Mike, at the discouraging view expressed, became doleful. “Say,” he observed, “I'd look like a sucker, wouldn't I, if anything happens th' Doc, an' I don't get 'em?”
St. Louis Bill assured Mike that he would indeed look like a sucker, and re-declared his conviction—based upon certain occult creepings and crawlings in his bones—that Mike had seen the last of those teeth.
“Take my steer,” said St. Louis Bill in conclusion; “treat them teeth you gives th' Doc as a dead issue, an' go get measured for some more. Twenty dollars wort' of gold, you says! It ain't no cinch but the Doc's hocked 'em for hop.”
“Nothin' to that!” returned Mike, decisively. “Th' Doc's a square guy. Them teeth is all safe enough. Only, as you says, bein' he hits the pipe, he may be slow about chasin' in wit' 'em.”
While Nigger Mike and his guests are in talk, run your eye over the scene. Those citizens of Gangland assembled about the Chatham Club tables would have made a study, and mayhap a chapter, for Lombroso. Speaking generally, they are a stunted litter, these gangmen, and seldom stand taller than five feet four. Their weight wouldn't average one hundred and twenty pounds. They are apt to run from the onslaught of an outsider. This is not perhaps from cowardice; but they dislike exertion, even the exertion of fighting, and unless it be to gain money or spoil, or a point of honor is involved—as in their duels and gang wars—they back away from trouble. In their gang battles, or when fighting the police, their strategy is to lie flat on the ground and shoot. Thus they save themselves a clubbing, and the chances from hostile lead are reduced.
To be sure there are exceptions. Such as Chick Tricker, Ike the Blood, Big Mike Abrams, Jack Sirocco, the Dropper, and the redoubtable Jimmy Kelly never fly and always fight. No one ever saw their backs.
You are inclined to doubt the bloody character of those gang battles. Why doesn't one hear of them?—you ask. Because the police conceal as much as may be all word and all sign of them. For the public to know might get the police criticized, and they are granted enough of that without inviting it through any foolish frankness. The hospitals, however, will tell you of a weekly average of fifty patients, suffering from knife or gun-shot wounds, not to name fractures born of bottles, bricks and blackjacks. A bottle judiciously wielded, or a beer stein prudently broken in advance to assure a jagged edge, is no mean weapon where warriors are many and the fields of battle close.
While Roxie rattled on, and the others gave interested ear, Jackeen was commenting in discouraged whispers to Johnny Rice on those twin setbacks of the Division Street stick-up and the Savoy safe.
“It looks like nobody's got any dough,” replied Rice, in a spirit of sympathy. “Take me own self. I ain't made a touch youse could call a touch, for a mont' of Sundays. Me rag, Josie, an' I was chin-nin' about it on'y last night, an' Josie herself says she never sees th' town so dead.”
“It's somethin' fierce!” returned Jackeen, moodily.