Chapter 36: Eight of Spades
The sudden ambush in the dark lane had made Ricky’s body coil like a sprung steel trap. His hand slid down toward the canvas flap near the wagon bench, his fingers catching the cold, oil-slicked barrel of the Winchester pump shotgun.
"Hold on," Arthur whispered sharply, placing a heavy, calloused hand over Ricky’s forearm. "Wait, Ricky. Don’t pull the steel."
Ricky’s gray eyes flicked to Arthur, then back to the four men standing in the shadows of Greenwich Street. "You know them?"
"Yeah," Arthur sighed, letting his shoulders drop. "I know ’em."
The leader in the dark carried a heavy iron tire-iron, his flat cap pulled crooked over his brow. He took two steps closer to the horse’s head, pointing the iron bar accusingly at Arthur’s chest.
"Arthur Murphy," the man spat, his voice raspy and loud in the quiet street. "You son of a bitch. We thought you were dead or in the Tombs, and here you are driving a clean black spring-wagon like a proper gentleman! How dare you betray us?"
Frank Murphy let out a loud, long-suffering groan from the rear floorboards, tossing a wooden wedge onto the canvas. "Oh, Jesus. It’s the Williams bastards."
Ricky slowly let go of the Winchester’s barrel, sliding his hand back up to his knee, though his physical attributes remained primed for action. "The Williams brothers?"
"Yeah," Arthur grunted, stepping down off the wagon bench onto the damp cobblestones. "The ones I was telling you about."
Arthur walked straight up to the leader, shaking his head. "Betray you? How the hell did I betray you, Jimmy? I haven’t seen your ugly mug since you got run off the Christopher Street docks by the Dusters!"
The eldest Williams brother—Jimmy, a twenty-four-year-old with broad shoulders, a sharp nose, and a permanent scowl—stared at Arthur in disbelief. Behind him stood his three younger brothers: Sean, who was twenty-one and tall as a fence post; Michael, nineteen; and young Patrick, who couldn’t have been more than seventeen.
Jimmy lowered the iron tire-iron slightly, looking past Arthur toward the wagon bench where Ricky sat in his dark wool suit and flat cap.
"Who’s the Yankee?" Jimmy asked, his sharp eyes narrowing as he sized Ricky up. "Your new boss?"
"Ricky," Arthur introduced, gesturing toward the bench. "And yeah, he’s the boss. Runs the commission outfit."
Jimmy looked at Ricky, then back at Arthur, a sneer tugging at his mouth. "A commission outfit? Arthur, you’re driving drayage for a kid? You used to run card games with us!"
"Shut your mouth, Jimmy," Arthur retorted, crossing his heavy arms over his chest. "Ricky’s a legitimate merchant. He clears thirty bucks in a single week than you and your brothers steal in three months combined."
Jimmy’s eyes widened slightly. He looked at his brothers, then turned back to Arthur with a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "Thirty bucks a week? You’re lying."
Ricky stepped down from the wagon bench, his boots clicking smoothly against the stones. His posture was relaxed, his gray eyes calm and steady as he stepped up beside Arthur.
"He’s exaggerating a little," Ricky said, his voice quiet, conversational, and grounded. "We average about thirty to sixty dollars a day in net profit across our routes."
Silence fell over Greenwich Street.
Jimmy Williams froze, his mouth hanging half-open. Behind him, Sean and Michael exchanged a shocked, wide-eyed look, while young Patrick let out a soft, sharp whistle.
"Sixty dollars... a day?" Jimmy whispered, his raspy voice cracking slightly.
Arthur had mentioned in passing that the business was clearing good money, but hearing the actual daily numbers directly from Ricky made the eldest Murphy brother blink in surprise as well. Arthur had assumed Ricky meant thirty to sixty dollars a week, not per day.
"Sixty bucks a week is an exceptionally lucky run for a card game," Sean Williams blurted out, stepping forward. "To clear sixty a day... that’s Wall Street money!"
Jimmy suddenly grabbed Arthur by the collar of his wool jacket, shaking him violently. "You bastard! You’ve been working a sixty-dollar-a-day route and you didn’t tell us? You left us out on the curb to starve!"
