The Crimp

by Henry Leverage


The law as set down for sailing masters offers a fair measure of
protection for seamen.

Captain Gully, of the steam whaler Bowhead, was familiar with this law.
It prevented him from completing his crew. Men of any kind were scarce
in San Francisco. Cargoes rotted in ships’ holds while the wages of
ordinary seamen mounted to impossible heights.

The Bowhead was ready to steam for the Arctic and Bering Sea whaling
grounds. Her boat-steerers, harpooners, mates, engineers, and twelve of
a crew were aboard. Captain Gully dared not cat the anchor without
eighteen men before the mast. He needed six more hands in the
fo’c’s’le.

“Hansen,” he told his first mate, “lower the dingey and go to the
Blubber Room on East Street. Ask for Abie Kelly. Bring Abie out with
you.”

“The crimp?”

“You know him.”

“_Ja!_ I dank I know him.”

“Bring him to me!”

Hansen returned at nightfall. He steadied the bosun’s ladder that hung
from the taffrail and watched Abie Kelly climb to the deck.

Captain Gully greeted the crimp like a long-lost son. They descended to
the whaler’s cabin while Hansen was hooking the dingey’s bow to a
dangling fall.

“To be brief as possible,” said Gully after pouring out a generous
portion of rum, “I want six men before midnight, when the tide turns.”

“What kind of men, cappin?”

“Any kind, so long as they are husky--Chinks, Kanakas, dock-rats,
mission-stiffs.”

Abie the Crimp, as he was known along the Barbary Coast, upended the
rum, wiped his mouth, and stared at the skipper of the Bowhead.

Captain Gully was tall, thin, and weather-beaten. Abie was slight. He
had hawk eyes, black as beads; a hawk’s long nose and a disappearing
chin. He had been born in San Francisco. His mother owned the dive
known from the Golden Gate to Vladivostok as the Blubber Room.

“Cap,” said Abie, “I’d like to assist you, but you know the law.”

“Time was when you didn’t speak to me of any law.”

“That time is gone, cap. The Seamen’s Union is hostile to shanghaiin’.
The crews of all ships going out must sign before the proper
authorities.”

Captain Gully knew Abie’s former price.

“There’s a hundred dollars advance for every man you bring aboard who
won’t care what he signs.”

“Blood money?”

“Yes. I’ll pay it to you out of hand.” Captain Gully touched his right
breast, where a bulging pocket showed.

Abie the Crimp needed money. Six hundred dollars was a fair figure to
pay for six men.

“There’s only one way to get them,” he said.

“What is that way, Abie?”

“Th’ same way I fixed up old Cappin Pike of th’ Norwhale, season before
last. He went north with twenty-two good men. I furnished them all
except three.”

There was pride in Abie’s voice. Captain Gully worked on this. He
suggested:

“I only want six. Why, that ain’t many for a runner like you.”

“Not many? I should say it was, the way things are ashore--Seamen’s
Union, Coaster Unions, Shipping Board paying eighty dollars a month for
ordinary sailors. No, it isn’t many, but they are going to be hard to
get. Make it one hundred and twenty-five dollars a man.”

“How are you going about getting them aboard, Abie?”

“A new idea with me. I’m a government detective, see. I know the
hangouts and scatters of all the crooks in San Francisco. I know where
they’re coinin’ the queer. I know of a few stills. I heard yesterday of
two new hop joints right on Dupont Street.”

“You’ll represent yourself as an officer of the law?”

“I’ve got a gold badge. I’ll make the pinch, turn them over to an
assistant detective who will bring them out to this ship, and you can
do the rest. They’ll be glad enough for getaway when I get done with
them.”

“I’ll make it one hundred and twenty-five, Abie, if you hurry.”

The crimp paused with one foot on the ladder which led to the
quarter-deck of the Bowhead.

“There’s a detective in town, cap, nobody ever saw as far as I can find
out. His name is James Keenon. They’re afraid as hell of him. I’ll be
Keenon to-night. I’ll make six quiet pinches and send the men out to
you.”

