William Kennedy - Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

He was in Saratoga that year because one night a month earlier he was hanging around Broadway in Albany when Bindy McCall came by, Bindy, in the tan fedora with the flowerpot crown, had connections and investments in Saratoga gambling, a natural by-product of his control of all the action in Albany, all of it: gambling houses, horse rooms, policy, clearing house, card games, one-armed bandits, punch boards. Playing games in Albany meant you first got the okay from Bindy or one of his lieutenants, then delivered your dues, which Bindy counted nightly in his office on Lodge Street. The tribute wasn’t Bindy’s alone. It sweetened the kitty for the whole McCall machine.

Billy touched Bindy’s elbow that night.

“Hey, Billy.”

“Got a second, Bin? I need some work. Can you fix me up for Saratoga next month?”

“What can you do?”

“Anything.”

“Anything at all?”

“Craps, poker, blackjack, roulette. I can deal, handle the stick.”

“How good are you?”

“Haven’t you heard?”

Bindy chuckled.

“I’ll ask around someone who has. See Lemon Lewis.”

“All right, Bindy, fine. Obliged. Can I touch you for fifty?”

Bindy chuckled again. Billy’s got brass. Bindy reached for the roll and plucked a fifty out of the middle.

“Use it in good health.”

“Never felt better,” said Billy. “I pay my debts.”

“I know you do. I know that about you. Your father paid his debts, too. We played ball together when we were kids. He was one hell of a player. You ever hear from him?”

“We don’t hear.”

“Yeah. That’s an odd one. See Lewis. He’ll fill you in.”

“Right, Bin.”

Billy saw Lewis an hour later at the bar in Becker’s and got the word: You deal at Riley’s.

“What about transportation?” Billy asked. “How the hell do I get from Albany to Saratoga every night?”

“Jesus, ain’t you got a car?”

“Car? I never even had roller skates.”

“All right. You know Sid Finkel?”

Billy knew Sid, a pimp and a booster and a pretty fair stickman. Put his kid through dentists’ school with that combination.

“Look him up. I’ll tell him to give you a lift.”

“I’ll half the gas with him,” Billy said.

“That’s you and him. And don’t forget your source,” and Lemon hit himself on the chest with his thumb.

“Who the hell could forget you, Lemon?” Billy said.

It went fine for Billy for two weeks and then came the Whiteman scene and Billy went from Riley’s to the Chicago Club, on earlier hours. The Club got a big play in the afternoon, even though the horses were running at the track. So Billy had to find new transportation because Sid Finkel stayed on nights. Was Billy lucky? He certainly was. Angie Velez saw him dealing at the Chicago Club and when he took a break, she asked him for a light.

“You weren’t out of work long,” she said.

“Who told you I was out of work?”

“I was there when you gave it to Whiteman. Funniest damn thing I’ve heard in years. Imagine anybody saying that to Paul Whiteman. You’re the one with the hillbilly band. I laughed right out loud. He gave me an awfully dirty look.”

Billy smiled at this new dish. Then he asked her name and bought her a drink and found she was married but only dabbled in that. Hubby was a gambler, too. Brought her to Saratoga for a week, then left her there to play while he went home to run his chunk of Rochester, what a town. No town like Albany. Rochester is where you might go on the bum, only might, if they kicked you out of Albany. Billy couldn’t imagine life outside Albany. He loved the town. And half-loved you too, Angie, now that you’re here. “Are you a spic?”

“I’m Irish, baby. Just like you. One of the Gagen girls. My old man’s a Cuban.”

She was playing kneesies with him by then.

“You keep that up, you’re liable to get raped.”

“Room two-forty-six in the Grand Union.” And she proved it with the key. That was the beginning of Billy’s private taxi service between Albany and Saratoga for the rest of the month. Other things began that season in Saratoga: Billy’s reputation as the youngest of the hot numbers at any table, never mind the game. Big winner. I could always get a buck, Billy said. What the hell, I know cards and dice.

Of course, at the end of the season Billy was broke. Playing both sides of the table.

Now Mildred Bailey was all through and Clem McCarthy was barking in with the race results on WHN, and can you believe what is happening to Billy? Friar Charles wins, the son of a bitch, five-to-two, the son of a bitch, the son of a bitch! Martin Daugherty, what in Christ’s name are you doing to Billy Phelan?

Here’s how it looked to this point: Martin bet ten across the board on Charley Horse, who wins it, four-to-one; puts a tenner across also on Friar Charles and now wins that one, too; and has a third tenner going across on Hello Chuckie in the sixth at Pimlico, and Hello Chuckie is two-to-one on the morning line. There is more. Martin also parlayed the three horses for yet another ten.

Now, Billy knows that Martin is a hell of a sport, always pays, and loses more than he wins, which has always been pleasant for Billy, who takes a good bit of his play. But my Jesus Christ almighty, if he wins the third, plus the three-horse parlay, Billy is in trouble. Billy doesn’t hold every bet he takes. You hold some, lay off some. You hold what you think you can cover, maybe a little more, if you’re brassy like Billy. Billy lays some off with his pal Frankie Buchanan, who has the big book in Albany. But mother pin a rose on Billy. For bravery. For Billy is holding all of Martin’s play. Didn’t lay off a dime. Why? Because suckers and losers bet three-horse parlays. I’ll hold them all day long, was Billy’s philosophy until a few minutes ago when Clem McCarthy came on with the Friar Charles news. And now Billy is sitting at his card table in the front room. (Billy came here to Thanksgiving dinner six years ago and never went back downtown to his furnished room.) His money sits on the floor, next to his bridge chair, in a Dyke cigar box, Dykes being the cigar the McCall machine pushed in all the grocery and candy stores in town.

Billy himself sits under the big, shitty print of Mo the Kid in the gold frame. Billy’s fingers are working with his number two Mongol pencil on the long yellow pad, and his eyes keep peeking out through the curtains on the front windows in case state cops step on his stoop, in which case Billy would be into the toilet p.g.d.q., those horse bets would be on their way down the city conduits toward the river, and even the most enterprising raider could not then bring them back and pin them on Billy’s chest.

Stan whatsisname, the WHN disk jockey, was talking about Bob Crosby and Billy felt good hearing that because he knew Crosby, had heard him in Saratoga, danced to his music with Angie, talked music with him when he played The Edgewood over in Rensselaer. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” Crosby was playing now. The phone rang and Billy turned Crosby down. Frankie Buchanan with the results of the fifth at Arlington Park, Friar Charles official now. Billy then told Frankie about Martin Daugherty’s very weird parlay.

“You’re the weird one,” said Frankie, who was as weird as they come. One of the best-liked guys in Albany, Frankie, and yet he couldn’t take the public. He’d come out at night for ham and eggs, and you’d have to sit with him in his car behind the Morris diner while he ate off a paper plate. Crazy bastards in this world.

“You want to give me the third horse or part of that parlay?”

“No,” said Billy, “I can’t believe the son of a bitch can pick three in a row, and parlay them, too. I never seen it done. I believe in luck but not miracles.”