Chapter 137: First On The List

Ricky headed upstairs to inspect the rest of the six-story building.

​On the second floor, is assigned to be a wide storage area and in large spare room, someone had pulled together a few heavy oak tables and wooden crates to make a makeshift lounge. Smoke from cheap cigars drifted under the low ceiling as a dozen men from the tenements—guys who had just come up from Danny’s burial—sat around drinking from dark glass bottles to drown their grief.

​John Caldwell was in the thick of it, moving from table to table, clapping men on the shoulder and pulling the quiet ones who sat off in the corners into the group. Frank was already sitting at the center table with a fresh deck of cards, showing a couple of young loaders how to deal faro and cut the deck cleanly.

​"Keep your eyes on the dealer’s fingers, boys," Frank said slapping a card onto the wood. "If his thumb twitches, he’s pulling from the bottom."

​John looked up, catching Ricky’s eye across the room, and gave a small nod. Ricky nodded back, leaving them to their grief and card games, and climbed the iron stairwell up to the top floor.

​The sixth floor was set aside for executive offices. Ricky pushed open the heavy oak doors of the central conference room, where Jimmy Williams and his three brothers—Michael, Sean, and Patrick—were gathered around a broad wooden table covered in street maps of White Plains and Westchester County.

​"We’ve got forty men on the delivery roster starting tomorrow," Jimmy was saying, tracing a pencil along a main arterial road. "We split the ten heavy wagons into four squads, three men per wagon, with ten route leaders overseeing each wagon."

​The four brothers looked up as Ricky stepped into the room, starting to stack their papers.

​"Don’t stop on my account," Ricky said, stepping up to the edge of the table. "You’re organizing it fine. How are the wagon assignments looking?"

​Michael pointed to the left side of the map. "We’re taking the northern delivery runs through the market district first. If the ten wagons run four routes a day, we can shift thirty tons of dry freight before sundown without breaking the horses."

​"Good," Ricky said, looking over the layout. "You boys have a handle on it. I’m heading down toward Carnegie Hill for a bit to meet Callahan. I’ll be back soon, so keep pushing the setup."

​The brothers nodded, turning back to their maps as Ricky backed out of the room.

​He had barely taken five steps down the sixth-floor corridor when Evelyn stepped out of an office, holding a stack of personnel ledgers.

​"Sir," Evelyn said, walking alongside him toward the stairs. "I won’t be able to accompany you down to Manhattan today. I’m still organizing the transfer files for the staff you asked me to reassign. It’s going to take me two or three days to finalize their resignation letters and set up the new payroll entries here."

​"That’s fine, Evelyn," Ricky replied. "Take your time with it. While you’re at it, start interviewing candidates for a permanent secretary for this office. Look for someone who shows initiative, stays calm under pressure, and can handle the front desk without getting flustered."

​"Understood, sir," Evelyn nodded, jotting a quick note on her ledger before turning back to her office.

​When Ricky reached the ground floor loading bay, the air was filled with the sound of heavy boots and thudding wood. Arthur was standing by the rear dock doors, yelling orders at a group of loaders as they hauled crates of dry goods off a freight wagon that had just arrived from the Greenwich rail yards.

​Arthur wiped his brow with a rag and turned as Ricky approached. "Heading out, boss? Do you need a couple of the boys to ride shotgun with you?"

​Ricky thought about it for a second. With his vitality stats sitting at a monstrous 174, he knew he could take a stray bullet to the forehead and walk away from it without blinking. But riding through town alone as a wanted man was just asking for unnecessary complications.

​"Where are the keys to the heavy truck?" Ricky asked.

​Arthur reached into his coat pocket and held up a brass ring with two iron keys. "You know how to drive one of these Mack rigs, boss?"

​Ricky gave a faint, dry smile. "I can learn. How hard can it be?"

​"Hard enough to grind the gears right out of the transmission," Arthur said with a short laugh. He looked over his shoulder at the loaders. "Let one of the boys drive you. Safe side’s always better."

​"Fair point," Ricky agreed. "Get two men to come along."

​Arthur turned toward the line of workers. "August! June! Get over here!"

​A broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties named August wiped his dusty hands on his trousers, while June, his son, a younger guy about Ricky’s age who was hauling heavy sacks of flour, dropped his load and jogged over.

​"Boss needs a rig driven down toward Carnegie Hill," Arthur told them. He tossed the brass key ring to August, who caught it neatly. "Take the long truck and stay sharp."

​"Got it, Arthur," August said, pulling a dark wool coat off a wall peg.

​Ricky walked out to the alley loading bay and climbed up into the wooden bed of the Mack truck, taking a seat on a couple of empty flour crates. June hopped up into the bed opposite him, pulling his collar up against the chill air, while August cranked the heavy iron engine in the front until the motor roared into life.

​Two hours later, the Mack truck rumbled to a stop along the curb of a quiet, tree-lined avenue in Carnegie Hill, directly in front of George Callahan’s iron-gated stone mansion.

​Ricky swung himself over the side of the wooden bed, his boots hitting the pavement with a soft thud. He pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it up to August in the driver’s seat.

​"Don’t wait up for me," Ricky told them. "I might sleep here or somewhere nearby tonight. Go grab yourselves a decent meal and head back up to White Plains. I’ll be back at the farm camp tomorrow afternoon."

​August’s eyes widened slightly as he took the ten-dollar bill. "Appreciate it, Boss Ricky. We’ll head straight back."

