Chapter 76 - I Only Came to Dance
Late evening, at the Twin Buildings on Allen Street.
Goods unloaded from the freight carriage were carried down to the basement one after another.
Once all the cargo was offloaded, another carriage and a truck would pull up in front of the building to repeat the process of unloading.
Rosenthal checked the goods, and those that passed inspection were moved to Basement Level 1.
Blackburn, who was in charge of the dance hall's interior, personally directed the furniture arrangement.
Many members of the Marginals were put to work, so there were more than enough hands.
"Stop messing around! If you've got nothing to do, head to the kitchen and start organizing things."
"Raynol, take five people and go to the kitchen!"
Basement Level 1 was quite spacious after a dividing wall had been knocked down.
Numerous lights hung from the ceiling, banishing the gloomy atmosphere that lingered from when Jacob used to run the old salon.
"Out of the way, everyone! Piano coming through!"
"Damn, this thing's heavy as hell."
"Where to? Where do you want it?"
At the front of the dance hall, there was a small stage raised about 50 centimeters above the floor—space for the band to perform in the future.
With the piano placed on the right side of the stage, the place finally felt like a proper dance hall.
Next, chairs were arranged in clusters along the imaginary line of the dance floor, and the kitchen was being stocked with liquor, drinks, and glasses.
At the same time, in the office on the second floor of the Twin Buildings I sat at the table with Patrick, discussing various matters.
First, the dance hall.
"If we finish sorting out the main stuff today, tomorrow we can spend all day cleaning and putting on the finishing touches."
"Then we should be able to open in three days," Patrick replied.
At Patrick's words, Nox glanced at the calendar.
Opening was set for Thursday, November 23rd.
It was the perfect time to catch the year-end mood.
That was the main reason we'd rushed things.
"Let's set opening hours from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., and for the first hour we'll do half price on admission and drinks."
"But what if everyone just shows up then and it's a total bust?"
"Come on, that's unlikely."
After all, the people coming to the dance halls on the Lower East Side are poor workers.
Crowds usually won't come in until after 7, when work is done, so it made sense to bring in whoever's free before then to warm up the atmosphere.
"Oh, by the way, what about the bands?"
"They said full-time wasn't possible, so I booked an Italian band for the first half and a Jewish band for the second. They're somewhere between beginners and intermediate level, and they wanted ten dollars for each four-hour set."
So band expenses alone would be twenty dollars a day.
Assuming each band had four or five members, it wasn't an unreasonable price.
After going over the dance hall, our next agenda was the protection fees.
It had been a month since we handed over the stores that refused the half-price protection fee to the Jewish gangsters.
The stores that had stubbornly refused to pay protection fees to the Irish gang didn't last even two weeks before they desperately came looking for us.
When faced with money and violence, what does kinship even matter?
The best gang is the one that takes the smallest cut.
"So what are you going to do, Boss?"
"Tell the Jewish guys to back off."
"They'll come at us ready to die if we take back what we gave them."
"If that happens, it means they've underestimated us. We need to crush them, completely. But Patrick, I actually think this could go the other way."
"The other way?"
"They might end up paying protection to us."
From the start, my real goal was to absorb the Jewish gang.
I planned to manage them as units, pulling them over to our side one by one.
How long are we going to remain just the Irish gang?
We need to mix in blood from other groups.
"From now on, have Oliver, Kale, and Brian handle those kinds of units. Don't let it come up to me."
"If there's anyone we can't trust, we'll just cut them off. I understand what you mean, Boss."
"I'll say it again: the more diverse our members, the more opportunities and resources we'll be able to tap into."
Manhattan is a place where immigrants from many different countries live all mixed together.
And they each work desperately to build their own networks and try to exert influence over the US Federation.
All sorts of connections—school ties, regional ties, family ties—are built in this process, forming a web of networks that, in another sense, is intertwined like a spider's web.
