Billy Bathgate
You often get puzzled glances when you ask for a Guardian in Saltcoats, but they're piled high in Byres Road so I read a book on the way there, and the paper on the way home. Stevenston, Kilwinning, Glengarnock... I'm reading Billy Bathgate . That's a picture of Dutch Shultz. It's one of those books, you want to read bits of it out loud to perfect strangers. Like the passage when Bo Weinberg, as the concrete hardens around his feet, tells Billy about escaping from the scene of a murder he'd committed, into Grand Central Station: ...people in every direction making trains, standing waiting for the gates to open, the train announcements echoing in all that noisy mumble, and I attach myself to the crowd waiting for the five thirty two and I slip the piece in some guy's pocket, I swear that's what I did, in his topcoat, he's holding his briefcase in his left hand he's got his World Telegram folded for reading in his right hand and just as the gate ope...