​The truck pulled away, its heavy engine echo fading down the street. Ricky adjusted his dark flat cap and pulled his black face mask tight across his nose before walking up the stone steps to Callahan’s front door. He gave the heavy brass knocker three firm raps.

​A minute later, the thick oak door opened a crack. An elderly butler in a tailored black tailcoat looked out, his sharp eyes instantly recognizing Ricky despite the cloth covering his lower face.

​"Mr. Stevenson," the butler said quietly, stepping back and sweeping the door wide. "Sir George is expecting you."

​Ricky stepped into the warm, carpeted foyer. The butler poked his head outside, scanning the quiet avenue in both directions for a brief second before pulling the door shut and sliding the heavy brass bolt into place.

​"Is Marek here?" Ricky asked as he unbuttoned his coat.

​"No, Mr. Stevenson," the butler replied, taking Ricky’s heavy coat. "Sir Marek is currently downtown in Greenwich attending to business with the ladies."

​"Ah," Ricky murmured. "Alright."

​"Would you like me to send a messenger to fetch him?"

​"No, thank you. I was just curious if he was around."

​The butler led Ricky up a grand carpeted staircase and down a quiet hallway, stopping outside a pair of polished mahogany doors. He knocked twice, opened the door, and stepped aside.

​George Callahan was sitting behind a massive carved mahogany desk near a roaring marble fireplace, a stack of leather-bound ledgers open in front of him. He looked up, a broad, genuine smile spreading across his face.

​"Mr. Stevenson!" George exclaimed, standing up. "It is a absolute relief to see you walking in one piece."

​Ricky pulled down his face mask and removed his cap, taking a seat in one of the high-backed leather armchairs opposite the desk. "I’d be a lot more relieved if my name wasn’t printed across the front page of every precinct handbill in Manhattan, Sir George."

​George let out a rich, hearty laugh, shaking his head. "Ah, the police handbills are a joke. They listed you as five-foot-seven with generic dark hair! Three-quarters of the working men in New York fit that exact description. So long as you don’t walk into any businesses and introduce yourself by name, you’re as invisible as a ghost."

​The butler bowed slightly and backed out of the room, shutting the heavy doors behind him.

​"Well," Ricky said smoothly, leaning back in his chair, "I already have someone setting up a forged birth certificate and press papers for a new identity. So ’Richard Stevenson’ won’t be around for long anyway."

​"Good, very good," George said, reaching for a crystal decanter sitting on a silver tray. "Whiskey?"

​"Of course," Ricky said.

​George poured two fingers of amber liquid into two heavy crystal glasses, handing one across the desk to Ricky. "I swear, I can’t get enough of this Royal Spades stock. Half the high-end saloons in Midtown are begging me to pull strings just to get them a single crate. You made a bloody brilliant move keeping the supply tight."

​Ricky took a small sip, letting the smooth, sharp bite settle. "Exclusivity drives the value up, Mr. Callahan. Increase the supply too fast, and it becomes just another bottle of rye on the shelf."

​"Spot on," George agreed, setting his glass down. He pulled a thick leather folder from a side drawer and placed it squarely on the center of the desk. "Speaking of precious commodity... I managed to pull together a list of ward bosses who are maybe tied directly to Tammany Hall’s backroom operations."

​Ricky reached across the desk and picked up the folder, opening it. He scanned the hand-written names, eyebrows raising slightly. "Saloon owners and precinct captains? I didn’t think saloon keepers had this much sway inside Tammany."

​"They’re the frontline muscle," George said, his tone turning hushed and serious as he leaned forward across the desk. "They run the illegal brothels and backdoor gambling dens tucked behind the tenements. Mostly exploiting young immigrant women coming off the ships."

​He paused, his expression darkening into something cold and disturbed. "But... I heard some rather foul rumors about the specific men on that list, Ricky. It goes beyond the standard brothels."

​Ricky looked up from the paper, his eyes narrowing. "What kind of rumors?"

​George leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a low whisper. "They’re running protected dens that cater to... younger stock. Teenagers. Boys and girls, anywhere from ten to sixteen years old, funneled straight out of the tenement orphanages."

​The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Ricky’s face hardened, his jaw setting so tight a muscle twitched in his cheek. The smooth, calm composure he had maintained all morning vanished, replaced by a cold, lethal fury in his eyes.

​"Ten to sixteen?" Ricky said, his voice flat, dangerously quiet. "Who does that to a child?"

​"God only knows," George said, shaking his head with a heavy sigh. "Rich old bastards, spoiled young heirs with too much money, ward bosses... the world is a dark, sick place, Mr. Stevenson. But those dens are protected from the top down. If you follow the money from those specific parlors, you’ll find the exact men inside Tammany Hall protecting them—because the public has no idea those places even exist."

​Ricky closed the folder slowly, his knuckles white against the dark leather.

​"Don’t worry, Sir George," Ricky murmured, his voice laced with absolute, icy resolve. "When I track those bastards down, I’ll make sure every single one of them begs for death before I’m finished with them."

​George looked at Ricky for a long moment, taking in the raw, terrifying intensity in the young man’s eyes. He cleared his throat gently and nodded.

​"Just be careful when you start digging." George warned softly. "Keep a close eye on the information regarding the police deputy commissioners and his inner circle. The men protecting those operations aren’t your usual street thugs with iron pipes. They hold the law in their hip pocket."

​Ricky nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the fire burning in the hearth. "They can hold whatever they want. It won’t save them."