Saratoga Longshot

by Stephen Dobyns

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Tip your hat and meet everyman detective, Charlie Bradshaw, hero of Saratoga Springs. It's 1975, and shy, gentle small-town cop Charlie Bradshaw celebrates an unwelcome 41st birthday with a trip to New York to search Sam Cheney, the son of his high school sweetheart and a small-time drug dealer. What begins as an intriguing mystery spirals out of control as rumpled Charlie quickly finds out that Sam is out of his depth - and he's not the only one.

Release date: August 1, 2013

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 167

Sample

CHARLIE BRADSHAW WAS LEAVING Saratoga. It was his birthday and he was going to New York City. Charlie was forty-one years old.


The Adirondack Trailways bus pulled away from the Spa City Diner, turned right onto South Broadway and headed out of town,
gathering speed past the Washington, then the Lincoln Baths. Trying to get comfortable, Charlie shifted in his seat and banged
his knee against the ashtray attached to the seat in front of him.


The fact of his birthday and the trip to New York were coincidental. His birthday, however, made the trip seem momentous,
as if it were a present he was giving himself: something he had deserved a long time and at last decided to take.


He hoped it would be spring in New York. In Saratoga, 180 miles north, it was still winter. There had been flurries earlier
that morning and it had snowed over the weekend: mostly wet snow which had melted, but Charlie could still see patches of
white between the small pines of the Saratoga Tree Nursery.


It was 9:15 Monday morning, April 7. Charlie hadn’t been in New York since the summer of 1960. His memory of the city was
a memory of warmth.


Shifting again, Charlie bumped the man in the aisle seat. The man had refused to move when Charlie got on, forcing Charlie
to climb over him. He was about forty-five and had large pink jowls that looked like the intermediate point between a silk
purse and a sow’s ear. A gray golfing cap was pulled down over his forehead and a gray raincoat was buttoned up to his neck.
Charlie imagined he wore no shirt.


Accepting the bump as a kind of introduction, the man asked, “You live in Saratoga?” And continuing before Charlie could answer: “You know, I must of come through from Warrensburg a hundred times. Always meant to stop at one of those big
hotels. Put my feet up and buy a cigar. They must be torn down now.”


“There’re some left,” said Charlie. His mother had worked as a maid at the Grand Union Hotel until it closed in 1952.

“Should of kept them open, you know, as a kind of monument to the past. Always regretted I never stopped. Of course I saw
the movie several times.”


“Pardon me?” Charlie’s attention had drifted to the countryside and its architecture, which, along Route 9, consisted of motels,
trailer parks and a few split-levels: the seedlings of a suburbia moving up from Albany.


“Saratoga Trunk, there’s greatness for you. I remember sitting through it time and again one Saturday afternoon as a kid until the usher
came along and kicked me out. They should of kept the hotel just because of the movie. Show the world the very rooms where
Clint Maroon and Clio Dulaine slept.”


The man from Warrensburg inserted an index finger between his neck and the collar of his raincoat, pulled, then puffed out
his large pink cheeks. They looked so soft that Charlie wanted to touch them.


The war finished the hotels. There was no racing between 1942 and 1946, and the United States Hotel was seized by the city
for back taxes. The Grand Union dragged along, opening only for the races each August. Then Senator Kefauver’s investigation
of organized crime led to the shutdown of the gambling casinos in 1951. The Grand Union closed the following year, and Charlie’s
mother returned to full-time waitressing.


She had been his waitress that morning. Either he didn’t know or had forgotten she was working at the Spa City Diner. He should
have brought a Thermos. It always embarrassed him to be waited on by his mother.


Mabel Bradshaw was a thin woman who kept her short, gray hair in tight, immaculate curls. Over the years her memory of being
a maid had become distorted so that in talking to her one would think she had been a guest.


The man from Warrensburg nudged Charlie. “There’s a girls’ school too, right?” And again he didn’t wait for an answer: “Must of been a great place to grow up. Saratoga, I mean.
Think of the broads.”


Charlie ignored him. He preferred to think about New York, not Saratoga Springs. He saw himself embarking upon a new part
of his life and wanted to keep his mind on the future. Despite this, he found himself thinking of Gladys Cheney. Not the Gladys
he had seen on Saturday when she had begged him to go to New York—an overweight, potato-like woman with no teeth. He saw her
as he had seen her first in tenth grade: blond with frizzy hair like Little Orphan Annie, and large soft breasts that made
it hard for her to play baseball.


It had been Mrs. Cavendish, his English teacher, who had first brought his attention to the girl by saying, “Someday a gentleman
will come along and draw the lady out of Gladys.”


