Bodyguard Service for Managing Connections
An Irishman named Knox had taken out the Italians.
Whether it was true or not, word had it he was connected to the IRA, the organization fighting for Irish independence.
Rumors like that were spreading through the Brooklyn gangs.
Who had started them?
Not me, and not Tanner.
If it had been Davey Johnson, there would have been no reason to drag the IRA into it. A simple gangland killing would have ballooned into British government involvement before anyone could stop it.
That left Dini Meehan, boss of the White Hand.
What was his angle in putting the story out there?
Late evening.
Between 23rd and 42nd Streets in Manhattan.
The Tenderloin—New York’s biggest entertainment district, lined with theaters, dance halls, gambling dens, saloons, and brothels.
At the intersection with West 14th Street, Gavin, one of the Marginals who’d protected the picket lines, suddenly asked, “That Knox isn’t the Knox standing right in front of me, is it?”
“Gold axe, silver axe—what kind of question is that?”
“You haven’t heard the rumor? The Italians who got torn apart in Brooklyn. Word is Knox did it.”
Corey jumped in from the side. Two weeks had already passed since the murders on the Red Hook waterfront. It had taken a while for the story to travel from Brooklyn all the way to Manhattan.
“There’s even talk he’s some kind of Irish freedom fighter. Obviously it can’t be you, right?”
“Is that so?”
“Here we go again.”
Corey and Gavin exchanged a look, then both flipped me the middle finger.
“You ever even been to Ireland? Hell, do you even know where it is?”
“Hell if I know. Go declare independence at home.”
I snorted back at them.
“The truth has a way of coming out eventually.”
“Yeah, well, I still don’t buy it.”
“But how come every damn Irishman is suddenly claiming he’s the Knox? Dogs and cows, they’re all Knox now. It’s embarrassing. Keep a low profile for a while, Rookie.”
The two of them completely dismissed me and denied any connection to Knox.
Fair enough. The world was full of people with the same name, and Knox was just one of them.
What was interesting was this: the moment the rumor started circulating, every Irishman with the name or nickname Knox began swaggering around claiming, “I’m the Knox.”
The Hudson Dusters were the prime example. A gang that had been freefalling off a cliff was suddenly strutting around again, chests puffed out.
It all traced back to one man with a flashy résumé.
A gunman from Manhattan’s West Side.
A founding member of the Irish Gopher Gang that once ruled Hell’s Kitchen.
And one of the three co-bosses who, alongside Circular Jack and Kid Yorke, founded the Hudson Dusters on Hudson Street.
Frank “Goo Goo” Knox.
Of all people, that bastard had to be named Knox.
Those Hudson Dusters really did need to be wiped out root and stem…
“Goo Goo Knox disappeared for a while—don’t tell me he went to England and fought in the Easter Rising or something?”
“He just got out of prison not long ago. Locked up for assault.”
“Right, Elmira Reformatory. So maybe he caught the independence bug in there and became an IRA agent?”
Gavin and Corey kept bringing up Goo Goo Knox the whole way.
Someone else was getting the spotlight by accident, but that was fine.
Even if the world didn’t know me yet, a sharp awl would eventually poke through the bag. When the time came, they would learn on their own.
Anyone who understood that the mere existence of the IRA was a panic button for the British government wouldn’t do anything stupid.
I had no doubt the impostors would vanish soon enough.
“We’re here. That’s the saloon Foley runs.”
The night was brighter than the day in a place like this. That was the Tenderloin for you.
Cheap perfume from streetwalkers, touts luring people into gambling dens and saloons—the sidewalks overflowed with them.
I was here because of Tanner’s job.
There’s a guy who runs saloons all over Manhattan. He’s got trouble on the Tenderloin side. I want you to handle it.
The owner of the saloon was receiving death threats. And that owner happened to be one of the key politicians in Tammany Hall, the Democratic machine.
At the entrance, Tanner’s right-hand man Patrick was waiting for us.
“Good, you made it on time.”
“We ran so we wouldn’t be late. See the sweat?”
Gavin joked. Patrick glanced at me and pointed upstairs.