“But they might start trouble before they sign on for the voyage.”

Abie the Crimp laid his hand over his heart.

“Cap,” he declared, “there’s men ashore--Chinks and crooks--who would
pay you five hundred dollars to get away from Keenon. See the point?”

Captain Gully nodded.

“All right, I’ll be waiting, Abie. Do you need a boat?”

“Lend me your dingey. Let me have that mate, Hansen. He’s got a pair of
blue pants on--just the thing to imitate a copper’s.”

“Where will the boat be if I want it?”

“At the foot of Meigg’s wharf.”

“What time are you going to send out the first men?”

“God knows, cap; but it’s an awful crooked part of town where I’m going
to make those phony pinches in.”

Captain Gully followed Abie up the ladder. Hansen took the skipper’s
orders, touched his cap, pulled the dingey alongside the rudder-post,
and motioned for the crimp to slide down.

The seaman hitched the painter to a pile at the foot of Meigg’s wharf
after a swift row over the bay, and followed the gliding figure of Abie
along East Street until the Blubber Room was reached.

“We’ll get some hardware,” explained Abie. “Come in the back room. Sit
down. If you want a drink, tell my mother you’re with me.”

The crimp appeared within ten minutes. A black, soft-brimmed hat hid
his sharp eyes. A long raincoat reached to his heels. He looked the part
of a sleuth, except his weak chin.

“Where are you going, Abie?” asked his mother.

Abie the Crimp leaned over the bar and touched his lips to a muscular
arm. He was a good son in many ways.

“We’ll try a place I heard of in Jackson Street,” he told Hansen after
they had climbed the stairs from the Blubber Room. “Here, take these
handcuffs and this badge. It’s a building inspector’s. Nobody will know
the difference where we’re going.”

The seaman crammed two pairs of rusty handcuffs in the side pockets of
his pea-jacket. He pinned the badge on his vest.

“I’m James Keenon,” explained Abie. “No crook or Chink knows Keenon in
this town. He’s the man behind. He works up the case, scouts around,
and lets somebody else do the pinching. He don’t testify at the trials.
He’s the brains. The detectives you hear about are his tools.”

“I dank that’s a good way,” said Hansen.

“Of course it’s good--for me! All I have got to do is say I’m Keenon,
flash my badge, and you make the arrest.”

Abie opened his raincoat. He ran a finger through an armhole of his
vest. A gold insignia flashed beneath the shielding coat as the crimp
pulled out a suspender strap.

“That’s where all the good ones wear it,” he explained. “But you want
yours in sight. You’re the tool, to-night.”

The mate was a big man. He would have made two of Abie. He lacked the
crimp’s energy and assurance. He dropped back one stride and followed
Abie up a hill, through an alley and over a roof.

“Nothin’ doing,” said Abie after glancing at three windows. “This used
to be a creepin’ joint where sailors were trimmed. The creepers have
crawled away. Guess the police were wise.”

The crimp led Hansen through a maze of courts, covered arches and
hallways. They started descending cellar steps. Musty bales loomed
before them. It was the place of Wan Fat, dealer in li-she nuts.

Abie recalled a brief-caught conversation which he had overheard in the
rear of the Blubber Room. Wan Fat, and his brother Sing Fat, observed
the law. Next door, however, lived Hong Kee, who was known to have a
supply of choice Victoria opium. The matter of the opium was common
gossip along the Barbary Coast. Hong Kee did not know Abie.

The crimp’s pride had been awakened by Captain Gully. Here was a
chance. He tiptoed between Wan Fat’s bales of nuts, drew Hansen to his
side, and pointed to a low door.

“Bust through there,” he whispered. “You won’t need no gat. I’ll go all
the way up-stairs. We’ll trap the rats.”

Hong Kee and two of his patrons were enjoying themselves around a
layout tray when Abie, armed with a rusty revolver, dropped through a
roof-scuttle and Hansen broke down the door.

