The Informants of the Lower East Side
“······.”
A short, piercing stare locked onto my eyes.
It wasn't some random suggestion. Leo had once seriously considered joining a gang himself—enough to float the idea to Kieran more than once. But then the kids who signed on got tangled up in everything from petty theft to robbery, extortion, arson, and murder, and he dropped the notion for good.
Extreme crime without a reason. Leo wasn't amoral enough—or gutsy enough—to go that far. His reaction was exactly what I'd expected.
“Cut the crap. Grab this.”
He held out a curved blade used for digging out foreign objects. I snatched it and spun it through a flashy series of turns.
“With this I could just go swish across a throat—”
“Ha, you little bastard. Why are you like this? I'm busy, so just hold the damn thing.”
I took the handle. Leo gripped the tool with both hands and carefully straightened the bent blade.
“See? Easy. And here you were grunting over it alone.”
“Two heads are better than one, right?”
I gave him a meaningful look. Leo shook his head.
“You've gotten slick all of a sudden. Anyway, you've been missing for days—what wind blew you here? If you're buying a new toolbox, pay me back first. You didn't forget, did you?”
His eyes narrowed. Belatedly I noticed his lips were split and slightly swollen. Around here, intact people were in short supply.
“What happened to your face?”
“You already know, so why ask?”
According to Kieran's memories, Leo had grown up under domestic violence. His Irish father was an alcoholic who poured liquor down his throat every single day.
“Sigh. I wish Prohibition would just pass already. Or that he'd drop dead.”
Anger and hatred toward his father. Leo was waiting for Prohibition, but when the time came the people who drank would keep right on drinking. His father was almost certainly one of them.
I gave a bitter smile and pulled money from my pocket.
Leo looked back and forth between the fifty cents and me.
“You haven't even worked—what's this for? Your mother's situation isn't great right now either.”
“You knew?”
“How could I not? Word gets around. I even know you got cleaned out on Wall Street. Oh, and get this—the guys who took your money turned up dead in an alley on Beekman Street.”
The alley murders never made the papers. The sweatshop owner's death got slightly better coverage, at least. Despite the reporters swarming the scene, they only ran a half-hearted line about a “clothing manufacturer found dead at home.” No mention of wage theft, gambling, or debts.
Anyway, Leo sat here hearing every scrap of news clear as day.
“I walked past the alley a few days ago. The cops had already cleared the bodies. How's that case going?”
“Neighborhood's been loud because of it. Looks like a gang war might kick off.”
Oh. So things were moving according to plan.
“What gang were the dead kids from?”
“Hudson Dusters.”
A powerful outfit that had once ruled the Lower West Side. But just as the Gophers and Eastmans had collapsed, the Hudson Dusters were walking the same road. Their leaders had been scooped up by the NYPD and locked away; others had died of drug addiction. The gang was in decline.
“So why were West Side kids all the way over on the East Side?”
“As the gangs got weaker, the borders got fuzzy. These days, wherever the money is—that's the turf.”
So the ones I'd killed in the alley a few nights earlier had been Hudson Dusters. And the Marginals, named as suspects, were the crew that had surged up by exploiting that weakness.
“I hear the Marginals denied everything, but if it wasn't them, who else would hit Hudson Dusters? Word is one of their members got chased by Marginals that same night.”
“So when do you figure the two sides fight?”
“Right now the Hudson Dusters are even rounding up guys who already quit. I don't know when, but war's coming. No way around it.”
I had slipped clean off the suspect list while the ball I'd set rolling shoved both gangs into a full-blown standoff. The feeling was excellent.
“In their prime the Hudson Dusters ran five hundred strong. They used to tear through the streets like outlaws, drunk and high.”
Even if they weren't at their peak, it was still a straight-up war against men who lived like there was no tomorrow. The Marginals had every reason to feel the weight of it.
“Funny part is, both crews are Irish. How do you think the Jews, the Italians, and the Chinese kids are taking it?”
Popcorn time. That was the board as it currently stood.
I asked about the former boss of the Marginals—the ones staring down a war with the Hudson Dusters.
