The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

“And there you are mistaken,” I replied. “But if it were so, why should I be held for his ruin? ‘I am not my brother’s keeper.’”

“And so Cain said,” responded the Reverend Bronson. Then, as he was departing: “I do not blame you too much, for I can see that you are the slave of your position. But do not shield yourself with the word that you are not your brother’s keeper. You may be made grievously to feel that your brother’s welfare is your welfare, and that in his destruction your own destruction is also to be found.”

Men have rallied me as superstitious, and it may be that some grains of truth lie buried in that charge. Sure it is, that this last from the Reverend Bronson was not without its uncomfortable effect. It pressed upon me in a manner vaguely dark, and when he was gone, I caught myself regretting the “cleaning up,” as Gothecore expressed it, of the dissolute young Van Flange.

And yet, why should one feel sympathy for him who, by his resolute viciousness, struck down his own mother? If ever rascal deserved ruin, it was he who had destroyed the hopes of one who loved him before all! The more I considered, the less tender for the young Van Flange I grew. And as to his destruction carrying personal scathe for me, it might indeed do, as a flourish of the pulpit, to say so, but it was a thought too far fetched, as either a warning or a prophecy, to justify one in transacting by its light his own existence, or the affairs of a great organization of politics. The end of it was that I smiled over a weakness that permitted me to be disturbed by mournful forebodes, born of those accusing preachments of the Reverend Bronson.

For all that my reverend mentor was right; the sequel proved how those flames which licked up young Van Flange were to set consuming fire to my own last hope.

It would seem that young Van Flange, as a topic, was in everybody’s mouth. Morton, having traction occasion for calling on me, began to talk of him at once.

“Really!” observed Morton, discussing young Van Flange, “while he’s a deuced bad lot, don’t y’ know, and not at all likely to do Mulberry credit, I couldn’t see him starve, if only for his family. So I set him to work, as far from the company’s money as I could put him, and on the soberish stipend of nine hundred dollars a year. I look for the best effects from those nine hundred dollars; a chap can’t live a double life on that; he can’t, really!”

“And you call him a bad lot,” said I.

“The worst in the world,” returned Morton. “You see young Van Flange is such a weakling; really, there’s nothing to tie to. All men are vicious; but there are some who are strong enough to save themselves. This fellow isn’t.”

“His family is one of the best,” said I.

For myself, I’ve a sincere respect for blood, and some glimpse of it must have found display in my face.

“My dear boy,” cried Morton, “there’s no more empty claptrap than this claptrap of family.” Here Morton adorned his high nose with the eyeglass that meant so much with him, and surveyed me as from a height. “There’s nothing in a breed when it comes to a man.”

“Would you say the same of a horse or a dog?”

“By no means, old chap; but a dog or a horse is prodigiously a different thing, don’t y’ know. The dominant traits of either of those noble creatures are honesty, courage, loyalty – they’re the home of the virtues. Now a man is another matter. He’s an evil beggar, is a man; and, like a monkey, he has virtues only so far as you force him to adopt them. As Machiavelli says: ‘We’re born evil, and become good only by compulsion.’ Now to improve a breed, as the phrase is, makes simply for the promotion of what are the dominant traits of the creature one has in hand. Thus, to refine or emphasize the horse and the dog, increases them in honesty, loyalty, and courage since such are top-traits with those animals. With a monkey or a man, and by similar argument, the more you refine him, the more abandoned he becomes. Really,” and here Morton restored himself with a cigarette, “I shouldn’t want these views to find their way to my club. It would cause the greatest row ever in our set; it would, really! I am made quite ill to only think of it.”

“What would you call a gentleman, then?” I asked.

Morton’s theories, while I in no manner subscribed to them, entertained me.

“What should I call a gentleman? Why I should call him the caricature of a man, don’t y’ know.”

The Reverend Bronson had been abroad in his campaign against those sharpers of Barclay Street for perhaps four weeks. I understood, without paying much heed to the subject, that he was seeking the evidence of their crimes, with a final purpose of having them before a court. There had been no public stir; the papers had said nothing. What steps had been taken were taken without noise. I doubted not that the investigation would, in the finish, die out. The hunted ones of Barclay Street were folk well used to the rôle of fugitive, and since Gothecore kept them informed of the enemy’s strategy, I could not think they would offer the Reverend Bronson and his ally, McCue, any too much margin.

As yet, I had never seen this McCue. By that, I knew him to be an honest man. Not that one is to understand how none save a rogue would come to me. I need hardly explain, however, that every policeman of dark-lantern methods was eagerly prone to make my acquaintance. It was a merest instinct of caution; the storm might break and he require a friend. Now this McCue had never sought to know me, and so I argued that his record was pure white.

This did not please me; I preferred men upon whom one might have some hold. These folk of a smooth honesty go through one’s fingers like water, and no more of a grip to be obtained upon one of them than upon the Hudson. I made up my mind that I would see this McCue.

Still I did not send for him; it was no part of my policy to exhibit concern in one with whom I was strange, and who later might open his mouth to quote it against me. McCue, however, was so much inclined to humor my desire, that one afternoon he walked into my presence of his own free will.

