Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (13 page)

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.

Martin looked at Red Tom, and at his mustache: in the photo and the real thing. It was a mustache of long standing, brooded over, stroked, waxed, combed, pampered.

“That mustache of yours, Fitzsimmons,” said Martin, “is outlandish. Venturesome and ostentatious.”

“Is that so?”

“Unusually vulgar. Splendid too, of course, and elegant in a sardonic Irish way. But it surely must be unspeakable with tomato juice.”

“Give up and have a drink,” Red Tom said, pouring a new bourbon for Martin.

“It’s pontifical, it’s arrogant. It obviously reflects an intemperate attitude toward humankind. I’d say it was even intimidating when found on a bartender, a mustache
like that.”

“Glad you like it.”

“Who said I liked it? Listen,” Martin said, now in complete possession of Red Tom’s attention, “what do you hear about Charlie McCall?”

Red Tom eyed the other customers, moved in close. “The night squad was here asking your kind of question, Bo Linder and Jimmy Bergan.”

“You tell them anything a fellow like myself should know?”

“Only that the word’s out that he’s gone.”

“Gone how?”

“Disappeared, that’s all.”

“What about Jimmy Hennessey?”

“Hennessey? What’s he got to do with it?”

“Maybe something.”

“I haven’t laid eyes on Hennessey in months.”

“Is he all right?”

“Last I heard, he was drying out. Fell down the church steps and landed in front of Father O’Connor, who says to him, Hennessey, you should stop drinking. Hennessey reaches his hand
up to the priest and says, I’m waiting for help from the Holy Ghost. He’s in the neighborhood somewhere, says O’Connor. Ask him to pick you up. And he steps over Hennessey’s
chest.”

“He must be dried out by now. The McCalls put his name on a go-between list.”

“A go-between list?”

“It’ll be in the morning paper. Our guess is they’re trying to find an intermediary to talk with the kidnappers about the ransom.”

Martin put the list on the bar and ran down the names: Joe Decker, a former soft-shoe artist who ran the Double Dot nightclub on Hudson Avenue; Andy Kilmartin, the Democratic leader of the Fifth
Ward; Bill Shea, a Bindy McCall lieutenant who ran the Monte Carlo, the main gambling house in the city; Barney O’Hare, a champion bootlegger who served four terms as Patsy McCall’s man
in the State Assembly and no longer had need of work; Arnold Carroll, who ran the Blue Elephant saloon; Marcus Gorman, the town’s best-known criminal lawyer, who defended Legs Diamond; Butch
McHale, a retired welterweight and maybe the best fighter ever to come out of Albany, who ran the Satin Slipper, a speakeasy, after he quit the ring; Phil Lynch, who ran the candy store that was
Bindy’s headquarters for numbers collections and payoffs downtown; Honey Curry, a hoodlum from Sheridan Avenue, who did four years for a grocery store stickup; Hennessey, an ex-alderman who
was one of Patsy’s political bagmen until he developed the wet spot on his brain; Morrie Berman, the ex-pimp and gambler; and Billy Phelan.

“Kilmartin never comes in anymore,” Red Tom said. “O’Hare comes in for a nightcap after he gets laid. Gorman hasn’t been in here since old man Becker told him and
Legs Diamond he didn’t want their business. Most of the others are in and out.”

“Lately?”

“All but Curry. No show for a long while.”

“Billy been in tonight yet?”

“He’s about due.”

“I know. I whipped him today with a parlay. I think I hurt him.”

“He knows how to get well. You say this list is in the paper?”

Martin told him how the coded list arrived at the
Times-Union
as a classified ad and was sported by a lady clerk as oddball enough to send up to Emory Jones for a funny feature story. The
message was to CHISWICK, the names in scrambled numbers. Emory solved it instantly: A as 1, B as 2, the moron code. And when Martin next communicated, Emory had him check out everyone on the list.
Max Rosen admitted the list was connected to the kidnapping but would say no more and didn’t have to. Martin spent an hour in the phone booth discovering that none of those listed was
available. Not home. In Miami. Away for the month. Except for Hennessey and Curry, whose phones didn’t answer, and Billy and Morrie, whose recent movements Martin knew personally.

“Who’s Curry hang around with these days?”

“He’s cozy with Maloy, used to be. But he’s always with a dame.”

“And Maloy?”

“I heard he was hanging out with a bunch down in Jersey. Curry too.”

Billy Phelan came in then. Martin saw him touch Red Tom for what looked like a twenty before he even looked the place over. Then he sat down beside Martin.

“Luckiest man in North America,” Billy said.

“A connoisseur of horseflesh.”

“With a horseshoe up your ass.”

“Talent makes its own luck, Billy. Like somebody bowling two-ninety-nine.”

“Yeah. I got a partial payment for you.” Billy signaled Red Tom for a refill for Martin and a beer for himself, and put an envelope in front of Martin. He kept his hand on it.

“I need a bankroll for Nick’s game tonight. If I hold on to this and I win I pay you off entirely.”

“And if you lose, I lose this.”

“You don’t lose. Billy pays his debts.”

“I mean this month.”

“All right, Martin, you need the cash, take it. I’m not arguing. I just work a little longer.”

“Keep the roll and maybe we’ll both get our dues paid. But I have a question. What do you hear about Charlie McCall, apart from what we both know about last night?”

“Jesus, this is my big Charlie McCall day. Why the hell does everybody think I know what Charlie’s up to?”

