I Just Told Him How to Survive
It was a Sunday night, and the salon wasn’t crowded. Before I could even check the tables, a staffer stopped me at the counter.
“Just what kind of crimes have you been committing to hide your face like that, our dear customer?”
No entry with a covered face, he said. Instead of lowering my scarf, I handed over the business card I’d already slipped into my pocket.
Under the gloomy lights the staffer held the card close to his eyes, studying it, then asked,
“And what exactly am I supposed to do with this?”
“It’s a card your boss gave me himself.”
Why do you think he handed it over, you thick-skulled bastard?
The staffer rolling his eyes wasn’t a complete idiot. He waved the card right in front of my face.
“Wait here a moment.”
He disappeared into the salon while the other staff eyed me with open suspicion, raking me up and down. One of them—the same bastard who’d knocked on the door of Room 205—stared into my eyes and lit up.
“Looks Oriental. Japanese?”
Chinese mostly clustered in Chinatown, but Japanese lived scattered across Manhattan. Murray Hill on the east side of Midtown especially held Japanese silk-trading companies, while down here near the Chelsea piers on the west side of downtown sat porcelain and tableware traders. High-earning Japanese businessmen and diplomats sometimes lived in those districts.
“Do Japanese even come to this salon?”
“Never seen one. Even if they did, they wouldn’t show up alone like you.”
“Obviously. I’m not Japanese.”
“What, then Chinese—?”
“Stop. Conversation’s over. Follow me.”
The staffer who’d gone to see the boss reappeared and beckoned. He led me straight through the salon into the office.
Cigarette smoke hung thick in the room. Silverman sat on the sofa nursing a whiskey, a crooked smile spreading across his face the moment he saw me.
“Ditch that damn scarf and sit down first.”
I took the sofa. Once he got a proper look at my face, his smile deepened.
“So you finally need a job?”
“Not that. I had business nearby and couldn’t just walk past the sign.”
“Not about a job, then?”
“Sorry, but I’ve already got work.”
“Doesn’t sound like ordinary work.”
I’d expected the curiosity, so I pulled out my card case. Inside were several varieties—SCL Logistics, the lingerie boutique Intima, Free Your Body, Still Life—and the one I wanted him to see today…
“Deputy editor of The Ledger, Kieran Graves?”
Silverman’s head tilted in confusion, then his face slowly froze solid.
“Union… Don’t tell me you’re here because of Ida.”
“Quick on the uptake.”
Silverman’s eyes narrowed.
“I get that you’ve got guts, but you’re taking me way too lightly. You know where you are.”
“What do you think the reason is that I came here knowing exactly that?”
Did I really come alone? Did I walk in with zero contingency plans? Plenty of ways to read it depending on how you listened.
I could tell from his face which interpretation Silverman had landed on. His expression hardened and he ground his teeth.
“It was you. The one who wiped out the Italian crews and the Hudson Dusters in Jersey City and Hoboken. When we ran into each other at that port restaurant in Jersey City, you were already finished and heading home, weren’t you?”
“Could be the Pearl Buttons’ turn next.”
“……”
I wasn’t just threatening him—I was casually promising to erase the entire gang. Silverman’s mouth twitched; his right hand drifted stealthily toward the side of the sofa.
“For reference, of everyone who’s ever pointed a gun at me, exactly one is still breathing.”
His hand stopped.
“Who?”
“Isaac Rosenthal.”
“……Rosenthal the fence?”
“You know him well. If Tanner hadn’t stepped in, he’d already be dead by my hand.”
Mention of Tanner made Silverman flinch; he returned his right hand to its original place.
“So the young boss who absorbed the Marginals was you?”
“I didn’t come here to answer questions like that. Tell me—what was your plan?”
Silverman stayed silent a beat, steeled himself, then spoke.
“A reporter named O’Malley from the City Record came looking for me. He spilled Ida’s identity and told me to take her.”
“And?”
