The Apaches of New York

One o’clock struck, and Mike locked his door. Key turned, the beer flowed on unchecked.

At half after one, when Mike himself was a law-breaker under the excise statute by full thirty criminal minutes, Roxie with his Five Points merrymakers arose, beat up Mike and his few retainers, skinned the damper for fifty bones, and departed singing songs of victory.

Mike was powerless.

As was well said by Roxie: “W’at could he do? If he makes a roar to th’ cops for us puttin’ his joint in th’ air, we’d have whipped one over on him for bein’ open after hours.”

Mike laughed with the rest at Roxie’s reminiscence. It was of another day.

“W’at’s th’ matter wit’ your mouth, Mike?” asked St. Louis Bill, for there was a lisping queerness, not only about Mike’s talk, but about his laugh.

Nigger Mike proceeded to lay bare the causes of that queerness. While engaged in a joint debate – years ago, it was – with a gentleman given as much to sudden petulances as to positive views, he had lost three of his teeth. Their place had been artifically but not artistically supplied.

“An’ lately they’ve been feelin’ funny,” explained Mike, alluding to the supplemental teeth, “an’ I toins ‘em over to th’ Doc to fix. That guy who made ‘em for me foist must have been a bum dentist. An’ at that, w’at do you t’ink he charges? I’m a Dutchman if he don’t lash me to th’ mast for forty bucks! He says th’ gold plate is wort’ twenty.”

“Well, Mike,” said Nannie Miller, who’d been listening, “I don’t want to make you sore, but on the level you talk like your mouth is full of mush. I’d make th’ Doc come through wit’ ‘em as soon as I could.”

“He says he’ll bring ‘em in to-morry,” returned Mike.

“It’s ten to one you don’t see ‘em for a week,” declared the pessimistic St. Louis Bill. “Youse can’t tell nothin’ about them hop-heads. They say ‘to-morry’ when they mean next year.”

St. Louis Bill, being virtuously superior to opium, never lost a chance to speak scornfully of those who couldn’t make that boast.

Mike, at the discouraging view expressed, became doleful. “Say,” he observed, “I’d look like a sucker, wouldn’t I, if anything happens th’ Doc, an’ I don’t get ‘em?”

St. Louis Bill assured Mike that he would indeed look like a sucker, and re-declared his conviction – based upon certain occult creepings and crawlings in his bones – that Mike had seen the last of those teeth.

“Take my steer,” said St. Louis Bill in conclusion; “treat them teeth you gives th’ Doc as a dead issue, an’ go get measured for some more. Twenty dollars wort’ of gold, you says! It ain’t no cinch but the Doc’s hocked ‘em for hop.”

“Nothin’ to that!” returned Mike, decisively. “Th’ Doc’s a square guy. Them teeth is all safe enough. Only, as you says, bein’ he hits the pipe, he may be slow about chasin’ in wit’ ‘em.”

While Nigger Mike and his guests are in talk, run your eye over the scene. Those citizens of Gangland assembled about the Chatham Club tables would have made a study, and mayhap a chapter, for Lombroso. Speaking generally, they are a stunted litter, these gangmen, and seldom stand taller than five feet four. Their weight wouldn’t average one hundred and twenty pounds. They are apt to run from the onslaught of an outsider. This is not perhaps from cowardice; but they dislike exertion, even the exertion of fighting, and unless it be to gain money or spoil, or a point of honor is involved – as in their duels and gang wars – they back away from trouble. In their gang battles, or when fighting the police, their strategy is to lie flat on the ground and shoot. Thus they save themselves a clubbing, and the chances from hostile lead are reduced.

To be sure there are exceptions. Such as Chick Tricker, Ike the Blood, Big Mike Abrams, Jack Sirocco, the Dropper, and the redoubtable Jimmy Kelly never fly and always fight. No one ever saw their backs.

You are inclined to doubt the bloody character of those gang battles. Why doesn’t one hear of them? – you ask. Because the police conceal as much as may be all word and all sign of them. For the public to know might get the police criticized, and they are granted enough of that without inviting it through any foolish frankness. The hospitals, however, will tell you of a weekly average of fifty patients, suffering from knife or gun-shot wounds, not to name fractures born of bottles, bricks and blackjacks. A bottle judiciously wielded, or a beer stein prudently broken in advance to assure a jagged edge, is no mean weapon where warriors are many and the fields of battle close.

While Roxie rattled on, and the others gave interested ear, Jackeen was commenting in discouraged whispers to Johnny Rice on those twin setbacks of the Division Street stick-up and the Savoy safe.

