Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

by William Kennedy

“Now give me the knife.”

  “It’s mine.”

  “You can have it later.”

  “No.”

  “You rather have coffee in the face and then I beat the shit out of you and get the knife anyway?”

  Eddie handed the knife to Billy, who pocketed it and put the coffee on the table in front of Eddie. He put the western in front of him. “Have a sandwich,” Billy said. He pushed the sugar bowl toward the kid and gave him a spoon a customer had left at the next table.

  “Now behave yourself,” Billy said, and he went back to his table. “Will you for chrissake gimme a western?” he said to Tod.

  The dishwasher came in the front door with the Clinton Square beat cop, Joe Riley. Riley had his hand on his pistol. People were leaving quickly. Tod came around the counter and explained the situation to Riley, who took Eddie’s knife from Billy and then took Eddie away.

  “That was clever, what you did,” Chick said.

  “Toddy taught me that one. I seen him use it on nasty drunks two or three times.”

  “All the same it was clever, and dangerous, with that knife and all. You never know what crazy people will do. It was clever.”

  “I’m a clever son of a bitch,” Billy said, and he reached for Chick’s check and pocketed it. One up on you, Chick, you sarcastic prick. “Doughnuts are on me, Chick.”

  “Why thanks, Billy, thanks. Take care of yourself.”

  Tod came around the counter with two coffees in one mitt and Billy’s western in the other. He sat down.

  “You play a nice game of coffee.”

  “I had a good teacher. You call Harvey?”

  “Yeah. He’ll be down at Louie’s.” Tod looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes from now. Damn, I wish I didn’t have to work. I love to see old Harvey in action. He makes me feel smart.”

  “Listen, you know what I heard? Charlie McCall was snatched.”

  “No. No shit?”

  “And I just saw him last night. He backed Scotty against me in this match.”

  “That’ll teach him.”

  “They must’ve grabbed him after he left the alleys.”

  “Wow, that’s a ballbuster. Broadway’ll be hot tonight.”

  “Too bad I gotta play cards. Be fun just floatin’ tonight.” Billy finished his coffee and then gave both his own and Chick’s food checks to Tod, who knew how to make them disappear. “Now I gotta go get fresh money.”

  When Billy walked into Louie’s pool room on Broadway across from Union Station, Daddy Big, wearing his change apron and eyeshade, was leaning on a cue watching Doc Fay, the band leader, run a rack. Tomorrow night, Billy would likely face the Doc here in the finals of a six-week-old round robin. There were four players left and Billy and the Doc could beat the other two left-handed. But Billy and the Doc were also near equals in skill. They beat each other as often as they were beaten: Doc, a flashy shooter; Billy, great control through position and safe shots. Doc, as usual, was playing in his vest. Billy watched him mount the table with one leg, flatten out, stretch his left arm as far as it would take him, with the intention of dropping the fourteen ball into the far corner, a double combination shot he’d never try in a match unless he was drunk, or grandstanding. Ridiculous shot, really, but zlonk! He sank it. Sassy shooter, the Doc, no pushover.

  Only one of the other ten tables was busy, Harvey Hess at that one, revving up his sucker suction. Billy could feel it pulling him, but he resisted, walked over to Daddy Big, whose straight name was Louis Dugan, known from his early hustling days because of his willingness to overextend the risk factor in any given hustle—once sporting a mark eighty-four points in a game of one hundred—as Daddy Big Ones, which time shortened to Daddy Big. He’d grown old and wide, grown also a cataract on one eye that he wouldn’t let anybody cut away. The eye was all but blind, and so focusing on the thin edge of a master shot was no longer possible for him, which meant that Daddy Big no longer hustled. Now he racked for other hustlers and their fish, for the would-bes, the semi-pros, the amateurs who passed through the magically dismal dust of Louie’s parlor.

