The Enchanted Canyon | Page 4

been good, eh?"
"Not for me," replied Nucky. "Luigi seems to be goin' to the bank regular. You bet that guy don't risk keepin' nothin' in the house."
"I shouldn't think he would with a wonder like you around," said the young Irishman with a certain quality of admiration in his voice.
Nucky's thin chest swelled and he paid the waiter with an air that exactly duplicated the café manner of Marty, the Dude. Then, with a casual nod at Frank, he started back toward Luigi's, for his evening's work.
It began to snow about ten o'clock that night. The piles of dirty ice and rubbish on MacDougal Street turned to fairy mountains. The dead horse in Minetta Lane might have been an Indian mound in miniature. An occasional drunken man or woman, exuding loathsome, broken sentences, reeled past Officer Foley who stood in the shadows opposite Luigi's house. He was joined silently and one at a time by half a dozen other men. Just before midnight, a woman slipped in at the front door. And on the stroke of twelve, Foley gave a whispered order. The group of officers crossed the street and one of them put a shoulder against the door which yielded with a groan.
When the door of the large room on the second floor burst open, Nucky threw down his playing cards and sprang for the window. But Foley forestalled him and slipped handcuffs on him, while Nucky cursed and fought with all the venom that did the eight or ten other occupants of the room. Tables were kicked over. A small roulette board smashed into the sealed fire-place. Brown Liz broke a bottle of whiskey on an officer's helmet and the reek of alcohol merged with that of cigarette smoke and snow-wet clothes. Luigi freed himself for a moment and turned off the gas light roaring as he did so.
"Get out da back room! Da backa room!"
But it was a well-planned raid. No one escaped, and shortly, Nucky was climbing into the patrol wagon that had appeared silently before the door. That night he was locked in a cell with a drunken Greek. It was his first experience in a cell. Hitherto, Officer Foley had protected him from this ignominy. But Officer Foley, as he told Nucky, was through with him.
The Greek, except for an occasional oath, slept soddenly. The boy crouched in a corner of the cell, breathing rapidly and staring into black space. At dawn he had not changed his position or closed his eyes.
It was two days later that Officer Foley found a telephone message awaiting him in the police station. "Mr. John Seaton wants you to call him up, Foley."
Foley picked up the telephone. Mr. Seaton answered at once. "It was nothing in particular, Foley, except that I wanted to tell you that the red-headed boy and his name, particularly that name, in Minetta Lane, have haunted me. If he gets in trouble again, you'd better let me know."
"You're too late, Mr. Seaton! He's in up to his neck, now." The officer described the raid. "The judge has given him eighteen months at the Point and we're taking him there this afternoon."
"You don't mean it! The young whelp! Foley, what he needs is a licking and a mother to love him, not reform school."
"Sure, but no matter how able a New York policeman is, Mr. Seaton, he can't be a mother! And it's too late! The judge is out o' patience."
"Look here, Foley, hasn't he any friends at all?"
"There's several that want to be friends, but he won't have 'em. He's sittin' in his cell for all the world like a bull pup the first time he's tied."
Mr. Seaton cleared his throat. "Foley, let me come round and see him before you send him over the road, will you?"
"Sure, that can be fixed up. Only don't get sore when the kid snubs you."
"Nothing a boy could do could hurt me, Foley. You remember that Jack was not exactly an angel."
"No, that's right, but Jack was always a good sport, Mr. Seaton. That's why it's so hard to get hold of these young toughs down here! They ain't sports!" And Foley hung up the receiver with a sigh.
Mr. Seaton preferred to introduce himself to Nucky. The boy was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his red hair a beautiful bronze in the dim daylight that filtered through the high window.
"How are you, Enoch?" said Mr. Seaton. "My name is John Seaton. Officer Foley pointed you out to me the other day as a lad who was making bad use of a good name. That's a wonderful name of yours, do you realize it?"
"Every uplifter I ever met's told me so," replied Nucky, ungraciously, without looking up.
Mr. Seaton smiled. "I'm no uplifter! I'm a New York