Chapter 23: Six of Spades
Three days later, Ricky stood in the center of the small room, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets as he looked up at the water-stained rafters. Dust motes drifted through a single narrow, barred window near the roofline, illuminated by the pale afternoon light filtering off the Hudson River.
"How much was this again?" Ricky asked, his voice echoing softly against the brick walls.
Beside him, Marek was testing the heavy iron latch on the thick oak double doors that led out to the loading alley. He gave the handle a solid tug; the iron bolt held firm.
"Eleven dollars a month," Marek said, turning around and dusting his palms against his wool trousers. "Old Reinhardt over at the stable told me about it. The landlord’s an estate agent who lives up on 23rd Street. He doesn’t come down to the docks unless the rent is late. Considering we’re clearing anywhere from sixty to a hundred dollars a day now, I’d say eleven dollars is pocket change."
Ricky walked over to the far wall, running his knuckles along the cool, dry masonry. "It’s solid. No dampness coming through the mortar. We can stage three or four wagon loads in here without crowding the doors." He paused, his mind calculating routes and volume. "Outwardly... I’d estimate we could efficiently supply the whole Village if we put ten wagons on the street."
Marek tilted his head, his brow furrowing as he ran the numbers in his head. "Hmm... ten is too much, Ricky. The streets around Bleecker and Morton are too narrow. If we put ten rigs out there, our own drivers will be blocking each other in the alleys. Maybe six or eight wagons."
"If you’re just thinking about routes, yeah, six to eight sounds fair," Ricky said, turning to face him. "But think about the wagon load capacity and the sheer volume of orders. One spring-wagon can only haul two hundred-weights of flour and three kegs of nails before the rear axle starts groaning. If an account orders in bulk, six wagons won’t be enough to keep up with the morning drops."
Marek blinked, taking a second to digest the logic. He let out a breath and chuckled, shaking his head. "Ahh, you’re right. I forgot about the weight. I was just thinking about the number of shops." He leaned back against a wooden support post. "More and more stores are depending on us every day, Ricky. Yesterday while I was taking orders on Christopher Street, I saw another distributor trying to negotiate with the grocer. Offered him a sack of gray, dirty flour that was ten cents more expensive than ours. The grocer practically laughed him out the door. We’re slowly becoming Greenwich Village’s main supplier."
Instead of looking pleased, Ricky’s face darkened slightly. He frowned, his gray eyes narrowing.
"That’s not good," Ricky said quietly.
Marek paused, looking confused. "What do you mean ’not good’? That’s what we wanted, isn’t it? We’re taking the market."
"It attracts attention," Ricky explained, stepping closer. His voice was conversational, but it carried a sharp, analytical edge. "I know we have to take the opportunity while it’s there, Marek. But if the big wholesale houses in Brooklyn and Soho notice their sales dropping forty percent in the Village, they aren’t just going to sit there. They’re going to start asking who we are. They’ll send investigators to track our supply lines, check our manifests, and find out which rail yard or pier we’re pulling from."
Marek’s smile vanished. The color drained from his face as the reality hit him. "Ahh, shit... I forgot. We aren’t a legitimate supply company. We don’t have shipping manifests or bill-of-lading stamps. What do we do if someone starts digging?"
"We limit our range of goods per week," Ricky said calmly. "We don’t sell everything all at once."
"Does that help?" Marek asked, rubbing his neck. "Won’t the shopkeepers get pissed?"
"We tell them there’s a delay with our main supplier," Ricky said, laying out the front. "We tell them our source is an international exporting firm operating out of Jersey and the Atlantic steamship lines. If an item goes out of stock for a week, it gives us a natural, believable excuse. Wholesalers deal with late steamers and dock strikes all the time. It makes us look like a normal business facing normal delays, instead of two kids with an endless supply of pristine goods."
Marek let out a slow breath, nodding along. "Yeah... yeah, that makes sense. It keeps us from sticking out too much in the light. But what about making it official?"
"Until we establish a network of real local suppliers to mix in with our stock, we aren’t trying to look fully legal yet," Ricky said. "When we’re ready, we’ll buy a real building for a main headquarters, hire desk clerks, and put accountants on the payroll to handle the books. But one step at a time."
"Right," Marek said, stepping away from the post. He looked toward the heavy double doors, his expression turning serious. "There’s also the matter of security, Ricky. The local boys have already noticed us. Almost every storefront on Bleecker and Greenwich pays protection money to the Hudson Dusters. Even the small vegetable carts pay a quarter a week. And we haven’t paid them a single cent."
Ricky reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a small silver case, and extracted a white paper cigarette. He placed it between his lips, striking a wooden match against the brick wall. The sulfur flare flickered in the gloom, illuminating his sharp features before he blew a quiet trail of blue smoke toward the rafters.
"Don’t worry about the Dusters," Ricky said around the cigarette. "I spoke to John about it yesterday. He said he knows a few tough lads from the neighborhood—guys who’ve already had run-ins with Goo Goo Knox’s collectors. Recruiting them into our company is only a matter of time."
Marek looked around the empty storage shed. "Speaking of John... where is he, anyway?"
"He’s out," Ricky said. "He went to fetch those boys. I told him specifically to keep it quiet—no word gets out that we’re looking to build up a group."
"Good," Marek said, nodding approvingly. "If the whole neighborhood knows we’re hiring muscle, we’ll have a massive target on our backs. Especially since we’re setting up this storage front right in the Dusters’ own backyard."
Ricky took another slow drag from his cigarette, a cold, confident smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as the smoke curled past his eyes.
