Riley had not minded, every pay-day, handing over to the appointed heeler the five dollars wherefor he received a receipt for a dollar and a half as dues to the political club to which he was expected to belong. For quite some time he had been content with closing his eyes to saloons that were opened on Sundays by proprietors that were powerful, and with allowing others to profit by the rewards of his voluntary blindness. But at last there came the first baby in the Riley home, and then the second, and the wife's long illness; and then assessments were increased and, finally, after many a broad hint from the men higher up, he was given plainly to understand that he must either hand over a goodly portion of money, every week, from the offending women on his beat, or else lose his usefulness to the force.
After that, he took what he must and kept what he could. He had no trade on which to fall back; his domestic and political expenses grew annually, and, as an evasion of the former meant financial ruin, so the shirking of the latter meant a charge lodged at headquarters, a speedy hearing, and an automatic dismissal. Even when a non-partisan man was put at the head of the department, that official's practical power was nullified by the fact that the mayor, a party-man, was behind him and could remove him at a moment's notice, and that behind the mayor was the organization that had made and could break the mayor. No individual, so far as Officer Riley could see, was personally to blame, was himself a free agent; but the whole collection of individuals were the irresponsible parts of a gigantic machine—from the inner council of Tammany to their spies in every municipal department—which, if ever broken by the recognized party of opposition, must be so thoroughly rebuilt and so precisely operated in accordance with mechanical lines that the change would signify only the casting out of the irresponsible parts and their replacement by parts equally irresponsible. Riley could look no farther, and, even could he have seen that the remedy must be a remedy of conditions, he could have done nothing to free himself.
At the station-house he delivered the commands that O'Malley had given him. There his words produced consternation, but no thought of disaffection. The patrol-wagon was ordered to be in its stable, ready to leave at the given hour, and Riley, as the officer regularly assigned to night-work on the beat in which stood Rose's house, was forced to remain to accompany it.
"An' see here, you men,"—these were the words with which the brief instructions were concluded—"you see to it nobody gets ahead of you. This is O'Malley's job, an' it's got to be done right."
In the underworld of every city, news, however, travels even while it is in the making, and in no direction does it travel more swiftly, just as in no other does it travel more indirectly, than, when the slave-trade is concerned, it travels to the traders. Riley was careful to remain in full view of the sergeant's desk from the moment the arrangements were made until the time of execution—he would not have dared to communicate with the friends that had thus swiftly become the enemy—none of the wagon-crew were seen to leave the stable, to use the telephone, or to speak to a passerby, and yet, shortly before the appointed time, through a certain club-room over a not far distant saloon—a club-room much affected by young men in Max Grossman's profession—there soon spread the definite tidings that Rosie Légère had just been "piped off."
The swarthy and brilliant Rafael Angelelli heard the word, and straightway, beyond all doubting, confirmed it. With the unheeded easy evening breeze tumbling his uncovered oily locks, he ran to the nearest booth-telephone, and hurriedly called Rose upon the wire.
"Eet ees comin'!" he whispered excitedly into the transmitter.
Rose's voice replied with stolid assurance.
"What's comin'?" she asked.
"Poliziotti—cops," replied the Italian, finding more and more difficulty with his English as his panic increased. "Eet ees Angel talkin'.—I jus' getta da nuova.—They maka da pinch!"