The Apaches of New York

by Alfred Henry Lewis

What bridge whist is to Fifth Avenue so is stuss to the East Side. No one save the dealer wins at stuss, and yet the device possesses an alluring feature. When the victim gets up from the table, the bank under the descriptive of viggresh returns him one-tenth of his losings. No one ever leaves a stuss game broke, and that final ray of sure sunshine forms indubitably the strong attraction. Stuss licks up as with a tongue of fire a round full fifth of all the East Side earns, and to viggresh should be given the black glory thereof.

The Bottler owned talents to make money. Morally careless, liking the easy way, with, over all, that bent for speculation which sets some folk to dealing in stocks and others to dealing cards, those moneymaking talents found expression in stuss. Not that the Bottler was so weak-minded as to buck the game. Wise, prudent, solvent, he went the other way about it, his theater of operations being 135 Suffolk. Also, expanding liberally, the Bottler endowed his victims, as—stripped of their last dollar—they shoved back their hopeless chairs, with not ten, but fifteen per cent, of what sums they had changed in. This rendered 135 Suffolk a most popular resort, and the foolish stood four deep about the Bottler's tables every night in the week.

The Bottler lacked utterly the war-heart, and was in no wise a fighter. He had the brawn, but not the soul, and this heart-sallowness would have threatened his standing save for those easy generosities. Gangland is not dull, and will overlook even a want of courage in one who, for bed and beef stews, freely places his purse at its disposal.

There are two great gangs on the East Side. These are the Five Points and the Monk Eastmans. There are smaller gangs, but each owes allegiance to either the one or the other of the two great gangs, and fights round its standard in event of general gang war.

There is danger in belonging to either of these gangs. But there is greater danger in not. I speak of folk of the Bottler's ways and walks. The Five Points and Eastmans are at feud with one another, and the fires of their warfare are never permitted to die out. Membership in one means that it will buckler you against the other while you live, and avenge you should you fall. Membership in neither means that you will be raided and rough-housed and robbed by both.

The Bottler's stuss house was—like every other of its kind—a Castle Dangerous. To the end that the peril of his days and nights be reduced to minimum, he united himself with the Five Points. True, he could not be counted upon as a shtocker or strong-arm; but he had money and would part with it, and gang war like all war demands treasure. Bonds must be given; fines paid; the Bottler would have his uses. Wherefore the Five Points opened their arms and their hearts to receive him.

The Eastmans had suffered a disorganizing setback when the chief, who gave the sept its name, went up the river for ten years. On the heels of that sorrowful retirement, it became a case of York and Lancaster; two claimants for the throne stood forth. These were Ritchie Fitzpatrick and Kid Twist, both valorous, both with reputations of having killed, both with clouds of followers at their backs.

Twist, in whom abode the rudiments of a savage diplomacy, proposed a conference. Fitzpatrick at that conference was shot to death, and Kid Dahl, a near friend of Twist, stood for the collar. Dahl was thus complacent because Fitzpatrick had not died by his hand.

The police, the gangs and the politicians are not without a sinister wisdom. When life has been taken, and to punish the slayer would be an inconvenience, some one who didn't do the killing submits to arrest. This covers the retreat of the guilty. Also, the public is appeased. Later, when the public's memory sleeps, the arrested one—for lack of evidence—is set at liberty.

When Fitzpatrick was killed, to clear the path to gang leadership before the aspiring feet of Twist, the police took Dahl, who all but volunteered for the sacrifice. Dahl went smilingly to jail, while the real murderer of Fitzpatrick attended that dead personage's wake, and later appeared at the funeral. This last, however, by the nicer tastes of Gangland, was complained of as bordering upon vulgarity.