Charlie had missed the pun, but at the age of fifteen he still hoped to be a gentleman. As he thought about it, he recalled
that Gladys had been toothless when she returned to Saratoga in 1960 with her ten-year-old son Sammy.


He considered asking his companion if he had known a Gladys Cheney in Warrensburg in the 50’s, but saw that the man had tilted
back his seat and drawn his golf cap over his eyes.


The bus was three quarters full and smelled of cleaning fluid. People were dozing or talking quietly. A few were reading the
New York Times, as if to prepare themselves. There was a general hawking and coughing. Signs over the front window told him that his “operator”
was J. Stone and that the bus’s number was 62606.


Charlie looked fondly at these people. He was a kind, inquisitive man who liked children. He was happy to be going to New
York. Deciding to read for a while, he took a book from his pocket. Its full title was The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, the Noted Desperado of the Southwest, Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood Made His Name
a Terror in New Mexico, Arizona & Northern Mexico, a Faithful and Interesting Narrative by Pat F. Garrett, Sheriff of Lincoln
Co., N.M., by Whom He Was Finally Hunted Down & Captured by Killing Him.


Charlie knew the book well, but instead of opening it he left it in his lap and looked out the window.

The bus was approaching the bridge over the Mohawk River, which formed the boundary between Saratoga and Albany counties.
Less than ten miles to Albany now. It wasn’t much of a bridge, just a rise in the highway over 150 yards of water. For Charlie
those people who lived south of the river were southerners, people who lived a little differently.


Charlie hoped he would have time for sightseeing in New York. He wanted to visit Water Street and see where Sportsmen’s Hall
had stood over 100 years before. Kit Burns had entertained his customers with battles between rats and terriers, while a man
called Jack the Rat would bite off the heads of mice for a dime and live rats for a quarter. The Slaughter Housers had hung
out at Sportsmen’s Hall, as had the Swamp Angels, the Border Gang, the Daybreak Boys and others.


As he named these gangs to himself, Charlie looked out at the rows of tract houses which formed the northern boundary of the
capitol district. In the front yard of one, he saw a small boy urging a dog to pull a red wagon by pointing a gun at it: a
green water pistol.


Charlie raised his book again and shifted in his seat, still trying to get comfortable. Turning, he bumped the armrest, then
winced as the butt of his own gun, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, dug into his hip.


ALTHOUGH CHARLIE HAD BEEN in the Port Authority Bus Terminal before, it seemed unfamiliar. His bus had arrived at 12:35 and disgorged him onto the
sloping floor of the lower concourse. He was now twisting through the crowd trying to find his way out while avoiding a thin
man in yellow robes who wanted to talk to him. Charlie’s only comfort came from the Hoffritz cutlery store. At least he had seen their ads.


When he emerged onto Eighth Avenue, he was pleased to discover that it was fifteen degrees warmer than Saratoga; and even
the sky, while not quite blue, was certainly trying. Springish. Fifteen years ago, when Charlie had come to New York for what
he thought of as a last fling before his marriage, he had stayed at the YMCA’s Sloane House on 34th Street. He saw no reason
not to go there again.


Pleased with the weather and excited about being in New York, Charlie turned into the crowd of pedestrians and headed south.
He walked slowly and was constantly jostled by people who hurried past him the way water divides around a rock. In his right
hand he carried a small, green plaid canvas suitcase that he had bought at the Big N on Sunday.


Charlie Bradshaw was not a noticeable man. At least four inches under six feet, he was becoming stout: cherubic, his wife
said, a woman who did not like cherubs. His light brown hair had begun to recede. Not wishing to be accused of hiding it,
he brushed it straight back. At the moment, it was hidden by a tan porkpie hat with a red tartan band.


His face in profile was a series of forward curves; from the front it was round and thoughtful with large blue eyes. It was
a smooth face that easily turned pink from cold weather, physical exertion or simple embarrassment. It was neither youthful
nor handsome. “Presentable” was the word Charlie used.


His clothes were permanent press: gray slacks, an olive green raincoat over a dark gray sport coat and white shirt. His tie
had wide red, yellow and orange stripes. Both it and the hat had been chosen especially for the trip, as had the brown wing-tipped
shoes which he thought of as his wedding-funeral-and-court-appearance shoes.


As he passed cheap clothing stores and pizza counters, Charlie thought he hadn’t seen this many people in all the time since
his last visit to New York. It was like being caught in the crowd leaving the races, except that the crowd didn’t disperse
but stayed with him block after block. He knew if he adapted his pace to the people around him, he would have fewer collisions, and his bag wouldn’t beleaguer the knees of the
passersby. He continued to amble.


