Twist, with Dahl, waited upon the Bottler. Argument was short and to the point. Said Twist: “Bottler, the Kid” – indicating the expectant Dahl – “is in wit’ your stuss graft from now on. It’s to be an even break.”
The news almost checked the beating of the Bottler’s heart. Not that he was astonished. What the puissant Twist proposed was a commonest step in Gangland commerce – Gangland, where the Scotch proverb of “Take what you may; keep what you can!” retains a pristine force. For all that, the Bottler felt dismay. The more since he had hoped that his hooking up with the Five Points would have kept him against such rapine.
Following the Twist fulmination, the Bottler stood wrapped in thought. The dangerous chief of the Eastmans lit a cigar and waited. The poor Bottler’s cogitations ran off in this manner. Twist had killed six men. Also, he had spared no pains in carrying out those homicides, and could laugh at the law, which his prudence left bankrupt of evidence. Dahl, too, possessed a past as red as Twist’s. Both could be relied upon to kill. To refuse Dahl as a partner spelled death. To acquiesce called for half his profits. His friends of the Five Points, to be sure, could come at his call. That, however, would not save his game and might not save his life. Twist’s demand showed that he had resolved, so far as he, the Bottler, was concerned, to rule or ruin. The latter was easy. Any dozen of the Eastmans, picking some unguarded night, could fall upon his establishment, confiscate his bankroll, and pitch both him and his belongings into the street. The Five Points couldn’t be forever at his threatened elbow. They would avenge him, certainly; but vengeance, however sweet, comes always over-late, and possesses besides no value in dollars and cents. Thus reasoned the Bottler, while Twist frowningly paused. The finish came when, with a sickly smile, the Bottler bowed to the inevitable and accepted Dahl.
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 Bottler’s 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 O’Farrell 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 O’Farrell, 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, O’Farrell 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 marauder’s back.
“Make a move,” said he, “and I’ll shoot you in two.”
The sophisticated Dahl, realizing fate, moved not, and with that the painstaking O’Farrell 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 O’Farrell 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 Bottler’s life.
“This pinch’ll cost a fine of five dollars,” said Dahl, glaring round O’Farrell at the shaking Bottler. “I’ll pay it, an’ then I’ll get square wit’ youse. Once we’re footloose, you won’t last as long as a drink of whiskey!”
The judge yawningly listened, while O’Farrell 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 O’Farrell 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 Bottler’s 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 Bottler’s 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 o’clock. The place should be the Bottler’s 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