The Old Colts

by Swarthout, Glendon

  “That’s the trouble with New York,” griped Bat the boulevardier. His dogs were killing him and the gun under his belt weighed a ton. “Always tearing down and putting up. I’m sick and tired of change— I like things to stay put. Getting on, I guess.’”

  “Likewise.” After thirty blocks Wyatt steamed along like the Staten Island ferry.

  “I wonder what Dodge looks like now. I don’t expect it’s changed much.”

  “I dunno. Slept through it on the train.”

  “I’ll take New York no matter what. Dodge is one burg I never want to see again.”

  “Likewise.”

  They were put into a private “fitting room,” and what they found was that the shoulder holsters in stock at Bannerman’ s were designed for small-caliber, more compact weapons, the new automatics usually, not the old-time .45’s they proposed to carry. The guy who helped them, however, a guy named Abel, said Bannerman’s had workmen on the premises, and what they’d do, they’d remove the holsters on these rigs and sew on the right size taken off a pair of old-time cartridge belts. Said to make themselves comfortable, the job could be done in a jiffy. Bat said fine, and when he brought back the merchandise, bring a few boxes of bullets, too.

  “What’s wrong with our belts?” Wyatt asked when Abel had gone.

  “Too obvious. My friends’d fall down laughing. And I’d be stopped and bullyragged by every flatfoot on the force. I’d wear my permit out showing it. I told you—the NYPD’s had it in for me a long time.”

  Wyatt considered, rearranging some splayed hairs in his mustache. “You sure we need iron at all?”

  Bat set him straight on the birds and the bees. “Look. We got beaten up, didn’t we? That was the first warning—pay up pronto, Masterson. Last night was supposed to be the second. If those crushers had caught up with us, we’d be in a hospital ward today, smelling flowers Lucca sent with his sympathy. They’d have used brass knuckles, or sapped us with lead. We’d have broken bones. Maybe we wouldn’t even know who we were.”

  He took off his shoes and while massaging his feet tried to make it clear that the two mugs were only front men for Grogan, and Grogan was only a front man for somebody else—real, honest-to-God gangsters. They ran the gambling and the whore business and other sweet stuff in this town. They carried automatics in their armpits and called it “packing a rod.” They put cement overcoats on people and let them see if they could swim in the East River. They had Irish and Jewish and Italian names but no faces. “I tell you, the cowchasers we used to bash over the heads, the rustlers and trainrobbers we ran around after from hell to breakfast, the mean two-gun sonsabitches we had to stand up to—they were small potatoes compared to the boys trying to collect from me. Well, yesterday they had the edge. Today they don’t. Let ‘em pack rods. We got artillery.”

  Abel brought in the goods. Shoulder straps were given final adjustments, the old Colts fitted into holsters made for them in the first place, coats were donned, and the buyers tried, looking a little foolish, a fast draw or two. Bat paid Abel with a fifty-dollar bill, which Wyatt noted, and while the salesman was gone for change, they loaded up the guns.

  “I see you’re flush,” said Wyatt.

  “Gives me a funny feeling, filling up one of these old boomers again.”

  “I see you’re flush.”

  “Got paid today at the paper.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “The cat’s whiskers. And not for the reason you think, Earp. My theory is, it takes money to make money. Okeh, I’ve got a hundred simoleons to spare—so tonight I’m gonna invest it.”

  “In what?”

  “Pasteboards.”

  Wyatt put a testy pistol under his arm. “You mean I came three thousand miles to watch you play cards?”

  Bat grinned. “A lot of ginks have paid for the privilege.”

  “You’ll lose.”

  “Poker’s my middle name. I’ll run that hundred into a bundle.”

  “Unh-huh. I wonder how old you’ll have to be before you learn.”

  “Learn?”

  “How many peas you can hold on a knife.”

  Wyatt kept shifting in his seat. “Can’t get used to this load on my left side.”

  “Be glad you got it.”

  “I never thought I’d see you hurrahed.”

  “I’m not. I was, but not now.” Bat stuck a hand under his jacket. “Not with this, and you here, too.”