  Daddy Big had run Louie’s since the week he came out of Comstock after doing two for a post-office holdup flubbed by Georgie Fox, a sad, syphilitic freak with mange on his soul. Because Fox had lifted Daddy Big’s registered pistol to pull the job, then dropped it in a scuffle at the scene, Daddy ended up doing the two instead of Georgie, whom the police never connected to the job. But Bindy McCall, Daddy’s cousin, made the connection, and sent out the word: Mark Fox lousy; which swiftly denied Georgie the Syph access to all the places the Broadway crowd patronized: the gin mills, the card games, the gambling joints, the pool rooms, the restaurants, the nightclubs, even the two-bit whorehouses Georgie had never learned to live without. He lived two years like a mole, and then, the week before Daddy Big was due to return to Albany and perhaps find a way to extract some personal compensation for lost time from him, Georgie walked into Fobie McManus’s grill on Sheridan Avenue, bought a double rye for himself and one for Eddie Bradt, the barman, and said to Eddie: “I’m all done now,” and he then walked west to the Hawk Street viaduct, climbed its railing, and dropped seventy feet to the middle of the granite-block pavement below, there to be scraped up and away, out of the reach of Daddy Big forever. Bindy’s reward to Daddy for time lost was the managership of this pool room, which Bindy had collected during Daddy’s absence as payment on a gambling debt. And Daddy had a home ever after.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Billy said; “the Doc monopolizing the action?”

  “He’s got an idea he’s Mosconi.”

  “He thinks he can spot Mosconi.”

  “I know some I can spot. And beat,” the Doc said, smiling at Billy. Good guy, the Doc. The ladies love his curls.

  “Tomorrow you get your chance,” Billy said, “if you got the money to back up the mouth.”

  “I’ll handle all you can put on the table. That’s if you don’t lose your first match.”

  “I lose that, I’ll get a job,” Billy said.

  “You want a game here, Billy?” Daddy Big asked. “I’m just keeping a cue warm.”

  Daddy slurred when he spoke, half in the bag already. By midnight, he’d be knee-walking, with no reason to stay sober anymore. Also, his teeth clicked when he talked, prison dentures. Sadistic bastards pulled all his teeth when they had him down. Yet he’s still living, and Georgie Fox is gone. Georgie, turned into a cadaver in shoe leather, had hit Billy many a time for coffee money, and Billy’d peel off a deuce or a fin for the bum, even though he was a bum. Georgie was dead long before he hit the pavement, sucked dry by Bindy’s order. Why didn’t they just beat on him a little, Billy wondered. Lock him up or take away what he owned? But they took away the whole world he lived in. Billy always hated a freak, but he couldn’t hate Georgie. I ain’t et in two days, Billy. Billy can still remember that line. But Billy also says: You know what you do when you lose, don’t you, Georgie? Do you hear me, freak? You pay.

  “I already got a game,” Billy told Daddy, nodding his head in Harvey’s direction.

  The Doc heard that and looked up from the cue ball. He glanced at Harv, then smiled at Billy. “So you do have dough, then,” he said.

  “A hungry chicken picks up a little stray corn once in a while. How much we on for tomorrow night?”

  “Fifty all right? And fifty more if my backer shows up?”

  “Fifty definite, fifty maybe. You got it.”

  Billy moved close to Daddy Big and spoke in a whisper. “I heard something maybe you know already About Charlie McCall.”

  “Charlie?”

  “That somebody put the snatch on him.”

  “What the hell you say?” said Daddy, near to full volume. “What, what?”

  “It’s what I hear, a rumor. More than that I don’t know.”

  “Who told you?”

  “What am I, a storyteller? I heard it.”

  “I didn’t hear that. I know Bindy good as any man. You hear anyt
hing like that, Doc?”

  The Doc gave a small shake of his head and listened.

  “It’s all I know,” Billy said.

  “I don’t believe it. Sounds like goatshit,” Daddy said. “If that happens, I’d know about it. I’ll call Bindy.”

  “Let me know,” Billy said.

  “Hey, Billy,” Harvey called across the empty table. “You gonna play pool or you gonna talk?”

  Billy looked at the Doc and said under his breath: “Fish get hungry, too.” He clapped the Doc on the shoulder and watched Daddy Big waddling toward the pay phone. Then he went over to Harvey’s table to reel in the catch.

  Harvey Hess, a dude who wore good suits but fucked them up with noisy neckties and loud socks, had bitten the hook one night eight, ten months back when he saw Billy playing in Louie’s and asked for a game. Billy recognized him immediately as a sucker. Billy recognized suckers the way he recognized cats. Harvey almost won that first game. The games were for a deuce after the first free one, and on subsequent days went up to five. Hearing rumors of Billy’s talent did not put Harvey off. He merely asked for a spot. Ten points, then fifteen, and lately twenty, which made Harvey almost win.