The placid faces of the Chinamen underwent several changes after the
crimp ripped open a chair’s cushion and pulled out five toys of opium.
He had learned of the hiding-place while listening to the conversation
of two hop fiends in his mother’s dive.

He convinced the Celestials that he meant business. He explained that
he was the much-feared Keenon. The mere possession of five cans of hop
called for years in prison. Hong Kee and two coolie friends were taken
by a roundabout route to Meigg’s wharf. Hansen did not need to handcuff
them.

Captain Gully, on watch, held up three fingers when Abie was rowed from
the dingey whaler. The crimp had half filled the contract.

“I dank it will be easy to get the others,” said the mate, whose slow
brain had finally grasped Abie’s big idea.

“We should have no trouble at all,” Abie answered. He relaxed into
silence and was rowed ashore.

Rain fell athwart the city. A mist rested on top of Knob Hill. Abie,
hidden beneath the slouch hat and raincoat, entered several opium dens
in hopes of catching some one napping. He was recognized in one of
these. This would not do. He was supposed to be Keenon, a detective.

“We’ll try for a big haul,” he told the faithful mate. “We’ll break in
where men are making money.”

The method pursued by the crimp to find the location of the coiners he
had in mind was an involved detour which took all of an hour of
precious time.

Mother Kelly, on duty as barmaid at the Blubber Room, supplied the
necessary information. The Yetsky Wop, who had fortunately tried to
pass a smooth two-bit piece on Abie’s mother the day before, had never
met Abie. His address was on Lower Mission Street, between a Chinese
laundry and a ship’s outfitter.

The crimp acted energetically. He dragged the mate out from a crowd
that surrounded a soap-box preacher at Mission and East Street. He
crossed the sidewalk, loosened his revolver, and started mounting
flights of stairs which were steep as the shrouds to a topmast.

The Yetsky Wop, a meek-eyed Italian and his assistant coiner, had a
crucible on a stove and three plaster-of-Paris molds ready for filling.
Both raised their arms when Abie, backed by the mate, came around by a
fire-escape.

The crimp took no chances with the coiners. Yetsky’s brother was known
in the city as Angel Face. He was credited with five murders.

Hansen securely handcuffed the prisoners. He waited while Abie searched
the room. A plating outfit, a box of copper and zinc, and a double
handful of smooth quarters were hidden beneath the floor.

“I’m Keenon of the Secret Service!” said Abie. “My man will take you
out to the revenue cutter. You go to the Federal prison.”

Yetsky and his brother had feared Detective Keenon for over four years.
They were plastic as their own plaster-of-Paris in the mate’s hands.
They jumped to his proposal of letting them get away on a whaler. Had
not they been caught red-handed? It was bad enough to have queer money
in one’s possession, but double worse to have both the money and the
molds. The sentence given by the Federal courts on similar charges had
been five years for each offense.

Abie waited at the shore end of Meigg’s wharf for the mate to return
from the whaler Bowhead. He had done remarkably well in the matter of
getting Captain Gully a crew. There remained one more man to secure.
The crimp had his pride. He had promised six.

The rain was a dampener to his hopes of getting this man. It would be
useless to send out anybody except one who feared the law more than a
whaling voyage.

Yetsky, Angel Face, Hong Kee and the two coolies would sign any paper
at midnight. They did not need to be urged to leave San Francisco.

“Having put the fear of Keenon into their hearts,” Abie told Hansen,
when the mate came ashore, “we’ll proceed to find the last man. What
did Captain Gully say?”

“I dank he say nothin’. He is sitting on the booby-hatch holding down
the crew.”

Abie led the mate toward Mission Street. The two men paused a moment in
the shelter of an awning. The soap-box preacher had guided his flock of
derelicts into the Beacon Room.

The Beacon Room was a long saloon made over into a mission hall. The
windows were silvered with Rochelle salts. A tramp stood at the
entrance. He shivered in the rain, opened the door, and went inside.
The sound of voices came through the transom. They were pitched in many
broken keys.

