Beggarman, Thief by Irwin Shaw

lobbyists, subverting congressmen in the bedrooms of motels for pay?
    “I like some Americans myself,” he said.
    She chuckled, a small, ladylike chuckle. She was definitely not a sister to the prowling, gaudy savages of the streets of New York, regardless of the bond of their profession. He had heard that there were well-mannered whores in America, too, who charged a hundred dollars or more for an hour’s visit, and who could only be ordered by telephone, out-of-work actresses and models, elegant housewives working on a mink coat, but he had never met any of them. In fact, he had never spoken more than three words to any prostitute: “Thank you, no.”
    “And the French,” the woman was saying. “Do you like them?”
    “Moderately,” he said. “Do you?”
    “Some of them.” She chuckled again.
    The waiter appeared, his face stolid, accustomed to movements from table to table. “La mimê chose? Un vin blanc?” Rudolph asked the woman.
    “Ah,” she said, “you speak French.”
    “Un petit peu,” Rudolph said. He felt playful, tipsy. It was a night for games, masks, pretty French toys. Whatever happened that night, the lady was going to see that she didn’t have just another ordinary American tourist on her hands. “Je l’ai étudié à l’école. High school. What’s that in French?”
    “Collège? Lycée.”
    “Lycée,” he said, with a sense of triumph.
    The waiter shuffled his feet, a small reminder that he didn’t have all night to stand around listening to an American trying to remember his high-school French to impress a lady who had just picked him up. “Monsieur?” the waiter said. “Encore un cognac?”
    “S’il vous plaît,” Rudolph said with dignity.
    After that, they spoke in a mixture of the two languages, both of them laughing at the kind of French Rudolph managed to dredge up from his memory, as he told her about the bosomy French teacher he had had as a teenaged boy at home, about how he had believed he was in love with her, had written her ardent letters in French, had once drawn a picture of her, naked, which she had confiscated. For her part, the woman had seemed to be pleased to listen to him, to correct his mistakes in her language, to praise him when he got out more than three words in a row. If this was what French whores were like, Rudolph thought drunkenly, after a bottle of champagne, he understood why prostitution was such a respected fixture of French civilization.
    Then, the woman—he had asked her name, which was Jeanne—had looked at her watch and become serious. “It’s getting late,” she said in English, gathering in her bag and magazine, “I must be getting on.”
    “I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time,” he said. His voice was thick and he was having difficulty getting the words out.
    She stood up. “I’ve enjoyed it very much, Jimmy,” she said. He had told her that was his name. One more mask. He would not be traced. “But I expect an important call …”
    He stood up to say good-bye, half relieved, half sorry that he wasn’t going to make love to her. His chair fell back and he teetered a little as he rose. “It’s been sharm—charming,” he said.
    She frowned at him. “Where is your hotel?” she asked.
    Where was his hotel? For a moment the map of France was blotted from his consciousness. “Where’s my—my hotel …” he said, his voice blurred. “Oh. Antibes.”
    “Do you have a car?”
    “Yes.”
    She thought for a moment. “You are in no condition to drive, you know.”
    He hung his head, abashed. Americans, he felt she was saying, scornfully, arrived in France in no condition to drive. In no condition to do anything. “I’m not really a drinking man,” he said, making it sound like an excuse. “I’ve had a bad day.”
    “The roads are dangerous, especially at night,” she said.
    “Especially at night,” he agreed.
    “Would you like to come with me?” she asked.
    At last, he thought. It would not be a sin