Eustace Ball - Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure

"Beat it, Annie, and git de gang!" cried out Jimmie as he scrambled to his feet. The woman sped away obediently, as Officer 4434 closed in again upon his prisoner. The gangster covered the retreat of the woman by grappling the policeman with arms and legs.

The two fell to the pavement, and writhed in their struggle on the snow.

Jimmie, like many of the gang men, was a local pugilist of no mean ability. His short stature was equalized in fighting odds by a tremendous bull strength. 4434, in his heavy overcoat, and with the storm hood over his head and neck was somewhat handicapped. Even as they struggled, the efforts of the nimble Annie bore fruit. In surprisingly brief time a dozen men had rushed out from the neighboring saloon, and were giving the doughty policeman more trouble than he could handle.

Suddenly they ran, however, for down the street came two speeding figures in the familiar blue coats. One of the officers was shrilly blowing his whistle for reinforcements. He knew what to expect in a gang battle and was taking no chances.

Maguire, who had just come on to relieve 4434, lived up to his duty most practically by catching the leg of the battling Jimmie, and giving it a wrestling twist which threw the tough with a thud on the pavement, clear of his antagonist.

4434 rose to his feet stiffly, as his rescuers dragged Jimmie to a standing position.

"Well, Burke, 'tis a pleasant little party you do be having," volunteered Maguire. "Sure, and you've been rassling with Jimmie the Monk. Was he trying to pick yer pockets?"

"Naw, I wasn't doin' nawthin', an' I'm goin' ter git that rookie broke fer assaultin' me. I'm goin' ter write a letter to the Mayor!" growled Jimmie.

Officer Burke laughed a bit ruefully.

He mopped some blood off his face, from the nail scratches of Jimmie's lady associate, and then turned toward the two officers.

"He didn't pick my pockets – it was just the old story, of beating up his woman, trying to get the money she made on the street to-night. When I tried to help her they both turned on me."

"Faith, Burke, I thought you had more horse sense," responded Maguire. "That's a dangerous thing to do with married folks, or them as ought to be married. They'll fight like Kilkenny cats until the good Samaritan comes along and then they form a trust and beat up the Samaritan."

"I think most women these days need a little beating up anyway, to keep 'em from worrying about their troubles," volunteered Officer Dexter. "I'd have been happier if I had learned that in time."

"Say, nix on dis blarney, youse!" interrupted the Monk, who was trying to wriggle out of the arm hold of Burke and Maguire. "I ain't gonter stand fer dis pinch wen I ain't done nawthin."

A police sergeant, who had heard the whistle as he made his rounds, now came up.

"What's the row?" he gruffly exclaimed. Burke explained. The sergeant shook his head.

"You're wasting time, Burke, on this sort of stuff. When you've been on the force a while longer you'll learn that it's the easiest thing to look the other way when you see these men fighting with their women. The magistrates won't do a thing on a policeman's word alone. You just see. Now you've got to go down to Night Court with this man, get a call down because you haven't got a witness, and this rummie gets set free. Why, you'd think these magistrates had to apologize for there being a police force! The papers go on about the brutality of the police, and the socialists howl about Cossack methods, and the ministers preach about graft and vice, and the reformers sit in their mahogany chairs in the skyscraper offices and dictate poems about sin, and the cops have to walk around and get hell beat out of 'em by these wops and kikes every time they tries to keep a little order!"

The sergeant turned to Maguire.

"You know these gangs around here, Mack. Who's this guy's girl?"

"He's got three or four, sergeant," responded the officer. "I guess this one must be Dutch Annie. Was she all dolled up with about a hundred dollars' worth of ostrich feathers, Burke?"

"Yes – tall, and some fighter."

"That's the one. Her hangout is over there on the corner, in Shultberger's cabaret. We can get her now, maybe."

The sergeant beckoned to Dexter.

"Run this guy over to the station house, and put him down on the blotter for disorderly conduct, and assaulting an officer. You get onto your post, Maguire, or the Commish'll be shooting past here in a machine on the way to some ball at the Ritz, and will have us all on charges. You come with me, Burke, and we'll nab that woman as a material witness."

Burke and his superior crossed the street and quickly entered the ornate portal of Shultberger's cabaret, which was in reality the annex to his corner barroom.

As they strode in a waiter stood by a tuneless piano, upon which a bloated "professor" was beating a tattoo of cheap syncopation accompaniment of the advantages of "Bobbin' Up An' Down," which was warbled with that peculiarly raucous, nasal tenor so popular in Tenderloin resorts. The musical waiter's jaw fell in the middle of a bob, as he espied the blue uniforms.

He disappeared behind a swinging door with the professional skill of a stage magician.

Sitting around the dilapidated wooden tables was a motley throng of red-nosed women, loafers, heavy-jowled young aliens, and a scattering of young girls attired in cheap finery; a prevailing color of chemical yellow as to hair, and flaming red cheeks and lips.

Instinctively the gathering rose for escape, but the sergeant strode forward to one particular table, where sat a girl nursing a bleeding mouth.

Burke remained by the door to shut off that exit.

"Is this the one?" asked the sergeant, as he put his hands on the young woman's shoulder.

Burke scrutinized her closely, responding quickly.

"Yes!"

"Come on, you," ordered the roundsman. "I want you. Quick!"

"Say, I ain't done a thing, what do ye want me fer?" whined the girl, as the sergeant pulled at her sleeve. The officer did not reply, but he looked menacingly about him at the evil company.

"If any of you guys starts anything I'm going to call out the reserves. Come on, Annie."

The proprietor, Shultberger, now entered from the front, after a warning from his waiter.

"Vot's dis, sergeant? Vot you buttin' in my place for? Ain't I in right?" he cried.

"Shut up. This girl has been assaulting an officer, and I want her. Come on, now, or I'll get the wagon here, and then there will be trouble."

Annie began to pull back, and it looked as though some of the toughs would interfere. But Shultberger understood his business.

"Now, Annie, don't start nottings here. Go on vid de officer. I'll fix it up all right. But I don't vant my place down on de blotter. Who vas it – Jimmie?"

The girl began to cry, and gulped the glass of whiskey on the table as she finally yielded to the tug of the sergeant.

"Yes, it's Jimmie. An' he wasn't doin' a ting. Dese rookies is always makin' trouble fer me."

She sobbed hysterically as the sergeant walked her out. Shultberger patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.

"Dot's all right, Annie. I vouldn't let nodding happen to Jimmie. I'll bail him out and you too. Go along; dot's a good girl." He turned to his guests, and motioned to them to be silent.

The "professor," at the piano, used to such scenes, lulled the nerves of the company with a rag-time variation of "Oh, You Beautiful Doll," and Burke, the sergeant and Annie went out into the night.

The girl was taken to the station. The lieutenant looked questioningly at Officer 4434.

"Want to put her down for assault?" he asked.

Burke looked at the unhappy creature. Her hair was half-down her back, and her lips swollen and bleeding from Jimmie's brutal blow. The cheap rouge on her face; the heavy pencilling of her brows, the crudely applied blue and black grease paint about her eyes, the tawdry paste necklace around her powdered throat; the pitifully thin silk dress in which she had braved the elements for a few miserable dollars: all these brought tears to the eyes of the young officer.