How Will It End This Time?
"Poison?"
George Walcott's hand froze midair at the sudden question. He set down the medicines he'd been arranging and stared at me hard.
"I've got a guy who won't listen."
Startled, Walcott let out a short laugh. He must have taken it for a joke, because he steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Forget poison. For a guy like that, you'd be better off just putting him to sleep."
"That wouldn't be so bad either. For a sedative, you'd go with barbiturates, right?"
"Those are powerful, sure. Used a lot, too. Anyway — enough joking around. Tell me what you actually need."
I was being serious. I dropped the smile.
"I need barbiturates and chloroform powder."
Walcott scratched his cheek and fell into thought. He seemed to understand exactly what those two chemicals meant together.
In 1903, a bartender in a Chicago saloon had used a drug cocktail to rob his customers. The bartender's name was Mickey Finn. The concoction that took his name — the Mickey Finn — combined barbiturate sedatives with chloroform, which produced pain-killing and anesthetic effects.
Chloroform itself had been used as an emergency anesthetic on the battlefields of the Great War. In my previous life as a mercenary, people had sometimes slipped sedatives or anesthetics into drinks to neutralize a target. The ingredients differed, but the principle was the same.
Sedative plus anesthetic plus alcohol. Depending on the proportions, the effects varied. Even in this era, people abused the mixture — dance-hall patrons looking to commit date rape, or thieves like Mickey Finn looking to empty a customer's pockets. It was easy enough to buy at a pharmacy.
Walcott handed over a few small brown bottles with a sour look on his face. Powder rattled inside them.
"The chloroform's for disinfectant use, right?"
"That's right."
Relieved, Walcott rolled the bottles in paper and wrapped them up.
"Sorry, but you'll have to head out first today. Looks like I'm going to be stuck here even later."
"Understood."
I left the pharmacy behind, leaving Walcott to his worries. On the way home, I suddenly realized it was Friday. Roa and Liam's faces came to mind, so I ducked into a butcher shop and bought some meat.
Today, at least, I could walk through the door with my head held high.
A salon on Norfolk Street.
The loan shark Archie Roselli was drinking hard, surrounded by his men and a woman. He never knew what to do with his overflowing money; every day ended the same way — booze and girls.
"Oh my, so you're getting into logistics and distribution now, too?"
"Anything that makes money. I'll show you a new business card soon — look forward to it. By the way, your skin just keeps getting better."
Roselli's hands were busy exploring the woman's body when a pharmacy employee rushed in with a frantic look. Employee in name only — he was one of Roselli's men, planted to keep an eye on the pharmacists.
"What!? Those bastards hit us again?"
He'd already gotten a report that afternoon. Out of nowhere, gangsters had walked into the pharmacy and demanded protection money. At the time, Roselli had written it off as some punks acting out. But then —
"They raised the protection fee. They're demanding thirty dollars a week."
When Roselli told him to cut the crap, the man said they'd gone past mere harassment and smashed an entire display case. And that wasn't the worst of it.
"When I said I'd call the cops right then, those sons of bitches said they knew about the illegal pharmaceuticals — go ahead and report it if I wanted."
Roselli let out a hollow laugh and drained his glass. He set it down hard, eyes turning cold and dark.
"Even some two-bit street gang thinks they can laugh at me now."
Before he was a loan shark, Roselli had been a gangster. He was middle-aged now, but the glory of his younger days running the LES still carried weight — if anything, his influence had only grown. Gangs answered when he called. He could move politicians and city officials.
And they dare to ignore me?
He ground his teeth. Tomorrow, the real counterattack would begin. He would make them pay dearly.
"Should we put off the SCL visit tomorrow?"
Roselli's right-hand man asked — one of the three assigned to his protection detail.
Roselli thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"No. That goes ahead as planned. Tomorrow, Charlie and I will go. You and Brooks round up the boys and hit the ones targeting the pharmacies."
Even the liquor had lost its taste. His mood ruined, Roselli stood. The woman beside him quickly helped him into his coat and handed him his hat.
"You'll come again tomorrow evening, won't you?"
"Of course."
It was nine at night. Roselli and his party spilled out of the salon in a noisy cluster. Men loitering on the street broke off their conversation and fell in behind them at once.
Leo and his unit, keeping Roselli under watch.
The next day.
Roselli paid a visit to SCL, a company on the East River waterfront. He couldn't help being surprised by the scale of the place. Ten trucks, each with a driver and a man riding shotgun. Fully ten warehouses.
They poured too much into the business from the jump. No wonder they're short on cash.
Which only made it more tempting. The company's prospects weren't bad — if someone just covered operating costs like payroll, it might turn a profit within a year. Assuming, of course, that Roselli himself was the one running it.
"Not bad. Honestly, I'm almost interested in investing in SCL."
