The Midnight Passenger | Page 7

Einstein, now nearing
seventeen, joined the dashing villainy of the Bowery tough to the crafty
long-headed scheming of the low-grade Israelite.
He had drank in all the precocious wiles of the Manhattan urchins
quickly after his sturdy Odalisque mother had dragged him, a squalling
urchin, out of the steerage confines of a cheap Hamburg steamer.
A reckless, resolute, conscienceless sinner was the handsome Leah
Einstein; already, when, on the voyage, she fell under the influence of a
man who found his ready tool in this greasy but symmetrical Esther,

clad in her Polish rags.
When the decamping Viennese pharmacist had wearied of his low-life
Venus, their joint operations soon made the East Side too hot for the
man who boldly dared all, and who now yearned for a share of the
fleecing of the fatuous New Yorkers.
The Austrian criminal fugitive, after some years of varied adventure,
had circled back to New York City at last, and rejoiced to find in Leah's
son, now a burly youth, a fit companion and second for his own craftily
laid villanies. It was a capital for him, the legacy of her nurture and his
own training.
Mr. Fritz Braun's broad white brow was gathered in an impatient frown
as he strode out of Magdal's Pharmacy on Sixth Avenue and paced with
dignity past all the minor notables of the street.
Hulking policemen, loquacious barber, marketman and newsdealer,
small shop-keeper, and the saloon magnates, all knew the stolid reticent
German who presided over the veiled mysteries of Magdal's.
The whole region of Sixth Avenue, between Twenty-third and Thirtieth,
had its floating contingent of "sporting" men and women who well
knew the crafty wisdom lurking behind the blue spectacles which
veiled the pharmacist's piercing glances. Fritz Braun's "contingent"
were a brood of the Devil's own children.
Fritz Braun was strangely three hours late upon this especial evening,
but his step was evenly sedate as he entered Zimmermann's for his
before dinner Kümmel. A prosperous figure was he in his
mouse-colored top-coat of fashionable cut, his immaculate silk hat,
with the red dogskin gloves, and the heavy ivory-headed cane.
With his antique cameo scarf pin, his coat collar turned up around his
flowing golden beard, he was the very type of the sedate burgher of
Dresden or Leipzig. And yet many a dark secret lurked in that busy
brain of his.
A dozen necks were craned after him, though, as he silently left the
saloon and caught the down-town car.
For from Greely Square to Eighth Street, from the cork room of Koster
& Bial's to the purlieus of old Clinton Place, all the "off color" men and
women of New York's "fly" circles knew and feared the steady eyes
gleaming through the cerulean lenses.
"He's a deep one, the Professor," grunted the Hanoverian barkeeper.

"Vat a lot 'e knows!" The Teuton rinsed his beer glasses with a vicious
twirl as he exclaimed: "Like as not, choost so like, he's up to some new
devilment! Niemand know vere 'e hangs out! He's a wonder, he is, dat
same Fritz!"
But the pharmacist lost all his sedateness as he sprang out of the
crosstown car after his transfer at Fourteenth Street and Fourth Avenue.
He was the nimblest crosser of the busy corner, and then gazed
anxiously up and down the street, in front of the Restaurant Bavaria.
Wasting but a moment he smartly entered the café and then, with an air
of proprietorship, entered a curtain-shaded alcove.
The waiter silently placed the carte du jour before him, and merely
shook his head when Braun sharply demanded, "Any one here for me?"
A luxurious dinner was ordered, and the silent man was busied
scanning the convives when Emil Einstein, cautiously entering without
haste, furtively regarded all the diners.
They were the better class of artists--musical virtuosos, and floating
foreigners of the Teutonic business circles of lower New York.
Frank, pleasure-loving continental women mingled freely with these
materialistic Romeos, who preferred the comforting cuisine to the fiery
and seductive cocktails of "The Opera" on the corner.
The artful Einstein was warily assuring himself that he was quite
unknown to the convives before making his report to his real master
and evil genius. For, young as he was, Emil Einstein well knew that the
tyrant master, who had been his mother's cruel lover, might some day
lure him on to the electric chair.
A guilty pride thrilled the depraved boy's heart to feel that he, alone, in
all the crowded ward, knew what manner of human devil lurked behind
those innocent-looking blue spectacles.
He had seen the ferocious grin which relaxed Fritz Braun's bearded lips
into a cruel grin, as the sly lad made a gesture which indicated tidings
of great joy. Einstein's dress and bearing was fully worthy of his