Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
Nucky's thin chest swelled and he paid the waiter with an air that
exactly duplicated the cafe manner of Marty, the Dude. Then, with a
casual nod at Frank, he started back toward Luigi's, for his evening's
work.
It began to snow about ten o'clock that night. The piles of dirty ice
and rubbish on MacDougal Street turned to fairy mountains. The dead
horse in Minetta Lane might have been an Indian mound in miniature. An
occasional drunken man or woman, exuding loathsome, broken sentences,
reeled past Officer Foley who stood in the shadows opposite Luigi's
house. He was joined silently and one at a time by half a dozen other
men. Just before midnight, a woman slipped in at the front door. And
on the stroke of twelve, Foley gave a whispered order. The group of
officers crossed the street and one of them put a shoulder against the
door which yielded with a groan.
When the door of the large room on the second floor burst open, Nucky
threw down his playing cards and sprang for the window. But Foley
forestalled him and slipped handcuffs on him, while Nucky cursed and
fought with all the venom that did the eight or ten other occupants of
the room. Tables were kicked over. A small roulette board smashed
into the sealed fire-place. Brown Liz broke a bottle of whiskey on an
officer's helmet and the reek of alcohol merged with that of cigarette
smoke and snow-wet clothes. Luigi freed himself for a moment and
turned off the gas light roaring as he did so.
"Get out da back room! Da backa room!"
But it was a well-planned raid. No one escaped, and shortly, Nucky was
climbing into the patrol wagon that had appeared silently before the
door. That night he was locked in a cell with a drunken Greek. It was
his first experience in a cell. Hitherto, Officer Foley had protected
him from this ignominy. But Officer Foley, as he told Nucky, was
through with him.
The Greek, except for an occasional oath, slept soddenly. The boy
crouched in a corner of the cell, breathing rapidly and staring into
black space. At dawn he had not changed his position or closed his
eyes.
It was two days later that Officer Foley found a telephone message
awaiting him in the police station. "Mr. John Seaton wants you to call
him up, Foley."
Foley picked up the telephone. Mr. Seaton answered at once. "It was
nothing in particular, Foley, except that I wanted to tell you that the
red-headed boy and his name, particularly that name, in Minetta Lane,
have haunted me. If he gets in trouble again, you'd better let me
know."
"You're too late, Mr. Seaton! He's in up to his neck, now." The
officer described the raid. "The judge has given him eighteen months
at the Point and we're taking him there this afternoon."
"You don't mean it! The young whelp! Foley, what he needs is a
licking and a mother to love him, not reform school."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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