A Passionate Girl (13 page)

We finally reached a table in the corner. It was taken by a company of men and women, but Harry Hill coolly announced that it was “Bill Tweed's table,” and all but one lanky, middle-aged man rose to withdraw. “Who in hell is Bill Tweed?” he drawled, in an accent that sounded like Dan's. Hill hauled him to his feet by his shirt and knocked him unconscious with one tremendous punch.

“Anyone who asks that question is too dumb to drink in my place,” Hill said. “Get rid of him.”

His friends hastily dragged the man away.

“How about singing us a song, Ella?” Harry Hill said as we sat down.

“Sure,” she said. “As soon as I get some champagne down the old pipe.”

“We got a bigger attraction with us tonight,” Bill Tweed said. “The Fenian girl.”

To Ella's indignation, Hill rushed to the orchestra, stopped their music, and announced my whereabouts to the house. A great crush surrounded us, and Bill Tweed rose to drink a toast to Ireland. It was returned with a roar and a tremendous clink of glasses. Tweed made a little speech, in which he cheerfully insulted all “you bingo boys and bingo morts” (drunks, male and female) who were content to drink to Ireland. What the Fenians needed was money, and he was going to see that they got it. To prove it, he hauled out his wad of greenbacks and told me to spread my skirt. He peeled off a half-dozen hundred dollar bills and threw them into my lap. Instantly began a stampede to imitate his example. Five mad minutes later, I was sitting there with several thousand dollars in my lap.

After the spontaneous offering of the crowd, we received a stream of more important visitors. A huge bearded man in black, John Morrissey, shook my hand and sat down beside Tweed for several minutes of intense conversation. He was a powerful Tammany sachem, leader of a ward, and a former heavyweight champion boxer. When he rose to leave, he asked with a mocking smile, “How much did Tweed give you?”

“A thousand,” Tweed said.

“Here's two,” Morrissey said, and dropped a handful of bills into my lap.

This inspired a hurried conference between Tweed, Dick Connolly, and Peter Sweeny. “Is he ever going to take orders?” Connolly asked.

“I think he might for a while. He likes the Fenian idea,” Tweed said.

Once more it was evident that these men never stopped working at politics. Colonel Roberts of the Fenian council was meanwhile gleefully counting the money and announced it came to over five thousand dollars. Tweed reached over and took a thousand off the top. “We get twenty percent of all the business anyone does with us,” he said.

“We'll make it up out of our own pockets,” Peter Sweeny said, glaring at Tweed.

“That's your affair,” Tweed said.

A small, squinty-eyed man in a purple coat and yellow pants came weaving up to us. In his hands was a string of pearls of amazing size. “Wanna give these to thish Irish beauty,” he said. “Jus' stole'm from the Metropol'tan Hotel.”

“This is Dublin George, the best badger in town,” Dick Connolly said. “Why not take them? I'm sure they came off the neck of some Sassenach queen.”

A half dozen other prominent thieves, known by such picturesque names as Sheeny Mike, Big Nose Bunker, and the Doctor, made similar contributions of jewelry. The most striking of these charmers was William Varley, also known as Reddy the Blacksmith, a square-built, hard-featured man with a white coat and a Panama hat worn at a cocky angle. Speaking through a thick red mustache, he tipped his hat and assured me that he and his sister wanted to do their share. The William Varley Association was going to take up a collection in the Fourth Ward, and his sister was going to get her girls to contribute an entire night's earnings at her house on James Street.

“Morrissey just gave her two thousand, Reddy, how's that for high?” Tweed roared.

“We'll double it,” Varley said.

I smiled and offered him a toast in champagne. When he swaggered off, I asked Annie what sort of a house his sister owned. “The worst brothel in New York,” Annie said.

Through all this conversation and collecting, we were dining on oysters and champagne. After consuming half a bottle, Ella Weaner announced that the stuff had no kick to it and called for some of Harry Hill's absinthe. “Nobody should drink that poison,” Tweed said. But Ella insisted, and Annie said she would join her.

Dick Connolly grew angry. “You promised me that you'd never drink absinthe again,” he said.

“I like the feeling it gives me,” Annie said defiantly. “There's not a worry in the whole world for a while. Besides, it's the drink of the house.”

