Murderers, Scoundrels and Ragamuffins

by Richard Sullivan

  Not too far distant from the reuniting couple, unionizer Jimmie Murphy, Paddy Murphy’s eldest son, waited on the opposite platform to welcome his rowdy Rochester relatives to Buffalo. The Murphys’ Blazing Rag Saloon on South Street had been almost destroyed by Fingy’s union-busting thugs, and it was now a matter of the Murphy family’s very survival. Jimmie Murphy grimly shook his arriving relatives’ hands.

  “Appreciate yer comin’ on short notice, cousins,” said Jimmie. Could use all the help we can muster up as of late. Things’ve went and gone straight to hell.”

  “No need, Jimmie,” replied cousin Owen Murphy. “Nobody messes with the Murphy clan. And I do mean nobody. Not even Fingy Conners.”

  Jimmie’s eye suddenly caught a familiar figure in the distance.

  “Well, speak of the devil,” smiled Jimmie Murphy, “who might we have here?” He’d spotted Peter Conners across the way and called his cousins’ attention to him.

  “Say, ain’t that Fingy Conners’ kid?” commented Owen. “What’s he doin’ here walkin’ around all by hisself with nobody guardin’ him?”

  The cousins all took note of Conners’ naked presence with an ominous nod.

  At exactly the same moment in Orchard Lake, Dr. Huxley rushed across campus toward General’s Wheeler’s residence overlooking the lake in a show of staged agitation.

  “Cadet Conners has gone missing, General! I looked everywhere, under the bed, up in his room, in the mess hall. He’s nowhere to be found.”

  Flying into a panic, the General rushed back to the infirmary while Dr. Huxley pretended ignorance. The two again searched under the bed, in the lavatory and up and down the corridor. They climbed the dormitory stairs and barged into his room, putting a fright into Banta who was just then stepping into his underdrawers. But there was no sign of Peter Conners.

  “What’s the matter, General?” asked Banta.

  “Um…nothing Banta. Just checking to make sure Conners has everything he requires. Exams are coming up and he needs to concentrate on his studies, as you well know.”

  Thomas Ambrose Banta, son of the esteemed Buffalo surgeon Rollin L. Banta whose family first landed in North America in 1659, did indeed know. He himself was the Captain and Quartermaster of the Orchard Lake Academy Battalion. Peter Conners’ stepbrother, Thomas W. Jordan, was Captain of Company “C.” Peter on the other hand had not achieved much of anything militarily or even academically. He did however love sports, having a place on both the football and baseball teams, but even in athletics he was little more than average. Overall he exhibited scant interest in challenging himself. It was well known on campus that the two Thomases were in fact enrolled in the Academy, and their $500 annual tuition paid fully by Fingy Conners, for the primary purpose of supporting and keeping a watchful eye over Peter. A life of money and luxury had muted irretrievably any genuine ambition the boy might have had. The combination of a demanding and overbearing father quick to use his fists and the boy’s not being compelled to achieve much of anything on his own had taken its toll. Fingy blamed his wife Mary Jordan Conners for spoiling Peter, but he was more guilty than she, flip-flopping in his parenting between delivering soul-stifling physical punishment and guilt-induced reparations in the form of an unlimited spending allowance and rich boys’ toys.

  “He requires complete peace and quiet,” Huxley said.

  “No visitors, Banta, hear me? You are no exception to the Academy’s regulations, nor is Jordan,” warned the General as his foot caught on the leg of the tripod on which was mounted Banta’s telescope, trained out the window.

  “The Academy’s rules in this regard have been put in place for good reason— the health and well being of us all. Conners needs to rest and I will tolerate no disruption! The infirmary is without question off limits completely. And move this damn telescope before somebody breaks their neck! “

  Banta nodded in compliance. “Yes, sir, General.”

  They returned to the vestibule where they could speak in private.

  “Where the hell could he be? His father is going to shit!” fretted the General.

  ◆◆◆

  Fingy Conners’ name was spat out these days in First Ward households with a hatred and revulsion equal at the very least to that of the despised English.

