Chapter 41: Office Of The President
Dusk was settling over the Gansevoort alley, turning the sky a deep, bruised indigo behind the barred windows of the storage shed.
Inside, three empty glass whiskey bottles sat cluttering the wooden staging table. Frank Murphy, Sean Williams, and young Patrick lay sprawled across empty flour sacks and wooden crates like corpses, snoring softly or groaning whenever the cold draft whistled through the doorframe.
Ricky sat at the wooden table under the yellow glow of an oil lamp, his lead pencil tracing down two thick columns of numbers in his leather notebooks. He rubbed his temples, letting out a long, heavy sigh.
Accounting was a headache. Back in Georgia, he’d managed simple hustle ledgers and split cash on a hood, but balancing two separate wagon routes, delivery fees, baseline wages, overtime, and inventory stock in a crude 1910 paper notebook was exhausting. Still, the math was clean.
Ricky closed the master ledger with a soft thud and stood up, stepping over toward the sprawled crew. He reached down and shook Frank’s shoulder, then nudged Sean and Patrick with the toe of his boot.
"Wake up," Ricky said. "You guys dead or just faking it?"
Frank let out a muffled groan, rolling onto his side without opening his eyes. "My skull feels like someone’s hammering iron nails into it, Ricky..."
Ricky shook his head, cursing softly under his breath. "How are you three going to run a night route if you can’t even stand up?"
From behind a high stack of nail kegs in the corner, John Caldwell appeared, pulling his suspenders back over his shoulders and adjusting his belt. He took a half-burned paper cigarette out of his mouth, blowing a quiet stream of blue smoke toward the rafters.
Ricky looked at John, his gray eyes narrowing. "John... please tell me you weren’t pissing on the stock crates."
John scoffed, tapping the ash off his cigarette. "Give me some credit, mate. I’m not stupid. I used an iron bucket near the alley drain."
"Right," Ricky muttered. He gestured toward the three groaning figures on the floor. "Any idea how to get these bastards awake before eight o’clock?"
"Easy," John said casually, taking another drag. "A pot of hot chicory coffee and a bowl of thick mutton soup from the cart down the block, and they’ll be right as rain."
Ricky let out a small breath of relief. "Alright. Go fetch ’em."
Before John could step toward the door, he looked past Ricky’s shoulder, pointing a finger toward the alley entrance. "Look who’s back."
Arthur Murphy pushed the heavy oak double doors open. Behind him came a procession of ten people, filing into the brick storage shed in single file.
Ricky turned, stepping back toward his table. He looked over the candidates Aunt Molly had recruited, his eyebrows raising slightly.
There were two young men dressed in crisp, navy wool suits with slicked-back hair and polished leather shoes, standing with their hands folded, looking as nervous as if they were interviewing for a Wall Street banking firm. The other eight candidates were women, ranging in age from eighteen to their mid-thirties, dressed in clean, conservative blouses and long dark skirts.
Ricky looked over at Arthur. "Is this a bit over the top, Arthur?"
Arthur chuckled softly, walking up to the table. "Aunt Molly insisted, Ricky. She said most of the corner-boys in the neighborhood can’t do proper math without using their fingers, let alone write a clean line of copperplate script. She said the neighborhood girls were ten times sharper when it comes to keeping books."
"I don’t care if they’re men or women," Ricky said, keeping his voice relaxed and conversational. "As long as they can handle numbers and keep their mouths shut about company business."
Near the front of the group, a woman in her mid-twenties with sharp blue eyes and a dark wool shawl thrown carelessly over her shoulder took a slow drag from a thin paper cigarette. She blew a cloud of gray smoke into the air, looking at Ricky with a relaxed, amused smirk.
"Don’t worry about loose lips from me, boss," she said, her voice dry and rasping with a thick West Side accent. "I don’t talk for free."
Ricky offered a small, appreciative grin. "Fair enough."
He looked at the ten candidates, leaning his hip against his wooden table. "Here’s the deal, gents and ladies. I need five people for office work today. If you don’t get picked tonight, don’t worry. The company’s expanding fast, and we’re going to need more staff in the near future. Everyone here stays on our priority list."
Ricky paused, pulling out a stack of hand-written paper folders he’d prepared earlier. "Let’s get started."
For the next twenty minutes, Ricky conducted quick, sharp interviews right at the storage table. He tested their reading, had them solve quick mental arithmetic problems, and checked their handwriting.
By seven o’clock, Ricky had made his selection.
Standing in a neat line in front of his table were five core office workers:
Charles Miller (21) — A quiet, meticulous young man with sharp spectacles and neat handwriting, ideal for detailed record-keeping.
