Всего за 5.99 руб. Купить полную версию
All Suffolk Street, to say nothing of the thoroughfares roundabout, knew what had taken place. The event and the method thereof did not provoke the shrugging of a shoulder, the arching of a brow. What should there be in the usual to invite amazement?
For six weeks the Bottler and Dahl settled up, fifty-and-fifty, with the close of each stuss day. Then came a fresh surprise. Dahl presented his friend, the Nailer, to the Bottler with this terse remark:
Bottler, youse can beat it. The Nailer is goin to be me partner now. Which lets you out, see?
The Bottler was at bay. He owned no stomach for battle, but the sentiment of desperation, which the announcement of Dahl provoked, drove him to make a stand. To lose one-half had been bad. To lose all to be wholly wiped out in the annals of Suffolk Street stuss was more than even his meekness might bear. No, the Bottler did not dream of going to the police. That would have been to squeal; and even his friends of the Five Points had only faces of flint for such tactics of disgrace.
The harassed Bottler barred his doors against Dahl. He would defend his castle, and get word to the Five Points. The Bottlers doors having been barred, Dahl for his side at once instituted a siege, despatching the Nailer, meanwhile, to the nearest knot of Eastmans to bring reinforcements.
At this crisis OFarrell of the Central Office strolled into the equation. He himself was hunting a loft-worker; of more than common industry, and had no thought of either the Bottler or Dahl. Happening, however, upon a situation, whereof the elemental features were Dahl outside with a gun and the Bottler inside with a gun, he so far recalled his oath of office as to interfere.
Better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow, philosophized OFarrell, and putting aside for the moment his search for the loft-worker, he devoted himself to the Bottler and Dahl.
With the sure instinct of his Mulberry Street caste, OFarrell opened negotiations with Dahl. He knew the latter to be the dangerous angle, and began by placing the muzzle of his own pistol against that marauders back.
Make a move, said he, and Ill shoot you in two.
The sophisticated Dahl, realizing fate, moved not, and with that the painstaking OFarrell collected his armament.
Next the Bottler was ordered to come forth. The Bottler obeyed in a sweat and a tremble. He surrendered his pistol at word of the law, and OFarrell led both off to jail. The two were charged with Disturbance.
In the station house, and on the way, Dahl ceased not to threaten the Bottlers life.
This pinchll cost a fine of five dollars, said Dahl, glaring round OFarrell at the shaking Bottler. Ill pay it, an then Ill get square wit youse. Once were footloose, you wont last as long as a drink of whiskey!
The judge yawningly listened, while OFarrell told his tale of that disturbance.
Five an costs! quoth the judge, and called the next case.
The Bottler returned to Suffolk Street, Dahl sought Twist, while OFarrell again took the trail of the loft-worker.
Dahl talked things over with Twist. There was but one way: the Bottler must die. Anything short of blood would unsettle popular respect for Twist, and without that his leadership of the Eastmans was a farce.
The Bottlers killing, however, must be managed with a decent care for the conventionalities. For either Twist or Dahl to walk in upon that offender and shoot him to death, while feasible, would be foolish. The coarse extravagance of such a piece of work would serve only to pile needless difficulties in the pathway of what politicians must come to the rescue. It was impertinences of that character which had sent Monk Eastman to Sing Sing. Eastman had so far failed as to the proprieties, when as a supplement to highway robbery he emptied his six-shooter up and down Forty-second Street, that the politicians could not save him without burning their fingers. And so they let him go. Twist had justified the course of the politicians upon that occasion. He would not now, by lack of caution and a reasonable finesse, force them into similar peril. They must and would defend him; but it was not for him to render their labors too up-hill and too hard.
Twist sent to Williamsburg for his friend and ally, Cyclone Louie. The latter was a bull-necked, highly muscled individual, who was a professional strong man so far as he was professionally anything and earned occasional side-show money at Coney Island by bending iron bars about his neck and twisting pokers into corkscrews about his brawny arms.
Louie, Twist and Dahl went into council over mutual beer, and Twist explained the imperative call for the Bottlers extermination. Also, he laid bare the delicate position of both himself and Dahl.
In country regions neighbors aid one another in bearing the burdens of an agricultural day by changing work. The custom is not without what one might call gang imitation and respect. Only in the gang instance the work is not innocent, but bloody. Louie, having an appreciation of what was due a friend, could not do less than come to the relief of Twist and Dahl. Were positions reversed, would they not journey to Williamsburg and do as much for him? Louie did not hesitate, but placed himself at the disposal of Twist and Dahl. The Bottler should die; he, Louie, would see to that.
But when?
Twist, replying, felt that the thing should be done at once, and mentioned the following evening, nine oclock. The place should be the Bottlers establishment in Suffolk Street. Louie, of whom the Bottler was unafraid and ignorant, should experience no difficulty in approaching his man. There would be others present; but, practiced in gang moralities, slaves to gang etiquette, no one would open his mouth. Or, if he did, it would be only to pour forth perjuries, and say that he had seen nothing, heard nothing.
Having adjusted details, Louie, Twist and Dahl compared watches. Watches? Certainly. Louie, Twist and Dahl were all most fashionably attired and as became members of a gang nobility singularly full and accurate in the important element of a front, videlicet, that list of personal adornments which included scarf pin, ring and watch. Louie, Dahl and Twist saw to it that their timepieces agreed. This was so that Dahl and Twist might arrange their alibis.
It was the next evening. At 8.55 oclock Twist was obtrusively in the Delancey Street police station, wrangling with the desk sergeant over the release of a follower who had carefully brought about his own arrest.
Come, urged Twist to the sergeant, its next to nine oclock now. Fix up the bond; Ive got a date over in East Broadway at nine-thirty.
While Twist stood thus enforcing his whereabouts and the hour upon the attention of the desk sergeant, Dahl was eating a beefsteak in a Houston street restaurant.
What time have youse got? demanded Dahl of the German who kept the place.
Five minutes to nine, returned the German, glancing up at the clock.
Oh, taint no such time as that, retorted Dahl peevishly. That clocks drunk! Call up the telephone people, and find out for sure.
The phone people say its nine oclock, reported the German, hanging up the receiver.
Hully gee! I didnt think it was moren halfpast eight! and Dahl looked virtuously corrected.
While these fragments of talk were taking place, the Bottler was attending to his stuss interests. He looked pale and frightened, and his hunted eyes roved here and there. Five minutes went by. The clock pointed to nine. A slouch-hat stranger entered. As the clock struck the hour, he placed the muzzle of a pistol against the Bottlers breast, and fired twice. Both bullets pierced the heart, and the Bottler fell dead without a word. There were twenty people in the room. When the police arrived they found only the dead Bottler.