“No.”
Bindy leaned back in his chair and looked at Patsy. Billy looked at the brothers, from one to the other, and wondered how he would get out of the Maloy lie. He wondered why he’d even bothered to lie. It meant nothing. He saw the faces of strangers he’d known all his life staring him down. In between them, the face of the McCall ancestor was no longer scowling down from the wall but was only stern and knowing, a face flowing with power and knowledge in every line. There was a world of behavior in this room Billy did not grasp with the clarity he had in pool and poker, or at the crap table. Billy knew jazz and betting and booking horses and baseball. He knew how to stay at arm’s length from the family and how to make out. He resisted knowing more than these things. If you knew what the McCalls knew, you’d be a politician. If you knew what George Quinn knew, you’d be a family man. They had their rewards but Billy did not covet them. Tie you up in knots, pin you down, put you in the box. He could learn anything, study it. He could have been in politics years ago. Who couldn’t on Colonie Street? But he chose other ways of staying alive. There never was a politician Billy could really talk to, and never a hustler he couldn’t.
“All right, Billy,” Bindy said, standing up. “I think we’ve made our point. Call us any time.” He wrote two phone numbers on the pad and handed the sheet to Billy.
“You come up with anything that means something to Charlie,” Patsy said, “you got one hell of a future in this town.”
“What if I don’t run into Berman again?”
“You don’t run into him, then you find him and stay with him,” Patsy said. “If you need money for that, call us.”
“Berman’s a big boy. He goes where he wants.”
“You’re a big boy, too,” Patsy said.
“What Patsy says about your future,” Bindy said, “that goes triple for me. For a starter we clear up your debt with Martin Daugherty. And you never worry about anything again. Your family the same.”
“What if Berman catches on? He’s too smart to pump.”
“If you’re sure he’s on to it, drop it.”
“We’ll get word to you.”
When Billy stood up, Max Rosen put a paternal hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about anything, Mr. Phelan. Do what you can. It’s an unusual situation.”
“Yeah, all of that,” Billy said.
Bindy shook hands and Patsy gave him a nod, and then Billy was in the hallway looking at the bannister, pretty much like the one he used to slide down in the shithouse across the street until his Aunt Sate caught him and pulled his ear and sent him home. He went out the door and closed it behind him. He stood on the McCall stoop, looking up the street at the Dolan house, remembering the Dolan kid who was kidnapped off this street when Billy was little. An uncle did it. They found the kid in the Pine Bush, safe, and brought him home and put him in the window so everybody could see that he was all right. The kid was only four. Everybody wanted to hang the uncle, but he only went to jail.
Billy walked toward Pearl Street, heading back downtown. He remembered Georgie Fox, marked lousy for what he did to Daddy Big. All anybody on Broadway needed to hear was that Billy was finking on Morrie, and they’d put him in the same box with Georgie. Who’d trust him after that? Who’d tell him a secret? Who’d lend him a quarter? He wouldn’t have a friend on the whole fucking street. It’d be the dead end of Billy’s world, all he ever lived for, and the McCalls were asking him to risk that. Asking hell, telling him. Call us any time.
When he was halfway to Clinton Avenue, Bo Linder pulled up and asked if everything was all right. Billy said it was, and Bo said, “That’s good, Billy, now keep your nose clean.” And Billy just looked at the son of a bitch and finally nodded, not at all sure he knew how to do that any more.
When Billy got to Becker’s and sat down in the booth beside him (across from Bart Muller), George Quinn was eating a ham sandwich and telling Muller of the old days when he ran dances in Baumann’s Dancing Academy and hired King Jazz and his orchestra to play, and McEnelly’s Singing Orchestra, and ran dances, too, up in Sacandaga Park and brought in Zita’s orchestra, and danced himself at all of them, of course. “They put pins in our heels for the prize waltz,” George said. “Anybody bent the pin was out. I won many a prize up on my toes and I got the loving cups to prove it.”
“No need to prove it,” Muller said.
“We danced on the boat to Kingston sometimes, and the night boat to New York, but mostly we took the ferry from Maiden Lane for a nickel and it went up to Al-Tro Park, Al-Tro Park on the Hudson; they even wrote a song about that place, and what a wonder of a place it was. Were you ever up there?”
“Many times,” Muller said.
“We’d take the boat back down to Maiden Lane, or sometimes we’d walk back downtown to save the nickel. One night, three fellows on the other side of the street kept up with me and Giddy O’Laughlin all the way to Clinton Avenue. We didn’t know who they were till they crossed Broadway, and one was Legs Diamond. Somebody was gonna throw Legs off the roof of the Hendrick Hudson Hotel that night, but he gave ’em the slip.”
“Why are you talking about Legs Diamond?” Billy asked George.
“I’m not talking about Legs Diamond, I’m talking about going to dances. Bart lives in Rensselaer. We both went to dances at the pavilion out at Snyder’s Lake.”
“George,” said Billy, “did you come in here to reminisce or what?”
“We’ve just been cuttin’ it up, me and Bart,” George said, “and the business is on, anyway. I’m interested in Bart’s book. I’m branching out and Bart knows that. He just took over the night-shift book over at Huyck’s mill, and now he’s looking for somebody to lay off with. Am I right, Bart?”
“That’s right, George.”
“Then you made the deal,” Billy said.
“I guess we did,” said George.
“I’ll give you a buzz on it,” Muller said. “But I got to get home or the wife worries.”
“We’ll talk on the phone, Bart,” George said. “I was glad to meet you.”
“Mutual,” said Muller, and he nodded at Billy and left.
George sat back and finished his tea and wiped his lips with his white linen napkin and folded it carefully.
“I don’t know what the hell that was all about,” Billy said. “Why’d you want me here?”
“Just to break the ice.”
“Break the ice? There was no ice. You never shut up.”
“I didn’t want to push too hard the first time. We’ll iron out the details when he calls.”
“Calls? He’s not gonna call. You made no impression on him. You didn’t talk about money.”
“He didn’t bring it up.”
“He came to see you, didn’t he? Why the hell does he want to talk about Snyder’s Lake, for chrissake? He’s writing a book and he wants a layoff and he wants protection. You didn’t give him a goddamn thing to make him think you even know what the hell a number is.”
“He knows.”
“He does like hell. How could he? You didn’t talk about having the okay or that you got cash to guarantee his payoffs. You didn’t say how late he could call in a play or tell him he wouldn’t have to worry getting stuck with a number because you’ll give him the last call and get rid of it for him. You didn’t tell him doodley bejesus. George, what the hell are you doing in the rackets? You ought to be selling golf clubs.”
“Who died and left you so smart?”
“I’m not smart, George, or I’d be rich. But I hustle. You don’t know how to hustle.”
“I’m not in debt up to my ass.”
“You ain’t rich either. And let me tell you something else. You don’t even have the okay.”
“Says who?”
“Says Patsy McCall. I was talking to him, and he says you never got the okay to back numbers. All you got the okay for was to lay off. Twenty percent, no more.”