Chapter 77 - Where Have I Heard That Name Before
Days were spent at the Intima lingerie shop on the first floor, and evenings at the Pumpkin Dance Hall.
A whirlwind of non-stop activity had begun.
Compared to me, mostly poring over the ledger, Ida was the real star.
She had an impressive grasp of how everything worked at the dance hall—enough to make me regret not consulting her in advance.
"The admission fee just covers maintenance and staffing. We make our real profit from drinks and snacks. That's where the Dance Hall Girls come in. They also help keep an eye on the crowd."
"What about their pay?"
"They just take home what they earn. They push drinks and snacks, and they get a cut of those sales."
Drinks averaged 5 cents a glass. Even with a 20% cut, a girl would have to sell more than a hundred drinks a day just to make a dollar. Of course, that wasn't all—they also got paid to be dance partners, earning a set fee for each song.
"Of course, they split those dance fees with the boss, too. That's why a lot of the girls just work here on the side for some extra fun and cash. If even that doesn't cover their living expenses, some end up selling their bodies. That's usually how it goes for women just trying to get by."
If I remembered right, Ida herself had been that kind of breadwinner Dance Hall Girl, but she spoke with a calm detachment, as if talking about someone else.
"So bottom line, if we want to legally squeeze every last penny from the customers, we really need Dance Hall Girls."
"It's not a must. There are downsides, too."
"Like what?"
"Sometimes they'll approach customers with bad intentions—blackmail, theft, even kidnapping. That's why you can't just hire anyone."
All things considered, the best solution was to let Ida take on that responsibility.
"You should be the Dance Hall Manager too, Ida."
"You want me to handle hiring the women as well?"
"Of course."
"In that case, I know just the right girls."
A slight smile flickered at the corners of Ida's lips, and her eyes brightened as well.
For the first time, I saw life on her face.
***
It had been a week since the banner reading 'Spend the Year-End with Pumpkin Dance Hall!' went up on the Twin Buildings.
December 1, 1917.
As the end of the year drew near, even more people began flocking to the dance hall. Most of the customers were Jewish and Italian laborers.
This was an era when people never danced alone. You couldn't go out on the floor without a partner. That's where the Dance Hall Girls Ida brought in came into play—they were the ones who eased the loneliness of poor immigrant men.
They were all in their early twenties.
All from Hell's Kitchen, each one strikingly attractive, with sharp wit and a great sense of humor.
They skillfully coaxed customers into placing orders nonstop.
The impact was immediately obvious in the numbers.
With the Dance Hall Girls in action, drink sales jumped by nearly 30%.
Who else could have pulled this off?
It was all thanks to Ida, dancing right there on the floor... Huh?
As the five-piece Italian band played Lew Pollack's ragtime tune "That's Plenty," Ida was dancing with a man.
Did she just want to dance for fun?
Or was she trying to drive up orders, like the other Dance Hall Girls?
She was a hard woman to read.
"Anyone know who that guy is?"
I asked the members standing near the kitchen, but everyone shook their heads.
In the end, I'd have to hear it from Ida herself.
Dance Hall Office.
I hadn't even called for her, but Ida came in, her cheeks flushed.
"Feels good to get moving again after so long, but it's tiring."
"Yeah, you look like it."
"Boss, did you watch me dance?"
"Yeah."
Beads of sweat dotted Ida's forehead.
She had a drink in her hand, and after sitting down on the sofa and taking a long swig, she started to speak.
"Do you know who my partner was?"
"No idea."
"His name's Joseph Toblinsky. He used to be a gangster here in the Lower East Side."
Toblinsky—that name rang a bell. He was one of the three men who, in the Lower East Side, had organized a gang called the 'Yiddish Black Hand'—modeled after the Italian Black Hand.
They never got much attention, overshadowed by the Jewish Eastman Gang, and now they'd disappeared without a trace, so I didn't know too many details.
"Are you two close enough that you'd recognize his face?"
"No, he recognized me first. We crossed paths back when I had a mess with the Eastman Gang."
"So?"
"I figured I'd chat him up, try to get a sense of why he suddenly showed up here."
Ida always found ways to keep busy, even with things that weren't directly her responsibility.
And it usually paid off—like now.
"Toblinsky said he came because he was curious how a brothel got turned into a dance hall."
"Was he a regular at the brothel?"
"No, he wasn't a customer—he was the boss. After his gang broke up, he started running a few brothels on this side of the street."
According to Ida, Toblinsky came here purely out of curiosity.
He just wanted to check out the new dance hall.
It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do for someone who runs a business on Allen Street.
"The moment Toblinsky saw me at the dance hall, he was surprised. Then he said this: 'So it's true—the Hell's Kitchen Gang really is expanding its influence here.'"
Ida did her best to mimic his voice, though with a completely blank expression.
Of course, I'd never actually heard Toblinsky's voice, so I had no way of knowing how accurate it was.
Anyway, by now it was common knowledge that the Hell's Kitchen Gang was involved in the recent street brawls. There was nothing surprising about it.
"In the end, when I told him I was working here, he said he wanted to meet the boss and asked me to set something up."
"What do you think he'll want to talk about if we meet?"
"It'll be one of two things."
Either he just wants to put a face to the name, as someone running a business on Allen Street.
Or, he's suspicious of the connection between the dance hall and the gang, and he's trying to dig deeper.
I figured it could be both.
After all, it was nearly impossible to run a brothel without some help from a gang, so Toblinsky wanting to get in contact with the new gang in charge of this area made perfect sense.
Still, we need to hide any connection between the dance hall and the Marginals as much as possible. I can't stop rumors from spreading, but there's no reason to out ourselves—that would be foolish.