“Holy Joe’s Place,” was the name given to the Beacon Light by the
denizens of the Barbary Coast. Holy Joe had long been a figure of
prominence along the water-front. He took in seamen, runaway
apprentices from British ships, and the flotsam of the West Coast. He
fed them, prayed for them, and sent them forth strengthened in body and
spirit.

Abie knew Holy Joe by sight. The missionary and preacher had frequently
visited the Blubber Room. It was rumored that he was not averse to
taking a drink.

There existed an antipathy between the crimp and the preacher. Abie
Kelly believed Holy Joe to be a sickening fraud. He had told his mother
so. The missionary’s visits to dives and saloons led the crimp to
presume he was seeking whisky. Moreover, on one occasion, Abie had seen
Holy Joe staggering.

“I’ve got my man!” said the crimp. “I won’t need you any more, Hansen.
Go to the boat and wait for me.”

“I dank I better stay around.”

Abie drew himself up to his full height of five feet four inches. “I’ve
my man located,” he said. “He’s the preacher--Holy Joe!”

The mate shook his blond head. “Did he break a law?”

“Break th’ law? He’s lucky to stay out of San Quentin--what I know
about him.”

Abie knew nothing more about Holy Joe than the Barbary Coast gossip
that the missionary was a gad-about and a nuisance. He was anxious to
get rid of the mate. The time was short for him to supply Captain Gully
with the sixth man.

“At the foot of Meigg’s Wharf.”

Hansen strode stiffly toward East Street. He vanished around the
corner. Abie dived toward the Blubber Room. He went through the back
door, reached under an old icebox, and pulled out a tiny vial. It was
filled with a mixture of chloral-hydrate and morphia--two drugs which
would produce a deep sleep if taken in quantity.

Mother Kelly supplied Abie with a half-pint of bar whisky. Into this
the crimp poured a tablespoon of the drug. He estimated the knockout
dose for an average man to be fifteen drops of chloral and morphia. He
had some experience in that line. The flask he pocketed and carried
back to the Beacon Light was known as a “shoo-fly.”

Abie’s new idea was to get rid of Holy Joe and satisfy Captain Gully at
the same time. His professional pride had changed to the soul-pleasing
belief that the skipper of the Bowhead should be handed something as a
reminder of the old days of shanghaiing. It would not be good ethics to
let him get off without a hot one. The hot one being Holy Joe, who most
certainly would make trouble.

From Abie’s view-point all men were equal. He slipped into the Mission
Hall like an eel. He took a shaky seat between a frowsled seafarer and
a water-rat. He stared over the swaying heads of the congregation to
where Holy Joe loomed upon a platform.

The preaching went on after a suggestive pause. The presence of Abie,
the crimp, had almost brought forth a remark from the missionary. He
recognized Mother Kelly’s unsavory son. He changed the text and spoke
of prodigals.

Abie was all eyes. He pretended to be deeply interested. Back in his
brain his plan took form. He reviewed exactly what he was going to say
to Holy Joe. It would take finesse to land the last man on the deck of
the whale-ship. The service closed with the hymn:

“Salvation, Salvation--” changed to “There’s a Light in the Window.”

The meeting began to disperse. Abie waited until Holy Joe descended the
platform and started down the aisle.

“A minute, preacher,” he said. “You know me, don’t you?”

Holy Joe, so called along the water-front, dropped a lambent glance
upon Abie’s glossy hair.

“How are you, boy?” he asked. “I’m glad you came to-night. I hope to--”

“Cut that,” said Abie, remembering his role. “You see, I came to you
because you was the only man who could help.”

“Help what?”

Abie paused a suggestive minute. He stared around the rapidly emptying
mission room.

“There’s a man dyin’ out in th’ fo’c’s’le of th’ whaler Bowhead,
preacher. He ain’t got nobody to pray for him. His name is Yetsky. He
was hit by a Chink. He’ll die and they’ll throw him overboard to th’
fishes.”

Holy Joe, as Abie the Crimp expected, became interested.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said, glancing at his flock going
out the door.