  Throughout the nineties Conners’ habit was to import train loads of human feculence from the dank saloon basements and festering alleys of the Bowery and the Chute. From these hellholes emerged degenerate men who relished cracking skulls so fervently that they gladly accepted little more than a dollar and a whiskey pint for their trouble before the rails carried them back to the wretched sewage pits from whence they had crawled. These imported thugs were employed to invade the Buffalo saloons and meeting halls where unionizers gathered. Their orders were to beat and maim and kill, to wreck businesses, to set fires, to steal husbands from wives, fathers from their children, and mobility from men’s limbs.

  A week earlier a group of straggling remnants of the Plug Uglies gang of old were brought to Buffalo from New York’s Bowery and taken under cover of night to Paddy Murphy’s embattled Blazing Rag saloon on South St. The Uglies were young enthusiastic men dedicated to reviving the old street methods, boys anxious to prove themselves by demonstrating they were every bit as fearsome as their legendary forebearers. They were however summarily routed by young Johnny Murphy who was working behind the bar. Johnny surprised the Uglies leader by shoving a pistol into his face. The thugs left, but vowed to return.

  That’s when the Murphys thought it best to call in their relatives as reinforcements.

  ◆◆◆

  As Barbara Butler waited in the carriage Peter Conners had hired for the day, Peter entered the guest house at 440 Porter Avenue. He could not take a chance registering at a hotel, even under an assumed name. The widowed matron of the guest house had trouble seeing clearly even when she was able to locate her spectacles, so he felt his secret was safe. He took an upstairs room with a slice of Niagara River view. He left his valise at the end of the bed and locked the door behind him and returned to the carriage. He then had the driver continue on to Niagara Falls. Barbara suggested their taking the Yellow Car but Peter feared being recognized on public transportation.

  Reaching Niagara, Peter and Barbara walked among the sheltering trees at Prospect Point, the welcome mist from the American Falls cooling brows hot from the sun and each other. They stole kisses. In the dappled shadows away from prying eyes Peter caressed her breasts as she sighed quietly with pleasure.

  “Peter, please. People might see us!”

  They were less than a minute’s walk from the Prospect House.

  “Let’s get a room at the Prospect, Babs!”

  “Oh Peter, we can’t. We have to control ourselves! Let’s go look at the view from the Point.”

  They sat snugly for some time on a bench overlooking the precipice of the falls engaged in deep conversation. Then, words having run out, they walked to the rail at the brink to admire the power and glory of the transparent waters rushing over Niagara’s brink. There, Pete Conners unexpectedly dropped to one knee, pulled a ring from his vest pocket and asked Barbara the most important question of her young life, much to the delight of the fifty or so tourists sharing the rail.

  “Oh Peter! Yes! Yes! It’s beautiful!”

  “It was my late mother’s, Babs. No one else has ever been as caring and devoted to me as she was—that is, until I met you.”

  ◆◆◆

  Twenty-two miles to the south Fingy’s laborers stood in line to receive their Saturday wages at the lean-to office of Contractor Conners at 446 Ohio St. The men were horrified to find that rather than their customary $10 cash and $2 in brass tokens—tokens solely redeemable for alcohol in Fingy’s saloon—they were instead handed $9 in cash and $3 in slugs.

  It was the last straw.

  “Our kids can’t eat no brass slugs!” Johnny Murphy, unionizer and one of the first men in line, screamed. Despite an almost identi
cal scenario having played out years earlier much to his dissatisfaction, and now having lost all endurance and control, Murphy’s meaty fist smashed into Fingy’s jaw.

  Foolishly, Fingy and his thugs having grown smug over the years in their confidence regarding the workers’ obedience had not fully anticipated such a swift or violent about-face. They were caught ill-prepared. Over five hundred men were waiting in line. Only Fingy, David Nugent, Peter Dalton and Sloak Slattery were present. Instantly a riot broke out. The infuriated men swarmed in and overwhelmed Fingy and company. The saloon was set afire and Fingy and his henchmen ran for their lives.

  The police were called to try and quell the disturbance. They showed up in force to unexpectedly find themselves in a frightful battle. Firemen quickly controlled the blaze. Cobbles were pried from the street to hurl at Fingy’s compliant police.