  Billy watched Harvey show off for him, finishing off two balls, both easy pickin’s. Then Daddy Big came over to rack the balls, mark down the time, and give Billy the word that Bindy’s line was busy. Harvey spoke up: “Give me thirty-five points and I’ll play you for twenty-five bucks.”

  “Who the hell you think I am?” Billy said. “You think I’m Daddy Big here, giving the game away?”

  “Thirty-five,” said hard-hearted Harvey.

  “Thirty,” Billy said. “I never sported anybody thirty-five.”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “Thirty-two I give you, for thirty-two bucks, buck a point.”

  “You’re on,” said Harv, and Billy felt the sweet pressure on the way. Harvey almost won, but it was Billy, finally, one hundred to ninety-two, winging it with a run of thirty-two in mid-game to come from behind twenty points. Daddy Big came back and told Billy: “I knew that was goatshit about Charlie Boy. Bindy said he heard the rumor, too, and to kill it. He talked to Charlie in New York an hour ago.”

  “What’s this about Charlie?” Harvey asked. “I sold him a gray sharkskin last week.”

  “It’s nothin’,” said Daddy. “Billy here’s spreading the news he was kidnapped, but I just talked to Bindy and he says it’s goatshit.”

  “I took the third degree at the K. of C. with him,” Harvey said.

  “I’ll tell you why I bought it,” Billy said, shrugging. “I heard a rumor last summer Bindy was going to be snatched, so the Charlie thing made sense to me.”

  “Who snatched? I never heard nothing like that,” said Daddy.

  “It was all over Broadway.”

  “So was I, but I never heard it.”

  “I heard it.”

  “I never heard it either,” Harvey said.

  “So you bums don’t get around. What’re we doing here, playing pool or strollin’ down memory lane?”

  “I’ll play you one more, Billy, but I want forty points now. You’re hot tonight. I never saw anybody run thirty-two before. You ran my whole spot. That’s hot in my book.”

  “I got to admit I’m feeling good,” Billy said. “But if the spot goes to forty, so does the bet.”

  “Thirty-five,” said Harv. “I’m getting low.”

  “All right,” Billy said, and he broke with a deliberately bad safe shot, giving Harvey an opening target. Harv ran four and left an open table. Billy ran ten, re-racked, ran four more, and missed on purpose, fourteen to four, and said: “Harv, I’m on. What can I say? I’ll even it up some and give you eight more points, forty-eight spot.”

  “You give me eight more?”

  “For another eight bucks.”

  Harvey checked his roll, studied the table.

  “No, no bet. I got a feelin’ I ain’t gonna lose this one, even though you got the lead, Billy. I’m feelin’ good, too. I’m gettin’ limber. Keep the bet where it is. You can’t stay lucky forever.”

  Lucky The line blew up in Billy’s head. He wanted the rest of Harvey’s roll, but time was running. Nick’s card game at nine-thirty with big money possible, and Billy wanted a cold beer before that. Yet you can’t call Billy lucky, just lucky, and get away with it. Billy’s impulse was to throw the game, double the bet, clean out Harvey’s wallet entirely, take away his savings account, his life insurance, his mortgage money, his piggy bank. But you don’t give them that edge even once: I beat Billy Phelan last week. No edge for bums.

  Harvey faced the table. The seven ball hung on the lip, but was cushioned, and the cue ball sat on the other side of the bunch, where Billy, you clever dog, left it. No shots, Harv, except safe. Sad about that seven ball, Harv. But wait. Is Harv lining up to break the bunch? Can it be? He’ll smash it? Not possible.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Playing the seven.”

  Billy laughed. “Are you serious?”

  “Depth bomb it. The four will kiss the seven and the bunch’ll scatter.”

  “Harv, are you really calling that, the four to the seven?”

  “I call the seven, that’s enough.”

  “But you can’t hit it.” Billy laughed again. He looked again at the bunch, studying the angle the four would come off the end. No matter where you hit the bunch, the four would not kiss the seven the right way. Not possible. And Harvey hesitated.

