ex-service man.”
“Look here Joey you’re a smart feller ...”
“Oh they’ll line up all right. I kin talk em around.”
“How many guys have you got over there?”
“The Sheamus O’Rielly Post’s got three hundred members an new ones
signin up every day.... We’re gettin em from all over. We’re goin to
have a Christmas dance an some fights in the Armory if we can get hold
of any pugs.”
Gus McNiel threw back his head on his bullneck and laughed. “Thataboy!”
“But honest the bonus is the only way we kin keep the boys together.”
“Suppose I come over and talk to em some night.”
“That’d be all right, but they’re dead sot against anybody who aint got
a war record.”
McNiel flushed. “Come back feeling kinder smart, dont ye, you guys from
overseas?” He laughed. “That wont last more’n a year or two.... I seen
em come back from the Spanish American War, remember that Joe.”
An officeboy came in an laid a card on the desk. “A lady to see you Mr.
McNiel.”
“All right show her in.... It’s that old bitch from the school
board.... All right Joe, drop in again next week.... I’ll keep you in
mind, you and your army.”
Dougan was waiting in the outer office. He sidled up mysteriously.
“Well Joe, how’s things?”
“Pretty good,” said Joe puffing out his chest. “Gus tells me Tammany’ll
be right behind us in our drive for the bonus ... planning a nation
wide campaign. He gave me some cigars a friend o his brought up by
airplane from Havana.... Have one?” With their cigars tilting up out
of the corners of their mouths they walked briskly cockily across City
Hall square. Opposite the old City Hall there was a scaffolding. Joe
pointed at it with his cigar. “That there’s the new statue of Civic
Virtue the mayor’s havin set up.”
* * * * *
The steam of cooking wrenched at his knotted stomach as he passed
Child’s. Dawn was sifting fine gray dust over the black ironcast
city. Dutch Robertson despondently crossed Union Square, remembering
Francie’s warm bed, the spicy smell of her hair. He pushed his hands
deep in his empty pockets. Not a red, and Francie couldn’t give him
anything. He walked east past the hotel on Fifteenth. A colored man was
sweeping off the steps. Dutch looked at him enviously; he’s got a job.
Milkwagons jingled by. On Stuyvesant Square a milkman brushed past him
with a bottle in each hand. Dutch stuck out his jaw and talked tough.
“Give us a swig o milk will yez?” The milkman was a frail pinkfaced
youngster. His blue eyes wilted. “Sure go round behind the wagon,
there’s an open bottle under the seat. Dont let nobody see you drink
it.” He drank it in deep gulps, sweet and soothing to his parched
throat. Jez I didn’t need to talk rough like that. He waited until the
boy came back. “Thankye buddy, that was mighty white.”
He walked into the chilly park and sat down on a bench. There was
hoarfrost on the asphalt. He picked up a torn piece of pink evening
newspaper. $500,000 HOLDUP. Bank Messenger Robbed in Wall Street Rush
Hour.
In the busiest part of the noon hour two men held up
Adolphus St. John, a bank messenger for the Guarantee Trust
Company, and snatched from his hands a satchel containing a
half a million dollars in bills ...
Dutch felt his heart pounding as he read the column. He was cold all
over. He got to his feet and began thrashing his arms about.
* * * * *
Congo stumped through the turnstile at the end of the L line. Jimmy
Herf followed him looking from one side to the other. Outside it was
dark, a blizzard wind whistled about their ears. A single Ford sedan
was waiting outside the station.
“How you like, Meester ’Erf?”
“Fine Congo. Is that water?”
“That Sheepshead Bay.”
They walked along the road, dodging an occasional bluesteel glint of
a puddle. The arclights had a look of shrunken grapes swaying in the
wind. To the right and left were flickering patches of houses in the
distance. They stopped at a long building propped on piles over the
water. POOL; Jimmy barely made out the letters on an unlighted window.
