Chapter 61: Dumb & Dumber
The morning sun slanted through the tall glass windows of the Washington Street loft, casting long, amber rectangles across the polished pine floorboards. Below on the street, the heavy grinding of iron-rimmed wagon wheels and the sharp, echoing cracks of teamsters’ whips provided a steady background rhythm to the quiet activity on the fourth floor.
Ricky sat in his oak swivel chair at the far end of the wide corridor, watching his expanding corporate machine operate through the open double doors.
The top floor had completely changed over the last three days. When Phill and James McClain hauled their heavy iron printing press, paper rolls, and personal trunks down to the newly vacated third-floor apartment, Ricky had immediately overhauled the layout.
The Accounting department had taken over the room right beside the McClain brothers’ former sleeping quarters. It was spacious enough now to hold four large drafting tables where two newly hired clerks sat dipping steel nibs into black inkwell bottles, carefully transcribing numbers from the night-shift route sheets into the master ledger.
Across the hallway sat the Employment Office—a practical title Evelyn had suggested after noting that street-corner lookouts and drayage drivers found the term "Human Resources" confusing and suspicious.
At the very end of the hall sat the locked Treasurer’s Office, where canvas bags of silver and paper bills were counted, verified against route receipts, and logged twice daily. The two rooms previously used for HR and Accounting had been converted into Evelyn’s primary executive workspace, leaving one small corner room vacant for future expansion.
Ricky stared blankly at the brick wall of his private office, though in his mind, the translucent blue interface of the Founder’s Ledger was wide open.
He hadn’t been paying much attention to the Daily Discipline Quests lately. The system no longer strictly required him to do them—the mandatory penalties had vanished after his first month of survival—but he kept running his five miles every morning at three-thirty anyway. It was routine. He didn’t care about the extra twenty dollars anymore.
What he did care about was the quiet, terrifying reality of his own biology.
Ever since he had dumped fifty points into Vitality, his body simply refused to fatigue. He could work the ledgers all day, ride the wagons all night, sleep for exactly two hours, and wake up feeling as if he had slept for ten. Three days ago, while cutting an apple, he had intentionally slipped and sliced the pad of his thumb with a paring knife. He hadn’t even needed a rag; the blood had clotted in seconds, the skin physically knitting itself back together before the afternoon was over. He was healing like a comic book mutant.
With a subtle shift of his focus, Ricky opened the translucent blue interface of the Founder’s Ledger in his mind.
The numbers in his Vault glowed steadily: $36,548.00.
The Greenwich Village routes were pulling in anywhere from $280 to $450 a day in raw gross sales, but to Ricky’s modern analytical mind, thirty-six thousand dollars was just baseline capital. If he wanted to build an empire capable of surviving the corporate and political wars ahead, he needed heavy infrastructure.
He swiped his vision over to the System catalog’s luxury liquor tab. Three days ago, while exploring the deeper tiers of the shop interface, he had stumbled upon the quality customization options. For an additional $1.50 to $2.80 per crate over generic factory costs, the System allowed him to embed custom-designed labels and foil stamps directly onto the glass. All he had to do was mentally visualize a logo—like the flat cap on Black Cap, the pocket watch on Three Piece, or the gold foil ace on Royal Spades—and the System materialized the finished, high-end product seamlessly.
Selling generic, unbranded whiskey brought in pocket silver. Selling custom-branded luxury liquor to high-end establishments could yield fifteen to twenty dollars per crate.
Sharp, rhythmic footsteps clicked against the pine floorboards in the hallway, drawing Ricky out of the interface. He mentally closed the blue screen just as Evelyn Vance stepped up to his desk.
She wore a dark wool skirt and a crisp white blouse, holding a small silver tray with a single sealed linen envelope.
""Mr. Stevenson," Evelyn said smoothly, her voice cool and professional. "Jimmy Williams returned from his morning sweep a few minutes ago. He asked me to deliver this to you personally. It’s the written reply from the Hudson Dusters regarding your commercial proposal."
"Ah. It’s here," Ricky said, reaching out to take the envelope. "Thanks, Evelyn. Carry on."
Evelyn gave a clean nod and turned back toward the Treasurer’s office, her ledger tucked under her arm.
Ricky picked up a brass letter opener, broke the red wax seal, and unfolded the heavy paper inside. He scanned the neat, dark ink script. A dry, amused smirk touched his lips.
"For a street lieutenant," Ricky muttered softly to the empty room, "he sure writes well."
The letter was formal and polite. Barney Knox had explicitly stated that while he appreciated the generous sample, he wished to consider the distribution proposal at a later date, preferring to see how their operational relationship developed before entering into exclusive commercial ties.
"Basically saying he doesn’t trust us yet," Ricky murmured, tossing the letter onto his blotter.
He leaned his elbows on the oak desk, staring out the window at the smoke rising from the river tugs. He wasn’t angry. He had expected Barney Knox to be paranoid. But Ricky wasn’t going to sit around waiting for a lazy gang lieutenant to make up his mind. Barney wasn’t his only option.
