Roscoe

  Roscoe read in the Sprule medical report that Elisha’s heart was twice its normal size. He could’ve dropped dead anytime. Both autopsies were done by Neil Deasey, coroner’s physician, who found whatever Patsy told him to find in any given corpse. So now Veronica and the Party would not be publicly embarrassed, and Elisha’s insurance not jeopardized. As to the real cause of death, that was the Party’s business. Was Elisha’s enlarged heart a true fact or a Neil Deasey fact? Could Elisha have known this about his heart? He could. Blighted kamikaze. Roscoe put the autopsies in his inside coat pocket.

  “Mac,” Roscoe said, “you know when every pimp and felon sneezes in this town. You ever hear any threat to Elisha?”

  “I hear the troopers are ready to move against the organization, but no word on what or who. Maybe close down our gambling, don’t know. You wanna shut down the city before they do?”

  “That’d be a first,” Roscoe said. “Maybe close the horse rooms.”

  “Is that a yes? I’ll start making the rounds.”

  “Let me talk to Patsy.”

  “Right. You take Gladys home the other night?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “She said you did.”

  “Don’t you believe her?”

  “I like to make sure she gets home safe,” Mac said.

  Roscoe saw O.B. coming at quick time across the lawn to the portico.

  “Patsy wants the autopsies,” O.B. said to Mac.

  “I’ve got them,” Roscoe said. “I’ll see he gets them.”

  “This thing is almost over,” O.B. said. “I’m not going to the cemetery. I’ll ride back with you, Mac.”

  “Mac says word’s around about a crackdown, maybe on gambling. You hear that?” Roscoe asked O.B.

  “Twice a week, every week.”

  “We should take it seriously. Patsy’ll probably want to close the horse rooms. Let ’em do phone business.”

  “You don’t think the troopers’ll tap the phones?”

  “The bookies take that risk, not us.”

  “They’re gonna scream,” O.B. said.

  “You ever know a bookie didn’t scream?” Roscoe asked.

  O.B. and Mac went down the steps and toward Mac’s car, and Roscoe crossed the lawn to hear the boys’ choir singing “Nearer My God to Thee.” He saw Gladys sitting at the end of a row with, guess who, Trish, also Minnie Hausen, who handled legislative patronage for Patsy, and Hattie Wilson, dear old Hat. Roscoe stood in Gladys’s sight line until she eyed him, then he went to her, took her aside.

  “Did you tell Mac I took you home from the mill?”

  “No.”

  “Why would he say you did?”

  “I said you offered to. He keeps tabs on me.”

  “Not on my account.”

  “It’s everybody.”

  Roscoe stood with Patsy for the rest of the hymn singing, wondering whether Gladys or Mac was lying, and why. At hymn’s end the Episcopal dean opened his prayer book, and Roscoe heard the snort of a horse. He turned to see Gilby riding out from the stable, a collie and a German shepherd at the heels of Jazz Baby, the eleven-year-old Thoroughbred gelding that had held such promise for Elisha as a racehorse until he turned into a bleeder, going too fast too young, and Elisha brought him back, but as a riding horse, and gave him to Gilby for his tenth birthday. Gilby, his black coat and tie both gone, his sleeves rolled, at home in the saddle, rode Jazz Baby slowly toward the wake and stopped at the outer edge of the crowd.

  “My father didn’t say goodbye to Jazz Baby,” Gilby said. He ducked his head, moved the horse forward under the canopy. The mourners stepped back to make room.

  “Bizarre,” said Gordon Fitzgibbon.

  “Not at all,” said Roscoe, and he walked ahead of the horse, slowly, as Gilby positioned Jazz Baby’s head facing Elisha in the coffin.

  Veronica was smiling for the first time in three days, and Roscoe, a sap for animals, was near tears. Gilby held the horse for a long look, then said, “Okay, Baby.” He threaded the horse between coffin and mourners and, on the lawn, broke into a canter toward the woods.

  Elisha smiled up at Roscoe. “EP thinks that boy is ready ratoo,” he said. “Right on the bibbity bing.”