To make use of that, we absolutely have to move beyond just being the Irish gang.
"By the way, when are we going to deal with the goods we siphoned off from the Mileno warehouse? You must be running tight on cash."
I really had been spending money like water lately.
That's what happens when you try to launch a lingerie shop, a dance hall, and a casino all at once.
I still had enough funds for now, but leaving things piled up in the warehouse was an unnecessary risk.
"As soon as our current project is wrapped up, I'll leave it to Rosenthal to take care of."
By the time we finished discussing all the smaller issues, it was past 10 p.m.
Patrick headed home, and I picked up a lantern and went down alone to the first basement level.
Click.
When I flipped all the switches, the dance hall that had been so dark suddenly lit up as bright as day.
The dance floor was in the center, with a small stage up front.
Tables, chairs, and benches for a quick rest were all arranged around the perimeter of the dance hall.
Fittingly for a dance hall, the floor for dancing took up about two-thirds of the whole space.
I imagined the place packed with guests, dancing, then turned off the lights again.
***
[A meeting of dance and music for Jews!
Experience a special night at the Pumpkin Dance Hall!]
On the Lower East Side, there are newspapers catering clearly to different readerships.
The Jewish Daily Forward publishes in Yiddish for the Jewish community.
Il Progresso Italo-Americano targets the Italian community.
The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator is for Irish immigrants in Hell's Kitchen and the Lower East Side.
And the New York World covers everyone.
I ran ads in these newspapers, changing only "Italy" or "Ireland" depending on the paper, but keeping the same format.
I included the opening date and time, special events, entry fee, and the name of the band.
And then, the big opening day arrived.
In the lingerie shop on the first floor, Ida asked me,
"Why did you choose the name Pumpkin?"
"Doesn't pumpkin make you think of warmth, friendliness, festivities, and abundance? In the chaos of war, it's a symbol for people longing for peace."
To be honest, I'd just remembered the Pumpkin Tourism Night, so there wasn't any real reason. Still, I managed to come up with a pretty good explanation. Isn't that worth a little praise?
"There's still half an hour until we open, but a line is already forming."
"Really?"
This looks like a huge success in the making.
Feeling excited, I moved closer to the window.
A group of large, intimidating men were gathering—it was those Jewish guys who'd handed over the store list.
These crazy bastards.
Could they have come to shake us down for protection money?
Trying to stake their claim on opening day?
I was clenching my fists, ready for a fight, when Oliver and the gang members burst onto the scene like comets, sweeping them away like a wave.
It was the right move. Still, I didn't like gangs loitering around my place to begin with.
I stepped outside and approached the member standing near the entrance of the dance hall.
He was wearing a custom-made pumpkin mask from Mother's company and handing out flyers.
"Tell the guys to keep this place clean and make sure the riffraff don't hang around."
As I whispered this, the pumpkin head spun around sharply.
"Shit, who does this punk think he is, ordering me—"
"I'm your boss."
"Oh—sorry, the mask makes it hard to see."
How is this guy even handing out flyers like this?
I helped adjust his pumpkin mask properly, and he covered his mouth and snickered.
"Now I can see just fine, Boss. But, hey, this thing's getting a great reaction. The girls love it. I think I might even pick one up tonight."
"They'll like you even more if you keep your mouth shut. Pumpkins are cuter when they don't talk."
"Tsk."
Usually, poster ads, flyers, and word-of-mouth are standard marketing tactics.
In that sense, handing out flyers in a character costume might be a first. I'm just ahead of the curve like that.
The closer it got to opening time, the more people started to gather at the entrance of the Dance Hall. Even the women who had visited the lingerie shop earlier were starting to line up. And there was Ida, standing right at the front.
"!?"
Why?
What about the store?
There was another female employee, so it wouldn't be a problem if she stepped out for a bit, but this was out of line.
I leaned in and whispered.
"Manager Ida. What are you doing right now?"