The door opened as they reached it. “Hello Mike,” said Congo. “This is
Meester ’Erf, a frien’ o mine.” The door closed behind them. Inside it
was black as an oven. A calloused hand grabbed Jimmy’s hand in the dark.
“Glad to meet you,” said a voice.
“Say how did you find my hand?”
“Oh I kin see in the dark.” The voice laughed throatily.
By that time Congo had opened the inner door. Light streamed through
picking out billiard tables, a long bar at the end, racks of cues.
“This is Mike Cardinale,” said Congo. Jimmy found himself standing
beside a tall sallow shylooking man with bunchy black hair growing low
on his forehead. In the inner room were shelves full of chinaware and
a round table covered by a piece of mustardcolored oilcloth. “Eh la
patronne,” shouted Congo. A fat Frenchwoman with red applecheeks came
out through the further door; behind her came a _chiff_ of sizzling
butter and garlic. “This is frien o mine.... Now maybe we eat,” shouted
Congo. “She my wife,” said Cardinale proudly. “Very deaf.... Have to
talk loud.” He turned and closed the door to the large hall carefully
and bolted it. “No see lights from road,” he said. “In summer,” said
Mrs. Cardinale, “sometime we give a hundred meals a day, or a hundred
an fifty maybe.”
“Havent you got a little peekmeup?” said Congo. He let himself down
with a grunt into a chair.
Cardinale set a fat fiasco of wine on the table and some glasses. They
tasted it smacking their lips. “Bettern Dago Red, eh Meester ’Erf?”
“It sure is. Tastes like real Chianti.”
Mrs. Cardinale set six plates with a stained fork, knife, and spoon in
each and then put a steaming tureen of soup in the middle of the table.
“Pronto pasta,” she shrieked in a guineahen voice. “Thisa Anetta,” said
Cardinale as a pinkcheeked blackhaired girl with long lashes curving
back from bright black eyes ran into the room followed by a heavily
tanned young man in khaki overalls with curly sunbleached hair. They
all sat down at once and began to eat the peppery thick vegetable
chowder, leaning far over their plates.
When Congo had finished his soup he looked up. “Mike did you see
lights?” Cardinale nodded. “Sure ting ... be here any time.” While they
were eating a dish of fried eggs and garlic, frizzled veal cutlets with
fried potatoes and broccoli, Herf began to hear in the distance the pop
pop pop of a motorboat. Congo got up from the table with a motion to
them to be quiet and looked out the window, cautiously lifting a corner
of the shade. “That him,” he said as he stumped back to the table. “We
eat good here, eh Meester Erf?”
The young man got to his feet wiping his mouth on his forearm. “Got a
nickel Congo,” he said doing a double shuffle with his sneakered feet.
“Here go Johnny.” The girl followed him out into the dark outer room.
In a moment a mechanical piano started tinkling out a waltz. Through
the door Jimmy could see them dancing in and out of the oblong of
light. The chugging of the motorboat drew nearer. Congo went out, then
Cardinale and his wife, until Jimmy was left alone sipping a glass of
wine among the debris of the dinner. He felt excited and puzzled and
a little drunk. Already he began to construct the story in his mind.
From the road came the grind of gears of a truck, then of another. The
motorboat engine choked, backfired and stopped. There was the creak of
a boat against the piles, a swash of waves and silence. The mechanical
piano had stopped. Jimmy sat sipping his wine. He could smell the
rankness of salt marshes seeping into the house. Under him there was a
little lapping sound of the water against the piles. Another motorboat
was beginning to sputter in the far distance.
“Got a nickel?” asked Congo breaking into the room suddenly. “Make
music.... Very funny night tonight. Maybe you and Annette keep piano
goin. I didnt see McGee about landin.... Maybe somebody come. Must be
veree quick.” Jimmy got to his feet and started fishing in his pockets.
By the piano he found Annette. “Wont you dance?” She nodded. The piano
played _Innocent Eyes_. They danced distractedly. Outside were voices
and footsteps. “Please,” she said all at once and they stopped dancing.
