Smoke and Corpses
"Looks like we'll have to clear that smoke bomb out of the way."
"You and I are thinking the same thing."
Early morning. Gunsmith nursed a cup of coffee while Hazel chewed on a piece of bread, both of them scanning the newspaper.
"What do you think his dream is?"
"His dream? I'm more curious about yours. What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Gunsmith held his coffee and fixed Hazel with a look. Half of his lips had melted and collapsed into scar tissue from the burns — a sight Hazel had long since grown used to. She shrugged and launched into her list.
"Stockpile ammo and shoot without holding back. Fire a Maxim MG-08. Set off a smoke bomb…"
"Enough. Finish your bread."
"And go to Coney Island!"
"Ugh."
Gunsmith clicked his tongue and took a sip of coffee.
"I said I want to go to Coney Island."
"You're never getting on a carousel even when you're grown. You'll break your neck."
"As if. Do you know how light I am?"
Hazel pouted, then went back to the article, clucking her tongue as she read.
"This guy really has it out for the Italians, doesn't he?"
A short distance from the crime scene, police secured statements from three Jewish men that may serve as leads in the case.
The victims were stabbed in a struggle with the presumed suspect, but are fortunately expected to recover. The men, who had been watching the alley at the time, said they recognized him as the perpetrator and tried to seize him, but failed; the darkness also prevented them from getting a clear look at his appearance.
One detail, however, has proven of considerable help to the investigation: the suspect identified himself in Italian as the Sicilian Reaper.
"The gambling den was run by Italians, and he went out of his way to memorize and shout 'Sicilian Reaper' in Italian."
"It's absurd — but what's more surprising is that it actually worked. He made fools of the police."
"Sniper fire, smoke bombs… the methods keep getting more creative. Next thing you know he'll be cross-dressing. His skin's as pale as mine — I could dress him up real nice."
Watching Hazel giggle so brightly, Gunsmith let out a long sigh.
"The more I see of him, the more dangerous he looks. Don't get in too deep. He may look mild on the outside, but inside he's cunning and full of every kind of scheme."
A head packed with a devil's knowledge. Hands steeped in cruelty.
"I like to think I've lived a long life, but I've never met his type before."
Men like that either took everything or lost everything. They lived lives that were closer to a gamble than anything else.
"You don't need me to tell you that falling for a bad man will ruin your life, do you? Hazel — the only thing useful to you from that boy is his knowledge."
"Even just skimming the blueprints off him would be hard enough."
"True. Try to trade for one thing and you'll end up handing over two."
Hazel looked at Gunsmith and smiled faintly. For all his harsh assessments, he was quietly paying a great deal of attention to Kieran's work in the basement.
The underground workshop where time had stopped. Ever since Kieran appeared, it felt as if the clock had started moving again. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, she still couldn't say.
In a single day, two gambling dens near Hester Street had vanished. The common threads were Italian operators, and—
"Smoke bombs?"
On top of that, the article reported fourteen bodies with gunshot wounds found at one of the dens. Tanner's pupils flared as he read. Who had the guts to pull something like that in the middle of the city? A spark jumped in his mind, and Kieran's face rose unbidden.
"If that really was him… he's completely lost it."
The hangover that had dogged him all morning felt like it had been blown clean away.
"Kid doesn't even gamble, and he wiped out two dens. What the hell?"
Tanner dragged a palm down his face. Then someone knocked at the door. It was Patrick — a man who had walked the whole history of the Marginals beside him.
"You're up early today."
"Didn't have a choice."
Tanner tossed the newspaper down and drained a glass of water as if he'd been dying of thirst.
"I told the boys last night. Anyone who wants to be boss of the Marginals has to show what he's made of."
"And the reaction?"
"Rules, methods — they said they don't care. Oliver and Cale were overflowing with confidence."
A wry smile touched Tanner's mouth as he tapped the glass with a fingertip.
"If they'd insisted on boxing, they might've had a sliver of a chance. Shame."
"I don't know. Oliver and Cale aren't pushovers either. Honestly, even in our prime, I'm not sure we could've taken them."
