Scratch.
Scratch number three, in a row.
Billy loses fifteen, plus one for this scratch.
Billy is down twenty-seven points and the Doc is hot. Billy doubts he could catch the Doc now even if he wanted to.
Billy hits the table with his fist, hits the floor with the heel of his cue and curses that last goddamn safe shot, thrilled.
Billy is acting. He has just begun to throw his first match.
The lights in the pool room went out just as the Doc lined up for the next shot. I’ll get candles, said Daddy Big. Don’t nobody touch them balls. Which balls are they, Daddy? Footers asked in a falsetto. Billy remembered Footers just before the lights went out, licking a green lollipop, and Harvey Hess, his thumbs stuck in his vest, nodding his approval at the Doctor burying Billy. Daddy Big liked that development too, the string of his change apron tight on his gut, like a tick tied in the middle. Behind Billy stood Morrie Berman, who was again backing Billy. Morrie had given Billy fifty to bet on himself with the Doc, and also took all side bets on his boy. Billy heard Morrie softly muttering unhhh, eeeng, every time the Doc sank one.
Maybe a hundred men were standing and sitting around the table when the lights went. Billy saw Martin come in late and stand at the back of the crowd, behind the chairs Daddy Big had set up. Daddy Big lit four candles. They flickered on the cigar counter, on the edge of a pool table covered with a tarpaulin, on a shelf near the toilet. Many of the men were smoking in the half-darkness, their cigars and cigarettes glowing and fading, their faces moving in and out of shadows. Here was the obscure collective power. What’ll they do if I fink? Will I see my father? Some of the shadowy men left the room when the lights went out. Most of those with chairs stayed put, but then some of them, too, went down to the street, needing, in the absence of light, at least an open sky.
“Tough shot you had,” Morrie said to Billy.
“The toughest.”
“You’ll pick up. You got what it takes.”
“That Doctor’s hot as ten-cent pussy.”
“You’ll take him.”
“Sure,” said Billy.
But he won’t, or else how can he do what he’s got to do, if he’s got to do it? Wrong-Way Corrigan starts out for California and winds up in Ireland. I guess I got lost, he says, and people say, Yeah, oh yeah, he got lost. Ain’t he some sweet son of a bitch?
Thirteen
Through the front window of Louie’s, Martin saw that the lights were out on Broadway and in the station. He saluted Billy across the candlelight and went down to the street, which was dark in all directions. He walked to the corner of Columbia Street and looked up. Pearl Street was also dark, candles already dancing in two windows up the block. He walked back and into Becker’s and headed for the phone, past customers drinking by the light of the old kerosene lamp that had sat on the back bar for years, unused. Now it illuminated Red Tom’s mustache. The test of a real mustache is whether it can be seen from behind. Red Tom’s therefore is not real.
The city desk told him that lights were out all over the city and parts of Colonie, Watervliet and Cohoes. All hospitals had been called an hour earlier and told a power failure was possible, and not to schedule any operations unless they had their own generators. Nursing homes were also alerted. But the power company said it hadn’t made the calls. Who had? Nobody knew.
Martin went back to the bar and ordered a Grandad on ice and looked at the photo behind the bar. A new star shone on the chest of Scotty Streck, brighter than all others. In the kerosene lamplight the men in the photo moved backward in time. They were all smiling and all younger than their pictures. They were boys and young men under the shirtsleeved, summer sun. None of them was dead or would ever die.
“Lights are out all over town,” Martin told Red Tom.
“Is that a fact? I was listening to the radio when they went. Dewey was on, talking about Albany.”
“Albany? What was he saying?”
“He mentioned Patsy, and that was all I heard.”
“Did he mention Charlie Boy?”
“Not that I heard.”
Martin gulped his drink and went outside. People were clustered under the canopy at the station, all cabs were gone, and a West Albany trolley was stalled between Maiden Lane and Steuben Street. Martin could see it in the headlights of cars. The night was a deep, moonless black, with only a few stars visible. It was as if rural darkness had descended upon the city. Faces were unrecognizable three feet away. Albany had never been so dark in Martin’s memory. There were gas lamps in his boyhood, then the first few electric lights, now the power poles everywhere. But tonight was the lightless time in which highwaymen had performed, the dark night of the century gone, his father’s childhood darkness on new streets cut out of the raw hills and the grassy flats. A woman with a bundle came by, half running toward Clinton Avenue, pursued by the night. Alongside Martin, a match flared and he turned to see Morrie Berman lighting a cigar.
“What news do you hear?”
“Only that they’re out all over town.”
“I mean about the McCall kid. You fellows at the paper turn up any news?”
“I heard there was another ransom note.”
“Is that so?”
“Signed by Charlie Boy. I didn’t see it, but from what I gather there’ll be another go-between list in the paper tonight.”
“They didn’t like us on the first list?”
“So it seems.”
“You hear anything else?”
Dark shapes moved in behind Morrie, and Martin withheld his answer. The shapes hovered.
“Let’s take a walk,” Martin said and he took a step toward Steuben Street. Morrie stepped along and they moved south on Broadway, candles in the Waldorf, a bunch of men on the street in front of the Monte Carlo. They stepped around the men in the light of a passing auto. Martin did not want to speak until they had turned the corner onto Steuben. They passed Hagaman’s Bakery and Joe’s Bookshop on Steuben Street, where Martin knew his father’s early novel, The Mosquito Lovers, and the volume of his collected plays were sitting in faded dust jackets in the window, and had been for months, ever since the success of The Flaming Corsage.
“So what’s the secret?” Morrie asked.
“No secret, but I don’t want to broadcast it. I know you’re a friend of Maloy and the news is they’re looking for him. And Curry.”
“Why tell me? They got a lot of friends.”
“You asked for news. They’ve both been out of town a week.”
“So that ties them in?”
“No, but even their families don’t know where they are.”
“Hell, I saw Maloy two or three days ago on Broadway. They’re apt to be anywhere. Maloy’s crazy and Curry’s a moron. But they wouldn’t mix up in a thing like this, not in their own town.”
“Nevertheless, they’re looking for them.”
“They’ll turn up. What else do you hear?”
“The note said they’d starve Charlie Boy till the ransom was paid.”
“Tough stuff.”
“Very.”
Up toward Pearl Street, a window shattered and a burglar alarm rang and rang. Martin saw a silhouette running toward him and Morrie. The runner brushed Martin’s elbow, stepping off the curb as they touched, but Martin could not see the face.
“Somebody did all right,” said Morrie. “Ain’t that a jewelry store there?”
“Right,” said Martin. “Just about where Henry James’s grandmother used to live.”
“Who?”
“An old-timer.”
And on the other corner, DeWitt Clinton lived. And across the street, Bret Harte was born. And up Columbia was one of Melville’s homes, and on Clinton Square another. An old man had answered when Martin knocked on the door of the Columbia Street house and said, yeauh, he seemed to remember the name Melville but that was next door and they tore that house down and built a new one. Melville, he said. I heard he moved to Troy. Don’t know what become of him after that.