  The Gossip Begins

  Six days after the funeral Roscoe walked up the wide, curving path to the Tivoli swimming pool where Veronica said she’d be if he came over before noon. The walkway was sculpted with gray stone that Duke Willard had carted down from the Helderbergs in his wagons when Ariel leveled part of the south meadow to build tennis courts for his wife, Millicent, the mother of Elisha. Roscoe and Elisha played on the courts as boys, but after Ariel caught Millicent naked with her tennis teacher and divorced her, she ceased being mentioned in the family, and tennis as a pastime went to hell. Elisha, in turn, excavated the courts out of existence, building in their place the swimming pool Veronica wanted. Roscoe remembered two suckling pigs rotating on the spit, and the famous oyster roast catered by Jack Rosenstein for Veronica’s pool opening, where Elisha announced that roast oysters were the next-best thing to money.

  Roscoe did not think so highly of money, the principal difference, after not having Veronica as a wife, between himself and Elisha. Roscoe made money from the Stanwix brewery he inherited, also from politics; but money was never a reason for him to get out of bed. As to Veronica, a reason for any man to get into bed, there she was, sitting by her pool, all alone with the new totality of her fortune, sleek in her rattan lawn chair, long legs elevated, feet in open-toed straw sandals, only her tanned arms and legs getting the noonday sun. Her straw picture hat shaded her face and neck, and her white sundress shielded the rest, except where it dipped at her breasts and fell away at one thigh. Remember her in that white tank suit at the pool opening? It can still bring Roscoe low, thinking how close he came to having this woman for his own. Now he has another chance; also another chance to be brought low. Elisha stood beside her that day at the pool opening, wearing his dinner jacket over bathing trunks, proclaiming her the Empress of Water. Look at her now, even in grief exuding the poise of a queen, while Roscoe, the serf, trembles with subjection. It’s good he no longer needs her.

  Veronica smiled as Roscoe sat in the lawn chair facing her, that smile bidding him welcome, her head tipped at the angle of affection which he read as being for him alone. But think, Roscoe: isn’t that how she welcomes the world?

  “You found me,” she said.

  “Remind me, did I lose you? Lately?”

  “You’re always in my life.”

  “How’s your condition?”

  “Perfectly dreadful and getting worse. A communiqué from my sister.”

  She handed Roscoe a fold of papers that lay on a table beside her: a writ of habeas corpus from State Supreme Court, through the law firm of Voss, Gorman, and Kiley. Roscoe read: “People ex Relator Pamela Morgan Yusupov, plaintiff, against Veronica Morgan Fitzgibbon, defendant . . . We command you that you have the body of Gilbert David Rivera Yusupov, by you imprisoned and detained, as it is said, together with time and cause of such imprisonment and detention . . . before Supreme Court at a Special Term in the County Court House in Albany,” etc. And from Pamela’s petition: “. . . your petitioner, as mother of Gilbert David Rivera Yusupov, an infant of the age of twelve years, makes application on behalf of said infant for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner further shows she is the mother of said infant, having given birth to him on July 12, 1933, that his father is the late Danilo Yusupov . . .”

  “Is this the first she admitted she’s Gilby’s mother?”

  “As far as I know. She called Elisha months ago and said she wanted Gilby back. He told her that was absurd; nobody was taking Gilby. He thought it was a desperation scheme to get money and that we wouldn’t hear any more.”

  “He never mentioned this to me. Was she his enemy closing in?”

  “Perhaps she was. Will you handle the case, Roscoe?”

  “Me? I’m rusty on trial work, Vee.”
He slapped the legal papers with the back of his hand. “She’s got Marcus Gorman, best criminal lawyer in town. They were made for each other.”

  “Will you please take the case?”

  “What does Gilby know about this?”

  “He doesn’t even know Pamela’s his mother.”

  “Oh boy. Who knows?”

  “You, me, and Elisha. It was always our best-kept secret. Now everybody will know. Will you, will you take the case?”

  “Get a solid trial lawyer, Vee. Get Frank Noonan.”

  “Gilby loves you and I don’t care how rusty you are. You’re smarter than twenty lawyers.”

  “If I was smart I’d have taken the case already.”

  Veronica leaned forward, her face inches from Roscoe.

  “You took it when I handed you the papers. You play dumb when you think it’s the smart thing to do.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel dumber than I am?”

  “No, but see how smart you are to think so?”

