William Kennedy - Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

“Hello, Chick,” he said, said it aloofly from the side of his mouth, that little hello that hits and runs.

“Howsa boy, Billy, howsa boy? Long time no see.”

“All right, Chick.”

Billy would have kept walking, but his uncle’s gaze stayed on him, looking at those clothes, so spiffy, so foreign because of that; and so Billy spoke compulsively. “How you been?” A man’s got to be civil.

“Fine and dandy. Sit down.”

“I got some business here a minute,” and Billy’s hand said, I’ll be back, maybe. He walked to the counter, where Tod was already drawing a coffee, dark. Tod also shoved a spoon and an envelope at him.

“Forty there,” Tod said, jaunty in his counterman’s white military cap of gauze and cardboard. “All I can come up with.”

Billy didn’t touch the envelope.

“That phone call,” Billy said.

“Forget it. Peg called me.”

“She tell you what happened?”

“All but the numbers.”

“Seven eighty-eight eighty-five. How do you like that, doctor?”

“You got a reason to be edgy.”

“I’m through till I pay it off and get another bankroll.”

“You got no reserve at all?”

“A wipeout.”

“Then what’s next?”

“I thought I’d look up Harvey. You want to make the call?”

“For when?”

“When, hell. Now. I’m there if he wants me.”

Tod looked at his watch. “Five to six. He’s home by now. Shit. I got to work. I’ll miss it.”

“I’ll tell you about it. But I wanna make the game at Nick’s.”

“How you gonna play with no money?”

“I got almost two bills.”

“And you got this forty,” and Tod shoved the envelope closer.

“Two-thirty then. I play with half that. I can’t afford to lose more than that. I got to save something for Martin, unless I can swing him.”

“I’ll call Harvey, good old Harv.”

“Hey, you hear I rolled two-ninety-nine last night? I beat Scotty Streck and the son of a bitch dropped dead from shock.”

“I saw the obituary in the afternoon paper. It didn’t mention you. Two-ninety-nine? What stood up?”

“The four pin. Gimme a western.” Billy pocketed the envelope and carried the coffee to Chick’s table, thinking: I could grunt and Toddy’d get the message. Talk to Chick all week and he’ll ask you is this Thursday. Chick wasn’t dumb, he was ignorant. Anybody’d be ignorant living in that goddamn house. Like living in a ditch with a herd of goats. Years back, Chick got baseball passes regular from Jack Daley, the Times-Union’s sports editor. The Albany Senators were fighting Newark for first place and Red Rolfe was with Newark, and George McQuinn and others who later went up with the Yankees. Chick gave the passes for the whole Newark series to young Mahan, a tub-o’guts kid whose mother was a widow. Billy always figured Chick was after her ass. Chick gave Billy a pass two weeks later to see Albany play the cellar club. Who gave a damn about the cellar club? Billy can’t even remember now which club it was. Shove your pass, Nasty Billy told his uncle.

“You’re all dressed up,” Chick said, chuckling. “Are you going to work?”

“Not to give you a short answer to a snotty question, but what the hell is it to you? What am I supposed to do, dress like a bum? Look like you?”

“All right, Billy, I was only kidding.”

“The hell you were.”

“Dress any way you want. Who cares?”

“I do what I want, all right.”

“Calm down, Billy, and answer me a question. You seen Charlie McCall lately?”

“I saw him last night. He bet against me in a bowling match.”

“You hear anything about him?”

“Since last night? Like how he slept?”

“No, no.”

“What the hell you asking then?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“I’d be dead if I couldn’t.”

“I hear Charlie’s in bad trouble. I hear maybe he was kidnapped last night.”

Billy stared Chick down, not speaking, not moving except to follow Chick’s eyes when they moved. Chick blinked. Kidnapped . With Warner Baxter.

“You heard what I said?”

“I heard.”

“Don’t that mean anything to you?”

“Yeah, it means something. It means I don’t know what the hell it means. You got this straight or you making it up?”

“I’m telling you, it’s a secret. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I know you know Charlie and thought maybe you heard something.”

“Like who kidnapped him?”

“Hey, come on, Billy. Not so loud. Listen, forget it, forget I said anything.” Chick bit his doughnut. “You heard any news about your father?”

“Wait a minute. Why is it a secret about Charlie?”

“It’s just not out yet.”

“Then how come you know?”

“That’s a secret, too. Now forget it. What about your father?”

“Nothing. You know any secrets about him?”

“No, no secrets. Nothing since he came to see us.”

“And you kicked him out.”

“No, Billy, we wanted him, I wanted him to stay. Your Uncle Peter and I went all over town looking for him. You know it was your Aunt Sate had the fight with him. They always fought, even as kids. He was gone before we even knew he was out of the house.”

“Bullshit, Chick.”

“Nobody can talk to you, Billy. Nobody ever could.”

“Not about him they can’t.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“I know how he was treated, and how I was treated because of him.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Somebody said, “Haw! My mother just hit the numbers!” And Billy turned to see a boy with a broken front tooth, about fifteen, brush cut, sockless, in torn sneakers, beltless pants, and a ragged cardigan over a tank-top undershirt with a hole in the front. His jackknife, large blade open, danced in his hand, two tables away.

“Saunders kid,” Chick said softly.

“Who?”

Chick whispered. “Eddie Saunders. Lives up on Pearl Street near us. He’s crazy Whole family’s crazy His father’s in the nut house at Poughkeepsie.”

“She had a dollar on it,” Eddie Saunders said. “Four forty-seven. Gonna get five hundred bucks. Haw!” With his left foot he nudged a chair away from a nearby table, then slashed its leatherette seat twice in parallel cuts.

“Gonna get me some shoes,” he said. “Gonna go to the pitchers.”

A lone woman in a corner made little ooohing sounds, involuntary wheezes, as she watched the boy. Billy thought the woman looked a little like Peg.

“Who’d she play the numbers with, Eddie?” Billy asked the kid.

The boy turned and studied Billy. Billy stood up. The boy watched him closely as he moved toward the counter and said to Tod, “Where’s my western? And gimme a coffee.” And then he turned to the kid.

“I asked who she played the numbers with, Eddie.”

“The grocery.”

“That’s big news. Bet your mother feels good.”

“She does. She’s gonna buy a dress.”

Eddie tapped the knife blade on the marble table top and let it bounce like a drum stick. Billy took the ironstone mug of coffee and the western off the glass counter and moved toward the boy. When he was alongside he said, “You oughta close that knife.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah, you should.”

“You won’t make me.” And Eddie made little jabs at the air about two feet to the right of Billy’s stomach.

“If you don’t close it,” Billy said, “I’ll throw this hot coffee in your eyes. You ever have boiling hot coffee hit you in the eyes? You can’t see nothing after that.”

Eddie looked up at Billy, then at the mug of steaming coffee in his right hand, inches from his face. He looked down at his knife. He studied it. He studied it some more. Then he closed the blade. Billy set his western on the table and reached out his left hand.