William Kennedy - Roscoe

“You see Pina down here today?” Mac asked Oke.

“Pina,” said Oke. “Now, there’s a broad. I’d give my left ball for one night with her, a lotta good it’d do me. I couldn’t come if you called me.”

“You’re here just to dance, is that it?” Roscoe asked

“If that’s all there is it ain’t bad,” Oke said.

“How much a dance?”

“Twelve bucks for all afternoon, with anybody who’s free, once a week.”

“Like paying dues at the Elks Club,” Roscoe said.

Oke lifted the Pigeon’s negligee to her shoulders. “You don’t get these at the Elks Club,” he said.

“Anybody want a drink?” Renny Kilmer asked.

“Ginger ale, lots of ice,” said Roscoe.

“Two,” said Mac, and the slender whore whose name Roscoe didn’t know brought their drinks.

“How long has that fiddle been going?” Mac asked.

“About an hour,” said Oke. “He stops playing and gets a little action.”

Mame came down the back staircase and across the parlor to Roscoe, Madam of the Afternoon, red hair in a businesslike upsweep, professional body camouflaged by a floral tent-like frock. Her whores went back to their chairs and Oke followed them.

“We can go up,” Mame said to Roscoe. “But only you.” She gestured at Mac. “Why is he here?”

“He’s my driver for the day.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s smart. I don’t believe anything I say either. But that’s my story, Mame, and you’re stuck with it.”

Roscoe quaffed his ginger ale and went over to Mac. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

“I don’t wanna wait,” Mac said.

“Don’t get excited till I tell you.”

“I’ll go up and get Pina.”

“Not yet, for chrissake. Not yet. ”

Mac sulked and sipped his ginger ale. The violin music stopped, and Mac stared bullets through the ceiling. Mac never liked the violin, although hillbilly fiddlers weren’t bad. Last week he saw a report on a stolen violin worth a lot of money. Mac liked the piano. Trixie pushed a button on the jukebox and “Paper Doll” played: the Mills Brothers lamenting about playing the doll game. Mac has played that game.

Bindy was naked to the waist, three electric fans blowing directly on him, two pitchers on an end table beside his chair, one with iced tea, one with ice cubes, plus a pile of small towels next to the pitchers. He was toweling his chest, his arms, and his high forehead, a sweating Buddha in the love shrine. Behind him sat his large safe, covered by a velvet tapestry, which was Mame’s way of preventing it from offending the plush décor established by her decorators: George III armchairs, pink linen drapes on the windows, marble horse figurines on the marble coffee table, a baby-grand piano given to Mame by an ardent customer, a portrait of Mame as a young beauty — in sum, the escalation of Mame’s sense of herself as mistress of a world different in kind from her hot-mattress domain downstairs.

Bindy gave Roscoe a serious handshake with the old Bindy smile, always so likable; but does today’s smile mean he thinks he’s a winner?

“What’s on your mind, Roscoe? You got trouble I can help you with?”

“We all got trouble, Bin. I’m trying to solve it.”

Roscoe, awash in the sweat of his own brow, sat facing his host, who turned a fan in his direction. The last time Roscoe saw him, Bindy offered candy; now air currents. In thrall to generosity.

“Iced tea?” Bindy asked. He poured the tea into a tall glass and added ice.

“That bet you won up at Fogarty’s,” Roscoe said, taking the tea, “Patsy wants to get even.”

“He should get better chickens.”

“He’s not happy about the switch.”

“Wasn’t any switch.”

“Haven’t you heard, Bin? Fogarty found the Swiggler was twins, and the wrong twin won. The way out is give Patsy back his forty thousand.”

“Is that all?”

“No. Pay him another forty. The wrong bird’s a foul, which doesn’t cost anything if they don’t catch you. But they caught you. Pay the man, Bin, the trouble’ll fade.”

Bindy’s naked flesh rollicked with heavings and ripplings as he laughed. “That’s good, Roscoe. Very funny.”

“Not funny. Patsy is ready to close this place and bust everybody in it, including you.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s what he said about you switching chickens. But he put the order out last night. I kid you not. And if I can’t stop it, everybody loses except the Governor. We could blow the election.”

“Patsy raids us, he goes down with us,” Bindy said. “I could put him in Sing Sing. And I’ll fight the Governor, too. We got sound movies of one of his top guys in fishnet stockings in bed with three broads.”

“Won’t that be great? First Pina and the Dutchman, now orgy movies.”

“What about Pina and the Dutchman?” Mame asked. She had been hovering nervously.

“They know she did it, Mame. Her prints were all over his place.”

“She used to live there,” Mame said.

“Prints with his blood.”

And Roscoe listened to their silence. “Maybe you should get Pina a lawyer.”

“We should get her out of town,” Mame said.

“She wouldn’t get off the block. This place is under surveillance.”

“It was self-defense,” Mame said. “That Dutch bastard tied her up and tortured her.”

“The word’s around she likes tie-ups.”

“Who cares what she likes? He hurt her bad.”

“You’re saying O.B. is ready to raid us?” Bindy asked, the news finally penetrating.

“Patsy might charge you with harboring a murderer. He can get nasty when he puts his mind to it.”

Roscoe watched Bindy think. Having organized that harebrained chicken-switch, here he goes again, considering the defiance that will destroy what he’s spent a lifetime creating, his empire of negotiable love, plus splitting the Party all to hell in an election year, and maybe crash-landing himself in jail. Money in the safe, surrounded by love-seekers, and all he wants to do is beat his brother, another impossible bet. Is everybody nuts?

Olive Eyes came into Mame’s parlor, knocking as he entered, and said, “That cop is gonna shoot the guy with Pina,” and Mame moved on a run down the stairs, Olive Eyes after her, and Roscoe following. And there, indeed, in the parlor was Mac, 38 in hand, Pina in her negligee next to him, pistol not quite pointed at the young man holding a violin by its neck.

“No doubt about it,” Mac was saying, “this is the stolen fiddle. Worth thirty thousand, they say.”

“It’s not stolen. I’ve owned it seven years,” the young man said, handsome kid, the look of a gigolo. “I bought it for two hundred dollars.”

“I think you’re a thief,” Mac said.

Pina looked convinced that Mac might do something with that.38. The barman and Oke were in a corner with the whores, behaving like wallpaper.

“Put the gun away, please,” Mame said. “We don’t need this.”

“I’m arresting a thief,” Mac said. “Are you protecting a thief?”

“I’m no thief,” the young man said.

“He stole this violin in Chicago,” Mac said. “Took it off a musician about to give a concert.”

“I never been in Chicago,” the young man said.

“He called the musician and said he found it in a taxi and he could have it back for ten thousand dollars,” Mac said. “That’s not a thief? That’s extortion set to music.”

“I didn’t do any of that. That’s crazy.”

“Can you prove you own the violin?” Roscoe asked.

“I bought it, ten bucks a week, at the Modern Music Shop downtown. They know me.”

“We can check this out, Mac,” Roscoe said.