Charlie sometimes thought that his most important faculty was memory, that much of his pleasure came from recollecting the
past, his own and others’. Occasionally he would even accuse himself of doing something only to translate it into the more
durable and controllable state of memory. And he knew that might be one of the reasons he had come to New York; that beyond
the problems of Gladys Cheney and her son, he had felt the need on the summit of his forty-first birthday to feed and refurbish
a memory grown tired of Saratoga Springs.


Walking down Eighth Avenue, he could feel his mind drawing in sensations like a plant responding to light. He saw that the
New Yorker Hotel was closed and gawked at the New Madison Square Garden. He found himself expecting to see Sam Cheney, had
even felt some surprise at not seeing him at the bus station. Not that Sam knew he was coming or would meet him if he did;
but since he was the cause of his trip, it seemed that Sam had increased in stature or that there were more of him.


He had last seen Sam Cheney on a summer afternoon in 1972. Charlie had just turned onto Caroline Street from Broadway, and
saw Sam emerging from the Tin and Lint: a basement bar on the corner that catered to the young dog about town.


Charlie had honked and Sam ignored him. Charlie had honked again. This time Sam walked slowly over to the car. At twenty-two
he was tall and thin with long black curly hair. He had on blue denim cutoffs nearly hidden by a long white Indian shirt.
His feet were bare and he stepped gingerly to avoid broken glass.


“Get in.”

“I don’t want to be seen with you.”

“Get in!”

They had driven over to a lot by Congress Park. Charlie had learned that the police were preparing to make a series of arrests
for narcotics violations, mostly marijuana. Sam was known to be a minor pusher.


Charlie had not intended to tell Sam about the impending arrests, thinking it a kind of betrayal; but when he saw Sam that
day he changed his mind, deciding it was more of a betrayal to keep silent.


“I’m sure you’ll be picked up with the others,” Charlie had told him. “I’m not telling you what to do, but if you’re smart
…”


“Don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m doing it for Gladys.”

Sam left town. The police made a dozen arrests. A warrant had been issued for Sam but never served.

Charlie still felt guilty about telling him. Sam was the sort of uncommunicative young man whose silence seemed a general
condemnation of life. This often led Charlie to go out of his way to be friendly as if to prove that things weren’t so bad.
He knew quite well, however, that ever since Gladys had brought Sam to Saratoga in 1960, he had been jeopardizing his own
security and well-being by getting Sam out of trouble, which in fact was why he was in New York City.


Turning up 34th Street, Charlie thought of Pat Garrett’s partial justification of Billy the Kid. “The fact that he lied, swore,
gambled, and broke the Sabbath in his childhood, only proved that youth and exuberant humanity were rife in the child.”


The same could never be said of Sam who had as much exuberance as a turtle. Sullen was how he was usually described.

In the lobby of the YMCA was a sign saying “Welcome” in six languages. Behind the sign was an office for job referrals. It
was closed. A dark purple runner extended from the main entrance to the row of five elevators. Apart from the purple, most
of the colors were dark tans and browns, making the lobby dim and noncommital.


At the registration desk, a thin man handed Charlie a membership card. When Charlie had filled it out, the man said, “Eight
or nine bucks?”


“Pardon me?”

“Television or no television?”

“No television.”

“That’ll be nine bucks.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You get the buck back when you return your key. Let’s see some identification.”

“Identification?”

“Some ID. How do I know you are who you say you are, that you’re …” he raised Charlie’s card and squinted at it, “that you’re
Charles F. Bradshaw from Saratoga Springs? What kind of name’s that? You could be anybody.”


Charlie drew out his wallet. He wanted to tell the clerk that he was a policeman, that he had been a policeman for twenty
years. Instead he showed him his driver’s license.


The clerk barely glanced at it. “See the cashier.”

The cashier’s cage was a few feet along the counter. To get to it, however, Charlie had to walk an extra fourteen feet out
around a red velvet rope.


Behind the bars of the cage sat a heavy woman with a crooked silver fang hanging from a thin chain around her neck. Charlie
gave her a ten. As he waited, he looked around the lobby. There were about twenty people: young dapper blacks, old down and
out whites and foreign tourists, mostly orientals. The young blacks and tourists hurried back and forth; the old whites just
poked along.


The cashier was speaking to him. “Take these and go to the last window.” She gave him two receipts.

At the last window a tall black man told him to sign one of the receipts. When Charlie handed it back to him, the man gave
him a key, holding it out as if it were a morsel being given to a quick animal that could snap up his fingers. He didn’t speak.


Charlie assumed he was done. Picking up his bag, he walked to the elevator. The number on his key was 931. Charlie pushed
the button for the ninth floor. As the doors began to close, two oriental. . .