The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Thereupon the judge, fixing
Ellison with hard and thoughtful eye, gave him “from eight to twenty
years.” When a man gets “from eight to twenty years” he is worth writing
about. He would be worth writing about, even though it had been for such
crimes of the commonplace as poke-getting at a ferry or sticking up a
drunken sailor. And Ellison was found guilty of manslaughter.
Razor Riley would have been sentenced along with Ellison, only he had
conveniently died. When the Gophers gather themselves together, they
give various versions of Razor Riley's taking off. Some say he perished
of pneumonia. Others lay it to a bullet in his careless mouth. In any
case, he was dead, and therefore couldn't, in the nature of things,
accompany Ellison to Sing Sing.
Razor was a little one-hundred-and-ten-pound man, with weak muscles and
a heart of fire. He had, razorwise, cut and slashed his way into
much favorable mention, when that pneumonia or bullet--whichever it
was--stopped short his career.
While the width of the city apart, he and Ellison were ever friends.
They drank together, fought together, and held their foes as they held
their money, in common.
When the jury said “Guilty,” it filled Ellison with resentful amazement.
His angry wonder grew as the judge coldly mentioned that “from eight
to-twenty years.” He couldn't understand! The politicians had promised
to save him. It was only upon such assurance that he had concluded to
return. Safe in Baltimore, he could have safely continued in Baltimore.
Lured by false lights, misled by spurious promises, he had come back to
get “from eight to twenty years!” Cray and Savage rounded him up. All
his life a cop-fighter, he would have given those Central Office stars a
battle, had he realized what was in store for him and how like a rope of
sand were the promises of politicians!
My own introduction to Ellison and Razor Riley was in the Jefferson
Market court. That was several years ago. The day was the eighteenth of
March, and Magistrate Corrigan had invited me to a seat on the bench.
Ellison and Razor were arraigned for disorderly conduct. They had pushed
in the door of a Sixth Avenue bird and animal store, kept by an agitated
Italian, and in the language of the officer who made the collar, “didn't
do a thing to it.”
“They are guilty, your honor,” said their lawyer, manner deprecatory
and full of conciliation, with a view to softening the magisterial
heart--“they are guilty. And yet there is this in their defense. They
had been celebrating Saint Patrick's Day, over-celebrating it, perhaps,
your honor, and they didn't know what they were about. That's the mere
truth, your honor. Befuddled by too much and too fervently celebrating
the glorious day, they really didn't know what they were about.”
The lawyer waved a virtuous hand, as one who submitted affairs to the
mercy of an enlightened court.
Magistrate Corrigan was about to impose sentence, when the agitated
Italian broke forth.
“Don't I get-a my chance, judge?” he called out. “Certainly,” returned
Magistrate Corrigan, “what is it you want to say?”
“Judge, that-a guy”--pointing the finger of rebuttal at the lawyer--“he
say theese mans don't know what-a they do. One lie! They know what-a
they do all right. I show you, judge. They smash-a th' canaries, they
knock-a th' blocks off-a th' monks, they tear-a th' tails out of th'
macaws, but”--here his voice rose to a screech--“they nevair touch-a th'
bear.”
Magistrate Corrigan glanced at the policeman. The latter explained that,
while Ellison and Razor had spread wreck and havoc among the monkeys
and macaws, they had avoided even a remotest entanglement with a huge
cinnamon bear, chained in the center of the room. They had prudently
plowed 'round the bear.
“Twenty-five and costs!” said Magistrate Corrigan, a smile touching
the corners of his mouth. Then, raising a repressive palm towards the
lawyer, who betrayed symptoms of further oratory: “Not a word. Your
people get off very lightly. Upon the point you urge that these men
didn't know what they were about, the testimony of our Italian friend is
highly convincing.”
When a gentleman goes to Sing Sing for longer than five years, it is
Gangland good manners to speak of him in the past tense. Thus, then,
shall I speak of Ellison. His name, properly laid down, was James
Ellison. As, iron on wrists, a deputy at his elbow, he stepped aboard
the train, he gave his age as thirty-nine.
His monaker of Biff came to him in the most natural way in the world.
