“Well, that’s what yuh’re goin’ to get—if yuh want to hear them. Those men know. They can tell. I’m not int’rested—unless someone wants to make trouble fer me.”
“Who wants to make trouble for you?” Moran blustered.
Keighley replied, with meaning, “That’s what I’m waitin’ to find out.”
The Deputy-Chief had come there intending to hold over Keighley the threat of an investigation. He found, now, that Keighley had the butt end of that whip in his hand. He said roughly, “Look here, Keighley, you might as well understand first as last, the order for Chief Borden’s retirement’s coming. You know which side your bread’s buttered on, don’t you?”
Without an instant’s hesitation, Keighley put his hand down flat on his desk-top and answered, “I stand pat. I don’t owe youse nothin’. Yuh can do what yuh like, but yuh can’t scare me. See?”
He knew that he was safe for the time, for he had the prestige of the morning’s newspaper notoriety behind him, and the Commissioner would not dare to remove him without cause, and any attempt to make a case against him out of the fire on the Sachsen would prove—in the language of politics—“a boomerang.” The charges against Chief Borden had been held proven by the Commissioner, but they had yet to be defended before a court of appeal under the Civil Service laws. Public sentiment had been aroused in the chief’s favor by the arbitrary and insolent conduct of the Commissioner sitting in judgment at the trial. And Keighley calculated that if the order were issued for the chief’s retirement, the “Jiggers,” to obtain that order, would have to fling themselves into a blow that would take, for the moment, all their strength.
Moran took up his cap from the desk and put it on. “All right, Keighley,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do for you.”
Keighley turned his back to reach his coat that hung on a hook beside the window. When he looked around, Moran had gone. He resumed possession of his office with a frowning glance about him, and then went out to the pier to inspect the work that had been done on the Hudson.
The quarrel in the fire-department was less political than personal; for, of course, both “Jiggers” and “Anti-Jiggers” were adherents of Tammany Hall. It was a quarrel between the old chief, Borden, and the new Fire Commissioner, who was in some degree indebted to the “Jiggers” for his appointment; they had used their “voice and influence” for him with “the Boss”; Chief Borden had objected to their doing so, and had used his position to make life uneasy for their leaders, among whom was Deputy-Chief Moran. The quarrel had passed down from the officers to the men; Captain Keighley had undertaken to stop it in his company by preferring charges against the malcontent Doherty and having him “broken” by the chief; and this unexpected action had uncovered a whole conspiracy against him with Lieutenant Moore at its head.
Now, if Chief Borden were retired by order of the Commissioner, Keighley would be left without a friend in power; Moran would be made chief; and the full revenge of Keighley’s enemies would fall upon him. He had no hope of avoiding it. He had no intention of trying to conciliate it. He was resolved merely to fight—after the manner of his kind—and to attend to his duties on the Hudson as thoroughly as possible, meanwhile, so that there might be no valid excuse for removing him from his command.