“Can anything be done with the one who has?”
“Nothin',” replied Big Kennedy. “No, there's no gettin' next to th' party with th' combination. Billy did try to stand in with this duck; an' say! he turned sore in a second.”
“Then you've no hope?”
“Not exactly that,” returned Big Kennedy, as though revolving some proposal in his mind. “I'll hit on a way. When it comes to a finish, I don't think there's a safe in New York I couldn't turn inside out. But I've got to have time to think.”
There existed strong argument for exertion on Big Kennedy's part. Both he and I were fighting literally for liberty and for life. Our sole hope of safety layin the overthrow of the Chief; we must destroy or be destroyed.
Big Kennedy was alive to the situation. He said as much when, following that verdict of “Not guilty!” I thanked him as one who had worked most for my defense.
“There's no thanks comin',” said Big Kennedy, in his bluff way. “I had to break th' Chief of that judge-an'-jury habit at th' go-off. He'd have nailed me next.”
Big Kennedy and I, so to phrase it, were as prisoners of politics. Our feud with the Chief, as the days went by, widened to open war. Its political effect was to confine us to our own territory, and we undertook no enterprise which ran beyond our proper boundaries. It was as though our ward were a walled town. Outside all was peril; inside we were secure. Against the Chief and the utmost of his power, we could keep our own, and did. His word lost force when once it crossed our frontiers; his mandates fell to the ground.
Still, while I have described ourselves as ones in a kind of captivity, we lived sumptuously enough on our small domain. Big Kennedy went about the farming of his narrow acres with an agriculture deeper than ever. No enterprise that either invaded or found root in our region was permitted to go free, but one and all paid tribute. From street railways to push carts, from wholesale stores to hand-organs, they must meet our levy or see their interests pine. And thus we thrived.
However, for all the rich fatness of our fortunes, Big Kennedy's designs against the Chief never cooled. On our enemy's side, we had daily proof that he, in his planning, was equally sleepless. If it had not been for my seat in the Board of Aldermen, and our local rule of the police which was its corollary, the machine might have broken us down. As it was, we sustained ourselves, and the sun shone for our ward haymaking, if good weather went with us no farther.