Everyone Has a Plausible Plan
There are several ways to replace a gang's leader—its Boss.
First: nomination by the sitting Boss.
The most common method, and the most peaceful. But if the man named runs contrary to the members' will, conflict erupts. A straight road to bloodshed.
Second: election by a gathering of the core members.
Because it follows a process of consensus, the succession can be relatively clean. Yet if outside forces meddle, or the consensus turns ugly, bloodshed follows all the same.
Third: when the existing Boss dies or is assassinated.
A powerful figure fills the vacuum and becomes Boss as a matter of course. This happens most often when the wars between gangs are at their fiercest.
Fourth: a duel, or a contest.
This is exceedingly rare. The sort of thing that might have belonged to America's early, barbarous days. Because the Boss's strength and leadership are put on public trial, few men are eager to accept. Better simply to remove the Boss.
And yet they had accepted that rare and precious fourth option.
For myself I understood. But why had they agreed to so primitive a method as a "duel"?
Two reasonable inferences presented themselves.
First: if they eliminated Tanner Smith outright. They may have judged that even if they seized the seat by force, they would never fully absorb the Marginals.
Second: pure, bottomless confidence. The certainty that they could not lose. Looking at the cut of Oliver and the man called Cale—the ones who had accepted the challenge—this seemed the likelier cause.
And Tanner, knowing both my nature and theirs, had proposed the absurd duel in the first place.
"One hundred one, one hundred two... one hundred... threeee..."
"Big brother, hang on! You've still got a long way!"
"You... can't even count."
"Roa counts by tens ten times, then four fingers. So how many is that?"
"One hundred fourrrr!"
"Yeah, that's it."
I was doing push-ups at home to prepare for the duel. I had never seen Cale, but Oliver I had—an upgraded, muscle-bound version of Leo. Even a little training helped me feel less uneasy.
"How can you do a hundred push-ups, hyung? Are you even human?"
"Little brother, shush. Big brother needs to concentrate."
"Why aren't you counting mine?"
"Is there anything to count?"
"...I'm starting over. Count this time for sure."
By the time I was dripping sweat and ready to collapse, Roa announced she would try as well and dropped flat on the floor.
"You have to lift your body and hold yourself up with your arms."
"Roa, lift me."
"All right, I lifted you. Now hold it."
"Roa... hold... me..."
"Just don't do it."
"Hold... me..."
Roa lasted less than two seconds before flopping down. Then she planted her face in the floor and refused to get up.
"Did you just shit yourself?"
"Mm. Roa asked you to hold her."
"...Go take your clothes off and wash."
"Since I already did it, I wanna go again."
I hauled her up by force and stripped her. While I washed her backside over the sink, my arms trembled.
"Big brother, is it hard?"
"Of course it's hard."
"But Roa's light."
"You ate meat."
"I just went, though?"
Fair point. I was still rinsing Roa's backside when Mother returned from her visit to the neighbors.
"My daughter, what on earth is this? You'll be seven in a few months."
"By then Roa has to be different too."
It was Roa who answered, shaking her head; not me. Mother clucked her tongue and held out something she had brought. A brassiere—similar to the ones our company made, yet not quite the same.
"Looks like someone is copying our product. Mrs. Monica stopped by a stall on Orchard Street, and they were selling these."
I set Roa down and examined the brassiere carefully. Crude in places, but even the hook hardware was nearly identical.
We had only applied for the patent; we had not received it yet. And even with a patent, knockoffs could not be stopped entirely. Still, if we simply let it slide, people would take it as permission. Measures were required.
"We'll have to find out where it's coming from."
"Yes. That's why I was thinking of going to the stall tomorrow."
While we were still looking into moving the factory, counterfeits were already being sold in the open. Worry filled Mother's face.
In Mother's place I went myself to the stall that was selling the offending goods.
The Orchard Street stall was the same one that had once dragged its feet paying for purchases. The moment the thick-bearded Jewish proprietor saw me, he waved me off as if to say get lost.
"Where did you get these?"
"How should I know? Peddlers bring stuff around and I buy what they have."
"Does that peddler come often?"
"Why do I have to tell you that?"
Talking was useless. I swallowed the urge to overturn his cart and moved on to the other stalls. As expected, two or three more were selling the same brassieres.
"I don't know either. No reason to tell you."
"There aren't just one or two peddlers. I look at the goods and buy. I don't even remember faces."
Every one of them was uncooperative.
Either I could camp here and wait for a peddler to show, or I could track down the firm supplying the hooks and lean on them hard...
"What are you skulking around for?"
"Get lost while I'm still asking nice."
A pack that collected protection money on the street blocked my path. I wanted to pulp their mouths, but I had more important business today.
I turned away quietly and surveyed the surroundings.
Orchard Street was a clothing-retail strip: dozens of shops and stalls. Plenty of garment manufacturers as well. Even a rough calculation put the weekly protection take in the hundreds of dollars.
Not just this street—the whole district was pure gold, pure yolk.
Hester Street ran long east-west; the streets that crossed it north-south were the ones I lived on, in order: Forsyth, Eldridge, Allen, Orchard.
Which meant Allen Street, soon to become the Union headquarters, and Orchard Street were only a single block apart.
Once things truly began, I would swallow this entire zone whole.