  “Don’t depend on me. Half the man I was.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  Bat pulled on a Spud and cogitated. They had taken rear outside seats on the top deck of a Fifth Avenue omnibus— the only seats in which smoking was permitted—for the ride uptown-so that Bat could have a coffin nail and Wyatt could rubberneck. As the bus started again and they neared St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the smoker leaned to his friend’s ear.

  “Listen! Maybe we’re half the men we were—okeh! Put your half and my half together and you’ve got one hell of an individual!”

  “Till he comes up against a cap-pistol!”

  “Anyway,” said Will Irwin of the Sun, “I thought what Pershing said to the press was damned good. ‘You may announce, gentlemen, that we have Pancho Villa surrounded on three sides.‘”

  “It won’t play in Peoria,” judged Pete Dailey, star comedian at the Music Hall.

  “Generals don’t have to be funny,” said Runyon.

  They were talking about Pershing’s cavalry chase into Mexico after Villa, who had shot up several soldiers and civilians and the town of Columbus, New Mexico, in March.

  “Jimmy here should be down there running the Army,” said Bat, gesturing at James J. Johnston, pugilistic impresario known as “The Boy Bandit.” “What would you say to the troops, Jimmy?”

  “Stick out your hand and belt ‘em out!”

  Laughter.

  “Hey, I just realized,” said Runyon. “No wonder nobody’s getting anywhere these days. We’ve got too many guys with J.J. initials. John J. Pershing, James J. Johnston, John J. McGraw—all losers.”

  Laughter at Johnston’s and McGraw’s expense. Jimmy wiped foam and a grin from his mouth. He’d just lost his lease of Madison Square Garden to Tex Rickard. McGraw looked glum. The Giants had gone three years without a pennant, and the sports scribes were turning out a lot of copy about his tenure as manager.

  There were eight present—Bat, Runyon, Irwin, Dailey, Johnston, McGraw, William S. Hart, who was in town from the West Coast to hoopla his new movie, and Wyatt, who’d been introduced by Bat as “Mysterious Dave” Mather, a friend from Kansas, the mystery being how he made a living. They were bellied up to the bar in Toby’s Slide, a watering-place at 50th and Seventh Avenue just west of the Garden Cabaret. You slid downstairs, everyone said, and crawled up, but it was popular with the nocturnal crowd because for 75 cents you could get a shot of good whiskey and a full tankard of Fidelio beer with which to neutralize the effect of the whiskey.

  Pershing’s running around in Chihuahua chasing Villa in vain, and Wilson calling out the National Guard to defend the border against invading hordes of Mexicans reminded Runyon of the immortal Masterson vs. Plunkett shoot-out in the Waldorf bar two years before—much damned ado about nothing much at all. Hart and Dailey and McGraw hadn’t been there that night, so Runyon regaled them with a recap—Bat with gun hand in pocket calling Plunkett’s bluff and the clientele smashing glassware in their haste to dive under tables or break down doors and Bat, later, when the smoke had cleared, pulling from his pocket in lieu of anything lethal a pack of cigarettes. After the punchline Bat took a bow and remarked that if panic was the point, he was reminded of a big night in the Lady Gay dance hall in Dodge in 1880.

  A loud pause.

  “Oh, no, not again,” said Irwin.

  “It’s a true story,” Bat insisted.

  “Ring the bell,” said Jimmy Johnston.

  “Mather was there,” said Bat. “He’ll back me up.”

  “All right, suckers,�
� said Runyon. “Let us put our faith in God and the grape. This round is on me.”

  Glasses and tankards were lined up for the barkeep, and when that worthy had done his chores the convivial crew assembled about Bat in various states of anticipation and inebriation.

  Well, it seemed, he began, some quack from back East detrained at Dodge and commenced distributing cards which proclaimed his profession as “Physician-Phrenologist” specializing in “personal diseases” and his name as “Dr. Clapp.” Well, this was a kumquat of an opportunity too ripe to pass up, so a few of the boys got together and formed a welcoming committee of “prominent citizens.” They assured the quack that if there was any community in the West which had urgent need of a man who could handle “personal diseases,” it sure as hell was Dodge City. And further, that they would provide him with a forum that very night, and an audience literally burning to hear his words and purchase his curatives. True to their oath, they sent the tidings forth, and by nightfall the coal-oil lamps were lit and the Lady Gay, a ramshackle wooden structure with saloon attached, was packed to the rafters with interested parties in the same condition as the lamps.

