_ CHAPTER IX. THE BUSY MART OF TRADE
The hypocrisy of William Trubus and the silly fatuity of his reform work rankled in Burke's bosom as he betook himself uptown to enjoy his brief vacation for an afternoon with his old friend, the inventor. Later he was to share supper when the girls came home from their work.
John Barton was busy with his new machine, and had much to talk about. At last, when his own enthusiasm had partially spent itself, he noticed Burke's depression.
"What is the trouble, my boy? You are very nervous. Has anything gone wrong?"
Bobbie hesitated. He wished to avoid any mention of the case in which Lorna had so unfortunately figured. But, at last, he unfolded the story of his interview with the alleged philanthropist, describing the situation of the gangsters and their work in general terms.
Barton shook his head.
"They're nearly all alike, these reformers in mahogany chairs, Burke. I've been too busy with machinery and workmen, whom I always tried to help along, to take much stock in the reform game. But there's no denying that we do need all the reforming that every good man in the world can give us. Only, there are many ways to go about it. Even I, without much education, and buried for years in my own particular kind of rut, can see that."
"The best kind of reform will be with the night stick and the bars of Sing Sing, Mr. Barton," answered Burke. "Some day the police will work like army men, with an army man at the head of them. It won't be politics at all then, but they'll have the backing of a man who is on the firing line, instead of sipping tea in a swell hotel, or swapping yarns and other things in a political club. That day is not far distant, either, to judge from the way people are waking things up. But we need a little different kind of preaching and reforming now."
Barton leaned back in his wheel chair and spoke reminiscently.
"Last spring I spent Sunday with a well-to-do friend of mine in a beautiful little town up in Connecticut. We went to church. It was an old colonial edifice, quaint, clean, and outside on the green before it were forty or fifty automobiles, for, as my friend told me with pride, it was the richest congregation in that part of New England.
"Inside of the church was the perfume of beautiful spring flowers which decorated the altar and were placed in vases along the aisles. In the congregation were happy, well-fed, healthy business men who enlivened existence with golf, motoring, riding, good books, good music, good plays and good dinners. Their wives were charmingly gowned. Their children were rosy-cheeked, happy and normal.
"The minister, a sweet, genial old chap, recited his text after the singing of two or three beautiful hymns. It was that quotation from the Bible: 'Look at the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin.' In full, melodious tones he addressed his congregation, confident in his own faith of a delightful hereafter, and still better blessed with the knowledge that his monthly check was not subject to the rise and fall of the stock market!
"In his sermon he spoke of the beauties of life, the freshness of spring, its message of eternal happiness for those who had earned the golden reward of the Hereafter. He preached optimism, the subject of the unceasing care and love of the Father above; he told of the spiritual joy which comes only with a profound faith in the Almighty, who observes even of the fall of the sparrow.
"Through the window came the soft breezes of the spring morning, the perfume of buds on the trees and the twitter of birds. It was a sweet relief to me after having left the dreary streets of the city and our busy machine shop behind, to see the happiness, content, decency and right living shining in the faces of the people about me. The charm of the spring was in the message of the preacher, although it was in his case more like the golden light of a sunset, for he was a good old man, who had followed his own teachings, and it was evident that he was beloved by every one in his congregation. A man couldn't help loving that old parson--he was so happy and honest!
"When he completed his sermon of content, happiness and unfaltering faith, a girl sang an old-time offertory. The services were closed with the music of a well-trained choir. The congregation rose. The worshippers finally went out of the church, chatting and happy with the thought of a duty well done in their weekly worship, and, last but not least, the certainty of a generous New England dinner at home. The church services were ended. Later in the afternoon would be a short song service of vespers and in the evening a simple and sincere meeting of sweet-minded, clean-souled young men and women for prayer service. It was all very pretty.
"As I say, Burke, it was something that soothed me like beautiful music after the rotten, miserable, wretched conditions I had seen in the city. It does a fellow good once in a while to get away from the grip of the tenements, the shades of the skyscrapers, the roar of the factories, and the shuffling, tired footsteps of the crowds, the smell of the sweat-shops.
"But, do you know, it seemed to me that that minister missed something; that he was
too contented. There was a message that man
could have given which I think might perhaps have disagreed with the digestions of his congregation. Undoubtedly, it would have influenced the hand that wrote the check the following month.
