The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

“But how about th’ town?” asked the Chief of Police anxiously. “I want to know what I’m doin’. Tell me plain, just what goes an’ what don’t.”

“This for a pointer, then,” responded Big Kennedy. “Whatever goes has got to go on th’ quiet. I’ve got to keep things smooth between me an’ th’ mugwumps. The gamblers can run; an’ I don’t find any fault with even th’ green-goods people. None of ‘em can beat a man who don’t put himself within his reach, an’ I don’t protect suckers. But knucks, dips, sneaks, second-story people, an’ strong-arm men have got to quit. That’s straight; let a trick come off on th’ street cars, or at th’ theater, or in the dark, or let a crib get cracked, an’ there’ll be trouble between you an’ me, d’ye see! An’ if anything as big as a bank should get done up, why then, you send in your resignation. An’ at that, you’ll be dead lucky if you don’t do time.”

“There’s th’ stations an’ th’ ferries,” said the other, with an insinuating leer. “You know a mob of them Western fine-workers are likely to blow in on us, an’ we not wise to ‘em – not havin’ their mugs in the gallery. That sort of knuck might do business at th’ depots or ferries, an’ we couldn’t help ourselves. Anyway,” he concluded hopefully, “they seldom touch up our own citizens; it’s mostly th’ farmers they go through.”

“All right,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “I’m not worryin’ about what comes off with th’ farmers. But you tell them fine-workers, whose mugs you haven’t got, that if anyone who can vote or raise a row in New York City goes shy his watch or leather, th’ artist who gets it can’t come here ag’in. Now mind: You’ve got to keep this town so I can hang my watch on any lamp-post in it, an’ go back in a week an’ find it hasn’t been touched. There’ll be plenty of ways for me an’ you to get rich without standin’ for sneaks an’ hold-ups.”

Big Kennedy, so soon as he got possession of Tammany, began divers improvements of a political sort, and each looking to our safety and perpetuation. One of his moves was to break up the ward gangs, and this included the Tin Whistles.

“For one thing, we don’t need ‘em – you an’ me,” said he. “They could only help us while we stayed in our ward an’ kept in touch with ‘em. The gangs strengthen th’ ward leaders, but they don’t strengthen th’ Chief. So we’re goin’ to abolish ‘em. The weaker we make th’ ward leaders, the stronger we make ourselves. Do you ketch on?” and Big Kennedy nudged me significantly.

“You’ve got to disband, boys,” said I, when I had called the Tin Whistles together. “Throw away your whistles. Big Kennedy told me that the first toot on one of ‘em would get the musician thirty days on the Island. It’s an order; so don’t bark your shins against it.”

After Big Kennedy was installed as Chief, affairs in their currents for either Big Kennedy or myself went flowing never more prosperously. The town settled to its lines; and the Chief of Police, with a wardman whom Big Kennedy selected, and who was bitten by no defect of integrity like the dangerous McCue, was making monthly returns of funds collected for “campaign purposes” with which the most exacting could have found no fault. We were rich, Big Kennedy and I; and acting on that suggestion of concealment, neither was blowing a bugle over his good luck.

I could have been happy, being now successful beyond any dream that my memory could lay hands on, had it not been for Apple Cheek and her waning health. She, poor girl, had never been the same after my trial for the death of Jimmy the Blacksmith; the shock of that trouble bore her down beyond recall. The doctors called it a nervous prostration, but I think, what with the fright and the grief of it, that the poor child broke her heart. She was like something broken; and although years went by she never once held up her head. Apple Cheek faded slowly away, and at last died in my arms.

When she passed, and it fell upon me like a pall that Apple Cheek had gone from me forever, my very heart withered and perished within me. There was but one thing to live for: Blossom, my baby girl. Anne came to dwell with us to be a mother to her, and it was good for me what Anne did, and better still for little Blossom. I was no one to have Blossom’s upbringing, being ignorant and rude, and unable to look upon her without my eyes filling up for thoughts of my lost Apple Cheek. That was a sharpest of griefs – the going of Apple Cheek! My one hope lay in forgetfulness, and I courted it by working at politics, daylight and dark.

