The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

“That’s different,” he returned. “No man ought to quit his friends. But you must be careful an’ never have more’n two or three, d’ye see. Now these Mortons aint friends, they’re confed’rates. It’s as though we happened to be members of the same band of porch-climbers, that’s all. Take it this way: How long do you guess it would take the Mortons to sell us out if it matched their little game? How long do you think we’d last? Well, we’d last about as long as a drink of whisky.” Big Kennedy met the Chief, and came back shaking his head in decisive negative.

“There’s nothin’ in it,” he said; “he’s all for playin’ th’ hog. It’s that railway company’s deal. Your vote as Alderman, mind you, wins or loses it! What do you think now he offers to do? I know what he gets. He gets stock, say two hundred thousand dollars, an’ one hundred thousand dollars in cold cash. An’ yet he talks of only splittin’ out fifteen thousand for you an’ me! Enough said; we fight him!”

Jimmy the Blacksmith, when, in response to Big Kennedy’s hint, he “followed Gaffney,” pitched his tent in the ward next north of our own. He made himself useful to the leader of that region, and called together a somber bevy which was known as the Alley Gang. With that care for himself which had ever marked his conduct, Jimmy the Blacksmith, and his Alley Gang, while they went to and fro as shoulder-hitters of the machine, were zealous to avoid the Tin Whistles, and never put themselves within their reach. On the one or two occasions when the Tin Whistles, lusting for collision, went hunting them, the astute Alleyites were no more to be discovered than a needle in the hay.

“You couldn’t find ‘em with a search warrant!” reported my disgusted lieutenant. “I never saw such people! They’re a disgrace to th’ East Side.”

However, they were to be found with the last of it, and it would have been a happier fortune for me had the event fallen the other way.

It was the day of the balloting, and Big Kennedy and I had taken measures to render the result secure. Not only would we hold our ward, but the district and the reputable old gentleman were safe. Throughout the morning the word that came to us from time to time was ever a white one. It was not until the afternoon that information arrived of sudden clouds to fill the sky. The news came in the guise of a note from young Morton:

“Jimmy the Blacksmith and his heelers are driving our people from the polls.”

“You know what to do!” said Big Kennedy, tossing me the scrap of paper.

With the Tin Whistles at my heels, I made my way to the scene of trouble. It was full time; for a riot was on, and our men were winning the worst of the fray. Clubs were going and stones were being thrown.

In the heart of it, I had a glimpse of Jimmy the Blacksmith, a slungshot to his wrist, smiting right and left, and cheering his cohorts. The sight gladdened me. There was my man, and I pushed through the crowd to reach him. This last was no stubborn matter, for the press parted before me like water.

Jimmy the Blacksmith saw me while yet I was a dozen feet from him. He understood that he could not escape, and with that he desperately faced me. As I drew within reach, he leveled a savage blow with the slungshot. It would have put a period to my story if I had met it. The shot miscarried, however, and the next moment I had rushed him and pinned him against the walls of the warehouse in which the precinct’s polls were being held.

“I’ve got you!” I cried, and then wrenched myself free to give me distance.

I was to strike no blow, however; my purpose was to find an interruption in midswing. While the words were between my teeth, something like a sunbeam came flickering by my head, and a long knife buried itself vengefully in Jimmy the Blacksmith’s throat. There was a choking gurgle; the man fell forward upon me while the red torrent from his mouth covered my hands. Then he crumpled to the ground in a weltering heap; dead on the instant, too, for the point had pierced the spine. In a dumb chill of horror, I stooped and drew forth the knife. It was that weapon of the Bowery pawnshop which I had given the Sicilian.

CHAPTER XI – HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR HIS LIFE

WHEN I gave that knife to the Sicilian, I had not thought how on the next occasion that I encountered it I should draw it from the throat of a dead and fallen enemy. With the sight of it there arose a vision of the dark brisk face, the red kerchief, and the golden earrings of him to whom it had been presented. In a blurred way I swept the throng for his discovery. The Sicilian was not there; my gaze met only the faces of the common crowd – ghastly, silent, questioning, staring, as I stood with knife dripping blood and the dead man on the ground at my feet. A police officer was pushing slowly towards me, his face cloudy with apology.