Oliver stood over six-three — his nickname was Big O, and that pot-lid fist of his made blocking useless. Cale, by contrast, was small, but he had never lost a street fight. Tenacious as a badger, relentless, vicious with his hands — they called him the Jackal.
"Whoever wins, they accept the result. Don't like it, they leave."
"If it's Nox, a lot of the boys will walk."
Tanner couldn't argue with that.
"Better they leave than stay and stir up trouble. I've gone soft, but Nox won't just let it slide."
"That's what worries me more. A gang led by Nox wouldn't be the Marginals we built — it'd just be a brand-new outfit."
"Patrick. Even if Oliver or Cale take over, they won't last long."
They had passion and drive to spare, but both of them were still stuck in the old ways.
"Protection money, pickpocketing, stickups, murder, labor slugger work. One slip and it's prison, then out and do it all over again. Who the hell lasts doing nothing but that?"
Tanner's sponsorship of Irish kids and his efforts to build a healthy community came from the same place.
"You know what my biggest problem is?"
"…"
"I understand it up here — but I don't have the ability to do anything about it. I can tell the kids which roads are bad. I just can't tell them what a good road looks like."
The Marginals were the same. He knew change was needed; he simply didn't know how. He didn't know where to lead the members, or how to get there.
"So you're sure Nox knows?"
"Not sure. Who knows anything about the world? But watching the Marginals disappear like dust… at least with him, there's something to look forward to."
"If watching is all a boss and I are good for, doesn't that feel pretty hollow?"
Tanner fixed Patrick with a hard look and put weight into his voice.
"If that's what's worrying you, then you and I need to figure out how we can still be useful. Who the hell hires a washed-up old wreck good for nothing? Same if it's Oliver or Cale. Hell, they'd be worse. You saw them go after my life this time."
Tanner had already slipped past death more than once. Clear assassination attempts — take out a boss who was neither here nor there, and seize the gang. It happened in the Marginals, and it happened everywhere else. The Gophers had cycled through bosses for the same reason. Monk Eastman of the Eastmans had never managed to reclaim his gang after prison. All of it came down to losing the fight for the chair — and the bloodier that fight got, the more people bled.
In that light, an old-fashioned duel was the cleanest path to a peaceful transfer of power.
"If we're doing this anyway, dragging it out just gives the boys more time to scheme. Let's set a date and a place, Patrick."
76 Forsyth Street, the tenement house.
I looked over the spoils laid out on the table and a dry laugh slipped out of me on its own.
"The more I look at this, the bigger those guts of his get."
I meant Lenny Goldstein. He had run straight back into the underground gambling den while the smoke was still pouring out. Reckless, but brave — Lenny had gone into Pacifico's office and waited for the haze to thin, then coolly cracked the safe. On the way out he'd scooped up the cash customers had left on the tables and the money dealers kept stashed underneath. He'd even retrieved the smoke bombs. Then he'd stuffed the lot into a bag and handed it up to me on the roof where I was waiting.
Wow. You're out of your mind too.
I figured the cops would show. They never did.
It had been late — past midnight. On top of that, the smoke-bomb circus only a few hours earlier had left the police and fire crews slow to respond. That bought Lenny the time he needed to clean the place out.
So you want to split this money?
What Lenny brought came to roughly two hundred dollars. He offered me half of it without hesitation.
I owe you. That doesn't mean I'm backing out of the dealer job you proposed. After seeing what you can do — hell, it was no joke. If the terms are solid, I want in.
Life had returned to Lenny's always-weary eyes. I didn't refuse the money. He'd earned it, plain and simple.
I'll give you the rest of the stuff too. Nothing I need.
What Lenny handed over was Pacifico's ledger from running the den, and counterfeit bills wrapped in yellow paper. The ledger listed the names of cops and officials who'd taken bribes, along with Tammany Hall politicians. The counterfeits matched the paper stock and serial numbers of the bills pulled from Rosie Hertz's safe. Same plates.
"At this amount, you could buy a building."
