Where to Blow It Up
A rival dance hall that had threatened and beaten our band.
A crew that ambushed Unit members in broad daylight and sent a warning.
Because the two incidents landed almost at the same time, some people insisted they shared a single body. Of course they might. Or they might not.
In this business you bled over a single street, and every stretch of territory you took meant that many more hands reaching out to push you back. Call it a street gang’s growing pains. Worse was coming. Was this really worth the noise?
A monkey startled by a swaying blade of grass. If we flinched at every small thing, they would write us off as soft and bite harder.
— Proceed as planned. Take Ludlow and Essex.
That said, a counterstrike was still necessary.
I was shut in the office turning over methods when Patrick found me with a long face.
“The new pianist’s caught on. Says he’s too scared to play…”
Maybe he’d heard the rumor about one of the departed band’s pianists losing a finger. Durante’s band was getting restless.
“So what did you do?”
“Told him we’d cut off every finger he had. After that he said he’d come out.”
“Good work.”
I said it, but it wasn’t a lasting fix. If someone actually approached Durante’s band, leaned on them, and took real fingers, would they hold?
To stop the shaking and dig up who was behind it…
“Patrick. How’s Anthony been lately?”
“Doesn’t exactly mix with the members, but he does the work without complaint. Hits the floor and dances well, too.”
Patrick gave a hollow little laugh.
Ridiculous, but I’d expected as much. Work by day, dance by night—that was probably why the self-styled lone wolf had wanted a dance-hall job in the first place. Still, who was going to smile about a new hire spinning around on the floor? The members might well take it sideways.
“We’ll have to give him something new.”
A short while later Anthony walked into the office and looked from Patrick to me.
“Boss. You looking for me?”
“Situation’s not good. Even the band we just managed to land could walk any day.”
“Can’t have the music stop at a dance hall.”
“So I’m going to need you to step up.”
Anthony held my gaze, and one corner of his mouth lifted.
“I can read it in the eyes alone. Leave it to me.”
“……?”
“You want me to join the band for a while and stick with them, right? Like bait?”
He got it on the first try. At this rate he could hang out a fortune-teller’s shingle.
“It could get dangerous.”
“If you supply me a gun, no problem.”
“You’re a fixer and you don’t even have a gun?”
“Of course…… I don’t.”
He’d lost his piece when he was hurt in Chicago. He still had a license, though—secured thanks to Chicago alderman John Powers. Come to think of it, he was the only one among us who carried a firearms license.
“Any model you want?”
“When it comes to guns, anything will do.”
I pulled a Colt M1911 from the drawer along with a spare magazine and a suppressor. Anthony whistled.
“Perfect.”
“I expect the job done just as perfectly.”
“Leave it to me.”
“Patrick, make it clear to the band and the members. For the time being Anthony is their harmonica man.”
“Okay.”
Patrick and Anthony left the office, and I went through the intelligence Marcus and the members had gathered.
Years earlier the gangs that had carved up and controlled the LES had collapsed, and at present no clear ruling power held the district. Monk Eastman, boss of the Eastman Gang, had shipped out for the Great War even in his forties, and Paul Kelly of the Five Points Gang was serving as a vice president of the ILA. What remained of the LES now was the leftover muscle of those outfits—Sicilians and Neapolitans from Italy, and the Marginals working the shadows—a tangled map of influence. In truth it was a transitional phase: the old street gangs giving way to the organized crime of the Prohibition age.
In any case, this was the moment to show a clear superiority of force.
Using what we’d collected, I narrowed the list to the dance-hall operators nearby and drafted a message to send them. The more we provoked, the faster their next move would come.
Rose Dance Hall on the Bowery.
A letter arrived for the owner, Ciro Pichi.
“The Pumpkin Dance Hall’s boss, is it… Now they’ll try anything.”
Through narrowed eyes he skimmed the page.
Dear Proprietor of the Rose Dance Hall,
A regrettable incident has recently occurred at our establishment, and a somewhat uneasy atmosphere has settled over the premises.
We have always valued order and coexistence. Still, when the neighborhood grows turbulent, we cannot help but consider certain measures of our own.
