Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

Four

“Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone,” Mildred Bailey was singing over WHN, with the Paul Whiteman band behind her. And Billy Phelan, writing horses in his, or, more precisely, his sister’s and brother-in-law’s living room, wearing pants, socks, and undershirt, no shoes or belt, remembered the time she came to town with Whiteman. Played the Palace. She always sang like a bird to Billy’s ear, a hell of a voice. Hell of a voice. Sounded gorgeous. And then she showed up fat. Dumpy tub of lard. Whiteman too, the tub. Billy remembered the night he played games with Whiteman at the crap table in Saratoga. He was dealing at Riley’s Lake House, youngest dealer in town that season, 1931, and of course, of course he knew who Whiteman was when the big boy rolled the dice and lost the last of his wad.

“Let’s have five hundred in chips, sonny, and an I.O.U.,” Whiteman said.

“Who the hell are you? I don’t know you,” Billy said. Sonny me, you son of a bitch. Hubie Maloy, the crazy, was at the table that night. From Albany. Always carried a gun. But Billy liked him. Hubie smiled when Whiteman called Billy sonny. Big-timer, throwing his weight around, that big gut, and figures everybody on earth knows his mustache.

“I’m Paul Whiteman.”

“Wyman?”

“Whiteman. Whiteman.”

“Ohhhhh yeah, Whiteman. You’re the guy’s got that hillbilly band playing over at Piping Rock. You don’t mean nothing to me, bud. Go see the manager if you want chips.”

They fired Billy twenty minutes later. Orders from above. From those who didn’t want to make enemies of Paul the Man. Lemon Lewis came over to the table and said, “I hate to do it, Billy, but we gotta can you. I’ll call over to Newman’s and the Chicago Club, see what they got going.”

And two hours after that Billy was back to work, with cards this time, sleek and sharp, full of unpredictable combinations. Billy, maybe the best dealer around, pound for pound, you name the game, such a snappy kid, Billy.

He was in Saratoga that year because one night a month earlier he was hanging around Broadway in Albany when Bindy McCall came by, Bindy, in the tan fedora with the flowerpot crown, had connections and investments in Saratoga gambling, a natural by-product of his control of all the action in Albany, all of it: gambling houses, horse rooms, policy, clearing house, card games, one-armed bandits, punch boards. Playing games in Albany meant you first got the okay from Bindy or one of his lieutenants, then delivered your dues, which Bindy counted nightly in his office on Lodge Street. The tribute wasn’t Bindy’s alone. It sweetened the kitty for the whole McCall machine.

Billy touched Bindy’s elbow that night.

“Hey, Billy.”

“Got a second, Bin? I need some work. Can you fix me up for Saratoga next month?”

“What can you do?”

“Anything.”

“Anything at all?”

“Craps, poker, blackjack, roulette. I can deal, handle the stick.”

“How good are you?”

“Haven’t you heard?”

Bindy chuckled.

“I’ll ask around someone who has. See Lemon Lewis.”

“All right, Bindy, fine. Obliged. Can I touch you for fifty?”

Bindy chuckled again. Billy’s got brass. Bindy reached for the roll and plucked a fifty out of the middle.

“Use it in good health.”

“Never felt better,” said Billy. “I pay my debts.”

“I know you do. I know that about you. Your father paid his debts, too. We played ball together when we were kids. He was one hell of a player. You ever hear from him?”

“We don’t hear.”

“Yeah. That’s an odd one. See Lewis. He’ll fill you in.”

“Right, Bin.”

Billy saw Lewis an hour later at the bar in Becker’s and got the word: You deal at Riley’s.

“What about transportation?” Billy asked. “How the hell do I get from Albany to Saratoga every night?”

“Jesus, ain’t you got a car?”

“Car? I never even had roller skates.”

“All right. You know Sid Finkel?”

Billy knew Sid, a pimp and a booster and a pretty fair stickman. Put his kid through dentists’ school with that combination.

“Look him up. I’ll tell him to give you a lift.”

“I’ll half the gas with him,” Billy said.

“That’s you and him. And don’t forget your source,” and Lemon hit himself on the chest with his thumb.

