Chapter 34: The Night Shift Begins
The morning sun cut through the light fog over Greenwich Village, warming the brick storefronts of Bleecker and Morton Streets.
Marek walked in the middle of the sidewalk, his dark wool wool suit crisp and spotless, his flat cap tilted back just enough to show his light hair. Beside him walked John Caldwell and young Tom Murphy, both wearing matching three-piece wool suits that fit their shoulders like custom tailoring.
With no heavy wagon to haul or horse to mind, the three of them moved with easy, quiet confidence. They looked less like dock-dwelling cart drivers and more like rising young clerks representing a high-end commercial firm.
"Remember," Marek said softly out of the corner of his mouth as they approached a small bakery on Perry Street, "we aren’t selling from a cart today. We’re just taking down the list. If they ask about daytime bulk shipments, we tell them the piers are backed up with customs inspections, but we’ve got the private night drops open."
In the morning, John and Tom mostly stood near the counters, watching Marek work. Marek had a natural, easygoing charm with the shopkeepers. He leaned against the counters, asked about their families, checked their dry-goods bins, and noted down their orders with quick, sharp strokes of his pencil. When shopkeepers hesitated at the mention of receiving goods after dark, Marek explained the flat twenty-five-cent delivery fee—or the dollar weekly rate—and assured them that their back doors would be stocked before they turned their keys in the morning lock.
Whenever John or Tom tried to step in during those early morning stops, they choked up slightly on the price lists.
"Ah, the flour... it’s, uh..." Tom stammered outside a small green-grocer’s on Barrow, his fingers fumbling with his small notebook.
"Four and a half cents a pound," Marek smoothly interjected, giving the grocer a warm, professional nod. "He’s taking over the south route next week, Mr. Ross. We’re training our junior commission agents."
The grocer looked at Tom’s clean wool suit, his flat cap, and the young boy’s nervous, honest face, letting out a chuckle. "Junior agent, huh? Good to see young lads learning an honest trade instead of running with the corner gangs. Put me down for forty pounds, son."
Tom’s face flushed slightly, but he quickly wrote the order down, a faint spark of confidence touching his eyes.
By two in the afternoon, after stopping for a hearty meal of fried pork cutlets and hot potatoes at a food wagon near Washington Square, the dynamic shifted.
John Caldwell, leaning on his experience back in Birmingham, stepped up to a tobacconist’s counter on Christopher Street. "Afternoon, sir. We’re representing the commission house out of Jersey. Heard you were short on paraffin wax and tin matches."
Though John stumbled slightly on the exact package pricing for the wax, Marek stepped in with a smooth, quiet correction, attributing the slip to their new expansion pricing. The tobacconist smiled, impressed by the young Englishman’s professional manner, and placed an order for three tins of wax and a dozen boxes of matches.
Tom Murphy took the next stop himself—a small dry-goods merchant on Morton. Though he didn’t talk much, Tom had spent the entire morning watching Marek. He checked the merchant’s iron nail bins before the owner even mentioned them, pointing out that the three-inch commons were nearly gone. By the time they stepped back out onto the sidewalk, Tom had secured eight separate item orders on his own page.
"See?" Marek grinned, clapping Tom on the shoulder as they walked toward the river slips. "You two don’t have any problem talking. You just needed to get your boots wet."
John let out a short, self-deprecating laugh, pulling at his stiff collar. "I reckon it helped having you back us up when the numbers slipped, Marek. I nearly quoted him the Birmingham rate for matches."
"You did fine," Marek said, adjusting his vest. "By Friday, you’ll be running the shopkeepers in circles."
By five in the afternoon, dusk was beginning to settle over the West Side.
Inside the quiet, brick-walled storage shed near the river docks, Ricky, Frank, and Arthur Murphy had been waiting for nearly an hour. Ricky sat on a clean wooden crate, his master ledger open on his knees, while Frank was idly balancing an iron tire-iron on his palm.
The side door clicked open, and Marek, John, and Tom stepped into the dim shed.
"You’re late," Frank bantered, throwing the tire-iron into a corner. "We were about to start betting on whether a copper pinched you for looking too handsome in those suits."
"We were busy," Marek retorted, stepping over to the wooden table where a lantern flickered. He pulled out his notebook and a heavy leather coin pouch, setting them down in front of Ricky.