  Veronica, Pamela, and their late brother, Lawrence, were children of Julia Sullivan, a poor Irish Catholic girl from Arbor Hill, and David Morgan, son and heir of a German immigrant peddler who built a fortune making scouring powder.

  Pamela Marion Morgan, the second child of Julia and David, gave birth in 1933 to a son in a lying-in clinic in the elite Condado section of San Juan, Puerto Rico, near the beachfront house she won in a divorce settlement from her second husband, a Puerto Rican sugar baron. She lived the last five months of her pregnancy there with Esmerelda Rivera, a Puerto Rican cook and maid of temperate personality who, by the end of the fifth month, had been transformed into a quivering but well-paid wreck by the rages of Doña Pamela. Obsessively secret about her pregnancy, Pamela went out rarely, and wore a black wig when she did. She received few visitors, among them her wealthy fiancé, Danilo Yusupov, an exiled Russian prince who, like Pamela, was thrice-wed; both he and she famous for being married splashily and often. Pamela’s festive blond hair and Yusupov’s mustache were recurring images in New York society pages.

  Veronica, Elisha, and Roscoe also visited Pamela, the first time to have her sign the agreement Roscoe had drawn up, and to arrange its filing with San Juan’s birth registry. It legitimized Veronica and Elisha’s custody of this child of anonymous mother, without Pamela’s yielding her right to repossess the child. Veronica went to Puerto Rico a second time, with Roscoe but without Elisha, whose duties as Lieutenant Governor kept him in Albany, to register the child’s birth and bring him home. The boy was given the first name of Gilbert for John Gilbert, the silent-film star with whom Pamela claimed to have exchanged passions after he broke up with Garbo; middle name of David, in memory of his grandfather; and fraudulent surname of Rivera, expropriated from Pamela’s maid.

  When Pamela told Veronica she was having the child—“I don’t want it but won’t abort it, do you want to raise it?”—Veronica read this as Pamela’s sympathy for Veronica’s loss of her five-year-old daughter, Rosemary, in 1928, and for Veronica’s ongoing inability to conceive another child. Then, in the beach house after the birth, Veronica watched Pamela, propped in bed on pillows, eyes exhausted, her dark-yellow hair a bag of strings, her face flushed and blotched, throwing peeled hard-boiled eggs at the overweight poodle she saw by appointment. The poodle caught the eggs on the fly or chased them like tennis balls and swallowed them without a chew. Pamela smiled with her bee-stung lips, painted for her visitors, and said with great verve to Veronica and Roscoe, “Thank God, thank God I’m no longer a mother,” and threw the poodle another egg. Veronica, ecstatic with the infant in her arms, understood then that motherhood would be a splotch on Pamela’s social canvas and, should the splotch become an out-of-wedlock scandal, her marriage to the royal Yusupov would not happen. Also, Prince Yusupov, with two children from other marriages, had only contempt for this bastard son, and wanted no more children. Veronica clutched Gilby closer as she realized this. Then she and Roscoe spirited him out of Pamela’s life and onto Elisha’s private plane back to Albany.

  “First they take my beautiful daughter, then my husband, now they want my son,” Veronica said to Roscoe at poolside.

  “The law may say he’s Pamela’s son.”

  “She gave him up. We have it in writing.”

  “It wasn’t a legal adoption, Vee. All you have in writing is permission to raise Gilby. She could always change her mind. Mothers have clout.”

  “After twelve years? I’m his only mother.”

  “That’s what the court hearing will be about.”

  “No, the hearing will be about money, what Pamela’s always about. The Prince just died and Pamela wants custody as the widowed mother so she can claim support for the child Yusupov fathered.”

  “Did Elisha know this?”

  “He thought she’d sue us if she got frantic. Gilby also has a trust fund with a hundred thousand in it, and Elisha made it Pamela-proof. But if she gets wind of it she’ll try to tap into that too.”

  “Does she ever see Gilby?”

  “She sent him a train set last Christmas. ‘From your loving Aunt Pammy.’ He outgrew trains three years ago.”

  “Do you see her?”

  “Not in years. You know how close we were as children, but when boys came along I was the enemy. She bedded every man she fancied. She was always after Elisha.”

  “Did she nail him?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Me?” said Roscoe. “How would I know?”