“Who the hell could forget you, Lemon?” Billy said.

It went fine for Billy for two weeks and then came the Whiteman scene and Billy went from Riley’s to the Chicago Club, on earlier hours. The Club got a big play in the afternoon, even though the horses were running at the track. So Billy had to find new transportation because Sid Finkel stayed on nights. Was Billy lucky? He certainly was. Angie Velez saw him dealing at the Chicago Club and when he took a break, she asked him for a light.

“You weren’t out of work long,” she said.

“Who told you I was out of work?”

“I was there when you gave it to Whiteman. Funniest damn thing I’ve heard in years. Imagine anybody saying that to Paul Whiteman. You’re the one with the hillbilly band. I laughed right out loud. He gave me an awfully dirty look.”

Billy smiled at this new dish. Then he asked her name and bought her a drink and found she was married but only dabbled in that. Hubby was a gambler, too. Brought her to Saratoga for a week, then left her there to play while he went home to run his chunk of Rochester, what a town. No town like Albany. Rochester is where you might go on the bum, only might, if they kicked you out of Albany. Billy couldn’t imagine life outside Albany. He loved the town. And half-loved you too, Angie, now that you’re here. “Are you a spic?”

“I’m Irish, baby. Just like you. One of the Gagen girls. My old man’s a Cuban.”

She was playing kneesies with him by then.

“You keep that up, you’re liable to get raped.”

“Room two-forty-six in the Grand Union.” And she proved it with the key. That was the beginning of Billy’s private taxi service between Albany and Saratoga for the rest of the month. Other things began that season in Saratoga: Billy’s reputation as the youngest of the hot numbers at any table, never mind the game. Big winner. I could always get a buck, Billy said. What the hell, I know cards and dice.

Of course, at the end of the season Billy was broke. Playing both sides of the table.

Now Mildred Bailey was all through and Clem McCarthy was barking in with the race results on WHN, and can you believe what is happening to Billy? Friar Charles wins, the son of a bitch, five-to-two, the son of a bitch, the son of a bitch! Martin Daugherty, what in Christ’s name are you doing to Billy Phelan?

Here’s how it looked to this point: Martin bet ten across the board on Charley Horse, who wins it, four-to-one; puts a tenner across also on Friar Charles and now wins that one, too; and has a third tenner going across on Hello Chuckie in the sixth at Pimlico, and Hello Chuckie is two-to-one on the morning line. There is more. Martin also parlayed the three horses for yet another ten.

Now, Billy knows that Martin is a hell of a sport, always pays, and loses more than he wins, which has always been pleasant for Billy, who takes a good bit of his play. But my Jesus Christ almighty, if he wins the third, plus the three-horse parlay, Billy is in trouble. Billy doesn’t hold every bet he takes. You hold some, lay off some. You hold what you think you can cover, maybe a little more, if you’re brassy like Billy. Billy lays some off with his pal Frankie Buchanan, who has the big book in Albany. But mother pin a rose on Billy. For bravery. For Billy is holding all of Martin’s play. Didn’t lay off a dime. Why? Because suckers and losers bet three-horse parlays. I’ll hold them all day long, was Billy’s philosophy until a few minutes ago when Clem McCarthy came on with the Friar Charles news. And now Billy is sitting at his card table in the front room. (Billy came here to Thanksgiving dinner six years ago and never went back downtown to his furnished room.) His money sits on the floor, next to his bridge chair, in a Dyke cigar box, Dykes being the cigar the McCall machine pushed in all the grocery and candy stores in town.

Billy himself sits under the big, shitty print of Mo the Kid in the gold frame. Billy’s fingers are working with his number two Mongol pencil on the long yellow pad, and his eyes keep peeking out through the curtains on the front windows in case state cops step on his stoop, in which case Billy would be into the toilet p.g.d.q., those horse bets would be on their way down the city conduits toward the river, and even the most enterprising raider could not then bring them back and pin them on Billy’s chest.

