Quiet and Intense from the Start
The Brooklyn trip was over in less than a day.
When I got home past midnight, Mother was asleep at the table, head down on her arms.
I was changing clothes as quietly as I could and sorting my bag when she slowly sat up and looked at me.
“My eldest—just getting in?”
“The work finished sooner than I expected.”
“That’s a relief. But what’s that?”
I’d been trying to keep it out of sight, but I was holding a Bible in my hand.
Mother’s eyes widened in surprise, then settled into a satisfied smile.
“My son’s resolve not to be swayed by the devil’s whispers. I’m truly, truly proud of you. That Bible will always protect you.”
“..... I think so too. I’ll carry this with me from now on.”
“Good thinking, son.”
I hugged her goodnight and lay down in bed, trying to sleep.
In my head I replayed the day, scenes flickering past one after another.
The thirty rifles in particular kept lingering before my eyes.
It was a shame I hadn’t managed to bring even one.
But where was I supposed to hide something that size?
Even broken down, the frame itself was large enough that I’d have drawn suspicion the whole way back to Manhattan.
The rifles the IRA had been trying to smuggle were bolt-action Lee-Enfields.
With the outbreak of the Great War they were being manufactured by Remington in America.
Which meant that though they were made in the States, they took British .303 British ammunition—easy enough to find in Ireland as well, making them ideal guns for the IRA.
That aside, the warehouse manager would be under interrogation at the police station by now, and all he knew was the name Knox—an Irishman.
He wouldn’t mention Tanner. And to keep suspicion off both the Irish White Hand and the Italian gangs, there was only one way to play it.
Brooklyn Police Station.
The moment the unconscious Davy Johnson came to, he found himself facing a police officer.
He’d been hauled in as a key witness and was under questioning.
“What went missing from the bonded warehouse?”
“How should I know? There’s more than one or two things in there. We’ll have to check in the morning.”
“So you don’t know why the Italians were there either?”
“I don’t.”
“Why’d you give them the warehouse key?”
“I didn’t give it—they took it. Can’t you tell from the way they beat me half to death till I passed out?”
Davy shoved his bruised, bloodied face toward the officer.
Shit, did they have to hit me this hard!
Anger kept flaring up in him.
But figuring it had been done for his own good, he swallowed it and simply shook his head again and again at the police.
“When I came to, the first thing I saw was a police officer. So I don’t know a thing.”
“We’ll leave it at that for today. Please continue to cooperate with the investigation going forward, Mr. Johnson.”
He got through the first police interrogation without a hitch.
But on the way home, something far more dangerous was waiting for Davy Johnson.
“The boss wants to see you.”
A far more dangerous breed than the police.
He was dragged before the boss of the White Hand Gang.
Alone with him, Davy Johnson’s face ran with cold sweat and his legs trembled.
Dini Meehan.
The man who, with an iron fist, had seized control of Brooklyn’s Irish laborers and unions—a man even the Italian gangs feared.
And like the traditional Irish gang bosses, he never touched the drug trade.
Yet Johnson had helped the Italian gangs smuggle cocaine? If Dini Meehan learned of that through this incident as well, Johnson couldn’t even begin to imagine how painfully he would die.
That was how terrifying Dini Meehan was.
“You dealing with the Italians?”
“N-no, never. I didn’t tell the cops, but those bastards already knew about the weapons meant for the IRA and the warehouse location. Why else would I have given them the key? You know—I was the one who helped smuggle the IRA weapons.”
Dini Meehan’s vicious glare.
Even looking away from it, Johnson’s eyes kept sliding to the hand axe on the chair’s armrest.
Keep your head straight at times like this, Johnson!
Hadn’t he already seen this coming?
He’d prepared his answers in advance.
This was about his life and his family’s.
Steeling himself, Johnson met Dini Meehan’s gaze without flinching.
They stared at each other for several long seconds.
One trying to see through, the other to hide.
The axe would come down the moment he slipped.
