The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

“She’s a dame in black,” said Melting Moses; “an’ she’s of d’ Fift’ Avenoo squeeze all right.”

Melting Moses, now he was fed and dressed, went through the days with uncommon spirit, and when not thinking on his mother would be gay enough. My visitors interested him even more than they did me, and he announced but few without hazarding his surmise as to both their origins and their errands.

“Show her in!” I said.

My visitor was a widow, as I could see by her mourning weeds. She was past middle life; gray, with hollow cheeks, and sad pleading eyes.

“My name is Van Flange,” said she. “The Reverend Bronson asked me to call upon you. It’s about my son; he’s ruining us by his gambling.”

Then the Widow Van Flange told of her son’s infatuation; and how blacklegs in Barclay Street were fleecing him with roulette and faro bank.

I listened to her story with patience. While I would not find it on my programme to come to her relief, I aimed at respect for one whom the Reverend Bronson had endorsed. I was willing to please that good man, for I liked him much since he spoke in commendation of my English. Besides, if angered, the Reverend Bronson would be capable of trouble. He was too deeply and too practically in the heart of the East Side; he could not fail to have a tale to tell that would do Tammany Hall no good, but only harm. Wherefore, I in no wise cut short the complaints of the Widow Van Flange. I heard her to the end, training my face to sympathy the while, and all as though her story were not one commonest of the town.

“You may be sure, madam,” said I, when the Widow Van Flange had finished, “that not only for the Reverend Bronson’s sake, but for your own, I shall do all I may to serve you. I own no personal knowledge of that gambling den of which you speak, nor of those sharpers who conduct it. That knowledge belongs with the police. The number you give, however, is in Captain Gothecore’s precinct. We’ll send for him if you’ll wait.” With that I rang my desk bell for Melting Moses. “Send for Captain Gothecore,” said I. At the name, the boy’s black eyes flamed up in a way to puzzle. “Send a messenger for Captain Gothecore; I want him at once.”

CHAPTER XX – THE MARK OF THE ROPE

WHILE the Widow Van Flange and I sat waiting the coming of Gothecore, the lady gave me further leaves of her story. The name of Van Flange was old. It had been honorable and high in the days of Wouter Van Twiller, and when the town was called New Amsterdam. The Van Flanges had found their source among the wooden shoes and spinning-wheels of the ancient Dutch, and were duly proud. They had been rich, but were now reduced, counting – she and her boy – no more than two hundred thousand dollars for their fortune.

This son over whom she wept was the last Van Flange; there was no one beyond him to wear the name. To the mother, this made his case the more desperate, for mindful of her caste, she was borne upon by pride of family almost as much as by maternal love. The son was a drunkard; his taste for alcohol was congenital, and held him in a grip that could not be unloosed. And he was wasting their substance; what small riches remained to them were running away at a rate that would soon leave nothing.

“But why do you furnish him money?” said I.

“You should keep him without a penny.”

“True!” responded the Widow Van Flange, “but those who pillage my son have found a way to make me powerless. There is a restaurant near this gambling den. The latter, refusing him credit and declining his checks, sends him always to this restaurant-keeper. He takes my son’s check, and gives him the money for it. I know the whole process,” concluded the Widow Van Flange, a sob catching in her throat, “for I’ve had my son watched, to see if aught might be done to save him.”

“But those checks,” I observed, “should be worthless, for you have told me how your son has no money of his own.”

“And that is it,” returned the Widow Van Flange.

“I must pay them to keep him from prison. Once, when I refused, they were about to arrest him for giving a spurious check. My own attorney warned me they might do this. My son, himself, takes advantage of it. I would sooner be stripped of the last shilling, than suffer the name of Van Flange to be disgraced. Practicing upon my fears, he does not scruple to play into the hands of those who scheme his downfall. You may know what he is about, when I tell you that within the quarter I have been forced in this fashion to pay over twenty-seven thousand dollars. I see no way for it but to be ruined,” and her lips twitched with the despair she felt.

While the Widow Van Flange and I talked of her son and his down-hill courses, I will not pretend that I pondered any interference. The gamblers were a power in politics. The business of saving sons was none of mine; but, as I’ve said, I was willing, by hearing her story, to compliment the Reverend Bronson, who had suggested her visit. In the end, I would shift the burden to the police; they might be relied upon to find their way through the tangle to the advantage of themselves and the machine.

Indeed, this same Gothecore would easily dispose of the affair. Expert with practice, there was none who could so run with the hare while pretending to course with the hounds. Softly, sympathetically, he would talk with the Widow Van Flange; and she would depart in the belief that her cause had found a friend.

As the Widow Van Flange and I conversed, we were brought to sudden silence by a strange cry. It was a mad, screeching cry, such as might have come from some tigerish beast in a heat of fury. I was upon my feet in a moment, and flung open the door.

Gothecore was standing outside, having come to my message. Over from him by ten feet was Melting Moses, his shoulders narrowed in a feline way, crouching, with brows drawn down and features in a snarl of hate. He was slowly backing away from Gothecore; not in fear, but rather like some cat-creature, measuring for a spring.

On his side, Gothecore’s face offered an equally forbidding picture. He was red with rage, and his bulldog jaws had closed like a trap. Altogether, I never beheld a more inveterate expression, like malice gone to seed.

I seized Melting Moses by the shoulder, and so held him back from flying at Gothecore with teeth and claws.

“He killed me mudder!” cried Melting Moses, struggling in my fingers like something wild.

When the janitor with whom Melting Moses lived had carried him off – and at that, the boy must be dragged away by force – I turned to Gothecore.

“What was the trouble?”

