Who Is Destroying the City's Order?
The Lower East Side has been swept into an unprecedented spiral of violence.
In the span of a single week, three shootings, two arsons, and six kidnappings or armed robberies have left the community trembling in fear. Residents cry out with one voice that they can no longer leave their homes after dark.
Especially last Wednesday night, a gunfight erupted in an underground salon near Orchard Street. Shop windows along the street were shattered to pieces, and two civilians were wounded—collateral damage that has only deepened the terror.
“I looked out my window and saw men firing guns. If they weren’t gangsters, then who were they?” recalled resident A in a shaking voice.
Rumors swirl that the bloodshed is linked to a rising, unidentified new syndicate known as the Union. They have driven out the old gangs and rapidly seized control of the Lower East Side, expanding their influence with ruthless speed.
The police have yet to name a definitive culprit, but they currently attribute the chaos to territorial warfare among gangs in which the Union is involved. The NYPD has already deployed a special investigative unit to the district and is searching major strongholds.
Experts, however, warn that “the gangs are entangled in the local economy itself; police power alone cannot resolve this,” and are calling for federal intervention.
Meanwhile, among ordinary citizens the uncertainty of the true mastermind has only amplified the dread.
“We are fighting a shadow with neither name nor face.”
The words left by one city councilman may be the most accurate portrait of the Lower East Side today.
In the span of a single week the enemies’ successive offensives had turned the Lower East Side into a battlefield.
Every victim had been one of our units. The enemy meant to crush them with terror, reabsorb them, and reclaim LES. At the same time they poured fire on the Union itself, determined to smash us to pieces.
It was the same tactic I had once used myself—indiscriminate attacks that made friend and foe impossible to tell apart. By now some of the units would be asking themselves why they had to serve as bullet sponges, cursing the Union that hid while they bled, and beginning to think of betrayal.
“Boss, anyone who sticks their head up has to be put down without mercy. Otherwise they’ll start thinking our word is a joke.”
Cale spoke in a low, chilling voice. His face was bruised purple and patched with bandages—souvenirs of the ambushes.
Right now the most exposed people were Cale and the handful of men who had been managing the units all this time.
“For now, Cale, send everyone but yourself down to Coney Island. Tell them to kill time at The Boardwalk for a while.”
“Got it, Boss.”
The Boardwalk was the saloon Tanner Smith ran. Nearby stood a joint called the Harvard Inn where Al Capone worked as a bouncer; the owner was Frankie Yale.
I swept my gaze around the room. Patrick, Lenny, Ida, Brian, Leo, and Marcus were all gathered in the conference room. I handed the newspaper to Brian.
“The article’s completely biased. They even stuffed in unrelated incidents that have nothing to do with this mess.”
It claimed that “in a single week three shootings, two arsons, and six kidnappings or armed robberies have left the community trembling,” yet our units had only been hit four times.
“They’re inflating the story and framing the Union as the real problem instead of the bastards who actually raised hell.”
“Want me to put Reuben on it?”
“Have him write a piece that focuses on who really broke the peace.”
Moments like this called for a newspaper with real reach. Unfortunately we still only had the neighborhood free-sheet, Flea Market—nowhere near enough firepower.
“Looking at the papers and the cops, these aren’t amateurs.”
Public fury moved politicians and opinion alike. The enemy was carefully metering the level of violence while funneling all the popular anger onto the Union.
“The enemy is most likely an Italian outfit. Right now the Sicilians look the most suspicious—”
KRA-KOOM!
A thunderous blast shook the entire building. Paint chips and gray cement dust drifted down from the ceiling like slow snowflakes.
“Those crazy bastards!”
Everyone except Ida and me shot to their feet, ready to charge outside.
“Sit down. If we all come pouring out at once, we might as well hang a sign that says this is Union headquarters.”
Only Ida and I went out.
“Oh, hell.”
Ida’s brow furrowed hard as she stared at the first-floor lingerie shop. The show window had been blown out. Glass shards littered the floor inside and the sidewalk outside. Everything else inside looked intact.
“Not here—downstairs.”
The source of the explosion was the dance hall. Black smoke billowed from the entrance that led to the basement.
“Business is going to be impossible for a while.”
“Maybe it’s time we just shut Pumpkin Dance Hall down for good, Boss.”
I agreed completely. Whenever the Union was involved, the dance hall always became the target. Raymond Kane himself had found his first leads here. Keeping the place open any longer would be pure stupidity.
A crowd had already gathered when a red fire truck and firefighters arrived. Luckily the bomb had detonated on the concrete stairwell between the street entrance and the dance-hall floor itself; the fire never spread. The door was shattered and the stairs destroyed, though—business was finished.
The bombing had gone off at five in the afternoon, before opening. That meant even the enemy didn’t want civilian casualties—yet.
“Why wait a whole week to pull something like this?” Ida muttered to herself.
I read the bomb as a warning aimed at the units and a deliberate attempt to poison public opinion in LES and isolate the Union.
Back in the second-floor conference room I issued new orders.
“Patrick, Pumpkin Dance Hall and the gambling den are closed as of today. Lenny, starting tomorrow you move to the Tenderloin gambling house.”
I kept going.
“Cale, make a list of every unit that’s turned—”
Knock-knock.
“It’s Joseph Lanza, Boss!”