Before it comes to that, however, as men engaged in the same trade, I believe a measure of mutual cooperation is in order. Such difficulties, I am confident, can be readily resolved through open communication and a little consideration between us.
Should you know anything of the recent affair, or if you have any advice that might spare our house further inconvenience, I would be most grateful to hear it.
The LES is smaller than one thinks, and everyone remembers everyone else.
Wishing you health and prosperity in business, and hoping we may soon meet in person to exchange greetings. I await your reply.
“This maniac sends a letter like this and has the nerve to wait for an answer?”
It opened with courtesy and finished as something close to a threat. Revenue was already sliding; he was already irritated. And now these people who could only take hits without landing any of their own were strutting around without fear.
“Maybe a little ruin will teach them.”
Ciro Pichi snorted, started to tear the letter, then thought better of it.
“I should see the other owners.”
The rest had almost certainly received the same letter. He wanted to know how they meant to answer. And though Ciro Pichi had nothing to do with what had happened at the Pumpkin Dance Hall, he had a fair idea who was behind it.
The next day a handful of dance-hall owners from the LES held a meeting. And at that table someone said:
“Looks like they got lucky and found a band. If that disappears too, Pumpkin’s finished.”
It sounded like nothing, but a dance hall lived and died by its band. And so a rumor went out: anyone who played at the Pumpkin would pay for it. However desperate for money, however few rooms would take them—to play at the Pumpkin meant putting your life on the line. Who would do that?
“Anthony, if you keep running off the beat on your own, we can’t follow you.”
Durante, the pianist, bright and full of positive energy, finally couldn’t hold it in.
“And putting a harmonica to your lips doesn’t mean you have to blow every second. Please—just play the parts we practiced properly…”
Anthony’s brow twitched and his hand tightened on the harmonica. Having worked up the nerve to speak, Durante let the end of the sentence trail off.
The dressing-room air turned ugly. As the break wound down, Anthony let out a long breath.
“Okay. Got it.”
“Oh, good. Shall we try again?”
The band climbed back onto the stage.
Anthony chewed over Durante’s words and did his best to ride the beat and hold himself in check. But once the lively ragtime got going, he couldn’t keep his body still. Leaving the harmonica idle in his mouth felt like a sin. In the end he cut the string and started blowing. The band smiled wryly and shook their heads in time with the rhythm.
Worse still, the crowd ate it up—Anthony’s runaway-train performance drawing cheers.
I want to quit. Honestly.
Getting threatened would be better than this.
Then they looked at the fingers on their instruments and snapped back to reality. Stepping into this filthy world had been the first mistake.
The long day finally ended. They packed up in the dressing room. Anthony tucked the harmonica into his coat and left the hall with the band.
“Whew. Good work, everyone. What do you say—grab a late bite before we turn in?”
“Is Anthony buying?”
“If he is, we’re in.”
“A lone wolf doesn’t have money. But I can manage enough for you lot.”
Was this what people meant by love-hate? Durante and the others let Anthony lead them to one of the few all-night cafés still open.
Over drinks and pastries, Anthony asked:
“Everyone but Durante’s from New Orleans, right?”
Frank Christian on cornet and Jeff Roya Cano on trumpet—both of them veterans who’d done well enough in New Orleans.
“Competition there’s brutal, so we came to New York. Plenty of friends who made it in Manhattan.”
“Making it meaning money?”
“No. Meeting a patron—someone who’ll back a record date and get a disc out.”
“Ah. A patron.”
Anthony nodded—and that was when he spotted three men loitering outside the café. One of them he’d already seen inside the dance hall.
Drinks, pastries, even beer—by the time they finished, it was past three in the morning. Anthony and the others left the café and headed for the Eldridge Street boarding house where the band was staying.
They were walking under the streetlamps when a group closed the distance. The musicians sensed the wrongness of it and pressed in close to Anthony. Durante shoved his hands in his pockets and shook.
“What do we do, Anthony?”
“What do you mean, what. If they come at us, we send them.”
“S-send them where?”
Anthony jerked his chin at the sky.
The players went cold and shuddered.
