"Gee! I never would have thought you was a cop. Plain clothes man?"
I nodded assent and then asked her.
"Who are you hustling for?"
For a moment she seemed to consider the advisability of answering. But what was the use of trying to hide things from a "cop"? What I did not know, I could easily find out. Her cadet's nom-de-guerre was "Blackie." She spoke of him without enthusiasm, without marked revulsion – much as we speak of the unavoidable discomforts of life, such as the bad air in the subway, or the tipping system. With a few questions, I got her story – quite a different one from what she had told Norman.
Ever since they had come to America, her mother had been scraping out a bare living for herself and her daughter by means of a small fruit business, and by letting rooms behind the store to boarders. One of these men had seduced Nina under promise of taking her to the marionette show. This had happened – "Oh, a very long time ago" – at too remote a date to be definitely remembered. She spoke of this man with foul-worded bitterness. It was not on account of the evil he had done her, but because he had not taken her to the show. "Men always cheat us," she said. "It don't matter how foxy you are, they beat you to it." She had not burdened her memory with any precise record of her childish amours. They had been without pleasure – for an ice-cream cone, a few pennies, a chance to go to a show. She was a devotee of Bowery drama. "From Rags to Riches" was her favorite. "That," she said, "was something grand!"
The first person who had come anywhere near making love to her was this cadet "Blackie." She had left her mother, without any regret, to live with him. That also had been "something grand" – at first. As near as she could remember, it was about a month before he drove her out on the street to "hustle" for him. Was he good to her, I asked. She shrugged her shoulders. Was he not a man? Then she showed her first enthusiasm. He had a great "pull," he was a friend of the "Old Man on Fourteenth Street." She gave "Blackie" this sincere tribute, the cops never troubled her. But he did have a temper. "It sure is hell, when he's mad." She rolled up the sleeve of her pajamas and showed me the bruise on her arm. It had been a kick. What for? She had forgotten.
Then Benson came in, his arms full of bundles. I don't suppose he had spent more than fifteen dollars – things are cheap in that neighborhood. But it was an imposing assortment. I could not have bought so complete a trousseau without minute written instructions.
Nina forgot her troubles in an instant, they never troubled her long. She pulled the bundles to pieces and scattered the garments everywhere. Guiseppe came in on some errand, but one glimpse of those feminine frivolities, strewn about our formerly sedate bachelor chairs finished him. With a wild Garibaldian oath, he rushed back to his kitchen.
It was not in Nina's nature to allow anything to intervene between her and her immediate desire. The things once seen, had to be tried on.
"Come, come," Norman protested. "You'd better do your dressing in the other room."
Nina seemed surprised at his scruples, but, gathering up the garments, followed him docilely down the hall. Shrieks of glee came through the open door, beat against my ears – distressingly. I seemed to hear the bones of some ghastly danse maccabre, rattling behind her mirth. But as if to drive away my gloom, she soon dashed into the room, fully booted and spurred. She was very pretty. And how she laughed! She seemed a sort of care-free and very young bacchante – the daughter of some goddess of gayety. She jumped on the table and, imitating a music hall artiste, danced a mild mixture of fandango and cancan. And as she danced, she sang – a ribald, barroom song. But the words meant nothing to her, she was just seeking an outlet for her high feelings, expressing her childish joy in her new possessions.
Our neighboring church bell began to strike the hour. Nina brought down the foot which was in the air and, in a strained attitude, listened.
"Gee!" she said, jumping down to the floor. "It's ten o'clock."
For a moment she stood irresolute, and then her face hardening, she walked up to Norman.
"Gim'me two dollars."
The sudden demand hit him like a blow.
"Won't you stay to lunch with us?" he asked lamely.
"No. I've got to go – now! I want two dollars."
Such bargaining is unbearable to me, I fled to my room. In a few minutes, Norman came to my door.
"What can I do about this, Arnold?"
"Oh pay her her wages, and let her go," I said, "what else is there to do?"
"My God," he swore and stamped into my room. His face was white, his lip was bleeding a little where he had bitten it. "Somehow I can't! What rotten creatures we all are! Of course I've known all about this – but we have to touch it – to realize it… Why did I ever let her come into my life? I can't send her back to it. She's such a kid. And – Good God! – those damned, drunken Bowery sailors!"
