Criminals -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
The police, the gangs and the politicians are not without a sinister
wisdom. When life has been taken, and to punish the slayer would be an
inconvenience, some one who didn't do the killing submits to arrest.
This covers the retreat of the guilty. Also, the public is appeased.
Later, when the public's memory sleeps, the arrested one--for lack of
evidence--is set at liberty.
When Fitzpatrick was killed, to clear the path to gang leadership
before the aspiring feet of Twist, the police took Dahl, who all but
volunteered for the sacrifice. Dahl went smilingly to jail, while the
real murderer of Fitzpatrick attended that dead personage's wake, and
later appeared at the funeral. This last, however, by the nicer tastes
of Gangland, was complained of as bordering upon vulgarity.
Fitzpatrick was buried with a lily in his hand, and Twist was hailed
chief of the Eastmans. Dahl remained in the Tombs a reasonable number of
weeks, and then resumed his position in society. It was but natural, and
to the glory of stumbling human nature, that Dahl should dwell warmly in
the grateful regard of Twist.
Twist, now chief of the Eastmans, cast about to establish Dahl. There
was the Bottler, with his stuss Golconda in Suffolk Street. Were not his
affiliations with the Five Points? Was he not therefore the enemy? The
Bottler was an Egyptian, and Twist resolved to spoil him in the interest
of Dahl.
Twist, with Dahl, waited upon the Bottler. Argument was short and to
the point. Said Twist: “Bottler, the Kid”--indicating the expectant
Dahl--“is in wit' your stuss graft from now on. It's to be an even
break.”
The news almost checked the beating of the Bottler's heart. Not that he
was astonished. What the puissant Twist proposed was a commonest step in
Gangland commerce--Gangland, where the Scotch proverb of “Take what you
may; keep what you can!” retains a pristine force. For all that, the
Bottler felt dismay. The more since he had hoped that his hooking up
with the Five Points would have kept him against such rapine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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