Stan whatsisname, the WHN disk jockey, was talking about Bob Crosby and Billy felt good hearing that because he knew Crosby, had heard him in Saratoga, danced to his music with Angie, talked music with him when he played The Edgewood over in Rensselaer. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” Crosby was playing now. The phone rang and Billy turned Crosby down. Frankie Buchanan with the results of the fifth at Arlington Park, Friar Charles official now. Billy then told Frankie about Martin Daugherty’s very weird parlay.

“You’re the weird one,” said Frankie, who was as weird as they come. One of the best-liked guys in Albany, Frankie, and yet he couldn’t take the public. He’d come out at night for ham and eggs, and you’d have to sit with him in his car behind the Morris diner while he ate off a paper plate. Crazy bastards in this world.

“You want to give me the third horse or part of that parlay?”

“No,” said Billy, “I can’t believe the son of a bitch can pick three in a row, and parlay them, too. I never seen it done. I believe in luck but not miracles.”

“Okay, pal,” said Frankie, “it’s all yours.” And he left Billy wondering if he was really crazy Billy could cut the mustard if the third horse ran out of the money, because the day’s play was good. But if Martin Daugherty wins the parlay, Billy, it’s up in the seven, eight hundreds, even if nobody else wins a nickel. And Billy Boy, you don’t have that kind of cash. So why, oh why, is darlin’ Billy doing it? Well, it’s a gamble, after all. And Billy is certainly a gambler. Nobody will argue that. And Billy is already feeling the pressure rise in his throat, his gut, under his armpits, under his teeth and behind his jockey shorts. Christ, it tickles me somewhere, Billy thinks, and the money doesn’t matter. Pressure. Sweet pressure. Here we go again, folks.

Crosby was just winding up “Deep Blue Sea.” Billy remembered listening to it with Angie, saw her face. And then it was Morey Amsterdam on the radio. Popped into the studio as usual to ad lib with Stan. I gotta go up to the sixth floor, Amsterdam was saying. They’re gonna lay a rug up there and I wanna see how they do it.

Telephone. Martin Daugherty.

“Yeah, Friar Charles wins it, Martin, so you got something good going. Shows seven dollars, four dollars, and three-forty. Tote it up, Martin, you’re the money machine today.”

Stan was telling a caller, if you don’t like my show, you crumb, don’t listen, but if you want to make more of it than that I’ll meet you at five o’clock out in the alley behind the studio and knock your brains out. And he gave the address. Wireheaded bastard, that Stan. Billy liked his style.

Then it was quiet with no phones and only Earl (Fatha) Hines — a kid, really, so why do they call him Fatha? — playing something wild, and somebody in the chorus, when he started to move it, really move it, yelling out, “Play it Fatha. . play it till nineteen ninety-nine.” And Billy smiles, taps his foot, feels the jazz, feels, too, that good old, good old pressure beginning to cut a pulpy wedge out of his fat-assed day.

Simpson, that bum, rang Billy’s bell, looking for his sawbuck. Billy saw him coming up the walk, fished a tenner out of the cigar box, folded it once and put it in his right hip pocket. Ten down the sewer. But Billy had to pay. Tribute to Pop O’Rourke, Democratic leader of the Ninth Ward, who, six months ago, when Billy announced plans to write horses, approved the venture during Billy’s formal call. The payoff? Give ten a week to Simpson, Pop said. He’s down on his luck. He’ll come by every week for it. Fair enough, Billy said. What else could he say? And he was still paying out the tenner.

“Hello, Bill, how you doin’?” Simpson said when Billy opened the door just enough to make it clear that it was not a welcoming gesture. The Simp’s sport shirt was at least four days soiled and he needed a shave. Holes in the elbows of his sweater, boozer’s look and the breath’d knock over two mules.

“Life’s still tough,” Billy said to him.

“I thought maybe I’d come in and sit a while,” Simpson said as Billy was reaching for the ten in his pocket. And that line stopped Billy’s hand.

“What?”

“Keep you company a while. I ain’t doin’ nothin’, just hangin’ around Brady’s. Might as well chew the fat. You know.”

“No, I don’t know nothing like that,” Billy said. “You ain’t coming in now or ever.” He opened the door all the way, stepped out, grabbed Simpson’s dirty shirt, and lifted him backward down the stairs. “Now get off this stoop and stay off. Next time you put a foot on it I’ll knock your ass the other side of Pearl Street.”

