? Mulligan stew with veal. Anguilla in gratella?” Frankie and Robby were giggling behind Marie’s back. “Mulligan stew with worms. Everything Mulligan stew.”

  Marie turned from the stove. “Here we’ve been jawin’ away, Frankie, and no one ever had the decency to ask the child if he had a mouth on him.”

&nb
sp; Frankie cleared his throat. He became businesslike again. “I want him to answer some sharp questions.”

  Sympathetically, Marie said, “He missed breakfast, Frankie.”

  Frankie Savallo pushed his teacup away with his thumb. He lowered his two brown eyes like setting suns and they beamed into Robby’s eyes. “Who’s going to pay your ransom?”

  Knife in the jelly jar, Robby hesitated. “Is that like a restaurant bill, sir?”

  Marie sat down at the kitchen table. “Sure, the darlin’ boy doesn’t know what ransom is, Frankie. I don’t think previously he’s had much conversation with criminal types.”

  “I remember something about ransom,” Robby said. “From Robin Hood.”

  “Now you’ve got it, lad,” Marie cheered.

  “He may be a duke,” Frankie said, “but he knows less than a newt.”

  “And how much should a duke know, Frankie? Tell me that. When you’re as important as a duke everybody knows things for you.”

  “Lissen, kid: Who would pay a lot of money to have you back?”

  “Back where, sir?”

  “Back home.”

  “But I haven’t a home, sir. It went under a bomb.”

  “There must be somebody who cares about you!”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Think a little, willya? Columbus!”

  Fortified by bread and jelly, Robby sat back in his chair, folded his fingers in his lap, and to convince them he was cogitating with great sincerity, squeezed his eyes shut.

  And sincerely he did try to think who cared enough about him to pay money to have him back. There were his parents, of course, but they last had been reported seen in two coffins in the same aisle. Nanny had had hundreds of pounds under her bed, for her old age in Bath, and Robby doubted not at all Nanny would pay every shilling to have him back, but Nanny in her nightdress, and all her pounds, had been blown up by the bomb and fluttered down into rubble. There was Mrs. Jencks, matron at Wolsley School, but surely she wouldn’t pay much to have a boy back when she couldn’t tell one boy from another until their noses grew. Robby couldn’t think Headmaster would take much out of his own pocket to get a tadpole back when he was surrounded by tadpoles. The family solicitors, Pollack, Carp and Fish, which Thadeus Lowry had mentioned, obviously didn’t have any money to spare for a boy, or they would have sent a longer, more explanatory cable. And just the evening before Robby had seen Thadeus Lowry robbed in the street, so Robby knew Thadeus Lowry didn’t have any money.