Chapter 79 - How Much Do You Need?
There was a reason I couldn't bring myself to speak.
Duquesne kept up that act for nearly two years.
Right up until just before he was to be extradited to England—right up until his escape in women's clothing—he pretended to be a paralyzed patient.
That's how tenacious he was.
In other words, it would still be some time before Duquesne would attempt his escape.
On the contrary, now might be a good opportunity to think about tying him to the labor sluggers...
"I'd better get going now."
Bellevue Hospital has a separate prison ward. Once Duquesne's admission process was complete, Hoover was about to head to where Duquesne was being held.
"Oh, and Ciaran. It's hard to just launch an investigation into the strike without evidence that there are subversive elements involved. If you notice anything suspicious, would you let me know?"
"Of course."
Even if I have to make something up, I'll let you know, Hoover.
World War I and the Russian Revolution.
Because of these events, the US Federation would soon strengthen its surveillance of anti-state elements like German spies, Anarchists, and Communists.
In fact, just three months ago, the Bureau raided forty-eight meeting halls of the International Workers of the World—IWW, America's largest labor organization—and put a hundred people on trial.
The young Hoover's rapid rise within the Bureau of Investigation under the Justice Department was because he always delivered exactly what the US government wanted.
He was the man who scratched where it itched.
Before long, Hoover would try to frame the strike leaders as agents of an attempt to overthrow the state—or if that proved difficult, he'd try to tie them to gangs and dismantle the unions that way.
Because of this, we need to look at the labor slugger problem as part of a bigger picture.
Together with Tanner Smith.
Office on the second floor of the Twin Buildings.
With strikes breaking out all over the Manhattan harbor, concerns about the safety of the Marginals' warehouse at the Hell's Kitchen dockside were mounting.
If we left it alone, who knew when striking workers might come and poke around, but suddenly moving the goods would draw too much attention.
And just taking out a few of the sluggers leading the strike wouldn't end things either.
Now that the strike had begun, they wouldn't stop until they had negotiated with management and gotten what they wanted.
In the end, moving the warehouse was inevitable.
It was a little early, but I discussed it with Rosenthal, the fence.
"What do you think we should do about Mileno's goods in the warehouse?"
"Moving everything at once is risky, Boss. Until the Mileno investigation is officially closed, we need to keep things as discreet as possible."
"Then you and Patrick find a warehouse to store the goods and move them. I'll assign you some members. You know what'll happen if you double-cross me, right?"
"O-of course! I'd never do something like that."
Rosenthal, answering with a grave expression, then changed the subject to the casino supplies.
"All the goods will be ready within this week. It'd be risky if we draw too much attention, so I'm planning to bring in just one or two tables a day."
"When's the expected opening?"
"We'll have everything ready by next Thursday."
"Then open at 9 p.m. that night."
Unlike the dance hall, the casino is illegal.
We can't advertise openly, so there's no point expecting people to line up outside to get in.
As I was about to stand up, Rosenthal suddenly brought something else up as if he'd just remembered.
"Oh, right—I got three telephones siphoned off from the phone company. Two desktops, one wall-mount."
"We'll need to put them here, in the warehouse, and at Mother's company. I'll assign Leo to help, so give him all the information he needs to set them up."
"Okay."
Telephones are expensive, so they get stolen a lot.
And since demand is so high, anything that hits the black market sells instantly. But—
"You said you got them from the phone company?"
"Yeah. There's this middle manager at Bell Telephone—every now and then, she passes some our way."
Even as a middle manager, women working at the telephone company are paid poorly.
Low wages, lots of expenses, and too many ways to spend.
Then suddenly, suppose the family needs a large sum of money?
"It's easy to fall into temptation. If something happens to her family or her husband gets hurt and can't work, what other choice does she have?"
"So that means we could bribe some of the operators too, right?"
Rosenthal blinked, tilting his head in confusion, as if wondering why we'd even want to bribe them.
"You know the 'Espionage Act of 1917' passed this year, right?"
"I read about it in the papers."
"One part of that law allows the US Federation to monitor telephone and telegraph lines. It's supposed to be for gathering intelligence."
Right now, information might be useless when it targets the general public.
But if you narrow down the target, that changes everything.
Instead of scrambling to bribe operators at the last minute, let's start laying the groundwork now.
"Rosenthal, try to get closer to that middle manager you mentioned. You know how powerful information can be, don't you?"
When rare or high-priced goods turn up on the black market, fierce competition breaks out depending on their value. If you have information on the price, the seller, the storage location, and the buyers, your chances of getting what you want go way up.
