The Midnight Band of Mercy

by Michael Blaine

  “Sure.” Max gulped. A few trips to Pontin’s, and he’d be making withdrawals from the Madison Square Bank.

  Interrogating Biddle wouldn’t be cheap, and it wouldn’t be easy either. The man was close, perhaps all too close to William H. Howe, but he might give up a detail or two. Did the lawyer have a blood lust for young reporters, for instance? Or did Max’s attachment to the Herald protect him in some obscure way? Did Howe and Hummel represent Stephenson’s? Max recalled that they had defended Morris Tekulsky, president of the Liquor Dealers Association, and by extension the saloon interests.

  He’d have to gain Biddle’s confidence while keeping his intentions veiled. It was always possible that the old reporter made extra greenbacks by whispering in Howe’s ear.

  Biddle ordered the Sole Margeury and, without glancing at the list, his favorite wine. “They have a wonderful cellar here, very strong on the French. Now, what do you know about Pontin’s?”

  “Mostly mouthpieces here, right?”

  “Ahh, yes and no. If you look around, you will see the flower of the legal profession. That’s Judge Dos Passos over there, a great intellect. And Judge Mallory, a dim bulb by comparison. But the secret of this place is that for the truly elect, there is a separate dining room in the back.”

  “Judge Dos Passos isn’t of the elect?”

  “I’m disappointed, Max. Quick, quick,” he snapped his fingers.

  “Howe and Hummel?”

  “Practically their clubhouse. I’ve seen them do business on a tablecloth.”

  “So you know them pretty well?” Max probed, taking a sip of the Bordeaux.

  “Anyone who claims to know Willy’s depths is in my estimation a bleeding idiot.” Biddle lit into his filet with gusto. Pausing, he regarded a chunk offish on his fork. “Fresh, flaky. No one does it like Pontin’s.”

  “Well, after reading their pamphlet, I was wondering….”

  “Yes?” Biddle’s eyebrows bobbed up and down. On his aristocratic face, the effect was disconcerting.

  Max’s speculations had gotten a laugh out of Stan Parnell, so he plunged ahead. “It’s really a treatise on how to commit crimes, isn’t it? Do they plan the robberies and then defend the ones who get caught?”

  “Oh, that old canard. Tell me you weren’t laughing while you read it.”

  “I was, I was.”

  “Good. Otherwise I would have to revise my opinion of you. That whole thing was a lark, and a nice piece of advertising too. Why would they want to get their hands dirty when they’re making a fortune on the proper side of the law? Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that Willy and Abie aren’t a little bent. They’re not above playing the badger game, in a gentlemanly sort of way. On the other hand, to whom can a chorus girl turn when she’s down on her luck?”

  “You mean their breach-of-promise racket?”

  “Hmmm … Stan said you were a quick fox. I’m not too fond of the practice myself, but when Abe Hummel burns papers, they never come back. And the same girl will never bother you again. In a way, he’s doing you a service.”

  A rueful smile crossed Biddle’s thin lips, and Max guessed that the old reporter had been caught in Hummel’s net too.

  Biddle as much as admitted it. “The next thing you know, Abie is buying you first-night tickets or giving you a tip on Saratoga. He writes that racing column, but you know that. You have to admire a little man like that, he’s practically a hunchback for Godsakes, and yet he wrings more out of life than anyone.” Now Biddle veered back to the original subject. “Let me ask you. Why do you think their own pamphlet makes them out to be felons?”

  “Advertising, as you pointed out.”

  “Yes, true. But think about it. They have a reputation to uphold. They’re not selling their services to Mr. Parkhurst or Mr. Comstock, are they? Willy has a genius for making his clientele comfortable. They know he’s not judging them.”

  Max’s skepticism must have been written across his face.

  “So you don’t believe me, my young cynic? Would you like proof?”

  “Proof is always attractive.”

  “For instance, they’re quiet as church mice about it, but they do more pro bono work than any outfit in town. What’s more, if Willy loses a murder case, he can’t let it go. It plagues him. Tell me any other lawyer who visits his convicted client, convicted of a capital offense, the client most lawyers want to forget as fast as possible, and tell me the lawyer who stays with the wretch even on the day of his hanging. Would you like examples?” bure.