The second motorboat had come very near; the motor coughed and rattled
still. “Please stay here,” she said and slipped away from him.
Jimmy Herf walked up and down uneasily puffing on a cigarette. He was
making up the story in his mind.... In a lonely abandoned dancehall on
Sheepshead Bay ... lovely blooming Italian girl ... shrill whistle in
the dark.... I ought to get out and see what’s going on. He groped
for the front door. It was locked. He walked over to the piano and
put another nickel in. Then he lit a fresh cigarette and started
walking up and down again. Always the way ... a parasite on the drama
of life, reporter looks at everything through a peephole. Never mixes
in. The piano was playing _Yes We Have No Bananas_. “Oh hell!” he kept
muttering and ground his teeth and walked up and down.
Outside the tramp of steps broke into a scuffle, voices snarled. There
was a splintering of wood and the crash of breaking bottles. Jimmy
looked out through the window of the diningroom. He could see the
shadows of men struggling and slugging on the boatlanding. He rushed
into the kitchen, where he bumped into Congo sweaty and staggering into
the house leaning on a heavy cane.
“Goddam ... dey break my leg,” he shouted.
“Good God.” Jimmy helped him groaning into the diningroom.
“Cost me feefty dollars to have it mended last time I busted it.”
“You mean your cork leg?”
“Sure what you tink?”
“Is it prohibition agents?”
“Prohibition agents nutten, goddam hijackers.... Go put a neeckel in
the piano.” _Beautiful Girl of My Dreams_, the piano responded gayly.
When Jimmy got back to him, Congo was sitting in a chair nursing his
stump with his two hands. On the table lay the cork and aluminum
limb splintered and dented. “Regardez moi ça ... c’est foutu ...
completement foutu.” As he spoke Cardinale came in. He had a deep gash
over his eyes from which a trickle of blood ran down his cheek on his
coat and shirt. His wife followed him rolling back her eyes; she had a
basin and a sponge with which she kept making ineffectual dabs at his
forehead. He pushed her away. “I crowned one of em good wid a piece o
pipe. I think he fell in de water. God I hope he drownded.” Johnny
came in holding his head high. Annette had her arm round his waist. He
had a black eye and one of the sleeves of his shirt hung in shreds.
“Gee it was like in the movies,” said Annette, giggling hysterically.
“Wasnt he grand, mommer, wasn’t he grand?”
“Jez it’s lucky they didn’t start shootin; one of em had a gun.”
“Scared to I guess.”
“Trucks are off.”
“Just one case got busted up.... God there was five of them.”
“Gee didnt he mix it up with em?” screamed Annette.
“Oh shut up,” growled Cardinale. He had dropped into a chair and his
wife was sponging off his face. “Did you get a good look at the boat?”
asked Congo.
“Too goddam dark,” said Johnny. “Fellers talked like they came from
Joisey.... First ting I knowed one of em comes up to me and sez I’m a
revenue officer an I pokes him one before he has time to pull a gun an
overboard he goes. Jez they were yeller. That guy George on the boat
near brained one of em wid an oar. Then they got back in their old
teakettle an beat it.”
“But how they know how we make landin?” stuttered Congo his face purple.
“Some guy blabbed maybe,” said Cardinale. “If I find out who it is, by
God I’ll ...” he made a popping noise with his lips.
“You see Meester ’Erf,” said Congo in his suave voice again, “it was
all champagne for the holidays.... Very valuable cargo eh?” Annette,
her cheeks very red sat still looking at Johnny with parted lips and
toobright eyes. Herf found himself blushing as he looked at her.
He got to his feet. “Well I must be getting back to the big city.
Thank’s for the feed and the melodrama, Congo.”
“You find station all right?”
“Sure.”
“Goodnight Meester ’Erf, maybe you buy case of champagne for Christmas,
genuine Mumms.”
“Too darn broke Congo.”
