Very Old Bones by William Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    “Six hundred,” Morty said.
    “That’s wages. Plus the bets, three eighty, that’s nine eighty.”
    Morty fumbled with his wallet, took out his cash. “Here. It’s all I got with me,” he said. He yelped with new pain when he moved. Billy took the money, counted it.
    “Count it,” said Morty.
    “I’m countin’.”
    “Four hundred, am I right?”
    “Three sixty, three eighty, four.”
    “That wacky bastard Rizzo,” Morty said. “They’ll lock him up now. Put him in a fucking dungeon.”
    “If they find him,” said Sport.
    “He’s too stupid to hide out,” Morty said. “Stupidest man I ever know. He ain’t got the brains God gave a banana.”
    “He knows somethin’,” Sport said. “He knows how to shoot you in the leg.”
    “How was his broad?” Billy asked.
    “She wasn’t his broad.”
    “He thought she was.”
    “She was hot,” Morty said. “Hot for everybody. Gimme his gun.”
    “Whataya gonna do with it?” Sport asked.
    “Give it to the cops.”
    “I didn’t call the cops,” Sport said.
    “They’ll turn up at the hospital.”
    “Cops’ll want witnesses,” Billy said. “You got any?”
    “You saw,” Morty said.
    “Who, me?” Billy said.
    “Who’s your friend there?” Morty said, looking at me.
    “I never saw him before,” Billy said.
    “What’s your name, bud?”
    “Bud,” I said.
    “All I can remember is my money,” Billy said.
    “I was out in the kitchen when it happened,” Sport said.
    “You bastards.”
    “Pay the man, Morty,” Sport said.
    “I got no more cash,” Morty said. “You come to the game, Billy, I’ll back you for what I owe you.” He turned to Sport. “He comes to the game I’ll back
him for what I owe him.”
    “You on the level?” asked Billy.
    “Would I lie at a time like this?”
    “You only lie when you move your lips. Where you playin’?”
    “Tuesday eight o’clock, Win Castle’s house.”
    “Win Castle, the insurance guy?”
    “He asked me to run a game for him. He likes to play but he needs players. You play pretty good.”
    “You’ll back me?” Billy asked.
    “Up to what I owe you,” Morty said.
    “Here’s the ambulance,” Sport said.
    After they packed Morty off to the hospital I told Billy, “You get me into that card game and I’ll make sure you get your money from Morty.” Then I explained
my talent with cards to him, the first time I ever told anybody about it. Giselle knew I gambled but she didn’t know there was no risk involved, that I could cut aces and deal anybody
anything. I told Billy how I’d practiced for months in front of the mirror until I could no longer see myself dealing seconds, or bottom cards, and that now it was second nature. Billy was
mesmerized. He never expected this out of me.
    “They shoot guys they catch doin’ that,” Billy said.
    “They shoot guys anyway. Haven’t you noticed?”
    “You really good? You know I can spot cheaters.”
    “Come over to the house I’ll show you. I can’t show you in public.”
    When we got to Colonie Street Billy was vigorously aloof, refused to look at anything in the parlor in a way that would give the thing significance. He came here only when he was obliged to, and
left as soon as possible. Now he let his gaze fall on the chandeliers, and sketches, and ancestor paintings, the framed old photos, dried flowers, the bric-a-brac on the mantel, the ancient
furniture, the threadbare rugs, and the rest of the antique elegance, and it was all dead to him. He sat in the leather chair by the window where Peter always sat to watch the traffic on Colonie
Street, took a sip of the beer I gave him, and then I told him, “You look like your father.”
    “They always told me that,” he said.
    “I met him just once, in 1934, when your grandmother died. I have some old photos of him upstairs. He’s in a baseball uniform, playing with Chattanooga in the Southern
League.”
    “He managed that team,” Billy said.
    “I know.