I'll Tell You the Solution
Five armed thugs appeared out of nowhere.
As the distance between us closed, moonlight caught the pistols each of them held.
If I play this right, I could snatch the prize while they do the dirty work.
All I needed was the debt contract the targets had used to blackmail the client—pull it off their corpses and the job was done. There was no guarantee they kept the papers on them, of course, but the mere fact that they had forced the client into smuggling under threat would give me fresh leverage either way.
Anything worked for me. I was settling in to watch the show unfold when the newcomers did something disappointing.
Only one of them went into the warehouse. The other four took up positions and stood guard.
Anyone could see this was not a hit squad.
What the hell are these bastards?
Four men walked casually back out of the warehouse. One was the armed thug who had just gone in; the other two were the targets I was supposed to eliminate.
They spoke among themselves in Italian. Unfortunately I could not make out a single word.
One thing was certain—they were on the same side.
Suddenly the number of men I needed to kill had jumped to eight.
How am I supposed to deal with this?
My head throbbed as I scrambled to rework the plan.
Then another man emerged from the warehouse. Unlike the rest, he was hunched and trembling with fear.
They leveled their guns at him and he reluctantly led the way along the waterfront. One of them trailed behind, pulling a handcart that had been parked beside the warehouse.
I was planning to finish this with a knife.
Looks like I'll need a gun after all.
I pulled the thick Bible I had taken from my mother's room out of my bag. When I opened it and tore out a few pages, the pistol hidden inside came into view.
The Colt M1911 I had stashed just in case on the way to Red Hook.
Gripping it, I shadowed them at a careful distance.
The man forced to walk point under threat of the gun was, without a doubt, the harbor security officer who had hired me for this job.
Wherever he was leading them had to be the warehouse holding the smuggled goods—so what were they after?
Looking at the major contraband of the era for gangs like these: high-end liquor and tobacco imported from certain countries to dodge steep tariffs; coffee, sugar, coal, and metals whose prices had skyrocketed because of the war in Europe; and weapons.
But if these men belonged to an Italian gang—especially Camorra from Naples—the cargo was almost certainly cocaine.
The Camorra processed coca leaves brought in from South America through the ports of Naples and the Mediterranean coast, then re-exported the finished cocaine to Europe or America. That pipeline had forged connections between the Camorra in Italy proper and their counterparts in the United States.
In short, these men were most likely Camorra who had crossed over from the Italian mainland for exactly that purpose.
The security officer stopped at a warehouse full of goods that had already cleared customs inspection and were simply waiting for their duties to be paid.
So they were skimming export cargo.
"This is the real last time, just like we promised."
"We're not finished yet. Shut your mouth and open the door."
The officer let out a deep sigh and unlocked the padlock.
Click.
Two of them heaved the doors open and the rest poured inside. While they were occupied I closed the distance, pressing myself as near to the warehouse as I dared.
About five minutes later the mysterious contraband made its appearance.
One man came out carrying something long. Moonlight glinted off a metal barrel.
A rifle?!
The others followed in a line, each cradling a crate in his arms. Five crates in total.
"In un periodo di guerra mondiale, quegli irlandesi non hanno proprio senso."
"Vogliono l'indipendenza e spediscono armi all'IRA? Dovrebbero mandarle ai soldati al fronte, non credi?"
"Dico bene?"
What the hell are they saying… wait. I caught one word for sure.
IRA.
And putting that together with the weapons—
Those crates were definitely full of guns.
A year earlier, in April 1916, the Irish had risen during Easter week in an attempt to win independence from Britain. The Easter Rising. Several organizations had led the revolt; it failed, and the rebel leaders were executed one after another. Britain's harsh crackdown only fanned the resentment of Irish people who had previously been lukewarm about independence.
As a result, some of the groups that took part in the rising re-formed this year under the name IRA—the Irish Republican Army.
And every armed movement needed money. Weapons and guerrilla operations required cash.
The IRA's funding pipeline? The immigrants who had fled Ireland during the potato famine were their most reliable source of cash. Even now, fund-raising for the IRA was quietly underway across the United States.
I knew this for a reason. Part of it was the fiercely patriotic Irish comrades I had known in my previous life as a mercenary. The rest was blood.
A Korean father whose country had been stolen by Japan.
An Irish mother whose country had been stolen by England.
The man who inherited both lines of blood: me, Kieran Graves.
I abandoned the original plan of simply eliminating the targets. The moment before the crates went onto the cart was my chance.
Five men carrying crates, three with guns drawn—plus the officer.
I burst out of the darkness and squeezed the trigger at the heads of the armed men.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Next targets: the ones who had just dropped their crates so they could draw their own pistols.
I closed on them, still firing.
BANG!
Only the security officer and one last man left, half-crouched as he tried to free his gun.
BANG!
Click.
Eight headshots.
Exactly eight bodies hit the ground.
The magazine was empty; the slide locked back. The trigger would no longer fire.
A Colt M1911 magazine normally holds seven rounds. To make it +1 you chamber one, then seat a full seven-round magazine on top of it.
I am thorough like that.
Among mercenaries there is a saying: Don't die short—leave one in the pipe and save your life.
I coined it.
Still holding the empty pistol, I stared at the harbor security officer who was huddled against the warehouse wall, shaking violently.
"Davey Johnson?"
"W-who are you?"
"Nox. Tanner sent me."
"Ah!"
The officer scrambled to his feet. Moonlight showed me a face bright with sudden relief, streaked with tears.
"We deal with the crates before anyone shows up."
"I-if we put them back in the warehouse they'll be found."