  “You know there is a mania for facts nowadays; it’s almost offensive. All right. Carlyle Harris, the wife-poisoner? Willy took his case on appeal, but the first lawyer botched it so badly, there wasn’t much he could do. Do you know what he told me after the hanging? When he hears a friend’s neck snapping, that hideous sound makes him more determined than ever to keep his clients off the gallows.”

  Max kept a straight face. Biddle seemed to be forgetting he was talking to another reporter. “You’re making a good case yourself, Nick, but isn’t this just more self-promotion?”

  “Cynical, Greengrass. Cynical. How about this? Do you know who defended Victoria Woodhull when that cretin Comstock brought her up on obscenity charges?”

  At the mention of Mrs. Woodhull, Max practically choked on his chop. Why would Howe get mixed up with a radical feminist? Wouldn’t that sully his reputation? “The Victoria Woodhull?”

  “The same one who published the little tale about the Reverend Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. The same one who was dragged before the bar for printing the word ‘virginity’ in her magazine. You should have seen Willy’s cross-examination of Comstock, that mincing prude! Willy Deuteronomy, Shakespeare, and Byron, to see if Comstock would keep them out of the mails, too. Postal Inspector! It’s amazing the pantywaist sonofabitch is still in power. Back then, in ’73, I thought those Puritans were relics. Now we’ve got the Reverend Parkhurst biting our ankles. And this Weems fanatic, too. Sometimes I think history is running backwards.”

  Biddle was beginning to sound just like Mrs. DeVogt. Of course, he came from the same generation, with the same irritating tendency to speak from on high. Still, Howe as defender of free speech and tormentor of the mail censor Anthony Comstock cut an admirable, if incongruous, figure.

  “I’m beginning to understand.”

  “Not to speak of that woman … my memory is failing me … the one who swore the Republican Party was running a conspiracy to drive her crazy. Willy defended her gratis too.”

  “No.”

  Leaning over the table, his striking blue-gray eyes shining, Biddle made one more point. “Do you know how much Western George paid Willy after the Manhattan Savings job? Ninety thousand. It’s still the biggest fee in history.”

  Sipping the last drop of his white wine, Nicholas Biddle rested his case.

  “What about the press, Nick? Would Willy defend us?” He thought the question was vague enough.

  “Didn’t you hear what I just said about Victoria Woodhull? Free speech is Willy’s creed.”

  “He wouldn’t use any strongarm tactics against a reporter? You know, if you got on the wrong side of him?”

  “You have a sardonic look; did anybody ever tell you that, Greengrass?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact.”

  Their eyes locked, but then Biddle broke into mordant laughter. It was impossible to resist Nick’s charm, but that didn’t make Max any less wary. Suddenly Biddle’s features shifted, another face emerging, a face stripped of practiced irony. He leaned over the table, his voice low and serious. “I wouldn’t cast Bill in a bad light.”

  “Who would? He’s my hero, fighting those temperance hags.”

  “Our knight in shining armor,” Biddle agreed. “Violence isn’t in Bill’s nature. He can crush a man like a bug and never leave a mark on him.”

  Somehow this assertion rang true. Why should Howe soil his hands with insignificant reporters?

  “Tekulsky uses hi
m, right?” If the saloon owners’ organization employed Howe, there was a good chance the attorney represented Stephenson’s too.

  “What’s your point?” Biddle said sharply.

  The reporter’s reaction all but confirmed Max’s suspicions. The black -and-tan operators were probably Howe and Hummel clients too, along with Mourtone Senior. Who knew if the lawyers mightn’t have uttered the abracadabra that made Martin vanish? Now he was jangled all over again. Howe had to know about the brewery’s barrel. Why wouldn’t he keep a longshoreman or a merchant marine on the pad to keep an eye on dock business?

  “Just idle curiosity.”

  “Ha! You and Torquemada. I’m on deadline. This inquisition is over.”

  He had two choices. Crouch in terror, his insides churning every time a stranger look at him crooked, or march straight into the lion’s mouth. Living in darkness and perpetual anxiety was clearly the greater of the two evils. He would assure Howe that he posed no danger to Mourtone or the rest of his clients. If he could ask the lawyer a few of the questions Nick Biddle had turned aside, all the better. Straight, direct, above-board. An antidote to the nightmares ambiguity was sure to spawn.