“It looks like nobody’s got any dough,” replied Rice, in a spirit of sympathy. “Take me own self. I ain’t made a touch youse could call a touch, for a mont’ of Sundays. Me rag, Josie, an’ I was chin-nin’ about it on’y last night, an’ Josie herself says she never sees th’ town so dead.”

“It’s somethin’ fierce!” returned Jackeen, moodily.

More beer, and a moment of silence.

“W’at’s you’ goil May doin’?” asked Rice.

“She’s graftin’ a little,” responded Jackeen; “but w’at wit’ th’ stores full of private dicks a booster can’t do much.”

“Well, you can bet May ought to know!” returned Rice. “As a derrick, she’ got the Darby Kid an’ the best of ‘em beat four ways from th’ jack. She could bring home th’ bacon, if any of them hoisters could.”

Then appeared Lulu the houseless – Lulu, the forlorn and outcast Eve of that Catherine Street Eden!

Lulu stood a polite moment behind the chair of Jackeen. At a lull in the talk, she whispered a word in his ear. He looked up, nodded, and then followed her out into Doyers Street.

“It’s this way,” said Lulu. “May’s copped th’ Doc from me, see! An’ she’s givin’ you the cross, Jackeen. You ought to hand her out a good heatin’. She’s over hittin’ the pipe wit’ th’ Doc right now.”

“G’wan!” came jealously from Jackeen.

“Honest! You come wit’ me to number Nineteen, an’ I’ll show youse.”

Jackeen paused as though weighing the pros and cons.

“Let me go get Ricey,” he said at last. “He’s got a good nut, an’ I’ll put th’ play up to him.”

“All right,” responded Lulu, impatient in her desolation; “but get a move on! I’ve wised you; an’ now, if you’re any good at all, you’ll take May out of number Nineteen be th’ mop. W’at license has she, or any other skirt for that matter, got to do me out of me Doc?”

The last ended in a howl.

Leaving Lulu in the midst of her complaints, Jackeen wheeled back into the Chatham Club for a word with Rice. Even during his absence, a change had come over the company. He found Rice, St. Louis Bill and Nannie Miller, holding anxious confab with a ratfaced person who had just come in.

“See here, Jackeen,” said St. Louis Bill in an excited whisper, “there’s been a rap about that Savoy safe trick, an’ th’ bulls are right now lookin’ for th’ whole mob. They say it’s us, too, who put that rube in the air over in Division Street.”

“An’ th’ question is,” broke in Nannie Miller, who was quick to act, “do we stand pat, or do we do a lammister?”

“There’s on’y one answer to that,” said St. Louis Bill. “For my end of it I’m goin’ to lamm.”

Jackeen had May and his heart troubles upon the back of his regard. Still he heard; and he arrived at a decision. He would run – yes; for flight was preferable to four stone walls. But he must have revenge – revenge upon the Doc and May.

“Wit’ th’ bulls after me, an’ me away, it ‘ud be comin’ too soft for ‘em,” thought Jackeen.

“W’at do youse say?” asked St. Louis Bill, who was getting nervous.

“How did youse get the woid?” demanded Jackeen, turning upon Ratface. It was he who had brought the warning.

“I’m a stool for one of the bulls,” replied Ratface, “an’ it’s him tells me you blokes is wanted, see!”

“So you’re stoolin’ for a Central Office cop?”

Jackeen’s manner was fraught with suspicion. “How do we know you’re givin’ us th’ correct dope?”

“Miller knows me,” returned Ratface, “an’ so does Bill. They’ll tell youse I’m a right guy. That stool thing is only a stall. I gets more out of the bull than he gets out of me. Sure; I give him a dead one now an’ then, just be way of puttin’ in a prop for meself. But not youse; – w’en it’s any of me friends I puts ‘em hep, see!”

“Do you sign for this duck?” demanded Jackeen of St. Louis Bill. “He’s a new one on me.”

“Take it from me, he’s all right,” said St. Louis Bill, decisively. “Why, you ought to know him, Jackeen. He joined out wit’ that mob of gons Goldie Louie took to Syracuse last fall. He’s no farmer, neither; Ricey there ain’t got nothin’ on him as a tool.”

This endorsement of Ratface settled all doubt. Jackeen’s mind was made up. Addressing the others, he said:

“Fade’s the woid! I’ll meet youse over in Hoboken to-night at Beansey’s. Better make th’ ferry one at a time.”

