When Susan and Maud were in the street again, Susan declared that she must have another drink."I can't offer to pay for one for you," said she to Maud."I've almost no money.And Imust spend what I've got for whiskey before I--can--can--start in."Maud began to laugh, looked at Susan, and was almost crying instead."I can lend you a fiver," she said."Life's hell--ain't it? My father used to have a good business--tobacco.The trust took it away from him--and then he drank--and mother, she drank, too.And one day he beat her so she died--and he ran away.Oh, it's all awful! But I've stopped caring.I'm stuck on Jim--and another little fellow he don't know about.For God's sake don't tell him or he'd have me pinched for doing business free.I get full every night and raise old Nick.Sometimes I hate Jim.I've tried to kill him twice when I was loaded.But a girl's got to have a backer with a pull.And Jim lets me keep a bigger share of what Imake than some fellows.Freddie's pretty good too, they say--except when he's losing on the races or gets stuck on some actress that's too classy to be shanghaied--like you was--and that makes him cough up."Maud went on to disclose that Jim usually let her have all she made above thirty dollars a week, and in hard weeks had sometimes let her beg off with fifteen.Said she:
"I can generally count on about fifteen or twenty for myself.
Us girls that has backers make a lot more money than the girls that hasn't.They're always getting pinched too--though they're careful never to speak first to a man._We_ can go right up and brace men with the cops looking on.A cop that'd touch us would get broke--unless we got too gay or robbed somebody with a pull.But none of our class of girls do any robbing.There's nothing in it.You get caught sooner or later, and then you're down and out."While Susan was having two more drinks Maud talked about Freddie.She seemed to know little about him, though he was evidently one of the conspicuous figures.He had started in the lower East Side--had been leader of one of those gangs that infest tenement districts--the young men who refuse to submit to the common lot of stupid and badly paid toil and try to fight their way out by the quick methods of violence instead of the slower but surer methods of robbing the poor through a store of some kind.These gangs were thieves, blackmailers, kidnapers of young girls for houses of prostitution, repeaters.
Most of them graduated into habitual jailbirds, a few--the cleverest--became saloon-keepers and politicians and high-class professional gamblers and race track men.
Freddie, Maud explained, was not much over twenty-five, yet was already well up toward the place where successful gang leaders crossed over into the respectable class--that is, grafted in "big figures." He was a great reader, said Maud, and had taken courses at some college."They say he and his gang used to kill somebody nearly every night.Then he got a lot of money out of one of his jobs--some say it was a bank robbery and some say they killed a miner who was drunk with a big roll on him.
Anyhow, Freddie got next to Finnegan--he's worth several millions that he made out of policy shops and poolrooms, and contracts and such political things.So he's in right--and he's got the brains.He's a good one for working out schemes for making people work hard and bring him their money.And everybody's afraid of him because he won't stop at nothing and is too slick to get caught."Maud broke off abruptly and rose, warned by the glazed look in Susan's eyes.Susan was so far gone that she had difficulty in not staggering and did not dare speak lest her uncertain tongue should betray her.Maud walked her up and down the block several times to give the fresh air a chance, then led her up to a man who had looked at them in passing and had paused to look back."Want to go have a good time, sweetheart?" said Maud to the man.He was well dressed, middle-aged, with a full beard and spectacles, looked as if he might be a banker, or perhaps a professor in some college.
"How much?" asked he.
"Five for a little while.Come along, sporty.Take me or my lady friend.""How much for both of you?"
"Ten.We don't cut rates.Take us both, dearie.I know a hotel where it'd be all right.""No.I guess I'll take your lady friend." He had been peering at Susan through his glasses."And if she treats me well, I'll take her again.You're sure you're all right? I'm a married man.""We've both been home visiting for a month, and walking the chalk.My, but ma's strict! We got back tonight," said Maud glibly."Go ahead, Queenie.I'll be chasing up and down here, waiting." In a lower tone: "Get through with him quick.Strike him for five more after you get the first five.He's a blob."When Susan came slinking through the office of the hotel in the wake of the man two hours later, Maud sprang from the little parlor."How much did you get?" she asked in an undertone.
Susan looked nervously at the back of the man who was descending the stairway to the street."He said he'd pay me next time,"she said."I didn't know what to do.He was polite and----"Maud seized her by the arm."Come along!" she cried.As she passed the desk she said to the clerk, "A dirty bilker! Tryin'
to kiss his way out!"
"Give him hell," said the clerk.
Maud, still gripping Susan, overtook the man at the sidewalk.
"What do you mean by not paying my lady friend?" she shouted.
"Get out!" said the man in a low tone, with an uneasy glance round."If you annoy me I'll call the police.""If you don't cough up mighty damn quick," cried Maud so loudly that several passers-by stopped, "I'll do the calling myself, you bum, and have you pinched for insulting two respectable working girls." And she planted herself squarely before him.
Susan drew back into the shadow of the wall.
Up stepped Max, who happened to be standing outside his place.
"What's the row about?" he demanded.
"These women are trying to blackmail me," said the man, sidling away.