“Don't you know better than to argue with a woman?” Tweed said. He summoned a waiter girl and ordered a bottle of absinthe. Ella and Annie downed a glass apiece, but I only sipped my portion. I thought it tasted vile. Dan said he would try some and found no difficulty getting down more than his share. Annie said she wanted to dance and dragged a reluctant Dick Connolly onto the floor. Dan found me more willing, and we were soon careening around the place taking and giving physical punishment. It was like no dancing I had ever done.

We were interrupted by Harry Hill mounting the stage to shout, “Attention! Attention! A song from the incomparable Ella Weaner!”

Ella must have had another glass of absinthe while we were dancing. She was thoroughly drunk. Perhaps she had to be to sing her song. Its title was “Creep into My Bed, Baby,” and all its lines enlarged on that suggestion. I knew we were in fast company, but such blatant abandonment of decency shocked me. I looked across the dance floor and saw Annie nuzzling Dick Connolly's neck. Everyone in the place laughed uproariously at the more risqué lines.

“Gives you ideas, don't it?” Dan McCaffrey said, slipping his hand under my arm and cupping it over my breast. I remembered Michael's warning words and wondered what was happening to me, to everyone.

“Yes,” I said, “bad ones,” and stalked back to the table. There we found Kate and Peter Sweeny well into another bottle of absinthe, and Bill Tweed deep in conversation with a short, slim man with a shock of wavy black hair, a heavy black mustache, and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a beautifully tailored dark blue suit and a sky blue necktie. A gardenia glistened in his buttonhole. Tweed introduced me to A. Oakey Hall, the district attorney of New York.

“I am delighted to meet a woman capable of putting a squadron of British troopers hors de combat,” he said. “No doubt if they had brought their wives along you would have made them whores in combat as well.”

Sweeny groaned. “Oakey,” he said, “do you know what happened to the man who made too many puns?”

“He was severely punished?”

“He was denied the nomination.”

“Sweeny,” said Hall, “you can't threaten a man who has prosecuted twelve thousand citizens of Crimeland. Few candidates have as many tried friends.”

“Dear God,” I said, “he really can't stop.”

“No more than an Irishman can stop drinking,” said Tweed. “Give us a quote from Shakespeare, Oakey.”

“In Hamlet's words, a politician is…one that would circumvent God.”

“Leave God out of it,” Sweeny said. “You're more interested in beating the nominating committee, Oakey. But it won't work this year.”

District Attorney Hall looked discomfited. I again perceived that behind the raillery serious politics were being conducted. Hall turned to Tweed. “Does this mick have the final say?” he asked, glaring at Sweeny.

“You need more ballast, Oakey,” Tweed said. “Politics are too deep for you. They are for me, too, and I can wade long after you start to float. But the squire always keeps his feet on the bottom.”

“In the mud, the congenial home of every Irishman,” Hall said.

Peter Sweeny sprang to his feet and grabbed Hall by his silk tie. “Get out of here, you goddamned Know Nothing, before I wipe up the floor with you.”

“In friendship false, implacable in hate / Resolved to ruin or to rule the state,” Hall said, rescuing his tie.

“Is that Shakespeare?” Tweed said.

“No,” said Hall. “It's Dryden. But it fits.”

My feet had long since left the bottom of this political torrent, but I could see that there were fierce antagonisms among our Tammany friends. It did not take me long to learn that men like Hall and to a lesser extent Tweed feared the power of Irish politicians like Sweeny. Before the Civil War, Hall had been a Know Nothing, the political party dedicated to driving the Irish from America. Sweeny was a dark, brooding spirit, who never forgot an injury and treasured up his moments of revenge. Hall was seeking Tammany's nomination for mayor, and Sweeny was opposed to him.

Hall departed, and we soon followed him. Everyone was more or less drunk—the absinthe lovers more, the champagne swiggers less. Ella Weaner was staggering against Bill Tweed, and Kate was hanging on Sweeny's shoulder. Annie was skipping and singing around Dick Connolly as we reached the sidewalk.

“Armory Hall,” shouted Ella. “Let's pay a li'l visit to ole Billy McGlory.”

We piled into the carriage, with Kate bawling a song.

Billy McGlory's Armory Hall was on Hester Street, deep in the East Side slums. The streets were full of people; once more an astonishing number of them were drunk. As our carriage reached the door of the hall, it was flung open and two or three huge fellows pitched a man into the street. He was unconscious, and he sprawled helplessly in the gutter. Immediately he was set upon by the local inhabitants, who pulled off his shoes, coat, shirt, and pants. Tweed thought it was uproariously funny and stood laughing at the show.

