The Lucky Winner Still Hasn't Shown Up

The shop name Intima comes from Latin, meaning “innermost” or “intimate.”

An employee at my mother’s company had suggested it, and I took to the word at once—short, clean, and elegant.

The word “boutique,” for a place selling women’s undergarments or accessories, would not come into common use ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠until the 1960s. In this era, a specialty lingerie shop was called a “corset shop,” and anything else was simply a general dry-goods store peddling a jumble of clothing alongside the rest.

In that respect, the newly opened Intima stood apart: it dealt exclusively in undergarments, and its luxurious interior was enough to catch people’s eyes.

And there was one more thing.

My own marketing gambit—the Lucky Box Event—designed to prick customers’ interest and curiosity.

Only ten Lucky Boxes had been made. Each held a specially designed brassiere and panties, and the price was set at ten dollars. Expensive, certainly, but the contents more than justified it—far beyond the cost of production. Alongside the lingerie were pendants, necklaces, and earrings newly fashioned from jewelry stolen out of a vault (a process the gangs called melt it down).

I had put real heart into those Lucky Boxes.

The problem was that they were utterly out of place in the poor Lower East Side. Who would throw good money after a chance at luck when they didn’t even know what was inside the box?

No one bought a single Lucky Gold Box.

“Four days and six hours, and still no lucky winner in sight.”

“Don’t keep track of the time that precisely.”

Manager Ida kept scraping at the sore spot with that flat, indifferent face of hers.

“Welcome.”

The moment a new customer stepped through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the door, she greeted them with sunny brightness. At first I had worried over that blank, dead-inside expression, but with customers Ida was thoroughly attentive and sweet.

When I asked her why, she answered in the same soulless voice:

People only open their wallets when they feel good about buying. If you’re cold, who’s going to buy anything?

Could you not feel the professional pride in that?

Ida was, to my surprise, giving the work everything she had. Part of me was curious how she might change if I put her on something else. If she had ever become a home-shopping host in some other life, I was certain she would have been excellent at it.

After watching her help customers choose lingerie for a while, I moved toward the back of the store.

Three employees dispatched from my mother’s company were sorting merchandise, and Leo was among them.

“Director, I’m going to need more of the brassiere T101 in gray, B-cup.”

“Keep the invoices straight.”

“Okay.”

The owner was my mother; my title was Director, charged with overall management and supervision of the store. Leo served as logistics manager, shuttling back and forth from her company to keep the shelves filled.

The office at the rear was spare—just a desk, a cabinet with a safe, and a conference table.

Today’s newspapers lay on the desk. As I passed, I skimmed the headlines.

Malakh what?

I read the article more carefully.

Did it really need analysis that complicated?

The reason I had left Kohelet verses at the scenes was simple. Impersonating Italians had been like boiling the same old bone broth over and over, and it had drawn no reaction worth mentioning—so I switched tactics. That was all.

In any case, the growing number of Jewish references in the papers suggested the effect was working. That was enough.

I shifted my gaze to the next headlines.

Ah. Russia at last.

More than the endless stream of Great War dispatches that filled the papers day after day, it was the rapidly shifting Russian situation that held my attention. The article reported that on October 23, 1917—exactly one week earlier—the Bolshevik Party had declared an armed uprising.

The Revolutionary Committee had elevated Leon Trotsky as its leader and was seizing the Winter Palace, seat of the provisional government. My first prophecy—the Russian October Revolution—was underway.

I had shared that prophecy with two people: the future director of the FBI, and a reporter for the New York World.

Which of them would react first, I still could not say.

I set the paper down and opened the door set into the wall behind me. A stairwell connected the floors above and below; I took the stairs down into the basement.

The second basement level of the twin buildings had had the middle wall torn out, leaving a single vast space. At a table sitting alone in the middle of that expanse, two men had their heads together: the dealer Lenny Goldstein, and the fence Rosenthal.

“Have you finished the list of what we need?”

“Almost done, Boss. I’m just looking over the space for the high rollers.”

Rosenthal answered with a slightly slurred pronunciation. His face, still swollen from Tanner’s beating, was mottled with ugly blue-black bruises.

A high roller, of course, was someone who laid thick rolls of high-denomination bills on the table—a rich man. This was an age that did not yet use the term VIP. I decided I would introduce it early. It would make a convenient private code of our own, if nothing else.

“From now on we call high rollers VIPs. Most of the customers who find their way here will be working men, but we still need a space set aside for special guests.”

“Then let’s go with mahogany or rosewood, Boss. Hard but light, and they look expensive—plenty of gambling houses use them.”

“Price?”

“Two hundred dollars a table if you buy them straight. I can get them for seventy-five.”

I still had to worry about disguises for sudden raids, but Rosenthal’s answers came without hesitation.

“The people who make these already have that in mind. You don’t have to worry about that part.”

Lenny put in a word of his own.

“The tables aren’t the real problem. What matters is how fast the dealers and the staff can react when a raid hits.”

Lenny was also in contact with the colleagues who had been forced into dealing under the late Pacifico’s threats. I had handed him everything from small purchases to floor layout—the whole practical side of running a gambling den—and he had thrown himself into it as if it were his own enterprise.

While Lenny fretted over the floor plan, I hauled Rosenthal up to the first basement level. The dance hall we were building there was more urgent. I needed a layout that would draw customers who came to dance naturally down into the gambling floor.