“Up we go.”
The first floor was an ordinary bar. The second floor was another world entirely.
Deep red velvet curtains, heavy oak furniture, Victorian wallpaper—everything reeked of money and power. In the dim light, the patrons’ clothes were anything but ordinary. Men of influence, or men chasing it, gathered here.
We stood by the entrance like cheap pork belly that had somehow wandered into a first-class steakhouse, staring blankly.
A waiter soon led us down a hallway.
If you want to swim in the big pond, you need to see how the capitalists, high officials, and socialites play.
In my previous life as a mercenary I had bodyguarded major figures—Time magazine’s richest hundred types. Trailing the waiter, I stole glances at the guests. Elegant gestures, murmuring voices, easy confidence. The era was different, but the atmosphere never changed.
The office the waiter showed us into was occupied by a man well past sixty.
Big Tom Foley.
Respected businessman and politician of the Second District in the Lower East Side.
Looks can deceive. Underneath, he’s just a gangster like the rest of us.
Tom Foley had long-standing ties with the gang bosses, especially Paul Kelly of the Five Points Gang. But Kelly had recently left the streets to become vice president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, and the Five Points’ cohesion had weakened. Tanner had slipped into that gap.
Tanner Smith had founded the Marginals in the first place under the patronage of Tammany politicians. Political connections were nothing new.
“Mr. Foley. This is Patrick. I’ll be in charge of your security today.”
“It’s been a while. Still…”
Tom Foley eyed us up and down and frowned.
“You all look a little green. And who’s this kid?”
When I lowered my scarf, his expression soured further.
“They said there was an Irish Oriental. So it’s you.”
“He’s the best of us, and I’m here too. Don’t worry about your safety.”
That was exactly why Patrick had shown up. Gavin and Corey were twenty-one; I was only seventeen. Without him we might have been thrown out on the spot.
Of course, the actual security plan was mine to decide.
“We’re short on time. Can’t be helped.”
Tom Foley pulled four pistols from a desk drawer and laid them out.
“Take what you need.”
A client handing out guns was a strange sight, but that was the reality. How many gangsters actually had carry permits?
Foley was making sure his protection was airtight—and making it clear that if the police caught us, he could make the problem disappear.
He shrugged into a carefully pressed overcoat, set a tall top hat of the sort Lincoln might have worn on his head, and clapped Patrick on the shoulder.
“I’m counting on you.”
“Leave it to me.”
We followed Tom Foley out of the saloon. I kept my distance, as if I weren’t part of the group, while Patrick, Gavin, and Corey closed ranks around him like a moving wall.
A short while later we arrived at a gambling house still inside the Tenderloin. Like Foley’s saloon, it catered to men of influence; first-time visitors weren’t even allowed through the door. The doormen looked vicious. The temperature of their stares when they looked at Foley versus when they looked at us was night and day.
“Only two bodyguards inside.”
“Understood. Enjoy your evening, Mr. Foley.”
Patrick gave me a small nod. Gavin and Corey stayed outside; I followed him in.
Scarf half over my face, I watched the room from a short distance behind Tom Foley.
The clientele was high society. Women in elegant Victorian velvet gowns clustered around the roulette tables. The men gathered for poker, faro, craps, and hazard.
The Lower East Side had gambling dens on nearly every block. A few stretches of Mulberry and Mott Streets, packed with Jews and Italians, were even called Gambling Row. The customers there were mostly poor laborers and gangsters.
Here, the upper class was the main clientele.
The one thing they shared: everything was illegal.
A gambling house and a casino were distinguished solely by that line between illegal and legal. New York’s revised constitution of 1894 had banned every form of gambling. Therefore every place like this was an illegal gambling house, not a casino.
That was the law. Reality ignored the law and gambled freely.
I was certain the police would never raid this place. One of the middle-aged men throwing dice was an NYPD high-up who had even made the papers.
He answered my interest with a cheer.
“Five, five, five… yes! Beautiful! Luck’s sticking to me tonight!”
“Glad I followed you in.”
“You ride the wave where the luck is, yeah.”
