“Leave ft to me,” Doc said, and we went out into the street, leaving him on his own.
Now, Mulberry Park lies north of the Brooklyn Bridge and a hundred yards or so from Chinatown. Right now it is a tree-shaded square which the city has equipped with swings, wading pools and showers for the kiddies. It looks quiet and faded but a century ago it was the toughest spot in Manhattan; Five Points was situated there and nearby a huge rambling building called the Old Brewery where swarms of Negroes and whites used to live. Seventy-five men, women and children once lived in one room of the Old Brewery. That ought to tell you how tough the place was. Murder was a daily occurrence and the kids in Old Brewery lived for years without leaving the rooms because in the hails they might get themselves knocked off by some guy with the blood-itch. The young punks were strong enough to stand up for themselves met their pals in alleys and there formed the first gangs of New York.
For the next hundred years the stretch from Mulberry Bend through Chatham Square and up the Bowery remained the centre of the sin industries of the metropolis. The gangs flourished.
So in those days the Mulberry Park district was plenty tough. Now the old gangs were dead, Chinatown and Mulberry Bend had faded into seeming innocence, but the district was still the breeding ground for thugs.
Anyway, it was like a breath of home to Sam as we into the Square and picked our way through the kids that cluttered up the sidewalk.
“Where do we go from here?” I asked, feeling the eyes of the slatternly women hostile on my back as they stood in open doorways of their drab, dirty apartments.
“There’s a guy I used to know,” Sam said, head, “who had a gin mill around here some place. what was his name?” He screwed up his face while he thought.
I waited patiently, trying to pretend I wasn’t there. Even the kids had stopped playing and were watching us.
“Good-time Waxey,” Sam said suddenly. “That’s the runt. He’ll know about Andasca. He knew every punk around here.”
We found Good-time Waxey behind the bar of an evil looking dive at the corner of Mulberry and Kenmare. He was lolling over the bar, the mid-day sporting sheet spread out before him, looking down the list of horses for the three o’clock handicap.