William Kennedy - Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

“Hey, Mike.”

“That you, Billy?”

“Me.”

“Whataya know. You got yourself in trouble, I hear.”

“What do you hear?”

“That you got yourself in trouble and nobody’ll take your action.”

“They’ll get over it.”

“Didn’t sound that way.”

“Hey, Mike, you got a double sawbuck? I need coffee money and cab fare.”

“Double sawbuck?”

“Don’tcha think I’m good for it?”

“You’re a bad risk all of a sudden, Billy. You ain’t got a connection. You can’t even get a drink on this street.”

Mike pulled out his roll and crumpled a twenty and tossed it up in the air at Billy. Billy bobbled it and the bill fell to the sidewalk. He picked it up and said nothing. Mike grunted and walked up Broadway and into Becker’s. Billy walked toward Clinton Avenue, considering a western at the Grand Lunch. Martha’s across the street. Martha’s door opened, and Slopie Dodds came out wearing his leg. He saw Billy and crossed the street.

“Hey, man, how you makin’ it?”

“I’m coastin’, Slope.”

“You got a little grief, I hear.”

“Little bit.”

“How you fixed? You need anything?”

“I need a drink.”

“She don’t want you over there.”

“I know all about that. That ain’t the only place in town.”

“You ain’t mixed up in that snatch, Billy. That ain’t true.”

“It’s bullshit, Slope.”

“I knew it was.”

“Hey, man. You got a double sawbuck?”

“Sure, I got it. I got fifty if you need it.”

“All right, twenty-five. That’ll cover me.” And Slopie counted it out for Billy.

“Where’s your bootlegger?” Billy asked.

“Spencer Street. You want a whole bottle?”

“Yeah. Let me make a visit first and we’ll go up.”

“Fine with me. I’m done playin’.”

They walked back toward the station and Billy went into Becker’s. The bar was crowded and Red Tom looked at Billy and shook his head sadly. Oh, Billy. But Billy asked for nothing. He saw Mike the Wop at the bar and went to him. He threw the twenty, still crumpled up, onto the bar in front of Mike and said, “We’re even.”

“You pay your debts fast,” Mike said.

“I pay guys like you fast,” Billy said, and he went out. Then with Slopie he walked up to Spencer Street.

The last time Billy needed action from a bootlegger was in Prohibition. And he’d never used a nigger bootlegger before. George had been a bootlegger for about three weeks. Made rye in the kitchen in a wash tub, and Billy peddled it for eight bucks a quart and kept four. Then George got the job writing nigger numbers and gave up the hooch, and a good thing, too, because his rye was moose piss.

The bootlegger was in one of the last houses, a dim light in a first-floor flat. Quarts and pints for five and three, a good price at this hour. The bootlegger was a woolly-headed grandpa, half asleep. Probably made a fortune before it went legal, and now the bottles catch dust. He went to the kitchen to get Billy some Johnnie Walker. Billy opened the bottle and drank and passed it to Slopie.

“Take it outside,” the old man said. “This ain’t no saloon.”

Billy and Slopie went down the stoop and stood on the sidewalk.

“Where you wanna go, Billy?”

“Go someplace and build a fire.”

“A fire? You crazy?”

“Gettin’ chilly. Need a little heat.”

“Go over to my place if you like to warm up. I got some chairs. What the hell you want a fire for?”

“I wanna stay outside. You up for that?”

“Well, I give you a little while. Till my bones freeze over.”

“It ain’t that cold. Have a drink,” and Billy upended the bottle.

“You in a big hurry to fall down tonight, Billy.”

“I got a hollow leg, Slope.”

“You gonna need it.”

Slopie took a swallow and they walked toward the river, crossed the D&H tracks, and headed toward the station on a dirt path under the brightest moon Billy ever looked at. Billy picked up wood as they walked, but a bit of kindling was all he found. They walked past the sidings where Ringling Brothers unloaded every year. Billy had brought Danny down here at four in the morning two years ago and they’d seen an elephant get off the train and walk up to Broadway.

“I’m a little cold, Billy. I ain’t sure I’m ready for this.”

“Down by the river. There’ll be some wood there.”

They walked toward the bridge, toward Quay Street, and looked at the Hudson. Just like the Shannon. Billy never swam down this far but he skated on it sometimes when it wasn’t all buckled, or snowed over.

“Ever skate on the river, Slope?”

“Never owned no skates.”

On the riverbank, Billy found a crate somebody had dumped. He broke it up and made a pile on the flat edge of the bank. He wadded up the Times-Union , page by page, and stuck it between the boards. In the moonlight he saw the page with Martin’s column and crumpled it. But then he uncrumpled it, folded it and put it in his inside coat pocket. He lit the papers, and then he and Slopie sat down on the flat sides of the crate and watched the fire compensate for the shortcomings of the moon.

“I hear Daddy Big kicked it,” Billy said.

“What I hear.”

“What a way to go.”

“You did what you could, Billy He’da been dead in the gutter on Broadway, wasn’t for you.”

“I didn’t even like the son of a bitch.”

“He was a sorry man. Never knew how to do nothin’ he wanted to do. He spit in your eye and think he’s doin’ you a favor.”

“He knew how to shoot pool.”

“Shootin’ pool ain’t how you get where you’re goin’.”

“Goin’? Where you goin’, Slope?”

“Goin’ home outa here pretty quick and get some winks, wake up and cook a little, see my woman, play a little piano.”

“That where you started out for?”

“I never started out for nowhere. Just grifted and drifted all my life till I hit this town. Good old town.”

“How is it, bein’ a nigger, Slope?”

“I kinda like it.”

“Goddamn good thing.”

“What, bein’ a nigger?”

“No, that you like it.”

Billy passed the bottle and they drank and kept the fire going until a prowl car came by and put its searchlight on them.

“Everything all right here, girls?” one cop asked.

“Who you talkin’ to, peckerhead?” Billy said. Slopie grabbed his arm and kept him from standing up. The cops studied the scene and then moved on. The fire and the moon lighted up the night, and Billy took another drink.

He woke up sick. Slopie was gone and Billy remembered him trying to talk Billy into going back to Broadway. But Billy just burned the rest of the crate to keep the fire going. He remembered watching the fire grow and then fade, remembered watching the night settle in again without heat, with even the light gone cold. The darkness enveloped him under the frigid moon, and he lay back on the grass and watched the sky and all them goddamn stars. The knowledge of what was valuable in his life eluded him, except that he valued Slopie now as much as he valued his mother, or Toddy. But Slopie was gone and Billy felt wholly alone for the first time in his life, aware that nothing and no one would save him from the coldness of the moon and the October river.

He heard whisperings on the water and thought they might be the spirits of all the poor bastards who had jumped off the bridge, calling to him to make the leap. He became afraid and listened for the voices to say something he could understand, but they remained only whisperings of words no man could understand at such a distance. They could be understood out on the water. He edged himself upward on the bank, away from the voices, and took a drink of whiskey. He was still drunk and he had a headache. He was out of focus in the world and yet he was more coherent than he had been since this whole business began. He knew precisely how it was before the kidnapping and how it was different now, and he didn’t give a shit. You think Billy Phelan gives a shit about asskissers and phonies? Maybe they wanted Billy to run. Maybe they thought if he got shut out of a joint like Becker’s, he’d pack his bag and hop a freight. But his old man did that, and all he got was drunk.