“Why do you stand for that young whelp?” he cried. “I won’t have it!”

“The boy is doing you no harm.”

“I won’t have it!” he cried again. The man was like a maniac.

“Let me tell you one thing,” I retorted, looking him between the eyes; “unless you walk with care and talk with care, you are no better than a lost man. One word, one look, and I’ll snuff you out between my thumb and finger as I might a candle.”

There must have been that which showed formidable in my manner, for Gothecore stood as though stunned. The vicious insolence of the scoundrel had exploded the powder in my temper like a coal of fire. I pointed the way to my room.

“Go in; I’ve business with you.”

Gothecore seemed to recall himself to steadiness. Without more words, he entered my door.

With as much dignity as I might summon in the track of such a storm, I presented him to the Widow Van Flange. She had heard the sound of our differences; but, taken with her own troubles, she made no account of them. The Widow Van Flange received the rather boorish salutation of Gothecore in a way politely finished. Upon my hint, she gave him her story. Gothecore assumed a look at once professional and deprecatory.

“An’ now you’re done, Madam,” said Gothecore, giving that slight police cough by which he intimated for himself a limitless wisdom, “an’ now you’re done, Madam, let me chip in a word. I know your son; I’ve knowed Billy Van Flange, now, goin’ on three year – ever since he comes out o’ college. I don’t want to discourage you, Madam; but, to put it to you on th’ square, Billy Van Flange is a warm member. I leave it to you to say if I aint right. Yes, indeed! he’s as hot a proposition as ever went down th’ line.”

Here the eye of Gothecore wandered towards the ceiling, recalling the mad pranks of young Van Flange.

“But these gamblers are destroying him!” moaned the Widow Van Flange. “Is there no way to shield him? Surely, you should know how to punish them, and keep him out of their hands!”

“I know that gang of card sharps in Barclay Street,” remarked Gothecore; “an’ they’re a bunch of butes at that! But let me go on: I’ll tell you what we can do; and then I’ll tell you why it won’t be fly to do it. In th’ finish, however, it will all be up to you, Madam. We’ll act on any steer you hand us. If you say ‘pinch,’ pinch goes.

“But as I was tellin’: I’m dead onto Billy Van Flange; I know him like a gambler knows an ace. He hits up th’ bottle pretty stiff at that, an’ any man who finds him sober has got to turn out hours earlier than I do. An’ I’ll tell you another thing, Madam: This Billy Van Flange is a tough mug to handle. More’n once, I’ve tried to point him for home, an’ every time it was a case of nothin’ doin’. Sometimes he shed tears, an’ sometimes he wanted to scrap; sometimes he’d give me th’ laugh, an’ sometimes he’d throw a front an’ talk about havin’ me fired off th’ force. He’d run all the way from th’ sob or th’ fiery eye, to th’ gay face or th’ swell front, accordin’ as he was jagged.”

While Gothecore thus descanted, the Widow Van Flange buried her face in her handkerchief. She heard his every word, however, and when Gothecore again consulted the ceiling, she signed for him to go on.

“Knowin’ New York as I do,” continued Gothecore, “I may tell you, Madam, that every time I get my lamps on that son of yours, I hold up my mits in wonder to think he aint been killed.” The Widow Van Flange started; her anxious face was lifted from the handkerchief. “That’s on th’ level! I’ve expected to hear of him bein’ croaked, any time this twelve months. Th’ best I looked for was that th’ trick wouldn’t come off in my precinct. He carries a wad in his pocket; an’ he sports a streak of gilt, with a thousand-dollar rock, on one of his hooks; an’ I could put you next to a hundred blokes, not half a mile from here, who’d do him up for half th’ price. That’s straight! Billy Van Flange, considerin’ th’ indoocements he hangs out, an’ th’ way he lays himself wide open to th’ play, is lucky to be alive.

“Now why is he alive, Madam? It is due to them very gamblin’ ducks in Barclay Street. Not that they love him; but once them skin gamblers gets a sucker on th’ string, they protect him same as a farmer does his sheep. They look on him as money in th’ bank; an’ so they naturally see to it that no one puts his light out.

“That’s how it stands, Madam!” And now Gothecore made ready to bring his observations to a close. This Billy Van Flange, like every other rounder, has his hangouts. His is this deadfall on Barclay Street, with that hash-house keeper to give him th’ dough for his checks. Now I’ll tell you what I think. While he sticks to th’ Barclay Street mob, he’s safe. You’ll get him back each time. They’ll take his stuff; but they’ll leave him his life, an’ that’s more than many would do.

“Say th’ word, however, an’ I can put th’ damper on. I can fix it so Billy Van Flange can’t gamble nor cash checks in Barclay Street. They’ll throw him out th’ minute he sticks his nut inside the door. But I’ll put you wise to it, Madam: If I do, inside of ninety days you’ll fish him out o’ th’ river; you will, as sure as I’m a foot high!”

The face of the Widow Van Flange was pale as paper now, and her bosom rose and fell with new terrors for her son. The words of Gothecore seemed prophetic of the passing of the last Van Flange.

“Madam,” said Gothecore, following a pause, “I’ve put it up to you. Give me your orders. Say th’ word, an’ I’ll have th’ screws on that Barclay Street joint as fast as I can get back to my station-house.”

“But if we keep him from going there,” said the Widow Van Flange, with a sort of hectic eagerness, “he’ll find another place, won’t he?” There was a curious look in the eyes of the Widow Van Flange. Her hand was pressed upon her bosom as if to smother a pang; her handkerchief went constantly to her lips. “He would seek worse resorts?”

“It’s a cinch, Madam!”

“And he’d be murdered?”

“Madam, it’s apples to ashes!”