‘So where do they get what they need?’
Saddler laughed, though there was not much evidence of humour in it. ‘They get their supplies from the police. The captains buy the stuff from the legitimate supplier and sell it on to the brothels for a profit.’
‘Jesus!’ Blackstone said.
‘Then there are the opium dens — there are ten thousand of them in New York, and they all have to pay a bribe. Pushcart pedlars give patrolmen three dollars a week to stay in business. The sail makers on South Street pay just to hang out the canvas banners advertising their wares. The inspectors and captains take the biggest cut of the money, but everybody gets their share.’
‘Is that why you joined the Detective Bureau?’ Blackstone asked. ‘To get away from all that?’
Saddler laughed again. ‘Hell, no, Mr Blackstone! The reason that I joined the Detective Bureau was because there was even more money to be made there than there was in uniform.’
‘How?’
‘By working the rich areas, rather than the poor. See, Inspector Byrnes, who was the first Chief of Detectives-’
‘Mr Blackstone knows who he was,’ Meade interrupted.
‘Inspector Byrnes figured out that the people who really needed protection — by which he meant the people who could really afford protection — were the bankers and stockbrokers in the Wall Street area. So one of the first things he did after he was appointed was to ask the brokers if they’d give him an office right there in the Stock Exchange — and seeing how that could work to their advantage, they agreed immediately. The next thing the inspector did was draw an invisible line around the area and send the word out on to the streets that no criminals would be allowed to operate inside it.’
‘Well, no common criminals, anyways,’ Meade said.
‘That’s right,’ Saddler agreed. ‘The criminals in wing collars and top hats, who worked in banks and brokerage houses, could come and go as they damn well pleased.’
The sergeant suddenly stopped talking, and glanced nervously over his shoulder.
‘Something wrong?’ Meade asked.
‘I just got the feeling, for a second there, that we were being watched,’ Saddler said.
‘And are we?’
‘No, I don’t think so. It must just be my nerves playing me up. But, hell, who wouldn’t be nervous in my position?’
‘Who indeed?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Do you think you can stay long enough to finish your story?’
‘If it don’t take too long,’ Saddler said. He paused, then admitted, ‘I’ve forgotten what I was saying.’
‘Byrnes drew an invisible line around the Wall Street area,’ Blackstone prompted.
‘Oh, yeah. But there’s no point in drawing that line if you ain’t going to enforce it — especially in a place like Wall Street, where everybody knows there are such rich pickings — so enforcement was just what the Detective Bureau spent most of its time doing. Course, paying so much attention to the Wall Street area meant that we didn’t solve much crime anywhere else — but why should we, when there was no profit in it?’
‘Just how much profit was there in guarding Wall Street?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Plenty, especially for Inspector Byrnes. See, the sergeants just got cash from the brokers for protecting them, but what the inspector got was tips about which stocks to buy — and since the system’s crooked, that advice was never wrong and those stocks always went up.’
‘How much money did he make?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Hard to say for sure, but the Lexow Committee found one bank account of his with three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it. They asked him to explain how a man who earned less than three thousand dollars a year could end up with so much money, and he couldn’t explain it at all. But even then, he wasn’t arrested. Even then, he hung on for a couple more years before resigning from the force.’
‘You’re being very frank about what you and others have done,’ Blackstone said.
‘Yes, sir, I am,’ Saddler agreed earnestly.
‘Why?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Tell Mr Blackstone about what happened to you to make you a new man,’ Meade suggested.
‘I heard the Reverend Parkhurst preach,’ Saddler said simply.
‘Reverend Parkhurst?’ Blackstone repeated.
‘He was the pastor who stirred up all the fuss about corruption and led to the Lexow Committee being formed,’ Meade explained.
‘The reason I happened to hear the reverend speak was that I was on the tail of this judas goat. .’ Saddler continued.
‘This what?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Judas goat. It was another one of Inspector Byrnes’ ideas. See, we didn’t always charge everybody we arrested — not even all the guilty ones. Sometimes, we’d let a suspect go, but we’d follow him, and see who he talked to. Then we’d rearrest him, and work him over until he gave us something on the people he’d been associating with.’
‘Something real — or something he’d simply made up to avoid further beating?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Didn’t really matter, as long as it gave us grounds to arrest them. Then we’d let the judas goat go again, as long as he promised to give evidence against his friends. You see how it works?’
‘Yes,’ Blackstone said. ‘By using the judas goat, you make several arrests instead of just the one.’
‘And that looks good on paper,’ Saddler said. ‘And not just on paper, but in the newspapers. Most of the citizens of New York thought Inspector Byrnes was their saviour. And only the Detective Bureau — and the poor devils we’d arrested — knew the real truth.’
‘You were telling us about hearing the Reverend Parkhurst preach,’ Meade reminded him.
‘Oh, yeah. The goat realized I was on his tail, so he dived into the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. And I followed him, and sat down beside him. And do you know what I said to him — right there in the House of God?’
‘No.’
‘I said to him, God forgive me, “When this service is over, you’d better tell me something I can use — or I’m gonna break both your arms.” Then Reverend Parkhurst stepped into the pulpit, and even before he started to speak, it was like a bright shining light had entered my world. And as he spoke — about how there was all this vice in this modern Gomorrah, and about how the police were feathering their own nests instead of stamping it out — that light grew brighter and brighter. And when the service was over, I looked afresh at the poor wretch next to me, who’d been driven by poverty to become what he was, and who I’d been determined to abuse. And I wept. I left that church a new man, Mr Blackstone, and, though I may be guilty of the sin of pride in even saying this, a better man.’
‘Is that when you met Inspector O’Brien?’ Blackstone asked.
‘It’s when I sought out Inspector O’Brien,’ Saddler replied. ‘I was now a true believer, floating in the midst of a sea of heathens. I’d already given all the money I’d made through graft and corruption to the Reverend Parkhurst’s church, but I knew that, without support, I would slip back into that trough of depravity from which the Reverend Parkhurst’s words had raised me. And I also knew that only one man could give me that support — Inspector O’Brien.’
‘And so, a legendary team was born,’ Meade said.
Saddler laughed again, bitterly this time.
‘Legendary?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t think so. Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the known world, was a legend. George Washington, who brought America its freedom, was a legend. And what have we done? Built up cases — against a handful of patrolmen — which were so strong that even a Tammany-appointed judge couldn’t ignore the evidence. Sent one sergeant to jail, and forced one captain into retirement. That’s no more than skimming the frothy top off the scum. But what drove us on was the hope that one day — one day — we would land that really big case which would truly shake this city to its rotten core.’