Chapter 79: Melting Point
The basement lounge beneath Washington Street echoed with the sharp clatter of dice, the slap of playing cards, and loud groans of frustration.
"Read ’em and weep, Mikey," one of the new warehouse boys from the Minetta block said, laying down a winning hand of poker on the center table.
Michael Williams threw his cards onto the felt with a disgusted curse, dragging his hands down his face. Beside him, Sean and Patrick winced as the Minetta boy happily scooped a pile of silver dimes and nickels across the table.
Sitting on a stool near the bar, Danny let out a loud, booming laugh, raising his tin mug of beer. "I tried to warn you, Michael! You Williams boys might know how to hustle the streets, but these Minetta kids grew up doing card tricks in the dark! You’re just handing ’em your route wages!"
"Shut up, Danny," Michael grumbled, digging into his vest for more coins. "Deal ’em again."
From his spot at the end of the bar, Ricky took a slow sip of his whiskey, a relaxed smile touching his lips as he watched the crew unwind. The basement had come alive exactly as he’d envisioned. It was a safe, warm haven where the boys could blow off steam without bringing unwanted heat from the precinct coppers or rival gang spotters.
At the far corner table, things were noticeably more serious.
Marek was standing with his arms crossed, looking down at Arthur, Tom, John Caldwell, and Simon, who were all sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a wooden bench like school children. They had just returned from their first major delivery drop at the Waldorf-Astoria, and the experience had clearly rattled them.
"You can’t just nod and grunt when the maître d’ asks you a question," Marek instructed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "And Tom, for the love of God, stop calling the hotel managers ’pal’ or ’boss.’ They aren’t dock foremen. You call them ’sir’ or ’Mr. Tschirky’."
"I panicked!" Tom defended himself, his face flushing. "There was a guy walking past us in a top hat with a cane! A cane, Marek! I felt like I was gonna break a vase just by breathing too hard."
"It’s a different world uptown," John Caldwell agreed, staring down at his glass. "Back in Birmingham, the rich folks wouldn’t even look at you unless it was to call the peelers. Trying to talk to ’em without offending ’em... my tongue tied itself in a knot."
"That’s why we’re practicing," Marek said patiently. "Look at me. Straighten your posture. When you hand over the invoice, you say, ’Here is the manifest for your review, sir.’ Try it."
Arthur Murphy sat up incredibly straight, puffing his broad chest out, and cleared his throat with a heavy cough. He held up a beer coaster like a piece of fine paper. "Here is the manifest for your review, sir," Arthur rumbled, trying his hardest to soften his thick West Side accent. He looked up at Marek eagerly. "How was that? Did I sound like a gentleman?"
"It sounded like you were threatening to beat him with the manifest, Arthur," Frank teased from the bar, wiping down the counter.
"Shut up, Frank!" Arthur snapped, his face turning red. He turned back to Marek. "Come on, Marek, I need to get this right! If I’m gonna talk to Mr. Vander’s daughter, I can’t sound like I just crawled out of a coal bin!"
Ricky scoffed softly into his glass, shaking his head with an amused smile. Arthur’s relentless dedication to courting the tailor’s daughter was hilarious, but Ricky was genuinely glad Marek was teaching the boys how to blend into high society. It was a skill they would desperately need as the Syndicate pushed further into the luxury market.
Danny stepped away from the poker table, walking over to the bar. He hopped onto the stool beside Ricky, the easygoing chuckle fading from his face as he lowered his voice.
"Boss," Danny murmured, leaning his elbows on the wood. "I just got a report from one of the Orphan lookouts. We’ve got trouble brewing up north."
Ricky’s smile faded. He set his glass down. "Where?"
"Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea," Danny said. "Right on the border."
Ricky’s gray eyes narrowed slightly. "Isn’t that the border between the Gophers and the Hudson Dusters?"
"Yeah," Danny nodded, his tone dropping into a serious register.
Ricky remembered his very first day in 1910. He remembered waking up in the alley, fighting off the two thugs who were beating Marek, and then getting chased off the North River piers by Doyle, the enforcer who had flashed a .32 revolver and warned them off Gopher turf. It was the entire reason he and Marek had relocated south to Greenwich Village in the first place.
"It’s been a while since I heard from the Gophers," Ricky said quietly. "Is it just another territorial dispute over the docks?"
"Normally, yeah," Danny said. "But this time, the boss of the Gophers came down personally. Owney Madden. He doesn’t usually dirty his own hands on border scuffles unless he’s sending a message, but this time he did."
Ricky filed the name away in his head. Owney Madden. "Are we looking at another gang war?" Ricky asked.
"I don’t think they want a full war yet," Danny replied. "But the Dusters are definitely going to retaliate. The word is, Madden and his shooters crossed the border and beat a dozen of Kid Yorke’s Duster collectors half to death."
Danny paused, looking at Ricky carefully. "And Boss... the victims told the precinct cops that Madden was specifically asking them for information. He was trying to find out where the ’commission boys’ operate."
Ricky didn’t flinch, though his mind went to work instantly.
The Gophers had noticed the massive shift in the supply lines, just like the Soho wholesalers had. Madden was hunting for them, and he was using Duster skulls to try and shake the information loose.
"So they’re bleeding each other over us," Ricky said, a slow, cold smirk touching his lips. He picked up his whiskey glass. "Good. If they’re focused on each other, they aren’t focused on finding our storage shed."
"What’s the play, boss?" Danny asked.
