Lights Out
Hotel Livingston.
It sat directly across from the Hotel Delancey, where Itzky Joe was staying—perfectly positioned for an assassination. The only questions were whether an empty room on a comparable floor would open up, and whether I could get cleanly away afterward. The moment Itzky Joe died, the NYPD and the papers would come after us with blood in their eyes. That much was certain.
Maybe I needed to slow down and build the plan more carefully. After all, Itzky Joe moved hotels on a fixed rotation. He would almost certainly return to the Delancey eventually.
But Anthony complicated everything.
He was already hunting Itzky Joe’s enforcer. If Anthony eliminated his target first, the moment Itzky Joe learned one of his men had been hit he would abandon every routine and vanish deeper underground. Then this war would never end.
I had to finish Itzky Joe before he left the hotel. Every available resource would be thrown at reducing the risk. My mind spun faster than it ever had, racing to lock every piece of the plan into place before time ran out.
Eight o’clock that evening, Bowery Street.
A man in a coat clutched against the cold wind stepped down into a small basement saloon. Assassin Anthony.
He took a seat at the bar, removed his hat, ordered a whiskey, and let his eyes wander across the colorful bottles lined along the back shelf while his ears locked onto the low conversation at a corner table. Four men sat there speaking so quietly you could miss every word if you weren’t paying close attention.
“Hogan’s already been taken out. Six guys vanishing at once doesn’t make any sense otherwise.”
“If that’s true, then those bastards are right there… Is Pumpkin really their base?”
“Who knows. What I do know is those Paddy sons of bitches are running wild without knowing their place.”
Anthony started fitting the pieces together. Hogan was almost certainly the man who had gone to hit Pumpkin and never come back. “That place” meant Pumpkin itself. “Paddies” meant the Irish—which meant the Union. So they already knew the Union was an Irish outfit.
He was leaning harder into the conversation when the bartender decided to make small talk.
“Where you from?”
“What, do locals walk around with LES stamped on their foreheads?”
“Just asking. Never seen you before. This place mostly gets regulars—and most of those regulars are gangsters.”
Anthony suddenly wondered if the place belonged to the Five Points Gang. Even the bartender’s smirk as he topped off the whiskey looked sinister.
“Chicago,” Anthony said flatly.
“Nice town. Quieter than Manhattan, right?”
“Same shit, different city.”
Anthony made his dislike obvious and cut the exchange short. The sharp-eyed bartender only offered a faint smile and left him alone.
By the time Anthony tuned back into the table behind him, the topic had already shifted.
“I heard Ioele’s in LES. Meeting with the boss?”
“How long’s he been Yale already? Still calling him Ioele. Anyway, him showing up can’t be unrelated to this mess. We’re supposed to be the same gang—he just gonna pretend nothing’s happening?”
“I don’t buy it. Yale’s got his head somewhere else right now. He couldn’t care less about this. And the boss sure as hell doesn’t want to go begging the Italians for favors.”
“Agreed. Honestly, hard to call Yale one of us anymore. He’s already a long way from the Five Points.”
After founding boss Paul Kelly retired, the Five Points had splintered. Two major factions remained: the Jewish side under Itzky Joe, and an Italian-Jewish mix that had coalesced around Frankie Yale—Francesco Ioele. Their territories were different too. Itzky Joe held traditional LES; Yale ran South Brooklyn—smuggling, extortion, whorehouses, saloons. In truth Yale had already broken free of the Five Points and was building his own empire.
All Anthony actually knew for certain was that the men at the table were Five Points, and one of them was the enforcer he had come to kill.
He was still listening when a woman who worked the saloon drifted over, perched on the edge of his chair, and asked, “Mind if I sit a minute?”
When Anthony frowned she gently took his arm.
“Don’t make that scary face.”
“I’m not in a talking mood.”
“Then how about you listen to me?”
She gave him a sultry smile and pressed closer. When he tried to ease away she spoke in a voice half air, half sound.