"Don’t worry," Ricky said softly. "We’re going to tear them apart from the inside before they even know we’re a threat. By the time they realize what hit them, it’ll be too late."
Before the thin trail of cigarette smoke could dissipate against the damp rafters of the storage shed, the heavy iron latch on the small side door rattled.
Ricky didn’t jump. His upgraded Perception picked up the light, rhythmic tread of boots outside a second before the wood creaked open. Marek stepped back slightly, his hand going to his hip out of pure instinct.
John Caldwell stepped into the dim shed, pulling off his flat cap and dusting his sleeve. Right behind him came three young men, filing through the narrow doorway in single file.
Ricky took a slow drag from his cigarette, his eyes narrowing as he sized them up through the blue haze.
They were clearly brothers. All three had the same high cheekbones, dark hair, and sharp, angular jawlines. The eldest was shorter than John but possessed a thick, heavy-set frame with broad shoulders that strained the seams of his dark wool vest. The middle brother was tall and rangy, roughly John’s height, while the youngest looked about sixteen—Marek’s age—though he already had the long legs and broad hands of someone who had done his share of heavy lifting.
Ricky stepped forward, the glowing ember of his cigarette illuminating his calm, grounded expression. "Brothers?"
John offered a faint, dry smile. "Aye. The Murphy lads. Found ’em over on Christopher Street."
John gestured to the eldest first. "This is Arthur. He’s twenty-three. The tall one in the middle is Frank, nineteen. And the young one’s Thomas—Tom for short. He’s sixteen."
Unlike John, whose flat English vowels stood out clearly in Manhattan, the Murphy brothers spoke with clear, unvarnished American accents—sharp, fast New York inflections honed on the cobblestones of the West Side.
"Ricky," Ricky said, offering a straightforward nod. "This is Marek."
Arthur Murphy—the eldest—looked around the small brick shed, his dark eyes taking in the clean floorboards, the heavy iron lock on the door, and the quiet authority with which Ricky stood. He had a cautious, reserved look about him, his arms crossed tightly over his thick chest.
"John says you’re looking for boys who can drive a dray and handle a crate without crying about their backs," Arthur said, his voice deep and raspy.
"We are," Ricky said, dropping his cigarette to the brick floor and stepping on it with the heel of his boot. "Our business is supply. We take orders from the local shopkeepers
all over Greenwhich village, and we deliver the stock."
Ricky looked between the three brothers. "Base pay is a dollar and fifty cents a day. Eight-hour shifts. If we run long on deliveries, you get overtime—twenty cents an hour. Clean silver every Saturday, or cash daily if you need it."
Frank and young Tom exchanged a quick, wide-eyed look.
"A dollar-fifty?" Frank breathed, a grin cracking his long face. "Shit, Art, that’s better than hauling coal for the gas works!"
Tom nodded eagerly, clearly hyped by the promise of real money.
Arthur, however, didn’t smile. He kept his dark eyes fixed on Ricky’s face, his brow furrowed in quiet concentration. He shifted his weight, resting one hand on his belt.
"John told us about the pay on the walk over," Arthur said slowly. "Sounds good. Almost too good for a couple of young guys running a dray out of a river shed." He paused, leaning forward a fraction. "Are you the two boys from the docks?"
The room went quiet. Marek’s shoulders tensed instantly. John looked between them, his eyebrows rising.
Ricky kept his face entirely neutral, his gray eyes steady, though his modern survival instincts immediately ran a high-speed diagnostic. Do they work for the Gophers? Did they send them?
"Which docks?" Ricky asked calmly, keeping his voice relaxed and conversational.
"The lower slips near Chelsea Pier Three," Arthur said. "About three weeks ago. Word on the waterfront is two kids took on five of Martin’s collectors from the Gopher Gang in an alley. Broke a nose, cracked a couple of jaws, and put Martin’s boss in the hospital with a broken collarbone."
Arthur’s eyes lingered on Ricky’s shoulders, then shifted to Marek. "Some guys down at the saloon said it was a Yankee and a Polish kid. Said the Yankee threw red bricks like a cannon."
John gasped softly, spinning his head to stare at Ricky in total shock. "You took on five Gophers? Blimey, Ricky, you didn’t tell me you were a bare-knuckle fighter!"
Ricky let out a short, quiet breath, feeling the sudden tension in his chest ease. It wasn’t a setup. It was just street gossip—the kind of rumor that spread like wildfire among the working-class boys of the West Side.
"They tried to corner us," Ricky admitted smoothly, shrugging one shoulder. "They mostly wanted revenge for beating up their collectors. I didn’t feel like giving them that either."
A slow, genuine grin broke across Arthur Murphy’s broad face, cutting through his reserved demeanor. He let out a low, dry chuckle, shaking his head. "Martin’s been shaking down the docks for two years. Half the people have been waiting for someone to put a brick through his teeth."
Arthur stepped forward, reaching out a large, calloused hand toward Ricky. "If you’re the guys who put the Gophers in the dirt and you’re paying a dollar-fifty a day to haul flour... you got us."
Ricky smiled, taking Arthur’s hand in a firm, unyielding grip. "Welcome to the company, Arthur."
He shook hands with Frank and young Tom, both of whom were practically beaming. Marek walked over, clapping Tom on the shoulder with a newfound sense of brotherhood—glad to finally have someone his own age on the team.
Ricky looked at his crew—John, Marek, and the three Murphy brothers. Six men in total.
"Alright," Ricky said, his voice carrying the calm, steady weight of a leader. "Tomorrow morning at five. We meet at Reinhardt’s stable on Barrow. We’ve got two wagons to load, and a whole neighborhood waiting for their supplies."