Ida replied in a flat voice, whispering as well.
"I got the line started. Look—they've all lined up behind me."
So that was it. I'd heard she used to be a Dance Hall Girl—her instincts really are something else.
Just like that, Ida created a long line and then strolled inside the shop.
The women behind her were a bit flustered at first, but soon they started chatting and laughing among themselves.
Inside the store, I saw Ida recommending lingerie to a customer.
I stood by the window, feeling satisfied as the line grew longer.
And then, as promised, at exactly 6 o'clock, the entrance opened and customers began to trickle down to the basement one by one.
As with other Dance Halls, the standard admission fee was 10 cents for women and 20 cents for men. Maybe because it was half-price until 7 o'clock, more people than I expected were coming in.
I glanced over at the Pumpkin Mask. He'd gone all the way across the street, handing out flyers, but now a gang had surrounded one of our members. They seemed to be pestering him, giving him a hard time.
That's when Oliver and the other members dashed madly between carriages and cars, quickly clearing the area around Pumpkin Mask. From that moment on, he had security detail sticking close.
This is all part of the experience. Unlike a regular shop, a Dance Hall attracts fierce competition and interference. I can't help but wonder what kind of groups will try making trouble next.
"Ida, I'm leaving the shop in your hands."
I went down to the basement through the office at the back of the store.
When you open the door, it connects to the Dance Hall office.
There, Kale and Brian were sitting on the sofa, talking.
"Perfect timing, Boss. We're searching people at the entrance and there's a problem."
Kale spoke with a furrowed brow. We need to strictly control weapons coming in, but we're having trouble searching the women.
There's one female staff member, but she gets overwhelmed by some of the rowdier female guests and can't handle it properly.
"If we step in ourselves, it'd just make us look bad."
Just then, as the right person came to mind, a member threw open the office door.
"It's handled!"
"How?"
"Ida stepped up."
"Oh, I was just about to ask you to send Ida in—but of course, Boss, you're always ahead!"
I hadn't actually given the order, but Ida was on my mind too. Anyway.
"Ida is just a temporary solution. We need to hire more female staff by tomorrow. And make sure you have members stationed outside as well. These flies just keep swarming around us."
"Oh, you mean that Jew."
Kale grinned as he spoke.
"That guy wants to become part of our unit."
"All of a sudden?"
"He quietly asked me about it—whether those murders in Orchard and Allen had anything to do with us."
"And what did you say?"
"I told him I'd rip his mouth open if he started spouting nonsense. He got pretty scared, but judging by his eyes, he seems to believe it."
It was that deep-seated fear and anxiety mixed with the desire—no, the greed—for protection money.
He passes, for now.
"What's the deal?"
"He says he'll keep collecting protection fees from the shops, and give us 20% every week, in return."
That's about standard.
That's how the units typically paid up the chain.
"What should we do, Boss?"
"Tell him it's a yes. Kale, you're in charge of managing their crew from now on."
"Got it!"
As we spoke, music began to play. When I opened the office door, a crowd of members bustled back and forth between the kitchen. I exchanged brief glances with them and kept an eye on the inside of the dance hall.
On the floor, about forty people were dancing to the band's music. The rest were sitting on benches or at tables, sipping drinks.
As I passed through the crowd toward the entrance of the dance hall, I spotted Ida standing in a shadowy corner with three women. I quietly approached and listened in.
"Why don't you just hole up in Hell's Kitchen instead of dragging yourself all the way over here and causing trouble?"
"...We just heard there was a new dance hall opening, so we came."
"Please forgive us, Ida. We really just wanted to dance and leave."
Ida gave them a derisive little laugh.
"You probably came here to pickpocket the guests. I'm telling you nicely—get lost while you still can."
"...Yes."
The three women, looking thoroughly intimidated, left.
While she watched them go, Ida's eyes met mine.
"Boss, I think I might need to take on a second job."
I felt the same way.