In The Shadow of Dutch Schultz

By Paul Gray

BILLY BATHGATE

by E.L. Doctorow;

Random House; 323 pages; $19.95

Near the end, the narrator of this riveting novel refers to all that has gone before as "this story of a boy's adventures." Some boy. Some adventures. Both are as far as they could be from innocent visions of Tom Sawyer or Horatio Alger. Even discounting a particularly bloody penultimate encounter, Billy Bathgate directly witnesses two murders and helps dispose of the body of a third victim. In each case, the perpetrator is the notorious gangster Dutch Schultz, ne Arthur Flegenheimer, Billy's self-described "mentor" and as romantically dangerous a father figure as any lad could desire. Billy is his real name, Bathgate an alias he has invented, lifted from a street, known for its open-air markets, a few blocks from his birthplace in the Bronx. Billy's education in the criminal life is completed before his 16th birthday.

Those who have followed E.L. Doctorow's career -- a considerable number, judging from the commercial and critical successes of previous books -- will find much in Billy Bathgate that feels, initially, familiar. As in Ragtime (1975), this novel mingles fictional characters with historical ones: Schultz, Walter Winchell, Thomas E. Dewey. The setting combines Depression seediness and underworld glamour in a manner reminiscent of Loon Lake (1980). And this is not the first time Doctorow has written about a boy's coming of age in the Bronx; he did so in World's Fair (1985), even giving its made-up hero his own first name, Edgar. But the author is not simply repeating himself this time out. He is mixing elements from his other novels in a manner that proves combustible and incandescent.

Part of the allure springs from the subject, which plays upon the mysterious fascination that outlaws and gangsters have always held for law-abiding American citizens. In this, Billy is a native son of his place and time, a poor section of the Bronx in 1935, which is distinguished in his eyes only by the fact that the famous Dutch Schultz grew up there. In truth, Schultz still runs a beer drop in the vicinity, even though Prohibition has been repealed: "We were honored to know that our neighborhood was good enough for one of his places, we were proud we enjoyed his confidence." When he manages to attract the great man's attention and becomes what Schultz calls his "prodigy," Billy senses that destiny has blessed him "with the faintest intimation that I might be empowered. That is the feeling you get, that your life is charmed, which means among other things that it is out of your hands."

He thus becomes a receptive but essentially passive observer of a garish, deadly world, living, as he puts it, "in the very pulsebeat of the tabloids." He freely enters Mob-owned nightclubs and elegant, exclusive brothels. When no one, including reporters or federal agents, can find Schultz, Billy is allowed into his presence: "It is spectacular enough to see someone in the flesh whom you've only known in the newspapers, but to see someone the newspapers have said is on the lam definitely has a touch of magic to it." The young apprentice also learns that "I had caught on with the great Dutch Schultz in his decline of empire, he was losing control." The mobster's legal problems are mounting, his bribe money is no longer good in New York City, and gentlemen competitors of Italian ancestry -- Schultz calls them "dago scungili" -- are moving in on his operations. Dreadful events threaten; all of them occur, and then some.

Its period authenticities and relentlessly violent plot practically guarantee Billy Bathgate a sale to the movies. Good luck to all concerned, for the novel's greatest strength resides in its least cinematic feature. Billy's language -- breathy, breakneck, massing phrases into great cumulus sentences that rumble with coming rough weather -- is totally unlike the short, syncopated rhythms of Ragtime. At first, readers may wonder how this young, confessed truant has run across terms like "dissynchronously" or where he picked up the poetic skills to describe a waterfall: "At the very bottom there hovered a perpetually shimmering rainbow as if not water but light was pouring and shattering into its colors." Doctorow eventually accounts for Billy's erudition, but by that time, no explanation is really required. Billy's voice has long since justified both itself and the unique power of the written word: it is convincing, mesmerizing and finally unforgettable.