William Kennedy - Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

It was then that Francis uncocked his arm and that the smooth stone flew, and the scab fell and died. No way out. Death within the coordinates. And it was the shooting of the innocent onlookers which followed Francis’s act that hastened the end of the strike. Violence enough. Martin saw two of the onlookers fall, just as he could still see the stone fly. The first was spun by the bullet and reeled backward and slid down the front of the railroad station wall. The second grabbed his stomach as the scab had grabbed his head, and he crumpled where he stood. Fiddler Quain lay on the granite blocks of Broadway after his clubbing, but the mob swirled around that horseman who hit him, an invasion of ants, and Fiddler was lifted up and swept away to safety and hiding. Like Franny, he was known but never prosecuted. The hands that carried the violence put honest men back to work. Broadway, then and now, full of men capable of violent deeds to achieve their ends.

“Listen, Billy,” Martin said as they walked, “that business between you and Daddy Big, that’s not really why the McCalls put you on the list. There’s something else going on, and it’s about Morrie Berman.”

Billy stopped walking and faced Martin.

“What Morrie says could be important, since he knows people who could have taken Charlie.”

“So do I. Everybody does on Broadway.”

“Then what you or the others know is also important.”

“What I know is my business. What Berman knows is his business. What the hell is this, Martin?”

“Patsy McCall is making it his business, too.”

“How do you know that?”

“I talked to him this morning.”

“Did he ask you to snoop around Morrie Berman?”

“No. He asked me to ask you to do that.”

“Me? He wants me to be some kind of stoolie? What the hell’s the matter with you, Martin?”

“I’m not aware that anything’s the matter.”

“I’m not one of the McCalls’ political whores.”

“Nobody said you were. I told him you wouldn’t like the idea, but I also know you’ve been friendly with Charlie McCall all your life. Right now, he could be strapped to a bed someplace with a gun at his head. He could even be dead.”

Billy made no response. Martin looked at him and saw puzzlement. Martin shaped the picture of Charlie Boy again in his mind but saw not Charlie but Edward Daugherty, tied to a bed by four towels, spread-eagled, his genitals uncovered. Why such a vision now? Martin had never seen his father in such a condition, nor was he in such a state even now at the nursing home. The old man was healthy, docile, no need to tie him to the bed. Naked prisoner. Naked father. It was Ham who saw Noah, his father, naked and drunk on wine, and Noah cursed Ham, while Shem and Japheth covered their father’s nakedness and were blessed for it. Cursed for peering into the father’s soul through the pores. Blessed for covering the secrets of the father’s body with a blanket. Damn all who find me in my naked time.

Billy started to walk again toward Clinton Avenue. He spoke without looking at Martin, who kept pace with him. “Georgie the Syph knocked down an old woman and took four bucks out of her pocketbook. I came around the corner at James Street and saw him and I even knew the old woman, Marty Slyer the electrician’s mother. They lived on Pearl Street. Georgie saw me and ran up Maiden Lane and the old lady told the cops I saw him. But I wouldn’t rat even on a bum like Georgie. What I did the next time I saw him was kick him in the balls before he could say anything and take twenty off him and mail it to Mrs. Slyer. Georgie had to carry his balls around in a basket.”

“That’s a noble story, Billy, but it’s just another version of the code of silence. What the underworld reveres. It doesn’t have anything to do with morality or justice or honor or even friendship. It’s a simplistic perversion of all those things.”

“Whatever it is it don’t make me a stool pigeon.”

“All that’s wanted is information.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they want Morrie for something particular.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“How the hell do you know what they want, Martin?”

“Suit yourself in this, Billy. I was asked to put the question to you and I did.”

“I don’t get it, a man like you running errands for the McCalls. I don’t figure you for that.”

“What else can I tell you after I say I’m fond of Charlie, and I don’t like kidnappers. I’m also part of that family.”

“Yeah. We’re all part of that family.”

“I’ll be around later to root for our money. Think about it.”

“What exactly did Patsy say?”

“He said to hang around Berman and listen. That’s all he said.”

“That’s all. Yeah.”

And Billy crossed Clinton toward the alley beside Nick’s haberdashery, where Nick, Footers O’Brien, and Morrie Berman were talking. Martin walked up the other side of the street, past the Pruyn Library, and crossed to The Grand Theater when he saw the Laughton film on the marquee. He looked back at the library corner and remembered the death of youth: his cousin’s suicide in the wagon. Sudden behavior and pervasive silence. But sometimes living men tell no tales either. Francis Phelan suddenly gone and still no word why. The Beachcomber. Martin hadn’t told Billy that his father was back in town. Duplicity and the code of silence. Who was honored by this? What higher morality was Martin preserving by keeping Billy ignorant of a fact so potentially significant to him? We are all in a conspiracy against the next man. Duplicity And Billy Phelan saw through you, Martin: errand boy for the McCalls. Duplicity at every turn. Melissa back in town to remind you of how deep it goes. Oh yes, Martin Daugherty, you are one duplicitous son of a bitch.

In the drugstore next to The Grand, Martin phoned Patsy McCall.

“Do you have any news, Patsy?”

“No news.”

“I made that contact we talked about, and it went just about the way I thought it would. He didn’t like the idea. I don’t think you can look for much information there.”

“What the hell’s the matter with him?”

“He’s just got a feeling about that kind of thing. Some people do.”

“That’s all he’s got a feeling for?”

“It gets sticky, Patsy. He’s a good fellow, and he might well come up with something. He didn’t say no entirely. But I thought you ought to know his reaction and maybe put somebody else on it if you think it’s important.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Patsy said curtly and hung up.

Martin called the Times-Union and got Emory. Yes, the lid was still on the Charlie story. “Everybody went along,” Emory said, “including Dunsbach. I seared his ass all right. He wouldn’t touch the story now with rubber gloves.”

“Heroic, Em. I knew you could do it.”

“Have you smoked out any kidnappers yet?”

“You know I don’t smoke, Em. What happened with the A.L.P.?”

“I don’t give a damn about that piss-ant stuff when I’ve got a story like this. Here. Talk to Viglucci.”

Viglucci, the city editor, explained that some twelve hundred new voters had enrolled in the A.L.P, twice as many as necessary for Patsy McCall to control the young party. No, the desk hadn’t reached Jake Berman, the phone constantly busy at the A.L.P. office. Martin volunteered to go there personally, being only two blocks away. Fine.

Jake Berman had been barely a specter all day for Martin, whose sympathy was all with the McCalls because of Charlie. But now Jake could surely use a little consolation. Martin had known Jake for years and liked him, a decent man, a lawyer for the poor, knew him when he was a city judge, appointed by McCall fiat as a sop to the Albany Jews. But that didn’t last, for Jake refused to throw out a case against a gouging landlord, an untouchable who was a heavy contributor to the Democratic Party. Jake quit the bench and the party, and went back to practicing law.