Where Is Knox Now?
Uncle Derek, the youngest of my mother’s brothers, laid out the situation.
“There’s talk that the distilleries are going to run production at the absolute limit this year. The wholesalers are planning to hoard—buy up everything they can get their hands on.”
“The market’s still quiet for now, but once the grace period starts winding down, it’s going to get ugly.”
He was right. Consumers hadn’t opened their wallets in earnest yet. But the date was already fixed. People would start feeling the clock tick down like terminal patients, and a full-blown buying frenzy would sweep the country.
“The liquor men know it too. That’s why the factories will burn every last spark of production capacity—one final blaze.”
Wouldn’t that flood the market with too much supply?
For a moment, yes. But it didn’t matter. The federal government had granted a full year of grace, one last act of kindness so people could stockpile. Wholesalers would swallow every bottle the factories poured out. Warehouses that had sat empty for years were already selling like hotcakes—proof enough.
When the briefing finished, Derek asked for my take.
“So what now? Keep buying more liquor?”
SCL currently held six warehouses. Over the past year I’d filled them as fast as I could, yet I’d only managed three hundred thousand bottles. The limit was my capital. Protection money from LES, profits from every business I ran—thrown in together it still only came to half a million dollars, and part of that had been bank loans.
“For the next year or two we focus on protecting what we already have. We’ve got other work.”
“Won’t we get left behind? The big money’s already moving.”
Men who rolled millions could snap up a million bottles overnight. Competing with them on pure cash was suicide.
“We play the long game. The liquor in those warehouses is seed money.”
We’d built this from nothing. The road ahead was long; there was no need to rush.
I chalked the long-term plan onto the board for Uncle Derek, Rosenthal the fence, Uncle Noh, and Leo.
For the next two years SCL’s core missions would be: acquiring distilleries, building the bootleg distribution network, and opening the Canadian route. Canada especially needed a hard look.
“Once Prohibition hits, all you have to do is look at Canada to know what’s coming.”
I spread a newspaper across the center of the table. The headline read:
Someone had already tried this particular brand of madness before America—Canada. When the Great War broke out, several Canadian provinces enacted wartime prohibition. The United States already had dry states of its own, but Canada went national in April 1918, earlier than us. The chaos and side effects they suffered were the exact future racing toward America.
American politicians, eyes fixed on the dry vote, had simply looked away from Canadian reality and rammed the insane law through.
“The politics don’t concern us. What we watch are the Canadian bootleg outfits and their distribution channels.”
Under prohibition, Canada had sprouted gangs overnight. They controlled the moonshine and raked in cash.
Uncle Noh raised a question.
“Most of the liquor circulating in Canada came from the States, right? Once America goes dry too, both sides get sealed off, don’t they?”
“Good question. There’s a difference between the two laws.”
The Eighteenth Amendment banned manufacture, sale, transport, import, export—nearly everything connected to alcohol.
“Canada never closed the door on production or foreign export.”
At first they tried. Then the industry took a beating, tax revenue crashed, and they had no choice but to leave production and export open.
“So Canada becomes the main supplier of the booze that’ll flood America.”
“We share a border.”
“Then punching a hole in that route becomes critical. Wait—Kieran, that island trip last time… that was for this?”
“It was.”
A murmur of appreciation went around the table. I was thorough like that.
“But the island is a seaport play. We also need an inland route.”
I unfolded a map and pointed to one of the places where the American and Canadian borders touched.
“Detroit?”
“Right across from Windsor, Ontario. Together with Walkerville next door, it’s the heart of Canadian whisky production.”
Windsor—the same name as the whisky I’d enjoyed in my previous life. Hiram Walker & Sons’ Canadian Club, J.P. Wiser, Gooderham & Worts, Corby Distillery—all of them sat right there.
“And all you have to do is cross the Detroit River and you’re in America.”
The river was narrow. Small boats could ferry the cargo; in winter you could simply drive or walk across the ice. Hell, a man could just grab a crate and run.
“That’s a hell of a key location.”
“Miss it and we’ll be sucking our thumbs. Volume coming through there could dwarf anything the ports bring in.”
“Shit. Blood’s going to fly over that stretch.”
Derek was right. Detroit, staring across the water at Windsor, Ontario, would become a killing ground every gang wanted to own. The problem was the gangs already planted there were no pushovers.
“Michigan’s been dry since last year. Bootleg is already moving across the Detroit River as we speak.”