“Then maybe you sell to your friends an I give you commission.”
“All right I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll phone you tomorrow to tell price.”
“That’s a fine idea. Good night.”
Joggling home in the empty train through empty Brooklyn suburbs Jimmy
tried to think of the bootlegging story he’d write for the Sunday
Magazine Section. The girl’s pink cheeks and toobright eyes kept
intervening, blurring the orderly arrangement of his thoughts. He sank
gradually into dreamier and dreamier reverie. Before the kid was born
Ellie sometimes had toobright eyes like that. The time on the hill when
she had suddenly wilted in his arms and been sick and he had left her
among the munching, calmly staring cows on the grassy slope and gone to
a shepherd’s hut and brought back milk in a wooden ladle, and slowly as
the mountains hunched up with evening the color had come back into her
cheeks and she had looked at him that way and said with a dry little
laugh: It’s the little Herf inside me. God why cant I stop mooning over
things that are past? And when the baby was coming and Ellie was in the
American Hospital at Neuilly, himself wandering distractedly through
the fair, going into the Flea Circus, riding on merrygorounds and the
steam swing, buying toys, candy, taking chances on dolls in a crazy
blur, stumbling back to the hospital with a big plaster pig under his
arm. Funny these fits of refuge in the past. Suppose she had died; I
thought she would. The past would have been complete all round, framed,
worn round your neck like a cameo, set up in type, molded on plates for
the Magazine Section, like the first of James Herf’s articles on The
Bootlegging Ring. Burning slugs of thought kept dropping into place
spelled out by a clanking linotype.
At midnight he was walking across Fourteenth. He didnt want to go home
to bed although the rasping cold wind tore at his neck and chin with
sharp ice claws. He walked west across Seventh and Eighth Avenues,
found the name Roy Sheffield beside a bell in a dimly lit hall. As
soon as he pressed the bell the catch on the door began to click. He
ran up the stairs. Roy had his big curly head with its glass-gray
gollywog eyes stuck out the door.
“Hello Jimmy; come on in; we’re all lit up like churches.”
“I’ve just seen a fight between bootleggers and hijackers.”
“Where?”
“Down at Sheepshead Bay.”
“Here’s Jimmy Herf, he’s just been fighting prohibition agents,”
shouted Roy to his wife. Alice had dark chestnut dollhair and an
uptilted peaches and cream dollface. She ran up to Jimmy and kissed him
on the chin. “Oh Jimmy do tell us all about it.... We’re so horribly
bored.”
“Hello,” cried Jimmy; he had just made out Frances and Bob Hildebrand
on the couch at the dim end of the room. They lifted their glasses to
him. Jimmy was pushed into an armchair, had a glass of gin and ginger
ale put in his hand. “Now what’s all this about a fight? You’d better
tell us because were certainly not going to buy the Sunday _Tribune_ to
find out,” Bob Hildebrand said in a deep rumbling voice.
Jimmy took a long drink. “I went out with a man I know who’s shiek of
all the French and Italian bootleggers. He’s a fine man. He’s got a
cork leg. He set me up to a swell feed and real Italian wine out in a
deserted poolroom on the shores of Sheepshead Bay....”
“By the way,” asked Roy, “where’s Helena.”
“Dont interrupt Roy,” said Alice. “This is good ... and besides you
should never ask a man where his wife is.”
“Then there was a lot of flashing of signal lights and stuff and a
motorboat loaded down with Mumm’s extra dry champagne for Park Avenue
Christmases came in and the hijackers arrived on a speedboat.... It
probably was a hydroplane it came so fast ...”
“My this is exciting,” cooed Alice. “... Roy why dont you take up
bootlegging?”
“Worst fight I ever saw outside of the movies, six or seven on a side
all slugging each other on a little narrow landing the size of this
room, people crowning each other with oars and joints of lead pipe.”
“Was anybody hurt?”