“Don’t get hot, Bill. I just wanna come in and talk.”

“I don’t let bums in my home. Who the hell do you think you’re conning? From now on I don’t even want to see you on this side of the street.”

“Where’s my ten?”

“You blew it, bum.”

And Billy slammed the door and called Pop O’Rourke.

“And he says he wants to keep me company for the day, chew the fat. Listen, Pop, I respect you, but that bum is looking to see my action. I have a good half hour, he’ll want twenty instead of ten. Don’t send him back, Pop, and I mean that. I don’t like his slimy looks and I never did. I hit him once, I’ll knock him off the stoop altogether. There’s five steps and he’d clear the whole five if I hit him. I’ll break both his arms, Pop. I don’t want the bum ringing my bell.”

“Take it easy, Billy. He won’t be back. He did wrong. He’s a greedy person. I’ll tell him.”

“Fine, Pop. Do you want me to send you the tenner?”

“No, not at the moment. I’ll let you know if there’s any other needy case around.”

“I’m a needy case, Pop.”

“But there are rules, Billy.”

“I play by them.”

“That’s the good boy. Just don’t get excited. I underwent a heart attack that way, and I can tell you that getting excited is one of the worst, one of the very worst things a man can do to himself. It takes you over when you don’t expect it. Very sudden and we don’t anticipate a thing. It’s a terrible thing to do to yourself, getting too overly worked up, Billy. I wouldn’t do it again for any man.”

“I’ll catch you later, Pop. Thanks.”

“Billy, I’m very glad you called me.”

Billy hung up and scraped the horseshit out of his ear.

The first of Billy’s family came home at three-forty Daniel Quinn, age ten, resident little kid returning from fourth grade at Public School Twenty across the street, found his uncle on the couch with True Detective open on his chest, the lights out, shades drawn more than usual, the Telegraph, the Armstrong, the New York News and Daily Mirror on the floor beside the card table.

“That you, kid?”

“It’s me, Unk. Aren’t you working?”

“Get lost. I’m half asleep. Catch you later.”

And the boy went upstairs. But Billy’s eyes were open again, his gaze again on the shirty print of Mo the Kid, more properly titled “The Young Mozart,” hanging in an enormous gold frame above the couch. There sat the precocious composer, exceptionally upright, playing, no doubt, a tune of his own making, on a spinet in a drawing room baroquely furnished with gilded mirrors, heavy drapes, fringed oriental rug. The room was busy with footstools, ornamental screens, and music sheets strewn across the floor. The ladies in long, flowered gowns and chokers, clutching single sheets of music, and an older gentleman in a wig, breeches, and buckled shoes like the composer, all sat listening as the young Mo sent out his life-giving music. The three gave off non-human smiles, looking glazed and droopy, as if they’d all been at the laudanum.

The print would not have been on the wall, or in the house, if Billy had had his way. It was a gift to his sister, Peg, from their Aunt Mary, a reclusive old dame who lived in the old family home on Colonie Street, raised canaries, and had a secret hoard of twenty-dollar gold pieces she parceled out on birthdays. The picture always reminded Billy of his ill treatment by the people in that house after his father ran away and left him and his sister and their mother; ran away and stayed away eighteen years, and neither Billy, Peg, nor their mother ever heard from him again. In 1934 he came back, not to his own home but to that goddamn house of his sisters and brothers, his visit culminating in inadequately explained rejection and flight, and further silence. And so Billy hated the house for that reason, and also for the uncountable other reasons he had accumulated during his years as a never-quite-welcome nephew (nasty son of nasty Francis). The house was as worthless as the stupid picture in which Kid Mo offered up his stupid, invisible music to a roomful of dope fiends.

The picture would not leave his mind, even after he’d closed his eyes, and so Billy picked up the magazine and looked again at the about-to-be-raped model, fake-raped, with slip on the rise revealing thigh, garter, seamed stockings. In high heels, with her rouged lips, artful hair, artificial fear on her face, she cowered on the bed away from the hovering shadow of the artificial rapist. The change of vision from Mo to rape worked, and Billy slept the fearful sleep of an anxious loser.

