Still Don't Know My Name?

Unlike the twenty thousand dollars that had been in the safe, these were crisp stacks of bills wrapped in paper.

I pulled one free and examined it with care. The texture of the paper was off somehow, and the crude printing left the ink slightly raised above the surface. Most damning of all, the serial numbers were identical.

This was counterfeit money. No question.

Why had Rosie Hertz been holding on to it? Maybe someone had taken her for a ride, or maybe she had been the one circulating the stuff on the street. In a grimy brothel, after all, drunken customers never bothered checking paper stock or print quality.

The federal government had set up a special unit long ago—the Secret Service—to choke off the flow of counterfeit currency. After President William McKinley’s assassination in 1901 they had taken on presidential protection as well, but the heart of their work remained counterfeiting. Get caught by them and your life was finished.

I would hide the bills where no one would ever find them. Not even the Union would know.

Next came Rosie Hertz’s ledger. Names of politicians and civil servants who had taken bribes, complete with dates, places, and exact amounts. The last entry, though, was four years old—1913, the year the police had finally arrested her.

Why had she never gone public with it? Blackmail with a book like this could have kept her out of prison altogether. Or maybe the opposite was true: by keeping silent she had bought herself a lighter sentence. For everything she had actually done, Rosie Hertz had drawn only a year. Trading the ledger for leniency was a fair suspicion.

“Well, that part doesn’t matter.”

What mattered was how I would use the ledger from here on. It could serve as a ready-made shopping list of officials worth buying, a treasured blade I could draw whenever I needed one. Or it could be pure blackmail material.

“I’ll stash this for now too.”

The more usable pieces you keep in reserve, the better. The house was already cramped enough. I opened the wooden crate that held the two Springfields, the scope, and the suppressor, then slipped the ledger and the counterfeit bills inside.

The real-estate and securities papers had clear owners; stealing them would not make them mine. But the buildings Rosie Hertz had owned outright or in partnership were worth a look later. I would keep the papers for now.

I closed the lid, drove nails through it with a hammer so no one could open it, and only then turned to the table. Thirty-four thousand dollars, sorted by denomination. My hands were shaking more than usual. Add the buildings and it came to roughly fifty thousand. It still felt like yesterday that I had borrowed a single dollar from Leo for a toolbox. Money really was best when you took a big score from someone else…

No. Some people said spending money mattered more than earning it. So it had to go somewhere that counted.

“I’ll gut the entire interior of the building.”

It was going to be Union headquarters. The structure needed to be rebuilt in secret, flexible enough for every purpose I could invent.

I was still sketching floor plans when Tanner came looking for me.

Tenement rooftop. The police were still digging, but we sat safely outside their net.

“It was a vicious plan,” Tanner said, “but a perfect one.”

“That a compliment?”

“For gangsters, that’s the highest praise there is.”

“Then I should return the favor.”

I pulled a thick stack from my bag and held it out.

“There was twenty thousand in the safe. This is three thousand of it.”

“You didn’t have to tell me the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠full amount.”

Even Corey, who had cracked the safe, had no idea how much had been inside. Keep quiet and no one would ever know.

“So if you’re giving me three grand,” Tanner went on, “how much are the others getting?”

“Still thinking it over.”

He shook his head.

“Whatever else you do, don’t just throw money around. The day you hand out less than they expect, that’s when the traitors start crawling out of the woodwork. You saw what happened to the Naples crew—every last one of them locked up.”

A soldier drowning in gambling debt had begged his boss for help and been ignored. When the police finally grabbed him he spilled everything that was never supposed to leave his mouth. Money was that dangerous. The same weapon could forge a loyal man one day and a rat the next.

I started to peel off another thousand; Tanner’s hand closed over mine.

“I was only talking. Nothing builds trust like cash.”

“Still, the whole question of splitting profits isn’t simple.”

He pocketed the three thousand and nodded.

“Profit shares. That’s the real key. Tip from me: the boss always takes half. Set it in stone and you never get grief later.”

There was a reason no one complained about the boss’s cut.

“Bribes, clean-up money when things go sideways—big cash walks out the door all at once. You going to pass the hat among the boys every time? Just saying that out loud means you’ve already failed as a leader.”

“Good advice.”

“And the boys know it. Running a gang costs a fortune. I guarantee you, even if you never paid them a dime they wouldn’t say a word.”

It wasn’t the money. Gangsters simply wanted the outfit they belonged to to thrive.

“Forget the cash,” Tanner said, warming to the theme. “Smash a rival gang to pieces and the boys go crazy. They lose their minds.”

He kept on with the speech. Now that I was in this deep I no longer wanted to dismiss them as simple kids. Call them gangsters instead—packed full of romance, fire, and guts.

“Anyway, the boss himself is the gang’s lifeblood. That’s where Owney Madden of the Gophers, Monk Eastman of the Eastmans, and Paul Kelly of the Five Points all got it right.”

Fatal flaw, though. A crew held together by pure force of personality dies the second the boss falls. Those three outfits proved it. Over the last hundred years Manhattan had watched gang after gang rise and vanish, each one sharing its boss’s fate. Even the high-flyers rarely lasted twenty years.

How do you build something that lasts? The answer came from the crime groups that closed ranks around family—the Sicilian Mafia. Systematic organization: ranks, duties, rules, rewards. They were the first to show that the machine keeps running even when the faces change.

We still had a long road ahead. The men who would finish that work, the ones who would drive the real change, were still crouching out of sight. Johnny Torrio, who had been drinking with Al Capone in a Coney Island bar. Meyer Lansky. And Charles “Lucky” Luciano—the Capo di tutti Capi who would rule Prohibition and raise a Mafia empire, the man who became the model for The Godfather.

