The Lash Part 6

She laughed again, a girlish, joyous laugh that warmed the heart in the hearing. "I'm it," she averred. "You are certainly the limit. But you aren't in such luck as you think. It's a long way home."

"Never too long with you for a pacemaker," he a.s.sured her. "And luck--I know the varieties. I've had all kinds." So, as the last waltz ceased and the dancers prepared for departure, he hastened to the door, where d.i.c.k was waiting for him, and dismissed that gentleman. Glenwood raised his eyebrows comprehensively and departed alone.

The way was short to Mulberry Avenue, all too short for Micky, and as for the lady--well, it would have seemed longer had the discredited Ryan been in her company. There was the first faint hint of dawn in the shrouded sky as Micky left the girl at her door and turned away, with her gracious permission to call on his next night off. So Micky turned to retrace the way now suddenly grown long; agitated stirrings in his warm Irish heart that he could not have explained, those first faint harbingers that come to us all, poor children of fleeting youth, and are stilled ere we can understand.

Ah, youth! with its thrilled pulses and fragrant, unspoiled heart, its mysteries divine--and the arid waste beyond, when dreams are done! It's a long way home, indeed!

CHAPTER VI

THE WEB

A wholesale liquor establishment supplied a portion of Shaughnessy's income. Time was, some years before, when it had demanded all of its proprietor's time and undeniable talents, but now a gradually increasing if reprehensible sphere of usefulness had made it a side-issue. However, it continued to yield its owner a satisfying revenue and the wicked prospered, after the fashion of this good old world.

The fourth ward, contiguous to Goldberg's, while free and easy enough, in very truth, was respectable in comparison with the notorious fifth.

It was in this fourth ward, in the quietest district, that Shaughnessy's wholesale house was located. It was in the dingy office of this old brick building that the dark schemes were matured which, with the aid of the worst elements in the city, dominated its affairs. Here Shaughnessy reigned supreme, an un.o.btrusive king.

Shaughnessy sat at his desk one warm evening holding converse with his two faithful satellites, Abe Goldberg and d.i.c.k Peterson. The office was carefully closed to chance encroachment and the men talked in subdued tones. As usual, the cabal's plans had been carefully discussed, then the conversation shifted to a minor matter. It was the offense of which Nick Slade had been guilty, in aiding the journalistic enemy by telling O'Byrn of the row at Goldberg's saloon. Slade, by the way, was a heeler under the direct charge of Peterson, and he had done work which had commended him to that astute though apparently unsophisticated worthy.

"He ought to get the run," Goldberg growled. "What use is a man to us that don't stand by the gang? Of course, that row wasn't exactly mixed up with our doings, but a lot of our men was mixed up in it, and it ain't the kind of advertising that's goin' to do us any good. Then this Slade goes and tips off the whole business. He ought to be kicked out."

"Hold on, Goldberg," said Peterson. "I know all about the deal. I've talked with Slade. Now you know Slade is shady with the police. Of course, there are others, but they've got it in for Slade for more than one reason and he ain't important enough to be immune. As luck would have it, they were going to nab him the other night for a piece of light-fingered work that he didn't happen to be concerned with. This Courier chap, who seems to be a corker anyway, had picked up acquaintance with Slade in some way, and, more than that, he happened to know the right party the police were after and he got Slade off. Well, what could Slade do when the fellow asked for the tip at your place? Of course, he could have turned him down flat, but that wouldn't have been natural, would it?"

Before Goldberg could reply, Shaughnessy's cold voice cut in. "Is he worth while?" he asked of Peterson.

"He's O. K.," replied that worthy, with conviction. "One of the best--"

Shaughnessy turned to Goldberg. "Then forget it," he said dryly. "Keep on using him, if he's any good. He's hardly worth firing. Exercise your firing privilege for the officers' quarters; you need the men in the ranks."

With which characteristic bit of philosophy, Shaughnessy stretched his arms and yawned. The others rose, the conference having been closed, and lighting fresh cigars, left the office. Shaughnessy was left alone. He leaned back lazily in his office chair, his thin hands clasped behind his head, his expressionless eyes watching the smoke that curled upward leisurely from the tip of his cigar. His white face would hold no more of immobility when he should lie dead. Under the gaslight he reclined at ease, staring upward. In the eyes, the queer, black, heavy-lidded eyes, there was a momentary lack alike of definite scrutiny or the soft, impalpable veil that is drawn by transitory dreams of better things.

Rather were they like a sluggish serpent's; l.u.s.treless, foreboding, unwinking and infinitely, sleeplessly sinister. They stared with a reptilian fixedness, seeing nothing. Thus for a s.p.a.ce, and then they lighted with a gleam of strange malevolence, as the thin, grim lips of Shaughnessy relaxed under the small black moustache in a smile that was not good to see. Some secret reflection had evidently pleased the boss.