Gangland is ever ready to bestow a title. Therefore, when a recalcitrant
customer of Fat Flynn's, having quaffed that publican's beer and then
refused to pay for it, was floored as flat as a flounder by a round
blow from Ellison's fist, Gangland, commemorating the event, renamed him
Biff.
Ellison was in his angular, awkward twenties when he made his initial
appearance along the Bowery. He came from Maryland, no one knew why and
a youthful greenness would have got him laughed at, had it not been for
a look in his eye which suggested that while he might be green he might
be game.
Having little education and no trade Ellison met existence by hiring out
as bar-keeper to Fat Flynn, who kept a grog shop of singular vileness
at 34 Bond. Its beer glasses were vulgarly large, its frequenters of the
rough-neck school. But it was either work in Flynn's or carry a hod, and
Ellison, who was not fanatically fond of hard labor, and preferred
to seek his bread along lines of least resistance, instantly and
instinctively resolved on the side of Flynn's.
Gangland is much more given to boxing gloves than books, and the
conversation at Flynn's, as it drifted across the bar to Ellison--busy
drawing beer--was more calculated to help his hands than help his head.
Now and then, to be sure, there would come one who, like Slimmy, had
acquired a stir education, that is, a knowledge of books such as may
be picked up in prison; but for the most those whom Ellison met, in the
frothy course of business, were not the ones to feed his higher nature
or elevate his soul. It was a society where the strong man was the best
man, and only fist-right prevailed.
Ellison was young, husky, with length of reach and plenty of hitting
power, and, as the interests of Flynn demanded, he bowed to his
environment and beat up many a man. There were those abroad in Bond
Street whom he could not have conquered. But, commonly sober and
possessed besides of inborn gifts as a matchmaker, he had no trouble
in avoiding these. The folks whom he hooked up with were of the _genus_
cinch, _species_ pushover, and proceeding carefully he built up in time
a standing for valor throughout all the broad regions lying between
Fourteenth Street and City Hall Park.
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.”
“An' at that,” remarked Harrington, who had a practical knowledge of
politics, “him an' his mugwump bunch didn't have nothin' on th' New
York reformers. Do youse guys remember when the city bought th' ferries?
There was------”
“I'd sooner hear Slimmy,” said Goldie Cora.
“Me too,” agreed the Wop.
Slimmy looked flattered. “Well, then,” he continued, “all this time
Caesar is the big screech, an' it makes Brutus so sore he gets to be a
bug. So he starts to talkin'. 'This Cæsar guy,' says Brutus, 'won't do.'
“'Right you be,' says Cassius, who's always been a kicker. 'That's what
I've been tellin' you lobsters from th' jump.'
“With this an old souse named Casca sits up, an' says he ain't seen
nothin' wrong about Cæsar.
“'Oh, roll over!' says Cassius. 'Why even the newsboys are on. You know
Cæsar's wardman--that fresh baby, Mark Antony? It's ribbed up right now
that at th' Lupercal he's to hand Cæsar a crown.'
“Casca an' th' other bone-heads turns to Brutus.
“'Yes,' says Brutus, answerin' their looks; 'Cassius has got good
information. He's givin' youse th' correct steer.'”
“An' did Cæsar cop off the crown?” asked Goldie Cora, eagerly.
Slimmy shook his head.
“Th' Lupercal comes 'round,” said he, “an' Mark Antony is there with
bells on. He makes a funny crack or two about a crown, but nothin'
goes. Th' wind-up is that Brutus, Cassius, Casca, an' th' rest of th'
Citizens' Union, gang Cæsar later in th' forum, go at him with their
chives, an' cut an' slash till his hide won't hold his principles.”
“An' wasn't there,” demanded the Wop, with heat, “so much as wan
strong-arm la-a-ad up at Cæsar's end av th' alley, wit' th' nerve to git
even?”
