The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

“Certainly!” he lisped, relapsing into the exquisite; “we shall buy the courthouse should the purchase of that edifice become necessary to our friend’s security.”

“Aint he a dandy!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, surveying young Morton in a rapt way. Then coming back to me: “I’ve got some news for you that you want to keep under your waistcoat. You know Billy Cassidy – Foxy Billy – him that studied to be a priest? You remember how I got him a post in th’ Comptroller’s office. Well, I sent for him not an hour ago; he’s goin’ to take copies of th’ accounts that show what th’ Chief an’ them other highbinders at the top o’ Tammany have been doin’. I’ll have the papers on ‘em in less’n a week. If we get our hooks on what I’m after, an’ Foxy Billy says we shall, we’ll wipe that gang off th’ earth.”

“Given those documents, we shall, as you say, obliterate them,” chimed in young Morton. “But speaking of your agent: Is this Foxy Billy as astute as his name would imply?”

“He could go down to Coney Island an’ beat th’ shells,” said Big Kennedy confidently.

“About the knife which gave James the Horseshoer his death wound,” said young Morton. His tones were vapid, but his glance was bright enough. “They’ve sent it to the Central Office. The detectives are sure to discover the pawnbroker who sold it. I think it would be wise, therefore, to carry the detectives the word ourselves. It will draw the sting out of that wasp; it would, really. It wouldn’t look well to a jury, should we let them track down-this information, while it will destroy its effect if we ourselves tell them. I think with the start he has, we can trust that Sicilian individual to take care of himself.”

This suggestion appealed to Big Kennedy as good. He thought, too, that he and young Morton might better set about the matter without delay.

“Don’t lose your nerve,” said he, shaking me by the hand. “You are as safe as though you were in church. I’ll crowd ‘em, too, an’ get this trial over inside of six weeks. By that time, if Foxy Billy is any good, we’ll be ready to give the Chief some law business of his own.”

“One thing,” I said at parting; “my wife must not come here. I wouldn’t have her see me in a cell to save my life.”

From the moment of my arrival at the Tombs, I had not ceased to think of Apple Cheek and her distress. Anne would do her best to comfort her; and for the rest – why! it must be borne. But I could not abide her seeing me a prisoner; not for her sake, but for my own.

“Well, good-by!” said young Morton, as he and Big Kennedy were taking themselves away. “You need give yourself no uneasiness. Remember, you are not only right, but rich; and when, pray, was the right, on being backed by riches, ever beaten down?”

“Or for that matter, the wrong either?” put in Big Kennedy sagely. “I’ve never seen money lose a fight.”

“Our friend,” said young Morton, addressing the warden, who had now returned, and speaking in a high superior vein, “is to have everything he wants. Here is my card. Remember, now, this gentleman is my friend; and it is not to my fancy, don’t y’ know, that a friend of mine should lack for anything; it isn’t, really!”

As Big Kennedy and young Morton reached the door, I bethought me for the first time to ask the result of the election.

“Was your father successful?” I queried. “These other matters quite drove the election from my head.”

“Oh, yes,” drawled young Morton, “my father triumphed. I forget the phrase in which Mr. Kennedy described the method of his success, but it was highly epigrammatic and appropriate. How was it you said the old gentleman won?”

“I said that he won in a walk,” returned Big Kennedy. Then, suspiciously: “Say you aint guying me, be you?”

“Me guy you?” repeated young Morton, elevating his brows. “I’d as soon think of deriding a king with crown and scepter!”

My trial came on within a month. Big Kennedy had a genius for expedition, and could hurry both men and events whenever it suited his inclinations. When I went to the bar I was accompanied by two of the leaders of the local guild of lawyers. These were my counsel, and they would leave no stone unturned to see me free. Big Kennedy sat by my side when the jury was empaneled.

“We’ve got eight of ‘em painted,” he whispered. “I’d have had all twelve,” he continued regretfully, “but what with the challengin’, an’ what with some of ‘em not knowin’ enough, an’ some of ‘em knowin’ too much, I lose four. However, eight ought to land us on our feet.”

There were no Irishmen in the panel, and I commented on the fact as strange.

“No, I barred th’ Irish,” said Big Kennedy. “Th’ Irish are all right; I’m second-crop Irish – bein’ born in this country – myself. But you don’t never want one on a jury, especially on a charge of murder. There’s this thing about a Mick: he’ll cry an’ sympathize with you an’ shake your hand, an’ send you flowers; but just th’ same he always wants you hanged.”

As Big Kennedy had apprehended, the Judge on the bench was set hard and chill as Arctic ice against me; I could read it in his jadestone eye. He would do his utmost to put a halter about my neck, and the look he bestowed upon me, menacing and full of doom, made me feel lost and gallows-ripe indeed. Suppose they should hang me! I had seen Sheeny Joe dispatched for Sing Sing from that very room! The memory of it, with the Judge lowering from the bench like a death-threat, sent a cold thought to creep and coil about my heart and crush it as in the folds of a snake.

