Speedy (Holman)/Chapter 7
"I didn't get a real good look at him," Pop replied to Speedy's questioning. "It was coming on dark and the lights in the barn hadn't been switched on. He was roughly dressed and he cussed at me something terrible. There were two pretty tough looking characters rode with me the last trip. They eyed me hard when I collected their fares. Probably it was one of them. And it seemed to me that there was another fellow lurking in the shadows of the barn. But the second one got no chance to get at me because I yelled so loud for the cops that they both got scared.
"One of them slugged me with a blackjack or something just as I was about to get out of the car. He hit me from the rear and I just happened to duck so that I took the blow on my sore back instead of on the head. If he'd ever happened to catch me square, I would probably have been knocked out. As it was, I was pretty near senseless, but I had enough left to grapple with him. He struck me once under the eye with his fist. The way it cut me up, he must have had brass knuckles on. I was yelling for help all the time. The thugs must have heard footsteps coming and they ran. Pretty soon Johnny Burke, the cop, and old man Walters, the delicatessen feller, came running in. By that time I was lying on my face in the car, all in.
"Johnny wanted to 'phone for an ambulance, but I knew that would scare Jane half out of her wits. So I told them I was all right, that I could stand. And I did. They supported me and I walked home. They just left when Mr. Carter came in fifteen minutes ago and said he would take charge of me. Mr. Carter offered to send a doctor friend of his around to see me tomorrow morning, but I don't want to put him to that bother. Maybe the doctor would make me stay in bed, and I can't do that. I've got to make at least one trip with the car. I'll lose my franchise if I don't."
Jane and Carter had stepped over near to Pop to hear the account of his adventure.
"I guess the man who attacked you was some drunk looking for trouble. This is a tough neighborhood," Carter put in.
"He wasn't drunk. He got around too spry for that," said Pop.
"And this isn't a tough neighborhood," Speedy cut in. "If there's any thugs around here they've come from some other section of the city—or they've been brought here."
Carter's sharp eyes stabbed him with a quick, unfriendly look. The underground worker wondered if this young Swift was really as naïve as he looked. He began to consider Speedy as an enemy that must be reckoned with if his scheme was to be successful. Perhaps the attentions of Puggy Callahan's gang might be more profitably directed at Speedy than at Pop. As Jane looked up at him, Carter's face resumed its wonted good nature.
"My friend is a very good doctor," said the star boarder. "I'll send him up first thing in the morning. Probably he'll advise you to stay off the car a few days and rest up. You may be hurt more than you think. And you're not young any more."
"I'll make at least one run in the car tomorrow if I have to be carried onto it," said Pop Dillon stubbornly.
"Yes—and if you need a doctor, I'll get one," said Speedy. "There's plenty of good ones around here."
Carter concealed his annoyance as best he could.
"I think it's very nice of Mr. Carter to offer to help us," soothed Jane, annoyed that Speedy and Pop both seemed to be taking such a thankless attitude toward Carter's efforts. "And please send your doctor up tomorrow, Mr. Carter. I'll see that granddad lets him make an examination."
"Thank you, Miss Dillon," said Carter with a little bow. "I'm sure that's best. And now good night, everybody. I've got some business uptown. Did you enjoy your visit to Coney Island, Swift?"
It seemed to Speedy that the stranger meant by that to remind him that the little outing had been possible only because the tickets were furnished gratis by him (Carter).
"We had a good time," Speedy grudgingly admitted. He wished now that the trip to Coney Island had been made on his own money so that he could now tear the admission tickets up and throw them into Carter's face.
"Thanks to you, Mr. Carter," Jane smiled sweetly. "It was awfully nice of you to give us the tickets. Wasn't it, Speedy?"
Speedy said nothing.
"By the looks of your clothes you must have gotten into trouble somewhere, as usual," offered Pop tartly, having noticed for the first time the tattered condition of Harold's garments.
"Perhaps Swift had an encounter with thugs also," observed Carter oilily.
"Don't worry," snapped Speedy. "If any of those roughnecks get in my way, they better watch their step. They or anybody connected with them."
"I bet you're a holy terror," agreed Carter with a sarcastic smile. He picked up his hat. "Well, I must be running along. Important business tonight. I'll send my doctor friend up, Mr. Dillon."
