by Jerry eBooks
Just as long as Boss Heally was still elected, when the rush was over.
Dawson might have been Heally’s man Friday, but Kerney was the whole week to Dawson. So now you can see why Danny Kerney got away with so much around town. That went for us gentlemen of the press also. Anything Boss Heally had his finger in was safe in the town.
We all put in our orders for drinks and started to make a night of it, seeing as it was Saturday. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far past the second bottle before someone yelled, “You lousy so and so.” Then the fight was on. Danny was a big guy and loved fights, except when he was right in the middle of it. So he backs off with a beer mug and watched. Fists are flying thick, curses fill the air and Danny just holds that beer mug waiting for a chance to use it. Myself and side kick step back out of the line of fire and watch. We’ve seen this happen nearly every Saturday night and so get sort of used to it. A man reached back for his gun and with a quick throw Danny hits him on the head, the beer mug bouncing off and crashing into the bar mirror.
Before the glass has stopped tinkling, Danny is out the door and into the night. But the man on the floor was dead. Died from wounds inflicted on the head, the coroner said. Then before Danny can even draw a quick breath, the Criminal Court says “Guilty as charged,” and they slap Danny Kerney with a twenty-one year sentence in the pen at hard labor. Poor Danny, with his young-oldish face and thick head. He tried to sneer the whole thing off, but he didn’t do so well. Twenty-one years is a long time.
Now this might have closed the whole affair including this story, but for one little matter. Boss Heally was due for a new election in November and he was hot on Dawson’s ears, to make sure he would get elected again. Now Dawson knew he was like a man without his right arm without Danny Kerney. Boy, he needed him worse than anything. All those lodging houses to look after along the river and a proper delivery of a round and safe majority from the river wards and such items.
While this may all be thus euphemistically described in words, in plain deeds it was one hell of a job and needed the careful guiding hand of none other than Danny Kerney. So the putting away of Danny Kerney a few miles up the river at this time was most inopportune. This year too, the up-state liquor antis were threatening one tough battle. In other words the governor was going to try to clean up this part of the state, even if Danny had been out of prison, which he wasn’t. A less stubborn man than Dawson would have cast about for a successor to the husky Kerney. Dawson, however, couldn’t think of anything more expedient than the liberation of his strong-arm assistant. Now there were many things in the way. A man in prison, for murder, and a barroom one at that, wasn’t exactly in good standing with the governor, who was so strong against liquor, he wouldn’t even sniff a cork for stimulus. But Dawson knew in June that November was on the way with all of November’s strenuous work to be done. Some way, he decided, Kerney must be set free for duty at the polls. So Dawson sat in his office, at the Star, the rag I work on as a reporter of crime, and chewed endless cigars trying to figure out a way to get Danny out.
Two days later, Dawson, with a stubble on his chin and a victorious look in his haunted black eyes, dashed into Boss Heally’s office. He’s got it, he’s got it. Bugs perhaps, the Boss wants to know. No, it’s a way to get Danny Kerney out of prison and a good way to. It will help everyone, including Danny. Boss Heally nods to the crazy guy and asks what he wants in the way of help.
All Dawson wants is plenty of spread in the paper and the time of Miss Marvin, our sob-sister. And at this point, let me explain, that Miss Marvin is an ace at ringing doorbells and also wringing tears from the meanest man or woman. She does all the stories on firemen rescuing kittens out of trees and the Christmas Dinner at the orphans’ home. She ain’t a bad-looking gal, about thirty, with plenty of sense and is poor and believes in herself, which is more than I can say for any other sob-sister that I know. She sort of plays a big part in this picture, that’s why I’m giving you the lowdown on the thing.
At any rate, Boss Heally gives Dawson as much rope as he wants to put this thing over. Only not to take too much or he might get tripped up and break his neck.
Dawson then walks out of the office, briskly, as one with business to do and on his way to do it. He didn’t linger long, ‘cause as I explained before Boss Heally don’t care for the details, as long as he gets the right results.