"He’s a traitor!" young Patrick yelled from the back.
"We told you whenever we found a warehouse to pinch!" Michael added, pointing a finger at Frank. "And you don’t even throw us a bone?"
"Let go of me, you idiot!" Arthur shouted, shoving Jimmy’s hands off his collar. "How was I supposed to find you? You’re never in the same place two days in a row! Half the time you’re hiding from the coppers or sleeping in an alley!"
Jimmy whirled around to face Ricky. The fierce, arrogant gang-leader persona vanished instantly, replaced by a desperate, hungry plead.
"Hire us, boss," Jimmy begged, stepping right into Ricky’s space. "We can haul crates! We can handle horses! We know every alley, every fence, and every lock from here to 14th Street!"
"Hire us, Mr. Ricky!" Sean added, stepping up beside his brother. "We’ll work hard, we swear to God!"
Ricky scratched his cheek, looking at the four wild, energetic Williams brothers standing in the dark street. He hadn’t expected an ambush to turn into a job interview on Greenwich Street at eleven at night, but his modern business instincts were already analyzing the situation.
"I can’t hire you right this second," Ricky said smoothly, keeping his posture calm. "We’re in the middle of a delivery route tonight. But if you want a shot, come by Arthur’s loft on Washington Street tomorrow morning at seven sharp. I’ll orient you on how the company operates."
Jimmy’s face lit up with a brilliant, gap-toothed grin. "We’ll be there at six, boss!"
"Let us help you finish tonight’s route right now!" Sean insisted, stepping over to the side of the wagon and peeking under the tarpaulin. "Show you what we can do!"
Frank Murphy leaned over the sideboards with a smirk. "We’ve only done fourteen drops out of forty-one, Sean. There’s still twenty-seven crates of flour, sugar, and iron nails back here. It’s heavy labor."
"Heavy labor’s our middle name!" Jimmy declared, completely unbothered. He spat on his palm and wiped it on his trousers. "We’ll haul every last sack to prove we’re worth the wage!"
Ricky offered a small, amused smile, waving his hand toward the wagon bed. "Alright, alright. Jump on."
The difference was felt immediately.
With seven men working the single spring-wagon, the late-night logistics ran with incredible, electric speed.
Before the Williams brothers joined, Ricky, Arthur, and Frank had been pacing themselves, carefully carrying fifty-pound flour sacks and heavy nail kegs into the dark rear alleyways of Greenwich Village one by one. But Jimmy, Sean, Michael, and Patrick moved like hungry wolves.
At the fifteenth drop—a small grocery on Christopher Street—Jimmy didn’t just carry a single fifty-pound sack of granulated sugar; he hoisted two sacks at once, slinging them over his broad shoulders and jogging down the alley floorboards before Frank had even unhooked the wagon canvas. Sean and Michael followed right behind him, carrying a heavy keg of wire nails between them like it was a crate of dried apples.
Ricky didn’t have to lift a single box for the rest of the night. He stood cleanly at the shop thresholds with his master ledger open, handling the invoices and collecting the silver.
What impressed Ricky most, however, was how the Williams brothers handled the shopkeepers.
While hauling crates at a bakery on Morton Street, Jimmy Williams paid close attention to how Ricky checked the merchant’s dry-goods bins. When the baker mentioned he was short on lard, Jimmy didn’t wait for Ricky to respond; he jumped right into the conversation with a bold, grinning pitch.
"We got butter-grade lard coming out of our Jersey line on Thursday, pop!" Jimmy said, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. "Clean, white, and half a cent cheaper than the Soho bandits charge ya! You put your name on Mr. Ricky’s book right now, and we’ll have a sixty-pound box at your back door before your ovens are even hot!"
The baker blinked, taken aback by Jimmy’s loud, fearless energy, but the sheer confidence in the pitch won him over. He signed the order on the spot.
Jimmy and Sean lacked the quiet, polished professionalism that Marek had developed, but their street-hustler demeanor was raw, energetic, and remarkably persuasive. They were bold, loud, and direct—unpolished, but fiercely efficient.
Unpolished, but aggressive, Ricky noted mentally as he watched Jimmy take an order for two kegs of nails at the next stop.