“There’s something special about your vibe. Just looking at you pulls me in. And you’re Irish—don’t see many of those in here.”
Anthony snorted. She leaned even nearer.
“You’re a gangster too, aren’t you?”
The saloon went quiet. Every eye turned on Anthony. He glanced around and found suspicion and open hostility staring back.
Jesus Christ, why’d the crazy bitch have to open her mouth?
Apparently even when he tried to hide it, charm refused to stay buried.
Anthony casually slipped a hand inside his coat. The men around him started doing the same.
Fuck it. Whatever.
He drew out a silver object and raised it to his lips.
A rich harmonica wail filled the room.
“A lone wolf can’t help himself when he sees a beautiful woman.”
“Oh my.”
With one hand he lifted her by the waist; with the other he began to play. The hands that had been reaching into coats relaxed. Men smirked, clapped along, and fell into the rhythm of the impromptu dance.
The four at the back table watched for a while, then simply knocked back their whiskey. A moment later the piano player joined in and the saloon turned into a miniature dance hall. The woman, face glowing, let herself be led through the steps.
Then, one by one, the men at the table stood. Anthony’s harmonica raced toward a sharp finale. The moment his targets left, the music stopped. He drained the whiskey still sitting on the bar.
“You’re not leaving already?”
“A lone wolf has to be home before midnight.”
“How romantic…”
Even that idiotic line left her eyes dreamy. Anthony brushed a light kiss against her forehead, tugged his hat down, and said, “Until next time, lady.”
Outside, he shadowed the four men. From days of watching he knew the enforcer always peeled off alone and headed for a rooming house on the Bowery. Tonight the pattern held. Anthony followed his solitary target into a dark stretch of street.
“Came to collect my tip.”
Two soft coughs of gunfire. The target crumpled. Anthony put one more round into him for certainty and melted away.
The corpse was the second Five Points enforcer to fall.
At the same hour, Room 203 of the Hotel Livingston on Delancey Street.
Roa, who had bounced off the walls all evening, finally fell asleep clutching her teddy bear. Liam had dozed off over an open book.
“A leak, of all things, out of nowhere.”
“I know. They’ll fix it today and tomorrow—we should be able to go home the day after.”
I sat at the table talking with Mother. Of course there was no real leak. I had simply dumped water across the living room floor, let it run out onto the balcony, and manufactured a perfect excuse to move the family into a hotel.
“By the way, your grandfather’s birthday is next week. Do you have time? If you’re too busy you don’t have to come.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Family occasions are mandatory, Mother.”
“Hearing you say that makes me happy. Lately I feel like I’m living in a dream thanks to you. The company’s sales keep climbing.”
“They’re only going to get better.”
Mother smiled softly, then her gaze drifted to the sleeping Liam. Without warning she slid a sheet of paper across the table.
“Liam’s report card.”
Overall Rank: 5 / 457
“Not first?”
“Honestly. Fifth in the entire grade isn’t easy. Remember he missed two whole years of school.”
“True, but he was held back two years. Competing against kids two years younger—”
Mother’s sharp look cut me off. I shut my mouth at once.
“Have you said that to Liam?”
“I’m innocent, Mother.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Anyway, I think he’s conscious of it himself—he says he’s going to night school to catch up.”
American public schools ran eight years of elementary and four of high school. Junior high was uncommon in this era. Children could start at six, but compulsory education only covered ages eight to fourteen. That was why poor kids often didn’t enroll until they were eight, and most never bothered with high school unless they aimed for college.
Liam and I had both started at six—proof that the household had been reasonably comfortable before Father died. Had Liam stayed in school without interruption he would now be in 11th grade. Instead he had spent two years shining shoes and been held back, so he was only in 9th. The fact clearly rankled him; he had decided to take night classes and summer sessions so he could finish 12th grade next year and enter college at eighteen.
“Looks like studying actually suits him. Takes after Father, maybe?”
“Excuse me?”
Mother pointed a finger at herself. When I nodded without much conviction she pouted. I turned my gaze instead to Roa, still curled around her teddy bear.