“You know a man named Tanner Smith?”
Leo narrowed his eyes and gave me a suspicious look.
“First you start caring about gangs out of nowhere, and now you even know Tanner Smith. Are you really the Kieran I know?”
I gave him the short version of what had happened with Gary. Leo grabbed the back of his neck like the whole thing refused to make sense.
“So Gary got beat, told Tanner Smith ‘there's a kid who can fight,’ and that kid is you?”
“That's right.”
“Does that even make sense? How does the weakest kid in the neighborhood take Gary? I could take you myself.”
Was that a challenge? Leo stood about the same height as me, and thanks to his mother's genes he put on muscle without even trying. I, on the other hand, looked skinny enough to snap. We'd never fought, but nobody would bet on Leo losing. Nobody except me. I was sure.
“Anyway, Tanner Smith's a different sort. Not like the other bosses.”
That matched what Gary had said. After prison, Tanner had turned over a new leaf and started looking after underprivileged Irish boys. What I wanted to know was something else.
“He washed his hands of the gang—so what money is he using to help the kids?”
“Tanner works the docks, unloading ships. That's the money he puts into the boys.”
“Hauling cargo for that peanut wage and still helping people?”
“He's not an ordinary laborer. During strikes like now, a former boss like Tanner Smith commands real money.”
When the unions walked out, companies and the government tried to break them with force, and both sides hired gangs to do the dirty work. A man with reputation and followers like Tanner Smith became a very useful card for the unions.
“Paul Kelly's a similar case.”
Manhattan's strongest gang—the Five Points. Its founding boss had been the Italian immigrant Paul Kelly. After prison he handed the top seat over the same way Tanner had, and these days he sat as vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association.
“Dockworkers are heavy with Italian and Jewish immigrants, so Paul Kelly became their center of gravity and got deep into the strikes. Same with Tanner Smith. He's popular on the Irish side.”
“So his connections are solid too?”
“Both of them have lines into Tammany Hall. They use each other, sure—but Tanner Smith built his whole organization and took the boss seat with political backing from the start. After prison I'm less sure.”
Interesting. Former bosses tying themselves to the harbor unions meant real money was on the table. Tanner Smith's political threads through Tammany Hall were equally worth watching.
“Still, I think cash is tight. I hear he's joining the strikes and working regular jobs at the same time.”
Leo wasn't just repeating gossip; he added his own analysis and advice.
“Look, your story's hard to swallow, but if Tanner Smith is really looking for you, you stay the hell away. Once the Hudson Dusters fight starts, he'll get pulled in, and if your luck's bad you will too. Even if they win—you think the other gangs just sit on their hands?”
They'd attack the next day. Opportunity. Leo was right that there was no reason for me to get tangled up again in the mess I'd started. Still, a former boss with reputation and a following was a fascinating piece. His connections, and the fact that he was a dockworker with real pull in the union—none of that was unattractive.
I'd think more about Tanner Smith once I was home. For now I told Leo the real reason I'd come.
“The sewing machines the loan sharks took from Mother's workshop. Where would those be?”
According to the plan, the thirty-odd machines the sharks had carted off should have gone straight back to the owner. After the deliberate bankruptcy he would need them for the new company. Instead the owner had dropped dead, and the sharks themselves were under police investigation as suspects.
“How are they going to dump that many machines in a few days?”
Even used, a sewing machine sold for sixty to eighty dollars—three months' wages for an ordinary laborer. Secondhand of secondhand barely lost value. Without a serious buyer, moving dozens of machines overnight was impossible. That was my read.
Leo's mouth fell slightly open. Admiration flickered in his eyes.
“Your head got sharper all of a sudden too. How do you even think of that? How hard did you get hit?”
“...So do you know or not?”
He rubbed his chin and shook his head.
“I don't. But if you find the place, what then?”
“Steal them.”
“.....Don't mess around.”
“Hmm. I know someone with enough money to buy them. Clearance is always cheapest, right?”
If I was buying machines, fire-sale stock was the way. Leo bought the cover story. The idea that I might be cooking something else never crossed his mind.
