The Pushcart War

by Jean Merrill

  “Well, open up because I have to close you up,” said the Chief.

  “I’m very busy right now,” said Mr. Posey.

  The Pea-Tack Squad finally had to call the Fire Department. Fire engines came roaring down the street, bringing with them a large crowd.

  Two firemen took an axe to Posey’s door. When Mr. Posey saw the firemen chopping through his door, he and his wife began bombarding the firemen and the Pea-Tack Squad from the second floor with ten-pound sacks of dried peas.

  One fireman and two Squad men were knocked unconscious and another Squad man slipped on the dried peas that were rolling all over the sidewalk and broke his wrist.

  When the firemen finally broke through the door and began hacking their way through the one-hundred-pound sacks of peas Mr. Posey had stacked against it, a torrent of peas poured into the street. Hundreds of children had gathered by now, and began excitedly stuffing their pockets with peas.

  By the time the Squad men had fought their way through the barricade they were pretty mad. They seized Mr. Posey and his wife and tied them up—they had to, as the Poseys kept throwing sacks of peas at them. The Chief of the Pea-Tack Squad then demanded to know why Mr. Posey had barricaded his door.

  Mr. Posey, who was close to tears by now, told the truth. He said that he had closed up his place of business because he did not want the Pea-Tack Squad closing it up.

  Naturally, this was too simple an explanation to satisfy the Chief of the Pea-Tack Squad. “You manufacturing something illegal in here maybe?” he asked Mr. Posey. “Counterfeit money? Dynamite?”

  “Dynamite!” said Mr. Posey scornfully. “If I had dynamite, would I be wasting perfectly good sacks of peas, throwing them from a second-story window?

  “This is a one-hundred-percent-legal pea-packaging plant,” said Mr. Posey, “and all I have in this place is peas and five, ten, twenty-five, and one-hundred-pound sacks for packaging them. If you untie me, I will show you what kind of business I run.”

  “We’ll see for ourselves,” said the Chief of the Pea-Tack Squad, and he ordered two of his men to search Mr. Posey’s plant.

  The Squad men searched the plant from top to bottom, and they did not find anything but peas in five, ten, twenty-five, and one-hundred-pound sacks. One of the men suggested to the Chief that the sacks of peas might be a hiding place for something else, such as smuggled diamonds.

  “Diamonds!” said Mrs. Posey. “You think we are throwing diamonds out a second-story window? It’s bad enough we should waste so many peas.”

  The Chief, however, took out a jacknife and ripped open a dozen one-hundred-pound sacks of peas. Dried peas cascaded all over the room, and the Pea-Tack Squad found itself up to its ankles in peas.

  The Chief ordered the Squad to sift through the peas to make sure that there were no packets of diamonds or pearls or gold nuggets or maybe uranium concealed among the peas. The Squad man who had suggested the diamonds wished he had kept still.

  When his men found nothing, the Chief only grew more suspicious. He asked to have Mr. Posey’s business records brought to him.

  It was only after the Chief had leafed carefully through Mr. Posey’s books, which dated back thirty-one years, that the Chief began to feel a little ashamed. The books showed clearly that the only product Mr. Posey had sold during his long business career was dried peas.

  Most of the orders, the Chief saw, were for ten and twenty-five-pound sacks. He realized then that Mr. Posey had to work very hard at his small business to make a living and that he had made a wreck of Mr. Posey’s place of business for nothing.

  The Chief was about to close the order books and to apologize to Mr. Posey for causing him so much trouble, when his eye fell on Wenda Gambling’s order for one ton of peas. The Chief only noticed the entry because it was for such a large number of peas, as compared with Mr. Posey’s usual orders.

  “Not Wenda Gambling, the movie star?” said the Chief.

  “Why not?” said Mrs. Posey. “Posey’s Peas are a quality product.”

  “But what does a movie star want with a ton of peas?” asked the Chief.

  “How do I know?” said Mr. Posey. “Should I ask a customer’s private business? Maybe she is planting a pea farm for a hobby. Or maybe she is starting a pea soup plant.”

  “Or a pea shooter plant?” laughed the Chief.

  “Why not?” said Mr. Posey.