  However, when he phoned the attorney to set up an appointment, the great man was consulting at the Tombs. In fact, the law clerk told Max appointments were hard to come by. Perhaps Howe would see him at the end of the summer. Max cajoled the clerk to no avail. Any audience with the solicitor would have to take place months in the future.

  What else could he do? He’d have to ferret out Howe’s daily itinerary and ambush him.

  Parnell was waving him up to the throne. Max felt the eyes of the other space-raters on him as he wove his way through the tightly packed “desks, ducked under a copy wire, and leaped onto the platform. The metro editor knew the effect of his gestures, he knew that the hungry space men kept their eyes on him constandy for signs of approval. Now Max had been summoned twice in a single day. No one would fail to notice his good fortune.

  “Anything on the Negro?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “Ahh, don’t worry. We probably wasted enough ink on that one. Wait right there.”

  The editor ran his eye over a story on his desk, slashing at it several times while Max, straight-faced but barely able to contain his joy, waited for his next assignment. “They picked up your friend last night on East 126th. Caught her in the act,” Parnell barked. “Get up to the arraignment. Harlem Police Court. You may be able to talk to her before she posts bail.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Edwards. Savior of the feline species. She went on a spree last night. The arresting officer said she gave him a lecture about her influence with Henry Bergh and the ASPCA. She’s got a nice badge, he says.”

  “Didn’t Bergh die five years ago?”

  “You’re a sharpie, Greengrass.” Parnell tapped his forehead. “That’s why we’re hiring you. Now get out of here.”

  Hiring him! Giddy, Max ran halfway to the train before a stitch in his side stopped him in his tracks. Hiring him. He’d been so dizzy he hadn’t asked any questions, but he assumed he would start drawing a regular salary right away. Hiring him. What a miracle. His years of scraping together stories about two-bit domestic disputes and horseblanket heists were over.

  He had reached a turning point in his life, and all because a bunch of reforming biddies were running rampant with their smothering rags. Yet he still found their campaign, with its strange mixture of altruism and savagery, completely incomprehensible. Wouldn’t he have to explain their motivation to the Heralds readers at some point? Wouldn’t he have to explain it to himself?

  chapter fourteen

  Draped in black, her hands in her lap, Mrs. Edwards waited patiently for her case to be called. Next to her, a working girl and a dip Max recognized chatted amiably. A wisp of gray hair had escaped Mrs. Edwards’s hat, falling onto her high, smooth forehead. A somewhat younger, more attractive woman than Mrs. Warner, whose work with cats he’d observed close-hand, Mrs. Edwards seemed indistinguishable from any number of fashionable, active widows. A spare, distinguished-looking man leaned down to speak to her. His bearing, his tailored suit, and especially his complete lack of jewelry separated him from the other legal talent in attendance.

  Chaim “Chad” Bernstein, a Tammany appointee, presided. The magistrate’s credentials included two years in the practice of law, and the delivery of an entire congregation, B’nai Israel of Suffolk Street, to district boss Big Tim Sullivan. In gratitude, Sullivan had wrangled Bernstein a position jptown in Harlem. The jurist’s pinched face and high, whining voice suggested the schoolmarm more than the judge.

  With astonishing speed, he dispensed with cases involving a stolen lorseblanket, a panel-house operation, three disputed pairs of pants, a dismembered pushcart, and a milk dealer alleged to have kept his cow in a lank alley. It took an average of three minutes for Magistrate Bernstein to lispense justice.

  Finally Mrs. Edwards’s case was called. The judge waved at the lawyer tnd his client to approach the bench. “Mr. Maple? You represent?”

  The good, gray lawyer nodded. Satisfied, the magistrate turned his glare m the defendant.

  “You have been charged with cruelty to animals, Mrs. Edwards, to wit, the suffocating of five cats on East 126th Street. Do you understand the charges?”