Peg’s keys, clinking at the keyhole, woke him.

Plump but fetching, graying but evergreen, Margaret Elizabeth Quinn was returning from her desk in the North End Tool Company, where she was private secretary to the owner.

“It’s dark in here,” she said. “What happened to the lights?”

“Nothing,” Billy said as she switched on the bridge lamp.

“Is Danny home?”

“Upstairs.”

“What’s new? You have a decent day?”

“Great day.”

“That’s nice.”

“No it’s not.”

“Did Mama call?”

“No.”

“The receiver’s off the hook.”

“I know it.”

“How could she call if the receiver’s off the hook?”

“She couldn’t.”

Peg cradled the receiver and took off her black-and-white checked shorty coat and black pillbox hat.

“You want pork chops?” she asked.

“No.”

“Liver? That’s the choice.”

“Nothing, no.”

“You’re not eating?”

“No, the hell with it.”

“Oh, that’s a beautiful mood.”

“I’m beautiful out of business is what I am.”

Peg sat on the edge of the rocker, formidable lady in her yellow, flowered print, full knees up, glasses on, lipstick fresh, fingernails long and crimson, solitaire from husband George small but respectably gleaming under the bridge light, hair marcelled in soft finger wave. Billy’s beautiful sister.

“What’s this you’re saying?”

And he told her the Martin story: that, believe it or not, his three horses all came home. Some joke, eh kid? Sextuple your money, folks. Place your bets with Brazen Billy Boy, who lives the way we all love to live — way, way, way up there beyond our means.

Peg stood up, saying nothing. She pushed open the swinging door to be greeted by a near-frenzied collie, all but perishing from his inability to disgorge affection. From the refrigerator she took out the pork chops and put them into two large frying pans over a low flame on the gas stove. Then she went back to Billy, who was pouring a shot of Wilson’s into a soiled coffee cup with a dry, brown ring at the bottom. The phone rang and Peg answered, then handed the instrument to Billy, who closed his eyes to drive out all phone calls.

“Yeah,” he said into the mouthpiece. And then, “No, I’m closed down. No. NO, GODDAMN IT, NO! I mean I’m CLOSED. Out of business and you owe me fifty-four bucks and I need it tonight so goddamn get it up. I’ll be down.” And he slammed the receiver onto the hook.

“Wasn’t that Tod?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to eat his head off because you lost some money.”

“Lost some money? I’m dumped, broke. I can’t work. Do you get that picture?”

“You’ve been broke before? You’re broke most of the time.”

“Ah, shut up, this is bad news.”

“What possessed you to hold a three-horse parlay? I wouldn’t even make that mistake.”

“I make a lot of mistakes you wouldn’t make.”

“It doesn’t make sense, with your bankroll.”

“I can’t explain it.”

Billy gulped the Wilson’s and the phone rang. Martin Daugherty Peg handed him the phone.

“Yes, Martin, you’re a lucky son of a bitch. Nobody in their right mind bets three-horse parlays. I know it, Martin. Yeah, sure I’ll be downtown tonight. I’ll have some of it for you. No, I haven’t got it right this minute. Collections are slow, nobody paying this month. But you’ll get paid, Martin. Billy Phelan pays his debts. Yeah, Martin, I held it all myself. Thanks, I’m glad you feel bad. I wish I could get mad at you, you son of a bitch. Knock your teeth out and make you spend your winnings on the dentist. What do I make it? What do you make it? Right. That’s exactly right, Martin — seven eighty-eight eighty-five. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. See you tonight around Becker’s, or maybe the poker game in Nick’s cellar. Yeah, you son of a bitch, you sleep with the angels. What hotel they staying at?”

The kitchen gave off the rich odor of seared pork. Peg came out of it in her apron, carrying a long fork. At the foot of the stairs she called, “Danny,” and from a far height in the attic came a “Yeah?” and then she said “Supper,” and the door slammed and the steps of Daniel Quinn could be heard, descending from his aerie.

“How much cash do you actually have?” Peg asked.

“About a hundred and seventy,” Billy said. “Can you spare anything?”

