towards Brogan, who backhanded him with the sap across the jaw, then got hold of the guy on his left and threw him at the cellar stairs, where people were scampering towards the back door.
As McAvoy pushed the would-be escapee back into the barroom with his stick, he stepped towards the front door to block it, then heard feet crunching on glass and saw motion behind his left shoulder. Ducking instinctively, he felt a beer bottle come down, catching his hat and just missing his head from behind. Crouching lower, McAvoy swung his stick around, catching his assailant right across both shins. Letting out a yelp, the bartender dropped backward into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his legs moaning, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” and rocking back and forth.
McAvoy stood up, pulled out his long barreled revolver, and holding it at port arms, yelled, “All right, that’s enough!” Pointing his nightstick towards the back, he said “Everybody get back where I can see you!”
The stunned, the injured, and the frightened stepped away from the door, except for the blonde on the barstool, who hadn’t moved through the entire fracas and kept her smoldering cigarette, with holder, held high.
At the rear of the bar, Brogan and Constantino had also pulled out their revolvers and, trying to catch their breath, ordered the people coming up the stairs, back down. Kicking the guys they had wrestled and sapped, they forced them back into the bar while the sound of sirens approached, none too soon for the exhausted policemen.
The next policeman on the scene was Vicigliano, who slid on the broken glass through the front door. Once he saw the wreckage of the bar, three guys busted up on the floor and McAvoy with his gun out, he pushed his hat back on his head and said, “Forget making the late show at Broderick’s, Mac. Judge Chimera’s not gonna like this . . .”
As police car after police car pulled up to the scene, plainclothesmen and foot patrolmen ran up, the plainclothesmen gravitating towards the rear, and the uniformed men to the front of the bar. With the reinforcements having taken control of the situation, Brogan went to the front of the bar to identify his two assailants while Constantino went down into the cellar with Dudek, who had just arrived, while Dowd was throwing the three men in the alley against the wall, faces first.
It was hot, smoky, and crowded, with eleven men in their shirtsleeves in the cellar, and cases of beer and liquor stashed up against the stone walls everywhere. The only exit besides the stairs at the rear was a metal trap door at the front for bringing down cases and kegs.
Constantino could see a padlock hanging down from it. He grabbed Dudek’s shoulder and told him, “Search up front, we’re looking for slot machines, and maybe pinballs they got down here,” which got a quizzical glance from the blonde-haired policeman, who looked around the crowded cellar and saw nothing.
The shirt-sleeved men mumbled to each other quietly while Lou pulled cases away, rolled beer barrels, and pushed people out of his way, but found nothing.
Finally, Dudek came forward, saying, “Hey, Lieutenant, look at this,” holding a bundled up olive drab blanket. Disappointment showed on Constantino’s face when he first saw Dudek hadn’t found a machine, but he shoved a couple of the cellar’s occupants back while Dudek laid the blanket on the floor, opening it up to reveal playing cards and money.
“Hey, looks like we gotta game goin’ on here,” the lieutenant said in triumph, crouching down to examine the blanket’s contents. “Must be a couple of hundred bucks here. Big game, eh boys? We’re gonna have to run all you guys in,” he said, standing up. “The judge is not gonna like this at all.” Then, he made eye contact with one of the gamblers in the back of the crowd. Oh Jesus, he thought, it’s Uncle George. The family’s going to kill me if he gets arrested, and the elderly man stared right at him.
“Dudek, keep an eye on this a second,” he ordered, walking towards the stairs to consider his dilemma. When he got to the steps, Brogan was there, asking, “Whadja find?”
“Card game, Ziginat, bunch of old guys having big time fun. No machines, though.”
“Well, we gotta have something after we set off the atom bomb in here. How many guys we got?”
“Uh, look Pat, there’s a guy down here, my Uncle George, and,
XYZ
uh. . .”
“Lieutenant? Remember what Inspector Wachter said about ‘willful neglect?’” Pat was enjoying the turnabout with his supervisor. “He’s out front right now and wants to talk to us.”
Lou trotted up the stairs, where a patrolman silently handed Constantino his crumpled fedora, soiled and featherless. He cursed and tried to knock some of the dirt off of it. He said to Brogan, “I just got this hat the other day, around the corner,” nodding towards Court Street, “a brand new top of the line Peller & Mure hat.” He headed for the front with Brogan, contemplating what to say to his boss.
The rough stuff, okay, we can handle it, he thought, They started it. No slots, not yet anyway, maybe they’re upstairs. he gave himself a jolt of hope, thinking, And there’s the Ziginat game. Ah, shit, Ma’s gonna kill me for running Uncle George in.
As they got outside, they saw the bartender being loaded into the wagon and Vicigliano pulling McAvoy aside. “Mac, you might not want to do this,” the wiry patrolman advised.
“Bullshit,” the red faced McAvoy exclaimed. “He takes a swing at me, he’s in. Period.”
“Joe,” Vicigliano whispered, “This guy’s the judge’s cousin, and his favorite bartender besides. He’s just gonna turn him loose.”
“I don’t give a rat’s knuckle who this son of a bitch thinks he is, he’s goin’ in. And if I gotta stay in court after the end of watch, and miss going to Broderick’s, all these bastards can keep me company, no matter who they know,” McAvoy said, at which his cooler partner shook his head.
“Okay, I’ll call the wives and tell them the bad news,” Vicigliano said.
CHAPTER 29
DOWNTOWN, 1951
After the midget acrobat was taken to the hospital, and as the paddy wagons loaded up the gamblers and thugs, the owner of the bar arrived and stood screaming on the sidewalk at the shift lieutenant from the Third Precinct, the deputy commissioner, and Inspector Wachter, all of whom had gotten phone calls from both the commissioner and the mayor “to find out what the hell was going on down there on Pearl Street.” They all listened to the business owner’s complaints, politely for awhile, for he was a known financial supporter of the mayor, then, quieted him down when Inspector Wachter started asking about gambling going on in the basement, mentioning that such things could cause trouble with the liquor board, and that newspapers would have a field day hearing about a police raid on the business of a prominent local businessman. In the end, the bar owner went inside to tally up the damages and get his people to clean up, vowing over his shoulder that “the city would pay for everything, down to the last busted shot glass.”
Pulling up his two raiders, Wachter said, “You guys and the D and D boys get the people in the fight booked properly, sweat the card players for a couple of hours and see what you can get out of them, then, cut them loose. Then, when that’s all done, I want to talk to you in my office.”
Brogan and Constantino got in the car and headed downtown in silence, but after they turned on Pearl, both men burst out laughing so hard, Lou had to pull the car over.
“What