“My name is McCue,” said he, “Inspector McCue.” I motioned him to a chair. “I’ve been told to collect evidence against certain parties in Barclay Street,” he added. Then he came to a full stop.

While I waited for him to proceed in his own way and time, I studied Inspector McCue. He was a square-shouldered man, cautious, keen, resolute; and yet practical, and not one to throw himself away in the jaws of the impossible. What he had come to say, presently proved my estimate of him. On the whole, I didn’t like the looks of Inspector McCue.

“What is your purpose?” I asked at last. “I need not tell you that I have no official interest in what you may be about. Still less have I a personal concern.”

Inspector McCue’s only retort was a grimace that did not add to his popularity. Next he went boldly to the object of his call.

“What I want to say is this,” said he. “I’ve collected the evidence I was sent after; I can lay my hands on the parties involved as keepers and dealers in that Barclay Street den. But I’m old enough to know that all the evidence in the world won’t convict these crooks unless the machine is willing. I’m ready to go ahead and take my chances. But I’m not ready to run against a stone wall in the dark. I’d be crazy, where no good can come, to throw myself away.”

“Now this is doubtless of interest to you,” I replied, putting some impression of distance into my tones, “but what have I to do with the matter?”

“Only this,” returned McCue. “I’d like to have you tell me flat, whether or no you want these parties pinched.”

“Inspector McCue,” said I, “if that be your name and title, it sticks in my head that you are making a mistake. You ask me a question which you might better put to your chief.”

“We won’t dispute about it,” returned my caller; “and I’m not here to give offense. I am willing to do my duty; but, as I’ve tried to explain, I don’t care to sacrifice myself if the game’s been settled against me in advance. You speak of my going to the chief. If arrests are to be made, he’s the last man I ought to get my orders from.”

“If you will be so good as to explain?” said I.

“Because, if I am to go on, I must begin by collaring the chief. He’s the principal owner of that Barclay Street joint.”

This was indeed news, and I had no difficulty in looking grave.

“Captain Gothecore is in it, too; but his end is with the restaurant keeper. That check-cashing racket was a case of flam; there was a hold-out went with that play. The boy, Van Flange, was always drunk, and the best he ever got for, say a five-hundred-dollar check, was three hundred dollars. Gothecore was in on the difference. There’s the lay-out. Not a pleasant outlook, certainly; and not worth attempting arrests about unless I know that the machine is at my back.”

“You keep using the term ‘machine,’” said I coldly. “If by that you mean Tammany Hall, I may tell you, sir, that the ‘machine’ has no concern in the affair. You will do your duty as you see it.”

Inspector McCue sat biting his lips. After a moment, he got upon his feet to go.

“I think it would have been better,” said he, “if you had met me frankly. However, I’ve showed you my hand; now I’ll tell you what my course will be. This is Wednesday. I must, as you’ve said yourself, do my duty. If – mark you, I say ‘If’ – if I am in charge of this case on Saturday, I shall make the arrests I’ve indicated.”

“Did you ever see such gall!” exclaimed the Chief of Police, when I recounted my conversation with Inspector McCue. Then, holding up his pudgy hands in a manner of pathetic remonstrance: “It shows what I told you long ago. One honest man will put th’ whole force on th’ bum!”

Inspector McCue, on the day after his visit, was removed from his place, and ordered to a precinct in the drear far regions of the Bronx. The order was hardly dry on the paper when there descended upon me the Reverend Bronson, his eyes glittering with indignation, and a protest against this Siberia for Inspector McCue apparent in his face.

“And this,” cried the Reverend Bronson, as he came through the door, “and this is what comes to an officer who is willing to do his duty!”

“Sit down, Doctor,” said I soothingly, at the same time placing a chair; “sit down.”

CHAPTER XXII – THE MAN OF THE KNIFE

WHEN the first gust was over, the Reverend Bronson seemed sad rather than enraged. He reproached the machine for the failure of his effort against that gambling den.

“But why do you call yourself defeated?” I asked. It was no part of my purpose to concede, even by my silence, that either I or Tammany was opposed to the Reverend Bronson. “You should put the matter to the test of a trial before you say that.”

“What can I do without Inspector McCue? and he has been removed from the affair. I talked with him concerning it; he told me himself there was no hope.”

“Now, what were his words?” said I, for I was willing to discover how far Inspector McCue had used my name.

“Why, then,” returned the Reverend Bronson, with a faint smile at the recollection, “if I am to give you the precise words, our talk ran somewhat like this:

“‘Doctor, what’s the use?’ said Inspector McCue. ‘We’re up against it; we can’t move a wheel.’

“‘There’s such a word as law,’ said I, advancing much, the argument you have just now given me; ‘and such a thing as justice.’

“‘Not in the face of the machine,’ responded Inspector McCue. ‘The will of the machine stands for all the law and all the justice that we’re likely to get. The machine has the courts, the juries, the prosecuting officers, and the police. Every force we need is in its hands. Personally, of course, they couldn’t touch you; but if I were to so much as lift a finger, I’d be destroyed. Some day I, myself, may be chief; and if I am, for once in a way, I’ll guarantee the decent people of this town a run for their money.’