“You mustn’t hold this ag’inst me,” said he, “but you can see yourself, I can’t turn my blind side to a job like this. They’d have me pegged out an’ spread-eagled in every paper of th’ town.”

“Yes!” I replied vaguely, not knowing what I said. “An’ there’s th’ big Tammany Chief you’re fightin’,” went on the officer; “he’d just about have my scalp, sure. I don’t see why you did it! Your heart must be turnin’ weak, when you take to carryin’ a shave, an’ stickin’ people like pigs!”

“You don’t think I killed him!” I exclaimed.

“Who else?” he asked.

The officer shrugged his shoulders and turned his hands palm upwards with a gesture of deprecation. To the question and the gesture I made no answer. It came to me that I must give my Sicilian time to escape. I could have wished his friendship had taken a less tropical form; still he had thrown that knife for me, and I would not name him until he had found his ship and was safe beyond the fingers of the law. Even now I think my course a proper one. The man innocent has ever that innocence to be his shield; he should be ready to suffer a little in favor of ones who own no such strong advantage.

It was nine of that evening’s clock before Big Kennedy visited me in the Tombs. Young Morton came with him, clothed of evening dress and wearing white gloves. He twisted his mustache between his kid-gloved finger and thumb, meanwhile surveying the grimy interior – a fretwork of steel bars and freestone – with looks of ineffable objection. The warden was with them in his own high person when they came to my cell. That functionary was in a mood of sullen uncertainty; he could not make out a zone of safety for himself, when now Big Kennedy and the Tammany Chief were at daggers drawn. He feared he might go too far in pleasuring the former, and so bring upon him the dangerous resentment of his rival.

“We can’t talk here, Dave,” said Big Kennedy, addressing the warden, after greeting me through the cell grate. “Bring him to your private office.”

“But, Mr. Kennedy,” remonstrated the warden, “I don’t know about that. It’s after lockin’-up hours now.”

“You don’t know!” repeated Big Kennedy, the specter of a threat peeping from his gray eyes. “An’ you’re to hand me out a line of guff about lockin’-up hours, too! Come, come, Dave; it won’t do to get chesty! The Chief an’ I may be pals to-morrow. Or I may have him done for an’ on th’ run in a month. Where would you be then, Dave? No more words, I say: bring him to your private office.”

There was no gainsaying the masterful manner of Big Kennedy. The warden, weakened with years of fear of him and his power, grumblingly undid the bolts and led the way to his room.

“Deuced wretched quarters, I should say!” murmured young Morton, glancing for a moment inside the cell. “Not at all worth cutting a throat for.”

When we were in the warden’s room, that master of the keys took up a position by the door. This was not to Big Kennedy’s taste.

“Dave, s’ppose you step outside,” said Big Kennedy.

“It’s no use you hearin’ what we say; it might get you into trouble, d’ye see!” The last, insinuatingly.

“Mr. Kennedy, I’m afraid!” replied the warden, with the voice of one worried. “You know the charge is murder. He’s here for killin’ Jimmy the Blacksmith. I’ve no right to let him out of my sight.”

“To be sure, I know it’s murder,” responded Big Kennedy. “I’d be plankin’ down bail for him if it was anything else. But what’s that got to do with you skip-pin’ into th’ hall? You don’t think I’m goin’ to pass him any files or saws, do you?”

“Really, Mr. Warden,” said young Morton, crossing over to where the warden lingered irresolutely, “really, you don’t expect to stay and overhear our conversation! Why, it would be not only impolite, but perposterous! Besides, it’s not my way, don’t y’ know!” And here young Morton put on his double eyeglass and ran the warden up and down with an intolerant stare.