Clara Higgins (24) — A sharp, practical woman with a quick mind for personnel files and neighborhood references.
Walter Ross (22) — A sharp-eyed young man who had worked briefly as a clerk for a dry-goods firm on 14th Street.
Maeve Sullivan (25) — The carefree, cigarette-smoking woman from earlier, whose razor-sharp mental math and cynical street smarts made her an asset for calculating margins.
Evelyn Vance (18) — The youngest of the group. She stood with a remarkably calm, professional posture. She was strikingly attractive, with dark hair and clear green eyes, but her demeanor was cool, reserved, and completely businesslike.
Ricky looked at Evelyn for a second, evaluating her objectively. Coming from 2026, he’d seen plenty of attractive women and knew better than to mix personal feelings with business. Her sharpness and composure were what mattered.
Meanwhile, Arthur stepped up to the five candidates who weren’t selected tonight. He handed each of them a heavy silver five-dollar bill.
"For your time," Arthur said warmly. "Ricky keeps his word. You’ll be the first ones we call when the next floor opens."
The five unselected candidates blinked in shock at the crisp five-dollar bills in their hands—nearly a week’s worth of standard labor wages just for sitting through a twenty-minute interview. They left the shed beaming, talking loudly about the generous new boss.
The five chosen workers watched the interaction, their eyes brightening with genuine excitement at joining an organization that paid five dollars just for showing up.
Ricky turned back to the core five, gesturing toward the paper folders resting on the table.
"Congratulations," Ricky said, his voice carrying calm, grounded authority. "You’re now part of our organization: the Founder’s Syndicate. In front of you are your employment contracts."
Walter Ross picked up his folder, running his eyes down the hand-written pages. "Founder’s Syndicate?"
"The contracts are a bit crude," Ricky admitted, offering a small, dry smile. "I’m a merchant, not a corporate lawyer. That’s why I hired you. Your first task tomorrow morning will be revising those clauses into clean, professional company agreements."
Maeve Sullivan took a puff from her cigarette, leaning against the table. "And the pay, boss?"
"Base wage is $2.50 a day," Ricky stated clearly. "Eight-hour shifts. Any time worked past eight hours is paid as overtime at thirty cents an hour. And you get one fully paid day off per week."
The room went dead silent.
Walter Ross’s jaw dropped, and Clara Higgins gasped softly. A $2.50 base wage with paid time off was practically unheard of for entry-level clerical work in 1910 Manhattan.
"Two fifty a day?" Charles Miller breathed, checking the paper again. "With paid days off?"
"Depending on performance," Ricky added. "Now, here are your department assignments: Charles Miller and Clara Higgins, you’re assigned to Human Resources. You’ll manage employee records, neighborhood background checks, personnel statistics, and all company paperwork."
Charles and Clara nodded eagerly, pulling out small pencils to take notes.
"Walter Ross and Maeve Sullivan," Ricky continued, "you’re on Accounting. You’ll handle sales ledgers, inventory counts, gross and net income statements, and monthly financial reports."
Maeve smirked, tucking her cigarette behind her ear. "Got it, boss."
Ricky then turned his eyes to Evelyn Vance, the eighteen-year-old standing at the end of the line.
"Evelyn," Ricky said smoothly. "You’re taking the lead on daily cash documentation and executive correspondence."
Evelyn tilted her head, her green eyes cool and analytical. "Am I the treasurer, Mr. Ricky?"
"Yes and no," Ricky explained. "You’ll document every cent received daily from the route leaders and verify that the cash matches Accounting’s numbers. But I will be the final authority confirming all ledger balances."
Ricky kept his internal logic to himself. With the System Vault and the Ledger Shop handling their actual inventory procurement, he couldn’t afford to let anyone else—aside from Marek—see the true, impossible profit margins or where the physical capital was stored. Until they established real, physical local suppliers as a front company down the line, Evelyn would serve as his personal executive secretary, managing the office staff and overseeing daily cash flow in his stead while keeping the System operations completely in the dark.
"I understand," Evelyn said quietly, giving a clean, professional nod. "I’ll have the daily cash match the sales sheets before you inspect the books."
"Good," Ricky said, stepping back from the table. "You start tomorrow morning at eight sharp on the fourth floor of Aunt Molly’s building on Washington Street. That’s all for tonight. You’re dismissed."
The five new office staff gathered their folders, tipping their caps and offering polite thanks before filing out into the cool evening air of the alleyway.
Ricky watched them go, letting out a slow, satisfied breath.
The Founder’s Syndicate wasn’t just two boys with a horse anymore. The corporate structure was coming together.