“At first I turned him down. No interest. There was nothing in it for me.”
But that bat-like O’Malley had started weighing the idea of handing Ida over to an Italian crew instead.
“For an Irishman he sure didn’t have any pride. For the record, my mother’s Irish.”
“Oh-ho?”
Silverman’s eyes changed on the spot. He leaned in, gaze bright.
“Now I understand how you became the next Marginals boss. Anyway, you’re right. O’Malley’s a piece of trash with zero Irish pride. He’d sell Ida to Italians, Jews, anyone, as long as the money was good.”
I suddenly wondered why Ida’s value ran high enough for Italian crews to salivate over her.
“Doesn’t seem like looks alone would make people go that crazy.”
Manhattan was full of beauties on Ida’s level.
“Obviously it wasn’t just looks. O’Malley figured Ida was a key that could unlock the Union.”
He’d linked Ida to the Union? A reporter who’d lived like a bat his whole life probably had more information and sharper instincts than most.
“Anyway, I planned to snatch Ida before O’Malley could hand her to the Italians. I was going to rescue her.”
“Prove it.”
“O’Malley underestimated my relationship with Tanner. I had no interest in picking a fight by messing with a former Marginal. And more than that—”
Silverman cut himself off, knocked back the whiskey on the table, set the glass down, and looked at me with grim resolve.
“I wanted to send Ida to Tanner and open negotiations with the Union.”
“Negotiations are fine. What’s the goal?”
“An alliance between the Union and the Pearl Buttons. When outside enemies attack, we stand together. Tanner would understand that better than anyone.”
In the past the Pearl Buttons and the Marginals had formed a united front against bigger gangs. Silverman wanted the same arrangement now.
But it was a deal with almost no upside for the Union.
“Alliances are for the small-time outfits. The Union can handle outside enemies on its own. Why would we leave LES just to prop up the Pearl Buttons?”
“……”
“Propose a different deal.”
Silverman dragged a palm down his face like he was washing it dry.
“If you don’t have one, I’ll make the offer. From now on the Union supplies the bootleg liquor; the Pearl Buttons flood Hell’s Kitchen and all of Chelsea with it.”
“So the Union’s preparing for Prohibition too?”
“If you can read the times, that shouldn’t surprise you. Guess you don’t have that much vision.”
“Tch. I was plenty aware. Either way, if it’s a business partnership I have no reason to refuse.”
I snorted and shook my head.
“You’re laboring under a misunderstanding. What I want isn’t a horizontal alliance. A unit might bruise some egos, so how about we call it a branch?”
“How the hell is that any different from a unit?!”
“It is different. Your men will still call you boss.”
Leave the current structure untouched. Pull Silverman in first, then absorb the rest gradually. Of course it wasn’t an easy decision from his side. With every rival gang shattered, Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea belonged to the Pearl Buttons.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I guess that’s that. But a year from now you’ll regret this decision. You’ll collapse whether it’s us or someone else.”
“……”
“Give your answer to Tanner.”
I rose from the sofa. As I turned to leave, Silverman asked,
“Is the Union’s boss Irish too?”
People kept treating me like a lieutenant or key figure rather than the boss himself. No matter what I did, they never saw me as the man at the top.
“Probably Irish.”
“I see. One more thing. What are you going to do about O’Malley?”
“There’s a rumor floating around about him lately. Heard it?”
“What rumor?”
“That he joined some strange organization. Anyway, this place has nothing to do with that group, right?”
Silverman’s eyes narrowed in incomprehension.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“If it doesn’t involve you, fine.”
He’d find out soon enough through the papers.
I left Silverman behind and walked out of the office. As I crossed the salon the staff glanced my way for a second, then shifted their eyes toward the office. Moments later they lost interest entirely and went back to their work.
Hell’s Kitchen, basement level two—the shooting range.
Ever since Gunsmith died and Hazel and Maddox had used it for a while, it had basically become a Union branch.