Well, being a crime reporter, I get around a lot and if I say so myself I got a pretty good picture of what went on during the next week. If you had watched Dawson as closely as I did, you might have had reasons to say that he wasn’t very idle. One of his frequent paths led into the front of a grocer’s shop, just to the left of the Golden Slipper Bar and Grill. A guy with a good eye like mine would also notice that he never came out with any groceries. Dawson had a certain amount of Puritanism in him that sort of kept him from going into the drinking joint at any time, so the place next door was just as good, seeing as there was a little back room in the shop, that could be entered either from the saloon or the grocer’s shop.
A number of conferences took place in that dim little room in the alley. In that sheltered cubicle was a table, surrounded by a circle of odd-looking chairs. On the wall within easy reach was a button. Ranging about the walls were all kinds of pictures, from ladies in the flesh to prize fighters, and up the scale to famous race horses. In other words it was nothing but a back room, where the business of the Golden Slipper was transacted as well as the political side in the handling of the river wards of the fair city.
Into this retreat, one late afternoon at the end of this famous week of bustling about, wandered Maike Blannon, still bearing traces of grime of the engine cab. He seated himself at the table in the back room and ordered himself a beer. Taking out a pack of cards he alone used, because they were filthy and dirty, he took up the time in playing the good old game of Canfield. He looked up as Dawson came in later and went right on counting his cards. They threw a greeting at each other. Dawson pressed the wall button and waited for his gingerale. He sometimes carried the pure side of it too far, seeing as how he was really a heel down inside of him. Gingerale was the strongest he would touch—in public. Dawson slipped into a chair and watched Maike cheat himself at Canfield. The formalities of the drink concluded, they start to get right down to the facts of the business. I wasn’t in with them, but I can draw the picture from experience.
Maike Blannon held the throttle on the M. W. and K. Limited, the crack train of the division. He also held sway, as the kingpin among the rail workers on that line, therefore he was a power to be dealt with and used as part of Boss Heally’s machine.
Without pulling any bones, ‘cause Maike knew he would get a good cut from the Boss himself, he asked what Dawson wanted. Dawson being the guy he was laid his cards on the table, something like this:
“We got to get Danny Kerney out of the pen in time for election. Now look what I’ve got in mind.” Dawson with a wet finger started to draw a rough sketch on the table top. It was a map of the river and the prison, with the railroad line that ran by it.
“The prison is three miles up that way and the tracks run along between it and the river like this, with a sharp turn toward the bluff, like this—don’t they?” The engineer nodded his head and watched the fat wet finger at work.
Maike Blannon started to smile as the plan was unfolded bit by bit. Dawson went on to explain how Kerney was made a trusty and had been put on the outside of the wall, at the ice-house. So that left plenty of room for Danny to move around in if anything should happen.
The two guys then put their heads together and before Dawson left he passed a wad of bills over to Blannon. Out went Dawson through the grocer’s shop and into the street.
Maybe at this point things don’t seem very clear, but they will when you see how it worked out. Somebody may think they were planning a jail break, but you know that wouldn’t accomplish nothing. This was far better than a jail break. It was an honest way to cheat the l
aw. You never heard of it, eh? Well, you will soon.
The next thing Dawson did was to take a trolley trip up to the prison, where Danny was working like a dog, at the ice house. Danny met Dawson on one side where an obliging guard, with extra cash in his pocket, let them alone. I know, for I followed the story for a real follow-up. Of course, I wasn’t going to spill the beans or nothing, but I wanted the facts. I’m a crime reporter.
Danny’s number was 1298, a very sweet number and fitting to Danny’s personality. Being a dumb lug and with nothing on his mind, but how he was going to get out and who he was going to bust in the jaw next, he was very glad to see Dawson and listen to the plan.
So on the way back into town, Dawson stops off at the office of the Star and tells me, as if I didn’t know something was up, not to forget to put a reporter on the train that is going up to the State prison tomorrow with all them kids.