If the Founder’s Syndicate ever decided to expand outside Greenwich Village—pushing north into Hell’s Kitchen or east toward the Bowery—the Williams brothers were exactly the kind of fearless, relentless advance agents I would need to carve out new territory. They had no fear of rival syndicates, no hesitation in talking to strangers, and an unshakeable loyalty to anyone who put clean silver in their pockets. Ricky thought rubbing his chin.
Frank Murphy walked up to Ricky outside a tailor shop on Perry Street, leaning against the wooden wagon wheel while Jimmy and Michael carried three spools of Belgian linen thread inside.
"See what I told you, Ricky?" Frank whispered with a grin. "Crazy bastards. But give ’em a dollar and a clear goal, and they’re like hungry wolves when it comes to earning money."
"They’ve got energy," Ricky admitted, nodding slowly as he made a note in his ledger. "They lack boundaries, but they’re useful. I already know where they fit into the syndicate."
Arthur stepped up on Ricky’s other side, holding Bartek’s bridle. His broad face showed a mix of relief and quiet respect. "You figured out how to use ’em that fast? Even I thought they were too wild and problematic to manage."
"Every tool has a purpose, Arthur," Ricky said, his tone practical and direct. "You just have to put it against the right piece of wood. When we take new streets, these boys will lead the push."
Originally, Ricky had estimated that finishing forty-one drops in one night would push them past two in the morning, meaning they might have to split the remaining load into Tuesday night. But with seven men working seamlessly, the wagon bed was completely bare by twenty minutes past twelve.
All forty-one client orders were delivered in a single night.
By one in the morning, the dray was safely parked inside the Gansevoort storage shed.
Ricky gathered the crew around the wooden table near the flickering oil lamp. He pulled out his coin purse, counting out four separate piles of silver coins—$2.30 each for Jimmy, Sean, Michael, and Patrick, representing a full daily baseline wage plus overtime.
The four Williams brothers stared at the heavy silver coins in their palms, completely stunned.
"Two dollars and thirty cents?" Jimmy breathed, holding a silver dollar up to the lantern light. "For two hours of work?"
"It’s a full shift payout," Ricky corrected gently, "because you four moved more cargo in two hours than three men usually haul in six. You finished twenty-seven drops before midnight."
Jimmy looked at the silver, then at Ricky’s calm gray eyes, a deep, genuine respect settling into his rough face. "Boss... can we work the day shift tomorrow too? We can make double!"
Sean and Michael nodded eagerly, their eyes bright with greed for more silver.
Ricky shook his head firmly. "No double shifts."
Jimmy’s smile faltered slightly. "Why not? We’re strong enough, Mr. Ricky!"
"Health is essential for consistent quality in this company, Jimmy," Ricky explained, his voice calm, steady, and grounded. "If you burn yourselves out on the first day, you won’t be able to deliver on the second. A tired driver makes mistakes, drops crates, and gets careless around coppers. I need men who are well-rested and sharp every single night."
Jimmy looked at his brothers, then back at Ricky. The logic was undeniable. He swallowed his eagerness and gave a sharp, solid nod. "Understood, boss. Quality work. We’ll see you at seven sharp tomorrow morning."
"Get some rest, boys," Ricky said, offering a warm smile.
The Williams brothers tipped their flat caps and hurried down the alley, their loud laughter echoing through the quiet streets as they headed toward Christopher Street with pockets full of silver.
Arthur, Frank, and Ricky locked up the storage shed, mounted the bench of their spring-wagon, and drove the dray back toward Reinhardt’s livery barn on Barrow Street.
Frank let out a massive, bone-deep yawn, rubbing his bloodshot eyes as the wagon rumbled down Washington Street toward their loft. "Man... two in the morning. My legs feel like wet cardboard, but damn if those Williams boys didn’t save us three hours of hauling."
Ricky smiled, taking the leather reins as they pulled up to the barn, looking up at the dark, slate roofs of Greenwich Village under the starlit sky. The night shift had been an absolute triumph—forty-one accounts delivered, merchant loyalty cemented, and four new enforcers integrated into their growing shadow empire.
"Get some rest, Frank," Ricky said quietly. "Tomorrow will be different."