“Never fear!” returned Slimmy, reassuringly; “th' day they plant Cæsar,
Mark Antony goes in to make th' funeral spiel. He's th' Roman Senator
Grady, Mark Antony is, an' he burns 'em up. Brutus an' his bunch get th'
tip up at their club house, an' take it on th' run. With that, Cæsar's
gang gets to goin', an' they stand Rome on its nut from the Capitoline
Hill to the Tarpeian Rock. Brutus an' the' other mugwumps gets it where
th' baby wore th' beads, an' there ain't been a Seth Low or a Fulton
Cutting along th' Tiber from that day to this. Oh, they've got us left
standin' sideways, them Guineas have, in some things.”
About the time Slimmy began his lucid setting forth of Brutus, Cæsar and
their political differences, Ellison and Razor, down at Nigger Mike's in
Pell Street, were laying their heads together. A bottle of whiskey stood
between them, for they required inspiration. There were forty people
in the room, some dancing, some drinking, some talking. But no one came
near Ellison and Razor, for their manner showed that they did not wish
to be disturbed. As the Nailer observed, “They had a hen on,” and when
gentlemen have a hen on they prefer being quiet.
“I've no use for Paul Kelly,” whispered Razor in response to some remark
of Ellison's. “You bet he knows enough not to show his snout along
Eighth Avenue. He'd get it good if he did.”
“My notion,” said Ellison, “is to turn th' trick right now.”
“Just th' two of us?”
“Why not?”
“He'd have his guerillas; youse have got to figure on that.”
“They wouldn't stand th' gaff. It's the difference between guys who
knows what they wants, and guys who don't. Once we started, they'd tear
th' side out the Brighton in the get-away.”
“All right,” said Razor, bringing down his hand; “I'm wit' you.”
“Just a moment,” and Ellison motioned Razor back into his chair. “If
Paul's dancin', we must stall him into th' bar. I don't want to hoit any
of them skirts.”
It was the delightful habit of Slimmy, on the tail of one of his
lectures, to order beer for his hearers. That's why he was listened to
with so much interest. Were every lecturer to adopt Slimmy's plan, he
would never fail of an audience. Also, his fame would grow.
Slimmy, having finished with Cæsar and the others, had just signed up
to the waiter to go his merry rounds, when Ellison and Razor slipped in
from the street. Their hands were on their guns, their eyes on Kelly.
Harrington saw it coming.
“Your gatt, Paul, your gatt!” he shouted.
The rule in Gangland is to let every man kill his own snakes.
Harrington's conduct crowded hard upon the gross. It so disgusted Razor
that, to show Harrington what he thought of it, he half turned and laced
a bullet through his brain.
“Now you've got something of your own to occupy your mind,” quoth Razor.
Ellison was too old a practitioner to be drawn aside by the Harrington
episode. He devoted himself unswervingly to Paul Kelly. Ellison's first
bullet cut a hole through Kelly's coat and did no further harm. The
lights were switched out at this crisis, and what shooting followed came
off in the dark. There was plenty of it. The air seemed sown as thickly
full of little yellow spits of flame as an August swamp of fireflies.
Even so, it didn't last. It was as short lived as a July squall at sea.
There was one thunder and lightning moment, during which the pistols
flashed and roared, and then--stillness and utter silence!
It was fairish pistol practice when you consider conditions. Paul Kelly
had three bullets in him when four weeks later he asked the coppers to
come and get him. He had been up in Harlem somewhere lying low. And you
are not to forget Harrington. There were other casualties, also, which
the police and politicians worked hand in hand to cover up.
Five minutes went by after the shooting; ten minutes!--no one was in a
hurry. At last a policeman arrived. He might have come sooner, but the
New Brighton was a citadel of politics. Would you have had him lose his
shield?
The policeman felt his official way into the barroom:--empty as a drum,
dark as the inside of a cow!
He struck a match. By its pale and little light he made out the dead
Harrington on the floor. Not a living soul, not even Goldie Cora!
Goldie Cora?
Said that practical damsel, when the matter was put up to her by Big
Kitty, who being sentimental called Goldie Cora a quitter for leaving
her dead love lying in his blood, “What good could I do? If I'd stuck
I'd have got pinched; an' then--me in th' Tombs--I'd have stood a swell
chance, I don't chink, of bein' at Bill's funeral.”