The Apaches of New York

Let it be said that Ellison had courage. It was his prudence which taught him to hold aloof from the tough ones. Now and then, when a tough one did insist on war, Ellison never failed to bear himself with spirit. Only he preferred to win easily, with little exertion and no injury to his nose and eyes. For Ellison, proud of his appearance, was by Gangland’s crude standards the glass of fashion and the mould of form, and flourished the idol of the ladies. Also, a swollen nose or a discolored eye is of no avail in winning hearts.

Every dispenser of beer is by way of being a power in politics. Some soar higher, some with weaker wing – that is a question of genius. One sells beer and makes himself chief of Tammany Hall. Another rises on the tides of beer to a district leadership. Still others – and it is here that Ellison comes in – find their lower beery level as Tammany’s shoulder-hitting aides.

In the last rôle, Ellison was of value to Tammany Hall. Wherefore, whenever he fell into the fingers of the police – generally for assault – the machine cast over him the pinion of its prompt protection. As the strong-arm pet of the organization, he punched and slugged, knocked down and dragged out, and did all these in safety. Some soft-whispering politician was sure to show a magistrate – all ears – that the equities were on the side of Ellison, and what black eyes or broken noses had been distributed went where they truly belonged and would do the most Tammany good.

In his double role of beer dispenser and underthug of politics, Ellison stood high in Gangland opinion. From Flynn’s in Bond Street he went to Pickerelle’s in Chrystie Street. Then he became the presiding influence at a dive of more than usual disrepute kept by one Landt, which had flung open its dingy doors in Forsyth Street near Houston.

Ellison’ took an impressive upward step at this time. That is, he nearly killed a policeman. Nicely timing matters so that the officer was looking the other way, he broke a bottle over the blue-coat’s head. The blue-coat fell senseless to the floor. Once down and helpless, Ellison hoofed him after the rules of Gangland, which teach that only fools are fair, until the hoofed one was a pick-up for an ambulance.

The officer spent two weeks in a hospital cot, Ellison two hours in a station house cell. The politicians closed the officer’s mouth, and opened Ellison’s cell. The officer got well after a while, and he and Ellison grew to be good friends. The politicians said that there was nothing in it for either the officer or Ellison to remain at loggerheads. No man may write himself “politician” who does not combine the strength to prosecute a war, with the wisdom to conclude a peace. Hence, at the command of the politicians, Ellison and the smitten officer struck hands, and pooled their differences.

Ellison, smooth-faced, high-featured, well-dressed, a Gangland cavalier, never married. Or if he did he failed to mention it. He was not a moll-buzzer; no one could accuse him of taking money from a woman. He lived by the ballot and the bung-starter. In addition once a year he gave a racket, tinder the auspices of what he called the “Biff Ellison Association,” and as his fame increased his profits from a single racket were known to reach $2,000.

At one time Ellison challenged fortune as part proprietor of Paresis Hall, which sink of sin, as though for contrast, had been established within the very shadow of Cooper Union. Terminating his connection with Paresis Hall, he lived a life of leisure between Chick Tricker’s Park Row “store” and Nigger Mike’s at Number Twelve Pell.

Occasionally he so far unbuckled as to escort some lady to or from Sharkey’s in Fourteenth Street. Not as a lobbygow; not for any ill-odored fee of fifty cents. But as a gentleman might, and out of sheer politeness. The law, as enforced from Mulberry Street, was prone to take a narrow view of ladies who roamed alone the midnight streets. The gallant Ellison was pleasantly willing to save night-bound dames of his acquaintance from this annoyance. That was all.

Who has not heard of the celebrated Paul Kelly? Once upon a time, a good woman reading a newspaper saw reference to Paul Kelly in some interesting connection. She began to burn with curiosity; she wanted to meet Paul Kelly, and said so to her husband. Since her husband had been brought up to obey her in all things, he made no objection.

Guided by a pathfinder from the Central Office, the gentleman went forth to find Paul Kelly, his wife on his arm. They entered Lyon’s restaurant in the Bowery; the place was crowded. Room was made for them at a table by squeezing in three chairs. The lady looked about her. Across, stale and fat and gone to seed, sat an ex-eminent of the prize ring. At his elbow was a stocky person, with a visage full of wormwood and a chrysanthemum ear. He of the ear was given to misguided volubilities, more apt to startle than delight.