Five thousand dollars in crisp counterfeit alone. I packed the ledger and the cash into a wooden box and sealed it.
I left the house and headed for the scene. Before I even reached the alley of the Forsyth Street gambling den, I ran into a familiar face. Salvatore.
"I heard you quit."
"News travels fast."
"That's the power of my network. So when you left — Rothstein say anything else?"
"That the relationship continues. That sort of thing."
"Sounds like he never expected much from you."
Salvatore snorted, then pointed toward the alley where the scene was.
"No point going now. You'll just get an earful from the cops watching the place."
At the end of that, he fixed me with a look that wasn't friendly.
"Fellow Italians died. Treating that like a tourist attraction doesn't sit right with me."
"I didn't exactly come to rubberneck. But I'd have gone even if it were Irishmen who died."
"You're not Irish."
"Call me Korean, then."
Salvatore snorted again and clapped my shoulder.
"You live around here, right?"
"Why?"
"When that den reopens, there'll be work. You want it?"
Another gambling house on a floor where fourteen men had just died? Did this idiot have a brain?
"I'll think about it."
"Always thinking. You'll starve that way. How long you planning to eat potatoes while everyone else is on meat?"
"If you're so worried, buy me some meat."
Salvatore clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"Anyway. See you around. Don't get rolled again wandering alone."
Whether that was concern or a dig, I couldn't tell. Not that I particularly cared. Still, every time I saw him his crew had grown. Salvatore was steadily climbing the steps — he was already leading a pack of ten.
Running a gambling den, though? I had no intention of losing that competition to Salvatore. If it came to it, I'd drop a few more smoke bombs on him.
I turned and headed for Allen Street. The ground-floor shops in both buildings had already moved out, leaving the spaces empty. On the second and third floors, three tenants were still hanging on.
"Need to get them out soon."
M. Cohen & Sons Repairs
An interior and renovation outfit that had been around the Lower East Side for a long time. Not a large firm, but a family operation you could trust — we'd already been talking about the building work.
"Come on in. As it happens, I've been passing by the place. Once three or four of those tenants clear out, we can start construction."
"Just start tomorrow."
The owner's eyes went round.
"Tomorrow? Well — if we begin with the basement, the noise won't be so bad."
"Don't worry about the noise. Work as freely as you like. Tear the whole thing down if you want — I don't care."
"Ah. Understood."
"You're alone today?"
The owner's face turned bitter.
"My son's enlisted. Infantry, though they said there's a chance he could be pulled into the engineers."
Most of the draft was still going to the infantry, with men who had useful skills sorted into medical, engineers, artillery, drivers, cooks, signals, and the rest. I offered what comfort I could to a father whose worry had cut new lines into his face.
"The war won't last long. He'll come back safe."
"Thank you. I can only hope so."
For the next few days I shuttled between the construction site and my mother's company. After landing the account with Gimbels, the factory had gotten so busy they were short of hands.
At that day's meeting, talk of relocating the factory came up for the first time.
"We need more production lines and more people. With our current sales, we should be able to handle the rent, shouldn't we?"
"Better that than falling behind on deliveries to our clients."
Mother agreed with the staff's suggestions.
"Then let's look for somewhere larger. We can add more sewing machines too."
Half of the three thousand dollars Anne Morgan had invested was still left. The good news was that at some point the business had tipped into the black, and the money was slowly growing. It was time for a bold move.
"I'll look for a building to lease, then."
"Second floor or higher, if you can. It's about time we got out of the basement."
"Working in the sunlight would feel wonderful."
Mother felt the same. Escaping that grim, oppressive sweatshop had always been her dream.
"Kieran, will you look into it?"
Before I knew it, touring buildings and vetting interior firms had become my main job. And just as I was forgetting what I was actually supposed to be doing, Corey showed up.
"Date and place are set."
Two days from now. Five in the evening. The empty lot behind Pier 51 in Hell's Kitchen. With only a portion of the Marginals present, they would choose Tanner Smith's successor — a peaceful path instead of a blood-soaked power struggle.
The rules: knock out, or surrender.
Simple. Clean.