Basement one.

A man stood in the center of the space, turning slowly as he scribbled notes on a sheet of paper as if sketching. Archibald Blackburn of Brooklyn—specialist in soundproofing, and in the design of saloons, bars, and dance halls. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A friend of Tanner’s who had taken the construction job for the Coney Island saloon. He had one foot half in the Marginals and was close to Rosenthal as well.

“Rosenthal, cover that face of yours like the Boss does. Maybe it’s the gloom down here, but every time I look at that mug of yours my heart does a bounce.”

“Shut up and focus on the interior.”

Blackburn ignored Rosenthal’s clenched fist and turned his eyes to me.

“Boss, put the band opposite the entrance, the floor in the center, and tables around the edge. And honestly, the most important thing in a dance hall is the lighting. You’ve got to change the brightness to match the mood of the music.”

Lively jazz, ragtime, and blues each needed their own lighting. Upbeat numbers fed the exhibitionists, so brighter was better; close, sticky intimacy with a partner wanted the lights low.

“Lighting is everything in a dance hall.”

As someone who had known clubs and adult nightlife in a previous life, it felt thin to me—but every age has its own sense of what is fitting. If I didn’t want to wreck the venture from the jump, experimental spirit would have to wait.

The sudden caution was all the Lucky Boxes’ fault. How could not a single one have sold?

We finished the dance-hall interior, the table placement along the traffic lines, the kitchen design, and locked down the purchasing list. As I was about to leave after the long meeting, Rosenthal hurried after me. Only then did he bring up Kate’s funeral.

“I heard it from the old Gunsmith. He said you were the one who got her a place at Green-Wood…”

Rosenthal’s eyes reddened and his voice thickened. It was understandable. When a poor immigrant died in Manhattan, they usually went into Calvary Cemetery—cheap and sprawling, the laborers’ resting ground. The middle class and above used Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Laid out in the Victorian style, with winding paths, lakes and ponds, and thick stands of trees, it was one of the most popular cemeteries in New York. Getting a plot there took money and effort.

I had arranged it through Big Tom Foley of Tammany Hall. The Gunsmith had paid the costs; I had only made the request. Still, it was a sweet carrot I had offered Rosenthal—a quiet invitation to stay loyal until he died.

Don’t stab me in the back. Serve me for life.

I gave him a faint smile, patted his shoulder, and left the basement.

Second-floor office.

Oliver, Cale, and Brian were waiting for me at the big table. For the past few days the men had been sweeping through Orchard and Allen, concentrating on cleaning up the territory.

“There are still stragglers wandering around Orchard, but their nerve is already broken. They start thinking about running before the fight even starts.”

“And Allen Street?”

“Looks like someone absorbed the gang, or one of the old lieutenants took the seat. They were still out today collecting protection.”

“Any chance it’s a crew from another district?”

“……I haven’t been able to confirm that.”

The murders from a few days ago were still under investigation, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but the gangs paid that no mind. The police knew it too: leave a vacuum in a district and another power would push into the gap.

Whoever came, I had no intention of giving this ground up. Which meant I had to make the territory mine beyond any doubt.

It was time to plant the flag.

“Starting tomorrow, we collect protection.”

“Ohh. Finally.”

“So it begins.”

A gang only became a gang when it did gang work.

While Oliver and Cale cheered, Brian asked with a faintly worried face,

“They’re all Italian and Jewish shops. There’ll be resistance. Will it be all right?”

Fair concern. For a long time this had been a district where the Irish could not hold their heads up. Covering your face with a scarf and raising hell was one thing; collecting protection money was another.

“For now, take only half the usual rate.”

“Half?”

“If they still refuse, make a separate list and bring it to me.”

“And after that?”

“Make one full round first. Then we’ll talk.”

The next day, the Marginals began collecting protection on Allen and Orchard. I was curious how viciously the boys would squeeze people, so I shadowed Oliver’s team in secret. It was exactly what I had expected.

“Hey! From now on we protect this place, so hand over five dollars! You wanna die!?”

“Should I just burn the whole place down? Huh?”

Ah, those little bast—

I would use other methods soon enough, but for now this was about staking the claim. Necessary work.

I told myself that and went back to the twin buildings.

That evening, a pile of crumpled bills lay on the second-floor table. They had hit about fifty places and come away with nearly four hundred dollars.

“Good work.”

“Tomorrow I’ll try for seventy, Boss!”

“A hundred seems doable.”

The light in the boys’ eyes was bright and alive.

I sent Oliver, Cale, and Brian off, gathered the bills from the table, and bound them with rubber bands. I was finishing two stacks of a hundred dollars each when Ida came up to the second floor. She ran her eyes over the money without a flicker of expression and spoke.

“Boss, a customer is here for you.”

“Customers are supposed to come to the shop.”

“No—a customer looking for the Boss. And it’s a man.”

A man had come all the way to a lingerie shop asking for me?

Something about it felt wrong.

I took a gun and a knife and put on my overcoat. I checked my appearance in the full-length mirror.

“Looks good. You can’t even tell you’re armed.”

“Shall we go, then?”

I went downstairs with Ida.

When we reached the shop floor, a man was staring fixedly at a brassiere.

It was Edgar Hoover.