“W’at do youse want to wait till night for?” asked Nannie Miller. “Th’ foist t’ing you know you’ll get th’ collar.”

“I’m goin’ to take the chance, though,” retorted Jackeen. “It’s some private business of me own. An’ say” – looking at Rice – “I want a pal. Will youse stick, Ricey?”

“Sure, Mike!” said Rice, who had nerve and knew how to be loyal.

Thus it was adjusted. Ratface went his way, to exercise his gifts of mendacity upon his Central Office principal, while the others scattered – all save Jackeen and Rice.

Jackeen gave his faithful friend the story of his wrongs.

“I wouldn’t have thought it of the Doc,” was the pensive comment of Rice. He had exalted the Doc, because of his book learning, and groaned to see his idol fall. “No, I wouldn’t have guessed it of him! Of course, it’s different wit’ a doll. They’d double-cross their own mothers.”

Over in Catherine Street at number Nineteen the Doc was teaching May how to cook opium. The result fell below the Doc’s elevated notions.

“You aren’t to be compared with Lulu,” he complained, as he trimmed the peanut-oil lamp. “All Chinatown couldn’t show Lulu’s equal for cooking hop. She had a genius for it.”

The Doc took the needle from May, and cooked for himself. May looked discouraged and hurt.

“It’s all right,” said the Doc, dreamily, replying to the look of injury. “You’ll get it right in time, dear. Only, of course, you’ll never quite equal Lulu; that would be impossible.”

The Doc twirled the little ball of opium in the flame of the lamp, watching the color as it changed. May looked on as upon the labors of a master.

“I’ll smoke a couple of pipes,” vouchsafed the Doc; “then I must get to work on Nigger Mike’s, teeth. Mike’s a good fellow; they’re all good fellows over at the Chatham Club,” and the Doc sank back upon the pallet.

There was the sound of someone in the hall. Then came those calmative four rings and four taps.

“That’s Mike now,” said the Doc, his eyes half closed. “Let him in; I suppose he’s come for his teeth. I’ll have to give him a stand-off. Mike ought to have two sets of teeth. Then he could wear the one while I’m fixing the other. It’s a good idea; I’ll tell him.”

May, warned by some instinct, opened the door but a timorous inch. What she saw did not inspire confidence, and she tried with all her little strength to close and bolt it.

Too late!

The door was flung inward, and Jackeen, followed by Rice, entered the room. They paid no heed to the opium fumes; almost stifling they were, but Jackeen and Rice had long been used to them.

May gazed at Jackeen like one planet-struck. The Doc, moveless on the pallet, hardly raised his opium-weighted lids.

“This is a fine game I’m gettin’!”

Jackeen sneered out the words. The Doc pulled tranquilly at his pipe; while May stood voiceless, staring with scared eyes.

“I’d ought to peg a bullet into you,” continued Jackeen, addressing May.

He had drawn his heavy gun. May stood as if the sight of the weapon had frozen her. Jackeen brought it down on her temple. The Doc never moved. Peace – the peace of the poppy – was on his brow and in his heart. May fell to the floor, her face a-reek with blood.

“Now you’ve got yours!” said Jackeen.

May struggled unsteadily to her feet, and began groping for the door.

“That ought to do youse till I get back,” was Jackeen’s good-by. “You’ll need a few stitches for that.”

Unruffled, untroubled, the Doc drew blandly at the mouthpiece of the pipe.

Jackeen surveyed him.

“Go on!” cried Rice; “hand it to him, if you’re goin’ to!”

Rice was becoming fretted. He hadn’t Jackeen’s sustaining interest. Besides, he was thinking of that word from the Central Office, and how much safer he would be with Beansey, on the Hoboken side of the Hudson.

Jackeen took a step nearer. The Doc smiled, eyes just showing through the dreamy lids.

“Turn it loose!” cried Rice.

The gun exploded five times, and five bullets ploughed their way into the Doc’s body.

Not a cry, not a movement! The bland, pleased smile never left the sallow face. With his mouth to the pipestem, the Doc dreamed on.

In the street, Jackeen and Rice passed Lulu. As they brushed by her, Rice fell back a pace and whispered:

“He croaked th’ Doc.”

Lulu gave a gulping cry and hurried on.

“Is that you, Lulu?” asked the Doc, his drug-uplifted soul untouched, untroubled by what had passed, and what would come. Still, he must have dimly known; for his next words, softly spoken, were: “I’m sorry about Mike’s teeth! Cook me a pill, dear; I want one last good smoke.”