“All right. Let’s begin.”
Without warning Anthony changed direction and led them into a darker alley.
“You hide back there.”
He pointed past a pile of trash cans and junk. Durante and the others scrambled behind it just as the men following them turned into the alley.
The man in front found Anthony alone and cocked his head.
“You lured us on purpose?”
“This idiot knew and still followed?”
The man reached for a gun—and a cold muzzle jammed up under his jaw. He froze and lowered the hand he’d been sliding into his coat. Anthony seized him by the throat and dragged him close. At the same time he swung the barrel and pulled the trigger on the man still going for a weapon.
Bang!
The bullet snapped the man’s head back and blood sprayed. Using the shot as a signal, the third man bolted. Without hesitation Anthony put a round into the back of his skull.
“Idiots. You should have drawn before you stepped into the alley.”
Then again—who would imagine band players were packing?
Anthony kept his grip on the trembling man’s throat and rifled his coat for the gun.
“Another piece. Nice.”
Humming under his breath, he marched the hostage deeper into the alley with the gun to his head. The musicians rose unsteadily from behind the trash heap and stared at him. Anthony passed them and asked:
“See anything tonight?”
“Nothing…… We didn’t see a thing.”
“Good. Go back to the room. Don’t be late tomorrow.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Not that way. Take another route out.”
Two bodies lay at the mouth of the alley they’d come through. People would gather soon; running into them would be a problem. Durante and the others vanished down a different passage, and Anthony hauled the hostage somewhere quieter still.
Second-floor office of the Allen Street twin buildings.
Patrick’s brow furrowed over the way Anthony had handled things.
“What good’s skill if he just kills without a plan. Christ—how are we supposed to clean this up? If the band talks out of turn for real…”
“Move them out of the boarding house. Put them on the third floor here. You keep checking on the police.”
There was no need for the band to stay bait any longer. Anthony had already tortured the hostage and dug up who had put them up to it.
— He pointed at the Palm Garden Dance Hall, but he knew he was dead either way. Could’ve just been talking trash to screw with me.
— We’ll put them at the top of the list for now.
Anthony would watch how the police investigation went before deciding whether to go to ground. And after removing three men he was so unbothered he was polishing his harmonica in the dressing room, ready to play again that night.
“Boss. This ought to ease the pressure a little, right?”
“Not even close.”
Three men who’d tried to hit the band were dead—and that was all. The ones who’d put them up to it hadn’t taken a direct hit. Besides, the point of attacking the band had been a show of force. Until I made them kneel, it would keep happening.
The dance-hall owners needed a stronger shock treatment. Hitting every one of them was too much weight to carry.
Two for an example would do.
Over the past few days, in a secret room, I’d been building improvised bombs. A little TNT packed into ordinary corned-beef cans. To keep them from going off at once, I’d taken fuses from Mills grenades the Gunsmith had gotten us—seven-second stock—and modified them out to fifteen. American MK1 grenades used roughly fifty grams of TNT; that was about the right charge to wreck a single floor without chewing through the ones above and below.
With bombs of that size, and floor plans of the rival halls our informants had scraped together, I laid the work out.
Early morning, Mulberry Street.
The hour when a dance hall’s doors were sealed shut.
The members scattered to watch every approach. I drifted into the alley in a tramp’s rags, easy as anything. While people were about I poked through trash cans, played the vagrant, and waited for the moment. When it came I slipped onto the iron fire escape, eased a bomb through a second-floor window of the hall, and counted down in my head as I came back down the stairs. By the time I cleared the alley—
BOOM!
The blast and the glass went together. Shards that hit the building opposite pattered down. I bolted out of the alley. Who pays attention to a terrified tramp? I shoved through the morning crowd on their way to work and left the scene behind.
Two hours later, another explosion tore through a dance hall on the Bowery.
With the chain of blasts finished, next—
“We can’t look suspicious. Our turn.”
I’d also built a much weaker charge—weak enough that anyone who saw it would swear it was a dud or a botched job. I stepped into the hall and swept the interior with my eyes.
“Where to blow it up.”
If we wanted to open for business today, the damage would have to stay as light as possible.