The Apaches of New York

There arose laughter and loud congratulatory sounds about the door. Next, broadly smiling, utterly complacent, Big Mike Abrams walked in.

“Did youse lobsters hear me handin’ it to th’ monkeys?” he asked, and his manner was the manner of him who doubts not the endorsement of men. “That chink, Low Foo, snakes two of me shirts. I sends him five, an’ he on’y sends back three. So I caves in his block wit’ a flatiron. You ought to pipe his joint! I leaves it lookin’ like a poolroom that won’t prodooce, after the wardman gets through.”

“An’ Low Foo?” queried Tony, who had shirts of his own.

“Oh, a couple of monks carries him to his bunk out back. It’ll take somethin’ more’n a shell of hop to chase away his troubles!” Mike refreshed himself with a glass of beer, which he called suds. “Say,” he continued with much fervor, “I wisht I could get a job punchin’ monks at a dollar a monk!”

Mike Abrams, alias Big Mike, was a pillar of Chinatown, and added distinctly to the life of that quarter. He was nearly six feet tall, with shoulders as square as the foretopsail yard of a brig. His nervous arms were long and slingy, his bony hands the size of hams. Neither the Dropper nor yet Big Myerson could swap blows with him, and his hug – if it came to rough-and-tumble – was comparable only to the hug of Mersher the Strong Arm, who had out-hugged a bear for the drinks.

While he lived, Little Maxie greatly appreciated Big Mike. Little Maxie is dead now. He ranked in the eyes of Mulberry Street as the best tool that ever nailed a leather. To be allowed to join out with his mob was conclusive of one’s cleverness as a gon. For Maxie would have no bunglers, no learners about him.

And, yet, as he himself said, Big Mike’s value

Jay not in any deftness of fingers, but in his stout, unflinching heart, and a knock-down strength of fist like unto the blow of a maul.

“As a stall he’s worse’n a dead one,” Maxie had said. “No one ever put up a worse back. But let a sucker raise a roar, or some galoot of a country sheriff start something – that’s where Mike comes on. You know last summer, when I’m followin’ Ringling’s show? Stagger, Beansey an’ Mike’s wit’ me as bunchers. Over at Patterson we had a rumble. I got a rube’s ticker, a red one. He made me; an’ wit’ that youse could hear th’ yell he lets out of him in Newark. A dozen of them special bulls which Ringling has on his staff makes a grab at us. Youse should have lamped Mike! Th’ way he laid out them circus dicks was like a tune of music. It’s done in a flash, an’ every last guy of us makes his get-away. Hock your socks, it’s Mike for me every time! I’d sooner he filled in wit’ a mob of mine than th’ best dip that ever pinched a poke.”

Big Mike had been a fixed star in the Gangland firmament for years. He knew he could slug, he knew he could stay; and he made the most of these virtues. When not working with Little Maxie, he took short trips into the country with an occasional select band of yeggs, out to crack a P. O. or a jug. At such times, Mike was the out-side man – ever a post of responsibility. The out-side man watches while the others blow the box. In case things take to looking queer or leary, he is to pass the whistle of warning to his pals. Should an officer show unexpectedly up, he must stand him off at the muzzle of his gatt, and if crowded, shoot and shoot to kill. He is to stand fast by his partners, busy with wedges, fuse and soup inside, and under no circumstances to desert them. Mike was that one of ten thousand, who had the nerve and could be relied upon to do and be these several iron things. Wherefore, he lived not without honor in the land, and never was there a fleet of yeggs or a mob of gons, but received him into its midst with joy and open hearts.

Mike made a deal of money. Not that it stuck to hum; for he was born with his hands open and spent it as fast as he made it. Also, he drank deeply and freely, and moreover hit the pipe. Nor could he, in the latter particular, be called a pleasure smoker nor a Saturday nighter. Mike had the habit.

At one time Mike ran an opium den at Coney Island, and again on the second floor of Number Twelve Pell. But the police – who had no sure way of gauging the profits of opium – demanded so much for the privilege that Mike was forced to close.

“Them bulls wanted all I made an’ more,” complained Mike, recounting his wrongs to Beansey. “I had a 50-pipe joint that time in Pell, an’ from the size of the rake-off the captain’s wardman asks, you’d have thought that every pipe’s a roulette-wheel.”

“Couldn’t you do nothin’ wit’ ‘em?” asked Bean-sey, sympathetically.

“Not a t’ing. I shows ‘em that number-one hop is $87.50 a can, an’ yen-chee or seconds not less’n $32. Nothin’ doin’! It’s either come across wit’ five hundred bones th’ foist of every month, or quit.”

Mike sighed over his fair prospects, blighted by the ignorant avarice of the police.

“W’at was youse chargin’ a smoke?” inquired Beansey.

“Two bits a shell. Of course, that’s for yen-chee. I couldn’t give ‘em number-one for two bits. After all, w’at I cares most for is me cats – two long-haired Persians.”