Maybe you don’t think kids had something to do with it? Well, every year they collect a lot of kids and take ’em up to prison and show them that crime doesn’t pay. Then they take ’em home again. It’s supposed to be very educational, but really the kids don’t know what it’s all about, but love the ride on the special train and the free lunch.
I asked him if he had anyone in mind. Yes, he did. He wanted to have Miss Marvin to cover the story, as she was such a good writer on that type of subject. I nods and he leaves and the smell he brought in with him lingers on.
So on the morrow, at two sharp, five hundred kids plus Miss Marvin get on the special train and with—I hope you note—Maike Blannon as engineer, the train pulls out of Union Station. The kids are yelling like a tribe of Sioux Indians and with it goes a stream of orange peel and apple cores that have been left over from the free lunch. I stood in the train shed and watched them go. Dawson, for some reason, was also there. He waved very friendly to his pal, Blannon. The whistle blasted our ears and away went the mob. Crime doesn’t pay, I thought, and wondered exactly what did pay. Leisurely, I went back to my desk in the office of the Star. To my surprise Dawson walked in and sat down by the City Editor’s desk. He must be expecting something, for he keeps glancing at his watch. I’m all ears after that. The little drama is about to come to an end. I could feel it in my bones.
About ten minutes later the phone jumps around on the hook and the C.E. picks it up, lazy like. He comes to life, though in a couple of seconds. Dawson leans forward and so do I. The C.E. is leaning on a pencil copying down the facts of something or other. Finally he puts down the phone and wipes his forehead. “Listen to this,” he says, “I just got this from the Marvin gal. She reports the following. ‘Special train was coming around last bend before coming to prison station. Train was making thirty miles an hour. I got the rest of what happened from Engineer Maike Blannon!’ The C.E. smiled, as if it were a joke and continued. ‘We were just slowing down for the curve for the station when a convict from the camp came running down the tracks waving his shirt. I applied the brakes, but it wasn’t enough to stop from hitting him. The man, convict 1298, Danny Kerney, was hurt. The reason for his actions was a split rail just around the bend.’ ”
I let out a long sigh and went back to my desk. So Danny Kerney flagged a train full of kids, gets hurt and Dawson and Blannon had something to do with it. You can figure the set-up as easily as I can. Even a guy as thick as Danny Kerney could.
He sure did a swell job. Now he would be a hero. The results that would follow came to me even before they started to happen. What surprised me the most, of course, is what really happened at the end. Maybe you think the Boss was defeated? Maybe you got the right idea, but that ain’t the ending, that’s just an effect or result of what came about.
As Miss Marvin flounced into the pressroom, after coming back from the incident at the prison, I began to see more light. Why should Marvin cover the story? You’ll find out.
The C.E. saw her and gave her the go ahead on the story. She was to put her all into it, by orders from Heally himself. She, believing in herself as well as her job, really laid it on thick. How should she know the whole thing was a phony? She didn’t, I’ll tell you that. Even up to this day she doesn’t know what a dope she was.
Two hours later Marvin has written up the whole story. With a tear in her baby blue eyes she takes the copy to the C.E. himself. He reads it and tells her to go home and get some rest. She don’t want to do that. She wants to go to the prison hospital and have a heart-to-heart talk with convict 1298. For some reason, she wants to write his life story or something.
C.E. being a guy not fitted to argue with a polecat, says he don’t care if she does. It should make a good story. Hero, hero is all I can think of every time I see Danny Kerney’s palooka face in front of me. Boy how they spread it on. Front page stuff not only for us but the A. P. also. The whole country would hear about Danny Kerney, who killed a man with a beer mug and then rushed out and saved five hundred kids from being killed or hurt. “Rats,” was all the stronger word I could muster for the occasion. Nevertheless with all this ballyhoo going on, I manage to piece the rest of the story together.
Miss Marvin hops the next trolley to the prison to see poor 1298. She gets there in a hurry and already there is a room full of flowers for the big mug. He just lays there with a bunch of bandage wrapped around him, so he looks like a dug-up mummy or something.
