The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York

by Alfred Henry Lewis

“It's that Blackberry push,” replied Inspector McCue, “and I don't think it's on the level at that. It looks like the Blackberry president—and, by the way, I've talked with the duffer, and took in all he would tell—made a play to get the drop on our party. And although the trick was put up, I think he landed it. He charges now that our party is a welcher, and gets away with a bunch of bonds—hocked 'em or something like that—which this Blackberry guy gives him to stick in as margins on some deal. As I say, I think it's a put-up job. That Blackberry duck—who is quite a flossy form of stock student and a long shot from a slouch—has some game up his sleeve. He wanted things rigged so's he could put the clamps on our party, and make him do as he says, and pinch him whenever it gets to be a case of must. So he finally gets our party where he can't holler. I makes a move to find out the inside story; but the Blackberry sport is a thought too swift, and he won't fall to my game. I gives it to him dead that he braced our party, and asks him, Why? At that he hands me the frozen face, springs a chest, and says he's insulted.

“But the end of it is this: Our party is now headed for Frisco. When he comes ashore, the cops out there will pick him up and keep a tab on him; we can always touch the wire for his story down to date. Whenever you say the word, I can get a line on him.”

“Bring me no tales of him!” I cried. “I would free myself of every memory of the scoundrel!”

That, then, was the story—a story of gambling and opium! It was these that must account for the sallow face, stooped shoulders, hollow eyes, and nights away from home. And the man of Blackberry, from whom Morton and I took millions, had found in the situation his opportunity. He laid his plans and had those millions back. Also, it was I, as it had been others, to now suffer by Barclay Street.

“And now,” observed Inspector McCue, his hand on the door, but turning with a look at once inquisitive and wistful—the latter, like the anxious manner of a good dog who asks word to go upon his hunting—“and now, I suppose, you'll be willin' to let me pull that outfit in Barclay Street. I've got 'em dead to rights!” The last hopefully.

“If it be a question,” said I, “of where a man shall lose His money, for my own part, I have no preference as to whether he is robbed in Barclay Street or robbed in Wall. We shall let the Barclay Street den alone, if you please. The organization has its alliances. These alliances cannot be disturbed without weakening the organization. I would not make the order when it was prayed for by the mother of young Van Flange, and she died with the prayer on her lips. I shall not make it now when it is I who am the sufferer. It must be Tammany before all; on no slighter terms can Tammany be preserved.”

Inspector McCue made no return to this, and went his way in silence. It was a change, however, from that other hour when I had been with him as cold and secret as a vault. He felt the flattery of my present confidence, and it colored him with complacency as he took his leave.

Roundly, it would be two months after the election before Tammany took charge of the town. The eight weeks to intervene I put in over that list of officers to be named by me through the mayor and the various chiefs of the departments. These places—and they were by no means a stinted letter, being well-nigh thirty thousand—must be apportioned among the districts, each leader having his just share.

While I wrought at these details of patronage, setting a man's name to a place, and all with fine nicety of discrimination to prevent jealousies and a thought that this or that one of my wardogs had been wronged, a plan was perfecting itself in my mind. The thought of Blossom was ever uppermost. What should I do to save the remainder of her life in peace? If she were not to be wholly happy, still I would buckler her as far as lay with me against the more aggressive darts of grief. There is such a word as placid, and, though one be fated to dwell with lasting sorrow, one would prefer it as the mark of one's condition to others of tumultuous violence. There lies a choice, and one will make it, even among torments. How could I conquer serenity for Blossom?—how should I go about it to invest what further years were hers with the restful blessings of peace? That was now the problem of my life, and at last I thought it solved.

My decision was made to deal with the town throughout the next regime as with a gold mine. I would work it night and day, sparing neither conscience nor sleep; I would have from it what utmost bulk of treasure I might during the coming administration of the town's affairs. The game lay in my palm; I would think on myself and nothing but myself; justice and right were to be cast aside; the sufferings of others should be no more to me than mine had been to them. I would squeeze the situation like a sponge, and for its last drop. Then laying down my guiding staff as Chief, I would carry Blossom, and those riches I had heaped together, to regions, far away and new, where only the arch of gentle skies should bend above her days! She should have tranquillity! she should find rest! That was my plan, my hope; I kept it buried in my breast, breathed of it to no man, not even the kindly Morton, and set myself with all of that ferocious industry which was so much the badge of my nature to its carrying forth. Four years; and then, with the gold of a Monte Cristo, I would take Blossom and go seeking that repose which I believed must surely wait for us somewhere beneath the sun!