William Kennedy - Roscoe

Mayor Jimmy comes to the railing of Union Station’s elevated platform overlooking Broadway, and he salutes and quiets the cheering mob, then evokes new cheers when he tells them, “I am here to fight.” Castellano’s marching band parts the crowd and leads him down the stairs and through the concourse toward the limousine waiting to take him to the Ten Eyck.

“Where is Patsy?” Jimmy asks Roscoe as they walk.

“He’s waiting for us outside.”

Bystanders hear the question and raise the cry, “Patsy, Patsy, Patsy,” and out of the crowd comes Pat, his smile as big as his hat, and the two old friends shake hands with excessive affection.

“Grand turnout, Pat,” Jimmy says.

“They all love you, Jim. Are you ready for that sonofabitch in the morning?”

“If he cuts me, we cut him in the election and he’ll lose the state.”

When they reach Broadway, Jimmy turns and tells the crowd, “I’m confident Governor Roosevelt will not remove me,” and, to another roar of cheers, he clasps his hands in the air like a triumphant boxer and slides into the back seat of the Packard limo.

FDR sits in judgment on Jimmy for three weeks, and his anti-Tammany stance enhances his presidential campaign, just as Al Smith’s link to Tammany had wounded his presidential bid. Tammany Hall, history’s tar baby. But FDR also knows the liability of removing a wildly popular New York City mayor, and he moves slowly toward such a decision. Then Jim, drowning in Seabury’s negative evidence, solves the dilemma by abdicating before FDR can fire him, and flees to Spain to hide. Suddenly he deabdicates and heads home when Tammany decides to run him for re-election, and to hell with FDR. But the turbine of his ocean liner breaks down at Gibraltar.

Now, while the 10th Infantry Band plays his theme song at the convention, Jim is en route home on another ship, but maybe too late. You shouldn’t have left, Jim. His renomination as mayor, though not a sure thing, remains the top priority for Tammany and Brooklyn, for his restoration is the key to the whole damn kingdom. Lehman, if elected governor, will, of course, echo FDR’s hostility to Jimmy’s comeback; but Patsy assures and reassures Curry and McCooey that as governor Elisha will never act against Jim, and that state patronage under Eli will open out like the petals of a great golden flower, and the Tammany-Brooklyn twins, along with Albany, will inherit the earth.

The Showdown

It is five o’clock in Tammany’s eleventh-floor suite at the DeWitt, and Al Smith is late. Roscoe, in memory, sees Curry and McCooey, with kindred, drooping white mustaches, sitting on the same sofa, the divine duality without which there is no candidate. Patsy is in his usual armchair. Roscoe chooses to stand across the room, the keeper of the master list of delegates, all names alphabetical within each county, all maybes converted to yeses or nays, and Roscoe reports a surprising tally: Elisha six votes shy of the nomination, even without McCooey’s Brooklyn. This is bizarre! Curry says Tammany is still solid for Elisha, and the upstate total is slowly rising. This rise is partly the work of Bart Merrigan and his crew, who have been polling upstate delegates all day; also, where tactfully feasible, promising a persuasive envelope after the vote, if there’s a floor fight.

Money has come into play as Elisha closes on the brass ring. Some delegates wear “For Sale” signs on their chests, but most delegate purchasing requires subtle skills, and Bart excels at those, for he’s a likable fellow who makes friends instantly, he’s a veteran, as are many delegates, and he’s honest. Everything is based in trust, and money isn’t for everybody. Bart knows which delegations are open to suggestion, and he can read the honest men who’ll vote right. Albany cannot be passive in this battle after FDR’s threat of last night: “The enemies of Lehman will not only be defeated, they will be dead,” he said to the press. He means politically dead, but fortunately John Curry doesn’t give a rat’s tootie. He hates FDR for all his persecuting ways, is solid with Patsy and Elisha, and is waiting to put Jimmy back in City Hall. John McCooey, too, wants Jimmy back, and remains enduringly friendly to Elisha, still holding off his Brooklyn boys from tipping toward Lehman. But now Frank Roosevelt wants not just to overpower but to kill the enemy, and McCooey, not a suicidal fellow, has chosen restraint as his strategy, and by so doing holds the final balance of power.

It’s hard to remember when John McCooey, or Brooklyn either, was so central to the future of New York State, New York City, Albany, and Christ knows where else, all rising and falling on what John says at these meetings. He leaves the room to pee and futures are bought and sold, fortunes are made and lost, such leverage! But he’s an old man and this is killing him, maybe before the night is out. Jesus, this is difficult. Why does Lehman have to be a Jew, and why does Roosevelt hate us? He’d hate us even if Lehman wasn’t a Jew. There’s no need for that. John Curry and John McCooey are likable men; they take care of the money because there it is, as it always was. Somebody’s got to take care of it. Just because you’re born with money and don’t need to accumulate any, don’t mean you close out the less fortunate. Christ Almighty, Frank, it’s only a few million, nobody’ll miss it, don’t drive your bowels into a stupor. The true question is jobs and families, the flower of our meaning, the source of our blessedness, we who have been chosen to raise up our people. These people can’t make it on their own, Frank, but they’re our future, those tots of ours in carriages, little boys on the altar, darling girls playing hopscotch, God bless them all, the world is not Irish, Frank, and it was never Dutch, if you’ll pardon the expression. We’re trying to do right, elect progressive people who want to promote the general welfare of our great city and great state, we need people in office who matter, people like Elisha, who’ll do what is good for them, and for us. That’s all we ask.

Then Roscoe remembers how McCooey, coming back from a phone call, yet another pee, and still buttoning the fly, finally puts it: “I can’t keep all my people in line. They want Lehman.”

“We don’t need all your people,” Patsy says, and his flinty eyes are sparking as he looks over his little specs at McCooey. “Give us the six we can make it, John. Six.”

“Six might as well be sixty. Frank means what he says. If he gets in, and you know he will, he’ll cut us dead on patronage, state and federal both.”

“He’s already cut you dead. But Elisha won’t.”

“Or Jimmy,” says Curry.

But the Times and Daily News this morning quoted Al as saying he couldn’t support Jimmy for re-election. McCooey reminds everybody of this.

“Al won’t back Jimmy,” McCooey says.

They all have seen the papers. Patsy grinds his molars.

“Al says that, but he’ll go along with us,” says Curry.

“Where the hell is he?” Patsy asks.

McCooey shakes his head and sighs, so weary of this, and Roscoe remembers the door opening on Al just then. He enters in his rumpled tuxedo, back from an afternoon wedding, gravy on his shirt and satin lapel, and he’s had a few pops, wants to change and rest awhile before the convention reconvenes.

“Hello, Governor,” says Curry.

“Christ, haven’t you solved this yet?” Al says.

“Did you really tell the papers you won’t back Walker?” Curry asks.

“Jim’s all done,” says Al. “The people don’t want him in there anymore. Tell him not to get off the boat.”

“We’re running him,” says Curry, “and we’ll elect him.”

“If you run him, I’ll run for mayor against him.”