Just Who Is That Lady Boss?
A basement with nothing but a single chair.
Even in broad daylight, not a ray of light reached this place. Only the round lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling lit the room.
Thud! Thud!
Dull impacts and pained groans filled the space.
Abraham Friedman, a Jewish immigrant who had barely turned twenty, sat stripped to the waist, his entire body mottled with bruises.
"Who the hell told you you could shake people down for protection money on your own? Huh?"
"I'm sorry. I'll never do it again—aagh!"
Thud!
"This is the second time, you little bastards. Don't want to kick up to us, but you sure as hell want to collect protection money yourselves. Too damn greedy."
"I'm sorry—ugh!"
Thud!
"So why the hell do you keep doing things you're sorry for?"
"Please, just forgive me this once! I'll be loyal to the Union until the day I die!"
"Union?"
Cale frowned, grabbed a fistful of Friedman's hair, and hauled him halfway upright. He stared into the man's face.
"You knew we were the Union and you still pulled that shit?"
"…A capital offense…!"
Slap! Thud!
"This son of a bitch. He thought we were soft. Gimme a knife."
One of the men nearby handed over a thirty-centimeter Bowie knife. Cale took it and gently pressed the tip against the fallen man's shoulder. Then the blade drifted lower—toward the heart, the gut, and further still.
"Where should I stick you?"
The man seized Cale's leg and trembled violently. In a hoarse scream he cried out,
"I-I mean it! Starting this second, me and all my boys are under the Union! We'll do whatever you tell us!"
"How many total?"
"Seventeen including me."
Cale thought it over for a moment, then handed the knife back. He pulled a notebook and pen from a bag and tossed them over.
"Write the names."
"…What?"
"All seventeen. If even one is wrong, you're dead."
The man scrambled upright and began scribbling names into the notebook. The handwriting was hurried, but legible enough.
Cale checked the list, then drew a folded paper from inside his coat and scanned it. It was a district map covering the LES, the Bowery, and Little Italy.
"From Canal to Broome, using the Bowery as the line. It's yours."
"Th-thank you!"
At Cale's nod, one of the men tossed Friedman his clothes.
"One week from now, bring fifty percent of the take here."
"Understood!"
Friedman scrambled into his clothes and fled. Cale added the newly absorbed unit's name to his notebook.
"Keeps growing."
"Five this month alone. Boss is gonna love this."
Over the past stretch of time the Union had absorbed or wiped out the remnants of the Five Points and Eastman gangs, locking down control of the LES. The territory they had claimed ran west along Bowery Street—roughly 2.2 square kilometers, about seven kilometers around.
To the north lay Greenwich Village, home to bohemians, artists, and radicals. To the south sat the financial district around Wall Street. Expanding north or south was pointless; poke those places and you only painted a target on yourself for the NYPD and the feds.
West was no better. Little Italy and Chinatown hemmed the Union in, leaving them stuck where they stood.
"Alright. Let's go see the Boss."
Cale, who managed the units, stuffed the day's collections into a bag with his men and left the basement.
In the last two months the Union had set up three safe houses across the LES—places to run to or lie low when things went bad. More than that, they existed to keep the Union's true headquarters hidden.
Orchard Street, where the clothing shops clustered.
A neatly dressed man in a suit, a crossbody bag slung over his shoulder, stepped into a garment firm. When he opened the office door, the owner eyed him with a sour look.
"Sholem, ikh bin Ruben, a zhurnalist fun der 'Flea Market'!"
"Oh?"
The owner's expression flipped to curiosity in an instant.
After all the grief the Irish had given him, the Yiddish of a fellow Jew sounded almost warm today. Hope tugged the corner of his mouth upward.
"I've got nothing real to advertise this week."
"Come on, don't give the new guy that line."
"I'm serious. I've got plenty of hands and nothing to push. Not just talking."
The rookie reporter Ruben drew a deep breath, edged closer to the desk, and narrowed his eyes.
