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The Apaches of New York
The Apaches of New York
TO ARTHUR WEST LITTLE
These stories are true in name and time and place. None of them in its incident happened as far away as three years ago. They were written to show you how the other half live – in New York. I had them direct from the veracious lips of the police. The gangsters themselves contributed sundry details.
You will express amazement as you read that they carry so slight an element of Sing Sing and the Death Chair. Such should have been no doubt the very proper and lawful climax of more than one of them, and would were it not for what differences subsist between a moral and a legal certainty. The police know many things they cannot prove in court, the more when the question at bay concerns intimately, for life or death, a society where the “snitch” is an abomination and to “squeal” the single great offense.
Besides, you are not to forget the politician, who in defense of a valuable repeater palsies police effort with the cold finger of his interference. With apologies to that order, the three links of the Odd Fellows are an example of the policeman, the criminal and the politician. The latter is the middle link, and holds the other two together while keeping them apart.
Alfred Henry Lewis. New York City, Dec. 22, 1911.
I. – EAT-’EM-UP JACK
Chick Tricker kept a house of call at One Hundred and Twenty-eight Park Row. There he sold strong drink, wine and beer, mostly beer, and the thirsty sat about at sloppy tables and enjoyed themselves. When night came there was music, and those who would – and could – arose and danced. One Hundred and Twenty-eight Park Row was in recent weeks abolished. The Committee of Fourteen, one of those restless moral influences so common in New York, complained to the Powers of Excise and had the license revoked.
It was a mild February evening. The day shift had gone off watch at One Hundred and Twenty-eight, leaving the night shift in charge, and – all things running smoothly – Tricker decided upon an evening out. It might have been ten o’clock when, in deference to that decision, he stepped into the street. It was commencing to snow – flakes as big and soft and clinging as a baby’s hand. Not that Tricker – hardy soul – much minded snow.
Tricker, having notions about meeting Indian Louie, swung across to Roosevelt Street. Dodging down five steps, he opened the door of a dingy wine-cellar. It was the nesting-place of a bevy of street musicians, a dozen of whom were scattered about, quaffing chianti. Their harps, fiddles and hand-organs had been chucked into corners, and a general air of relaxation pervaded the scene. The room was blue with smoke, rich in the odor of garlic, and, since the inmates all talked at once, there arose a prodigious racket.
Near where Tricker seated himself reposed a hand-organ. Crouched against it was a little, mouse-hued monkey, fast asleep. The day’s work had told on him. ‘Fatigued of much bowing and scraping for coppers, the diminutive monkey slept soundly. Not all the hubbub served to shake the serene profundity of his dreams.
Tricker idly gave the handle of the organ a twist. Perhaps three notes were elicited. It was enough. The little monkey was weary, but he knew the voice and heard in it a trumpet-call to duty. With the earliest squeak he sprang up – winking, blinking – and, doffing his small red hat, began begging for pennies. Tricker gave him a dime, not thinking it right to disturb his slumbers for nothing. The mouse-hued one tucked it away in some recondite pocket of his scanty jacket, and then, the organ having lapsed into silence, curled up for another snooze.
Tricker paid for his glass of wine, and – since he saw nothing of Indian Louie, and as a source of interest had exhausted the monkey – lounged off into the dark.
In Chatham Square Tricker met a big-chested policeman. Tricker knew the policeman, having encountered him officially. As the latter strutted along, a small, mustard-colored dog came crouching at his heels.
“What’s the dog for?” Tricker asked.
Being in an easy mood, the trivial possessed a charm.
The policeman bent upon the little dog a benign eye. The little dog glanced up shyly, wagging a wistful tail.