Ricky picked up the notebook, opening it to Marek’s route pages.
"Report," Ricky said, his tone practical and direct.
"Total orders are down about fifty percent from our average daily drayage," Marek reported, taking off his flat cap and dusting his sleeve. "A lot of the smaller shops and timid owners didn’t want to touch the night deliveries. They’re afraid of getting caught with unmanifested stock after dark."
Marek paused, pointing a finger at his list. "Only our regulars on Bleecker and Greenwich took the night drops. But almost every one of them paid the one-dollar weekly delivery fee upfront."
Ricky scanned the page, nodding slowly. "Fifty percent less volume is actually a good thing for tonight, Marek. It gives us a smaller, cleaner run to test the night routes without drowning the wagon."
Ricky then turned the page, looking at John’s and Tom’s sections. His gray eyes widened slightly.
He had expected the two anxious teenagers to bring back maybe one or two tentative orders. Instead, John had three full merchant accounts listed, while Tom had written down eight distinct shop orders in a neat, careful hand.
Ricky looked up at John and Tom, a genuine smile breaking across his face. "Tom... eight shops? John, three? I thought you two said you couldn’t handle sales."
John Caldwell rubbed the back of his neck, a slight blush touching his sharp English face. "To be fair, Ricky, it was mostly Marek stepping in whenever we got the numbers twisted. If he hadn’t backed us up, we would’ve blown the pitches."
"They fumbled the prices a bit," Marek chuckled, leaning against the table, "but they didn’t freeze up. They just needed a little push."
"Whether you got help or not," Ricky said, his voice carrying the firm, steady weight of a leader, "the effort was there, and the orders are on the page. That’s progress. You’re founding members of this syndicate, and you proved today you can hold your own."
Ricky reached into the cash drawer, counting out their daily wages—$1.50 base pay plus overtime for the thirteen-hour shift ($2.30 each).
"Shit," Tom muttered, looking down at the heavy silver coins in his palm. "This is more silver than I used to make hauling coal for three days. And we didn’t even have to lift a single crate."
John Caldwell began unbuttoning his dark wool suit jacket, preparing to hand it over to Frank for the upcoming night shift.
Ricky raised his hand, stopping him. "Keep it on, John."
John paused, looking confused. "Keep it? But... this is a proper tailor-made suit, Ricky. It must’ve cost three or four dollars."
"It’s yours," Ricky said, looking around at John, Tom, and Marek in their matching dark wool suits. "Treat it as your uniform. We aren’t a pack of dock rats anymore, John. We’re the Founder’s Syndicate. If you’re going out to represent this company, you’re going to look the part."
John stared at the clean wool of his sleeve, then looked at Ricky, a deep, silent gratitude settling into his face. "Thank you, Ricky. Truly."
Tom nodded, his jaw setting with a newfound sense of pride. "Thanks, boss."
Ricky closed the master ledger with a clean, solid snap. He looked over at Arthur and Frank, who were standing by the corner with their heavy work coats on.
"Alright," Ricky said, turning the clock. "It’s our turn. But before we haul a single keg out of this shed, we head back to Washington Street and get some dinner. Aunt Molly’s expecting us, and I don’t want her throwing glass bottles at my head when we roll in at three in the morning."
Arthur laughed out loud. "Amen to that. Let’s go eat."
The six of them gathered their coats, stepped out into the cool evening air, and locked the heavy double doors of the storage shed. Ricky, Marek, John, and the Murphy brothers piled onto the bench and floorboards of the single empty spring-wagon, driving the dray slowly out of the dark alley toward Washington Street.
High above the rear alley, perched in the shadowed, unlit window frame of a second-story abandoned ice house across from the storage shed, a figure pulled back into the dark.
The man wore a greasy canvas cap pulled low over his eyes, a collar tucked tight against his neck. He held a small, dirt-streaked brass spyglass in his calloused hand, his eyes locked on the black spring-wagon as it turned the corner toward Hudson.
He watched Ricky and his crew leave then lowered the glass, a slow, malicious grin spreading across his grimy face.
"So that’s where you’ve been," the man spat quietly into the dark, his voice raspy with cheap tobacco. "You traitorous bastard."