"I wondered to myself why, at least, he could not have spoken to his flock in words something like this, accompanied by a preliminary pound on his pulpit to awaken his congregation from dreams of golf, roast chicken and new gowns:
"'You business men who sit here so happy and so contented with honorable wives, with sturdy children in whose veins run the blood of a dozen generations of decent living, do you realize that there are any other conditions in life but yours? Do you know that Henry Brown, Joe Smith and Richard Black, who work as clerks for you down in your New York office, do not have this church, do not have these spring flowers and the Sunday dinners you will have when you go back home? Does it occur to you that these young men on their slender salaries may be supporting more people back home than you are? Do you know that many of them have no club to go to except the corner saloon or the pool room? Do you know that the only exercise a lot of your poor clerks, assistants and factory workers get is standing around on the street corners, that the only drama and comedy they ever see is in a dirty, stinking, germ-infected, dismal little movie theater in the slums; that the only music they ever hear is in the back room of a Raines Law hotel or from a worn-out hurdy-gurdy?
"'Why don't you men take a little more interest in the young fellows who work for you or in some of the old ones with dismal pasts and worse futures? Why don't you well-dressed women take an interest in the stenographers and shop girls, the garment-makers--
not to condescend and offer them tracts and abstracts of the Scriptures--but to improve the moral conditions under which they work, the sanitary conditions, and to arrange decent places for them to amuse themselves after hours.
"'Surely you can spare a little time from the Golf Clubs and University Clubs and Literary Clubs and Bridge Clubs and Tango Parties. Let me tell you that if you do not, during the next five or ten years, the people of these classes will imbibe still more to the detriment of our race, the anarchy and money lust which is being preached to them daily, nightly and almost hourly by the socialists, the anarchists and the atheists, who are all soured on life because they've never
had it!
"'The tide of social unrest is sweeping across to us from the Old World which will engulf our civilization unless it is stopped by the jetties of social assistance and the breakwaters of increased moral education. You can't do this with Sunday-school papers and texts! You can't stem the movement in your clubs by denouncing the demagogues over highball glasses and teacups.
"'It is all right to have faith in the good. It is well to have hope for the future. Charity is essential to right living and right helping. But out of the five million people in New York City, four million and a half have never seen any evidence of Divine assistance such as our Good Book says is given to the sparrow. They are not lilies of the field. They must toil or die. You people are to them the lilies of the field! Your fine gowns, your happy lives, your endless opportunities for amusement; your extravagances are to them as the matador's flag to the bull in the Spanish ring. Unless you
do take the interest, unless you
do fight to stem the movement of these dwarfed and bitter leaders, unless you
do overcome their arguments based on much solid-rock truth by definite personal work, by definite constructive education, your civilization, my civilization and the civilization of all the centuries will fall before socialism and anarchy.'
"But
that was not what he said. I have never heard the minister of a rich congregation say that yet. Have you, Burke?"
"No, the minister who talked like that would have to look for a new pulpit, or get a job as a carpenter, like the Minister long ago, who made the rich men angry. But I had no idea that you thought about such things, Mr. Barton. You'd make a pretty good minister yourself."
The old inventor laughed as he patted the young man on the back.
"Burke, the trouble with most ministers, and poets, and painters, and novelists, and law-makers, and other successful professional men who are supposed to show us common, working people the right way to go is that they don't get out and mix it up. They don't have to work for a mean boss, they don't know what it is to go hungry and starved and afraid to call your soul your own--scared by the salary envelope at the end of the week. They don't get out and make their
souls sweat
blood. Otherwise, they'd reform the world so quickly that men like Trubus wouldn't be able to make a living out of the charity game."
Barton smiled jovially.
"But here we go sermonizing. People don't want to listen to sermons all the time."
"Well, we're on a serious subject, and it means our bread and butter and our happiness in life, when you get right down to it," said Bobbie. "I don't like sermons myself. I'd rather live in the Garden of Eden, where they didn't need any. Wouldn't you?"
"Yes, but my wheel chair would find it rough riding without any clearings," said Barton. "By the way, Bob, I've some news for you. My lawyer is coming up here to-night, to talk over some patent matters, and you can lay your family matters before him. He'll attend to that and you may get justice done you. If you have some money back in Illinois, you ought to have it."
"He can get all he wants--if he gives me some," agreed Burke, "and I'll back your patents."
The old man started off again on his plans, and they argued and explained to each other as happy as two boys with some new toys, until the sisters came home.
Lorna was distinctly cool toward Burke, but, under a stern look from Mary, gave the outward semblance of good grace. The fact that he had been present in her home at the time of her disastrous escapade, even though she believed him ignorant of it, made the girl sensitive and aloof.
She left Mary alone with him at the earliest pretext, and Bobbie had interesting things to say to her: things which were nobody's business but theirs.
Barton's lawyer came before Burke left to report for evening duty, and he spent considerable effort to learn the story of the uncle and the curious will.