"Look here, Norman, you're only making matters worse for her. She'll get a beating if she don't have the money to give her cadet. He's…"
"Cadet?" Norman interrupted me, as though he had never heard the word before. He threw himself down on my bed. I had never seen him so moved.
"Isn't there any way out of it?" he groaned.
I hate to plead absolute despair, but I could see no way out. So I tried to talk reasonably.
"Don't take it so hard. She's bred to it. It isn't half as bad to her as you think. It's all she knows. She doesn't despise this cur of a cadet, she hustles for – the way we do. He's her man – the pivot of her existence." And I told him what she had said about Blackie. "He doesn't beat her as often as he might. She feels rather fortunate, because he's not worse. There isn't any way out. They call it the most ancient profession. Her hard times haven't begun yet, – she's young. She's living on the fat of the only land she ever knew. It isn't exactly a bed of roses – but she's never known a softer one."
"You're a sophist!" he cried, jumping up. "Lies. Damn lies! She has known something better. My God – you should see her smile when she's asleep! I can't stop prostitution, but I can keep her out of the worst of it. She's too young for these Bowery dens. I won't let her go back to that damn pimp."
"Go slow," I said. "What have you got to offer in exchange – for this cadet? I tell you, he's the big factor of her life. Are you willing to take the time and trouble to fill his place? Money won't do it. She can't count above fifty. How are you going to amuse her? She's used to excitement, to street life, the buzz of the Bowery. You're going to offer her a gilded cage, an upholstered cell. It won't work. And suppose you do succeed in giving her a taste for a finer life – what then? After you get through, she'll only find the old life harder. What's to become of her when you're tired?"
"You're the devil's advocate," he said vehemently.
"Perhaps. But are you a God? It would take all of a pretty lively God's time to help – to really help – the lady."
"We'll see what a man can do," he said and stamped out, back to the library. In a few minutes he called me.
"It's beyond me," he said. "It looks like fright. She seems to like me and the place. I think she'd stay, if she wasn't afraid of her old gang. See if you can reassure her."
"Nina," I asked, "are you in love with Blackie?"
She did not seem to be sure what the term meant.
"He ain't so bad."
"Well, if he were dead," I tried again, "would you stay here with Mr. Benson?"
"Sure," she said. "Sure!"
"You're afraid of Blackie?"
She nodded.
"Well. Cheer up. He can't hurt you here."
"He'd have me pinched," she insisted, doggedly. "He's got a pull with the cops. He'd sure have me sent to the Island, if I tried to shake him."
"Look here," – again I flashed my badge – "It's gold. That means I'm the same as a captain. I've got ten times more pull than Blackie. If he gets gay, I'll lock him up. I'll plant a gun in his pocket and send him up the river for concealed weapons. You don't need to be afraid of him."
"Gee," she said, "I'd like to stay. But he'd sure get me. He's a bad one."
"He'll be a dead one," I said. "If he starts anything with a friend of mine."
I talked a few minutes more, but not till I showed her a pair of hand-cuffs, which I kept in my room by way of a curiosity, did she really believe she was safe and begin to smile again.
Having established the family, I made an excuse to go out. I came back late at night and found Benson sitting alone in front of the fire.
"She's asleep," he said.
"Must have had a lot of excitement," I replied, "to be sleepy at this hour."
Having spent all the day outdoors, tramping in the open air, my brain had cleared a little. The thing had lost its distorted proportions, had fallen into focus. I could not understand how the affair had seemed so momentous to me. Such things, I knew very well, were happening on all sides, all the time. I was sorry for Norman. He would take it seriously and that, I felt, meant days of stress and sadness. My work in the Tombs had made me realize more certainly than he could the immense chances against his helping the girl. How many futile efforts I had made at first to lend a hand to some of these unfortunate women! I had given it up in defeat. For her, even if the powers of darkness pulled her back at last, it would mean at least a little oasis of comfort and consideration in the barren desert life the gods had mapped out for her.
"There's one thing, I must say for my soul's good," Norman said. "It's a hard business, this analyzing of our motives. I'm sure I do want to save her, if I can, from being a public prostitute. But it's equally true I want her for myself. I certainly despise this cadet, Blackie – but it's also true that I'm suddenly become just ordinarily, humanly jealous of him. I don't want to pretend that I'm wholly occupied in trying to be God-like."