  “Wyatt Earp and I were marshals then, and we took chairs on the platform to see that everything was orderly. I introduced Dr. Clapp as an angel of mercy sent to salve our sinners and he started his spiel. He got through a few lines when Luke McGlue hollered ‘You lie!’ That got things rolling. Now there was nobody named Luke McGlue, but whenever we pulled a stunt we picked somebody to do the dirty work and always called him Luke McGlue. Anyway, Earp and I loosened our guns and I told the mob to settle down and listen to what the world-famous medico had to say. So Clapp went on, using a lot of scientific lingo about the connection between the shape of the head and the health of the balls and pretty soon McGlue hollers ‘You lie!’ again. That set off a real commotion— you see, most of the audience wasn’t in on the joke, they took Clapp seriously. Earp and I drew our guns and I told ‘em to shut up, we meant business, we would kill the next loudmouth who interrupted the proceedings. Well, by this time Dr. Clapp is what you might call a hair unnerved, but he steps up to the platform again and does his best till suddenly Luke McGlue jumps up out of his seat and shouts, ‘You lie, you son-of-a-bitch!’”

  An intermission. Bat’s timing was professional. He bent to the bar. With whiskey he lubricated his larynx, with beer his narrative powers.

  “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, but above all—” said Dailey, “make ‘em wait.”

  Bat was affronted. “Do I go on or don’t I?”

  “Hell, yes, go on!” cried Irwin.

  “Play ball!” growled McGraw.

  “Okeh,” said Bat. “But I will kill the next loudmouth who interrupts the proceedings. Okeh, we were talking about panic, remember? Well, “son-of-a-bitch” was the signal. Earp and I cut loose and shot out the lamps, the place went dark as the pit, and I guess every drunk sober enough to find his gun went for it and started throwing lead. It was a real rannicaboo. Everybody headed for the exits at once. It was a wonder multitudes weren’t shot or trampled to death. When we had some light again, there was poor Clapp under the table, praying and shaking like a leaf and his wallet was gone and his wig and practically everything but his pants and when we stood him up to see if he could walk he couldn’t. But we weren’t through with the faker yet. We said how sorry we were, and promised him to make amends for it the next day. We told him we’d get him a bigger audience, outdoors in broad daylight, and he’d do a land-office business—”

  “Sorry, Mr. Masterson.” It was the barkeep. “Telephone call for you. End of the bar, round the corner.”

  Bat frowned. “Excuse me, gents. Hate to leave you hanging—wait a minute, Dave here’ll finish the story. Tell ‘em about the next day, Dave.”

  He headed for the phone. The others waited upon Wyatt.

  “Not much to tell,” said he, with all the beans he had exhibited onstage at the Belasco. “Next day we pulled a big crowd in on Front Street and set up a box for the doc to speak from and waited for him to show. But he never did.”

  “Why not?” Johnston demanded.

  “Because Bob Wright—a storekeeper—warned him to get on a train and leave town, so he took the advice. Bob was in on it.”

  “On what?” Dailey demanded.

  “The bomb.”

  “What bomb?” Irwin demanded.

  Wyatt was uncomfortable. “The one we planted under the box.”

  “Well what in hell happened?” McGraw demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!” cried Johnston. “Then what’s the damn point?”

  “Well, it was a good thing Clapp left town,” said Wyatt. “We blew the bomb up anyway, and it had too much black powder in it. If he’d been on that box, parts of him wouldn’t be down yet.”

  “Oh,” said Johnston.

  “Oh,” said Irwin.

  “Oh,” said Dailey.

  “Oh,” said McGraw.

  Wyatt leaned on the bar and studied his shot glass. Five of the other six leaned on the bar and studied theirs. Bill Hart, however, who knew more about the West than anyone present except Runyon, was studying the stranger from Kansas.

