“Don't youse believe it!” came in vigorous denial from Whitey Dutch. “Ike never cracked a bin in his life. You bulls”—this was pointed especially at my friend—“say he's a dip, too. W'y, it's a laugh! Ike couldn't pick th' pocket of a dead man—couldn't put his hand into a swimmin' tank! That's how fly he is.”
“Now don't try to string me,” retorted my friend, severely. “Didn't Ike fill in with Little Maxie and his mob, when they worked the Jersey fairs?”
“But that was only to do the strong-arm work, in case there's a scrap,” protested Whitey. “On th' level, Ike is woise than Big Abrams. He can't even stall. An' as for gettin' a leather or a watch, gettin' a perfecto out of a cigar box would be about his limit.”
“That Joisey's a bum place; youse can go there for t'ree cents.”
The last was interjected by Slimmy—who had a fine wit of his own—with the hopeful notion of diverting discussion to less exciting questions than pocket-picking at the New Jersey fairs.
It developed that while Ike the Blood had now and then held up a stuss game for its bank-roll, during some desperate ebb-tide of his fortunes, he drew his big income from a yearly ball.
“He gives a racket,” declared Whitey Dutch; “that's how Ike gets his dough. Th' last one he pulls off nets him about twenty-five hundred plunks.”
“What price were the tickets?” I inquired. Twenty-five hundred dollars sounded large.
“Th' tickets is fifty cents,” returned Whitey, “but that's got nothin' to do wit' it. A guy t'rows down say a ten-spot at th' box-office, like that”—and Whitey made a motion with his hand, which was royal in its generous openness. “'Gimme a pasteboard!' he says; an' that ends it; he ain't lookin' for no change back. Every sport does th' same. Some t'rows in five, some ten, some guy even changes in a twenty if he's pulled off a trick an' is feelin' flush. It's all right; there's nothin' in bein' a piker. Ike himself sells th' tickets; an' th' more you planks down th' more he knows you like him.” It was becoming plain. A gentleman of gang prominence gives a ball—a racket—and coins, so to speak, his disrepute. He of sternest and most bloody past takes in the most money. To discover one's status in Gangland, one has but to give a racket.. The measure of the box-receipts will be the dread measure of one's reputation.
“One t'ing youse can say of Ike,” observed Slimmy, wearing the while a look of virtue, “he never made no money off a woman.”