After Becker let me skate for waxing Willie, people were plenty scared of me. There was hardly a place on the West Side I’d walk into where some mug or other would start quakin’, like I was going to pop him one right then and there. I wasn’t just Owney Madden of Tenth Avenue anymore. This was when I realized that a reputation is a mixed blessing: it could bring you respect, sired by fear, and it could bring you attention, whose dam was curiosity.
The thing about the Arbor was it had an entrance on 52nd that led to a long bar on your right and a big dance floor straight ahead. Food was served at tables upstairs, which ringed and overlooked the dance floor on three sides, so you could dine on and fancy a dish at the same time.
Loretta headed straight for the floor to turkey-trot and bunny-hug and grizzly-bear and whatever dances was popular back then; I left the light-fantastic stuff to Georgie. I was hungry, though, all that electioneering and lovemaking having put a hole in my stomach, so I made for goin’ upstairs for a bite to eat and something to drink.
There was a hush when the crowd got a load of us. It started at the bar, spread across the dance floor, and pretty soon the whole damn room was quiet as the grave and all eyes were on me, as if they expected me to make a speech or something, but that was Joe Shalleck’s department, not mine, and so all that I said was: “Go ahead and have your fun. I ain’t going to bump off nobody tonight.” Nobody seemed particularly relieved.
I settled into a table above the floor, lookin’ down. I was trying to sort out how I felt about the various dames and drabs currently inhabiting my world and my bed, and to tell you the honest truth, I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I was going to do. On the one hand, I’d done the right thing by marrying Loretta, because that’s what a man does when his little friend gets him and a lady into trouble, but I’d already had plenty of cause to regret the rashness of my honor.
On the other hand, I still plenty fancied Freda, which was pretty remarkable because I’d been knowing her for some several years, and yet she was one of those dames you never quite got tired of. Her figure was a Wonderland ride of never-ending delight, and she had a sweet disposition that’s rare in a dame, in my considerable experience.
From time to time I glanced down at the floor, where Loretta was cuttin’ a rug with some mugs, but I recognized them and I knew that they recognized me and wouldn’t think of gettin’ fresh with her.
A pretty waitress kept my glass filled. After about the third drink, I started to chat her up, just for the practice. “What’s your name, dearie?”
“Mary. My name’s Mary. I’m from Mayo.”
“That’s what they all say.”
She blushed a little. “What’s wrong with ‘Mary’? It’s the name of the Holy Mother of God.”
“Holy Mother of St. Patrick!” I exclaimed. “You don’t say?”
“She does say,” pipes up a voice behind me, and I could hear trouble straightaway.
Mary from Mayo sidled away, her task accomplished, which was to keep me distracted for a minute while the three Dusters who were even now surrounding me had got themselves into position. She flashed me a little look of regret and farewell as she went.
I turned to face the speaker, but he was talking to somebody else behind me. “Hey, Patsy, whadda you t’ink of a mug what calls a lady a liar?”
“I think he needs to be taught some manners, is what.”
I knew that voice, so even before I turned and came face-to-face with the ugly gob of Little Patsy Doyle, I knew who it was. Because the hell of it was, Little Patsy was none other than my old friend Fats Moore, even bigger and uglier than before, and with a memory as wide as the river.
“Hello, Madden,” says he. Drink had gotten the worse of him, but not as worse as the dust. He had this crazy look in his eyes, like he didn’t know whether to shit or go blind and was halfway thinking about both, if you could call that thinking.
“How’s tricks, Fats?”
“Name’s Doyle now,” he said.
“In that case, how’s your mother’s tricks?”
I thought he was going to punch me, but instead he just laughed that village-idiot laugh of his, which was the signal for his two boys to start in to chortling. The noise of the music below drowned out their yucks and I suppose that if you’da looked up, all’s you woulda seen is four yeggs having a fine old time.
A mug with multiple monikers was nothing new in our profession. Multifarious handles came in handy when you were pinched, especially by a copper that didn’t recognize ya. Monk himself had a bunch of them, including Edward Delaney, Joseph Morris and Joseph Marvin. I’d been known to throw around a falsehood or two in my times in custody. But to change your handle for real—well, that just shows you what kind of sap Fats was.
“Pretty sassy for a dead man, ain’t ya, Madden?” said Fats, and I could feel the unmistakable shove of steel in the small of my back where one of his boys had jammed a hand cannon.