Detroit was the mecca of automobile manufacturing. Henry Ford, who owned factories there, had pushed hard for prohibition to keep drunk workers off his lines. Michigan passed its own dry law in 1917 and it had been in force since May first of last year.
“The Detroit gangs are already making real money off moonshine. They’re plowing that cash into expansion—growing like weeds.”
“You need weight to even sit at the table. Right now there’s no crack we can force open, and no excuse for a deal.”
I nodded at Rosenthal’s assessment.
“We go to Detroit in two years—after we’ve secured our own distribution channels and retail outlets for the product.”
That would be when we decided whether those men became partners or enemies.
“Until then, SCL’s job is to weave a spiderweb of bootleg routes and lock down places that will actually drink the stuff.”
Every step would be dangerous. Gangs from outside New York—whole other states—would come at us, trying to take what we’d built. This was a brutal survival game with lives on the line. Eat or be eaten. Winners lived. Losers went into the ground.
“One slip and there’s no coming back. A single mistake could cost every one of us our lives.”
And the enemy you couldn’t see was always the most dangerous.
“Betrayal from inside can kill us faster than any outside rival. Keep a tight eye on the men. Anything even slightly off—report it immediately.”
The meeting broke up. I sent for Raymond at once.
“Detroit?”
“I need someone there collecting information and reporting back.”
Raymond’s eyes lit up.
“Detroit’s crawling with working detectives. All those companies mean plenty of work.”
“We can’t hire active Pinkertons.”
He gave a short laugh and shook his head.
“Detective agencies aren’t exactly rare. William Burns, Baldwin-Felts, the Berghoff Brothers’ strike service—plenty of private outfits, plus loners like me who hang out a shingle.”
“Anyone among them you trust?”
“Of course.”
“Then you handle the hire. Cover story: special correspondent for The Ledger, Detroit bureau.”
Raymond’s eyes widened a fraction. Then one corner of his mouth curled up as if a thought had struck him.
“The way you decide everything on the spot… Kieran, I think I’ve finally got a handle on who you really are.”
He looked at me with knowing eyes.
“Boss of the Union gang.”
“······.”
“Family, no question. Close blood, too. Ah—no need to answer. That’d put you in a spot.”
He was getting closer. Watching exactly when he would finally put it together was becoming an interesting little game of its own.
“I’ll need to go to Detroit myself, so put in a word with Editor-in-Chief Ida for me.”
“Understood.”
Raymond reached for the door, then turned back.
“One more thing. What about other cities?”
“Depends how this one goes.”
“A test, then. You’ll expand. I’d bet on it.”
He clamped his clay pipe between his teeth with a confident grin and left.
Lunchtime. Leo and I collected Brandon from the investment office on the first floor and headed for a nearby restaurant.
Plenty of people still stood frozen in front of the newsstands, staring at the headlines about the Prohibition Amendment being ratified.
Wets were the anti-prohibition crowd; Drys were the dry crusaders. After years of savage fighting, the Drys had finally taken the field.
Inside the restaurant every conversation was about the same thing.
“Who the hell saw this crazy law actually passing? Damn dry fanatics—look at the mess we’re in.”
“What gives the government the right to tell us what we can drink? What’s wrong with a little liquor?”
“Exactly. So let’s have a round right now. Day drinking for comfort.”
“Christ. I’m going to have to start buying booze the second I get paid.”
“Gonna drink myself stupid for the next year.”
Brandon listened for a moment, then spoke quietly.
“It’s already this bad. Wait till a year from now—it’ll be a show. Wall Street’s chaos too. Everyone’s dumping liquor stocks.”
“Anyone still holding is out of their mind. The whole sector’s going to keep bleeding. Speaking of which—clients’ money still under control?”
“They were climbing the walls first thing this morning.”
He smiled and waved the worry off.
“We were already in non-alcoholic beverages instead of liquor. Money fleeing the distilleries is pouring into that space, so those stocks keep climbing.”
When the war ended and the market caught fire on pure optimism, we had liquidated every share we held. Two weeks ago that capital went into Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Dr Pepper, Hires Root Beer, and the rest. Brandon had steered the clients the same direction, so profits were inevitable.
“The ones who ran in panicking left happy once they saw the returns.”
“More clients will follow. At this rate you’ll have to move the whole shop to Wall Street.”
