It's Okay. We're Close.

Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York.

I moved with Tanner to a quieter corner of the grounds.

"Was Gunsmith close enough with Dini Meehan of Brooklyn that the man would handle his funeral?"

"Well, he made a name for himself not just in Hell's Kitchen but across New York. Still, even I was surprised to see Dini Meehan show up."

Suddenly I understood why Gunsmith had insisted on Frankie Yale's funeral parlor in Brooklyn.

The White Hand Gang and the Union. If the two of us shared a common enemy, it was none other than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Frankie Yale.

Had he arranged the setting so we might join forces and fight together?

If that were truly the case, it hardly seemed like something Gunsmith would have thought up on his own. Perhaps it had been that strategist's advice.

Tanner asked, "So why the obsession with Fulton Fish Market? Is this because of Dopey Benny Fein?"

"Dopey did come to me about it. He said if you want to take over that port's labor unions, you have to control the market itself."

"And that's the job you're working now?"

"In the broad sense, yes. But not in the direction Dopey wants."

Dopey simply wanted to crush the Fulton Market bosses by force. The trouble was, no matter how hard you shook things from the outside, seizing control of the market's interior was never easy.

"Once Cardone and Russo are dead, someone new will rise inside the market. That's why the Italian gangs and the White Hand Gang put forward their own people from within."

My decision to use the Romano brothers' fish shop as a foothold followed the same logic.

"So what kind of deal are you looking to cut with Dini Meehan?"

"My plan for taking Fulton Fish Market is simple."

Destabilize the existing power structure—invite outside intervention—plunge the market into chaos.

"That's the first phase."

"Then phase one is already done. The market's a madhouse. What's phase two?"

"Build a faction inside the market. That's the Romano brothers' fish shop. And they'll come under attack from the Italian gangs."

After the bloody Ice Wars, Fulton Fish Market had maintained a fragile peace under the balance of Cardone, Russo, and McGrady.

But I had shattered that peace, and now the Italian gangs were moving in earnest to fill the void left by the dead Cardone and Russo.

"The key piece here is McGrady."

The Irish union boss McGrady had two choices.

Enter the war to monopolize the chaotic market, or once again join hands with the Italian union and preserve the peace.

"Except McGrady can't decide alone. The one backing him is none other than Dini Meehan of the White Hand Gang."

"So the core is this. The Romano brothers' fish shop you're pushing takes Cardone and Russo's place, and McGrady recognizes it and joins hands."

"Exactly. Ally with the White Hand Gang and drive the Italian gangs out of Fulton Fish Market."

"You never do anything the simple way."

Tanner let out a low whistle of admiration, the corner of his mouth curling up.

"So in the end you eliminate Cardone and Russo to draw in the Italian gangs, then use that as leverage to form an alliance with the White Hand Gang. That's your real goal."

"That's not all of it."

"There's more?!"

Tanner's face went slack with disbelief as he stared holes through my mouth.

"Simply joining hands changes nothing. There has to be a next step."

At present, the unions at Fulton Fish Market were unofficial outfits without permits from the City of New York or the federal government. They held no legal authority and received no protection whatsoever.

"It'll take time, but I'm going to create an official Fulton Fish Market union. Then fill that union with our people."

The ILA—the International Longshoremen's Association—was late. Far too late. Forcing your way into an organization that was already fully formed was extraordinarily difficult.

By contrast, if you got involved from the earliest days of a union's founding, you could monopolize its core leadership.

Why else had I sent Joseph Lanza to the Romano brothers' fish shop? I intended to raise Lanza into a union boss.

"Figure two or three years and it should be possible."

"By then, will Prohibition have passed?"

"Probably. Just picture whiskey sitting under the fish."

"Beautiful. I like it!"

Tanner snapped his fingers and even laughed out loud—then, remembering we were in a cemetery, hurriedly composed his face. I spoke into the moment.

"Now that you know the whole picture, go negotiate with Dini Meehan."

"Me, personally? Better that way, actually. Though Dini Meehan was already suspicious about the relationship between Nox and the Union. I'll have to spin it carefully."

"If it comes down to it, just lay it out. Doesn't matter."

The boss of the Union was Nox.

What was the point of hiding something like that? If nothing else, the organization's representative name ought to be known.

Besides, for dealing with Frankie Yale, who was dug in over in Brooklyn rather than Manhattan, no gang was better suited than the White Hand.

Now that Dini Meehan had sought contact with the Union, we would borrow his hand to strike at Frankie Yale.

Every last funeral rite had ended.

Those who had come to mourn Gunsmith's death each offered Hazel their condolences. Even people meeting her for the first time treated her as Gunsmith's only family.

It was the same now.

Hazel stood before the headstone speaking with a man. He was in his thirties, wearing a long coat, his hair uncombed—he hadn't been visible during the ceremony and seemed to have arrived only after everything was finished.

