So many myths have attached themselves to the deaths of Luigi Mollinucci and Willie Henshaw that it’s past high time to set the record straight. The same goes for what happened to me at the Arbor Dance Hall and for what happened to Little Patsy at Nash’s Cafe. There are times in your life when nothing happens forever, wish otherwise as you might. And then there are times like these, when half of everything that’s ever going to happen to you gets decided in a few short seconds, and no goin’ back. I guess God only has a certain amount of time for each individual; I only wish I had a little advance warning of the moment I had His complete and undivided attention.
I was over at the Tiger a few days after the Gophers got themselves mashed by the Centrals. There was smiles all ’round the Wigwam as I entered, and in my brain them smiles was for me, on account of what I’d done. By the time I got up to G.W.’s lair, the smiles was for real.
“Mr. Madden,” says himself, “let me congratulate on you, for sure isn’t Tammany a happy and grateful outfit this fine morning.”
I looked around the room and there was Jimmy, naturally, and another big mug I didn’t recognize. He was dressed in the same outfit everybody at Tammany wore, only he was sportin’ a bow tie—not too swell, but none too shabby either. Normally I don’t like conducting my business in front of strangers, but this wasn’t my bailiwick, and so I took the compliments like a man.
“’Tis a grand thing when a number of problems can be solved with a single bold stroke,” Plunkitt was saying when I started listening again. “There’s a new wind blowin’ down from Albany these days, and even we of the Wigwam sometimes have to bend along with it unless we want to get blown away. And that wind says the lawless days of the gangs is over. I seen it coming myself, back in the days of Monk and Kelly, but now it’s well and truly here, and make no mistake.” He cast a beneficent glance around the room.
One of the strangers spoke up. Shows you how dumb I was back then, it was only then that I recognized him as Big Tim Sullivan his own self.
“The gangs is gone because the conditions that bred ’em is going,” says Tim. “Tammany’s doing its work well. Why be a shtarker when you can just as easily hold elected office? The Irish don’t need crime anymore—we got the law on our side.”
G.W. took over. “Think of the law like it was a box o’ tools,” he said. “Some of ’em you use a lot; some of ’em you ain’t used in dog’s years, although they’re right there should you need ’em. Some of ’em, like a hammer, you can use for all sorts of things: to pry open a jar, or smash a window, or tamp down a tack. Well, the law ain’t no different. That’s why we make laws but hardly ever repeal ’em—you never know when one’s gonna come in handy.”
“Which brings me to my point,” says Big Tim, who really was big, especially when he was standing up, as he was now. “We’re after passing a law upstate that makes it a crime to carry a firearm in the State of New York.”
“Why would you want to go and do a screwy thing like that?” I asked, polite as I could.
“Because we can,” said Big Tim, which after all is the First Law of Politics.
“Because we want the mugs to understand who’s rulin’ this roost,” said Jimmy, and at that moment I knew he was really going places. “Because we want to show the goo-goos that we mean business. Because—”
“Because bangers is okay for some canary bird fresh from the jug,” says G.W., “but not for a newly minted Tammany man.” He paused so I could take his meaning. “Such as your own good self.”
I thought I was going to fall over right then and there, like I was shot.
“Oh sure, we’ll still need the services of some hard gees from time to time,” says Tim. “An election is a war and the polling place is a battlefield. To my way of thinking, people will always need a bit of persuading to vote often and to vote right each and every time. And we’ll be there to help. But we don’t need sluggers anymore—we need thinkers.”
In my brain I agreed with Big Tim, but in my heart I wasn’t so sure, and I certainly wasn’t about to forsake the heater that Monk gave me in order to make a man out of me. Which rod was stashed where it always lived, in the waistband of my trousers, snuggled up to me even tighter and more private than Freda, Margaret or Loretta.
Plunkitt wedged his seegar between his teeth and clamped his jaw tight. Then he opened his arms, motioning to me and Jimmy to step inside them, which we did. He hugged us both close, and I had to admit it felt good since I hadn’t been embraced by a man since my own dear Da departed, if you don’t count Monk’s pounding me on the back from time to time, and I guess my friendships with G.W. and Monk mighta been a way to compensate for Da’s loss, as them headshrinkers nowadays say, but I don’t hold to none of that, which if you ask me is for sissies.
Himself smothered us for a while, then let us out for air. “Tammany needs fine young specimens like the two of you,” he said. “Therefore, I want you both to promise me now, on the graves of the Irishmen who fought and died back home, and right here in front of Big Tim Sullivan the workingman’s friend, that you’ll always work together, never double-cross each other, and that you’ll split the take fair and square.”
It was an easy promise to make and we both made it.
“Jimmy here will be runnin’ for—and winnin’—the leadership of the eleventh district next year, against Jimmy Ahearn, a tough sonofabitch if there ever was one who’s beaten him twice, but I have a feeling three’s going to be a charm. You know where the eleventh is, Owen?”
I shook my head no. It was the first time Plunkitt had even been familiar with me, and I glowed.
“That would be uptown, Morningside Heights and a piece of Harlem. Sure, our colored brothers are movin’ in like Noah’s flood, but that don’t signify. Jimmy’ll represent the darkies same as the whites. As for you—”
I pricked up my ears.
“You’ll continue about your business in the twentieth ward, same as always. Except that allowin’ as how you’re operatin’ under the personal protection of meself and the Tiger, there are a few things I’d like you to attend to. To show your good faith and capabilities, about which I have no doubts.”
I asked what those few things might be.
“Really only one, when you get right down to it,” said G.W. He stubbed out his cigar on his desk and tossed the butt into the spittoon. “I want the Hudson Dusters eliminated from the body politic, and I don’t care how you do it. Big Tim’s law ain’t going to take effect until next year, so the way I see it, you’ve got six months or so to…reorganize the West Side right and proper. Jimmy will see to the finances: salary, expenses and whatnot.”
I allowed as how I was happy and honored to do so.
“Just keep your name out of the papers and your fingerprints off the evidence. Keep any unpleasantness to a minimum, cut yourself in on any business dealings generously but not greedily”—he directed his gaze toward Jimmy—“and always remember who your friends are.”
I wasn’t sure but I thought I’d just been invited to marry what was left of the Gophers to Tammany Hall, a marriage made in Heaven. “Don’t you worry about a thing, sir,” I said, trying not to sound too eager, but probably failing.
Plunkitt looked at me all avuncular. “One more thing, Owen,” he said. “A word about combat, be it political or otherwise.”
I was listening hard.
“No matter how tough you are, you can always lose. The question is not how you handle victory. It’s what you make of defeat.”
We shook hands all around and I left as close to the top of the world as I’d ever been, but with the summit still firm in my sights.