He suddenly leaned forward in his chair and turned to his desk, extracting some papers which he surveyed with quiet satisfaction and replaced. As he did so he started violently, then sank back in his chair, his face drawn lugubriously with sudden pain; the natural pallor giving place to a ghastly gray. His hands were clasped at his left side and he gasped for breath. In a moment the paroxysm pa.s.sed, and Shaughnessy sat limp in his chair with sprawling legs and nerveless hands, his head bent forward. Presently he sought his handkerchief with shaking fingers and wiped the cold beads of perspiration from his forehead. Then he rose slowly, and with trembling knees tottered to a small cupboard and produced a flask and gla.s.s. Pouring out a stiff draught of brandy, he swallowed it at a gulp, replaced the bottle and gla.s.s and walked back to his chair. His eyes, again inscrutable, sought the clock; his face, once more an impa.s.sive mask, was turned toward the door. Shaughnessy was game.

A moment more and there was the sound of footsteps outside, then a cautious tapping summoned at the door. Shaughnessy stepped forward and released the spring lock which had confined it, standing aside to allow his visitor's entrance, then snapped the door shut. Placing a chair conveniently, he motioned his caller into it and resumed his own seat.

The caller sat regarding Shaughnessy with an odd nervousness. He was plainly ill at ease. An old man he was, with gray hair and beard and faded blue eyes, whose wonted amiability was just now shadowed by an unmistakable expression of helplessness. A pair of gold-bowed eyegla.s.ses dangled at the end of a silken cord looped about his collar; the cut and texture of his black garb indicated prosperity as well as solid respectability. The impression was heightened by the old-fashioned high collar and the white lawn tie. The thin white hands, on which the blue veins showed prominently, nervously fumbled a black slouch hat.

Shaughnessy's eyes rested an instant upon the headgear.

"You ordinarily wear a silk hat, don't you, Judge?" he asked. "What's the matter? Isn't this part of the town good enough for it, or does this one help to shade your eyes from the light?" The visitor winced and the boss smiled cruelly.

"One has to be careful,--" began the old man, and hesitated.

"Sure," acquiesced the leader, grimly. "A good many eyes would open to see you in here with me. And I suppose you left your carriage a few blocks back and walked? Your discretion does you credit. Well, you can afford to come here better than you can afford to have me go to your house, which I should have done if you had not wisely concluded to accept my polite invitation to call. Some of your holy neighbors would have been surprised, wouldn't they? Well, Judge, saving your venerable presence, they generally have to come to me,--because I know things."

The spare form fidgeted, the faded blue eyes sought waveringly Shaughnessy's black ones that were now quickened with a baleful fire.

"What do you want?" asked the visitor. "I am an old man,--I was through long since--"

Shaughnessy bent forward. "No, you are not through," he said with a softness that was metallic. "You are not through while you live and I need you. Understand that! You served me on the bench; you shall serve me now! Else--" He paused significantly while his companion's face whitened. "Now listen. I am coming to be known; you are not. You are respectable!" with an ugly sneer. "Now this is the programme, and it'll feaze the yelping fools that are after me, just as it'll feaze you, my dear friend, in a minute. The Democratic convention will be held just before the 'Cits' hold theirs. The 'Cits' are inconveniently in earnest this year and they're talking of putting up a man who'll cause us trouble. Now there'll be a dummy candidate, a machine man, in the Democratic convention, who'll be mine. Well, he'll be knocked out; decency will give the old Democracy heart disease by swooping down on her out of a clear sky; there'll be an honored name proposed that'll sweep the convention off its feet, and that honored name, my dear Judge, will be your own!"

The old man sprang to his feet, shivering as with the ague. He shook impotent, furious fists, his pale eyes glaring. "d.a.m.n you!" he cried, "I won't do it! Never! never! do you understand,--you--devil?"

Shaughnessy's hand closed on an object on his desk. He rose, shaking a bundle of doc.u.ments in his caller's face. "I understand," he muttered menacingly, "and--you understand. You understand that you will serve as the next mayor of this city--or you will serve time!"

The old man fell into his chair and buried his face in his hands, while Shaughnessy smiled, his eyes alight with malice.

CHAPTER VII

LONELINESS

A big figure arose from a desk at the opposite side of the room.

Glenwood handed in a bulky wad of matter to be read and strolled over to O'Byrn's desk. Throwing himself into a convenient chair, he produced his cigar case. They lighted weeds and sat for a time in congenial if smoky silence.

