XIX
THE LEAK AND OTHER MYSTERIES
"Outside of one poor night watchman nebich," Abe Potash said to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, "the only people which has really and truly suffered from the goings-on of them anarchists is the insurance companies, Mawruss."
"In a case like that, Abe, the insurance companies ain't liable under their policies," Morris said, "and they wouldn't got to pay no losses for the damage when them bombs done it to them buildings."
"Who said anything about the insurance companies paying losses?" Abe asked. "I am talking about the insurance companies paying lawyer bills, Mawruss, which I never read any of that part of my insurance policies that is printed in only such letters as could have been designed in the first place by them fellers you read about who go blind from engraving the whole of the Constitution of the United States on a ten-cent piece, y'understand, but I have no doubt, Mawruss, that it wouldn't make no difference if the loss was caused by anything so legitimate as throwing a lighted cigarette in a waste-paper basket, understand me, the only reason why an insurance company pays any losses at all is that they figure it's cheaper to let the policyholder have the money than the bunch of murderers they got representing them as their general counsel."
"No doubt you're right," Morris agreed, "but in these here bomb outrages Abe, the way the police 'ain't been able to get a clue to so much as a suspicious red necktie, y'understand, it looks as though this bomb-exploding was going to be such a regular amusement with anarchists as pinochle-playing is with clothing salesmen, understand me, so the insurance companies would got to make a stand, otherwise they would be paying for new stoops for the houses of anybody and everybody who ever said an unkind word in public about Lenine and Trotzky."
"It seems to me that the police ain't so smart like they once used to be, Mawruss," Abe remarked.
"No, nor never was," Morris said. "In fact, Abe, from the number of crimes which has got into the let-bygones-be-bygones stage with the police lately, clues ain't of no more use to them fellers at all. What them detectives need is that the criminal should leave behind him at the scene of the crime a line of snappy, up-to-date advertising containing his name, address, and telephone number, otherwise they seem to think they have the excuse that they couldn't be expected to perform miracles, and let it go at that."
"I see where right here in New York, Mayor Hylan puts the whole thing up to the newspapers," Abe observed. "He wrote to a friend the other day one of them strictly confidential letters with an agreement on the side to ring up the reporters as soon as it was delivered, y'understand, in which he said the reason why so many crimes was going undiscovered by the police was that the newspapers was unprincipled enough to print that a lot of crimes was going undetected by the police, understand me, and the consequence was that criminals read it and, relying on the fact that the police wouldn't catch them if they committed crimes, they went to work and committed crimes."
"And I suppose them criminals' confidence in the police wasn't misplaced, neither," Morris suggested.