There came the pawnbroker to swear how he sold me the knife those years ago. The prosecution insisted as an inference drawn from this, that the knife was mine. Then a round dozen stood up to tell of my rush upon Jimmy the Blacksmith; and how he fell; and how, a moment later, I fronted them with the red knife in my clutch and the dead man weltering where he went down. Some there were who tried to say they saw me strike the blow.

While this evidence was piling up, ever and again some timid juryman would glance towards Big Kennedy inquiringly. The latter would send back an ocular volley of threats that meant death or exile should that juror flinch or fail him.

When the State ended, a score of witnesses took the stand in my behalf. One and all, having been tutored by Big Kennedy, they told of the thrown knife which came singing through the air like a huge hornet from the far outskirts of the crowd. Many had not seen the hand that hurled the knife; a few had been more fortunate, and described him faithfully as a small lean man, dark, a red silk cloth over his head, and earrings dangling from his ears.

“He was a sailorman, too,” said one, more graphic than the rest; “as I could tell by the tar on his hands an’ a ship tattooed on th’ back of one of ‘em. He stood right by me when he flung the knife.”

“Why didn’t you seize him?” questioned the State’s Attorney, with a half-sneer.

“Not on your life!” said the witness. “I aint collarin’ nobody; I don’t get policeman’s wages.”

The Judge gave his instructions to the jury, and I may say he did his best, or worst, to drag me to the scaffold. The jurors listened; but they owned eyes as well as ears, and for every word spoken by the Judge’s tongue, Big Kennedy’s eyes spoke two. Also, there was that faultless exquisite, young Morton, close and familiar to my side. The dullest ox-wit of that panel might tell how I was belted about by strong influences, and ones that could work a vengeance. Wherefore, when the jury at last retired, there went not one whose mind was not made up, and no more than twenty minutes ran by before the foreman’s rap on the door announced them as prepared to give decision. They filed soberly in. The clerk read the verdict.

“Not guilty!”

The Judge’s face was like thunder; he gulped and glared, and then demanded:

“Is this your verdict?”

“It is,” returned the foreman, standing in his place; and his eleven fellow jurors, two of whom belonged to my Red Jackets, nodded assent.

Home I went on wings. Anne met me in the hallway and welcomed me with a kiss. She wore a strange look, but in my hurry for Apple Cheek I took no particular heed of that.

“Where is she – where is my wife?” said I.

Then a blackcoat man came from the rear room; he looked the doctor and had the smell of drugs about him. Anne glanced at him questioningly.

“I think he may come in,” he said. “But make no noise! Don’t excite her!”

Apple Cheek, who was Apple Cheek no longer with her face hollowed and white, was lying in the bed. Her eyes were big and bright, and the ghost of a smile parted her wan lips.

“I’m so happy!” she whispered, voice hardly above a breath. Then with weak hands she drew me down to her. “I’ve prayed and prayed, and I knew it would come right,” she murmured.

Then Anne, who had followed me to the bedside, drew away the coverings. It was like a revelation, for I had been told no word of it, nor so much as dreamed of such sweet chances. The dear surprise of it was in one sense like a blow, and I staggered on my feet as that day’s threats had owned no power to make me. There, with little face upturned and sleeping, was a babe! – our babe!

– Apple Cheek’s and mine! – our baby girl that had been born to us while its father lay in jail on a charge of murder! While I looked, it opened its eyes; and then a wailing, quivering cry went up that swept across my soul like a tune of music.

CHAPTER XII – DARBY THE GOPHER

FOXY BILLY CASSIDY made but slow work of obtaining those papers asked for to overthrow our enemy, the Chief. He copied reams upon reams of contracts and vouchers and accounts, but those to wholly match the crushing purposes of Big Kennedy were not within his touch. The documents which would set the public ablaze were held in a safe, of which none save one most trusted by the Chief, and deep in both his plans and their perils, possessed the secret.

“That’s how the game stands,” explained Big Kennedy. “Foxy Billy’s up ag’inst it. The cards we need are in th’ safe, an’ Billy aint got th’ combination, d’ye see.”

“Can anything be done with the one who has?”

“Nothin’,” replied Big Kennedy. “No, there’s no gettin’ next to th’ party with th’ combination. Billy did try to stand in with this duck; an’ say! he turned sore in a second.”

“Then you’ve no hope?”

“Not exactly that,” returned Big Kennedy, as though revolving some proposal in his mind. “I’ll hit on a way. When it comes to a finish, I don’t think there’s a safe in New York I couldn’t turn inside out. But I’ve got to have time to think.”

There existed strong argument for exertion on Big Kennedy’s part. Both he and I were fighting literally for liberty and for life. Our sole hope of safety layin the overthrow of the Chief; we must destroy or be destroyed.

Big Kennedy was alive to the situation. He said as much when, following that verdict of “Not guilty!” I thanked him as one who had worked most for my defense.