"We fuel the fire," Ricky said smoothly. "If the Dusters are going to retaliate, they’re going to need liquid courage. Let’s increase the supply on Barney Knox’s stock tomorrow morning. Drop an extra five crates of rye at his saloon." Ricky took a slow sip, his eyes glinting in the amber light. "Hot heads need a drink before a fight, after all."
Ten blocks north, the atmosphere inside the Hudson Duster’s Tenth Avenue parlor was anything but relaxed.
"Tell me to calm down again!" Kid Yorke roared.
The young Duster boss drove his heavy leather boot brutally into the ribs of the bleeding enforcer curled up on the parlor floor. The man groaned, spitting blood onto the Persian rug. Kid Yorke pulled his leg back for another vicious stomp.
"Enough, Kid! Back off!" Circular Jack shouted, lunging forward and grabbing Kid Yorke by the shoulders, physically hauling the furious boss away from the bleeding messenger on the floor.
Rubber Shaw stepped in from the side, grabbing Kid’s arm and shoving a cold bottle of beer hard against his chest. "Drink it and sit the fuck down before you kill the poor bastard!"
Kid Yorke snatched the beer, his chest heaving with raw, unfiltered rage. He glared down at the messenger, who was currently scrambling on his hands and knees to get out of the parlor before Kid changed his mind.
Sitting in a plush leather armchair near the window, Frank "Goo Goo" Knox slowly exhaled a plume of cigar smoke. He was dressed immaculately, as always, his expression completely unbothered by the violence that had just erupted in his parlor.
"Calm down, Kid," Frank said smoothly, crossing his legs.
Kid Yorke whirled around, pointing a trembling, furious finger at Frank. "Don’t you tell me to fucking calm down, Frank! That arrogant little Irish prick thinks he’s a hot shot! He came down to my border and personally beat twelve of my men to a pulp just for sport! We made a truce with the Gophers three months ago! A fucking truce! And Owney Madden crosses 14th Street and breaks it himself!"
Circular Jack grunted, walking back to the table to pour himself a drink. "Since when did we ever trust a word that psycho said anyway?"
"He didn’t do it for sport," Frank Knox corrected quietly, taking another slow drag from his cigar. "He did it because he wants what we have."
Kid Yorke frowned, his chest still heaving. "What are you talking about?"
"My brother Barney," Frank said, a faint, satisfied smirk touching his lips. "For the first time in his life, my idiot brother is actually flowing proper, heavy money up the chain. He’s got exclusive rights to that imported luxury liquor from the commission boys, and every saloon in Greenwich is packed to the rafters. Owney Madden isn’t stupid. He sees the coin rolling south, and he wants a piece of the pie."
Kid Yorke gripped his beer bottle, his knuckles turning white. "Fuck! I wanted to make a deal with those commission boys too! But if I do it now, the moment Madden sees their black wagons crossing into Chelsea, he’ll ambush the drivers and steal the stock!"
"Don’t worry," Frank said, his voice dropping into a cold, commanding register. "We’ll respond appropriately."
Frank looked over at Jack. "You still have those .38 revolvers stashed down at the river house, Jack?"
"Yeah," Jack grunted, wiping his mouth. "I got the steel. But we don’t have nearly enough ammunition to arm a full retaliation squad. Maybe enough for six shooters."
"Leave the ammunition to me," Frank said, tapping his cigar against an iron ashtray. "I’ll make a call to my contacts down at the precinct tonight. The NYPD armory always has surplus lead lying around for the right price. Just make sure you bring the cash to buy it."
Jack nodded grimly. "Consider it done."
Kid Yorke, however, looked visibly uneasy. His anger was cooling, replaced by the stark, terrifying reality of a full-scale shooting war. "Hey, hey, hey... hold on a second. Calm down. Who said we’re killing anyone? This is my territory you’re talking about, you psychopaths."
Frank raised an eyebrow. "You just spent five minutes screaming for blood, Kid."
"Yeah, blood!" Kid argued, pacing near the table. "Not a massacre! If we start a shooting war on the avenues, it’s worse for my business! The customers will be terrified, the saloons will empty out, and your folks at the police department will be forced to investigate the dead bodies. It’ll disrupt my cocaine and gambling rackets for a week!"
Frank smiled, a cold, calculating glint in his eyes. He pointed the glowing tip of his cigar at Kid Yorke.
"Guns are just for emergencies, Kid," Frank said smoothly. "I’m sure Owney and his Gophers have steel tucked in their coats too. But they aren’t going to pull it. They know exactly what you just said—shooting ruins business. Owney used his fists and bats to send us a message. So... we’ll just send one back."
Frank stood up, buttoning his tailored jacket. "We aren’t going to shoot them. We’re going to march into Hell’s Kitchen and beat his men to an absolute pulp."
Kid Yorke paused, his stressed face slowly breaking into a vicious, eager smile. "Yeah... yeah, I like that. A good, old-fashioned street clearing."
Circular Jack smirked, cracking his heavy knuckles. "We might even push ’em far enough back to recover some of that old dock territory the Gophers stole from us last year."
"If you boys aren’t too scared," Frank said, picking up his bowler hat and placing it neatly on his head, "let’s go with the boys tonight. Owney Madden isn’t the only boss who can barge into someone’s territory and beat the shit out of their men."
The three Hudson Duster bosses looked at each other, cruel, violent grins spreading across their faces as they prepared to march north into the dark.