“Hayseeds should stay out of Billy McGlory's. Remember that, Tennessee,” Tweed said, grinning at Dan.

Dan smiled bravely, but he obviously did not like being called a hayseed.

Armory Hall was not much more dingy than Harry Hill's, but the patrons were strikingly different. Only a few men on the dance floor were well dressed, and the women had none of the beauty or sophistication of Hill's female patrons. McGlory himself, a squat, grinning barrel of a man, came bursting through the crowd to greet Tweed. “Hello, Boss,” he yelled above the din. The band had four or five trumpets in it.

“Give us a table upstairs, Billy,” Tweed said, “and we'll introduce my friend the Fenian girl to the house.”

We repeated the introduction staged at Harry Hill's. This time I stood on a balcony, divided into a number of compartments by curtains, overlooking the dance floor. The patrons cheered lustily when Tweed gave me five hundred dollars, and a basket was lowered from the balcony for their donations. It was soon overflowing with greenbacks, watches, diamond bracelets, and strings of pearls. Roberts counted two thousand dollars, and this time he gave Tweed four hundred without waiting for him to take it. The jewelry we gave to Peter Sweeny, who said he would fence it tomorrow. When I looked baffled, they explained to me that there was a regular system of disposing of stolen goods in New York through people known as “fences” who passed them on at a profit to legitimate buyers.

I was tempted to ask if there was anything done honestly in America, but I was distracted by the show on the dance floor. The patrons seemed to relish our presence. They went at their prancing with more than ordinary vigor. Couples crashed into each other and were knocked sprawling. This led to fights, in which the contestants seemed well known. “There's Hell-Cat Maggie,” Tweed said, pointing to one woman with dyed orange hair and a bloated face daubed with rouge and plastered with powder. “Hey, Maggie,” Tweed yelled. “Show us your fangs.”

Maggie strutted over to us and opened her mouth. Her teeth were filed to dagger's points. “Yez are gonna see some action tonight, Bill,” she said. “Them whores from Battle Row is down here on a bender. We're gonna trow 'em outta here.”

An altercation broke out on the floor. A huge woman named Battle Annie Welsh, not liking the way she was bumped by a woman almost as large, hauled off and smacked her. Her male escort smacked Annie, and the war began. “There's Gallus Mag,” yelled Tweed, pointing to a six-foot female who charged into the fray wielding a club. She wore suspenders to support her skirt. Sadie the Goat was also cheered as she rushed into the melee, head down, butting opponents with ferocity. Other members of the Battle Row Ladies Social and Athletic Club, a collection of brawlers from Hell's Kitchen, rushed to support Annie Welsh, and the room was soon full of slugging, wrestling females, all of them fat burly creatures. The spectators cheered them on, Tweed and Colonel Roberts leaning over our balcony to get a better view. Joining them I saw the heads of a dozen other well-dressed people in the curtained compartments around us. “The better sort” sat up here to watch the denizens of the netherworld disport themselves below.

Hell-Cat Maggie sank her fangs into Battle Annie Welsh's arm, only to be butted headlong by Sadie the Goat, who in turn was clouted by Gallus Mag's club. Sadie rolled on the floor, holding her head, wailing like a banshee, while others kicked and stomped her. The moment anyone went down, she was fair game for feet. Frequently they were pounced upon by two or three, to be throttled and pounded from head to foot. The men fought, too, kicking and kneeing as well as slugging. All, male and female, screeched through clenched teeth with a fierce animal sound, pitched upon a single note.

Another sound pierced the uproar, the shrill burble of police whistles. A dozen husky men in blue surged onto the floor, and even wilder carnage ensued. They clubbed everyone indiscriminately, all but carpeting the floor with groaning semiconscious victims. Many of the combatants fled into the shadows, where no doubt convenient doors allowed them to escape into the streets. In five minutes it was over. The police were hauling carcasses to the jail or the hospital. Hell-Cat Maggie stumbled over to our balcony. Blood oozed down her bloated face from a gash on her forehead. She held up a trophy for Tweed to admire. It was a human ear. “It's Sadie's,” she screeched. “I got her goddamned ear.”