Rosenthal looked pleased at that.
"Once we get through this crisis, it's smooth sailing. Truck transport is going to be the way of the future, don't you think?"
"Well, you're not wrong. I'll have the five thousand dollars ready for you tomorrow. As for the investment—"
"Rosenthal! What the hell do you think you're doing!"
Two men burst into the office without warning. Derek and Noah — Rosenthal's partners in SCL, both with ownership stakes of their own.
"Borrowing money from a man like that — you've completely lost your mind!"
They were brazen about it, too, openly loathing and scorning loan sharks.
Idiots.
Roselli had met plenty of their type. Broke men clinging to their pride until they ran the company into the ground. At least Rosenthal was a realist.
"We can't even make payroll, and you want me to do what exactly! You keep saying you'll raise the money — so what did you actually bring!?"
Rosenthal shouted back, and the argument escalated. Roselli watched at his leisure, turning over in his mind how best to swallow the company whole.
Five thousand dollars was nowhere near enough to put a company the size of SCL in a chokehold. It was the kind of sum you could cover by borrowing from another loan shark and rolling the debt. That was why Roselli had mentioned investment — pour a large sum into the company and nibble away at the equity piece by piece. Doable enough with a contract and a few careful maneuvers.
The problem was cowards like these, trembling over a five-thousand-dollar loan. Fortunately, Rosenthal held the controlling interest.
"Roselli — free tonight?"
"Judging by the atmosphere, it might be a waste of time. In my experience, companies where the boss gets dragged around by his staff don't last long."
"Couldn't agree more. Which is why I've got a rather interesting proposal for you."
Something you couldn't say inside the company. Judging by the look in Rosenthal's eyes, he and Roselli were cut from the same cloth — the kind who would stop at nothing for their own gain. Tonight promised a glimpse of the fence Rosenthal's true face.
"I'd prefer it just be the two of us, if possible."
"Fine. There's a salon I frequent."
Roselli gave him the time and place.
That night, Roselli met Rosenthal alone in a private room at the salon, without any real security detail.
"Derek is Noah's brother-in-law. You can imagine how hard that makes things for me with the family."
As he spoke, Rosenthal slid a document across the table. It was SCL's ownership structure — five names in total, with Rosenthal holding forty percent. The problem was that the other three were all connected to the O'Connell family. If they decided to push, they could strip Rosenthal of control.
"If you invest twenty thousand dollars here, Roselli, you get a twenty-percent stake. That's the arrangement we set for a new investor."
As Roselli took his twenty percent, everyone else's shares would be diluted. And once Rosenthal and Roselli locked arms, no one else could touch the company.
That wasn't the end of it. Rosenthal was every bit as vicious and ruthless as Roselli himself.
"When the trucks are making deliveries, we hire a gang to hit them."
Stage the accidents on purpose. Put the company in a position where it has to pay compensation to the clients who entrusted their goods. Once the company is reeling from the blow, try to force a fire sale.
That was madman Rosenthal's grand design.
"And you pick it up for a song, Roselli."
Rosenthal was recycling the exact method Noah's trucking company had once used. But Roselli had no idea.
"Well now… that does sound appetizing. I'll give it some serious thought."
The second-floor office of the twin buildings on Allen Street.
Leo, who had been watching Roselli for four days running, delivered his report.
"He's been drinking with Rosenthal at the same salon two nights in a row."
"Figured they hit it off. Security?"
"None. Once the workday ends, he sends everyone home and goes to the salon alone."
The drinking sessions usually wrapped around midnight. Over the past few days, the pharmacies Roselli had wrested from Walcott had become a battleground for gangs. Roselli's hired muscle and the Union's youth units clashed in running brawls, skilled enough at hit-and-run that the police never managed to grab anyone.
On top of that, two LES-assigned officers inside the NYPD had confirmed the illegal drug sales at the pharmacies — not just because of Union bribes, but at Uncle Ted's request.
It could have been treated as a serious situation, but Roselli was counting on his own bribes. The police weren't investigating with any real urgency, and his mind was entirely occupied with SCL.
"We move tonight."
I'd left myself enough of an out. Rosenthal would make his play today as well. I handed Leo a list of the men we'd need and was walking him through the plan when Lanza arrived from the Fulton Fish Market — the chaos kicked up by Cardone's death, one of the pillars of the Italian union.
Russo, effectively the sole remaining head of the union, was trying to consolidate power alone, but the pushback was fierce.
"The Romano brothers have been quietly absorbing the men who only followed Cardone reluctantly."
At the same time, the Sicilian gang that had been Cardone's backers was trying to intervene. With the police investigation still ongoing, they hadn't shown themselves openly — not yet.
"At this point, the Irish won't just sit still either."