The woman who wanted to see Paul Kelly looked at the champion gone to sulky seed, listened to the misguided conversationist with the chrysanthemum ear, and wished she hadn’t come. She might have been driven from the field, had it not been for a small, dark personage, with black eyes and sallow cheeks, who sat next her on the left. His voice was low and not alarming; his manner bland but final. And he took quiet and quieting charge of the other two.

The dark, sallow little man led those two others in the wordy way they should go. When the talk of him of the unsatisfactory ear approached the Elizabethan so closely as to inspire terror, he put him softly yet sufficiently back in his hole. Also, when not thus employed, in holding down the conversational lid, he talked French to one man, Italian to another, English to all. Purringly polite, Chesterfield might have studied him with advantage.

The woman who wanted to see Paul Kelly was so taken with the little dark man’s easy mastery of the situation, that she forgot the object of the expedition. When she was again in the street, and had drawn a deep, clear breath or two of long relief, she expressed astonishment that one possessed of so much grace and fineness, so full of cultured elegancies, should be discovered in such coarse surroundings.

“Surely, he doesn’t belong there,” she said. “Who is he?”

“Who is he?” repeated the Central Office delegate in a discouraged tone. “I thought your hubby wised you up. That’s Paul Kelly.”

Paul Kelly owned the New Brighton in Great Jones Street. One evening, as the orchestra was tuning its fiddles for the final valse, a sudden but exhaustive bombardment then and there broke loose. In the hot midst of it, some cool hand turned off the lights. They were never again turned on. The guests departed through window and by way of door, and did not come back. It was the end of the New Brighton.

Gangland, which can talk betimes, can also keep a secret. Coax, cozen, cross-question as you will, you cannot worm from it the secret of that New Brighton bombardment. Ask, and every one is silent. There is a silence which is empty, there is a silence which is full. Those who will not tell why the New Brighton was shot up that night are silent with the silence which is full.

As usual, the Central Office is not without its theories. The Central Office is often without the criminal, but never without the explanation. One Mulberry Street whisper declared that it was a war over a woman, without saying which woman. Another whisper insisted that money lay at the roots of the business, without saying what money. Still another ran to the effect that it was one of those hit-or-miss mix-ups, in their sort extemporaneous, in their up-come inexplicable, the distinguishing mark of which is an utter lack of either rhyme or reason.

One officer with whom I talked pointed to Ellison and Harrington as the principals. Paul Kelly, he said, was drawn into it as incident to his proprietorship of the New Brighton, while the redoubtable Razor became part of the picture only through his friendship for Ellison. Another officer, contradicting, argued that there had been a feud of long standing between Razor and Paul Kelly; that Ellison was there in Razor’s behalf, and Harrington got killed because he butted in. Both officers agreed that the rumpus had nothing to do with Eat-’em-up-Jack’s run in with Chick Tricker, then sundry months astern, or the later lead-pipe wiping out of Jack.

The story of the taking off of Eat-’em-up-Jack has already been told. The New Brighton missed Jack. He whom Paul Kelly brought to fill his place no more than just rattled about in it. The new sheriff did not possess Jack’s nice knowledge of dance hall etiquette, and his blackjack lacked decision. Some even think that had Jack been there that night, what follows might never have occurred at all. As said one who held this view:

“If Eat-’em-up-Jack had been holdin’ down th’ floor, th’ New Brighton wouldn’t have looked so easy to Biff an’ Razor, an’ they might have passed it up.”

The dancing floor of the New Brighton was crowded with Gangland chivalry and fashion. Out in the bar, where waiters came rushing bearing trays of empty glasses to presently rushingly retire loaded to the beery guards, sat Paul Kelly and a select bevy. The talk was of business mixed with politics, for a campaign was being waged.

“After election,” said Paul, “I’m going to close up this joint. I’ve got enough; I’m going to pack in.”

“What’s th’ row?” asked Slimmy, who had drawn up a chair.

“There’s too much talking,” returned Paul. “Only the other day a bull was telling me that I’m credited with being the first guy along the Bowery to carry a gun.”

“He’s crazy,” broke in Harrington, who with the lovely Goldie Cora had joined the group. “There were cannisters by the ton along the Bowery before ever you was pupped.”

The Irish Wop, whose mind ran altogether upon politics, glanced up from a paper.