  “Even if you knew you’d never say,” Veronica said. “This is so unbelievably awful. Elisha not dead two weeks and she tries to steal my boy.”

  “She thinks you’re vulnerable.”

  “God, Roscoe, I can’t abide any more of this.” Veronica took off her hat, tossed her hair, and smiled. “So. So. How are you and Trish-trash doing?”

  “I thought I got rid of her, but she came flying back like a boomerang.”

  “She seemed very civilized at the wake.”

  “A polite pause between psychotic eruptions.”

  “Why do you bother with her?”

  “Do I have to explain that?”

  “You shouldn’t be so needy.”

  “You don’t know about need, Veronica . . .”

  “Oh, don’t I?”

  “. . . or the charm of trash.”

  “Elisha was amused by trash.”

  “Really? I never noticed that in him.”

  “Of course you didn’t, you two trash collectors.”

  “Did you swim yet this morning?” he asked.

  “Not yet. Do you want to swim? You have trunks in the pool house.”

  “Do you want to swim? That’s the question.”

  “We’re in this deep water together now, aren’t we?”

  She stood and took off her sundress. Contoured sublimely by her clinging tank suit, solid black for mourning under water, she walked to the pool’s edge and dove in, Olympically. Roscoe watched her swim, then walked to the pool house, shed his clothing, and pulled on his bathing trunks, the snake’s new skin. Slithy Roscoe: protector of widow and child, surrogate husband without privilege, barrister and sleuth for hire, quester for buried love and answers to vexing secrets, what a useful tub-of-guts you’ve become. He blinked as he stepped into the sunlight, exposing his Homeric girth to her inspection.

  “Are you prepared to gaze upon this pale orb of corpulence?” he asked.

  “You seem to be getting thin,” she said, treading water.

  “Your lies are like candied kumquats,” he said. “But neither largeness nor love can be hid.” He bounced twice on the diving board, then cut the water with a graceful arc, pleased with his boldness, and saying in midair, “We must all to the wars—again,” and with pain stabbing him in some unidentified internal organ, he sank beneath a great wave of his own making.

  A Fitzgibbon kitchen maid brought to poolside the iced tea and crustless ham and chicken sandwiches Veronica had requested. On the tray with
the food was the Albany Sentinel, which had arrived by courier with a cover note from Gladys Meehan: “Dear Veronica, This came into the office this morning with the other newspapers, and I thought you should see it as soon as possible. If there’s anything I can do, please call.”

  Roscoe unfolded the paper, which was open to the page with the “Ghost Rider,” a gossip column, and he and Veronica read together the item Gladys had outlined in red pencil:

  COURTROOM DRAMA! The Mayor’s kid brother, Gilby Fitzgibbon, may only be his cousin! Mayor’s mother, Veronica Fitzgibbon, is being sued by her socialite sister, Pamela Morgan Yusupov, for custody of Gilby, who, she sez, is her boy. Coming atop of sudden death of hubby Elisha Fitzgibbon, this is doubly troubly for Mrs. Fitz . . . Fitzgibbon death also a big loss for local Dems . . . Remember Mayor Goddard dying strangely in Havana in 1928?. . . Speaking of grave matters, Ghost Rider hears a recent sudden death from natural causes looks like suicide!

  “How did they get that?” Veronica asked.

  “Her lawyer had to file the petition with the county clerk, and some reporter found it, or was tipped off. Nasty but legal.”

  “You think they’re talking about Elisha’s suicide?”

  “I think I’ll visit the Sentinel and inquire.”

  He wrapped two chicken sandwiches in a napkin and ate them on the drive to the Sentinel. The gossip boiled his juices, and by the time he reached Newspaper Row at Green and Beaver Streets he was shaping the curses he’d heap upon Roy Flinn, the publisher. The Flinns were cascading back into Roscoe’s life: first Arlene, then dead Artie, now Roy.

  Roscoe climbed the stairs to the loft where the weekly Sentinel had been founded by Warren Skaggs, a printer, in 1909, and thrived in the era of Republican control of the city. Skaggs did city printing business for the Republicans and also started printing, then backing, the Albany baseball pool in 1920 as a neighborhood venture with a fifteen-dollar weekly prize. Popularity grew, prizes swelled to nine hundred dollars, then three thousand, and the pool’s take kept escalating.