Leo laid it on thick, praising Brandon. The two of them might be satisfied with the gains, but I was less impressed. Coldly speaking, the returns were below expectations. Liquor had taken a hit, yet the soft-drink names hadn’t rocketed the way they should have.
The reason was right there in the newspaper I skimmed while we waited for food. The factors currently weighing on the market: postwar economic reshuffling, and the Spanish flu still casting a long shadow.
Internationally, the Great War had redrawn borders; Germany had lost its Kaiser and become a republic. World leaders were gathering in Paris to settle the peace, and talk of a League of Nations was already in the air. The Spanish flu had finished its deadly second wave and entered the early stages of a third—less lethal than the last, but people remained wary.
In the big cities, mask mandates, public-space closures, and bans on gatherings were still in force. That was why we hadn’t reopened Pumpkin Dance Hall after shutting it down. That was why Ida hadn’t yet used her Editor-in-Chief card for The Ledger to debut in high society. And that was why soft-drink stocks hadn’t staged their dramatic climb—all of it the Spanish flu.
And something else, different in nature yet every bit as dangerous, was spreading like a virus and terrifying the world: the Red Scare, the crimson tide that had accelerated after the Russian Revolution. America had been intervening in the Russian Civil War since last summer, sending troops to back the anti-Bolshevik forces. That operation continued. At home the government was using tools like the Espionage Act of 1917 to arrest and deport communists and anarchists.
Food arrived while I was still reading. I had just picked up my fork when a group of soldiers in uniform walked into the restaurant. Every head turned to look. Leo’s included.
“Stateside garrison troops? The overseas boys haven’t come home yet.”
“If they’re still in uniform, they’re still active duty. Probably assigned to the East River docks.”
The federal government issued every discharged soldier a civilian suit—a symbolic gift welcoming them back to civilian life. So the men sitting down and waiting for food were still in service. Judging by the assignment, they were almost certainly handling troop movements, transport, and security at the port.
“Speaking of which—shouldn’t our own boys be coming back soon?”
“Who got drafted?”
Brandon asked Leo.
“Gavin, Drift, Teddy, David. Poor bastards—all four of them.”
“Whoa. They’re all right?”
“Yeah. Checked with their families recently. No word of any of them getting killed, thank God.”
Right before the armistice, the Meuse-Argonne offensive had thrown 1.2 million American soldiers into the meat grinder. The papers said roughly twenty-seven thousand never came back. Our men had survived that death charge. The experience they would bring home made them solid assets. I wanted them back yesterday—there was so much work ahead—but the logistics were brutal. The American Expeditionary Forces alone numbered two million. Shipping capacity had limits. On top of that, occupation duties in Germany and other defeated territories, plus keeping order in shattered regions, meant you couldn’t just yank the troops out overnight. The best the government could offer the waiting families was a staged return through spring and summer.
Soldiers who had walked through a storm of bullets and shells, who had stepped over endless corpses and tasted the full madness of the front, were coming home. What waited for them was a new American chaos called Prohibition. Corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and cops, plus demobilized soldiers hired by the gangs—together they would forge the roaring, lawless 1920s.
My head had been entirely occupied by Prohibition when an unexpected newspaper item crossed my desk in the second-floor office of the twin buildings. It was buried in a corner almost no one would notice.
From an American perspective the story barely registered; even the association’s name went unmentioned. Naturally I had no idea what it was. I knew less about Korean history than mafia bloodlines.
I was rubbing my chin and staring out the window when Leo walked in with another man. Clifton—Uncle Derek’s friend, a liquor-distribution salesman. His face was swollen and scratched.
“You get jumped?”
“Don’t even start. The crazy bastards are hitting every liquor truck they see.”
The quick ones had already started preying on the trucks.
“Which neighborhood?”
“Hell’s Kitchen. They’re stealing the booze and using it to lean on saloon owners.”
“Which gang?”
The Hudson Dusters. They always resurfaced the moment you almost forgot them.
“Still not wiped out?”
“One of the original founders is back. Real nightmare type.”
Name: Frank “Goo Goo” Knox. The absurd part was the rest of the story.
“Word is he was running around as an IRA secret agent. Rumor says he tore through Italian gangs too.”
That Knox couldn’t be the same Knox. There had been a stretch when every dog and his brother claimed the name—right after I’d wiped out the Italian outfits in Red Hook and the story spread that I was an IRA operative. One of those pretenders had been a founding member of the Hudson Dusters: Goo Goo Knox himself.
“Where is Knox right now?”