He’s sort of laughing to himself over the whole thing. Him a hero after what he’s been all his life. He is hurt a little though. Just enough to fool the sway-back bunch of doctors around the prison. Well, here he is looking pretty when this Marvin gal comes trotting in with her pencil and paper floating after her. She’s got a motherly look in her blue eyes that sort of make her beautiful. Danny sees it too. He don’t pay much attention to it. Women are women with him.
She sits down and starts to question Danny about his life and past. He handing her a line a mile long and skipping the beer mug throwing incident as much as possible. She drinks it all in, as if she hadn’t been living in the same town with him for the past twenty years as well as working for the same Boss, only on different things.
Things is going along swell with Miss Marvin. She gets a great kick out of talking to the big punk, and he sort of enjoys telling her lies. Every day a bunch of flowers come in. Candy, cigarettes and even money. Women with babies in their arms thank Danny for saving their children from being killed in the wreck. Fathers come around with offers for work for him as soon as he gets out. Gosh, there are so many presents and things for Danny Kerney, he has to give half of them to his fellow prisoners to keep his room in the hospital from being swamped.
All this time, a matter of about a week, Miss Marvin is right by his side taking this all in. She keeps telling him what a hero a he is. Danny being thick forgets what a big fraud he really is and starts to stick out his chest. After all he did save five hundred kids from an early grave, even if Dawson and Maike Blannon had something to do about it.
During this week, back in town, Dawson and Heally are slapping each other on the back. Boy, they really put a fast one over. Dawson was going to get a nice bonus from Heally for his good work. Dawson was going to slap Kerney right to work to get the river wards into a shape.
But first they had to work on the governor a little more. With all the letters he was receiving, plus the women with pleas for Danny’s release, the governor was sure to weaken. Danny still wasn’t ready to leave his bed, but Dawson wanted him up and out pronto.
Well, a week later, the pardon came through. It was a full pardon, with no strings attached to it. Danny Kerney was a free man. I remember him thanking everyone as he went out, as if he owned the joint. Following alongside of him was Miss Marvin, with her pencil worn down to a nub, writing the life story of a hero. Yeah, a handmade hero. That should have been the title of her story, only she didn’t know it. Only Dawson, Blannon, Heally and Kerney knew it. That quartette should have been dunked in a barrel of hot oil and left there for the buzzards.
The city put o
n a big blowout for the return of their hero, and of course Danny was only too glad to take it. He was a little heavier from over-eating and his bluish jowls seem to quiver with every handshake. Right along with him wherever he went was the Marvin gal. I often wonder if she followed him when he went to sleep. She really did a job right when she did it.
As the old saying goes, the guests were gone and all the food had been consumed, so Dawson and Heally called Danny Kerney into their office. Things had worked out right. Danny was free and back on the working end, or so they thought.
I don’t want you readers to miss a thing on this last scene. I know I won’t forget it as long as I live. Neither will Dawson and Heally, the rats.
The inner office was all decked out with flowers and a big print of Danny being handed the hand-painted cuspidor by the governor himself. Dawson was seated back smoking a long black cigar, the light of victory playing over his unhealthy face. Heally made it a special point, as head of the Star, to be in the office when Danny arrived.
Most of the newspaper people were told to get out of the office. Miss Marvin, for a change, wasn’t there. I learn that she had more important things to do. I and a few choice people, like the C.E., were allowed to view the handsome hero.
Funny how a guy that thinks he is something or somebody actually gets to look like the person or something. I’ll swear, after all the years I knew him and went to drinking bouts with him, I’ve never seen him look the way he did that day. His face looked clean and his eyes kind of held your attention. His shoulders were back a bit and he looked you straight in the eye, as if he really meant what he said. I don’t think Dawson or Heally noticed that look until too late.
Well, I was sitting in the back of the small office with the C.E., Dawson and Heally sat behind the cracked mahogany desk, while Danny walked in. He shut the door sort of quiet like and held his hat in his hand. His smile beamed on all, fresh and clean as a daisy.