Free Billy Phelan's Greatest Game by William Kennedy

you know. Quite a show of power.”
    “They’re a handful of reds, that’s all.”
    “They’re not reds, Emory. Don’t you fall for that malarkey Probably only two or three are really Communists.”
    “They’re pinks, then. What’s the difference?”
    “We can discuss this fine point of color another time, but it’s definitely worth a story, and good play, no matter what else happens along with it.”
    “Whatever happens I don’t want you on it. You stay on Charlie.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Find the kidnappers, what the hell else?”
    “Find the kidnappers.”
    “Check around Broadway. That’s where they hang out.”
    “Check around Broadway.”
    “And don’t get lost. Call me every hour. Every half-hour.”
    “Every half-hour.”
    And then Emory Jones, sucking on his stogie, rumbled off and slammed the door of his cubicle, then sat at his desk and picked up the phone to begin spreading the blanket of silence over a story
whose magnitude punified even his own recurring glory dreams of news at its colossally tragic best.

 

    “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,