Peg almost smiled. She sniffed and shook her head. “I’ll see.”

“George is doing all right, isn’t he?” George wrote numbers.

“He’s doing swell. He lost three dollars yesterday on the day.”

“Yeah. We all got a problem.”

“All of us,” Peg said. “George wants to talk to you about a new book. Somebody named Muller.”

“I’m here if he wants me.”

“What about this money you owe? How will you raise it?”

“I can always raise a buck.”

“Can you raise six hundred?”

“What does that mean, can I? I’ve got to. What do you do when you lose? You pay.”

“The Spider never loses,” Danny Quinn said as he hit the last step down.

Billy drew the bath water, hot as he could stand for his hemorrhoid, back again. Got to get some exercise, Billy. Three baths a day in the hottest, the doc said, the sweat already forming on Billy’s face, as he drew the hottest of hot baths. Has that guy Billy got any money? Has he! He’s got piles! And he’s in hot water, too, I’ll say. Might be all washed up. He really took a bath, all right. But you never can tell about a fellow like Billy, because he runs hot and cold.

Billy eased into the water and spread his cheeks so the heat would rise up the back alley and draw some bloody attention to that oversized worm of a vein which was sticking its nose out, itching the goddamn ass off Billy. Are itchy assholes hereditary? But itchy no more right now. Now soothed. Now hot stuff. Now easy livin’. And Billy settles back against the tub and forgets about his asshole and its internal stresses and considers the evening ahead of him.

He will wear his navy blue gabardine and the new silk shirt he got at Steefel’s through Harvey Hess. A fast half-dozen shirts for Billy and six, too, for Harv, who glommed them, wrapped them, and put them down as paid for in Billy’s name, and all Billy had to do was go in and pick up his order. How sweet. Billy gave Harvey all his legitimate clothing action, or as much as Steefel’s could handle, and why not? For wasn’t Harvey Billy’s grandest fish?

Harvey.

Why hadn’t Billy thought of him before this? Harvey was of the opinion he could actually beat Billy at pool. Even after maybe two hundred games and yet to win even one. Still, Harv could say, I’ll beat you yet, Billy, I’m learning and you got to admit that. Billy would admit anything to Harvey as long as he kept coughing up fivers and tenners. Such a mark. Billy remembered the night he and Tod had heavy dates with showgirls from the Kenmore and then Tod says, Billy, we can’t keep those dates tonight. Why not? says Billy Because, says Tod, it’s payday at Steefel’s.

Billy put Harvey on his list of problem solvers. He already had $170. He would get $54 from Tod. Peg would be good for maybe $10, maybe only $5 if it was as tough with George as she said it was. And it had to be because Peg was no bullshitter. So the arithmetic comes to maybe $234. And if Billy nailed Harvey for, let’s be conservative, $25, that’s $259, say $260 round figures; which means Billy still has to come up with say $530 round figures to pay off Martin. Quite a challenge, Billy, $530, and the first time in your life you ever went out at night and absolutely had to come up with five big ones. Always a first for everything. But Billy can raise a buck, right, Billy?

Billy saw the top half of his torso in the bathroom cabinet mirror. The vision always reduced him to a corpse, being washed and powdered in an undertaker’s basement, like Johnny Conroy He always turned the image quickly back to life, pulling chest hair to feel pain, pressing a finger against shoulder flesh to see it whiten, then return to rich redness, moving his mouth, showing his teeth, being alive in a way he wasn’t sure his father still was. Is death hereditary?

Johnny Conroy: the corpse in Cronin’s funeral parlor, 1932, raised with Billy on Colonie Street, wild kid. Used to run with Billy after the action, any action, run to the cliff at the tail end of Ten Broeck Street and leap, leap, faaaaaaaaalllll, and lose the pursuit, faaaaaaaaalllll into the great sandpile in Hogan’s brickyard, scramble off, free.

Johnny Conroy, free to die in the gutter over stolen booze, and they waked him at Cronin’s.