"Well – I suppose I'm a cynic," I said. "But I don't expect any wonderful reformation – in either of you. Only don't be unfair to her – don't expect too much of her."
And so Nina became an accepted member of our household.
V
Norman certainly set earnestly about the work of filling the place in Nina's life previously held by Blackie.
A few nights later I joined them in the middle of the performance at Koster and Bials. Nina looked away from the stage only long enough to say "Hello." She was vibrant with excitement. Norman and I sat back in the box much more interested in her than in the commonplaces of the stage. We were both rather ill at ease in so senseless and light-minded a place.
"This experience," he said and I thought I caught a tone of apology in his voice, "is bringing me a closer understanding of the life of the poor. Of course they'd resent my saying that Nina helped me to understand them. The poor are the worst of all snobs. We 'reformers' believe in the working-class a lot more than they do in themselves. It's hard to get at them – we only meet the kind who know how to talk and most of them are mute. The chaps in my Studenten Verein long for education. They envy us who had it forced on us – and, of course, pose before us. You can't really get to people who envy you.
"But Nina never studied – barely reads – don't want to. This sort of thing is her summum bonum. I haven't found anything that makes her happier than for me to put on evening clothes and take her to a flashy up-town restaurant. And she can't help talking. She has no self-consciousness – no pose. What she says is reality. It's the wisdom of the tenements she babbles out – the venerable philosophy of the poor. I'm learning a lot from her."
"You needn't apologize to me," I said.
"I wasn't apologizing," he retorted. "Why should I?"
"I said you needn't."
"But you meant that I ought to – not to you, but to somebody. To whom? To God? To Mrs. Grundy? No – why should I apologize?" – He threw his arm back so that his hand lay on my shoulder, it was the nearest our great love for each other ever came to the expression of a caress – "I know you don't approve, Arnold. But after all whom am I harming? You and I have been leading a pretty glum sort of a life…"
"You have," I interrupted. "I'm in no position to chuck any self-righteous stones."
"Oh," he said. "That's what you meant when you said I need not apologize to you."
"I suppose so."
"Well, to whom then? Tell me," he went on when I did not reply at once. "I'm really glad to have the opinion of a disinterested onlooker. It always helps. Tell me."
"Good God," I replied to his challenge, "I'm no oracle – no omniscient voice of conscience. But it looks to me as though apologies were coming to Nina."
"Nina?" he said in surprise.
"Yes. Don't you see what's happening? She's falling in love with you. The real thing. She never saw anybody like you before. You're like the shining white hero of the Bowery melodrama, who rescues the distressed heroine at the last minute – and marries her. Of course you and I know that the young millionaires with tenor voices don't marry the distressed damsels. But remember the kind of dope her mind is filled with. The wedding march always starts up, just before the curtain goes down."
The slap-stick comedians had finished their turn, the lights flared up and for the first time I noticed Nina's resplendent gown. It was really a beautiful dress. If her hair had been done up with a little more skill and if Norman had not set all his authority against an excess of powder and paint she would have looked quite like an uptown lady, of the Holland Houses or Rector's, like those who go up Fifth Avenue to a ball or like those who turn over to Broadway and strut about in the theater lobbies to attract the attention of some gentleman from out of town.
I complimented her on her appearance and, she, pleased as a child, told me how they had bought the dress that afternoon at a second-hand place on Sixth Avenue. The most glorious experience of her life, before she had met Norman, was a short acquaintance with the woman who played the "lady villain" at "Miner's." They had had rooms in the same house for a while. And this tragedienne had confided to Nina where she bought her second-hand clothes. Norman in a dinner jacket and Nina in a shirtwaist had attracted a good deal of attention, so he had decided that she must have a more suitable outfit for evening wear. She had led the way. And she told me with great animation – and frequent profanity – of the long and complicated dickering which had preceded the final purchase. The shop woman had asked $27.50 and Nina had stuck out for $17.50. At one stage of the wrangle the woman had led Nina aside and called her a little fool.