It was Micky's night off, but it was early. He was loitering about the office for a few moments before leaving to fulfill an engagement that had become usual. He now sat regarding Glenwood appreciatively. What a man he was, to be sure! He sat at indolent ease, his feet on Micky's desk, hands clasped behind his handsome blonde head, staring dreamily far beyond the littered room. He wore no coat. Micky marked the deep chest, the swell of the splendid muscles outlined beneath the folds of the soft outing shirt, the well set neck. There was the suggestion, none the less strong in repose, of mingled virility and grace. Strength of great scope was here, strength that had once against odds rescued him, O'Byrn, from an unpleasant predicament.

How puny was he, O'Byrn, by contrast, physically--and morally. Ah, but that last thought stung! For here was a man who was thoroughly master of himself, without being a milksop. His was no pedestal. He was one of the boys, yet liberty did not spell license with him. There was for him no painful crawl up a slippery toboggan of renewed intentions, following a wild, shooting descent that had left him gasping and breathless at the bottom. Glenwood's was the absolutely perfect mechanism of the normal.

Tough fibred, richly endowed in mental, moral and physical equipment from long generations of right livers, how different was his lot from O'Byrn's, cursed at the outset with a vicious appet.i.te which had been fostered from the beginning by the man who had bequeathed it; hampered, too, with an indifferent physique that rendered the more hopeless the boy's struggles with his mastering vice. True, after all, mused Micky bitterly, that men are created equal in only limited senses.

He rose abruptly and walked to the window, staring out into the soft night, for the ebon had settled down. Close by loomed the shadowy bulk of the city hall, dwarfing the stark ambitious blocks that were its lesser neighbors. Under the luminous moon glittered an adjacent church spire; stars peppered the curtained sky. Far down, amid the glare of myriad electric lights, there arose the faint roll of carriage wheels, drowned the next moment in the rumble of pa.s.sing street cars. Within there sounded the sharp click of typewriters; in a sudden lull there was audible the ticking of a telegraph key at the end of the room. A man entered hastily, seated himself before a desk and began to write like mad. Another young fellow, after a few brief words from the city editor, seized his hat and hurried on a mission. The room was unwontedly busy for so early an hour. Copy boys scurried, telephone bells rang, editors summoned and reporters scuttled. Always there poured into the great room, in strange and turbulent contrast to the wideflung peace of dead white moon and watching stars in the black night sky outside, the unresting flood, the formidable torrent of life and death and the joys and ills that lurk between, called News.

Micky stared out of the window, oblivious to the whirl within. It would have distracted a novice. To the veteran it meant only the inevitable environment of effort. Many such find it difficult to write in the midst of quietude. Of such was Micky, and so it was that, with no scribbling to do, he could lose himself in vague, sad contemplation of moon and stars and black night sky, with the roar of the flood no louder in his unheeding ears than the ripple of a little river through June meadows.

It was with a start that he was recalled to earth with a violent slap upon his thin shoulder. He turned, eyes still wool-gathering, to confront d.i.c.k.

"What's the dream?" demanded that worthy, smiling down at him. "Isn't this something new?"

"Why," answered Micky, a little confusedly, "I was thinking. Yes," with a laugh but with sober eyes, "it's something new, d.i.c.k, I guess. It would be better if it were oftener," a little wistfully.

d.i.c.k, staring out of the window, readily fell in with his mood.

"Thinking? Yes, it's a good thing,--sometimes. But you don't have much time for it in this business."

"No," rejoined Micky thoughtfully. "You need to put in all your hustling on the job, and it don't give you time for a heavy load under your roof." He glanced at the clock. "Well, I must be going. Didn't know it was so late. Gimme a cigar."

d.i.c.k produced one and Micky proceeded to light up. d.i.c.k surveyed the other's unwonted immaculateness with an air of understanding. "Give her my regards," he said.

"Her?" repeated Micky, in simulated amazement. "Nit; you're off. I'm going to cut coupons tonight; they're acc.u.mulating on me." He vanished with a grin and d.i.c.k sauntered back to his desk.

Micky descended in the elevator and stepped forth into the cool night air. He stood for a moment in indecision, debating whether he should take a car. Too fine a night to ride, he decided, and started down the street at a brisk pace. Presently leaving the crowded thoroughfare for a quieter side street, he proceeded southward. After a half an hour's walk he turned a final corner and was on Mulberry Avenue. Down the street he went to a modest little dwelling, with a light shining from the shaded parlor windows. He ascended the steps and rang the bell. The door opened. Micky stepped inside and they entered the tiny parlor.

The door communicating with the sitting room opened ever so cautiously.

A freckled, inquisitive face appeared un.o.btrusively in the gap, but Maisie saw it. "Terence!" she exclaimed, and the face disappeared.

Maisie slammed the door shut with asperity, then, taking a seat near it, turned her pretty face toward her caller. "You're late, Micky," said she reprovingly. Micky was progressive. It had not taken him long to induce her to address him by his Christian name.