  “You don’t want me to play this shot, do you, Billy? Because you see it’s a sure thing and then I’ll have the bunch broken, a table full of shots. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Billy closed his eyes and Harvey disappeared. Who could believe such bedbugs lived in a civilized town? Billy opened his eyes at the sound of Harvey breaking the bunch. The four kissed the seven, but kissed it head on. The seven did not go into the corner pocket. The rest scattered, leaving an abundant kindergarten challenge for Billy.

  “You do nice work, Harv.”

  “It almost worked,” said Harv, but the arrogance was draining from his face like a poached egg with a slow leak.

  “Why didn’t you play a safe shot?”

  “When I’ve got a real shot?”

  “A real shot? Willie Hoppe wouldn’t try that one.”

  “I saw you break a bunch and kiss one in.”

  “You never saw me try a shot like that, Harv.”

  “If you can do it, I can do it too, sooner or later.”

  Billy felt it rising. The sucker. Lowlife of Billy’s world. Never finish last, never be a sucker. Don’t let them humiliate you. Chick’s face grinned out of Harvey’s skull. Going to work, Billy? Lowlife. Humiliate the bastard.

  “Harv, you got to play safe even when you’re ahead. Didn’t you learn anything playing against me?”

  “I learned plenty.”

  “You didn’t learn enough.”

  And Billy leaned into the action and ran the table and broke a new rack and ran that and part of another. He missed a tough one and Harv sank eight and then Billy got at it and finished it off, a hundred to Harvey’s twelve, which, with his forty-point spot was still only fifty-two. Billy put his cue in the rack, feeling he’d done his duty. Suckers demand humiliation and it is the duty of people like Billy to answer their demand. Suckers must be stomped for their love of ignorance, for expecting too much from life. Suckers do not realize that a man like Billy spent six hours a day at pool tables all over Albany for years learning how to shed his ignorance.

  Doc Fay watched the finale, shaking his head at what he heard from Harvey’s mouth. Harvey paid Billy the thirty-five dollars and put on his hat and suit coat. Billy actually felt something for Harvey then.

  “You know, Harv,” he said, putting his hand on the sucker’s shoulder, “you’ll never beat me.”

  “You’re good, Billy. I see how you play safe till the bunch breaks and then you get a streak going. I see how you do it.”
>
  “Harv, if you play from now till you’re ninety-nine (play it, Fatha), you still won’t know how I do it.”

  “I’ll get you, Billy,” Harv said, backing toward the door. “One of these nights I’ll get you.” And then he was gone, only his monkey smirk still hanging there by the door above the image of his orange and purple tie. Doc Fay broke up with laughter.

  “I thought for a minute there, Billy, you were wising up the sucker,” the Doc said.

  “You can’t wise up a sucker,” said Billy.

  “Absolutely. It’s what I said to myself when Harv says he knows how you do it. I said, Doc, you know and Billy knows.”

  “What do we know?”

  “That a sucker don’t get even till he gets to heaven.”

  “Right,” Billy said. “I learned that in church.”

  Red Tom Fitzsimmons, the four-to-two man at Becker’s, a good fellow, stood behind his mustache and amidst his brawn in a fresh apron, arms folded, sleeves rolled, waiting for thirst to arise anew in his four customers. Martin Daugherty sat at the end of the bar underneath the frame of the first dollar Becker’s ever made, and at the edge of the huge photo of Becker’s thirtieth anniversary outing at Picard’s Grove on a sunny day in August of 1932, which adorned the back bar. The photographer had captured two hundred and two men in varying degrees of sobriety, in shirtsleeves, sitting, kneeling, standing in a grassy field, clutching their beer, billowy clouds behind and above them. Emil Becker ordered a wall-sized blowup made from the negative and then spent weeks identifying all present by full name, and writing an index, which he framed and hung beside the blowup, which covered the wall like wallpaper.

  Emil Becker died in 1936 and his son, Gus, put a check mark alongside his name, and a gold star on his chest in the photo. Customers then wanted the same done for other faithful departed, and so the stars went up, one by one. There were nineteen gone out of two hundred in six years. Martin Daugherty was in the photo. So was Red Tom. So was Billy Phelan, and Daddy Big, and Harvey Hess. So was Bindy McCall and his son, Charlie. So was Scotty Streck. The star was already shining on Scotty’s chest and the check mark alongside his name.