"I'll be all right," grumbled Pop.
With a very special good night for Jane, Carter left them.
"I hate that fellow," Speedy cried vehemently as soon as the front door had slammed shut.
"Oh, you're impossible, Harold," said Jane. "He's a perfect gentleman. And you didn't even thank him for the tickets. I'm ashamed of you."
"I'm sorry he gave us the tickets," Speedy replied hotly. "If we hadn't gone to Coney Island I might have been here to help Pop with that thug. Say, I wouldn't put it past that Carter to have deliberately framed it to get us away from here so as to put something over on Pop."
"Nonsense," sniffed Pop. "You've been reading too many underworld stories lately. People don't do those things in real life."
"Why don't you frankly admit you're jealous of him?" Jane joined in warmly.
"It don't come with very good grace for you to be calling people names and accusing them of frame-ups when you haven't even got a job yourself, and don't know where your next meal is coming from," said Pop.
Speedy frowned. He looked at his friends appealingly. Were they going back on him? Were they supporting this fellow Carter against him and ridiculing his suspicions? Resentment and a desire to show them what he could do welled up within the stout-hearted Speedy. Let them fight out their own battles for a while and he would fight his! He'd forget Carter for the time being and get a job. He'd get one that night, by golly. But where?
He recalled what Danny Ryan, one of the lads of about his own age with whom he had romped in De Lacey Street in his younger days, had told him. Danny was a taxi driver now. With tips and other extras Danny made a good living. He had told Speedy, "If you ever want to get a job driving a taxi, maybe I can put you wise to one."
Speedy abruptly picked up his hat and started for the front door.
"Where are you going, Harold?" asked Jane quickly, regretting now that Pop and she had spoken so sharply to him.
"I'm going to get a job—right now," Speedy replied. He kept on walking. Jane accompanied him to the door.
A little bark sounded at their feet. King Tut had run out into the hall with Speedy and was now asking permission to accompany him. Harold leaned over and picked up the gray, wiry bundle and patted it.
"I'd like to take him home with me," said Harold wistfully. "But my landlady would raise the dickens. She hates animals, except cats. She's got a whole flock of those—five more kittens this morning. She'd never allow me to keep King Tut there."
Jane smiled.
"Of course I'll keep him for you here," she offered. "I like him, and he'll be company when I'm alone. I'll bring a box up from the cellar, line it nice and comfortably and keep it in the kitchen."
"Would you, Jane?" flashed the delighted Speedy. "That's swell."
He handed King Tut over to her. As this transfer brought them very close together, he wanted very much to kiss her.
"I wish you luck," she told him shyly as he was leaving. "And—and I enjoyed the ride home in the moving van very much. It was the best part of the day."
"Did you, Jane?" he asked quickly, mollified at once and finding her very lovely in the half light of the door. Perhaps—if I get my job and make good—it will come true some day?"
"Perhaps," she agreed softly.
But as he bent toward her eagerly, she smiled and quickly closed the door. He stood for a moment, wondering if there really was a deep significance in her last remarks. Then, head up, he walked quickly down the street. In the tiny room where he boarded, he took off his torn best suit and changed into a worn but whole one. He surveyed the ruins of his garments as they lay over the end of his iron bed and shook his head as he realized how much it would cost to have them repaired. Then he put on his hat, left the room and hurried down the front stairs. He increased his speed, fairly dashing down the first floor hall to the front door as he heard his landlady coming out of the kitchen and her harsh voice calling, "Is that you, Mr. Swift?" He did not relish the prospect of a conversation with her regarding his room rent at the present moment.
A car drew up at the curb in front of Danny Ryan's house just as Speedy reached there.
"Hello, Speedy. How's the boy?" a cheery voice greeted him from the seat of the car, a taxi bearing the legend Only One Taxi Co. on both its yellow sides. It was Danny Ryan, just in from a trip. Dan had explained previously and jestingly to Speedy that the taxi company got its name from the fact that only one passenger could safely be carried in the rickety cars furnished by his boss and then the cars were liable to fall apart. This was naturally not quite accurate, though certainly the fleet of vehicles sponsored by the concern were disreputable looking enough.
"I was just coming to your house. I want to talk to you," Speedy replied, walking over to the taxi and leaning in the open window.
