Into the Shadow
Salvatore carefully slipped into the room.
“Boss, Joe the Boss is finally extending his control over the Tenderloin red-light district…”
Carlyle cut him off without listening, raising a hand.
“Salvatore, did I ask you to speak?”
Salvatore raised both hands in protest, his face full of alarm.
“No, no! I know you don’t deal in that line. I’m just… these days we’ve been expanding into Midtown and the Wet Zone. The profit’s huge. That’s all I was saying.”
He was one of the few people alive who understood exactly why Carlyle had drawn a hard line against funding brothels or drugs.
In their boyhood days on the Lower East Side, the two of them had met in the gutters and joined the Five Points Gang together. These three men shared one common thread: they owed Carlyle their lives from those same days. They had taken his nickname and called themselves the Shadows, driving him to the edge of his patience every time they used it.
But when the war swallowed Carlyle whole, the bond snapped. They scattered like leaves in the wind.
Salvatore now ran the middle ranks of the most powerful family on the Lower East Side—the Maranzano Family—and handled every dirty job that came his way. Maxim and Benjamin had built their own crews under their own names, working as fixers and hired guns.
After the war ended and the world thought Carlyle dead, he had reappeared before them as a businessman. Without a second’s hesitation they swore fresh oaths of loyalty, each in their own way.
Keeping a family together one day and putting a bullet in someone’s back the next was simply how the world worked. It was only natural that the man who had saved their lives would be the one they swore fealty to.
Carlyle had told them to forget loyalty and just do business, but to these three it meant the same thing.
Violence had been the only language they knew since childhood, chaos was the only opportunity, and money was the only power that mattered.
Carlyle had watched it all from the beginning and could turn ice-cold and merciless in an instant if he had to. His mind was razor-sharp. Most importantly, he never made promises he couldn’t keep.
Because of that they had built fortunes over the last few years through speakeasies and bootlegging.
Carlyle handled only the investments and the deals, never the actual day-to-day operations. When things went wrong he used his connections at the highest levels to make problems disappear quietly.
But two things he had made crystal clear would never be touched: prostitution and narcotics.
“Any problems from the liquor trade are my problem to fix. Prostitution, especially drugs, is federal business. If a bullet ends up in my head, I won’t care. You three handle your own messes.”
Carlyle warned them coldly.
“Don’t worry, Shadows. My dream is to grow old and die naturally watching my grandchildren. That crazy bastard might beat me to it.”
Maxim grinned, as usual picking a fight with his friend.
“What? Before I die naturally, I want to get shot by my own gun first.”
Benjamin’s eyes flashed and he reached for his pistol again.
Salvatore shook his head and clicked his tongue.
“Idiot.”
“What! You just called me an idiot?”
“What? You want me to shoot you? Go on, try it. I haven’t had a good laugh in years.”
Salvatore, who carried the same hot temper as Benjamin and had earned the nickname Trigger, laughed and teased him back.
Benjamin, whose temper flared even faster than a match, was the one everyone picked on because he was the youngest.
“Sit!”
Carlyle ordered them in the same rough voice he used on a rabid dog.
Benjamin glared at him, hurt, then sat down anyway.
Though his temper made life difficult, Benjamin was fiercely loyal. For Carlyle he would throw himself into any fight without hesitation. That simple, reckless courage had earned him a reputation as someone the other gangs both feared and hated.
Carlyle rubbed his temple slowly and swallowed the sigh that rose in his throat.
“Benny, guns are the last resort. When you use them, do it without warning. It’s the most overwhelming. One more time you ignore my orders and cause trouble in another territory and get your name in the papers… I’ll personally put a honeycomb of bullets in that smug face of yours. Now shut up and put the gun away.”
It sounded like tender advice, but Carlyle never spoke empty words.
Benjamin, who had just angered Carlyle enough to need a good scolding, lowered his head like a scolded child.
“…I’m sorry.”
Carlyle turned to Salvatore and fixed him with a stare.
“You already know this, but Brooklyn Red Hook is under Frank Yeil’s control. He’s pushed the Irish out and now completely owns the waterfront unions. He’s agreed to give Chicago the exclusive shipping rights, so you should hear from him any day now.”
Frank Yeil was the boss of an Italian gang based in Brooklyn. He ran speakeasies and the docks like an open secret while posing as an ordinary cigar-shop owner.
“Chicago? The shipments for Scarface?”
Salvatore asked.
Carlyle nodded, and Salvatore shook his head in disbelief.
“Al Capone. The kid ran away to Chicago and got famous. He just talks big, but he can’t even fight. A guy who used to be a doorman at Frank’s cigar shop is supposed to eat up an entire city in a few years? Do the Chicago gangsters really wear pretty skirts?”
A burst of laughter filled the room.
Al Capone, who had taken over Chicago at just twenty-six and become the boss of the family, had also once run with them in the Five Points Gang.
Salvatore felt a quiet rival’s pride toward the man who had fled Brooklyn after a killing, built his own power in Chicago, and now held the entire city.
Carlyle turned to Maxim.
“The top-shelf whiskey we bought from Scotland in May will reach Pier 75 next month via St. Pierre and Miquelon as usual. Get everything ready.”
With that he reset his fedora and prepared to leave before midnight. He had a club to close.
At that moment Salvatore pointed at Benjamin’s wristwatch and laughed.
“Benny, you wearing a bracelet too? You gonna start wearing skirts like the Chicago boys?”
Among the young gangsters these days, switching from pocket watches to wristwatches had become the latest fashion. But most still treated the wristwatch as just another piece of jewelry. Even Salvatore, who thought he was part of the new generation, felt the same way.
“Hah, you really don’t know anything. Who walks around with those ugly old pocket watches anymore? What, you growing a mustache like an old man?”
Benjamin shot back, offended.
A mustache had once been the proud symbol of the old-generation mobsters they all looked up to.
Carlyle rose from his seat and checked his own watch. Fifteen minutes until midnight.
Salvatore and Maxim froze the instant they saw it. Maxim, who had once worn a military-issue wristwatch and only put it on when he had to dress up, stared at it in surprise.
“Ha!”
Benjamin exclaimed proudly.
“What? You want me to put on a dress too?”
“Let’s go. Don’t cause any more trouble.”
Carlyle gave Benjamin a stern look.
“Benny, where did you even get that watch?”
“Expensive, huh?”
Carlyle chuckled and left the room, leaving the conversation between the three of them behind.
Just then Madam Kansas appeared at the foot of the stairs, carrying a silver tray loaded with premium Scotch.
“Oh? Leaving already?”
Carlyle nodded. She handed the tray to one of the showgirls and sent them upstairs.
Kansas wore a bold, sparkling dress with short golden hair and silver sequins. At the end of her thirties she was a stunning beauty. A former comedy actress, her sharp wit and humor had made her more famous as the face of the speakeasy than any actress.
“My lord, I heard the most unbelievable story…”
Kansas walked beside him across the stage.
Carlyle left her there. It was better for his cover if rumors spread that he only visited El Dorado to see her.
“They say you’re getting married soon?”