Now Lasky was no friend of Billy Byrne; but the officer
had been born and raised in the district and was attached
to the Twenty-eighth Precinct Station on Lake Street near
Ashland Avenue, and so was part and parcel of the natural
possession of the gang. Billy felt that it was entirely ethical
to beat up a cop, provided you confined your efforts to
those of your own district; but for a bunch of yaps from
south of Twelfth Street to attempt to pull off any such
coarse work in his bailiwick--why it was unthinkable.
A hero and rescuer of lesser experience than Billy Byrne
would have rushed melodramatically into the midst of the
fray, and in all probability have had his face pushed completely
through the back of his head, for the guys from
Twelfth Street were not of the rah-rah-boy type of hoodlum
--they were bad men, with an upper case B. So Billy crept
stealthily along in the shadows until he was quite close to
them, and behind them. On the way he had gathered up a
cute little granite paving block, than which there is nothing
in the world harder, not even a Twelfth Street skull. He was
quite close now to one of the men--he who was wielding
the officer's club to such excellent disadvantage to the officer
--and then he raised the paving block only to lower it
silently and suddenly upon the back of that unsuspecting head
--"and then there were two.
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