"Keep this up and the senior reporter comes back, boss."
"…Senior?"
"I don't want that either. And if I miss my numbers I get fired, and then the senior comes back himself."
The owner's eyelids twitched.
Ruben didn't miss it. He sweetened the offer.
"Tough this week? How about sometime this month instead?"
"This month?"
"We're the same people. Gotta be flexible. From now on, one ad a month."
Flea Market meant exactly that—a flea market. The term had grown out of the secondhand stalls that sprang up on the outskirts of Paris in the late nineteenth century, born of the idea that fleas lived in the used clothes and furniture. French in origin, it still hadn't caught on in English, and most Americans found the word strange.
Then, two months ago, a "journalist" from a flyer company calling itself Flea Market had shown up. Journalist in name only. The Irish bastard had no manners, and threats and extortion came standard. Just another gangster, really.
Because of him, the shop had been forced to run help-wanted or product ads every single week. Once a month? There was no reason to turn the rookie down.
"Alright. We'll do it that way. Next week for sure I'll place an ad."
Ruben noted the appointment in his pad and left the office.
"Work's actually fun."
Until recently Ruben had been a reporter at a local Yiddish paper. The pay was low and late more often than not, so he had quit. Then he saw a help-wanted notice for the unfamiliar flyer company Flea Market, sat for the interview, and today marked his seventh day on the job.
Of course, he had quickly realized the people at Flea Market were anything but ordinary, and for a while terror had him plotting his escape.
If you're gonna quit, change your name and get the hell out of New York entirely.
At first the fear had kept him from eating properly. Then he shifted his thinking a little, and the place started looking pretty decent.
The salary wasn't bad, and the Flea Market concept itself had legs. A few similar flyer outfits operated in the LES, but this one clearly had an edge.
More than anything, the reporters carried sales quotas for ads—and thanks to the seniors who might as well have been gang members, filling those quotas was easy.
We already laid the groundwork. No need to squeeze them every week anymore. Soft-sell it.
Just as the seniors had said, every place he lengthened the interval thanked him and even shook his hand. As long as he didn't step on the seniors' toes, it was a solid job.
And lately more rookies like him were being hired, so the atmosphere wasn't bad either. Hope and drive welled up in him.
Ruben stopped in front of a three-story building at the far end of Orchard Street. The sign over the entrance looked familiar.
It was the clothing company behind Free Your Body—the lingerie brand he had splurged on for his girlfriend not long ago.
It wasn't on the list the seniors had given him. All the more reason to crack a new account.
"Okay. One more stop and then I'm heading back!"
He composed his face and climbed the stairs. The moment he said he was a Flea Market reporter, the staff became so helpful they guided him all the way to the third-floor president's office.
Click.
He opened the door—and there, astonishingly, a beautiful married woman sat behind the desk.
"Welcome."
A woman as president. Even with more women entering the workforce these days, female heads of clothing manufacturers could still be counted on one hand.
So why hadn't the seniors mentioned that?
Doesn't matter. She's a woman—this'll be easy.
"I'm Ruben, new reporter with Flea Market."
"Nice to meet you."
"You'll be running an ad this week, right?"
The lady boss tilted her head slightly.
"An ad? I don't really have anything right now."
"Then you make something."
"Hmm?"
"Don't play dumb."
Ruben snorted and stepped closer to the desk, glaring at her with open threat.
"Let's settle this before the senior has to come back."
"Senior?"
"Stop pretending you don't know."
In the LES there was nowhere a Flea Market reporter couldn't go. Claiming ignorance made no sense.
A short while later, Ruben walked out of Free Your Body having successfully landed the ad. Light on his feet, he hurried back to the office. Today he would clock out early and take his girlfriend someplace nice for dinner.
Second floor of the Rivington Building at the Grand–Eldridge intersection: Flea Market.
He sat at his desk, wrote up the sales report, neatly listed every firm he had visited and every ad schedule, and handed it to Vice President Brian.
