William Kennedy - Roscoe

Johnny wore a stylish black-and-gray-checked suit with black piping, his pince-nez anchored to his waistcoat by a broad black ribbon.

“I didn’t know you were on the river, Johnny,” Roscoe said to him.

“After the Governor arrested me, I lost faith in cities,” Johnny said.

“I’ve had a similar epiphany,” Roscoe said.

“Epiphanies come when you least expect them.”

“What’s that game in the corner?”

“What would you like it to be?”

“What a question,” Roscoe said. “Who are those players?”

“Who would you like to play against?”

And then Roscoe realized that the world as he knew it had been overthrown while he was in cloister. He would have to move from scratch, like a novice. The very thought of new game strategies depressed him. Who cares what you bet on now, Roscoe? Do you? What exactly is your legacy, even if you win? Ten years from now, will anybody know you ever gambled on anything, or ever drew breath?

“I’ll pass on the game, but I’ll bet that filly, Cabala 2,” Roscoe said.

“Again?” Johnny asked.

“I’m a sucker for it,” Roscoe said.

It was August 1937, he in the Fitzgibbon box in the Club House at Saratoga, next to Veronica. The horse he owned with Elisha and Veronica, Pleasure Power, would run in and win the Travers, two races hence. Perhaps through unconscious symmetry, Roscoe and Veronica had both bet Johnny Mack’s two-year-old filly, Cabala. But the horse entered the starting gate in fear, reared wildly, threw her jockey, flipped herself onto her back under the gate between two stalls, and, in her insane flailing to stand upright, fractured a pelvic bone that severed an artery. When they pulled her out from under the gate she tried to stand but fell on top of her useless leg. She bled so rapidly into the turf she was dead before they came to quiet her with the pistol. Veronica hid her eyes. Roscoe watched through binoculars. The turf below, the sky above, are true. It’s true only if you can’t fix it. Everybody in the cemetery is true.

“Your bet is accepted,” Johnny said, marking his notepad.

Roscoe decided long ago that only a bet on the impossible makes sense. It is an act of faith and courage requiring an irrational leap over reason. A man wins simply by making such a bet.

He went back out onto the deck and could hear the heavy churning of the paddle wheel and the th-th- thump of its crankshaft as the boat moved out into the center of the darkening river. Perhaps a thousand passengers were in their berths making love. That’s why the Night Boat was born. When Roscoe circled back to the entrance of the main saloon, the orchestra was still doing Wagner, but was now into the love theme; or was it the death theme? One of those.

Ah well, he thought, going in, either way I could use a little music.

This is a novel, not history. There was a political machine in Albany comparable to the one in this book, and some of the events here correspond to historical reality, and some characters here may seem to be real people. But I don’t do that sort of thing. These are all invented characters, the McCalls, the Fitzgibbonses, even Al Smith and Jack Diamond; and their private lives are fictional. They might be better than their prototypes (if they have any), they might be worse; but I hope they and their book are true. As Roscoe points out, truth is in the details, even if you invent the details.

For some of the details I owe abundant thanks: to my assiduous researcher of so many years, Suzanne Roberson, who finds whatever I need, including things I don’t yet know I need; to Bettina Corning Dudley, who gave me access to her-father-theMayor’s cabin and certain of his papers; to Dr. Juan Vilaró and Kiki Brignoni, who introduced me to fighting chickens; to Dr. Alan Spira, who gave me pericardial counsel; to Judge David Duncan, my legal counselor; to Joe Brennan, who twenty or more years ago gave me his World War One diary in hopes I would find a way to use it, and so I have — but Joe should not be held responsible for what Roscoe did with his war; to Bertie Reddish, who told me some exceedingly rare stories; to Detective Lieutenant Ted Flint, who has talked to me for fifty years about being an Albany cop; to Rikke Borge and her fellow trainer, Richard (Pinky) Edmonds, MOL, who counseled me on horses; to Paul Grondahl for his illuminating biography of Mayor Erastus Corning; and to S. K. Heninger Jr. from whom Roscoe learned about Pythagorean order and virtue.

I owe thanks to people who told me great stories: John and Tony Treffilerti, Ira Mendelsohn, Betty Blatner, Mae Carlsen, Peggy O’Connell Jensen, Marge and Andy Rooney, Ruth Glavin, Johnny Camp, Fortune Macri, and I revisit endlessly the marathon conversations I had with leaders and insiders, early and late, major and minor, and certain effective enemies of the Albany political organization; enemies first: Victor Lord, a Liberal, Congressman/editor Dan Burton, State Senator Walter Langley, and Assemblyman Jack Tabner, all Republicans; and the De mo c ratic players: Mayor Corning, the unbeatable, Mayor Tom Whalen, the first reformer, Mayor Gerry Jennings, the incumbent from North Al bany, Charley Ryan, Frank Schreck, Bob Fabbricatore, Swifty Mead, Johnny Corscadden, Joe Zimmer, Sheriff Jack McNulty, As semblymen Dick Con ners and Jack McEneny, Congressman/newsman Leo O’Brien, the Judges John Holt-Harris, James T. Foley, Edward Conway, Martin Schenck, and Francis Bergan, and the boss himself, Daniel Peter O’Connell.

Countless others, including unnamable Democrats, bemused Republicans, hostile reformers, a felon or two, and news reporters and editors back to pre-Prohibition days, enhanced my knowledge of the machine.

But don’t blame any of the people above for what’s in this novel. Blame Roscoe.