The voice was urgent. Lanza burst into the office panting hard, eyes sweeping the room. His face was once again swollen and bruised blue.
“Kid looks like that every time I see him.”
“Looks like I walked in on a meeting.”
“You can’t tell just by looking around?”
At Cale’s remark Lanza bit his lip and turned to me.
“Fulton Fish Market’s a war zone too, Boss. Russo hit the Romano brothers’ fish stall.”
With Cardenas dead, Russo—who had dreamed of an Italian monopoly—had finally moved. That meant someone powerful was backing him. And the odds were high it was the same outfit currently turning LES into a slaughterhouse.
If they wanted to run a diversionary operation, so would I.
“Leo, tell Shane right now to take five men and head to the Tenderloin gambling house.”
Shane Horace. In the Marginals he had never been anyone special, but under my special training he had awakened real combat ability.
West 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Tender Dance Hall.
Boo-boo-boo-woooo~
Bang-bang~
On the floor a man poured sweat in time with the band, a harmonica clenched between his teeth, dancing as if he had left his mind somewhere else. The woman in front of him pursed her lips in open annoyance.
“Could you try matching me for once instead of doing your own thing? I’m your partner!”
“Fuck, you rent out the whole floor? Take it easy already.”
“Hey—look at that son of a bitch laughing.”
Two men clenched their fists and started toward Anthony. Suddenly a group appeared on the floor and seized them by the scruffs of their necks.
“Get lost.”
The man at the head of the group approached Anthony and reached for the harmonica. Anthony answered with a fist—then abruptly stopped and tilted his head.
“Shane?”
Outside the dance hall Shane shook his head.
“If the Boss saw you like this he’d have a heart attack. You’re not a kid anymore—what the hell are you doing?”
“It’s my personal training method. The sweat is proof. So what brings you here?”
Shane’s smile was thin and knowing.
“Time for the shift change.”
Anthony gathered a few of the men who had been holding the Tenderloin gambling house and headed back toward LES.
In the secret room on the second floor of the twin buildings I pulled a file from the desk and opened it.
The papers listed every gambling house operating in secret across lower Manhattan, along with the names of the civil servants, politicians, and police officers who were on the take. The authors were Morris Rosenberg, currently locked up awaiting trial, and his partner Harry Cohen. Cohen had been murdered while trying to hand the file over to the district attorney.
“There are people bankrolling the gambling association. Arnold Rothstein and Frankie Yale. Every last one of them wants the Union gone.”
Those were the words Morris Rosenberg had spoken to me right before he told me where the file was hidden.
The value of information changed depending on whose hands it landed in. Right now what I needed were the locations of the gambling houses—especially the ones in Little Italy. I sorted those out separately.
Did they really think a bomb at the dance hall would scare the Union?
“They took me for a pushover.”
They had opened a second front; I would answer in kind. The war would expand from LES into Little Italy and all the way to Fulton Fish Market.
I left the secret room. When I stepped into the open office, a familiar face was already waiting for me.
“Long time no see, Boss.”
Anthony’s expression was hard, a deep shadow cast across his features.
“Why the long face?”
“The gang’s situation is a goddamn mess.”
Was that really all of it?
“You saw the dance-hall entrance.”
“Fuck!”
Anthony ground his teeth with violent force. An honest reaction if ever there was one.
“Lucky for you, I’ve prepared a few places where you can pour all that rage out to your heart’s content.”
I handed him the list. He scanned it quickly and looked up.
“All Little Italy?”
“They touched our territory. Now they get to learn what that costs. Let’s make sure they understand.”
Anthony’s mouth curled into a sinister smile.
“Heh-heh. I’ll ram a harmonica down those bastards’ throats. When they blow it you’ll hear nothing but screams. Ahh! Ahh!”
“……Are you insane?”
“Just joking.”
He met my eyes, smacked his lips, and started to rise—then sat back down as a new thought struck him.
“I’m going to need weapons. Can you manage it?”
Smoke grenades, bombs, a hundred rounds of .45 ACP, five silencers.
“And I’d like my team with me if possible.”
I considered for a moment, then nodded.
“Everything except the bombs. Come by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Then I’ll do recon with the boys in the morning.”
“Mind the disguises. It’d be inconvenient if you died before we even get to Chicago.”
“Disguises, huh.”
I gave him a few tips; to my surprise his eyes lit up with genuine interest.
“I’ll look into that too. Time to show them what the Chicago Team can do with a disguise.”
Anthony always moved as a unit. Since they would soon be laying foundations in Chicago, the team was simply called Chicago.
The next day I left the Lower East Side for the first time in a long while.
My destination was still a patchwork of minor gangs—Hell’s Kitchen, every bit as rough, filthy, and sewer-like as LES. I stepped into a familiar alley. The usual loiterers who had haunted it like local spirits were gone; the place felt hollow and deserted.
I descended the stairs that sat lower than street level and knocked on the heavy iron door.
A moment later the palm-sized viewing slit scraped open. A pair of large, liquid eyes—no, not the wrinkled ones I half-expected—gazed out at me. Hazel.
Clank. Clank.
The door opened and I stepped inside.
“How’s the old Gunsmith—”
“Come in. Lately my body’s suddenly gone to hell… cough, cough!”
In the dimness Gunsmith lay on a simple cot, coughing in successive, racking spasms.