As I approached to say my farewells to Hazel, the man took a step back.

His dress was distinctive: instead of a shirt and tie he wore oil-stained work clothes.

Aware of my gaze, he scratched his head with an awkward look.

"Never been to one of these before. Don't own a suit, is all."

"I see. Kieran Graves."

The man's eyes lit up and a strange expression crossed his face.

"So you're Kieran. Finbar Maddox. Silas told me plenty about you."

Silas was the dead Gunsmith's real name.

What exactly had he said to Finbar Maddox?

"Good things, I hope?"

"Said nobody knows firearm mechanisms the way you do. And that your shooting is something else."

"Ah. That story."

"There's more. He said you're Hazel's boyfr—mmph, mmph!"

Hazel clapped a hand over his mouth in pure panic.

"Go already, Maddox. Stop talking nonsense."

"What? You two aren't even that far alon—mmph mmph!"

"Would you please shut up with the garbage?!"

From the look of them they had always been close. I was about to offer a perfunctory goodbye when Rosenthal cut in.

"Maddox, long time. How've you been?"

"Same as ever. By the way, I built a roulette table that disguises itself perfectly. You need one?"

"I'm on other work these days."

"Everyone's so busy. I'm the only one with free time."

While Rosenthal and Maddox talked, I quietly spoke to Hazel. I had plenty of questions.

"What happens to the basement workshop now?"

"I don't know. Haven't thought about it yet."

"That building—Gunsmith was the owner, right?"

"…Yeah. I inherited it."

She had become a landlord overnight.

Given how sudden the death had been, the inheritance transferring so quickly meant the paperwork had been prepared in advance.

Whatever the case, Hazel's voice remained calm.

In a moment like this, what did a building matter?

"Still, for a man with Gunsmith's personality, the funeral was awfully grand. Any reason?"

"I don't know either."

"I do."

Someone shoved into the conversation.

Finbar Maddox.

Hazel's eyes and mine both locked on his mouth.

"I know, but I can't say."

"What are you talking about. You don't know anything."

At Hazel's scolding, Maddox snorted.

"I do know, actually. All of it was for you, Hazel. So he could entrust you to the people he invited."

"How would you know that?"

"Because I told him yesterday. Silas was worried sick about nothing but you."

Right before the end, Maddox had spent a long time talking with Gunsmith. And Gunsmith's one worry had been what would become of Hazel, left alone without family.

"He didn't want you spending your whole life buried in a basement workshop the way he had. Looking at your personality, he figured living an ordinary life would be hard for you anyway. So I told him a way."

"…"

"Invite everyone and make them protect you."

At Maddox's words, tears gathered in Hazel's eyes. To think he had been thinking of her until the very end—how moving.

But looked at coldly, it was a clumsy strategy.

As if Dini Meehan of the White Hand Gang would spare Hazel a second thought. And Tanner Smith?

They were only connections bound through Gunsmith. There was no reason to protect or look after Hazel—

"Hazel, was it? If anything hard comes up, you can always reach out. A man keeps his debt of honor to Gunsmith."

To my surprise, those words came from Dini Meehan, boss of the White Hand Gang. Others left similar offers with Hazel before they departed.

Even if it was only talk, it still counted for something.

The human relationships of a man said to have lived his whole life in solitude had not been as poor as I expected.

Suddenly I put the same question to myself.

What about me?

Did I have any intention of protecting Hazel?

I looked at Finbar Maddox. When our eyes met, he gave me a bright, open smile.

Before he died, Gunsmith had given me various pieces of advice. One of them had been not to expand the front all the way into Little Italy and make enemies of every Italian gang.

"Turns out he was quite the strategist."

"When you do… illegal business… you meet all kinds of characters…"

"I'd like to recruit him. Who is this strategist?"

"Leave that one alone…"

Could Finbar Maddox have been that strategist?

He looked like a few screws were loose, but the fact that he had spoken with Gunsmith right before the end made it nearly certain.

"Whoa, I've got work—gotta go. Catch you later."

Maddox suddenly hurried off.

Right after, Tanner appeared.

"Tch. Damn Maddox. Ran off again."

"You know him well?"

"Bought a gun off Maddox once. Fired one shot and it fell apart. Biggest crisis of my life. Nearly got myself killed."

"So he was a gunsmith too."

"For a very short while."

Finbar Maddox had been the gunsmith of the LES district.

The problem was the catastrophic condition of the guns he sold or modified. One after another they broke or proved defective, and he had been driven out of the market.

"Complete con man. I told him if I ever caught him making guns again I'd kill him. At least he's kept that promise more or less."

At Tanner's words Hazel pressed her lips tight and shook her head.

"He's not a con man. He just had a strong experimental spirit."

"Oh, for crying out loud. That experimental spirit of his nearly got a bunch of people killed. What is he, John Browning? Anyway, if it hadn't been for Old Man Gunsmith, Maddox would've been dead long ago."