  Fingy’s retreating group took refuge in a house he owned at South Street and Louisiana. Without missing a beat, Fingy barked orders.

  “Kennedy! Davey Nugent! Yous two still got to go to the depot to meet them men comin’ on the three o’clock train!”

  Fingy’s henchmen dutifully set off to meet a fresh group of union-busters which included members the infamous Gopher Gang, imported to hit the unionizer targets that same night.

  At the depot, as the intimidating mob offloaded, the station crowd scattered out of their path.

  “So,” snickered Dave Nugent, “that’s what them there Gophers look like. Now we know why they call ‘em that!”

  Members of the Gophers Gang and their allies the Hudson Dusters had been recruited to supplement the imported Plug Uglies. They secreted bludgeons, knives, ice picks and brass knuckles. One or two carried pistols. Their fall-back weapons of choice, brickbats and cobbles, could be found on site incidentally. They loaded onto two drays in full view of citizenry, unchallenged by law enforcement, while Dave Nugent and Kennedy returned onlookers’ condemning stares twicefold.

  The maleficent troupe was quickly driven off to the predestined targets.

  At nine o’clock with dusk their ally, ten thugs were quietly offloaded onto South Street directly in front of the Blazing Rag. The leader was the same Plug Ugly who had led the previous invasion. He marched inside and again approached barkeep Johnny Murphy as his hooligan gang moved in on the other men present.

  “Told yous I’d be back!” he screamed.

  The Murphys scrambled for their armaments as the surprise offensive overwhelmed them. They were out-manned and out-weaponed. Amidst the fracas the leader shoved a huge revolver into Johnny’s face, this time before Johnny could grab his own.

  “We was requested to deliver a message to yous unionizers that won’t soon get forgot,” the thug commanded.

  “It wuz that cocksucker Fingy Conners wot sent you scum in here, ain’t it?” screamed the enraged Johnny Murphy just as his head exploded, spewing stringy brains and a thousand red-tinged skull fragments across the ruined mirror behind him and up onto the tin ceiling tiles.

  The gang proceeded to beat the other Murphys to within an inch of their lives, then exited laughing.

  Hearing the shots, the Murphy women had huddled with their children in the flat above the saloon until they heard the goons depart. Then they raced down the stairs to discover the carnage. Viewing the debacle, they set to wailing in the eerie ancient Irish manner.

  ◆◆◆

  The next morning Peter Conners bid his goodbyes to his betrothed. The hack waited patiently on Main Street at Utica as the lovers rendezvoused at their favorite cafe. When Peter began to climb aboard Barbara grabbed his arm and said, “Peter? Do we dare? Our fathers hate each other! Their newspapers are in a battle daily for readers and influence. My father will have a heart attack, and I dare say something even worse than that might be expected from your father!”

  “Aw, don’t chicken out now, Babs!” soothed Peter. “We don’t got to tell nobody yet. Hide the ring. Wear it under your gloves. We’ll talk about it over the summer, all right?”

  She thought about it for a moment.

  “All right,” she replied, failing to release his arm. He gently pulled away.

  “I’m sorry Babs, but I have to get going or I’ll miss my train.”

  She wept. He comforted her.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart! In five weeks I’ll be home for the summer, and we’ll see each other every day thereafter!”

  Barbara’s attempt at a smile was arrested by her heavy heart. Boldly, there on Main Street in full view of everyone, she embraced him. Peter then climbed up into the carriage, and as it drove away he waved and shouted, “Five weeks! It’ll fly by before you know it, Mrs. Conners!”

  She stood there a minute looking sad and solitary and a bit disoriented. Then as a light rain began to fall she turned and walked slowly up Main to North Street toward her father’s palatial home. She had neglected to bring her umbrella.

  How could she break the news, she wondered, her father hating Fingy Conners as he did? Head down to shield her face powder from the droplets she hurried toward home.

  Had Barbara Butler only turned again for one last look at her beloved’s departing carriage she might have seen it, and thus perhaps may have prevented it. But she did not.

  At an intersection a block away from the cafe the bruised and broken Murphys, father, remaining sons, and cousins, jumped into Peter Conners’ hack and drew pistols. They covered Peter’s mouth and wrestled the boy to the floor. Then they slugged the driver.