“If it works out, that rich backer takes over the workshop your mother worked in? She keeps her job?”
“Exactly. But you said you don't know.”
I stood without lingering.
“Then I go find another informant.”
Another information broker of the Lower East Side.
“I'll go see Marcus.”
Leo's pride took the hit; he snorted.
“Like he'd be any different. He won't even give you the time of day. That bastard looking down on Orientals isn't new. You'll only get your feelings hurt.”
“Doesn't matter. I'm not looking for free information either.”
“You're going to deal with Marcus?”
“Of course. Nothing in this world is free.”
Leo scratched his chin, thinking. At last he exhaled and spoke.
“The way you've been acting lately has me nervous. I'll dig for you instead. What's the deal?”
The loan sharks' identities and the exact place they were stashing the sewing machines.
“Find that out and I'll give you two dollars. That includes you.”
“You're saying that after talking it over with the rich backer, right?”
I smiled and nodded. Leo's expression shifted; the bait had taken. Hooked. That was exactly why I'd come to him first.
“As fast as you can. Plenty of wagons hauled sewing machines that night—there have to be witnesses.”
“Me and Marcus together? Nothing we can't find. But are you heading home?”
“Yeah. I lost the bet, so I have to.”
“Traitor bastard.”
Leo pouted, then grinned and clapped my shoulder.
“Kidding. Your mother just got laid off out of nowhere—she's got to be hurting. Go take care of her.”
“Thanks.”
“Kid, now you're even saying thank you.”
Leo usually killed time on the street as late as he could to stay clear of his father. Plenty of kids were in the same boat; shoeshine boys finished for the day drifted over one by one. I made room for them and headed home.
Click.
I opened the door the way I always did. Roa scanned me from head to toe and burst out.
“Wow! Big Brother, you didn't get hit even once?!”
Yeah—Gary was the one who got hammered.
Liam tilted his head, unable to square the picture.
“Gary wouldn't call you just to talk. Really nothing happened?”
“Can't you tell by looking?”
I was standing there perfectly fine. I was about to shut the door when Mother arrived home.
“Everyone hungry? Sorry I'm late.”
“Roa already set aside the eggs and potatoes!”
“Our cute little one is already helping Mommy. Just wait a bit.”
She smiled brightly, which only made the whole thing feel more strained. While I helped with dinner I asked,
“How did the visit to the women's group go?”
“Well... so-so. With the owner dead they said it wasn't clear who to demand anything from, or what the justification for a protest even was. If we'd known he was a swindler, maybe...”
Only we knew the truth. Everyone else still believed the owner had simply been murdered after running from loan sharks. So the WTUL had asked for more time to think it over.
The next morning.
As usual Liam slung his toolbox over his shoulder and left; Roa was left with Aunt Mary. Mother went down to the basement workshop for the strategy meeting the way she always did. I shut myself in, worked out, and scribbled in my notebook.
Taking over the basement workshop would wait until I had the sewing machines secured. With cash in hand there was no need to scrape for survival just yet. This was the moment to plan the future.
Prohibition, speakeasies, breweries.....
In the Prohibition years the gangs would tear each other apart for control of bars and breweries. But the early game that mattered was locking down warehouses for the booze and the distribution nets that poured it into the market. And the single best place to do that was New York Harbor—the docks.
Every scrap of cargo gathered there and scattered from there. Once you lost it, getting it back was nearly impossible.
“To take the harbor I need connections at the manager level...”
The uncles working the docks could wait. Tanner Smith—former boss of the Marginals, dockworker—rose to the front of my mind. The reformed gangster wanted Irish boys to look out for one another. I would count as one of them. But I didn't have the luxury of starting that slowly.
The mad Prohibition era was almost here. Before it arrived I needed to pull Tanner Smith in and build my own power and network.
“I'll have to cut a deal with Tanner Smith.”
How to make a former gang boss join hands with a seventeen-year-old. That was the real problem...
“Kieran! You home?”
Leo showed up earlier than expected—and he hadn't come alone. Another informant of the Lower East Side was with him.