“Everybody was.... I think two of the hijackers were drowned. At any
rate they beat a retreat leaving us lapping up the spilled champagne.”
“But it must have been terrible,” cried the Hildebrands. “What did you
do Jimmy?” asked Alice breathless.
“Oh I hopped around keeping out of harm’s way. I didnt know who was
on which side and it was dark and wet and confusing everywhere.... I
finally did drag my bootlegger friend out of the fray when he got his
leg broken ... his wooden leg.”
Everybody let out a shout. Roy filled Jimmy’s glass up with gin again.
“Oh Jimmy,” cooed Alice, “you lead the most thrilling life.”
* * * * *
James Merivale was going over a freshly decoded cable, tapping the
words with a pencil as he read them. Tasmanian Manganese Products
instructs us to open credit.... The phone on his desk began to buzz.
“James this is your mother. Come right up; something terrible has
happened.”
“But I dont know if I can get away....”
She had already cut off. Merivale felt himself turning pale. “Let me
speak to Mr. Aspinwall please.... Mr. Aspinwall this is Merivale.... My
mother’s been taken suddenly ill. I’m afraid it may be a stroke. I’d
like to run up there for an hour. I’ll be back in time to get a cable
off on that Tasmanian matter.”
“All right.... I’m very sorry Merivale.”
He grabbed his hat and coat, forgetting his muffler, and streaked out
of the bank and along the street to the subway.
He burst into the apartment breathless, snapping his fingers from
nervousness. Mrs. Merivale grayfaced met him in the hall.
“My dear I thought you’d been taken ill.”
“It’s not that ... it’s about Maisie.”
“She hasnt met with an accid...?”
“Come in here,” interrupted Mrs. Merivale. In the parlor sat a little
roundfaced woman in a round mink hat and a long mink coat. “My dear
this girl says she’s Mrs. Jack Cunningham and she’s got a marriage
certificate to prove it.”
“Good Heavens, is that true?”
The girl nodded in a melancholy way.
“And the invitations are out. Since his last wire Maisie’s been
ordering her trousseau.”
The girl unfolded a large certificate ornamented with pansies and
cupids and handed it to James.
“It might be forged.”
“It’s not forged,” said the girl sweetly.
“John C. Cunningham, 21 ... Jessie Lincoln, 18,” he read aloud....
“I’ll smash his face for that, the blackguard. That’s certainly his
signature, I’ve seen it at the bank.... The blackguard.”
“Now James, don’t be hasty.”
“I thought it would be better this way than after the ceremony,” put in
the girl in her little sugar voice. “I wouldnt have Jack commit bigamy
for anything in the world.”
“Where’s Maisie?”
“The poor darling is prostrated in her room.”
Merivale’s face was crimson. The sweat itched under his collar. “Now
dearest” Mrs. Merivale kept saying, “you must promise me not to do
anything rash.”
“Yes Maisie’s reputation must be protected at all costs.”
“My dear I think the best thing to do is to get him up here and
confront him with this ... with this ... lady.... Would you agree to
that Mrs. Cunningham?”
“Oh dear.... Yes I suppose so.”
“Wait a minute,” shouted Merivale and strode down the hall to the
telephone. “Rector 12305.... Hello. I want to speak to Mr. Jack
Cunningham please.... Hello. Is this Mr. Cunningham’s office? Mr. James
Merivale speaking.... Out of town.... And when will he be back?...
Hum.” He strode back along the hall. “The damn scoundrel’s out of town.”
“All the years I’ve known him,” said the little lady in the round hat,
“that has always been where he was.”
* * * * *
Outside the broad office windows the night is gray and foggy. Here
and there a few lights make up dim horizontals and perpendiculars of
asterisks. Phineas Blackhead sits at his desk tipping far back in the
small leather armchair. In his hand protecting his fingers by a large
silk handkerchief, he holds a glass of hot water and bicarbonate of
soda. Densch bald and round as a billiardball sits in the deep armchair
playing with his tortoiseshell spectacles. Everything is quiet except
for an occasional rattling and snapping of the steampipes.