“We should send Roa to school this year too.”
“I was already planning to start her in the spring term. Things are better now.”
American schools began in the fall, the usual entrance season. Mother, however, intended to enroll Roa next week—spring term.
“Once she’s in school she’ll have to leave that teddy behind.”
“She’s been asking me to make a bag for Teddy. How am I supposed to do that?”
“Oh?”
A dozen ideas flashed through my mind—charms and stuffed animals kids a hundred years from now would clip all over their bags, and the endless variety of rings and clasps that held them. The moment this business was finished I would draft the designs and file the patents.
It was already past ten. I rose quietly.
“I’m stepping out for a bit.”
“At this hour?”
“Someone I need to meet.”
I took the stairs to the fourth floor and knocked on 403. A moment later the door opened and a young woman regarded me with calm composure.
Hazel from Hell’s Kitchen.
“Come in.”
“I feel like I asked too much of you. You sure you’re all right with this?”
“If it goes wrong, you’ll just have to take responsibility, won’t you? For life.”
“…”
Heavy curtains covered the window. Beside it stood a canvas on a portable tripod easel; a sketch of the view outside already filled the surface. The draftsmanship was excellent.
“Just whipped up an alibi. What do you think?”
“You’re good.”
“I’m better at blueprints. So—are we doing this now?”
“Why not?”
“No reason. Just asking.”
Hazel lifted the canvas from the easel and leaned it against the wall. I picked up the long cylindrical tube propped in the corner. Artists normally used it to carry outdoor easels; this one felt far heavier. I inverted it and shook out the contents—the Springfield M1903 I had used at Newtown Creek, along with its accessories. While I fitted the suppressor and scope, Hazel pointed at the easel.
“Mount it there. I modified it.”
A painter’s easel is basically a folding wooden tripod with a long rear strut to support the canvas. Hazel slipped an oval fixture over the end of that strut and transformed the easel into a solid rifle rest—far steadier for accurate fire.
“Lights out.”
Hazel flicked the switch. Darkness swallowed the room. My eyes adjusted quickly. She drew the curtains aside. Moonlight and streetlamps lit the building opposite in a clear, pale glow.
I settled my eye behind the scope and locked onto Room 407—Itzky Joe’s suite. Hazel raised a pair of binoculars and watched the same window. She must have been sketching while keeping the room under constant surveillance.
“There were several people with him all evening. Looks like they still haven’t left.”
“I can’t see a thing.”
“They’re sitting on the sofa. When they stand up their heads float right into view. Every shot would be a headshot.”
“…”
The hotel windows weren’t plate glass; they were arched, heavily barred, and almost perfectly level with our own. If I fired from here and a skilled NYPD medical examiner later mapped the trajectories, they could trace the angle straight back to this floor—maybe even this room.
That was why I had taken two rooms, and why I had called Hazel instead of Ida. If the police ever grabbed Ida they would connect her straight to the Pumpkin Dance Hall.
I returned my full attention to the scope. Hitting a target through a narrow gap of glass demanded absolute concentration and perfect timing. Hazel supplied the final piece of intelligence that timing required.
“They open the window now and then to let the cigarette smoke out. With that many people it’s roughly every ten minutes. And before the others arrived, Itzky Joe himself used to stand right by the open window to smoke.”
It was still January; nights turned bitterly cold. I had been prepared simply to shatter the glass, but if Hazel was right I could wait for the window to open and for Itzky Joe to step close.
Then a head appeared in my sights.
Not Itzky Joe. Someone else pushed the window open, leaned out to glance downward, then lifted his gaze and looked straight across.
Our eyes met.
“Jesus—”
Hazel had seen him too. She jerked the binoculars down in shock, but I kept my eye glued to the scope.
Salvatore Lucania.
Of course—he was Five Points as well. That explained why he was sitting with Itzky Joe.
Salvatore scanned the façade of our hotel for a long moment, then withdrew from the window.