It’s a fair question to ask whether I was nervous, and you’d probably expect me to answer yes, but the fact is that in a tight spot like this you really don’t have time to be nervous. About all you have time for is to concentrate on each moment and anticipate the next. Long-range planning is not really on the table, as it were.
Accordingly I took a quick inventory of what I had on my person at that moment. Twin .45-caliber Colt automatics, brand-new 1911s like the soldier boys was gettin’, one under each armpit in fine leather holsters I’d pinched from a Jewman down Orchard Street way. Brass knuckles in my right pants pocket. Sapper in my left pants pocket. Monk’s .38 in my waistband. I could break the nose, split the skull or shoot the eyes of anyone to my right or my left.
Here’s what I could reach at that moment without drawing undue attention or, worse, return fire: nothing. Patsy’s other mug had jammed some heat into my midsection, while Patsy himself shoved his mug into mine. His breath was starting to smell real bad.
“Hear you’re still plenty sore about Freda,” he breathed.
“What’ve I got to be worried about, Fats?” I replied. “You ain’t exactly a shirt-collar ad.”
That got a little yuck out of the boys, which meant that Fats had to flash them the shut-up sign, which meant I could turn my head for just a moment and shoot a glance down toward the dance floor toward my wife, who was dancing away. I couldn’t tell whether I caught her eye or not, but I didn’t get a second shot because the guns in my ribs poked me harder.
“I gotta admire your taste in frails, Madden,” says Patsy, following my gaze. He waved at her and by God if she didn’t wave back, all gay and carefreelike. “Nice of her to let me know you’d be here tonight.”
If I could’ve killed him at that moment, I would have, even though it meant my own life. But I had no weapon at the ready, no freedom of movement. All I could do was stand there and wait, and think. I guess it was a measure of how much I trusted Loretta that I didn’t trust her at all.
Something happened right at that moment; the band stopped playing or the band started playing, or somebody got into a shouting argument with somebody else. I dunno. What it was, it was a moment’s distraction, the kind that come and go by the dozens on any evening among company. Maybe it was even Mary from Mayo dropping a stack of dishes. I can’t remember.
What it was it lasted just long enough for me to grab ahold of the sap and spin around, swinging. I caught the mug behind me right on the button, breaking his nose, but instead of going down, he stood there for half a second, his schnozz gouting, that crazy cocaine look in his eye, and I realized my error, which was you can’t hurt a Duster, you have to kill him, and I hadn’t. My time was up.
“You don’t have the guts,” I said to one and all. I was wrong.
It’s funny what you remember at a time like this. The first shot was the worst, but the only good thing I can say about it is that if it don’t kill ya, it deadens the pain of the others, which it more or less did. I felt the pain, heard women scream, felt myself toppling onto the table, knocking off the plates as the bullets still slammed into me, one after another, eleven in all, tattooing me from breastbone to groin like I was some Coney carny freak, each tattoo coming out blood red.
My head musta hit the table, which is what put me out like I was dead and saved my life, because the next thing I know some medicos was leanin’ over me, bringing me around as best they could before loading me on a stretcher. A big bull was there too and even in my condition I managed to recognize him: Happy John Corcoran, the cop who’d busted Monk.
“Who shot you, Owney?” said the giant mick.
Here’s an amazing but true fact. Despite the gunplay, there was plenty of folks still in the Arbor and not one of ’em had seen or heard a thing. Including my own good self.
“Nobody. Nobody shot me.” My voice sounded strange, like it was being filtered through day-old coffee grounds. I wondered how long it would take me to die. “I done it to myself.” Which, when you stop to think about it, was more or less the truth.
They had my nice clothes torn open, staring at my wounds. “Will ya look at that mess?” says one of the sawbones. “No sense takin’ this carcass to the hospital—better make it the morgue.”
I croaked that I hadn’t croaked and I’d be damned if I was going to see the inside of the morgue while I was still breathin’, which by the way was getting more and more difficult. “Try that and I’ll kill you,” I moaned.
That widened the smile on the lips of Happy John. “I don’t think you’ll be killing anyone for a long time, Killer,” he said. I was proud he recognized me.
The last thing I recall was bein’ wheeled into the cutting room. My lower belly felt like it had exploded and I could feel the blood soaking through the holes in my shirtfront. “Get busy with the knife, Doc,” says I to the first guy in white I saw. “I can feel it real bad.”
Then I retched up a lungful of blood and grabbed for my fiery abdomen and instead of touching flesh all I got was a handful of gore.
That’s when I passed out. It never occurred to me to pray.