"Good thing you didn't arrive a few minutes earlier," said Dan. "I just took that fellow that boards with the Dillons over to the river."
Speedy was all agog at once.
"Who do you mean—Carter?" he asked. "A tall, dark, well-dressed fellow with sharp black eyes?"
"Yeah. You don't act as if he was a friend of yours."
"He isn't. Say, where did you take him?"
"Well, now, ain't you the inquiring reporter though. I'm not supposed to tell you, you know—professional etiquette or something like that. But being that you're a friend of mine, I took him to that dump near the lumber yard where the Callahan gang hangs out."
Speedy was puzzled. "What would a fellow like Carter be doing over there?"
"Search me," said Danny. "I don't ask the customers their reasons for going to places. If I did, I'd have a lot of trouble and very little business."
Speedy made a sudden resolution. "Say, Danny, take me over there, will you? Drive me to the Callahan place. I want to look around."
"Sa-a-y, what are you getting at, anyway? Going to spy on Carter? This Callahan crowd are pretty tough guys, you know. You'll probably get your block knocked off if you walk in the door."
"Maybe I won't want to goin. Just hang around the outside. I've got a very special reason for checking on this Carter. Come on, be a sport, Danny. Give me a lift over."
"Well, I'm probably a sap for doing it—but hop, in."
Speedy was in the tonneau of the taxi in a flash. Danny occupied a single seat, the rest of the space in front being taken up with a rack for trunks and suitcases.
Dan drove swiftly and in a few minutes they were easing up to the curb in front of the squatty structure with the dirty sign, "P. G. Callahan Association," on the door. A dim glow shown from the interior of the place. It was a dark, shadowy neighborhood, with the oily river a block away glistening under the lights of a tug and her tow. The vicinity of the Callahan retreat was occupied almost exclusively with lumber and masons' material yards.
No policeman and, in fact, no other human being except themselves was in sight. Dan stopped the car and they looked around for a few seconds.
"I'm going in," Speedy announced with sudden resolution and was halfway out of the seat before Dan could remonstrate. "Don't worry," Speedy assured his friend. "I won't raise a row. If anything happens, I can handle myself. You know that."
Dan did. Speedy was known as just about the handiest youth with his fists in De Lacey Street.
"Well, if you're stuck on committing suicide, I'm with you," said Danny cheerfully, crawling out from behind the wheel and leaping down beside Speedy on the sidewalk. Danny was red-headed, built like a fullback and a good battler. Together they walked up to the shabby, unlighted entrance to the Callahan "social parlors." Speedy knocked on the door. After an interval a panel about four inches square cut in the door about on a level with Speedy's nose was shoved open and an inquiring eye stared into his.
"Who's there?" asked a gruff voice.
"Friend of Mr. Carter," Speedy answered boldly.
The eye continued to stare.
After a pause the voice said. "Wait there a minute—you."
The eye disappeared. A few minutes that seemed an eternity passed. Then again the eye appeared at the open panel—no, it was a different eye. Speedy looked very hard, for, though he could not be sure, he had an idea that the new eye was the dark, shrewd optic of Steven Carter himself! Before he could verify this, the space again became blank. The door was unexpectedly pulled open halfway. Speedy, followed by Danny, walked in. A huge, unshaven man in the soiled sweater and dirty dungarees of a longshoreman confronted them.
"What are you two bimbos lookin' for?" he inquired belligerently.
"Is Mr. Carter here?" inquired Speedy.
"Nobody by that name around here."
"Then why did you let us in when I mentioned Mr. Carter's name?"
"Lissen—I let you in because I want to know what you guys are doin' hangin' outside there. And get this—I'm askin' the questions; youse ain't! Now come on in here. I got some friends want to look you over."
Danny glanced inquiringly at Speedy. It seemed to Danny that this was the strategic moment to make a get-away, and make it fast. But Speedy was evidently still curious. So he permitted himself to be almost pushed by his guide down the dark hallway and through another door into a lowceilinged room filled with toughs, smoke and guttural conversation. Danny followed.