Now a digression in narrative is ofttimes a dangerous parting of ways. But on this particular day Bobbie Burke had come to a parting of the ways unwittingly. He had left the plodding life of routine excitement of the ordinary policeman to embark upon a journey fraught with multifold dangers. In addition to his enemies of the underworld, he had made a new one in an entirely different sphere.
To follow the line of digression, had the reader gone into the same building on Fifth Avenue which Burke had entered that afternoon, perhaps an hour later, and had he stopped on the third floor, entered a door marked "Mercantile Agency," he would have discovered a very busy little market-place. The first room of the suite of offices thus indicated was quite small. A weazened man, with thin shiny fingers, an unnaturally pallid face, and stooped shoulders, sat at a small flat-top desk, inside an iron grating of the kind frequently seen in cashiers' offices.
He watched the hall door with beady eyes, and whenever it opened to admit a newcomer he subjected that person to keen scrutiny; then he pushed a small button which automatically clicked a spring in the lock of the grated door.
This done, it was possible for the approved visitor to push past into a larger room shut off from the first office by a heavy door which invariably slammed, because it was pulled shut by a strong wire spring and was intended to slam.
The larger room opened out on a rear court, and, upon passing one of the large dirty windows, a fire escape could be descried. Around this room were a number of benches. Close scrutiny would have disclosed the fact that they were old-fashioned church pews, dismantled from some disused sanctuary. Two large tables were ranged in the center of the room.
The floor was extremely dirty. The few chairs were very badly worn, and the only decorations on the walls were pasted clippings of prize fighters and burlesque queens, cut from the pages of
The Police Gazette and the sporting pages of some newspapers.
Into this room, all through the afternoon, streamed a curious medley of people. Tall men, small men, rough men, dapper men, and loudly dressed women, who for the most part seemed inclined to corpulence. They talked sometimes; many seemed well acquainted. Others appeared to be strangers, and they glanced about them uneasily, apparently suspicious of their fellows.
This seemed a curious waiting room for a Fifth Avenue "Mercantile Agency."
But inside the room to the left, marked "private," was the explanation of the mystery; at last there was a partial explanation of the curious throng.
As the occupants chatted, or kept frigid and uneasy silence, in the outer room a fat man, smooth of face and monkish in appearance, occasionally appeared at the private portal and admitted one person at a time.
After disappearing through this door, his visitors were not seen again, for they left by another door, which automatically closed and locked itself as they went directly into the hall corridor where the elevators ran.
In the private office of the "Mercantile Agency" the fat man would sit at his desk and listen attentively to the words of his visitor.
"Speak up, Joe. You know I'm hard of hearing--don't whisper to me," was the tenor of a remark which he seemed to direct to every visitor. Yet strangely enough he frequently stopped to listen to voices in the outer room, which he appeared to recognize without difficulty.
On this particular afternoon a dapper-dressed youth was an early caller.
"Well, Tom, what luck on the steamer? Now, don't swallow your voice. Remember, I got kicked in the ear by a horse before I quit bookmaking, and I have to humor my hearing."
"Oh, it was easy. That Swede, Jensen, came over, you know, and he had picked out a couple of peachy Swede girls who were going to meet their cousin at the Battery. Minnie and I went on board ship as soon as she docked, to meet our relatives, and we had a good look at 'em while they were lined up with the other steerage passengers. They were fine, and we got Jensen to take 'em up to the Bronx. They're up at Molloy's house overnight. It's better to keep 'em there, and give 'em some food. You know, the emigrant society is apt to be on the lookout to-day. The cousin was there when the ferry came in from the Island, all right, but we spotted him before the boat got in, and I had Mickey Brown pick a fight with him, just in time to get him pinched. He was four blocks away when the boat landed, and Jensen, who had made friends with the girls coming over, told them he would take 'em to his aunt's house until they heard from their cousin."
"What do they look like? We've got to have particulars, you know."
"Well, one girl is tall, and the other rather short. They both have yellow hair and cheeks like apples. One's name is Lena and the other Marda--the rest of their names was too much for me. They're both about eighteen years old, and well dressed, for Swedes."
The fat man was busy writing down certain data on a pad arranged in a curious metal box, which looked something like those on which grocers' clerks make out the order lists for customers.
"Say, Henry, what do you use that thing for? Why don't you use a fountain pen and a book?" asked the dapper one.
"That's my affair," snapped the fat man. "I want this for records, and I know how to do it. Go on. What did Mrs. Molloy pay you?"
"Well, you know she's a tight one. I had to argue with her, and I have a lot of expense on this, anyway."