Today's duel would make that possible.
Time to go claim the Marginals.
West of the Hudson, Hell's Kitchen, Pier 51.
A group had gathered in the empty lot behind the docks.
The gang had no formal ranks, yet these were the men everyone recognized as officers. The full Marginals had not assembled—too much risk of exposure to police and rival gangs—so only the carefully chosen few were present.
Twenty in total.
Among them, three men stood out for sheer size: Oliver and Cale, already warming up before the duel, and a fellow named Brian who had declared at the last minute that he too would fight.
Oliver shook his head at Brian, who was stretching his back with exaggerated care.
"It's not too late, Brian. Don't regret it later—just quit."
"Fuck you."
"Whatever. You'll come to your senses after you get knocked cold."
Cale joined the sparring of words between Oliver and Brian.
"Fighting ain't about size. That's why a walking Statue of Liberty is still worthless."
"Your metaphor's shit, Cale. Looking at you feels like a monkey wandered into a street show."
"Then I'll show you how a monkey cooks a dumbass bear."
Useless mouth-fighting steadily raised the temperature.
Then Tanner and Patrick arrived, and the mood of the place was crushed heavy under their weight.
Men who followed Tanner and men who had wanted him gone mixed together; complicated looks passed back and forth.
While the silence held, the past of the Marginals flickered through every mind present like a lantern show.
Stealing, beating, robbing. Memories stained with every kind of crime—yet the important thing was that in those memories they had all been together.
And at the center of it had stood Tanner Smith.
Some felt their throats tighten. Others clenched their fists for a new beginning.
And then—
Face hidden by a scarf, Knox appeared: the man who had ignited the fracture inside the Marginals.
Only a handful had ever seen him in the flesh; most knew him only by rumor. Most of them still did not know who he truly was.
Their reaction was therefore much the same.
So that's the guy.
Of course the stares were not friendly. Internal division had begun the moment Tanner attached the new recruits to the Marginals.
At last Tanner, who had kept silent, spoke.
"Whoever becomes Boss, I will give him my full support. If anyone finds the result hard to swallow, the new Boss will set the policy on that as well. That's all I have to say."
A short speech for a man whose bones had been tempered in labor agitation. Patrick followed with the rules.
"Opponents are chosen by order of joining. Oliver, you pick first."
Oliver strode confidently into the center. His choice was, of course, Knox.
"Come out."
Surrounded by the circle of men, the two faced each other. Knox was not short, yet Oliver still had him by more than fifteen centimeters. Against that solid, muscular frame, Knox looked all the more insubstantial.
"Rules are bare fists until knockout or surrender. If you don't have the stomach for it, you can say so now."
At Patrick's words Oliver jerked his chin toward Knox—an invitation to quit. Knox answered by digging a finger in his ear.
"I'll stuff that damn scarf down your throat."
Knox dug at his ear again.
Oliver's face flushed crimson. Veins stood out on his neck and forehead as he lowered his stance.
"You son of a bitch!"
He charged. Those pot-lid hands reached to seize Knox's body. Knox slipped the distance in a flash, turned aside, and kicked Oliver's leg.
Oliver sneered as if the blow had done nothing. After the third kick, however, his expression hardened. The tactic of retreating every time he attacked and simply hammering the legs began to grate on him.
Rage climbing to the crown of his head, Oliver threw a big right hand—and that was when Knox closed the gap in a single breath, seized arm and collar, and heaved.
Oliver's body left the ground and slammed into the dirt.
Thud.
Knox pinned Oliver's neck with a knee and twisted the arm at the same time.
"Ghk— ghk—!"
Eyes fixed on Patrick, Oliver slapped the ground again and again with his free palm. The signal of surrender.
"Th-that's enough."
Patrick rushed in and hauled Knox off. Oliver, neck and arm screaming, could only moan and fail to rise.
"..."
At first it had looked like slippery flight and counter-punching. The finish had been nothing anyone expected.
This deserved the word reversal.
Everyone stared at Oliver as though their souls had left their bodies. Those closest to him ran forward, hauled him upright, and held him steady.
"Next..."
Cale and Brian were to fight. Here Tanner cut in.
"Knox looks fine. How about he just keeps going straight through?"
"I have no objection."
Whether Tanner was showing consideration or not remained unclear, but Knox accepted. If Cale and Brian fought each other first, neither would be in any condition to continue. It was not the fairest contest, yet both Cale and Brian accepted as well.
What mattered was whom Knox named.
"Cale."
Still reeling from Oliver's shocking defeat, Cale stepped forward with a set face.
This time the difference in build was reversed. Unlike Oliver, Cale was the one shorter by about fifteen centimeters.
But Cale, seasoned in street fighting to the bone, did not flinch. If anything, against a Knox who relied on technique more than raw power, he felt more confident than he would have against Oliver.
I'm faster.
His bag of tricks was deeper too.
The life that would change with this victory unfolded before his eyes. He was certain he could make the Marginals stronger than Tanner ever had.
That hunger and desire tangled in Cale's gaze as he locked eyes with Knox.
Just once.
Draw the opponent's movement with an attack, read the reaction, and end it then.
Cale moved.
In an instant he closed the distance and threw a punch at Knox. In that same instant—
The sole of a shoe filled Cale's vision.
"!"