“Densch you must forgive me.... You know I rarely permit myself an
observation concerning other people’s business,” Blackhead is saying
slowly between sips; then suddenly he sits up in his chair. “It’s a
damn fool proposition, Densch, by God it is ... by the Living Jingo
it’s ridiculous.”
“I dont like dirtying my hands any more than you do.... Baldwin’s a
good fellow. I think we’re safe in backing him a little.”
“What the hell’s an import and export firm got to do in politics? If
any of those guys wants a handout let him come up here and get it.
Our business is the price of beans ... and its goddam low. If any of
you puling lawyers could restore the balance of the exchanges I’d be
willing to do anything in the world.... They’re crooks every last
goddam one of em ... by the Living Jingo they’re crooks.” His face
flushes purple, he sits upright in his chair banging with his fist on
the corner of the desk. “Now you’re getting me all excited.... Bad for
my stomach, bad for my heart.” Phineas Blackhead belches portentously
and takes a great gulp out of the glass of bicarbonate of soda. Then
he leans back in his chair again letting his heavy lids half cover his
eyes.
“Well old man,” says Mr. Densch in a tired voice, “it may have been a
bad thing to do, but I’ve promised to support the reform candidate.
That’s a purely private matter in no way involving the firm.”
“Like hell it dont.... How about McNiel and his gang?... They’ve always
treated us all right and all we’ve ever done for em’s a couple of cases
of Scotch and a few cigars now and then.... Now we have these reformers
throw the whole city government into a turmoil.... By the Living
Jingo ...”
Densch gets to his feet. “My dear Blackhead I consider it my duty as
a citizen to help in cleaning up the filthy conditions of bribery,
corruption and intrigue that exist in the city government ... I
consider it my duty as a citizen ...” He starts walking to the door,
his round belly stuck proudly out in front of him.
“Well allow me to say Densch that I think its a damn fool proposition,”
Blackhead shouts after him. When his partner has gone he lies back a
second with his eyes closed. His face takes on the mottled color of
ashes, his big fleshy frame is shrinking like a deflating balloon. At
length he gets to his feet with a groan. Then he takes his hat and
coat and walks out of the office with a slow heavy step. The hall is
empty and dimly lit. He has to wait a long while for the elevator. The
thought of holdup men sneaking through the empty building suddenly
makes him catch his breath. He is afraid to look behind him, like a
child in the dark. At last the elevator shoots up.
“Wilmer,” he says to the night watchman who runs it, “there ought to be
more light in these halls at night.... During this crime wave I should
think you ought to keep the building brightly lit.”
“Yassir maybe you’re right sir ... but there cant nobody get in unless
I sees em first.”
“You might be overpowered by a gang Wilmer.”
“I’d like to see em try it.”
“I guess you are right ... mere question of nerve.”
Cynthia is sitting in the Packard reading a book. “Well dear did you
think I was never coming.”
“I almost finished my book, dad.”
“All right Butler ... up town as fast as you can. We’re late for
dinner.”
As the limousine whirs up Lafayette Street, Blackhead turns to his
daughter. “If you ever hear a man talking about his duty as a citizen,
by the Living Jingo dont trust him.... He’s up to some kind of monkey
business nine times out of ten. You dont know what a relief it is to me
that you and Joe are comfortably settled in life.”
“What’s the matter dad? Did you have a hard day at the office?” “There
are no markets, there isnt a market in the goddam world that isnt shot
to blazes.... I tell you Cynthia it’s nip and tuck. There’s no telling
what might happen.... Look, before I forget it could you be at the
bank uptown at twelve tomorrow?... I’m sending Hudgins up with certain
securities, personal you understand, I want to put in your safe deposit
box.”
“But it’s jammed full already dad.”
“That box at the Astor Trust is in your name isnt it?”
“Jointly in mine and Joe’s.”