Soft giggles and solemn chuckles filled the room.
Nothing happened that night. Other men would take the day shift.
“See you tomorrow, then.”
We escorted Tom Foley back to his mansion and I didn’t get home until dawn.
“Roa, when are we going to Coney… pew.”
It was as if she had a timer set. She always made some sound right as I walked in. Sometimes it was an old-man’s sigh.
She was asleep… right?
Days at Mother’s company. Nights on the street. Two jobs.
It felt like I was working myself to death, but it was still better than the PTSD-ridden previous life where I expected nothing.
That was the thought I woke up with these days.
I slept a little late and went downstairs. In the basement workshop hung a small company plaque.
Free Your Body
Freedom for your body—shortened to FYB. The name of Mother’s garment factory.
Sleek and futuristic, wasn’t it? I had come up with it myself, and I still thought it was damn good.
I was standing there admiring it when Leo and Marcus came down hauling heavy bolts of fabric.
“Jesus, he’s at it again.”
“You show up late and still have the nerve.”
“I was polishing the sign.”
“With your eyes?”
They had left the shoe-shine trade and were helping at Mother’s company. The workforce was overwhelmingly female and mostly sewing, so they needed someone for the heavy lifting.
There had been pushback at first.
This isn’t what we signed up for!
Yeah, we wanted something with more thrills and bigger stakes!
Even a drawing starts with a single point.
There were many ways to fill the margins. You could start from the center points, or from the edges—the marginals.
In other words, you’re already part of the Marginals, just like me.
…Fuck off. Every time you open your mouth you sound like a cult leader.
Start a religion. You’d have plenty of followers.
They were too streetwise for their age to fall for the pitch.
How does a dollar and a half a day sound?
I’ll start right now.
This is our company, right?
And so every morning they clocked in at the basement workshop.
FYB had thirty-two employees total. Fabric supply and undergarment production were running smoothly.
The problem was that the previous crooked boss had mostly taken subcontract work. FYB dealt directly with retailers. We made finished undergarments and delivered them ourselves. Once the strikes started, the clothing manufacturers—the prime contractors—turned their backs, so we had no choice.
Nora Graves, president of FYB.
Mother was nursing a new headache over the sales outlets. One of the shops on Orchard Street, where the clothing stores clustered, had been robbed of its stock.
“What kind of maniac steals underwear?”
“No, they cleaned out the expensive ready-made coats and suits. Easy to turn into cash.”
The usual method was to snatch high-end clothes, dump them cheap on small shops, or ship them out of the neighborhood. Most clothing warehouses were concentrated in the Lower East Side and the Garment District. The narrow alleys and packed buildings made it ideal for smash-and-grab and vanishing.
“Anyway, the owner says he’ll be late with the payment.”
“Want me to make a house call?”
“Honestly. It’s not entirely his fault. We can wait a month.”
The real problem was that we had too few retail outlets. If we were going to sell brassieres going forward, we needed more accounts. Street vendors and wholesalers who only wanted to beat the price down weren’t enough. We needed variety—boutiques, department stores.
Places you couldn’t crack without school ties, regional ties, or blood ties.
Going to see Dopey Benny, that maniac, or strong-arming the manufacturers were options, but I would keep those as last resorts.
It was the third day of guarding Tom Foley. That evening we headed back to the Tenderloin.
Patrick was waiting at the saloon entrance. I asked him quietly, “Do we get paid by the hour for this bodyguard work?”
“Doubt it. We get paid, but considering the relationship with Boss Tanner, it’s basically a free service.”
A bodyguard service for managing connections with a powerful Tammany Hall politician.
“Then the sooner we finish, the better.”
Honestly, I wanted to shoot and stop something myself. Failing that, I wanted to dress up as an assassin and have someone take a shot—but I didn’t have anyone I trusted enough yet.
So I made a different proposal.
“Let’s give him space. It’s the only way to draw an assassin out.”
If Tom Foley died, we would just find another connection. Corrupt politicians were a dime a dozen.
My prediction proved right two days later.
Tom Foley was on his way to the gambling house after several days away.