Billy and Tod were taking Hubie Maloy home that night from Becker’s, crazy Hubie who said, Let’s stop and see Johnny, my old pal. But they’re closed now, it’s two in the morning, said Billy. I wanna go in, said Hubert, the wild filbert. And so Tod stopped the car and Hubert got out and went around the back of Cronin’s and crawled in a window and in a few minutes had opened the side door for Tod and Billy, and in they went, half drunk or Billy wouldn’t have done it. A burglary rap for sure. And there was Johnny in the open coffin with one basket of flowers, only one, ready for planting in the ay-em.

He don’t look so bad, Tod said.

He don’t look so bad for a corpse, Billy said.

And that’s when Hubert undid Johnny’s tie. And Billy watched it happen because he didn’t understand Hubert’s plan. Then Hubert pulled Johnny up from the casket and for the first time Billy really understood the word “stiff.” Hubert took off Johnny’s coat and shirt, and by then Billy and Tod were out the door and back in Toddy’s car, parked safely up the street.

Hubert’s nuts, said Tod.

Playful, Billy said and couldn’t even now say why that word occurred to him. Maybe because he still, even now, liked Hubert, liked crazies.

Well, I don’t play with him no more, said Toddy. He’s got no respect.

And Billy said, You could say that. Because he had to admit it was true. Five minutes go by and Hubert puts out the light in Cronin’s and comes out with all Johnny’s burial clothes under his arm, suit, tie, even the shoes. He owed me, the bastard, Hubert says, and if I waited any longer I’d never even collect this much. And Hubert kept the shirt and tie for his own and sold the suit and shoes for twenty bucks the next afternoon at The Parody Club, to a grifter passing through with a carny. On Broadway they laughed for weeks over poor Johnny and, worse, poor old Cronin, who had an attack and damn near died when he walked in and saw the naked corpse, standing with his back against the coffin, all his bullet holes showing. For Hubert didn’t tell folks he also took Johnny’s underwear. Always said he wasn’t wearing any.

Billy shaved and wet his straight black hair, brushed it back with the little part at the left, and was padding barefoot toward his bedroom, wrapped in a towel, when the phone rang. He waited and listened while Peg got it again. Ma. Billy stayed at the top of the stairs.

“We’re fine, Mama, and how are things there? Good. Yes, everything is all right. Billy is getting dressed to go out, and George won’t be home for an hour. The office is quite busy, yes, which is a nice change. You what, made an apple pie? Oh, I wish I had some. But it burned? Oh that’s too bad. But it tastes good anyway. And now Minnie and Josie want to bake pies, too. Well, I hope I get a piece of somebody’s pie. I bet yours’ll be the best. Yes, Mama, Billy’s working. He’s going out tonight and pick up some money. Yes, it is nice. .”

In his room Billy took out the navy blue gabardine and the silk shirt and the newest blue bow tie with the white polka dots. He fished in the drawer for the pair of solid blue socks with the three blue dots on the sides and took his black shoes with the pointed toes out of the closet. Billy never went out without being really dressed. But really. George was the same, and Peg and Ma, too. But George was too flashy. Dress conservative and you’ll always be well dressed. George always imitated Jimmy Walker, ever since he worked for him up at the Capitol. He’d see Walker’s picture in the paper in a sport coat with patch pockets and he’d be downtown buying one the next day. I never imitated anybody, was Billy’s thought. I never even imitated my father. They couldn’t even tell me how he looked dressed up, except what Ma said, he was so handsome. George is all right. George is a father. A good one. Billy hoped George would get the new book from Muller, but he didn’t know who the hell Muller was.

Billy took his trig gray fedora out of the hatbox and thought: pies. And pictured Pete the Tramp stealing two steaming pies off a kitchen windowsill, then running off and eating them behind a fence.

Billy looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. He looked good. Maybe handsome to some. Not like a man who owed seven eighty-eight to anybody. Whataya think, because Billy owes a few bucks he can’t look good?

“Aren’t you eating anything?” Peg said when he went downstairs.

“I’ll grab something downtown.”

She didn’t make him ask. She fished in the apron pocket and handed him the bill, folded in a square. A twenty. He kissed her quick and parted her corset.

“That’s all I can give you,” she said.

“I didn’t expect so much. You’re a classy dame.”

“Class runs in this family,” she said.