  “Mather,” he said.

  Wyatt did not respond.

  “Mather, who are you?” asked Hart.

  Wyatt stared at him.

  “I suspect a colored gentleman in the woodpile,” said Hart. “There’s something about you—I don’t think your name is—”

  “I’ve got it!” Damon Runyon banged his tankard on the bar for attention. He had scarcely listened to “Mysterious Dave’s” denouement. “Frien’s, Romans, countrymen, lemme your ears!”

  They lent.

  “I’ve heard enough of this goddam Western buffalo shit! How’s about we get revenge? How’s about we give Masterson a stiff dose of his own Clapp?”

  “Hear, hear!” cried the five.

  Runyon might be in his cups, but even in theirs they knew that any idea bearing his by-line would be a lollapalooza. Damon Runyon’s poems and columns in the American and short stories in Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post were up everyone’s alley, even those of 42nd Street illiterates. He wore fifty-dollar shoes and monogrammed neckties. He was a born gambler. He bet on fights and horses and cubes and cards and ratting contests and elections and whether or not it would rain, take your pick. He would one day bet he could walk into the Stork Club in shirtsleeves, and win. He had already bet he would revisit the earth after death, and offered to let Satan hold the scratch.

  “Aw right, aw right,” he said. “We gotta set this up fast, before he gets back. Aw right, so he bluffed himself out of the Waldorf with a pack of smokes. Les’ do ‘er again, and this time do ‘er right. This time les’ put ‘im up against somebody serious! Lessee what he does! I got a hundred dollars says he guts himself out of it again!”

  They went for it like steers for salt—but how, when, where?

  “Tomorrow night—the Knickerbocker Bar—midnight. Everybody spread the word—we want a full house.” Runyon was improvising out loud. “I’ll be responsible Bat’s there. Now—the gunslinger walks in—lets everybody know he’s from out West and he’s got a big bloody bone to pick with Masterson—the place freezes—silence—they face each other—then the stranger orders Bat to slap leather or die yellow. Can you see Bat’s face? Spuds won’t save ‘im this time! What a set-up!”

  They seconded the motion with shots and suds.

  “Just one catch,” said Bill Hart. “Who do we get to play the heavy? He’s gotta be the real McCoy or Bat’ll laugh him out of there.”

  That stopped them. Then the cowboy star began staring at “Mysterious Dave” Mather, and the rest gave him a twice-over, too.

  Wyatt shook his head. “He’d never believe me. We’re friends from way back.”

  “Sure he would, goddammit!” cried Irwin. “Play drunk! Look murderous! Draw on ‘im!”

  Wyatt considered, then said, “Talk’s c
heap. You have to pay for whiskey.”

  Irwin was miffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t even have a weapon,” said Wyatt with a straight face. “I’m low on funds.”

  Runyon broke it up. “Oh, well, Christ on a crutch, yes.” He pulled a roll, and peeled a double sawbuck onto the bar. “C’mon, you guys, everybody in twenty. Mr. Mather needs coffee-and-cake money—who doesn’t?”

  The rest began to pull and peel.

  “Go ‘head, take it, Mather. Tomorrow night midnight—the Knickerbocker. You be there with bells on—and a gun.” Behind the lenses of his glasses, Damon Runyon’s eyes were bright as his diamond cufflinks. He grinned up and down the bar. “Whassay, boys? Twenty bucks a throw for the greatest show in town!” He waved his roll. “Now for the side bets!”

  “Tomorrow night, huh? Where?”

  “The Knickerbocker.”

  “Oh, yeah, the bar.” Bat was thinking. “All right, damn ‘em. We’ll give ‘em a hell of a lot more than they’ve bargained for— I’ll figure something out.”

  They had paused for a conference halfway up the stairs out of Toby’s Slide.

  “By the way,” said Bat. “That telephone call was from Grogan. He wants to see me. Now.”

  “Strong—arm.”

  “I reckon.”

  “You going?”

  “We’re going.”

  “It’s two in the morning. I’m tired.”