"'He's rich,' she says to me. 'He'll pay. Don't you know enough to stick him. I'll knock off fifty cents, you say all right. He'll pay it. And tomorrow you come round and I'll give you three dollars.' Now wot do you think of that? Say. Do you know wot I did?"
I could not guess.
"I spit at her. I said 'You …'" (Among the other epithets were "cross-eyed" and "hook-nosed.")
"Well – how much did you pay at last?" I asked.
"I think," said Norman, "she could have got it for the seventeen…"
"Sure, I could," Nina interrupted. "But he was in a hurry and gave the … thief twenty. It…"
The lights went down, the curtain up and a woman, whom I would not have trusted to be kind to her own children, brought on a troupe of pitiable dogs. Nina turned back to watch the stage.
"So you think," Norman reverted to the former subject, "that I ought to marry her?"
"Of course not."
"If you have any reasons why I shouldn't that are not pure snobbishness, I'd like to hear them."
"Good God," I said. "You're not seriously thinking of that, are you?"
"Hardly. But the idea has occurred to me. Why are you so frightened by it?"
It is strange what illogical creatures we are! Up to that moment I had been sorry for Nina. Every day I liked her more. And I saw with a sore heart the wondering, dazed admiration grow within her for her new master. Love is one of the most primeval passions of the race. It is likely to be stronger – grander or more devastating – with primitive people than with those of us who have been civilized away from the parent type. I knew that Nina was falling in love with Norman in a way no woman of our class ever could. He had taken her into a fairy land and she could not, I felt, help expecting the fairy denouement.
But the hint of the possibility of his really acting the part of the fairy prince, switched me about entirely. Nina became a negligible quantity. I worried only for him. It is needless to repeat the arguments against such a marriage which flooded me. They will occur to anyone. But to oppose it – I knew Norman too well – to try that.
"Perhaps that would be the best solution of the matter – for her."
"And for me?" he insisted.
"Well. You're in a better position than I to decide that."
He laughed and leaned forward and pinched her ear. Suddenly she forgot the stage and getting up – reckless of all observers, – came back and kissed him.
"Nina," I asked, "if I pinched your ear, would you kiss me?"
"No," she said, convincingly. "I'd slap your face."
"There's only one thing I know about this, Arnold," he said when she had returned to her seat. "It's bringing me to life again. I don't think I had really laughed for months. I'd forgotten there was such a thing as amusement in the world. I never was very strong on play. Of one thing I'm sure. It's giving me a new insight – a new point of view – into lots of things. Only God knows how it will turn out."
VI
I can only guess how it would have turned out, if Nina had not fallen among thieves. The most insoluble mystery of life is the way in which the very highest human values sometimes spring out of the coarsest, most brutal wrongs.
Although to Nina, I had spoken of Blackie in a flippant tone, I knew that he might cause trouble. I had spoken seriously about it to Norman, advising him to avoid as much as possible, and especially after dark, those parts of town, where Blackie's gang was likely to be encountered. And together we had impressed on Nina and Guiseppe that she was never to go out alone. But as nothing was heard from him for some time, we all began to worry less.
Nina had been with us about three weeks when the storm broke. I came home from my work about five one afternoon – and found bedlam. Guiseppe's head was wrapped in a bloody bandage, Nina was sobbing wildly on the divan.
It took some minutes before I could get a connected explanation from them. After lunch they had gone out to pay the butcher's bill. Nina, having come from "his district" had won Giuseppe's heart and he allowed her the pleasure of playing at housewife. It pleased her especially to pay the bills, so she was carrying the money – about thirty dollars. At the corner of Second Avenue and First Street, they had been surrounded by Blackie's gang. Guiseppe had fought like a true Garibaldian until his head had been laid open with a knife and he had been thrown to the ground by the young toughs. As quickly as they had come, they ran away. When he picked himself up, Nina was nowhere to be seen. He had asked the aid of a policeman, but had been laughed at. Then he had come to the Teepee, not finding either Benson or me, he had bound up his head, and rallying some Garibaldian comrades, had set out on a search. This about three o'clock. A little after four they had found her sobbing desperately behind an ash can in an alley-way. He had had some trouble in persuading her to come back. She was afraid of Blackie's wrath – but more afraid that Norman would be angry on account of the money.