"Go on--don't begin to beef about it. I know all about the expenses. We paid the preliminaries. Now, out with the money from Molloy. It was to be two hundred dollars, and you know it. Two hundred apiece is the exact figure."
The visitor stammered, and finally pulled out a roll of yellow-backed bills "Well, I haven't gotten mine yet," he whined.
"Yours is just fifty on this, for you've had a steamer assignment every day this week. You can give your friend Minnie a ten-spot. Now, report here to-morrow at ten, for I've a new line for you. Good day. Shut the door."
The fat man was accustomed to being obeyed. The other departed with a surly manner, as though he had received the worst of a bargain. The manager jotted down the figures on the revolving strip of paper, for such it was, while the pencil he used was connected by two little metal arms to the side of the mechanism. Some little wheels inside the register clicked, as he turned the paper lever over for a clean record. He put the money into his wallet.
He went to the door to admit another.
"Ah, Levy, what do you have to say?"
"Ah, Meester Clemm, eet's a bad bizness! Nattings at all to-day. I've been through five shoit-vaist factories, and not a girl could I get. Too much of dis union bizness. I told dem I vas a valking delegate, but I don't t'ink I look like a delegate. Vot's to be done?"
The manager looked at him sternly.
"Well, unless you get a wiggle on, you'll be back with a pushcart, where you belong, over on East Broadway, Levy. The factories are full of girls, and they don't make four dollars a week. Lots of pretty ones, and you know where we can place them. One hundred dollars apiece, if a girl is right, and that means twenty-five for you. You've been drawing money from me for three weeks without bringing in a cent. Now you get on the job. Try Waverley Place and come in here to-morrow. You're a good talker in Yiddish, and you ought to be able to get some action. Hustle out now. I can't waste time."
The manager jotted down another memorandum, and again his machine clicked, as he turned the lever.
A portly woman, adorned in willow plumes, sealskin cloak and wearing large rhinestones in her rings and necklace, now entered at the manager's signal.
"Well, Madame Blanche, what have you to report?"
"I swear I ain't had no luck, Mr. Clemm. Some one's put the gipsy curse on me. Twice this afternoon in the park I've seen two pretty girls, and each time I got chased by a cop. I got warned. I think they're gettin' wise up there around Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue."
"Well, how about that order we had from New Orleans? That hasn't been paid yet. You know it was placed through you. You got your commish out of it, and this establishment always wants cash. No money orders, either. Spot cash. We don't monkey with the United States mail. There's too many city bulls looking around for us now to get Uncle Sam's men on the job."
The portly person under the willow plume, with a tearful face, began to wipe her eyes with a lace kerchief from which, emanated the odor of Jockey Club.
"Oh, Mr. Clemm, you are certainly the hardest man we ever had to do business with. I just can't pay now for that, with my high rents, and gettin' shook down in the precinct and all."
"Can it, Madame Blanche. I'm a business man. They're not doing any shaking down just now in your precinct. I know all about the police situation up there, for they've got a straight inspector. Now, I want that four hundred right now. We sent you just what was ordered and if I don't get the money right now you get blacklisted. Shell out!"
The manager's tone was hard as nails.
"Oh, Mr. Clemm ... well, excuse me. I must step behind your desk to get it, but you ain't treatin' me right, just the same, to force it this way."
Madame Blanche, with becoming modesty, stepped out of view in order to draw forth from their silken resting place four new one hundred dollar bills. She laid them gingerly and regretfully on the desk, where they were quickly snatched up by the business-like Clemm.
"Maybe I'll have a little order for next week, if you can give better terms, Mr. Clemm," began the lady, but the manager waved her aside.
"Nix, Madame. Get out. I'm busy. You know the terms, and I advise you not to try any more of this hold-out game. You're a week late now, and the next time you try it you'll be sorry. Hurry. I've got a lot of people to see."
She left, wiping her eyes.
The next man to enter was somewhat mutilated. His eye was blackened and the skin across his cheek was torn and just healing from a fresh cut.
"Well, well, well! What have you been up to, Barlow? A prize fight?" snapped Clemm.
"Aw, guv'nor, quit yer kiddin'. Did ye ever hear of me bein' in a fight? Nix. I tried to work dis needle gag over in Brooklyn an' I got run outen de t'eayter on me neck. Dere ain't no luck. I'd better go back to der dip ag'in."
"You stick to orders and stay around those cheap department stores, as you've been told to do, and you'll have no black eyes. Last month you brought in eleven hundred dollars for me, and you got three hundred of it yourself. What's the matter with you? You look like a panhandler? Don't you save your money? You've got to keep decently dressed."
