Loretta and I got married a couple of days later. Our daughter followed along in due course. Loretta wanted to call her Dorothy, which being her own unused real name made some sense, although why she didn’t use it was beyond me. My superior choice was Margaret Mary Madden, which turned out to be her name, although we sometimes called her Marjorie, in the Irish way of givin’ a body one name and then callin’ him or her another, just for variety’s sake. Loretta fought me on this for a couple of minutes, but I made it up to her in the way boys do and never once did she suspect that just maybe my thoughts of Margaret Everdeane might have had something to do with baby Madden’s moniker.
Which brings me to Willie Henshaw.
Willie was a clerk in a dry goods store—Wanamaker’s, I think—and somehow in the course of his duties he chanced to encounter and take a fancy to the selfsame Margaret Everdeane, with whom I was more or less regularly indulging my amorous proclivities on an unofficial basis after my nuptials.
For I must confess that Loretta I was well and truly tired of even before she got in the family way, and when I tried to slake my thirst with Freda, I learned she had toddled off and taken up with a Duster who called himself Little Patsy Doyle just to spite me for Loretta, which meant I had no other course but to resume relations with Miss Everdeane. Marriage and childbirth, however, have a way of cramping a man’s style, so I was back at the old flat on 32nd Street more than I cared to be, which got me plenty sore, and well, when the cat’s away…Margaret met Willie, with what consequences for all of us you’re about to learn.
I only met Willie once, and that was the day I put a bullet in him on the Ninth Avenue streetcar, coming back down from the Amsterdam Opera House, whence I had trailed both himself and Margaret as he was escorting her to and from a performance. Art was driving and Hoppo was in the front seat of my new Ford T, which wasn’t much but was the best they had, and I sat in the back smoking, waiting, thinking, until Art give me the signal and I sighted Willie and Margaret coming out of the theater.
“Beat it,” says I, getting out of the car and squishing my fag under my heel.
I don’t know what sort of bill of goods Margaret was retailin’ to Henshaw, but it was plain as day even though it was the middle of the night that Willie was mighty sweet on her. I knew from experience that it didn’t take much to engage Margaret’s affections, so I figured I’d better cut Willie off before affections turned to passions and what have you. One of my rules has always been what’s mine is mine and God help the man who tries to steal from me.
I got on after them at 60th Street and settled into a seat several rows behind. I even paid the conductor when he came by, which ordinarily I wouldn’t have done, except that I didn’t want to cause trouble until I wanted to cause trouble.
Margaret lived over 39th Street between Ninth and Tenth, while Willie was a Villager, as I had gleaned from Tanner. I hated the Village because every time I thought about it I thought about this Little Patsy Doyle bum and the fun he was having with my Freda, whom I guess you could say I was still sort of in love with, if I was ever in love with anybody.
The tram hit Margaret’s stop, and I waited to see what they were going to do. I was surprised and Willie disappointed when Margaret only gave him a peck on the beak and he just waved good-bye as she hopped off and headed for home. It woulda been so simple for me to jump off right behind her, stroll her home and visit awhile, but the trolley had started moving again and I stayed aboard.
Willie was looking up at the ceiling, oblivious to all around him, as boys in love will be, which was another reason I had decided never to fall in love, at least not the crazy moony kind. He was a nice-looking kid, fresh-faced, but his mind was elsewhere, which is never a place you want your mind to be when you need it.
“Sixteenth Street,” said the conductor.
Willie got up and so did I. As the door opened I reached into my waistband and took out my Smithie.
“Hey, Willie,” I said.
He turned back to look at me and I could see his eyes widen as he grasped his fate and then I shot him in the belly, his guts splattering the doors and windows and even an old lady snoozing nearby as his body tumbled out the door just as it started to close and the streetcar started to pick up speed again.
Here’s the thing about firing a gun in close quarters: nobody can believe it’s happening. Which is why so many yeggs get away with it. The noise, the smoke, the shock, the blood—they have a way of anesthetizing the witnesses, so they don’t know if it’s Tuesday or Killarney by the time the bulls get around to grilling them. In this particular instance, I could have waltzed outta there. But I didn’t.
Call it the showman in me. Just as the trolley started to roll, I yanked the emergency cord and sent a couple of nickel-nursers who’d blown their supply of nickels at the corner saloon sprawling into the aisles, wondering what hit ’em. Some say it was Henshaw’s body rolling under the wheels that brought the car up short, but don’t believe ’em.
As the car slammed to a halt I marched toward the driver’s station. I think the poor schnook thought I was going to blast him too, but instead I shoved my piece back into my pants and reached for the trolley bell, which I tolled a couple of healthy clangs for poor dead Willie.
Everybody on the tram was looking right at me. “I’m Owney Madden of Tenth Avenue!” I shouted. “The Duke of the West Side.” I glared at everyone on the tram, to make sure they never forgot my face and never remembered my name.
When you jacked a trolley, the doors stood open until the crate got rolling again and so I sauntered out into the night, cucumber-cool. They say the first murder is the hardest and by my lights they’re right on the money. This one was a piece of cake.
The hell of it was ’twas Willie what gave Margaret the dose. Which is what she told me when I showed up at her door by way of an alibi. Which is why she hadn’t let him come visit her that evening. Which is why I spent the rest of that night enjoying Margaret’s company not in her boudoir but in Bellevue, so modern medicine could work its magic.