The pool and card games that formed the chief evening diversion of the Callahanites were going at full blast. Speedy made out between ten and fifteen men in the small room, the toughest assortment of unshaven beards and hard faces he had ever seen gathered in one spot. He looked around in vain for Carter. And, indeed, it seemed almost inconceivable that the well dressed, educated star boarder could have any connection with this gathering of plug-uglies. Speedy wondered if Danny could have been mistaken in the identity of his late passenger.
He had no time to consider the matter further. For the entrance of Danny and himself seemed to have been a pre-arranged signal for action. The pool and card games stopped. The Callahanites were getting to their feet and edging over toward the two newcomers. Speedy, sensing danger, sidled nearer the door, now closed. The maneuver had the added advantage of putting a pool table between him and the nearest group of thugs. Danny hovered near his shoulder. The gangster who had let them in kept at Speedy's elbow. He now walked around and faced the youth.
"Come around here lookin' for trouble, did you?" he taunted. "Well, you're goin' to get plenty!"
Whereupon he started a huge fist viciously at Speedy's jaw. But the latter had seen it coming. He ducked. At the same time he swung an uppercut at his assailant, temporarily off balance from his missed blow, and caught him squarely on the chin. The man dropped. Instantly a swarm of unwashed bodies hurled themselves at Speedy and Danny. The air was full of fists and feet.
"Get the door open, Danny!" cried Speedy, at the same time seizing a pool cue lying on the table near him and flailing it lustily, butt end to, clearing a space in front of him. Grunts and groans ensued as Callahanites, attempting to rush him, met the thick cue handle. Danny, for his part, was fighting with two husky bums for the door knob. Even occupied as he was with the battle, Speedy became aware that a door on the other side of the room had been opened a few inches and a pair of eyes were peering out upon the fray. He had no time for a close scrutiny, but somehow he had the feeling that again in these strange surroundings he had encountered the eyes of Carter.
By now the Callahanites, baffled by the pool cue from making a direct attack, were resorting to strategy and weapons. Men were crawling on the floor toward Speedy, thus avoiding blows from the stick that had stood him so well. Then somebody hurled a pool ball that missed Speedy's head by an inch. The air became seemingly filled with the heavy flying missives and Speedy realized he must get out of there immediately. Fortunately at this juncture Danny, who had been almost neglected in a battle concentrated by design almost entirely on Speedy, achieved victory over his two assailants, and threw open the door.
"Beat it—quick!" shouted Danny.
Speedy, hurling the pool cue in the face of the nearest attacker, leaped through the open door, Danny in his wake. They scurried down the dark hall, yanked open the outer door and ducked down the sidewalk to Danny's waiting taxicab. Not twenty steps behind and in full cry came the members in good standing of the P. G. Callahan Association. Speedy mentally gave himself up for lost. Danny could never get the car started before these hoodlums would be upon them. But then, strangely enough, a sharp voice sounded from the entrance of the "clubhouse," the pursuing thugs stopped and then started to walk slowly back to their headquarters, allowing their intended victims to dash away at top speed.
It seemed to Speedy that the voice sounded familiar, though he had never heard it shouted so loudly or so authoritatively. It was, unless he was mistaken, the voice of Steven Carter. Carter, or whoever shouted the warning, had probably spotted the two policemen who were now passing Dan's taxi.
"Whew!" said Danny, when they were a safe two blocks away. "Nice people your friend Carter hangs out with. By the way, where was Carter? I didn't see him."
"I did—at least I think I did," declared Speedy. "He kept under cover, but I'm pretty sure he was there."
They were leaving the vicinity of the river now and were running through a better lighted and more thickly populated district.
"Say, why are you chasing up this guy Carter, Speedy?" Danny asked curiously. "Is it something about Jane?"
"Oh, no—a personal matter between him and me," Speedy answered quickly, though he knew this was not quite the truth.
"Well, have it your own way," sighed Danny. "Meantime, I've got to take this 'bus down to the garage and leave her. I'm off duty tonight. I'll drop you at your door if you like."
"No, I'll ride down with you, Danny. There's something I want to talk to you about. This Carter business put it out of my mind for the moment."
