Books: Sentimental Toughs

SIGNING OFF—John T. McIntyre—Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

Till his 65th year, Philadelphia Author John T. McIntyre wrote gimcrack historical novels and Broadway melodramas. Then he staked a claim on Philadelphia’s underworld and immediately struck pay dirt. The minor crooks, racketeers, pickpockets, cardsharps, pimps, stools, finks of Steps Going Down (1936) and Ferment (1937) were as tough as shoe leather, as American as a tabloid. In Signing Off, however, Author McIntyre’s claim begins to look as if it were rapidly being worked out.

Towards his petty criminals John McIntyre shows benevolent amusement. Boys, he implies, will be boys. Sam was just a good-looking, friendly kid selling pop in a ball park until Art, who knew his way around, took him aside and showed him a few angles. Then he went up fast. He acquired a few attendants: Perry and Cork and a sinister character from Scranton named Max. He talked to all the concessionaires in the city and. because of his friendly way, they were glad to use the brand of pop he pushed. He talked to the barbers. He put short-weight scales in retail stores. He collected accident insurance from cleaners, dyers, shoeshine parlors. Everybody paid cheerfully and he split the money as he liked. He had good friends in the police force and at City Hall. He gave generously to the church. Being devout, he never sold dope.

But out of sheer good nature he put a girl named Emily Welsh in the family way, and Emily’s brother Tip smashed in the side of his head. There was consternation in the poolrooms. No one but Sam could hold the rackets together. At once his generals began quarreling. Just before Sam died in a friend’s front parlor Max tried to get the doctor to give him an injection so he could say a few words in the presence of witnesses. Outside on the sidewalk, in the dawn, Art and Perry and Cork stood with shoulders hunched and hands in pockets, wondering bleakly what was to become of the rackets.

Signing Off’s underworld heroes, case-hardened but paunchy, resemble the sporting characters of Damon Runyan. wry, picturesque, sentimental. Author McIntyre’s technique is to interrupt fits & starts of tough talk with fits & starts of windy anxiety over (in this case) the Roman Catholic Church.