  With elaborate dignity, Mrs. Edwards replied: “We are a benevolent society. The city is full of sick, starving animals, so we do our best to attend to their needs. I found the cats out after eight last night, and they haven’t any right to be. Besides, the Henry Bergh Society has authorized us to kill cats.”

  Why did the Band insist on an eight o’clock curfew for the feline population? There existed no law to that effect. What sort of activity did they imagine they were preventing, Max wondered.

  “Officer Connolly tells me you committed these acts at various locations.”

  Her lawyer began whispering in her ear, but she brushed his hand away. “I started on Cornelia Street and took two cats up with me to the El platform.”

  “Excuse me, your honor,” the elegant lawyer interceded.

  “Do you wish to speak, Mrs. Edwards?” the judge interjected.

  “Yes, your honor. I’ve nothing to hide.”

  The lawyer murmured to his client, but Mrs. Edwards shook her head.

  The magistrate didn’t waste time. “Did you know that it is illegal to transport dead animals inside the city limits?”

  Ignoring his question, Mrs. Edwards looked up at the judge with barely concealed contempt. “If you would like, I’ll show you how quickly it’s done. I’ll bring a cat into court and dispatch it in ten seconds. You’ve never seen anything more charitable. I know my business.”

  Her emotionless demeanor struck an odd note, Max thought. Was thai a key to her strange behavior? If so, distinguishing it from ladylike restraint was difficult. He sat on the edge of his seat, fascinated by Mrs. Edwards’s utter stillness. Perhaps killing cats engendered inner peace.

  “You won’t murder any animals in my courtroom,” the judge snapped.

  “Your honor, may I have a word with my client?” the horrified lawyer cul in. Once again Mrs. Edwards shook him off. Folding his arms, he stared al the floor. This was not the type of law he was used to practicing.

  “Rich witch!” a weathered mab shouted out from the side bench.

  A bird in a mask of powder that didn’t quite hide the pox hooted, “They oughta break her neck! What’d we ever do?”

  A court officer plunged in to quiet them down, but a chorus of raspberries rose from all corners.

  “It’s that simple,” Mrs. Edwards said, shrugging.

  “Quiet! I know my business too!” Judge Bernstein shot back, losing patience. “You are the president of the Midnight Band of Mercy, is that correct?”

  “Henry Bergh chartered our organization originally, and we have members doing good works on a regular basis.”

  “I fail to see how this
wholesale slaughter amounts to a good deed. You say you eliminate these animals indiscriminately?”

  By now the court officers had silenced the worst offenders, though a low, mean murmur still ran through the assembly.

  “No, I did not say that at all. We go after the worst infestations.”

  “And where might they be?” the judge asked sourly.

  “Many times near police stations.”

  A buzz ran through the flyblown congregation. A court officer with a scarlet face muttered under his breath. His friend, a boat-sized bondsman, burst out laughing. A moon-faced madame cupped her hands and shouted, “She’s an agent!”

  Judge Bernstein couldn’t hold back the uproar.

  Max laughed too, but he also wondered. Was the Midnight Band some strange permutation of the Reverend Dr. Parkhurst’s crusade against the buttons? Parkhurst was busy stirring up the temperance hags against Tammany and the police bigwigs. He had plenty of ammunition too, though Max believed it would come to nothing because the police protection racket was an ancient rite of tribute that would never be rooted out. Meanwhile, the fiery minister might have inspired Christian ladies with their own peculiar ideas about civic salvation.

  “She’s a wild hair, ain’t she?” a streetwalker called out.

  In the eye of the storm, Mrs. Edwards stared straight ahead, a picture of squanimity. She probably didn’t need any outside inspiration, he decided, the Reverend Parkhurst’s or anyone else’s.

  Laughter and applause shook the dreary courtroom.

  “We are not joking here, lady,” the judge snapped. “This is a serious affense!”

  Mrs. Edwards barely reacted. Instead, she continued speaking with conviction. “Then you should open your eyes. Everyplace you look, they’re icking some sore. They get crushed by wagons. They get run over by cable cars. People throw botdes at them. They limp around more dead than dive.” Now Max began to sense the woman’s power. With the practiced ease of an orator, she turned to the crowded courtroom pews. “I guarantee, when you leave this place, you’ll see them everywhere. Even if you close your eyes!”