Her story came out brokenly between spells of crying. At the first attack, Blackie and another cadet had hustled her around the corner and up some stairs to a rented room. There they took away the money and beat her at leisure. The three who had manhandled Guiseppe came in shortly and kicked her about some more. There was nothing unusual in this – it is the well-established custom, by which the cadets keep their girls in slavery. I doubt if a day ever passes in this great metropolis of ours when the same scene is not enacted. They would probably have beaten her worse, if the windfall of money had not tempted them out to other pleasures. One after another the five men swore, emphasizing their words with blows, that if she ever threw down Blackie again, they would kill her. Their parting advice to her was that if she had not earned five dollars by ten o'clock next morning, she could expect a fresh beating.
Such stories had come to my knowledge before, they are the commonplaces of the police courts. But as Norman had said the first morning, such things must happen to someone near us, before we realize them. I took the handcuffs out of my desk, put fresh cartridges in my revolver. I had never set out after a man before in a like frame of mind…
When I think back to that evening's work, the Tombs and our convict prisons and all the bitter horror of our penal system, is no longer inexplicable. It is only crystallized anger. The electric chair is only a formal symbol of collective hate. I am not at all proud of that man-hunt. A friend of mine had been hurt. "A friend of mine" – how many of man's and nature's laws have been broken with that preface! The political bosses look after their "friends." More corrupt legislation has been passed because of "friendship" than for bribes. Well. A friend of mine had been touched. Everything by which I like to recognize myself as a civilized man dropped away. Suddenly I became an ally of the thing I was fighting against. As I rushed downstairs, with handcuffs in one pocket and a revolver in the other and murder in my heart, I was just adding my contribution to the maintenance of the system which seems to me – when not angry – the most despicable element in our civilization.
I left word for Benson to stay in when he came home, so that I could reach him by telephone. I had no definite plan when I left the Teepee – only somehow I was going to "get" Blackie. It was about an hour before I was able to locate him. The first fury of my anger had passed, it had had time to become cold and to harden.
Pinning my badge on the outside of my coat, I kicked open the door of the "Tim O'Healy Social and Civic Club," and covered the crowd of twenty young toughs who were in the room.
"Hands up," I ordered. They obeyed sullenly.
"I want Blackie," I said, "and no funny work from the rest of you."
For a moment they were irresolute.
"Say. You're making a damn fool of yourself," one of them protested, "Blackie's president of this club – he's right next to the Old Man. You'll get broke sure."
"Shut up. The Old Man sent me," I lied. "Blackie's been getting too fly."
"Hell!" another piped up. "I seen the Old Man shake hands wid him an hour ago."
"Cut it out, kid," I replied. "You talk too much. How long's the Old Man been in the habit of warning guys he's going to light on?"
My lie worked – and saved bloodshed. It was the old tragedy of Cardinal Wolsey acted over again. None of the gang was really afraid of my revolver. One rush would have finished me. But they were all afraid of the Old Man's ire. They drew away from Blackie.
"It's a lie," he growled. "Me and the Old Man's friends."
"You can talk that over with him in the morning. Come on."
He grew suddenly pale, half believing my story. He was such an ill-visaged, rat-eyed scoundrel, I regretted that they had not made a rush – at least I could have stopped his career. Single handed now, he submitted sullenly.
"Wot's the charge?" he asked, holding out his hands for the irons.
"Murder in the first."
From the way he wilted, I think he must have had a murder on his conscience.
"Now," I said to the gang, "I don't need any help from you. You'd better go right on with your game. You can call on him later on in the station house and bail him out – if you want to get in wrong with the Old Man."
But instead of taking him to the nearby station house, I rushed him down town to the Tombs. The sergeant at the desk did not know him, so I entered him under a false name. A search revealed quite an arsenal on his person, a short barreled revolver, a knife and some brass-knuckles. I plastered him with all the charges I could think of – disorderly conduct, concealed weapons, robbery in the first degree, felonious assault. Nina might be too frightened to testify to the robbery, but Guiseppe would swear to the assault.
As soon as I had him in a cell, I telephoned to Norman that all was going well and rushed uptown to the home of the district attorney. The fates were playing into my hands, for at that time – as is usual between elections – there was civil war within the organization. The district attorney was a machine man, but was one of the leaders of the rebellious faction. He heard my story with great glee, a serious criminal charge against one of the Old Man's lieutenants was fine gist for his mill. He promised to push the case and put it on before O'Neil, whom the Old Man could not reach.