When his hands were slick with sweat, Davy Johnson tossed out the important piece of information he’d been holding back.
“I didn’t tell the police, but the culprit is a guy named Knox.”
Johnson released the info to shift Dini Meehan’s attention onto Knox.
As expected, Dini Meehan reacted.
“Something just hit me all of a sudden. Keep going.”
“Truth is, the Italians threatened me and beat me until I handed over the key… Embarrassing as it is, I was so scared I hid.”
Then after the gunshots, a man appeared a little later. He introduced himself as Knox.
“...... Out of nowhere. So?”
“He said Irish blood ran in his veins too. That he couldn’t forgive me for handing the key to the Italians over a little threat and a few punches, and he beat me until I passed out… See this?”
“But why didn’t you tell the police this?”
Dini Meehan’s attitude shifted, subtle but unmistakable.
Davy Johnson caught it and chose his next words with extreme care.
“If an Irishman is named as the suspect, who do they look at first? And the dead guys were Italian Camorra…”
Of course the police would suspect the White Hand first. They’d bribed some cops, but the whole department wasn’t friendly to the gang.
If the sole witness pinned the suspect as Irish, the White Hand would be in real trouble.
“I’ll grant you that. Smart choice.”
Dini Meehan’s face eased a little.
It was possible only because the dockside incident itself had erupted without any clear context.
Stroking his chin, Dini Meehan began questioning and answering himself like a detective possessed.
“This Knox character. He wouldn’t have been alone—there must’ve been a few more. But how did they know and show up right then? They clearly knew about the weapons in advance, and Irish…”
The IRA, organized this year, was recruiting and training soldiers for proper combat against the British government. If it was connected to that…
Davy Johnson carefully watched every change in Dini Meehan’s expression. The man’s interest was definitely fixed on Knox.
To get out of this cleanly, drive the stake all the way home.
“Before he knocked me out, that guy gave me some important information. He told me where he’d hidden the weapons.”
“He didn’t take the weapons?!”
Like the police, Dini Meehan had never believed the culprit was alone.
He’d assumed there were several of them and that they’d taken the weapons.
But not only hadn’t they taken them—they’d eliminated the Italians and even revealed the hiding place.
With a look of dawning realization, Dini Meehan chuckled.
“Maybe this Knox fellow was alone. And he might be an IRA secret agent.”
Hmm? A little unsettling, but—
“...... Could be.”
Davy Johnson nodded in agreement.
From this day’s conversation, the existence of Knox began flowing in a strange new direction.
Manhattan, Lower East Side.
76 Forsyth Street. Tenement house.
Tanner Smith came looking for me three days after I’d been to Red Hook.
I was on my way back with Mother from meeting a brassiere-hook supplier when he was waiting for me at the entrance.
And up on the rooftop, I heard about the Brooklyn situation.
“You—sent by the IRA? You were trying to build a military organization instead of a gang for Irish independence? Here in New York?”
“What the hell are you suddenly… saying?”
“Davy Johnson said so. The White Hand boss thinks you’re an IRA secret agent.”
The informant Three-Fingered Jack who’d been cutting cards in Red Hook, and the rest of it.
“He said he was sincerely impressed by your skills. You only needed to take out three, but you killed eight. What the hell did you do over there?”
Instead of answering, I scratched my cheek.
I’d roughly expected how the manager would respond.
He’d stick to knowing nothing, thoroughly, to stay alive—which was why I’d knocked him out in the first place.
But I hadn’t expected the manager to turn me into an IRA secret agent.
Had I hit him so hard he went crazy?
Or maybe it had worked out for the best.
Since there was no particular reason to hide it, I explained what had happened that day. After hearing it all, Tanner summarized with an incredulous look.
“So on the day you happened to go, the Italian gang was after the smuggled weapons. And those were meant for the IRA side, so you got turned into a secret agent?”
“Looks that way.”
“But why’d you leave the weapons behind?”
“How was I supposed to bring those on a streetcar?”
