Roscoe by William Kennedy Read Free Book Online

wasn’t the word. Roscoe understood how Elisha could have worked up a quiet, arm’s-length love for Gladys, a woman of durable good looks that fluctuated with
perms and marcels not always in her own best interest; sturdy, busty, feminine, always wore pumps, and everyone, not only Elisha, monitored her legs. She’d gone the novena route for years and
tried to keep the commandments. But going with Mac the cop must have led to repetitive spiels in the Saturday-night confessional: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; I did it again with that same
fella. She dressed modestly in fashions that didn’t change much, and Elisha once said her smile could warm the north wind. She’d never married, and Mac wasn’t a prospect.
Mac’s wife had left town years ago, but he wouldn’t divorce her. Also, that subterranean love Gladys and Elisha shared, a silent love presumably without consequence, had probably
spoiled her for others.
    “That kiss,” Roscoe said, “that was the extent of it?”
    “No. He also said, ‘If I ever told you what I felt, you’d put your hat on and tell me to go to hell. But you know it anyway.’ And I did know. I always knew. I’m so
glad I was here, Roscoe. I fell asleep after the whiskey, but I remember asking was he going away anyplace, and he said, ‘If I leave you’ll know it.’ ”
    “Do you want to go home and sleep?” Roscoe asked.
    “The last time I fell asleep Elisha died. Besides, I should call the undertaker.”
    “That’s Veronica’s job.”
    “I always make his travel arrangements. Aren’t you going to call Veronica?”
    “I’ll go get her when O.B. gets here.”
    “You can start over with her now,” Gladys said.
    “Start over.”
    “She’ll expect it. So will everybody else.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Really, Roscoe, do you know how transparent you are sometimes?”
    Roscoe heard car doors closing. Oswald Brian Conway, his younger brother and Albany’s chief of police, unshaven and in his baggy gray sharkskin, stepped off the elevator with two of his
Night Squad boys behind him, Bo Linder and Joe Spivak. Roscoe asked the detectives to wait outside and let no one in. O.B. went directly to Elisha and stared at him.
    “What happened to him?”
    “He decided his life was over.”
    “I don’t get it,” O.B. said.
    “Nobody does,” Roscoe said. “Who’s the coroner on duty?”
    “Nolan. I didn’t call him yet.”
    “Don’t. We’ll do this alone for now. It goes down as a natural death.”
    “Are we sure it’s a suicide and not a murder?”
    “Gladys was here all night, working with him.”
    “How are you, Gladys?” O.B. said. “You didn’t murder him, did you?”
    “Not even in my dreams. Is Mac coming?” Mac was O.B.’s partner.
    “He must be in bed,” O.B. said. “He went off duty at four-thirty. Does Patsy know?”
    “No,” said Roscoe. “I can’t use the phone for this. Send one of your boys up to tell him. But don’t mention suicide. And don’t, for God’s sake, let
anybody leak it to the press. I don’t want Veronica hearing it on the radio.”
    “When are you getting her?”
    “Now. You want a lift home, Gladys?”
    “I suppose so,” Gladys said.
    “You go get Veronica,” O.B. said. “That’s priority. I’ll see Gladys gets home. This thing stinks out loud.”
    “It’ll get louder,” Roscoe said. He picked up his suit coat and went out.
    Roscoe and Veronica
    Everybody knew he was insane about her when they were young. Insane. Pressing, pressing, pressing her to marry him. But Elisha dazzled her with his razzmatazz and the family
fortune he had regenerated. And Veronica, with sweet pets and kisses, told Roscoe one of her lovely lies: “My darling Ros, you love me so much you’ll absolutely die if I marry you, but
Eli will die if I don’t marry him.” Roscoe remembered trying to decide which train he should walk in front of; but he got over that and tried not to blame Veronica for defecting. She
was no