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William Kennedy

Roscoe

Roscoe in the Wind

That year an ill wind blew over the city and threatened to destroy flowerpots, family fortunes, reputations, true love, and several types of virtue. Roscoe, moving along the road, felt the wind at his back and heard the windblown voices.

“Do you know where the ill wind comes from, Roscoe?” the voices asked him.

“No,” he said, “but I’m not sure the wind is really ill. Its illness may be overrated, maybe even fraudulent. ”

“Do people think there’s such a thing as a good ill wind?” they asked.

“Of course,” he answered. “And when it comes it billows the sails of our city, it nourishes our babies, comforts our aliens, gives purpose to our dead, tranquilizes our useless, straightens our crooked, and vice versa. The ill wind is a nonesuch and demands close attention. ”

“Why should we believe what you say?”

“As I am incapable of truth,” Roscoe said, “so am I in capable of lying, which is, as all know, the secret of the truly successful politician. ”

“Are you a politician, Roscoe?”

“I refuse to answer on grounds that it might degrade or incriminate me. ”

The Spheres of War and Peace

Roscoe Owen Conway presided at Albany Democratic Party headquarters, on the eleventh floor of the State Bank building, the main stop for Democrats on the way to heaven. Headquarters occupied three large offices: one where Roscoe, secretary and second in command of the Party, received supplicants and debtors, one where Bart Merrigan and Joey Manucci controlled the flow of visitors and phone calls, and one for the safe which, when put here, was the largest in the city outside of a bank vault. Of late, no money was kept in it, only deceptive Democratic financial data to feed to the Governor’s investigators, who had been swooping down on the Party’s files since 1942, the year the Governor-elect vowed to destroy Albany Democrats.

Money, instead of going into the great safe, went into Roscoe’s top drawer, where he would put it without counting it when a visitor such as Philly Fillipone, who sold produce to the city and county, handed him a packet of cash an inch thick, held by a rubber band.

“Maybe you better count it, make sure there’s no mistake,” Philly said.

Roscoe did not acknowledge that Philly had raised the possibility of shorting the Party, even by accident. He dropped the cash into the open drawer, where Philly could see a pile of twenties. Democratic business was done with twenties. Then Philly asked, “Any change in how we work this year, Roscoe?”

“No,” Roscoe said, “same as usual. ” And Philly went away.

At his desk by the door Joey Manucci was recording, on the lined pad where he kept track of visitors in their order of arrival, the names of the men who had just walked in, Jimmy Givney and Cutie LaRue. Joey was printing each name, for he could not write script or read it. Bart Merrigan spoke to the two arrivals. Merrigan, who had gone into the army with Roscoe and Patsy McCall in 1917, was built like a bowling pin, an ex-boxer and a man of great energy whom Roscoe trusted with his life. Merrigan leaned into Roscoe’s office.