It would seem, too, that the blow that sped death to Apple Cheek had left its nervous marks on little Blossom. She was timid, hysterical, terror-whipped of fears that had no form. She would shriek out in the night as though a fiend frighted her, and yet could tell no story of it. She lived the victim of a vast formless fear that was to her as a demon without outlines or members or face. One blessing: I could give the trembling Blossom rest by holding her close in my arms, and thus she has slept the whole night through. The “frights,” she said, fled when I was by.

In that hour, Anne was my sunshine and support; I think I should have followed Apple Cheek had it not been for Blossom, and Anne’s gentle courage to hold me up. For all that, my home was a home of clouds and gloom; waking or sleeping, sorrow pressed upon me like a great stone. I took no joy, growing grim and silent, and far older than my years.

One evening when Big Kennedy and I were closeted over some enterprise of politics, that memorable exquisite, young Morton, was announced. He greeted us with his old-time vacuity of lisp and glance, and after mounting that double eyeglass, so potent with the herd, he said: “Gentlemen, I’ve come to make some money.”

CHAPTER XIV – THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE

THAT’S my purpose in a nutshell,” lisped young Morton; “I’ve decided to make some money; and I’ve come for millions.” Here he waved a delicate hand, and bestowed upon Big Kennedy and myself his look of amiable inanity.

“Millions, eh?” returned Big Kennedy, with his metallic grin. “I’ve seen whole fam’lies taken the same way. However, I’m glad you’re no piker.”

“If by ‘piker,’” drawled young Morton, “you mean one of those cheap persons who play for minimum stakes, I assure you that I should scorn to be so described; I should, really! No, indeed; it requires no more of thought or effort to play for millions than for ten-dollar bills.”

“An’ dead right you are!” observed Big Kennedy with hearty emphasis. “A sport can buck faro bank for a million as easily as for a white chip. That is, if he can find a game that’ll turn for such a bundle, an’ has th’ money to back his nerve. What’s true of faro is true of business. So you’re out for millions! I thought your old gent, who’s into fifty enterprises an’ has been for as many years, had long ago shaken down mankind for a whole mountain of dough. The papers call him a multimillionaire.”

Young Morton, still with the empty smile, brought forth a cigarette case. The case, gold, was adorned with a ruby whereon to press when one would open it, and wore besides the owner’s monogram in diamonds. Having lighted a cigarette, he polished his eyeglass with a filmy handkerchief. Re-establishing the eyeglass on his high patrician nose, he again shone vacuously upon Big Kennedy.

That personage had watched these manifestations of fastidious culture in a spirit of high delight. Big Kennedy liked young Morton; he had long ago made out how those dandyisms were no more than a cover for what fund of force and cunning dwelt beneath. In truth, Big Kennedy regarded young Morton’s imbecilities as a most fortunate disguise. His remark would show as much. As young Morton – cigarette just clinging between his lips, eye of shallow good humor – bent towards him, he said, addressing me:

“Say! get onto that front! That look of not knowin’ nothin’ ought by itself to cash in for half a million! Did you ever see such a throw-off?” and here Big Kennedy quite lost himself in a maze of admiration. Recovering, however, and again facing our caller, he repeated: “Yes, I thought your old gent had millions.”

“Both he and the press,” responded young Morton, “concede that he has; they do, really! Moreover, he possesses, I think, the evidence of it in a cord or two of bonds and stocks, don’t y’ know! But in what fashion, pray, does that bear upon my present intentions as I’ve briefly laid them bare?”

“No fashion,” said Big Kennedy, “only I’d naturally s’ppose that when you went shy on th’ long green, you’d touch th’ old gentleman.”

“Undoubtedly,” returned young Morton, “I could approach my father with a request for money – that is if my proposal were framed in a spirit of moderation, don’t y’ know! – say one hundred thousand dollars. But such a sum, in my present temper, would be but the shadow of a trifle. I owe five times the amount; I do, really! I’ve no doubt I’m on Tiffany’s books for more than one hundred thousand, while my bill at the florist’s should be at least ten thousand dollars, if the pen of that brigand of nosegays has kept half pace with his rapacity. However,” concluded young Morton, breaking into a soft, engaging laugh, “since I intend, with your aid, to become the master of millions, such bagatelles are unimportant, don’t y’ know.”