“No! It’s life or death, preacher. The Yetsky Wop--”

“The Yetsky Wop?”

“Sure, preacher. D’ye know who I mean now?”

“Yes. I’ve been watching his progress for years. He’s one of my
particular--converts.”

“He’s in bad now. Keenon, of the Secret Service, pinched him for makin’
queer money. The detective let him go when he promised to stay aboard
the whaler until it went out.”

The lambent light in Holy Joe’s eyes died to a restrospective glitter.
Abie, keenly alert, detected a resolute movement of the missionary’s
lips. They closed in a straight line.

“I’ve heard of Keenon, Abie. So he arrested one of my converts? That is
too bad!”

“Got him dead, bang right! Caught him with th’ goods--molds and copper
an’ a platin’ outfit. Then this Keenon lets him go.”

“Were there any witnesses to the raid, Abie?”

“Sure! A mate of th’ Bowhead saw th’ whole thing.”

“What is the mate’s name?”

“Hansen.”

“How--did the Yetsky Wop get injured?”

“A Chink hit him on th’ head. The Chink’s name is Hong Kee.”

Abie thought he might as well pile matters on thick enough to make sure
of getting Holy Joe out in the dingey. Hong Kee was a well known
Barbary Coast character. The crimp was not surprised when Holy Joe
started buttoning up a long black coat and looking about for a hat.

“You’re comin’ with me, preacher?”

“Most certainly! I shall be of some service, I hope. You haven’t
explained how Hong Kee came to go to the whaler.”

“Oh, Keenon caught him with five cans o’ hop. It was good hop. I saw it
with my own eyes.”

Abie was the only man in San Francisco who knew where the five cans
were hidden at that particular minute. He intended selling them when
the Bowhead was well out from shore soundings.

“You get me,” he told Holy Joe after they left the mission hall. “You
get me, preacher, when I tell you that I am Keenon. It’s not generally
known.”

The missionary did show some surprise.

“Why, I never suspected that,” he said.

“Are you the government detective?”

Abie opened his coat, ran a thumb within the armhole of his checked
vest, and showed the gold insignia that was pinned to his suspender
strap.

“United States Secret Service,” whispered Holy Joe. “I never knew it,
Abie.”

“Sure! I pinched those guys to-night, then I changed m’ mind an’ let
’em go--to th’ whaler. They started fightin’ among themselves--there’s
some more out there--an’ Captain Gully sent word to me that Yetsky Wop
was dyin’ an’ needed a preacher. I thought of you.”

Abie searched for sign of Hansen at the shore end of Meigg’s wharf. He
whistled shrilly. The mate, sleepy and damp, emerged from the shelter
of a shed.

“Right out to th’ Bowhead!” commanded the crimp. “I’ve kept my promise
to Captain Gully. This is the man!”

The mate was a silent soul. He started rowing with long whalerman’s
strokes.

Abie sat on the after thwart with Holy Joe. They faced the seaman whose
glance was directed toward the Market Street ferry-house.

The Bowhead was some little distance from the shore. It showed a pale
riding-light on the foremast. No other ship was near the whaler.

“So you are Keenon?” said the missionary suddenly.

“Bet I am, preacher! Even my mother don’t know it.”

“It’s a bad thing for a son to keep anything from his mother.”

“Got to! My life’s always in danger.” Abie reached into his hip-pocket,
brought out the half-pint of whisky, and pulled the cork with his
teeth.

“Have some?”

Holy Joe moistened his straight lips. Abie could not see the preacher’s
expression on account of the darkness. A light smacking indicated that
the bait was acceptable. Holy Joe had been seen in too many dives and
saloons along the coast of Barbary to refuse a drink.

“With my blessing,” said the preacher, handing back the flask.

Abie pretended to take an enormous swallow. He pressed his tongue over
the mouth of the bottle. Even then he tasted the bitterness of the
chloral-hydrate and morphia. He wondered how Holy Joe stood the
decoction. The preacher commenced swaying on the thwart. He rocked the
small boat slightly. Hansen glanced at him.