“Spakin’ av th’ campaign,” said he, “how comes it things is so quiet? No one givin’ th’ banks a bawlin’ out, no one soakin’ th’ railroads, no one handin’ th’ hot wallops to th’ trusts! Phwat’s gone wrong wit’ ‘em? I’ve found but wan man – jusht wan – bein’ th’ skate who’s writin’ in th’ pa-a-aper here,” – and the Wop held up the paper as Exhibit A – “who acts loike he has somethin’ to hand out. Lishten: After buck-dancin’ a bit, he ups and calls Willyum Jinnins Bryan th’ ‘modern Brutus,’ says ‘Cæsarism is abroad,’ an’ that Willyum Jinnins is th’ only laddybuck who can put it on th’ bum.”

“It’s one of them hot-air students,” said Harrington.

“But about this Brutus-Cæsar thing? Are they wit’ th’ organization?”

“It’s what a swell mouth-piece like Bourke Cock-ran calls a ‘figger of speech’,” interjected Slimmy, ever happy to be heard concerning the ancients. “Cesar an’ Brutus were a couple of long-ago Dagoes. Accordin’ to th’ dope they lived an’ croaked two thousand years ago.”

“Only a pair av old wops, was they! An’ dead an’ gone at that! Sure I thought be th’ way this writin’ gezebo carried on about ‘em they was right here on th’ job, cuttin’ ice. An’ they’re nothin’ more’n a brace av old dead Guineas after all!”

The Wop mused a moment over the unprofitable meanness of the discovery. Then his curiosity began to brighten up a trifle.

“How did yez come to be so hep to ‘em, Slimmy?”

“Be studyin’ – how-else? An’ then there’s Counsellor Noonan. You ought to hear him when he gets to goin’ about Brutus and Cæsar an’ th’ rest of th’ Roman fleet. To hear Noonan you’d think he had been one of their pals.”

“Th’ Counsellor’s from Latrim,” said the Wop; “I’m a Mayo man meself. An’ say, thim Latrim la-a-ads are th’ born liars. Still, as long as the Counsellor’s talkin’ about phwat happened two thousand years ago, yez can chance a bet on him. It’s only when he’s repo-o-rtin’ th’ evints av yisterday he’ll try to hand yez a lemon.”

“I wisht I was as wise as youse, Slimmy,” said Goldie Cora, wistfully rubbing her delicate nose. “It must be dead swell to know about Cæsar an’ th’ rest of them dubs.”

“If they was to show up now,” hazarded the Wop, “thim ould fellies ‘ud feel like farmers.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” observed Slimmy: “they was lyin’, cheatin’, swindlin’, snitchin’, double-crossin’ an’ givin’ each other th’ rinkey-dink in th’ old days same as now. This Cæsar, though, must have been a stiff proposition. He certainly woke up young! When he’s only nineteen, he toins out one mornin’, yawns, puts on his everyday toga, rambles down town, an’ makes a hurrah touch for five million of dollars. Think of it! – five million! – an’ him not twenty! He certainly was a producer – Cæsar was!”

“Well, I should yell,” assented Harrington.

“An’ then phwat?” asked the Wop.

“This what,” said Slimmy. “Havin’ got his wad together, Cæsar starts in to light up Rome, an’ invites the push to cut in. When he’s got ‘em properly keyed up, he goes into the forum an’ says, ‘Am I it?’ An’ the gang yells, ‘You’re it’!”

“Cæsar could go some,” commented Goldie Cora, admiringly.

“Rome’s a republic then,” Slimmy went on, “an’ Cæsar has himself elected the main squeeze. He declares for a wide-open town; his war cry is ‘No water! No gas! No police!’”

“Say, he was a live one!” broke in Harrington; “he was Rome’s Big Tim!”

“Listen!” commanded Goldie Cora, shaking her yellow head at Harrington. “Go on, Slimmy.”

“About this time Brutus commences to show in th’ runnin’. Brutus is th’ head of th’ Citizens’ Union, an’ him an’ his fellow mugwumps put in their time bluffin’ an’ four-flushin’ ‘round about reform. They had everybody buffaloed, except Cæsar. Brutus is for closin’ th’ saloons, puttin’ th’ smother on horse racin’, an’ wants every Roman kid who plays baseball Sunday pinched.”

“He gives me a pain!” complained Goldie Cora.

“An’ mind you, all th’ time Brutus is graftin’ with both hooks. He’s in on the Aqueduct; he manages a forty per cent, hold out on the Appian way; an’ what long green he has loose he loans to needy skates in Spain at pawn shop rates, an’ when they don’t kick in he uses the legions to collect. Brutus is down four ways from the jack on everything in sight. Nothin’s calculated to embarrass him but a pair of mittens.”