Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (10 page)

“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.