“Certainly!” observed Big Kennedy in a consolatory tone; “they don’t amount to a deuce in a bum deck. Still, I must say you went in up to your neck on sparks an’ voylets. I never saw such a plunger on gewgaws an’ garlands since a yard of cloth made a coat for me.”

“Those bills arose through my efforts to make grand opera beautiful. I set the prima donna ablaze with gems; and as for the stage, why, it was like singing in a conservatory; it was really!”

“Well, let that go!” said Big Kennedy, after a pause. “I shall be glad if through my help you make them millions. If you do, d’ye see, I’ll make an armful just as big; it’s ag’inst my religion to let anybody grab off a bigger piece of pie than I do when him an’ me is pals. It would lower my opinion of myself. However, layin’ guff aside, s’ppose you butt in now an’ open up your little scheme. Let’s see what button you think you’re goin’ to push.”

“This is my thought,” responded young Morton, and as he spoke the eyeglass dropped from its aquiline perch, and under the heat of a real animation those mists of affectation were dissipated; “this is my thought: I want a street railway franchise along Mulberry Avenue, the length of the Island.”

“Go on,” said Big Kennedy.

“It’s my plan to form a corporation – Mulberry Traction. There’ll be eight millions of preferred stock at eight per cent. I can build and equip the road with that. In addition, there’ll be ten millions of common stock.”

“Have you th’ people ready to take th’ preferred?”

“Ready and waiting. If I had the franchise, I could float those eight millions within ten days.”

“What do you figger would be th’ road’s profits?”

“It would carry four hundred thousand passengers a day, and take in twenty thousand dollars. The operating expenses would not exceed an annual four millions and a half. That, after the eight per cent, on the preferred were paid, would leave over two millions a year on the common – a dividend of twenty per cent., or five per cent, every quarter. You can see where such returns would put the stock. You, for your ride, would go into the common on the ground floor.”

“We’ll get to how I go in, in a minute,” responded Big Kennedy dryly. He was impressed by young Morton’s proposal, and was threshing it out in his mind as they talked. “Now, see here,” he went on, lowering his brows and fixing his keen gray glance on young Morton, “you mustn’t get restless if I ask you questions. I like to tap every wheel an’ try every rivet on a scheme or a man before I hook up with either.”

“Ask what you please,” said young Morton, as brisk as a terrier.

“I’ll say this,” observed Big Kennedy. “That traction notion shows that you’re a hogshead of horse sense. But of course you understand that you’re going to need money, an’ plenty of it, before you get th’ franchise. I can take care of th’ Tammany push, perhaps; but there’s highbinders up to your end of th’ alley who’ll want to be greased.”

“How much do you argue that I’ll require as a preliminary to the grant of the franchise?” asked young Morton, interrupting Big Kennedy.

“Every splinter of four hundred thousand.”

“That was my estimate,” said young Morton; “but I’ve arranged for twice that sum.”

“Who is th’ Rothschild you will get it from?”

“My father,” replied young Morton, and now he lapsed anew into his manner of vapidity. “Really, he takes an eighth of the preferred at par – one million! I’ve got the money in the bank, don’t y’ know!”

“Good!” ejaculated Big Kennedy, with the gleam which never failed to sparkle in his eye at the mention of rotund riches.

“My father doesn’t know my plans,” continued young Morton, his indolence and his eyeglass both restored. “No; he wouldn’t let me tell him; he wouldn’t, really! I approached him in this wise:

“‘Father,’ said I, ‘you are aware of the New York alternative?’

“‘What is it?’ he asked.

“‘Get money or get out.’

“‘Well!’ said he.

“‘Father, I’ve decided not to move. Yes, father; after a full consideration of the situation, I’ve resolved to make, say twenty or thirty millions for myself; I have, really! It’s quite necessary, don’t y’ know; I am absolutely bankrupt. And I don’t like it; there’s nothing comfortable in being bankrupt, it so deucedly restricts a man. Besides, it’s not good form. I’ve evolved an idea, however; there’s a business I can go into.’

“‘Store?’ he inquired.