"I understand what you mean, Boss."
Rosenthal nodded, seeming to grasp the implications of wiretapping.
"But there's no need to rush. We don't even know yet who we should be getting information on. And the same goes for what you're doing. Come up with a plan to take control of the black market network."
"Got it, Boss!"
Rosenthal's expression changed.
He clearly wanted that network for himself too.
As soon as Rosenthal left, I headed down to the lingerie department on the first floor.
Ida was putting a brassiere on the only mannequin in the store.
Even mannequins are ridiculously expensive. This one only had a torso—no head or arms—and was wrapped in fabric and fixed to a wooden base, but it cost fifteen dollars apiece.
And it was so heavy.
Commercializing plastic couldn't happen soon enough.
Come to think of it, my knowledge of the future not being specialized was a problem, but trying to figure out what products had been invented or developed in this era on my own wasn't exactly easy either.
How nice would it be to just pick out what I needed and gather information on only those things?
The most plausible way would be to establish a newspaper or a magazine to collect information.
If I used the extra office space on the second floor, it seemed entirely doable.
The real issue was staffing.
It wouldn't be easy to leave it to Marcus, the German.
Anyway, that was something to think about later.
"Manager Ida. I'll be heading out to Coney Island today, so make sure to close up the store on your own."
"If you see Tanner, tell him I said hello."
***
I left the shop and headed for the South East Harbor.
I took the steamboat ferry and arrived at the Coney Island dock. The atmosphere was quite different from when I visited in the summer.
There weren't many people around—just the occasional couple coming to see the winter sea.
I turned up the collar of my coat and pulled my scarf tighter against the chilly sea wind.
Finally, I found a bar on Surf Avenue Street.
[The Tower Inn]
As I tried to go inside, the bouncer at the entrance blocked my way. He looked a year or two older than me.
"Mind lowering your scarf? I've never seen someone covering their face who wasn't hiding something."
"I'm here to see Tanner."
"…Did you make an appointment?"
I nodded, and the bouncer called over another staff member and whispered something to him. While the staffer went upstairs, the bouncer asked,
"How well do you know Boss Tanner?"
"Well, that depends on what your standard for 'well' is."
"Your answer's even more vague than my question."
The bouncer looked sharply into my eyes, trying to figure something out. At that moment, Tanner himself came down the stairs to greet me.
"You could've just told me you were coming; you didn't have to make the trip all the way out here."
"It's not that far, really."
"So, what do you think of the place?"
It was pretty spacious.
There were plenty of tables, and the interior was clearly designed to appeal to a younger crowd—with a certain stylish flair.
Of course, by my standards, it looked a bit old-fashioned.
"But there aren't many customers, are there?"
"That's because it's the off-season right now. Anyway, let's head upstairs."
The bouncer quietly slipped back to his post as Tanner led me to the second-floor office.
As soon as we sat down on the sofa, he started talking.
"I told you to bring your family—why'd you come alone?"
"I wanted to check things out first before bringing them. Roa deserves only the best, after all."
"Well, this place isn't exactly perfect. I'll book a nice hotel for you, so don't worry—just bring them over. By the way, what brings you here?"
I told Tanner about the recent strike at the harbor labor union. When I mentioned Kid Dropper, Tanner wrinkled his nose.
"He must have been impatient as soon as he got out of prison. Now that Dopy Benny Payne, his main obstacle, has retired, I guess he thinks he owns the place."
"Jacob says he's dangerous."
"Well, that's how things are in that world. You've got to be as vicious and ruthless as possible if you want the workers to listen. Do you know why they call him 'Dropper'?"
He got the nickname because he used a blackjack—smaller than a club—to take people down.
"But why did that bastard target the harbor first? The garment workers' union would be more lucrative right now."
"He must have someone backing him, right?"
"Who, Paul Kelly?"
Kid Dropper belonged to the Five Points Gang—not the Eastman Gang, even though they were both Jewish.
And the boss of the Five Points Gang, Paul Kelly, is also the Vice President of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA).
That's a pretty solid connection between them.
"It's certainly a plausible theory. If Paul Kelly's backing him, that explains it. Anyway, are you looking to get rid of Kid Dropper?"
"If that was all, I wouldn't have bothered coming out here like this."
Tanner's eyes narrowed.
"You're not actually planning to go after Paul Kelly, are you? He's completely out of your league right now. It's way too dangerous."
Politically, organizationally, economically, physically—
Paul Kelly has me completely outmatched on every level.
That's an undeniable fact.
"That's exactly why I need to start preparing now."
"For what?"