"Aw, guv'nor, I guess it's easy come, easy go. Ain't dere nottin' special ye kin send me on?"
"Report here to-morrow at eleven. We're planning something pretty good. Here's ten dollars. Go rig yourself up a little better and get that eye painted out. Hustle up. I'm busy."
The dilapidated one took the bill and rolled his good eye in gratitude.
"Sure, guv'nor, you're white wid me. I kin always git treated right here."
"Don't thank me, it's business. Get out and look like a man when I see you next. I don't want any bums working for me."
The fat man jotted down a memorandum of his outlay on the little machine. Then he admitted the next caller.
"Ah, it's you, Jimmie. Well, what have you to say? You've been working pretty well, so Shepard tells me. What about his row the other night? I thought that girl was sure."
"Well, Mr. Clemm, ye see, we had it fixed all right, an' some foxy gink blows in wid a taxi an' lifts de dame right from outen Shepard's mit! De slickest getaway I ever seen. I don't know wot 'is game is, but he sure made some getaway, an' we never even got a smell at 'im."
"Who was with you on the deal? Who did the come-on?"
"Oh, pretty Baxter. You knows, w'en dat boy hands 'em de goo-goo an' wiggles a few Tangoes he's dere wid both feet! But dis girl was back on de job ag'in in her candy store next day. But Baxter'll git 'er yit. Shepard's pullin' dis t'eayter manager bull, so he'll git de game yet."
"Did her folks get wise?"
"Naw, not as we kin tell. Shepard he seen her once after she left de store. De trouble is 'er sister woiks in de same place. We got ter git dat girl fired, and den it'll be easy goin'. De goil gits home widout de sister findin' out about it, she tells Shepard. I don't quite pipe de dope on dis butt-in guy. But he sure spoiled Shepard's beauty fer a week. Dere's only one t'ing I kin suspect."
"All right, shoot it. You know I'm busy. This girl's worth the fight, for I know who wants one just about her looks and age. What is it? We'll work it if money will do it, for there's a lot of money in this or I wouldn't have all you fellows on the job. I saw a picture she gave Baxter. She's a pretty little chicken, isn't she?"
"Shoor! Some squab. Well, Mr. Clemm, dere's a rookie cop down in de precinct w'ere I got a couple workin', named Burke. Bobbie Burke, damn 'im! He gave me de worst beatin' up I ever got from any cop, an' I'm on bail now for General Sessions fer assaultin' 'im."
"What's he got to do with it?"
"Well, dis guy was laid up in de hospital by one of me pals who put 'im out on first wid a brick. He got stuck on a gal whose old man was in dat hospital, and dat gal is de sister of dis yere Lorna Barton. Does ye git me?"
Clemm's eyes sparkled.
"What does he look like? Brown hair, tall, very square shoulders?" he asked.
"Exact! He's a fresh guy wid his talk, too--one of dem ejjicated cops. Dey tells me he was a collige boy, or in de army or somethin'."
"Could he have known about Lorna Barton going out with Baxter that night Shepard was beaten?"
"My Gaud! Yes, cause Baxter he tells me Burke was dere at de house." Clemm nodded his head.
"Then you can take a hundred to one shot tip from me, Jimmie, that this Burke had something to do with Shepard. He may have put one of his friends on the job. Those cops are not such dummies as we think they are sometimes. That fellow's a dangerous man."
Clemm pondered for a moment. Jimmie was surprised, for the manager of the "Mercantile Agency" was noted for his rapid-fire methods. The Monk knew that something of great importance must be afoot to cause this delay.
The manager tapped the desk with his fingers, as he moved his lips, in a silent little conversation with himself. At last he banged the desk with vehemence.
"Here, Jimmie. I'm going to entrust you with an important job."
The Monk brightened and smiled hopefully.
"How much money would it take to put Officer Bobbie Burke, if that's his name, where the cats can't keep him awake at night?"
Jimmie looked shiftily at the manager.
"You mean..."
He drew his hand significantly across his throat, raising his heavy eyebrows in a peculiar monkey grimace which had won for him his soubriquet.
"Yes, to quiet his nerves. It's a shame to let these ambitious young policemen worry too much about their work."
"I kin git it done fer twenty-five dollars."
"Well, here's a hundred, for I'd like to have it attended to neatly, quietly and permanently. You understand me?"
"Say, I'm ashamed ter take money fer dis!" laughed Jimmie the Monk.
"Don't worry about that, my boy. Make a good job of it. It's just business. I'm buying the service and you're selling it. Now get out, for I've got a lot more marketing to do."
Jimmie got.
It was indeed a busy little market place, with many commodities for barter and trade. _