Hazel's lips twitched, but she seemed to have no proper rebuttal and simply shut her mouth.

Tanner said he was meeting Dini Meehan at another location and left first. Rosenthal vanished as well, saying he had to get to SCL Company.

Left in the cemetery were only Hazel and me.

If I left, she would be alone.

That was the reality. Whatever Gunsmith's intentions, the only person who would protect Hazel was Hazel herself.

As if she had read my mind, Hazel let out a short snort of laughter.

"I know. Protection, my ass. I have zero intention of leaning on anyone."

"Good. Live with that resolve."

"Yeah. So I've been thinking about it for a while. Your basement's empty, right?"

As it happened, it was.

The dance hall had closed and the gambling den had shut its doors.

We were looking into expanding and relocating to a new site.

"I want in."

"What about the Hell's Kitchen building you've got now?"

"I'll leave that alone."

"…You said you weren't leaning on anyone."

"That's ridiculous. How is this leaning? If I stay in the workshop I'll keep thinking about him. There's infection risk too."

And decisively, we were building a shooting range on the second basement level. An irresistible condition.

"Thirty dollars a month."

"It's a basement. You want that much?"

"You'll be using both floors."

"Fine. Then forty dollars. There's an empty room on the third floor, right?"

The members had all moved to the new lodgings.

Right now only Ida was using the third floor.

"It's okay. We're close."

Hazel answered through gritted teeth.

Allen Street twin building, second-floor office.

As she listened to my story, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ida's expression shifted.

"So Hazel's coming?"

"What, you two don't get along?"

"Not at all. I'm close with her."

If you claim to be close with a face that sour, is that really close? Both of them were strange. They would figure it out themselves.

"When's she coming?"

"She said two weeks once she sorts a few things out."

"I see. Looking forward to it."

Ida snorted and stared at one wall.

Then she muttered as if to herself.

"If I'd known, I would've gone to the funeral."

Ida bit her lip and left the office.

Come to think of it, she was from Hell's Kitchen too, same as Gunsmith. I should have told her.

Once Ida was gone I changed locations.

I stepped into the secret room and pulled a notebook from the desk. Inside it was packed with things I had scrawled in Korean—memories from my previous life.

Whenever I had a spare moment I wrote down information from my past life. The notebook I was looking at now was filled with mafia lineages, related figures, and incidents.

Documentaries, books, films, and scraps of information I had picked up elsewhere formed the foundation.

Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, Joe Adonis, Giuseppe Morello, Masseria, Maranzano—the big names who left heavy footprints I skipped.

Before Prohibition, before the mafia truly began to stir, there were gangsters who had made their names.

Because of that, the information covered only a few people, and among them were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dini Meehan of the White Hand Gang and Frankie Yale.

When I organized both men's information separately in the notebook, the commonalities jumped out at a glance.

Dini Meehan and Frankie Yale both operated out of Brooklyn and fought over the port unions.

And both would be assassinated.

Dini Meehan by one of his own men, Frankie Yale by fellow Italian gangsters.

Time and place were, of course, unknown.

What was certain was that they died before the mafia era fully arrived.

But I could not be sure.

There was every possibility the future had already twisted because of me. As time went on, the notebook's contents would serve less as certainty and more as reference.

While I was turning Dini Meehan and Frankie Yale over in my mind, I sensed a presence outside. I closed the notebook and slipped out of the secret room.

When I opened the door to the public office, Anthony was sitting in a chair, waving.

"Mission complete."

Anthony had eliminated the head of the Little Italy gambling association. The next day, related articles decorated the newspaper headlines.

And that same evening.

Bang! Bang!

"Fuck, die you bastards!"

"Union or whatever—shoot every bastard you see!"

A large-scale gunfight erupted near Bowery Street.

A clash between Italian gangs and our units.

Cale and the Union members piled in, and for five full minutes the shooting raged.

And by some miracle, not a single casualty occurred.

"They must've been shooting with their eyes closed."

Anthony's criticism was fair.

All they had accomplished was wasting bullets, souring public opinion, and triggering a massive NYPD sweep.

Everyone involved in the gunfight went to ground, and for the time being the war between Frankie Yale and the Union in the LES district entered a forced ceasefire.

Meanwhile, as the LES quieted down, Dini Meehan accepted my proposal.

The Irish union of Fulton Fish Market and the Italian union centered on the Romano ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brothers formed an alliance. They isolated the Russo and Cardone remnants Frankie Yale had been backing and began to erode their power.

And not long after.

The basement of the twin building steadily filled with tools that had once belonged to the Hell's Kitchen underground workshop.

I was not pleased about it.

"Build the shooting range first."

"We move the stuff first, then we build."

Having buried Gunsmith's death in a corner of her heart, Hazel furnished the basement workshop as if it had always been her place.