"When Prohibition passes, where do you think the power to control the docks will come from? We need to take the Vice President's seat in the ILA."
"...Is that even possible? How on earth would you become Vice President of the ILA? With just Tammany Hall's Big Tom Foley? No way. You'd need to have influence all the way up to the mayor of New York."
"Where is Paul Kelly right now?"
"Chelsea."
That's right, Manhattan's Chelsea.
And the Marginals Gang's turf stretches from Hell's Kitchen into Chelsea.
Just a few months ago, it was Chelsea where Tanner Smith got involved with the union strike.
"I guarantee you, the ILA is going to be shaken to its core within the next two years."
"Why?"
Right now, harbors across the US are enjoying the wartime boom. As logistics production bases sending goods to Europe, they're reaping huge profits.
But what happens when World War I ends?
"There's going to be a major drop in shipping company logistics, which means massive layoffs. Countless dockworkers will lose their jobs. Do you think the labor unions will just sit quietly? Strikes will erupt nationwide."
The key thing to watch is the US Federation's response.
By that point, with the Russian Civil War hitting its peak after the October Revolution, anarchists, socialists, and anti-government groups within America will attempt to overthrow the government.
At that time, the Bureau of Investigation, which had been busy hunting German spies, will shift all its power to cracking down on these revolutionary forces.
"So who do you think their targets will be? The agitators behind strikes that threaten the American economy. From the capitalists' perspective, those people are anti-capitalist, anti-government enemies."
You can even predict the order of the crackdown. They'll go after organizations with the largest labor union memberships in America, one by one.
"They'll start with the IWW, and then move on to the ILA. That's when we'll have the chance to bring down Paul Kelly and let Tanner take the position."
"Me?"
"Well, who else would do it?"
"…First off, I want to give a round of applause for your incredible analysis and predictions."
Despite his words, Tanner didn't actually clap.
"Whether things turn out the way you say is one thing, but even getting myself in position as an alternative to Paul Kelly won't be easy."
"That's why we have to start now."
I laid out a step-by-step approach.
"Go to Paul Kelly and propose a deal. Tell him you'll take over the labor union market instead of Kid Dropper."
"…I seriously doubt he'll go for it. Kelly and I aren't exactly on good terms."
"It doesn't matter if he turns you down. Paul Kelly doesn't really have any choice but to get rid of Kid Dropper anyway."
Then I explained the next phase of the plan.
"First, create a community that supports the most reputable speakers in the dockworkers' union."
Here's the crucial part. We have to set clear criteria to ensure we strictly exclude anyone with anti-government ideology, making sure it's just what the US Federation wants.
Extorting workers for money through violence and controlling strikes is an outdated method.
"While you're running the community, start planting our informants within the union. Meanwhile, I'll…"
…expand the business, accumulate funds, and broaden our network. And then, I'd join forces with Hoover to get Tanner appointed as the ILA Vice President.
Of course, I didn't mention anything about Hoover.
Tanner's reaction after hearing my grand plan was just as I expected.
"Be honest. You just couldn't stand seeing me loafing around in bars, right? So you had to figure out some way to put me to work. Isn't that it?"
"What a misunderstanding. When I saw your ambition had faded, I just thought I'd help rekindle the fire."
Tanner stroked his chin, thought for a while, and then accepted my proposal.
"I'll have to meet Paul Kelly within the week."
"Then I'll get started on my end, too."
After finishing our conversation, I left the bar right away.
I took in the view of the Coney Island coast for a moment before boarding the steamboat again.
***
The next day, on the second floor office of the Twin Buildings. I called Marcus over and handed him a sheet of paper.
"Type this up in German for me."
Marcus glanced over the contents, his eyes wide with shock.
Then he started trembling.
"The sender is Naquara, the German Vice Consul! Are you telling me I have to play the part of a German spy?!"
"Not you—someone else. It's written right there."
"Oh, Naplan… Don't tell me, Kid Dropper Naplan?"
It looked like Marcus was already picturing how we could use the letter.
A sly smile crept onto his lips.
"You think one letter like this will be enough? Feels a bit weak."
"Of course, it's not enough on its own."
Yesterday, I'd asked Tanner Smith for a certain item.
'I need a bomb.'
'Sheesh, that's scary.'
'How much do you need? Enough to take out a transport ship?'
'Man… I never did return the one the White Hand Gang boss gave me last time.'
Turns out, the bomb I borrowed during the Newtown Creek warehouse sniper incident was still stashed away in the corner of our warehouse.
After giving Marcus the typing job, I headed over to the warehouse.
Time to make an improvised bomb.