“But he’s charged, I tell you,” objected the warden, “with killin’ Jimmy th’ Blacksmith. I can’t go to givin’ him privileges an’ takin’ chances; I’d get done up if I did.”

“You’ll get done up if you don’t!” growled Big Kennedy.

“It is as you say,” went on young Morton, still holding the warden in the thrall of that wonderful eyeglass, “it is quite true that this person, James the Horseshoer as you call him, has been slain and will never shoe a horse again. But our friend had no hand in it, as we stand ready to spend one hundred thousand dollars to establish. And by the way, speaking of money,” – here young Morton turned to Big Kennedy – “didn’t you say as we came along that it would be proper to remunerate this officer for our encroachments upon his time?”

“Why, yes,” replied Big Kennedy, with an ugly glare at the warden, “I said that it might be a good idea to sweeten him.”

“Sweeten! Ah, yes; I recall now that sweeten was the term you employed. A most extraordinary word for paying money. However,” and here young Morton again addressed the warden, tendering him at the same time a one-hundred-dollar bill, “here is a small present. Now let us have no more words, my good man.”

The warden, softened by the bill, went out and closed the door. I could see that he looked on young Morton in wonder and smelled upon him a mysterious authority. As one disposed to cement a friendship just begun, the warden, as he left, held out his hand to young Morton.

“You’re th’ proper caper!” he exclaimed, in a gush of encomium; “you’re a gent of th’ right real sort!” Young Morton gazed upon the warden’s outstretched hand as though it were one of the curious things of nature. At. last he extended two fingers, which the warden grasped.

“This weakness for shaking hands,” said young Morton, dusting his gloved fingers fastidiously, “this weakness for shaking hands on the part of these common people is inexcusable. Still, on the whole, I did not think it a best occasion for administering a rebuke, don’t y’ know, and so allowed that low fellow his way.”

“Dave’s all right,” returned Big Kennedy. Then coming around to me: “Now let’s get down to business. You understand how the charge is murder, an’ that no bail goes. But keep a stiff upper lip. The Chief is out to put a crimp in you, but we’ll beat him just th’ same. For every witness he brings, we’ll bring two. Do you know who it was croaked th’ Blacksmith?”

I told him of the Sicilian; and how I had recognized the knife as I drew it from the throat of the dead man.

“It’s a cinch he threw it,” said Big Kennedy; “he was in the crowd an’ saw you mixin’ it up with th’ Blacksmith, an’ let him have it. Them Dagoes are great knife throwers. Did you get a flash of him in the crowd?”

“No,” I said, “there was no sign of him. I haven’t told this story to anybody. We ought to give him time to take care of himself.”

“Right you are,” said Big Kennedy approvingly. “He probably jumped aboard his boat; it’s even money he’s outside the Hook, out’ard bound, by now.”

Then Big Kennedy discussed the case. I would be indicted and tried; there was no doubt of that. The Chief, our enemy, had possession of the court machinery; so far as indictment and trial were concerned he would not fail of his will.

“An’ it’s th’ judge in partic’lar, I’m leary of,” said Big Kennedy thoughtfully. “The Chief has got that jurist in hock to him, d’ye see! But there’s another end to it; I’ve got a pull with the party who selects the jury, an’ it’ll be funny if we don’t have half of ‘em our way. That’s right; th’ worst they can hand us is a hung jury. If it takes money, now,” and here Big Kennedy rolled a tentative eye on young Morton, “if it should take money, I s’ppose we know where to look for it?”

Young Morton had been listening to every word, and for the moment, nothing about him of his usual languor. Beyond tapping his white teeth with the handle of his dress cane, he retained no trace of those affectations. I had much hope from the alert earnestness of young Morton, for I could tell that he would stay by my fortunes to the end.

“What was that?” he asked, when Big Kennedy spoke of money.

“I said that if we have to buy any little thing like a juror or a witness, we know where to go for the money.”