Then I went to the "Old Man." I have already written of my encounters with him. In general I had established friendly relations with the machine politicians. Some of them, especially the judges, liked me personally. Ryan's friendship for me was, I think, real. But of what was back of the Old Man's easy going familiarity, I was less certain. I could not count on his friendship. But he was sure to find out what I had done. And there was nothing to be gained by letting some one else tell him.
That night I found him in the back room of his brother-in-law's saloon. He looked up at me, his eyes, usually cordial, decidedly hostile.
"Say, young man, haven't you been getting pretty gay?"
"I sure have," I admitted. "And I've come round to tell you what I did and why I did it." I gave him the story from beginning to end, even my talk with the district attorney.
"Well," he said, when I was through, "you've played it pretty slick – so far. But how are you going to keep that gang from shooting you up, when they find out what you put over on them?"
"It'll be a poor friend of Blackie," I said, "who takes a shot at me. I've got too many friends on the bench. And the district attorney would sure hand him a dirty deal."
He nodded assent. According to his lights the Old Man fought fairly. He had no mean personal animosity. He handed me a cigar. I smoked it silently while he was thinking things out.
I had put a knife into a vulnerable spot – had thrown the apple of discord where it was most likely to cause trouble. Tammany Hall is a latter-day feudalism. Ability to protect one's vassals is the keynote of the organization. The "ward heeler" is a petty count, the "district leaders" are the great dukes. And the kingship of this realm is not hereditary – it is not even a life-tenure. I do not think it has ever happened, certainly not in my time, that a boss has held his position till death. And there have been very few voluntary abdications.
The Old Man was facing a determined rebellion. Not to be able to save Blackie would be a great blow to his prestige. Many a district leadership has been lost on a lesser issue. He knew he could get no help from the district attorney's office, without patching up a humiliating peace. I could see only one outlet for him – to repudiate Blackie. He could easily have found some excuse for backing up my lie. I am sure this thought was in his mind, written all over with the word "discretion." But in expecting him to take this easy way out, I misjudged him. He loved a fight. These factional struggles were what made life interesting within the organization and attractive to men of his type. He had never been defeated. He did not like to lie down before me, who in his eyes was not even a regular warrior – just a sort of banditti.
"I've sent a man down to bail him out," he said abruptly. "I guess there is going to be a fight. You'll get my answer in the morning. Good night."
I found Norman in a Berserker fury. He was inclined to quarrel with me for not having shot Blackie on sight. A doctor had sewed up the gash in Guiseppe's head. Beyond some angry black and blue blotches, Nina had sustained no injuries. As soon as she had been reassured about the lost money, she had recovered her spirits.
The Old Man's answer would have caught us unawares – as he intended it should – if it had not been for a fortunate enmity of mine. I suppose there were many people in the Tombs who disliked me, but no one hated me so cordially as Steger, the agent of the society for the Protection of Childhood. Our feud was of long standing. He was an insignificant little man, to whom no one ever paid any attention. He was employed by the society to push the charges against everyone accused of violating the laws for the protection of childhood and to urge the heaviest penalties against all who were found guilty. My business was to persuade the court to temper justice with mercy. Inevitably we came into conflict. He would urge the judge to impose the maximum sentence, and I would plead for leniency. My personal standing was better than his and I invariably won out in these frequent tilts. His rancor against me had always made me smile. I met him as I entered the court house.
"Seems to be a nice sort of fellow – that room-mate of yours," he sneered.
"What's up?"
"You'll know quick enough. Take my advice and disappear. It will be hard for you to disprove complicity."
It was enough to give me the tip. Within five minutes I had the whole story from one of my fellow "county detectives," who had seen the warrant. Blackie and the Old Man had got Nina's mother to make an affidavit that her daughter was only seventeen years old. Steger had joyfully sworn out a warrant against Benson, charging him with rape in the second degree – states prison, ten years.
In the language of the Tombs, they "had the goods on him." There is no getting away from this charge if the girl is under eighteen. The question of whether or not she has "led a previously chaste life," has no bearing in rape cases.