  “Why not,” agreed the Chief. “Well, Mr. Posey, I think we have bothered you long enough.” He untied Mr. Posey and his wife, and explained to Mr. Posey that even if he was running a one-hundred-percent-legal pea-packaging business, he would have to close his plant until the Pea Blockade was over.

  “What difference does it make now?” said Mr. Posey. “I cannot clean up the mess you have made of my plant in less than a month.”

  “Why not?” shouted the Chief suddenly. “Why not? Why not?”

  “Because it is a mess, that’s why,” yelled Mr. Posey.

  “No, no, no, no,” said the Chief. “Never mind the mess. I mean why not a pea shooter plant. For Wenda Gambling.”

  “What does Wenda Gambling want with a pea shooter plant?” asked Mr. Posey.

  “Why not?” the Chief said again. “I mean, who knows. Do you have the bill for Miss Wanda Gambling’s one ton of peas?”

  “I have a carbon copy,” said Mr. Posey.

  “Let me see it,” ordered the Chief.

  The bill was made out to Miss Wanda Gambling at the Plaza Hotel. However, the Chief noticed that the one ton of peas had not been delivered to Wanda Gambling’s apartment at the Plaza Hotel, but to Maxie Hammerman’s shop.

  The Chief pointed to Maxie’s address. “Aha!” he said.

  “Aha, what?” said Mr. Posey. He saw nothing odd about the order. He delivered peas to whatever address his customers requested.

  “Maxie Hammerman, that’s what,” said the Chief.

  “So?” said Mr. Posey. “Maybe they were a birthday present. Who is Maxie Hammerman?”

  It happened that the Chief of the Pea-Tack Squad was one of the few people in New York City, outside of the pushcart peddlers and Maxie’s personal friends, who knew who Maxie was.

  “Maxie Hammerman,” said the Chief thoughtfully,” is the Pushcart King.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  The Raid on Maxie Hammerman’s

  Maxie Hammerman had no warning that the Pea-Tack Squad was going to raid his shop. The Squad, of course, found the shooters and all the ammunition that Maxie had stored in his cellar.

  The Squad confiscated some five hundred pea shooters and half a ton of pea-tacks, and they arrested Maxie Hammerman. They could not arrest anyone else as they had no proof of anyone else being connected with the pea-tacks—except for Wenda Gambling, and she was in Africa for a week’s vacation.

  At the word of Maxie’s arrest, alarm spread among the pushcart peddlers. Fifty or sixty of them met after dark in a vacant lot under Manhattan Bridge to discuss the situation. They all expected to be arrested momentarily.

  “What is there to discuss?” asked Papa Peretz. “It was a good war while it lasted. But now it is only a matter of time.”

  General Anna, however, refused to panic.

  “What kind of talk am I hearing?” she demanded. “There is a little capture of some pea shooters, and suddenly every-body is surrendering. This is an army? I should be general of such an army?”

  “It is just that things do not look so good,” said Morris the Florist.

  “Good!” said General Anna scornfully. “Did you think a war was going to be like a picnic in the country? A nice time for everybody?

  “For weeks,” General Anna pointed out, “we have been pushing back the trucks. Victory after victory. So now we have one little setback.”

  “Little,” said Mr. Jerusalem. “A five-hundred-pea-shooter raid is little?”

  “Let them have the pea shooters,” said General Anna. “At the moment we are not using them.”

  “But they have M
axie, too,” Morris the Florist reminded General Anna.

  “They also have Frank the Flower,” said General Anna. “And Frank the Flower just sitting in jail is giving the trucks a great deal of trouble. A good man is a good man wherever he is sitting. And you can be sure that Maxie Hammerman is not sitting at Police Headquarters waiting to hear that we have surrendered.”

  “But what can we do?” asked Papa Peretz.

  “In the first place, don’t surrender,” said General Anna. “In the second place, I will think of something.”

  General Anna paced up and down under the bridge for five or ten minutes, thinking to herself.