"So what's the alternative?"
He chewed his lip.
"Tick-tock. Time's running."
An idea seemed to strike him; he began loading the fallen crates onto the handcart.
"There's a place no one will look."
I helped. I also recovered the rifles the corpses still clutched. We stacked the five crates—each weighing well over forty pounds—onto the cart and got out of there.
There was no time to loot the bodies. The officer simply bolted, hauling the cart as fast as he could.
He threaded us through a maze of deserted warehouses until we reached one crammed with odds and ends. Unusually, a heavy wooden bar could be dropped across the door from the inside.
"No one comes here. We'll hide the crates inside for now."
Still breathing hard, he opened the door, cleared space among the junk, and shoved the crates in one by one.
I helped while I asked questions.
"You agreed to help ship weapons to the IRA."
He flinched hard enough to tremble.
"This is the room of truth. Spill everything."
"…"
I drew a knife. He blurted the rest in a panic.
"I-I'll talk. Starting a month ago there were discussions about the best way to get arms to the IRA."
"Are you in one of the related groups?"
"…My name's on the list."
"It's all right. I've got Irish blood myself."
He glanced at my scarf, clearly wishing he could see the face behind it, then gave up and continued.
"This weapons run was a kind of test for later operations."
"Which is why the quantity was so small. And the fund-raising is still ongoing."
"Exactly. After weighing several routes we settled on a plan. A few of us were assigned to handle customs clearance and storage."
Somehow the secret leaked to an Italian gang.
"I was already helping those bastards with their own smuggling, so they used me again. It wasn't my choice at all…"
"What were you moving for them the other times?"
"Cocaine…"
He hung his head.
Traditionally Irish gangs would commit almost any crime except the drug trade. A few individuals dabbled, but never on an organized scale. Call it a moral code if you like—Irish gangs had one. A gang born to protect the community could not traffic in the very thing that destroyed it. Perfectly rational thinking.
A new question rose in my mind.
"They say the Irish White Hand controls the waterfront. How were Italian operators running a gambling den right under their noses?"
"It was aimed at Italian laborers, so the White Hand looked the other way. Of course… Irishmen go there now too."
From the way things were shaping up, the gambling den was probably just a front. Their real business was cocaine smuggling.
Which raised another important point.
"Is the White Hand boss involved in the IRA weapons run?"
"He knows about it, but he isn't involved. He doesn't care much about the IRA either."
Irish independence? Something you might wish for in your heart, but nothing you were willing to die for. Fine if it happened, fine if it didn't. That was how most of the Irish people my mother and I knew felt. The White Hand boss was probably no different.
Voices drifted in from outside the warehouse.
"So what do you plan to do now?"
Eight corpses discovered on the docks. What had they taken out of a bonded warehouse, and who had ambushed them?
Police and reporters would look to the security officer for answers. There had been more than a few witnesses when he left the gambling den.
"What scares me is the White Hand… If they find out I helped the Italians smuggle, they'll kill me for sure."
"Works the other way too."
"…So everybody's going to want me dead."
One problem solved, a bigger one now crushing him.
"Maybe I should just end it right here…"
"If you talk about killing yourself I'll make sure your whole family joins you. Not that I'll do it myself—what's left of your family will finish the job for you."
If he truly cared about them, he had to stay alive and find a way out.
"I'll tell you that solution."
We left the warehouse together.
The officer knew the docks cold; he could have walked them blindfolded. He chose only empty paths. When we drew near the gambling den I stopped him.
Expectation lit his eyes as he turned to me.
"Tell me now."
"Yeah."
THUD!
I drove my fist into his face, then stomped him where he fell. I concentrated on the places that bruise best and show most. Leaving the unconscious officer behind, I slipped away.
Crowds were already streaming toward the waterfront where the bodies lay. I headed in the opposite direction, out of the harbor. Just as I was clear, a single stealthy shadow cut toward me.
I gripped my knife and pressed into a gap between stacked crates. Holding my breath, I waited. A man hurried past right in front of me, a bundle clutched in his hands. Moonlight showed a familiar face and work clothes.
"Stop."
"!"
He froze solid. When I stepped casually into the light he blinked hard.
"Y-you—the friend from Manhattan?"
The Red Hook laborer who had struck up a conversation that morning while we waited for the streetcar. He worked Pier 6. Coincidence could be this kind.
"What's in the bundle?"
"Shh!"
He put a finger to his lips and scanned the darkness.
"There's a full-on riot at the gambling den—total chaos. So I went and collected what I'd left with them. Those sons of bitches."
Riot, my ass.
What I heard was: I finally stole back everything I lost. Perfect timing—I had been regretting walking away without a single trophy.
"I'll pretend I didn't see. We split it fifty-fifty."
"…Why should I?"
"Why? Stolen money gets shared."
"You crazy bastard. You looking to die—"
I set the knife against his throat.
"Or I just take it all?"
"…No, sir."
It was ten o'clock at night.
The streetcar that would take me home was still running. I was waiting for it in an alley, staying clear of the streetlamps, when a Ford Model T pulled up nearby. Two men in flapping coats climbed out and headed for the docks.
That was only the start. Cars and carriages arrived in a steady stream. By the time I boarded the streetcar a police wagon had rolled up as well.
The car lurched into motion.
Through the window my eyes followed the backs of the officers sprinting toward the waterfront.
As I turned my head I locked eyes with a pair of punks my own age sitting in the rear seats.
"The fuck you looking at, asshole."
"Hey, come on, baby."
You call for Nox, Nox comes.
Even the ride home was never dull.