“True enough.”
Tanner let out a hollow laugh, then wore a strange expression.
“One thing’s certain. Knox is Irish.”
What happens when this rumor spreads.
Not as some mixed-blood image, but as an Irishman.
As a hero who killed the Italians.
As a fighter for Irish independence.
Even if they eventually learn the IRA secret-agent story is baseless rumor, it doesn’t matter.
Even if I’m no independence fighter, the first two facts will have been firmly stamped in.
“It’ll definitely help in building a gang and uniting the Irish.”
I thought the same as Tanner.
This was as good as a free pass for me.
For a while I could do whatever I wanted and still keep my identity hidden.
“You didn’t thoroughly plan and act on this, did you?”
I chuckled instead of answering.
Tanner’s eyes narrowed further.
“You calculated it?”
“I’ll leave that to your imagination.”
“How am I supposed to imagine that? What are you, some kind of geni—”
“But speaking of which.”
I cut Tanner off and asked a question.
“What’s your relationship with the White Hand Gang boss like?”
“Just so-so. Sometimes we curse each other, sometimes we join hands. Why?”
“Isn’t the White Hand Gang the one that took control of Red Hook port?”
“That’s right. Practically the Brooklyn ports and the north are under White Hand control.”
The Italian gangs mainly operated in the south and couldn’t push north because of the White Hand.
Ultimately, to take Red Hook I’d have to absorb or crush the White Hand—but Tanner hadn’t thought that far.
You could tell just from this port-manager business.
It would help, but ultimately, without overcoming the mountain that was the White Hand, the scale of any smuggling would stay small.
But if I said we should swallow them up, how would Tanner react?
Would he look kindly on me eyeing a gang bigger than the Marginals?
He might feel insecure that I could turn on him anytime, not as a partner. Then he might stab me in the back.
So there was no need to rush.
If things flowed as in the original history, the White Hand would collapse on its own—from internal division.
And in that gap, the gang that seized Brooklyn would swallow the ports, and the protagonists of the Prohibition era would become the Italian gangs.
I had to overturn this board.
Brooklyn, Navy Street.
One pillar of the Camorra composed of Neapolitans.
In a damp secret room, the Navy Street Gang leadership put their heads together.
The topic was the bodies found in Red Hook.
Because of them, the police investigation was expanding to their own people as well.
“I just can’t figure it. Why the hell did the guys delivering cocaine on orders get shot to death there?”
Surprisingly, even the leadership didn’t know what their satellite outfit had been plotting behind the scenes.
Moreover, with the lot of them idiotically wiped out to a man, there was no way to find out.
“The only thing left is, what if we grab the witness Davy Johnson and torture him? There might be something different from what he told the police.”
“As long as he didn’t spill that he was threatened and helped with the smuggling, that’s enough.”
If they carelessly touched Johnson, who was going in and out of the police station as a witness, things would only get bigger.
“If the Sicilians catch wind, they’ll try to deal with Johnson. Don’t touch him for now.”
They’d been at war with the Sicilians for years.
But finally the end was in sight.
The Sicilian boss Morello was under arrest and facing trial.
If it came out at a time like this that they’d threatened and bribed the port manager, they themselves risked standing in court.
Of course, it was only a temporary hold.
Once the incident quieted down, they planned to grab Davy Johnson and wring the full story out of him.
If he knew anything, he’d spill it somehow.
The meeting dragged on without a clear conclusion. Then, as the topic shifted from the dockside bodies to the Sicilians—
A man entered the conference room.
“We’ve obtained information. The culprit is said to be Knox.”
“..... Who’s that?”
“An Irishman.”
“I knew it was those White Hand bastards!?”
The man quietly shook his head.
“Someone even the White Hand boss doesn’t know.”
“..... Then who?”
Not just the Neapolitans—the Sicilian gangs as well.
“Knox?”
Who the hell is that?
A name heard for the first time spread quietly and intensely. Like a Black Hand without substance.