Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

by William Kennedy

  He stood up and parted Helen on the beret.

  “Good night, Helen,” he said. “Have a good time.”

  “God bless your generosity.”

  “Generosity can go piss up a rainpipe,” Billy said, and he started to laugh. The laugh storm again. The coughing, the tears of mirth. He moved toward Spanish George’s door, laughing and telling the old bums who watched him: “Generosity can go piss up two rainpipes for all I give a good goddamn.”

  He halted in the doorway.

  “Anybody here like to disagree with me?”

  “You fuck with me,” said the bum with the trimmed mustache, “I’ll cut your head off.”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” Billy said. “Now you’re talkin’.”

  Billy could go anywhere now, anywhere in town. He was broke. All the way broke.

  He began to run, loping across a vacant lot, where a man was warming himself by a bonfire. It had grown chillier. No place for that fellow to go.

  Billy could always get a buck. But where now?

  He padded down Madison Avenue to Broadway, where the ramp to the Dunn bridge began. Tommy Kane’s garage, where George got his car fixed. He turned up Broadway, still running, putting distance between him and the drunken dead. He wasn’t even winded when he reached the Plaza and the D&H building. But he stopped running at Coulson’s and went inside for a later edition of the Times-Union. The front page was different, but the kidnapping news was the same. He turned to Martin’s column and read about himself. A gamester who accepts the rules and plays by them, but who also plays above them. Billy doesn’t care about money. A healthy man without need for artifice or mysticism.

  What the hell was Martin talking about? Whose rules? And what the hell was that about money? How can anybody not care about money? Who gets along without it? Martin is half crazy, a spooky bird. What is that stuff about mysticism? I still believe in God. I still go to the front.

  He folded the paper and went out and crossed State Street and walked north on Broadway past Van Heusen Charles, which always reminded him of the goddamn house on Colonie Street, where they bought their junk. And Cottrell and Leonard and the mannequins in the window. Two bums broke that window one night, drunked up on zodiac juice, everybody’s bar dregs, beer, whiskey, wine, that old Lumberg kept in a can and then bottled and sold to the John bums for six bucks a gallon. When the cops caught up with the bums, one of them was dead and the other was screwing the mannequin through a hole cut in its crotch.

  Jimmy-Joe’s shoeshine stand. Jimmy-Joe told his customers he shined Al Smith’s shoes once, and Jack Dempsey’s. Everybody’s a sucker for big names. Bindy McCall. I kissed Bindy McCall’s foot. Suckers.

  Broadway was slowing down at one o’clock, all the trains in except the Montreal Limited. Traffic down to nothing, shows all let out. Bill’s Magic Shop in darkness. Billy was sweating slightly and breathing heavily. Get the blood pounding and sober up. But he was still drunk as a stewbum, and reeling. Scuse me.

  “Where the hell you walkin’?” said Mike the Wop coming out of Brockley’s.

  “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.

  The fire was out, and so Billy must have slept a while. He felt an ember. Cold. Maybe he’d slept an hour.

  What I learned about pool no longer applies.

  What Daddy Big learned no longer applies.

  He took a swig of the whiskey, looked at the bottle, still half full, and then flung it into the river.

  He saw a train coming in over the Maiden Lane trestle and watched the moving lights. He stood up and saw mail trucks moving in the lights of the post office dock on Dean Street. Up on the hill, he could see lights in the Al Smith building, and streetlights blazed across the river in Rensselaer. People all over town were alone in bed. So what the hell’s the big deal about being alone in the dark? What’s the big deal about being alone?

  Billy saw the elephant going up toward Broadway, a man walking beside it, holding its ear with a long metal hook on a stick.

  Billy brushed off the seat of his pants, which was damp from the earth. He went to touch the brim of his hat but he had no hat. He looked around but his hat was gone. The goddamn river spirits got it. What do they want with my hat? Well, keep it. That’s all you’re gonna get out of me, you dead bastards.

  Billy knew he was going to puke. He kept walking and after a while he puked. Good. He wiped his mouth and his eyes with his handkerchief and straightened his tie. He brushed grass off the sleeves of his coat, then took the coat off and brushed its back and put it on again. He bent over and pulled up his silk socks.

  He walked toward Broadway.

  No money.

  No hat.

  No connection.

  The street was bright and all but empty, a few lights, a few cars, two trainmen waiting for a bus in front of the station, carrying lunch pails.

  The street was closed, not only to Billy.