“Cats?” repeated Beansey, suspiciously. “W’at be youse handin’ me?”

Beansey by the way, knew nothing of opium.

“W’at am I handin’ youse?” said Mike. “I’m handin’ you th’ goods. Cats get th’ habit same as people. My cats would plant be some party who’s cookin’ a pill, an’ sniff th’ hop an’ get as happy as anybody. Take ‘em off the pipe, an’ it’s th’ same as if they’re Christians. Dogs, too. Let ‘em once get th’ habit, an’ then take ‘em away from a pipe joint, an’ they has pains in their stummicks, an’ twists an’ yowls till you think they’re goin’ mad. When th’ cops shut down on me, I has to give me cats to th’ monk who’s runnin’ th’ opium dump on th’ top floor. Sure t’ing! They’d have croaked if I hadn’t. They’re on’y half happy, though; for while they gets their hop they misses me. Them toms an’ me has had many a good smoke.”

Folks often wondered at the intimacy between Mike and Little Maxie – not that it has anything to do with this story. Little Maxie – his name on the Central Office books was Maxie Fyne, alias Maxie English, alias Little Maxie, alias Sharapatheck – was the opposite of Big Mike. He was small; he was weak; he didn’t drink; he didn’t hit the pipe. Also, at all times, and in cold blood, he was a professional thief. His wife, whom he called “My Kytie” – for Little Maxie was from Houndsditch, and now and then his accent showed it – was as good a thief as he, but on a different lay. Her specialty was robbing women. She worked alone, as all good gon-molls do, and because of her sure excellencies was known as the Golden Hand.

Little Maxie and his Golden Hand, otherwise his Kytie – her name was Kate – had a clean little house near Washington Square on the south. They owned a piano and a telephone – the latter was purely defensive – and their two children went to school, and sat book to book with the children of honest men and women.

The little quiet home, with its piano and defensive telephone, is gone now. Little Maxie died and his Golden Hand married again; for there’s no false sentiment in Gangland. If a husband’s dead he’s dead, and there’s nothing made by mourning. Likewise, what’s most wanted in any husband is that he should be a live one.

Little Maxie died in a rather curious way. Some say he was drowned by his pals, Big Mike among them. The story runs that there was a quarrel over splitting up a touch, and the mob charged Little Maxie with holding out. Be that as it may, the certainty is that Little Maxie and his mob, being in Peekskill, got exceeding drunk – all but Little Maxie – and went out in a boat. Being out, Little Maxie went overboard abruptly, and never came up. Neither did anybody go after him. The mob returned to town to weep – crocodile tears, some said – into their beer, as they told and re-told their loss, and in due time Little Maxie’s body drifted ashore and was buried. That was the end. Had it been some trust-thief of a millionaire, there would have been an investigation. But Little Maxie was only a pick-pocket.

Big Mike, like all strong characters, had his weakness. His weakness was punching Chinamen; fairly speaking, it grew to be his fad. It wasn’t necessary that a Chinaman do anything; it was enough that he came within reach. Mike would knock him cold. In a single saunter through Pell Street, he had been known to leave as many as four senseless Chinamen behind him, fruits of his fist.

“For,” said Mike, in cheerful exposition of the motive which underlay that performance, “I do so like to beat them monks about! I’d sooner slam one of ‘em ag’inst th’ wall than smoke th’ pipe.”

One time and another Mike punched two-thirds of all the pig-tailed heads in Chinatown. Commonly he confined himself to punching, though once or twice he went a step beyond. Lee Dok he nearly brained with a stool. But Lee Dok had been insultingly slow in getting out of Mike’s way.

Mike was proud of his name and place as the Terror of Chinatown. Whether he walked in Mott or Pell or Doyers Street, every Chinaman who saw him coming went inside and locked his door.

Those who didn’t see him and so go inside and dock their doors – and they were few – he promptly soaked. And if to see a Chinaman run was as incense to Mike’s nose, to soak one became nothing less than a sweet morsel under his tongue. The wonder was that Mike didn’t get shot or knifed, which miracle went not undiscussed at such centers as Tony’s, Barney Flynn’s, Jimmy Kelly’s and the Chatham Club. But so it was; the pig-tailed population of Chinatown parted before Mike’s rush like so much water.

One only had been known to resist – Sassy Sam, who with a dwarf’s body possessed a giant’s soul.

Sassy Sam was a hatchet-man of dread eminence, belonging to the Hip Sing Tong. Equipped of a Chinese sword, of singular yet murderous appearance, he chased Mike the length of Pell Street. Mike out-ran Sassy Sam, which was just as well. It took three shells of hop to calm Mike’s perturbed spirit; for he confessed to a congenital horror of steel.

“That’s straight,” said Mike, as with shaking fingers he filled his peanut-oil lamp, and made ready to cook himself a pill, “I never could stand for a chive. An’ say” – he shuddered – “that monk has: one longer’n your arm.”