O’Malley didn’t regain consciousness until an hour after he’d been tied to the chair.
Once the Mickey Finn wore off and his mind cleared, he realized the hood over his head and thrashed like a man having a seizure. Then—
Thud.
The chair toppled. The impact sent a mix of spit and blood pouring from O’Malley’s mouth. Teeth cracked against the gag stone mixed into the filthy fluids and stuck to the cloth wrapping his face. Tears and snot streamed from the pain. He screamed, but the gag reduced everything to muffled groans.
“Told you to sit still. Always has to throw a goddamn tantrum.”
“A reporter should grasp a situation faster. Somehow the bastard survived this long in Hell’s Kitchen.”
Cale and Corey lounged on the sofa, sneering.
O’Malley whipped his head toward the voices. Through the holes in the hood he stared at the men. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them; the tear-blurred vision cleared. One by one he studied the men sitting under the dim lamps.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a familiar man appeared. O’Malley’s whole body shook as if struck by lightning.
You son of a bitch—it was you!
Bloodshot eyes locked on Kieran while O’Malley, still sprawled, rattled the chair wildly.
“Look how happy he is to see me.”
“Probably.”
“What a complete asshole.”
Kieran crouched in front of O’Malley, yanked off the hood, and pulled the stone from his mouth. He studied the face smeared with blood and sweat.
“So which Italian crew were you planning to sell Ida to?”
“W-what are you talking about…”
Crack.
“Don’t make me say it twice. I just had a cozy little chat with Silverman.”
“Silverman? Silverman got involved in this?”
Cale chimed in with a knowing tone.
“The ones who showed up at the inn were Silverman’s boys.”
“Whoa, insane. Why was he after Ida?”
“He claimed he wanted to rescue her. What’s your take?”
Cale snorted and nodded.
“If it’s Silverman, yeah, that tracks.”
Back when they built the alliance and fought alongside the Hudson Dusters, Silverman’s side had arrived a little late and almost gotten one of the Marginals killed.
“Tanner’s eyes went full murder mode; he nearly killed Silverman. They cleared up the misunderstanding, but Silverman knows how fiercely Tanner protects his people.”
And touching Ida, a Marginal? Tanner, who’d once talked about retiring, was now at the peak of his career as the labor slugger who ran the Manhattan docks with an iron fist.
“So Silverman isn’t stupid enough to make an enemy of Tanner.”
“Exactly.”
The moment Cale finished, Kieran backhanded O’Malley across the face.
“Even he knows that and you didn’t? And you call yourself a reporter?”
“I-I… Silverman just… told me how to survive…”
“Survive what?”
“……The Prohibition era… If you don’t prepare early… you get eaten… He was giving advice…”
Crack!
“That wasn’t advice—that was stirring shit. Dump Ida on the Pearl Buttons, spark a fight with the Union, then sell that information to the Italians. Your eyes are shaking, so I’m right, aren’t I? Yeah, I’m right.”
No!
O’Malley shook his head desperately, but no one believed him. The devil grabbed a fistful of hair hard enough to rip it out and forced him upright. Every inch of him hurt. Then, suddenly, O’Malley realized he was wearing a white gown.
“W-what… is this…”
“Ah, you finally noticed? Then you haven’t seen this either.”
Kieran picked something off the floor and waved it. A full-body shudder ran through O’Malley.
“What are you going to do…”
“A little gift I prepared. At least the citizens of Manhattan will remember your death for a long time. Which direction that memory takes, though—that’s up to the police.”
After those cryptic words he pulled the hood back over O’Malley’s face. When the man tried to resist, another dose of Mickey Finn was injected. Consciousness began to blur.
“Boss, so where are we taking him? Harlem, where the Black folks are?”
“No profit there. We’ll handle it on Lafayette Street, where the Jews are packed in.”
“Anti-Semite angle! Not bad.”
Fortunately for him, O’Malley only lost consciousness after hearing the place where he would die.