  Billy knew he’d lost something he didn’t quite understand, but the onset of mystery thrilled him, just as it had when he threw the match to the Doc. It was the wonderment at how it would all turn out.

  Something new going on here.

  A different Broadway.

  He walked into the station and went to the men’s room. He washed his face and hands and combed his hair. The tie was fine. He inspected his suit, his tan glen plaid, for grass and dirt, and he shined the toes of his shoes with toilet paper. He pissed, shat, and spit and went out and bought the New York News and Mirror with his last half a buck. Forty cents left in the world. He looked at the papers and saw Charlie Boy’s picture on page one of each. The news of the day is Charlie McCall. A nice kid, raised like a hothouse flower. He folded the papers and put them in his coat pocket. In the morning, he’d read Winchell and Sullivan and Dan Parker and Nick Kenny and Moon Mullins.

  He would have an orange for breakfast to make his mouth feel good.

  He went out of the station and climbed into a parked Yellow cab. He rode it to North Albany, to Jack Foy’s Blackout on Erie Street and Broadway, and told the cabbie to wait. Jack hadn’t heard the news about Billy yet and so Billy hit him for a deuce and paid the cabbie and then hoisted two cold beers to cool his throat. He knew Jack Foy all his life and liked him. When the word came down from Pop O’Rourke, Jack would not let him inside the joint.

  Erie Street’d be as dead as Broadway downtown.

  The word would spread and every joint in town would be dead.

  Billy drank up and walked across Broadway and up through Sacred Heart Park to North Pearl Street, which was deserted, silent at four in the morning. He walked up Pearl, Joe Keefe sleeping, Pop O’Rourke sleeping, Henny Hart sleeping, Babe McClay sleeping.

  He was in front of his house when he heard what he heard. First came the quiet snap, then almost simultaneously the streetlight exploded behind him like a cherry bomb, and he ran like a goddamn antelope for the porch.

  He crouched behind the solid railing of the porch and listened for new shooting, but the street was already re-enveloped by silence. Still crouching, he leaped for the door to the vestibule and, with key at the ready, he opened the inside door and crawled into the living room. He locked the door and peered over the radio, out a front window, then out a dining room and a kitchen window, without moving any curtains, but he saw nothing. He heard movement upstairs and went toward it.

  The door to the attic stairway was ajar.

  Peg was in bed, but no George. Danny was in bed.

  Billy went back
to the attic door and climbed the stairs. The upper door to the attic was also ajar. He opened it all the way.

  “Hello,” he said. Who the hell to?

  He smelled dust and old cloth and mothballs. He waited for noise but heard nothing. He went in and pulled the string of the ceiling light and stood in the midst of family clutter that belonged mostly to a child. Boxing gloves and bag, fire engine and steam locomotive, a stack of games, toy animals, skis, two sleds, a collection of matchcovers, a large pile of funny books, a smaller pile of pulps—Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider. On a rack in transparent bags hung George’s World War uniform, his satin-lapeled tux, a dozen old suits, and, unbagged, a blue woolen bathrobe full of moth holes. Peg’s old windup Victrola sat alongside a dusty stack of records, half of which Billy had bought her, or boosted. There was the fake Christmas tree wrapped in a sheet, and the ornament boxes, and a dozen of Peg’s hatboxes.

  The front window was open. Two inches.

  Under it Billy found a flashlight and a copy of The Spider Strikes, a pulp Billy remembered buying five years ago, anyway. Richard Wentworth, the polo-playing playboy, is secretly The Spider, avenger of wrong. More than just the law, more dangerous than the underworld. Hated, wanted, feared by both. Alone and desperate, he wages deadly one-man war against the supercriminal whose long-planned crime coup will snuff a thousand lives! Can The Spider prevent this slaughter of innocents?

  When he put the magazine back on the floor, Billy found an empty BB package.

  He put the light out and went downstairs and met Peg coming out of her bedroom, pushing her arm into her bathrobe.

  “What’s going on? I heard walking upstairs.”

  “Is that all you heard?”

  “What is it?”

  “Somebody shot out the streetlight out in front.”

  “Shot it out?”

  Billy showed her the BB package.

  “The Spider carries the most powerful air pistol there is.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  They went into the room of Daniel Quinn, and Billy snapped on the wall switch, lighting two yellow bulbs in the ceiling fixture. The boy pulled the covers off his face and looked at them. Billy held up the BB package.