Up until now, I'd only collected protection money from legitimate stores and businesses out in the open.
On the other hand, I never touched brothels, opium dens, smuggling operations, or casinos—and there was a reason for that.
Businesses that operate in the shadows are usually connected to bigger gangs—like those from Sicily, Naples, or the Five Points Gang.
No need to poke the hornet's nest right at the beginning.
For the meeting with Toblinsky, I decided to put forward Blackburn—the interior contractor—as the boss.
At first, I thought of Patrick, but he was already known around Hell's Kitchen as Tanner Smith's right-hand man.
Blackburn, though, was more businessman than gangster, making him the perfect fit for the role.
Meanwhile, through all this, I discovered a new possibility for Ida—a way to bring out the value of her many talents and her chameleon-like charm.
"Ida, how about I give you a little push so you can start expanding your network?"
"Upwards?" she asked.
When I nodded, Ida immediately understood what I was getting at.
"You mean recruiting people who could help our business, right?"
"Exactly."
"Alright, boss. I'll do as you say."
"It's just a suggestion, not an order. And it's not something you need to do right away either."
"I know. And I'm enjoying the work too. It's been a long time since I've felt like this."
Though her face didn't show it.
Or maybe she only looked so dull when she talked to me.
Ida is a woman whose heart died a long time ago.
Hazel's words echoed briefly in my ear and then faded away.
"Welcome."
Come to think of it, we were on the first floor, in the lingerie shop.
Ida and I were living double lives, slipping between hot and cold baths, so to speak.
A few days later, Blackburn met with Toblinsky and came back with news.
"He wants us to go into business together."
"What kind of business?"
"He wants us to turn a blind eye to his women working the place—and split the profits."
At first, I didn't quite get what he meant.
It was Ida, standing next to me, who explained.
"If he spots any pretty women among the customers, he wants to take them over to the brothel."
What the hell?
I barely managed to swallow the curse rising up in my throat.
"······ How exactly is he planning to take them?"
"There's a whole process to it, Boss. First, they pick out a decent-looking guy from the gang."
That guy goes into the dance hall and scopes out his target—usually teenage girls.
He approaches them, buys them drinks, and tries to win them over.
"Then he charms one into going out on a date. Once they're outside, he kidnaps her. If that's too difficult, he'll drug her. After that, they ruin her body and mind."
"Ida, you really do explain things well."
Blackburn chimed in with a grin.
My head was spinning.
But apparently, things like this happened quite a lot in dance halls.
"Boss, what do you want to do?"
Blackburn asked, though the answer was obvious.
"We refuse. Tell him if they try that in our place, I'll smash up every brothel he owns."
"Uh, right. I'll word it a bit more delicately."
After Blackburn left, Ida fixed me with her calm gaze.
"Why did you turn him down?"
"Do I need a reason?"
"No, you don't. I'm not judging your decision, Boss. I think you did the right thing. If you'd agreed, Toblynski would've started suspecting us of being a gang."
I hadn't thought it through that far.
Still, I nodded. Now that I considered Ida's words, she definitely had a point.
"Then I'll be going now."
As Ida started to leave the office, I called out to her.
"Why don't you just move in here while you're at it?"
It'd be a disaster if a capable employee got kidnapped.
I'd been through something similar in the past.
Besides, Ida lived in Hell's Kitchen.
Sometimes she used the temporary lodging on the second floor, but maybe it would be better if she just stayed here for good.
Ida didn't hesitate for long.
"All right, I'll do that. Thanks for thinking of me, Boss."
After Ida left, I mulled over Toblynski's proposal again In the realm of crime, there are things you should do and things you shouldn't. The standard for that comes entirely from my own subjective judgment.
Even if the members think differently, if I want to enforce my rules, I need to set unwavering standards myself. So I added a new rule to my notebook today.
[Absolutely no human trafficking.]
As I was considering what else to add to the notebook, someone knocked on the office door.
Jeffrey—one of the original Marginals alongside Patrick and a former labor slugger—came to see me.
He was in charge of the warehouse where we kept stolen goods, but there was a problem.
"There's a strike in the Pier 88 area. Sluggers are poking around everywhere, so I think we need to move the stuff from the warehouse."
"Which sluggers are involved?"
"Both sides. Ever since Kid Dropper came back, it's turned into a complete mess."
Kid Dropper—that name rang a bell.
"Who's that?"
"Oh, he's a friend of Johnny Spanish. The two of them once had a stranglehold on the slugger business together."
Now I remembered. When you talk about the history of labor sluggers, there's no way his name doesn't come up.
Dopy Benny Payne, who started out as a slugger from the workers' side and is now the boss of a clothing factory.
When he stepped down, Johnny Spanish and Kid Dropper Naplan quickly filled the void.
So, with Kid Dropper—Johnny Spanish's old partner whom I killed—just released from prison, it meant the strike scene was in chaos.
"Have you heard the story about Johnny shooting his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach?"
"I think I heard something about it from Tanner."
"That was because he suspected her of cheating. And the guy she was supposedly seeing was Kid Dropper. Damn, his trusted friend was having an affair with his girl."
This is just like some trashy soap opera.
"Anyway, now that Kid Dropper is back, not only Hell's Kitchen but also the harbor over in South-East is on strike. I know exactly how that bastard operates."
Jacob was going off, clearly excited, but all I could think about was the stuff in our warehouse. Just then, something even more worrying happened.
My mother showed up at the underwear shop on the first floor. Her face was filled with urgency.
"Kieran, Larry's been badly hurt at the harbor."
Larry… that's my uncle. My uncle, who once carried my younger brother Liam—beaten up while working as a strikebreaker—on his back.
I have to go.
"Where is he?"