He was probably roaming the same Lower East Side streets I was. I hadn’t met him yet. Or maybe I had and simply failed to recognize him. Benjamin would one day be called Bugsy Siegel; right now the name might be different. I couldn’t remember the original for the life of me. What I did know was that the nickname “Lucky” ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only appeared near the end of Prohibition.

Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Where the hell are you?

I left Tanner and went down to the basement workshop. Leo and Marcus were hauling bolts of cloth the same as always. On the day of the job both had carried out their parts as Union men exactly as planned. Especially—

“Whose idea was the red headband?”

“Had some of your money left, so I bought it. If I had a little sister like Roa I’d get her one every month.”

Leo grinned and held out the remaining twenty-five cents. I could have pocketed it without a word.

“You should’ve bought yourself something good to eat.”

“Spending your money would give me a stomachache.”

“If I spent it you’d bitch at me for that too.”

Marcus nodded along with him.

“So that’s my reputation, huh.”

I opened the bag with a flourish and handed each of them an envelope. Their eyes went wide the second they looked inside.

“Three hundred apiece. Leo, don’t let your old man catch you with it—hide it well.”

“……Nobody’s taking this from me.”

Leo’s face crumpled; tears even started to well. Marcus only stared at me with that iron look of his.

“Whatever happens, I’m with you to the end.”

“Same here. We stuck together before, and we keep going together.”

It wasn’t only the money. The job had given Leo and Marcus their first real taste of the thrill, the rush, the pure high of a well-run crime. They were turning into gangsters themselves—romance, fire, and guts included.

On the way to Allen Street. Because of the nationwide manhunt for Jacob, the basement workshop was already being shut down. Tanner had flatly rejected my grand idea of turning the soon-to-be-empty space into a shooting range.

A range in the middle of the city without even a firearms permit? Amazing. Are you out of your mind? You want to shoot that bad, go see the old Gunsmith. You’ve got capital—open a bar and a gambling den and make real money.

I’ve never done either.

Then you need to do them even more. You’re the one who keeps saying Prohibition is a sure thing. How are you going to run the business with zero experience?

Tanner’s advice never cost anything to take. He was right: I knew how to kill men, but as a gang boss I was still green. Bars and gambling dens were the cash cows that kept a crew alive. One look at the bloodbath between the Sicilians and the Neapolitans over Lower East Side gambling houses told you everything.

Seeing a Ford Model T in a museum does not teach you how to drive. Knowing every Mafia family tree by heart does not make an organization spring fully formed into existence. You need the right schooling and the right scars for the times. Tanner hadn’t been wrong about a single word.

All right. Bars and gambling dens it is.

Then go work somewhere first. Evicting the current tenants will take a month at least, and a full remodel another two.

Then stick me in a bar or a house you know.

Lower East Side joints are small-time. Better to learn at a big place. I’ll talk to Tom Foley.

I was still turning the conversation over when I reached 137 and 138 Allen Street. Police wagons stood in a line out front; one by one the staff of the illegal brothel were being marched up from the basement. The working girls came next, wrapped in blankets, and the street crowd immediately started howling abuse.

What struck ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me was the women’s faces. Curses or no curses, the second they stepped into daylight every one of them tipped her head back and stared at the sky. The elevated tracks cut the view in half; none of them cared. One of them was the woman who had hammered on the wall. Her face was bloodless, her eyes hollow, yet she kept looking up. The crowd only shouted louder, calling her high-and-mighty for the privilege.

What exactly made them so angry? Maybe a country founded by Puritans simply could not stand the sight of fallen virtue. The same sort of people had cheered the idiotic idea of Prohibition.

While I scanned the furious faces a few familiar men caught my eye—the Italian crew that had been collecting protection money. With the Jacob case still hot, the police were hunting whoever had raided the basement salon that afternoon. The Italians were lying low and missing their usual shakedowns… a pity. I had hoped they would charge straight into the place. They turned out more cautious than expected. Not stupid after all. For now I would settle for having slowed them down.

“Long time.”

A familiar voice at my back. Salvatore—the same man who had once demanded ten cents protection from Meyer, the same man I had punched for not knowing what ten cents meant. At draft registration he had listed himself as a brothel pimp. Scouting new girls, maybe.

“You still running with the Marginals?”

“I work in a clothing factory.”

“The tenement basement shop?”

There was a reason Salvatore knew so much about me, like a stalker who never quite went away.

“Meyer and Irving were talking about you. They need one more man at the Tenderloin place. Come if you want the work.”

“You’re with them now? I heard you were pimping.”

“Temporary. Experience, you could say. Until recently I was even hunting bounties.”

So he was stacking up the same kind of schooling I was. Busy life.

“Whose head carried the price?”

“The Newtown Creek rat sniper. Heard of him?”

I shook my head hard—reflex.

“Figured you wouldn’t.”

Salvatore’s English was still rough; the Italian accent clung like he hadn’t been in the country long. Yet today he was unusually chatty. The extra interest meant he had gotten closer to Meyer and Irving.

I flipped through the old Mafia genealogies I had read in my previous life. A few names had been tight with Meyer since their teens. One was Bugsy Siegel. Another was Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

Could it be?

“What’s your name?”

“What, you still don’t know my name?”

Salvatore Lucania. Twenty years old. Still hard to be sure.

“So what kind of place is it?”

“A gambling house.”

Irving had said he found work in the Tenderloin; of course it wasn’t a straight job. Wait—gambling den?

“What’s it called?”

“The Big Bankroll. Local big shots love it.”

And the same house Big Tom Foley of Tammany ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hall visited every dawn. Maybe I would try a little part-time work there after all.