Roscoe Read Online Free

street they heard bells gonging in several churches, trains whistling down at Union Station, the carillon clanging in the City Hall tower, the air-raid siren wailing for the last time.
They saw trolleys at a standstill, traffic grid locked at State and Pearl, clots of hundreds, soon to be tens of thousands, moving into pandemonium. They walked up State and tried the bar at the
DeWitt Clinton Hotel, but saboteurs had locked it.
    “The Kenmore won’t close,” Roscoe said. “The bells of Mahoney’s cash register are the opposite of patriotic.”
    They walked back down State Street, the majestic hill of Albany, this very old city in which they both owned uncommon stock and psychic shares. No merchant, no owner of real estate, no peddler
or lawyer or bartender, no bum or pickpocket or bookie or politician in the city, not even a stranger walking the streets for the first time, was aloof from the power of these two men if they chose
to exercise it; their power, of course, deriving from Patsy, the man without whom . . . and we all know the rest.
    They walked over Lodge Street past St. Mary’s Catholic Church, past the five-story Albany County Courthouse, whose ninety-seven janitors were all hired on Roscoe’s okay. Cars
clattered by dragging tin cans, grown men marched along pounding dishpans, and Roscoe and Elisha followed them down Columbia Street toward Pearl, where youths were throwing firecrackers at the
antic crowds jamming the intersection.
    They entered the side door of the Kenmore Hotel, eternal center of mirth and jazz and women and ready-to-wear myth. Roscoe regularly left his blues here, an uncounted legion of college girls
left their virginity here, Bunny Berigan left his cornet here and Bob Mahoney gave it as a gift to Marcus Gorman, and Jack Diamond left the place an enduringly raffish reputation. In short, life
without the Kenmore was not life; and at this moment it was noisy and overcrowded, the back bar three deep with revelers, every table full in the Rainbo Room nightclub. Roscoe and Elisha shoved
their way toward The Tavern, the Kenmore’s long barroom, where Bob Mahoney was pouring drink as fast as he could move. Roscoe ordered gin and also asked Mahoney to fill his pocket flask for
the long night ahead.
    “They been here since noontime waiting for the surrender,” Mahoney said. “Another two hours like this, I’ll be out of beer. I’ve never seen a drinking day like this
ever, and I include Armistice Day, 1918.”
    “Nobody drank in Albany on Armistice Day,” Elisha said. “I was here. We all had pork chops and went to bed.”
    “Weren’t you in the army?” Mahoney asked.
    “I was making too much money. Do you have any ale?”
    “I do.”
    “Breedy ale don’t kitty or cut pips,” Elisha said.
    “What? What’d you say?” Mahoney asked.
    “He’ll have gin with an ale chaser,” Roscoe said. “Did you call Stanwix about a beer delivery?”
    “I called every brewery in four counties. Either they’re closed or they won’t handle any orders. Imagine no beer with a mob like this in the joint?”
    “I’ll call and get you a delivery,” Roscoe said.
    “You do and you drink free till Christmas.”
    “Mahoney, you know how to touch a man’s heart.”
    Glenn Miller was on the jukebox—At Last, my love has come along—and two dozen soldiers and sailors at the bar were randomly kissing and fondling young and not-so-young women.
Civilian males, one flashing his Ruptured Duck, the discharge button that proved he’d also served, stood by for seconds, or thirds. Roscoe recognized a petite woman who worked in his
building, who always offered up a dry little smile in the elevator; and here she stood in a prolonged, sloppy kiss, her arms and a provocative stockinged leg wrapped around a sailor.
    “This reminds me,” Roscoe said to Elisha. “Shouldn’t you call your wife?”
    “Curb your salacious tongue.”
    “I mean no insult, old man, but we mustn’t be without our