The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 97
And she says, Maybe there’s nothing to figure, John.
And I say, See, even you’re smarter than me.
But here is something I do know. I know when a man’s support and protection have given out on him.
For soon, with Gurley Flynn’s release and the bad publicity and the prospect of another riot and spring coming and those mining and timber men wanting their floating workers back, the city council surrenders to the IWW and sets all the prisoners free. A commission shuts down the worst job sharks and lets the Wobblies operate again, practically gives them the key to the city.
All because of this women’s jail business. And they blame me for it and threaten to charge me with misconduct. Charge a man what gives his life to be a policeman in your town and been doing it since the Great Fire? Charge the last man standing from that class of twelve cops back in ’89, a man only wants to keep your streets safe, and you charge that man with misconduct?
I had already agreed to hire a policewoman to shut the noise, but I put her on dance halls and parks and theaters, stuff for a proper woman, and then the mayor says, That’s not the point, John, the city has taken a beating and we want her in the jail and paid the same as a man, and I said, Nellie, that’s where I draw the line, for no one loves a woman more than me, but I’m not going to pay her to pick daisies for the same wage I pay a man who puts his life on the line.
And all this time, the preachers and ladies’ clubbers are coming at me in the newspaper: Clean up the city, clean up the city.
What do they think I done my entire life, but I give in on that, too, and I send out my cops to arrest every working girl in town, and rid the streets of vagrants and faro boys and opium dens, and we fill the jail again, just like we did with the unionists, we shut down the brothels and nail up the cribs.
Oh, but I know whose pockets I’m into now.
And I know what it means for me.
So I have no cover at all when this Rose Elliott case comes—a teenage girl raised by this Civil War veteran J. H. Elliott, and he files a complaint that two of my officers, a kid named Hood and that old wart Clegg have had relations with young Rose and took her to get an operation. But when we interview the girl Rose, she says that the stepfather, J.H., is the one had relations, and that he is the father of her six-year-old son which everyone thinks is her little brother. But then Rose changes her tune, says maybe Clegg did what her stepfather did, too, and she names the woman who gave her an operation, an old dove of Clegg’s, so I fire Clegg, and still the Press hounds me and mocks my speech—I have nothin’ t’say to ye, fer I dasn’t believe ye’d print th’ trouth—and that’s when the city council officially charges me with misconduct.
I’m done now. I come home to Annie and say, I should never have taken this job, and she says, I know, John, and I say, I’m not what they say, am I?
No, she says, you’re not, John. You’re a good man, truly.
I wonder, am I, though? And I don’t drink, but one night I feel drunk as I leave the house and I walk downtown and past the Spokane Club, and I see the warm lights in there and something breaks in me. I go straight into that rich dining room, four fat millionaires sitting around drinking brandy in front of a roaring fire, and I grab that pork chop Lem Brand and pull him out of the dining room and into the street, and I only mean to question him about the note I got, or to scare him, but Brand is saying, What is the meaning . . . and I will have you brought up . . . and do you know who I am?
Yeah, I say, I got a pretty good idea who you are, and though I just mean to scare the man, instead I give him two hard Irish hammers to his fat face, like I’d have done a bum back in the old days, and he crumbles and I get down in the blood and I say I wish I was a smarter man, Brand, but all I got is these, and I give him another right to remember me, leave him whimpering in the street, and walk home to Annie.
That’s it, I tell her, I’m done. I’m not going to be chief, I tell her, and she says, That’s fine, John, and the next day, I resign. Go back to being a captain.
I tell the papers I did nothing but stand up straight while others were blowing in the wind, but when the weak look for someone to blame, it’ll be the man standing up.
We always lived in the flats north of the river, for even on a chief’s salary, the South Hill was beyond us, and I should offer that as proof of my honest heart, for did a policeman ever take a bribe, sure, but as God is my witness, one cop who never took a dime of that city’s whore money was me—and look, I’ll not ask for credit for doing my job without being shite, but sometimes an honest man has the hardest go of it, especially if he’s not perfect, or smart, and God knows I am neither.
I said so to Annie as she left our house to go to the theater, but she said again, You’re a good man, John, and I sat in my rocking chair facing the fireplace in