Evelyn had brought up a valid point earlier in the week: they didn’t need to jump straight to the elite, mob-controlled Broadway hotels to make massive daily volume. There were dozens of successful three-star establishments, busy saloons, and large grocery markets spread across the Lower East Side and the edges of Midtown.
Danny’s lookouts had already confirmed that those eastern territories belonged to the Eastman Gang and the Morello family. Expanding into Five Points territory was dangerous, but the foot traffic was immense. Selling branded luxury liquor across those avenues could easily generate a thousand dollars a day.
The problem wasn’t finding buyers; the problem was hiding the money trail.
Ricky knew that if a brand-new, newly registered company suddenly started declaring thousands of dollars in weekly liquor sales without a physical paper trail, Tammany Hall tax inspectors, precinct captains, and rival syndicates would be on their doorstep within a month.
He needed an existing, legitimate front.
Ricky stood up, pushed his chair back, and walked over to the open doorway of the Accounting office.
"Evelyn," Ricky called out quietly.
She looked up from a stack of route receipts, her pen hovering over an inkwell. "Yes, Mr. Stevenson?"
"Start looking through the commercial registries and speaking with local property brokers," Ricky instructed, keeping his tone conversational and direct. "I want to know if there are any mid-sized wholesale companies or trading houses currently up for sale in the lower boroughs. Preferably close to our staging area."
Evelyn’s green eyes sharpened with immediate understanding. "You want to acquire an established firm?"
"Exactly," Ricky said, leaning against the doorframe. "Buying an existing business lets us use their old tax records, their established commercial name, and their licensed inventory space. It allows us to blend our stock in with standard goods without raising red flags with the city authorities. I want a target lined up for the next two months."
"I’ll have a list of failing trading firms on your desk by Friday," Evelyn replied, making a quick note on her pad.
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Ten blocks south, the morning sun barely reached the narrow alley outside a damp, three-story tenement on Perry Street.
Peter sat on the edge of a lumpy, sagging mattress inside his cramped room, blowing a thick cloud of gray tobacco smoke toward the water-stained ceiling. He reached into his coat pocket, his fingers brushing against the ten dollars in silver coins he had kept for himself.
He had already distributed the other twenty dollars among Mickey and Billy earlier that morning, making sure his two starving collectors could finally buy a warm meal, clean socks, and a hot cup of coffee.
Peter took a slow, heavy drag from his cigarette, a bitter, disgusted scowl twisting his face as he remembered yesterday afternoon at the Tenth Avenue saloon.
When Peter had presented the wooden crate of sample bottles to Barney Knox, telling him it was a "goodwill gift" from the commission boys, the lieutenant had been skeptical. But the moment Barney popped the cork on the Royal Spades and took a single sip, his eyes had widened in absolute shock.
Barney had practically wept over the glass, staring at the ornate bottle as if he were holding pure gold.
Why hasn’t this found me sooner? Barney had dramatically gasped, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. After throwing back shots of the Black Cap and the Three Piece, Barney had slammed his fist on the mahogany table, cursing his usual suppliers. I had no idea I’ve been drinking horse piss this whole time!
Barney had eagerly read Ricky’s commercial proposal, his eyes lighting up at the thought of the foot traffic the exclusive liquor would bring to his controlled saloons and gambling dens. He knew he could charge steep, premium prices by the glass, and the working men would still empty their pockets for it.
And yet, despite the mountain of cash sitting right in front of him, Barney’s paranoid, insecure nature had taken over. He started muttering that he didn’t know who backed the commission boys, where their warehouse was, or what their true motives were. Out of sheer, stupid caution, Barney had actually sat down at a desk and scrawled out a formal refusal letter himself.
Peter took another drag, his knuckles white against his cigarette.
"Could he be any dumber?" Peter muttered aloud to the empty, peeling walls. "How the hell do you refuse a goldmine when it’s dropped right into your hands?"
Peter shook his head in sheer disbelief. Who cared about their true motives? Who cared where the whiskey came from? It was pure, high-grade liquor being offered on a silver platter. If Sullivan or any of the other Duster lieutenants found out about the quality of the Royal Spades and tracked down the commission boys themselves, Barney could kiss his golden opportunity goodbye.
"Stupid, arrogant idiot," Peter grumbled, crushing his cigarette butt out in a tin tray on the windowsill.
He stood up, grabbing his heavy wool coat off the back of a wooden chair. He couldn’t waste his day stewing over Barney’s incompetence. Right now, he had a more pressing issue to manage.
He had given to some of his men permission to rob a cargo cart on the docks to feed themselves. But after seeing the discipline and the firepower of the commission boys last night, Peter knew how fast a simple robbery could turn into a bloodbath if his boys picked the wrong wagon.
"Might as well go look for those assholes," Peter grumbled, throwing his coat on and stepping out into the dim, noisy hallway, "before they get themselves killed."