  While General Anna was thinking, the confidence of the other peddlers began to return. Eddie Moroney and Carlos gathered up some scrap lumber and built a bonfire. Harry the Hot Dog pushed his cart alongside the fire and broke open several packages of hots to be toasted over the fire. Carlos began to sing a song in Spanish that he said his son had made up. It was called “The Boy Who Killed a Thousand Trucks.” There were thirty-six verses, all in Spanish, and everyone joined in on the chorus which went: “Bravo, bravo, bravo!”

  “Bravo!” said General Anna, as she joined the others around the campfire.

  “Have you thought of something?” asked Papa Peretz.

  “I am going to communicate with Maxie Hammerman,” said General Anna.

  “How?” asked Mr. Jerusalem.

  “I will send him a message in an apple,” said General Anna. “Lend me your knife, Eddie Moroney.”

  General Anna selected a large apple from her cart and with Eddie’s knife, she carefully cut the core out of the apple. Then she wrote a short message on a piece of paper and stuffed the paper in the apple. She cut a half-inch off the core and pushed the core back into place.

  “Like a cork in a bottle,” said Papa Peretz. “But how will we get the apple to Maxie?”

  “I will give it to the Police Commissioner to deliver,” said General Anna. “Is there a law an old lady shouldn’t send an apple to a friend who has the misfortune to be in jail?”

  “What is the message to Maxie about?” asked Eddie Moroney.

  “Strategy,” said General Anna firmly, and she took the apple down to police headquarters herself.

  The Police Commissioner was used to people sending messages to prisoners. He told General Anna that he would deliver the apple, but before he delivered it, he inspected it very carefully.

  When the Police Commissioner discovered that the core of the apple was loose, he pulled it out and read the message. However, he could not see that it would do any harm to deliver it.

  “Remove the message before you eat the apple,” the Police Commissioner advised when he gave the apple to Maxie.

  Maxie Hammerman smiled when he found the message in the apple. The message read: “Good Luck! How is the blister on your thumb? Your friend Anna.”

  Maxie wrote back: “Thanks! The blister is okay. Give my regards to everybody. Your friend Maxie Hammerman.”

  The Police Commissioner read the reply and said that he would see that it got to Maxie’s friend Anna.

  “What does Maxie say?” asked Papa Peretz when General Anna received the reply.

  “He sends regards,” said General Anna.

  “Is that all?” said Morris the Florist.

  “The rest is strategy,” said General Anna, which was encouraging to everyone.

  Meantime, Frank the Flower had his own strategy. As soon as he heard from the guards in the jail about the raid on Maxie’s shop, he sent a message to the Police Commissioner. He informed the Commissioner that all the ammunition that the Pea-Tack Squad had confiscated belonged to him, and that his friend Maxie Hammerman had been letting him keep it in his cellar as a favor.

  As soon as the Police Commissioner got Frank’s message, he came down to Frank’s jail cell to talk to Frank personally. Frank explained that he had been a good customer of Maxie’s for many years.

  “I have bought three pushcarts from Maxie Hammerman,” said Frank the Flower, “and he makes all my repairs.”

  The Police Commissioner was inclined to believe Frank the Flower. It seemed reasonable to the Police Commissioner that a man who had shot down 18,991 trucks might have five hundred pea shooters hidden away somewhere. In addition, the Police Commissioner was not anxious to find a widespread conspiracy as that would make him look like a big dope all over again, and also would be a lot of trouble.

  Unfortunately, the Pea-Tack Squad had found in Maxie’s shop not only the ammunition Frank the Flower said belonged to him, but Maxie’s big map with the red and gold pea-pins in it. The Police Commissioner had to admit that the map and certain notes that Maxie had made in the margins of the map did look suspicious.

  The notes (Maxie’s list of ace shots) read, “Harry the Hot Dog—230; Eddie Moroney—175; Morris the Florist—175; General Anna—160 (By Hand).”

  The Police Commissioner could not make any sense out of the notes, but he guessed that they were a code that might explain the map. After studying the map for some time, he asked that Maxie Hammerman be brought to his office for questioning.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  The Questioning of Maxie Hammerman

  The Police Commissioner questioned Maxie Hammerman in some detail. Maxie was very cooperative and did not refuse to answer any questions. The conversation, as recorded in the files of the New York City Police Department, went as follows:

  Police Commissioner: Frank the Flower says that he is a friend of yours.