“Who’s everybody?”

“Nobody.”

“Some significant people in town obviously think you might be able to help find him, one way or another.”

“Find him? He ain’t lost.”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“I heard he got snatched, but I just found out upstairs that’s not straight. Daddy Big got it right from Bindy. Charlie’s in New York. All I heard was a rumor.”

“Your rumor was right.”

“They took him, then? That’s it?”

“Correct.”

“Daddy Big and his goatshit.”

“What goatshit?”

“Just goatshit. What about significant people?”

“Your name’s in the paper that comes out tonight, one of twelve names, all in a code in a classified ad, which is obviously a message to the kidnappers about go-betweens. Nobody said
anything to you about this?”

“Nobody till now.”

“You weren’t on the original list. The ad came in about two this afternoon and I just found out your name was added about half an hour ago.” Martin told the ad story again, and
Billy knew all the names. He signaled for a beer.

“I got a message for you,” Red Tom said when he brought Billy’s beer. “Your friend Angie was in today. She’s at the Kenmore.”

“She say anything?”

“She said she needs her back scratched.”

“That’s not what she wants scratched.”

“Well, you’re the expert on that,” said Red Tom, and he went down the bar.

Billy told Martin, “I don’t belong on that list. That’s either connected people or hoodlums. I pay off the ward leader, nickel and dime, and I vote the ticket, that’s my
connection. And I never handled a gun in my life.”

“You classify Berman as a hoodlum?”

“Maybe not, but he sure ain’t no altar boy.”

“You know him pretty well?”

“Years, but we’re not that close.”

“You know everybody on Broadway and everybody knows you. Maybe that’s why you’re on the list.”

“No, I figured it out. Daddy Big got me on it. If it come in half an hour ago, that’s all it could be. Something I said about a plan to snatch Bindy last year. You know that
rumor.”

“No. What was it?”

“Fuck, a rumor. I’m the only one heard it? What is this? It was all over the goddamn street. Tom, you heard that rumor about Bindy last year?”

“What rumor?”

“Around August. Saratoga season. Somebody was gonna snatch him. You heard it.”

“I never heard that. Who was gonna do it?”

“How the fuck do I know who was gonna do it?”

“It’s your rumor.”

“I heard a goddamn rumor, that’s all. I paid no attention, nothing ever happened. Now, because I heard a rumor last August, I’m on the McCalls’ shit list?”

“This is no shit list,” Martin said.

When Red Tom went to serve another customer, Billy said, “They think I’m in on it.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Martin said, “but it does make you a pretty famous fellow tonight in our little community. A pretty famous fellow.”

“Know where I first heard about Charlie? From my Uncle Chick, who don’t even know how to butter bread right. How the hell did he hear about it? He asks me what I know about Charlie
and all I know is last night at the alleys and then you and all your Charlie horses. You knew it then, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe, my fucking noodle.”

“Maybe, your fucking noodle then.”

“I’m standing with Charlie horses and you know the guy’s glommed.”

“And that explains why I won?”

“Sure it explains why you won, you prick.”

“I didn’t win anything yet,” and Martin pushed the envelope toward Billy.

“Right. Poker time. Money first, Charlie later.”

“Morrie Berman’ll be in that game, right?”

“That’s what he said last night.”

“Look, pay attention to what he says. Anything. It’s liable to be very important.”

“What do you know that I don’t?”

“That’s an intriguing question we can take up some other time, but now let me tell you very seriously that everything is important. Everything Morrie says. We’ll talk about it
later when things aren’t quite so public.”

“What are you, a cop?”

“No, I’m a friend of Charlie McCall’s.”

“Yeah.”

“And so are you.”

“Yeah.”

And Billy drank up and stood up. He and Martin moved toward the door, which opened to the pull of Daddy Big as they reached it, Daddy in his change apron and eyeshade, questing sweet blotto at
eventide. Billy grabbed his shirtfront.

“You turned me in, you son of a bitch.”

“What’s got you, you gone nuts?”

“You told Bindy what I said about the snatch rumor.”

“I asked about it. Bindy asked me where I heard it.”

“And you finked on me, you fat weasel. And I don’t know anything worth a goddamn pigeon fart.”

“Then you got nothing to worry about.”

“I worry about weasels. I never took you for a weasel.”

“I don’t like you either. Stay out of upstairs.”

“I play tomorrow and you don’t shut me out and don’t try.”

“I shut out people who need to be shut.”

“Go easy, old man. There’s three things you can’t do in this world and all three of ’em are fight.”

Daddy Big broke Billy’s hold on his shirt and simultaneously, with a looping left out of nowhere, knocked him against the front door, which opened streetward. Billy fell on his back on
Becker’s sidewalk, his fedora rolling into the gutter. Martin picked him up and then went for the hat.

“Not your day for judging talent,” Martin said.

Billy put on his hat, blotted his lip. “He hits like he plays pool,” he said.

“So, that’s new. Something you learned,” said Martin, brushing the dust off Billy’s suit coat.

Martin walked with Billy up Broadway toward Clinton Avenue, thinking first he would go to Nick’s cellar and watch the poker game but not play against his own money. Yet
the notion of spectating at a poker game on such an evil day seemed almost evil in itself. His mind turned to thoughts of death: closing Scotty Streck’s left eye, Charlie Boy maybe with a
bullet in the head, dumped in the woods somewhere.