"Whoa, you hit a lot of places. Working a little too hard, aren't you?"
"I'm the new guy—I've got to put in the effort!"
"Good attitude."
The vice president carried a presence all his own. A knife scar marked one corner of his mouth; sometimes it felt like sitting across from a gang boss.
But today something was off.
His face suddenly went scarlet. He shot to his feet and snatched up the iron pipe leaning beside the desk.
"Get down."
"!?"
"So the kid was an assassin. Trying to send me to the next world, huh?"
Thud!
"Free Your. Body is! Off. Limits. You. Dumb. Bastard!"
"Hurgh!"
With every blow the lady boss's face flashed through Ruben's mind. As he rolled across the floor clutching his backside, Vice President Brian yanked open the office door and bellowed,
"Anyone who goes near Free Your Body dies! That's a hard warning!"
"What? Who went?"
"I told you—stay the hell off places that aren't on the list!"
The seniors poured into the office in a rush.
Just who the hell was that lady boss?
Dozens of hands and feet crashed over Ruben's body like a storm.
A short distance from the twin buildings on Allen Street.
A month and a half earlier I had taken over a basement space that had closed after running as a brothel. I meant to use it as a safe house and a training ground for the men.
I picked about ten promising ones and finally taught them the firearms work, hand-to-hand, and CQC close-quarters combat I had put off for too long.
The quickest learner by far was Anthony, with all his experience. He was solid enough as an instructor that he could have trained the rest in my place.
Once we finished sweating it out underground, I gave him his next orders.
"For the next six months, you train the men."
"How many?"
"The more the better. When the six months are up, pick ten and head to Chicago."
Anthony's eyes lit with interest. We had talked about this more than a few times.
"Build a presence on the North Side."
"And the South?"
"That one we take slow. It's not a place you can treat lightly. The second you poke it, it'll be like kicking a beehive."
Chicago, Illinois—the first place the Sicilian Union had taken root. The gangs who crossed from Sicily had built parallel but different power bases in New York and Chicago. Both of those powers would explode once Prohibition hit full stride.
Through Anthony I intended to absorb or ally with the Irish outfits in Chicago.
Second-floor office of the Allen Street twin buildings.
Cale was waiting for me after absorbing a new unit on Bowery Street.
"Bag's pretty heavy again today."
He dumped the cash onto the table. After he left I called in Lenny Goldstein, who ran the gambling den.
As the money grew, managing it only got more complicated. So did the number of businesses.
The neighborhood flyer operation, Flea Market.
The clothing manufacturer Free Your Body.
The lingerie shop Intima.
The metalworks Life Steel.
All of them legitimate enterprises conducted in the open.
On the other side sat Pumpkin Dance Hall, the gambling den, the protection money collected across the LES, and the unit kick-ups—every last dollar of it criminal proceeds.
Now that we had pushed west onto Bowery Street as well, the weekly take kept climbing.
I needed someone sharp with numbers and trustworthy enough to handle real estate and the cash. Realistically, the best candidate near me was Lenny Goldstein, the City College math dropout.
We worked in silence the way factory hands do simple labor—smoothing bills, sorting them. The only talk that passed between us concerned business ideas that suddenly occurred to us, or the people we still needed.
"The more businesses we run, the more routes we get for talent. Starting Flea Market was a smart move. Boss's eye for these things really is something else."
"Flattery doesn't get you a bonus."
"Reducing sincerity to money. Cold."
I snorted and kept going.
"Any of your college classmates still around? Accountants, lawyers, pharmacists, chemists. Hell, I even need truck drivers."
"You think a gambling junkie has friends?"
"Sorry."
Silence settled for a moment. Then Ida knocked on the door.
"There's a man downstairs looking for the Boss."
"Who?"
"Your eldest maternal uncle."
Noh O'Connell, who worked at the trucking company.
My eldest maternal uncle had come to see me.