The garage of the Only One Taxi Co., was located three blocks east of De Lacey Street. Danny drove his cab up to the huge rolling doors and an attendant pushed them open. Between twenty and thirty cabs were parked inside the big armory-like garage. Several motors were running and the air was filled with the acrid smell of exhaust smoke and gasoline. Three or four men in overalls were working on some of the cars. Danny maneuvered his 'bus skillfully around the crowded floor and brought it to rest in a line of similar machines. Then he walked over to a dinky little office where a light shone and a sleepy man with a green eye shade was working on some figures. Danny turned in his report while Speedy waited, checked out and joined his friend. In the interval Speedy had had a good look around. He liked the atmosphere of bustle and noise. He just knew taxi driving would appeal to him.
As Danny and he were covering the three blocks home, Speedy opened the subject.
"How do you like your job, Danny?" Speedy inquired.
"Oh, it's all right. Some days the weather is right and you get a lot of tips and I like it fine. Other days it's rotten. Why?"
"Well, I'm looking for a job. I can drive a car. You remember I used to drive the Ford for old man Gates, the groceryman, for a while. I've got a license. I'm a good driver. You said once there might be a chance for me to catch on with your outfit. That's what I really came down to see you about tonight—a job."
Dan considered it a while.
"Well," he said, "now that you mention it, Moore—that's the boss—fired two guys today. One of them smacked up two cabs lately against the 'L' stanchions on Sixth Avenue, and the other has been to court so many times over traffic run-ins with the cops that Moore had to get rid of him. There might be an opening down there at that. And I stand in pretty good with Moore. I tell you what—pick me up at seven o'clock in the morning at the house and I'll take you down and introduce you.—Then you can strike Moore for a berth. But I warn you—he's a tough baby. You got to watch your step and stick on the job if you're going to drive a taxi for that guy."
Speedy was elated.
"If I land the job I'll make good," he declared. "I've got to." A sudden thought struck him. "Say, Danny, there ought to be a lot of business in the next few days driving people up to the World's Series games at the Yankee Stadium, hadn't there?"
"You betcha," said Danny. "I expect to make a lot of dough. I'm going to hang out up around Times Square and pick the sports up."
"Do you ever run across any of the baseball players when you're cruising around?" Speedy inquired.
"Well, not often. Once I was up at the Stadium waiting for a guy who had told me to pick him up after the game and Gehrig and Shocker came tearing out and leaped into the cab before I could stop 'em. 'Drive like the dickens to the Pennsylvania Station,' they said, 'and don't see no traffic signs. We got to make a train for St. Louis.' I tried to tell them I had to wait for a guy. But they wouldn't listen. Shocker threatened to crown me if I didn't get goin'. Gehrig was gentler; he passed me a buck note and said he would make it five if I got them to the train on time. So I says, 'Let's go, gents' and stepped on her.
"I tore through the Bronx at forty-five knots an hour and down Fifth Avenue. Four cops stopped me, but they all let me go when they spotted Gehrig and he spilled the salve to them. I made the train for them with a minute to spare. Gehrig came cross with the five bucks and handed me a pass to the next Yankee home game besides. He's a nice guy."
"All ball players are good fellows," said Speedy in the sublimity of his faith. "My old man was a ball player."
"I know," said Danny Ryan, who had heard the story of Speedy. "What's he doing now?"
"Don't know," Speedy answered in a curiously small voice. "But some day he'll come back and with a wad of dough. I feel it in my bones. He was the best shortstop the Yanks ever had, not excepting Elberfeld."
"Yeah, he was a good player. My old man says so. So was Pop Dillon in his day."
They parted in front of Dan's house. Speedy would like to have stopped and told the good news to Jane, for in his own mind he was already driving a taxi for the Only One Taxi Co., but when he reached the Dillon house it was dark. He did not venture to disturb them.
Later that night in his hard iron bed Speedy dreamed of driving a Fifth Avenue 'bus with the whole Yankee team in it from their hotel to the Stadium. When they arrived there, each player gravely handed him five dollars and a pass to the game. All expect one man. And, strangely enough, this player was Speedy's own father. He had hundred dollar bills sewed all over his uniform and he plucked ten of them off and handed them to Speedy with a smile and a pat on the boy's shoulder. Then Speedy deserted his 'bus and went in and saw his father win the game with a home run in the ninth inning with the bases full. At that moment Speedy awoke with a start, discovered the sun pouring in his narrow little window and a cheap alarm clock screeching its head off from a chair near his bed.