Roscoe by William Kennedy Page A

Roy.”
    “Goddard’s death was never explained and you know it.”
    “He died of an infection.”
    “After he fell out of a car.”
    “He was drunk,” Roscoe said. “Drunks fall out of cars. Drunks fall out of bed.”
    “A lot of people thought it was strange.”
    “I find it strange that you bring it up in context with Elisha and then add that insidious suicide item.”
    “That item has nothing to do with Elisha.”
    “Who, then?”
    “I can’t reveal that.”
    Roscoe grabbed a handful of Roy’s shirtfront, shoved him against a wall. “Are you invoking constitutional privilege here, Roy? Or claiming protection under the sacrosanctity of
journalistic ethics? What are you talking about?”
    “I can’t say.”
    Roscoe slid Roy up the wall with one hand and held him there, the move pulling out Roy’s shirttail and tightening his collar into a noose.
    “You’re a lying stringbean traitor. You were told no politics.”
    “Let go of me, Roscoe,” Roy said, a windpipe croak.
    “Why did you print that, Roy? Tell me why.”
    “You people are in trouble,” Roy said.
    Roscoe slid Roy down the wall and released his shirt. “Trouble?”
    “You’ll probably beat it like you always do,” Roy said, righting his collar, “but you’re in for a dogfight.”
    “With what dogs?”
    “The Governor’s people know Elisha owned a block of whorehouses. That’s just the beginning.”
    Roscoe’s right elbow suddenly bent upward, and his fist, from a position of rest, whomped Roy’s face with three rapid snaps of the full forearm, Roy’s head hitting the wall and
rebounding into each new whomp.
    “There, Roy,” Roscoe said as Roy stumbled sideways to lean on a desk, “there you have your headlines. Lawyer punches out editor for maligning his friend. Genuine
news.”
    As he left, Roscoe saluted the two reporters, who were out of their chairs, trying to decide how to rescue Roy. “See you later, fellas,” he said, reveling in the vision of
Roy’s blood and licking his own bleeding Purple Heart, his big knuckle stabbed by Roy’s hostile fangs. He remembered his father’s commandment on justice—Never let an enemy
go unpunished—and he thought, I did all right, Pa, didn’t I?
    Roscoe drove twenty-five minutes to Patsy’s summer place to give him the news. It was situated on a Helderberg mountainside that gave a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree
vista of Patsy’s Garden of Eden, the city and county of Albany. Patsy’s father had built a cedar-shingled summer bungalow on the land when he was sheriff. When the old man died, Patsy
winterized the place, added a second story, built outbuildings to breed fighting chickens and a pit where they could fight. In the years after the Party took City Hall, the house became the summer
hub of political action. Principal Albany Democrats made regular pilgrimages here to listen to Patsy the oracle tell them what they should think tomorrow.
    Wally Mitchell, an ex-heavyweight who knocked down Jim Jeffries and was now Patsy’s driver and bodyguard, unlocked the chain across the driveway and waved Roscoe in. Such security had been
the norm since a homegrown gang of bootleggers tried to shoot Bindy and later kidnapped his son, Charlie Boy McCall. Roscoe saw Bindy’s custom-made, bulletproof black Packard, and he parked
alongside it. He stepped out into the sunshine of a clear August afternoon and could see everything, from the beginning of the patchwork fruited plain at the base of the mountains, all the way in
to the tower of Albany’s splendid City Hall and the Al Smith State Office Building, Albany’s modest skyscraper. He saw the shadow of a cloud moving fast across the plain below, but in
the clear, blue-white sky he could find no cloud. He saw Patsy and Bindy near the chicken coops and went to them.
    “How fare the chickens of this world?” Roscoe asked.
    “Chickens is chickens,” Patsy said. “Fight ’em and eat ’em.”
    “The received wisdom of