  Maxie Hammerman: Why not? I got friends all over. As Pushcart King, I know everybody in the pushcart line.

  P.C.: Why do they call you the Pushcart King?

  M.H.: It is an honorary title. My father was Pushcart King, and I took over his business. My grandfather was also Pushcart King.

  P.C.: Frank the Flower says that you have been storing a few items for him in your cellar.

  M.H.: Why not? I like to do a favor for a friend if I can.

  P.C.: Would you say that Frank the Flower is a crackpot?

  M.H.: Why should I call a friend names? He has enough troubles.

  P.C.: I have here what appears to be a map of the city of New York.

  M.H.: Is it against the law to have a map of the city of New York?

  P.C.: No. But I would like to know why you have such a map in your shop.

  M.H.: Business reasons. It is a kind of business chart. As Pushcart King, I have to keep track of how business in the pushcart line is going.

  P.C.: What are all those pea-tacks doing in the map?

  M.H.: They are not pea-tacks. I have never seen a pea-tack in my life. Those are pea-pins in my map.

  P.C.: Never mind what you call them. They are exactly like pea-tacks we have been finding in the truck tires and exactly like the pea-tacks you have been storing in your cellar for Frank the Flower.

  M.H.: No, they are not. If you will examine them carefully, you will see that they are red, or once in a great while gold. Those you have found in the truck tires were white. At least, that is what I read in the newspapers.

  P.C.: Red, gold, or white, what are they doing in that map?

  M.H.: You have heard of “red-letter” days? Well, in my business I like to speak of “red-pin” days. It is the same idea. When a pushcart does a good business, I put a red pea-pin in the map where the business was good. If business is terrific, I put in a gold pea-pin. In this way, I know where in the city there has been the most activity.

  P.C.: It is curious that the most activity on your map is in the same locations where the trucks have had the most flat tires.

  M.H.: It stands to reason. When trucks break down, the traffic stops, so people cannot get to the stores uptown or downtown. When that happens, they buy from the pushcart closest at hand. Wherever there are flat tires, a pushcart does a good business.

  P.C.: What does it mean at the bottom of the map where you have written in the margin: “Harry the Hot Dog—230”?

  M.H.: I am oft
en writing notes to myself. That could be a note to remind me that I have promised Harry the Hot Dog that his cart, which he has perhaps left for repairs, will maybe be finished at 230—that is to say, at 2:30 p.m.

  P.C.: And “Eddie Moroney—175”? Maybe 1:75 p.m. is when Eddie Moroney’s cart will be fixed?

  M.H.: Certainly not. There is no such time as 1:75 p.m., as you should know. So “175” is more likely to be a note to remind me that I have told Eddie Moroney that for $1.75, I will put two new wheel spokes in his cart.

  P.C.: And “General Anna—160 (By Hand)”—what does that mean?

  M.H.: “By hand” is a peculiarity of General Anna. The note could be to remind me that I must fix Anna’s cart by hand. Anna does not want any electric tools used on her cart. The cart was handmade in the first place by my father forty-two years ago, and Anna insists “only hand tools,” such as the cart was built with in the first place. I can use a hammer, a saw, a screwdriver—as long as it is a hand tool. This is okay by me. I like working with my hands.

  The Police Commissioner reported to Mayor Cudd that he had thoroughly questioned Maxie Hammerman and that he could find no reason to keep him under arrest.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The Portlette Papers: The LEMA Master Plan & The Plot to Capture Maxie Hammerman (From the Shorthand Notes of Miriam Portlette)

  The truck drivers, when they heard that Maxie Hammerman had been released, were furious. At a meeting of The Three on May 17th, Big Moe, The Tiger and Louie Liver-green decided to take matters into their own hands. This involved a plot to kidnap Maxie Hammerman.

  This plot is known because a cleaning woman, a young lady named Miriam Portlette, was cleaning an office next to the LEMA office where The Three met to plot against Maxie. Miriam would have paid no attention to the discussion she heard through the open transom of Louie Livergreen’s head-quarters if it had not been that she was studying shorthand at an adult-education class on her nights off.