Sassy Sam and his snickersnee, however, did not cure Mike of his weakness for punching the Mongolian head. Nothing short of death could have done that.

Some six months prior to his caving in the skull of Low Foo, because of those shirts improperly missing, Mike did that which led to consequences. Prompted by an overplus of sweet, heady Chinese rum, or perhaps it was the heroic example of Sassy Sam, Ling Tchen, being surprised by Mike in Pell Street, did not – pig-tail flying – clatter inside and lock his door. More and worse, he faced Mike, faced him, coughed contumeliously and spat upon the cobbles. To merely soak Ling Tchen would have been no adequate retort – Ling Tchen who thus studied to shame him. Wherefore Mike killed him with a clasp knife, and even went so far as to cut off the dead Tchen’s head. The law might have taken notice of this killing, but some forethoughtful friend had had wit enough to tuck a gun beneath the dead Tchen’s blouse, and thus it became at once and obviously a case of self-defence.

There was a loose screw in the killing of Ling Tchen. The loose screw dwelt not in the manner of that killing, which had been not only thorough but artistic. Indeed, cutting off Ling Tchen’s head as a finale was nothing short of a stroke of genius. The loose screw was that Ling Tchen belonged to the Hip Sing Tong; and the Hip Sing Tongs lived in Pell Street, where Mike himself abode. To be sure, since Ling Tchen did the provoking, Mike had had no choice. Still, it might have come off better had Ling Tchen been an On Leon Tong. An On Leon Tong belongs in Mott Street and doesn’t dare poke his wheat-hued nose into Pell Street, where the Four Brothers and the Hip Sing Tongs are at home.

Mike’s room was in the rear, on the second floor of Number Twelve. It pleased and soothed him, he said, as he smoked a pill, to hear the muffled revelry below in Tony’s. He had just come from his room upon that shirt occasion which resulted so disastrously for Low Fee.

Mike was among friends in Tony’s. Having told in full how he did up Low Foo, and smashed that shirt thief’s laundry, Mike drank two glasses of beer, and said that he thought now he’d go upstairs and have a smoke.

“There must be somethin’ in lickin’ a chink,” expounded Mike, “that makes a guy hanker for th’ hop.”

“It’s early yet; better stick ‘round,” urged Tony, politely. “There is some high-rollers from Newport up here on a yacht, an’ crazy to see Chinatown in th’ summer when th’ blankets is off. Th’ dicks w’at’s got ‘em in tow, gives me th’ tip that they’ll come lungin’ in here about ten. They’re over in Mott Street now, takin’ a peek at the joss house an’ drinkin’ tea in the Port Arthur.”

“I don’t want to meet ‘em,” declared Mike. “Them stiffs makes me sick. If youse’d promise to lock th’ doors, Tony, an’ put ‘em all in th’ air for what they’ve got on ‘em, I might stay.”

“That’d be a wise play, I don’t think,” remarked the Dropper, who had just come in. “Tony’d last about as long as a dollar pointin’ stuss. Puttin’ a chink on th’ bum is easy, an’ a guy can get away wit’ it; but lay a finger on a Fift’ Avenoo Willie-boy, or look cockeyed at a spark-fawney on th’ finger of one of them dames, an’ a judge’ll fall over himself to hand youse twenty years.”

“Right youse be, Dropper!” said the sophistcated Tony.

Mike climbed the creaking stairway to his room.

Below, in Tony’s, the beer, the gossip, the music, the singing and the dancing went on. Pretty Agnes sang a new song, and was applauded. That is, she was applauded by all save Mollie Squint, who uplifted her nose and said that “it wasn’t so much.”

Mollie Squint was invited to sing, but refused.

About ten o’clock came the Newport contingent, fresh from quaffing tea and burning joss sticks. They were led by a she-captain of the Four Hundred, who shall go here as Mrs. Vee. Mrs. Vee, young, pretty, be-jeweled, was in top spirits. For she had just been divorced from her husband, and they put brandy into the Port Arthur tea if you tell them to.

Tony did the honors for Number Twelve. He and Mrs. Vee, surrounded by a fluttering flock of purple doves, all from aristocratic cotes, became as thick as thieves. The Dropper, who was not wanting in good looks and could spiel like a dancing master, went twice around the room with Mrs. Vee – just for a lark, you know – to a tune scraped from Tony’s fiddles and thumped from that publican’s piano. After which, Mrs. Vee and her flutter of followers, Willieboys and all, went their purple way.

Tony, with never flagging courtesy, escorted them to the door. What he beheld filled his somewhat sluggish soul with wonder. Pell Street was thronged with Chinamen. They were sitting or standing, all silent, faces void of meaning. The situation, too, was strange in this. A Chinaman could have told you that they were all of the Hip Sing Tong, and not a Four Brothers among them. He wouldn’t of course, for a Chinaman tells a white devil nothing. Pell, by the way, was as much the home street of the Four Brothers as of the Hip Sing Tong.

Tony expressed his astonishment at the pigtailed press which thronged the thoroughfare.