“Abie,” said Holy Joe in a low voice, “I’m not pleased with that
whisky.”

“Oh, it’s all right, preacher. You know we make it in the cellar. We
got a private still. You see, me being a government man allows us to do
it.”

“It was bitter, Abie.”

The crimp realized that he would have to be careful if he wanted to
deliver Captain Gully’s last man. Holy Joe was apparently going under.
There was a quarter-knot to be rowed before the Bowhead could be
boarded.

“What’s the matter, preacher?” he asked. “Are you prayin’?”

“I’m thinking, Abie, of what you told me about Yetsky Wop. Did Hong Kee
strike him with provocation?”

“The Chink ran amuck. He tried to kill Yetsky’s brother.”

“Angel Face?”

“Sure! The one they want for five murders. I found him with Yetsky when
I made the pinch. I’m going to let them go. I’ve changed heart,
preacher.”

Holy Joe wound his arms around Abie’s waist, and lurched to an erect
position. Abie experienced the sensation of having his pockets picked.
He wondered if the preacher had been seeking the flask of whisky. It
was a strange action for a missionary. He attributed it to the effects
of at least fifteen drops of chloral-hydrate.

The dingey swung its bow. Hansen drew in an oar. The dark outlines of
the Bowhead were ahead. Captain Gully stood on the forepeak. He lowered
a bo’swain’s ladder.

“Up we go,” said Abie. “Go right into the fo’c’s’le, preacher. There’s
Yetsky Wop an’ Angel Face an’ Hong Kee waitin’ for you.”

Captain Gully unbattened the booby-hatch. He stepped aside. He leaned
against a pinrail. Holy Joe, staggering and mumbling, crossed the
whaler’s planks, turned, and descended the greasy steps.

Abie grinned at the pleased skipper. “Six,” he whispered. He reached
for the rusty revolver which should have been in his pocket.

He had lost it during the boat ride! It was the weapon he intended
using on the missionary. A light tap behind the ear would finish the
work of the narcotic.

Abie was resourceful. He thought in split seconds. He heard voices
below. One was Yetsky Wop’s.

“My last man’s all right,” he assured the captain. “I’ll put him in a
bunk.”

The scene in the fo’c’s’le of the whaler was not exactly to the crimp’s
liking. He turned from the foot of the ladder and searched the gloom
for Holy Joe.

The missionary struck a match. The yellow flame passed from bunk to
bunk. Evil, vice-stamped faces, answered the search. The match went
out. Abie, crouching with a belaying-pin in his hand, suddenly felt his
wrist gripped with compelling fingers.

He writhed. His arm was bent back. Holy Joe’s voice was low and
demanding.

“Drop that! Now turn. Now go up the ladder. Follow me. Don’t twist.
It’s no use at all, Abie.”

The astonished skipper of the Bowhead was a witness to Abie’s forced
exit from the booby-hatch. Holy Joe, so called along the Barbary Coast,
hurled the crimp against the fife-rail on the foremast.

The preacher’s smile was bland. He swiftly closed the hatch. He drove
in a holding-pin with his right heel.

He turned to Abie:

“I didn’t drink the knockout drops. I poured it down my shirt-front. I
didn’t leave the mission because I like the atmosphere of this whaler.
You see, I _am_ interested in Yetsky Wop and Yetsky’s brother, Angel
Face, the coiner. He is wanted by the government. I’ll be promoted for
capturing him.”

Abie did not need to be told Holy Joe’s right name. He pieced events
together. They dove-tailed. The reason for the missionary showing
interest in Yetsky Wop--his habit of visiting the hangouts of
crooks--the adept manner in which he picked pockets, all pointed to a
crushing conclusion.

“You’re Detective Keenon!” declared the crimp.

The Secret Service man turned up the lower left-hand corner of his vest
and showed the insignia of his office.

He said with the politest kind of a bow, after glancing at the hatch:

“Thanks, Abie!”


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 13, 1920 issue
of Argosy All-Story Weekly.]