  “Keep yer mouth dead shut ‘bout this or we’ll be payin’ a visit to yer family next,” threatened the late Johnny Murphy’s desperately grieving brother Jimmie.

  The kidnappers dragged Peter struggling off the carriage and concealed him between the beer barrels on the waiting Blazing Rag’s delivery dray. Then they sat on top of him to keep him immobilized and sped off.

  At ten o’clock that night in the remains of the Blazing Rag Saloon, as a terrified and sobbing Peter Conners was compelled to clean Johnny’s Murphy’s blood and brains from the walls and floor to the jeers of his drunken captors, the decision was finalized.

  The Murphys dared not tell their women what they were about to do.

  ◆◆◆

  The Ohio Basin had outlived its usefulness. The ten acre inland harbor, hand dug by immigrant Irish, German and Hungarian hands in the 1850s, had degenerated in recent years into a stagnant festering shit hole. There were no civic funds set aside to dredge fifty years of mud and sunken debris from the bottom. The rotting pylons were an eyesore and a menace, attracting daredevil children and claiming more than its rightful share of them. The lumber yards, tile companies, and warehouses that flanked the Basin made little use of it these days as only the lightest barges could now steer clear of the accumulating menace that lurked just below the surface. It was solely the surrounding saloons that yet thrived. Thirst and the need to forget one’s troubles were just as pressing a matter these days as in any earlier time.

  The creaky dray with five Murphys and one bound and gagged captive pulled out of the alley adjoining the Blazing Rag and headed down South Street. At Ohio Street the wagon turned right and pulled up just before crossing the Ohio Slip bridge.

  “Over there, behind Mills Banner,” whispered Jimmie Murphy. The many structures that crowded together there at Basin’s dark edge would conceal their presence. They proceeded. They made another right turn onto Wabash Street, then headed into the Mills Banner property. No one was around and there was no unlucky moon to illuminate their terrible plans.

  They opened the tailgate on the dray and yanked out Peter Conners’ disbelieving form. They aren’t really going to do this, reasoned Peter Conners to himself. He struggled to loosen the ropes, but they were secure. He tried in vain to scream through the rag stuffing his mouth. He was having difficulty breathing.

  The Murphys hesitated. They looked to the family leader. Family elder Paddy Murphy trembled at the thought of what lay ahead. About what he was asking his sons and nephews
to participate in. In between second thoughts the vision of his beloved Johnny’s head exploding into red mist and jagged white smithereens brought his rage back to the fore. He desperately reasoned with himself; he was not just doing this out of revenge or retribution for the savage murder of his eldest child, but for all the dead and suffering children who came before, the battered wives and anguished mothers, the depleted men who, rather than go on living, fixed pistol barrel to temple and pulled the trigger out of a bleak despondency borne of Fingy Conners’ savage authoritarianism.

  With a Murphy brother at each end and the elder Murphy shaking with fright over his looming atrocity, Paddy pulled off Peter’s blindfold, then bent down to whisper in his ear. The old man’s tears splattered onto the victim’s cheek.

  Murphy sobbed, “I wantcha to see with yer own eyes what’s about to end yous, boyo, just like yer fuckin’ bastard of a father arranged fer me own beautiful son just last night. Almighty God in Heaven, forgive me.”

  Murphy made the sign of the cross.

  Peter could no longer deny his intended fate. He fought desperately to free himself. He writhed so violently that the Murphys lost their grip and dropped him to the ground. In the blessed dark they could not see the horrified pleading in his eyes, nor were they able to understand his obstructed vocalization of the phrase “I’m begging you.”

  Again they picked him up. He kicked and flailed with an enormous strength fueled by an amalgam of desperation and adrenalin. The men counted: one, two, three, before letting go and catapulting him into the stinking water. Peter Newell Conners struggled heroically. With dolphin-like gyrations he managed to propel himself, keeping his head above the filthy black surface, to everyone’s horror, for fully one minute. Muffled choking screams softly escaped the drenched rag stuffed into his mouth which as it absorbed water was only pulled deeper and deeper into his esophagus with each desperate attempt to breathe.