"That's right. That's why I'm here. Just like you said, Boss — McGrady, the Irish union head, made a trip to Brooklyn."
And what did that mean?
Cardone murdered. Sicilian gangs moving in. Faced with the successive waves of chaos, there was only one place a rattled McGrady would go looking for help — the White Hand gang, rulers of Brooklyn.
"Good. Tell everyone to gather at the market."
This was what I'd been after from the start. The Fulton Fish Market was running exactly as it should.
"I'll send more men to the Romano brothers. Tell them to build their union and bulk up."
I even put the flea market to work — running help-wanted ads for the Romano brothers' fish shop so there'd be a ready-made explanation for the sudden surge in staff.
The salon on Norfolk Street.
Once again in a private room, Rosenthal and Roselli spun their happy little schemes and plotted in the dark.
"I've already drawn up the equity agreement. The O'Connell family hasn't got the brains for it — they could look at the contract and still not understand a thing."
"Stupid people always have the biggest pride. Come on, drink up."
The liquor burned on the way down. Roselli set his glass down and frowned.
"Maybe I've had too much. The booze just isn't sitting right tonight."
"Who cares about the taste? You drink to get drunk. Come on, another round."
"Hmm. I think I'd better call it. Time I headed home."
Rosenthal smacked his lips as if disappointed, but inwardly he was smiling. Watching Roselli's face and movements carefully, he personally handed over the man's coat and hat.
The drug should start kicking in any moment now.
If the Boss was right, his eyes and legs would go soft and he wouldn't be able to hold himself up—
Thud.
Roselli crashed into the door and went down. Salon staff rushed over, hauling him up in a flurry of confusion. One waiter hoisted him onto his back while the madam put on a worried face.
"Looks like Mr. Roselli had a little too much tonight..."
"He's in rough shape. Take good care of him for me."
"Why? I heard business was going so well. Someone said he's got hundreds of thousands of dollars just sitting in a vault."
Hundreds of thousands?
Rosenthal dragged a hand down his face as if washing it dry.
"If that were true, he wouldn't have told me he wanted to die."
"Oh my, he said that too? How surprising. All that money, and I thought he didn't have a care in the world."
Rosenthal clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"He's all pride on the outside, but he's rotting from the inside. You know how hard business can be, Madam. Anyway — see you tomorrow."
The madam smiled with her eyes and gave a little bow. Rosenthal waved a careless goodbye and stepped outside.
A carriage was already waiting in front of the bar. The waiter loaded Roselli in and gave the driver his address. Rosenthal paid the fare himself, insisting it was on him.
"We'll be off, then."
The waiter watched the carriage pull away, then turned.
"Shall I flag one down for you, Mr. Rosenthal?"
"No need. I'll walk it off. See you tomorrow."
"Take care, then!"
Rosenthal staggered off like a man thoroughly drunk. Once he was a short distance from the salon, his steps straightened out and he stopped another carriage.
"Whew. Grand Street, please."
He'd been drowning in liquor for days. Sometimes a wave of self-loathing hit him over what he was doing. But he trusted the Boss.
The same Boss who could be reckless to the point of daring was, at other times, cautious to what almost seemed an excess. And why? To stay clear of the net.
The loan. The equity investment. The scheme to seize the company. All of it so he could sit down for drinks with Roselli as naturally as breathing — and slip him the drug.
So how would it end this time?
Roselli's death was a certainty, of course. The only questions were how much they'd take from him, and how they'd slip the police investigation. The Boss's schemes were too twisted to predict.
The carriage was headed not for Roselli's home, but for his office. Along the way, two more passengers climbed aboard — Corey and me.
"He's going to wake up again, right?"
"Hard to say."
The dose was heavy, and mixed with whiskey the effects only amplified. In stages, it ran from mild confusion to vomiting, seizures, and finally respiratory arrest. Roselli was wandering somewhere on the border between life and death.
The carriage pulled up in front of the Cash Building on Norfolk Street. One of our men from the driver's seat slung the limp Roselli over his shoulder and carried him into the building.
"Stop! What's going on at this hour— wait, Mr. Roselli?"
"Oh, perfect timing. He asked to be taken up to the fifth-floor office, then fell asleep again. You can take him from here, right?"
The security guard recoiled and shook his head hard when we tried to dump Roselli on him.
"I've got to stay at my post. How am I supposed to go all the way up there? You do the hard work."
"And how am I supposed to open the office door with him on my back? At least go unlock it for me! You've got the keys, don't you?"
After a brief struggle with himself, the guard had no choice but to follow. He grabbed a ring of keys from the storage box and headed for the elevator.
Watching from the shadows, Corey and I slipped inside the moment the guard left his post and climbed the stairs at a measured pace.
Corey was praying the safe wasn't a new model.
Window or ceiling? I still hadn't decided.