Chapter 93 - The sound of shoes on the floor will be louder
Ding.
Anthony came to see me at 9 p.m.
It was around the time when Ida had already gone home and I was closing up the store alone.
"Why did you come in earlier and then leave right away?"
"I suddenly remembered something important I had to take care of."
"So, did you handle it well?"
I asked, lowering the roller blind by the window.
Anthony nodded, his face unusually serious.
"It was a bit tough, but all things considered, it went well."
"It looked tough. You seemed pretty stiff out there—might want to practice those dance moves."
A moment of silence passed.
As I finished pulling down the last of the big blinds by the windows, Anthony finally spoke.
"If you hadn't tossed me around, I could've moved a bit smoother."
"Did you go out dancing that day too?"
"It's the kind of place that suits a lone wolf."
He really does have a unique way of looking at the world.
After shutting off the lights in the store, I led Anthony into the office in back.
"So, what were you doing in Chicago?"
"Before I answer, let me ask you something. Do you run the dance hall too? Are you staff?"
"I'm the boss."
Anthony's eyes twitched slightly, then he finally spoke.
"In Chicago, they used to call me a 'fixer.'"
There are two kinds of fixers.
One is a hitman, a contract killer, sometimes called a gunslinger.
The other is someone who solves problems by connecting people in politics or society.
Naturally, Anthony was the former.
"Did something go wrong while you were trying to kill someone?"
"I got tangled up in something complicated. Ever heard of John Powers?"
"No."
"He's a member of the Democratic Party in Chicago. Served as a city councilman and a senator."
John Powers, an Irish immigrant, supposedly built his base in Chicago by running a grocery store and a bar, gradually expanding his political influence.
"You're mixed Irish, right?"
"Unless I was adopted, yeah."
"Hm. Did you know? Back in the day, 90% of Chicago's 19th Ward was people like us—Irish."
But as time passed, Jewish and Italian immigrants started moving in, and everything changed.
"Now, the Irish are only about half the population. What do you think that means?"
"Elections aren't in your favor anymore."
Anthony's eyes lit up as he continued.
"Exactly. That's why, last year—actually, now that the year's turned, it was two years ago—anyway, that's when the alderman elections were held in Chicago."
At that time, John Powers' political ally, James Bowler, who had served as the 19th Ward's alderman for ten years, was running for reelection.
But then a strong challenger appeared: Anthony DiAndrea, an Italian immigrant.
"He's a Catholic priest."
"Doesn't sound like a typical priest to me."
"You catch on quick. They call him a priest, but DiAndrea is actually a Sicilian gang boss. In New York terms..."
"Giuseppe Morello, in the Bronx?"
My answer made Anthony raise his eyebrows with interest.
"So you know your way around the Italians too."
That's not all.
If DiAndrea was the Sicilian boss of Chicago, then I knew the line of succession, too.
DiAndrea—Colosimo—Al Capone.
As this line of bosses continued, and the Chicago Mafia organization solidified, the powerful, Capone-led Mafia known as the Chicago Outfit was born.
"Anyway, once the election campaign started, the real war broke out."
At the same time, both sides hired election thugs, turning it into a bloody conflict. Even after James Bowler won the election, the violence continued, with casualties and injuries piling up.
"I was hired by James Bowler and John Powers' side and fought in that war."
After taking down five rivals, Anthony was wounded as well. At that point, John Powers pulled some strings to have the Chicago police send Anthony, a wanted criminal, off to Harlem in Manhattan. The police officer involved at the time was my Uncle Ted.
"So, before you became a fixer, what did you do?"
"Soldier, mercenary."
Same path as me.
Anthony was a British soldier originally from Ireland.
The conflict he fought in was the border war between India and Afghanistan, part of the Great Game—the struggle for dominance between England and Russia.
After leaving the service, he immediately joined the Balkan War as a volunteer.
Since England officially declared itself neutral, he could only participate in a private capacity.
"Did you retire just to fight in another war?"
"Back then, yeah I used to think the battlefield was the only place I belonged. You wouldn't understand. On the battlefield, you experience tension and excitement, the extremes of fear and exhilaration all at once."
Actually, I know it all too well. I lived that way, took a serious hit of PTSD, and my life went downhill from there.
Are you okay, Anthony?
Watching you dance at the hall, it seems like you're already dealing with PTSD.
"Do you ever hear things that aren't there, like hallucinations or anything?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe I do. Anyway, there's one thing I learned during the Mexican Revolution—being a mercenary isn't worth it."
The pay is lousy, and there are a lot of clashes with the local soldiers. Being a mercenary is always an extreme job, but when you actually get involved in a war between nations, you start to want out.
So Anthony bailed out midway through the Mexican Revolution. He took off his uniform, crossed the border from Mexico, and got a taste of capitalism in Texas, America.
But even there, he realized there were battles to be fought.
"Are you sure you should be telling me all this?"
"People have certain things in their nature. That doesn't change with age."
Anthony looked at me, a smirk playing on one side of his lips.
"You're just like me. I can tell just by looking into your eyes."
"That look of yours again."
"Be honest—you enjoy living dangerously, don't you?"
"How about you be honest first? You just want to work at the dance hall, right?"
As soon as I revealed I was the dance hall boss, Anthony became a lot more talkative. Should I test him?
"There are three jobs you could do. The lingerie store, Labor Slugger, or the dance hall."
"Then the dance hall."
Right now, Oliver is supporting Tanner with the Labor Sluggers, and Kale is focused on managing the unit. There's plenty for Anthony to do.
Just as I was about to reply with a laugh, I heard hurried footsteps from the secret passage connected to the dance hall.
A moment later, the office door swung open and a member glanced nervously between Anthony and me.
"It's okay, go ahead and say it."
"Uh, Boss. We've got a problem in the dance hall."
The Jewish band scheduled to play in the second half, the "Klezmer Kings," hadn't shown up. It was the first time anything like this had happened without any notice.
To make matters worse, the Italian band "La Bella Notte," which had handled the earlier set, had already left for another venue.
"The music's stopped in the dance hall? That's unacceptable."
That wasn't me—it was Anthony who said it.
He was already building up a steady anger, as if he now truly saw himself as a dance hall employee.
"For now we turned on the phonograph, but everyone's loudly complaining that the music's too quiet."
"The sound of shoes on the floor must be even louder."
A member shot Anthony a sideways glance and continued.
"For the moment, Horace is up on stage trying to stall for time, but the crowd's reaction is just..."
"His jokes are half-baked. He's killing the mood, sending it straight to the grave."
Who does this guy think he is, tacking comments onto everything?
The look in the member's eyes clearly asked just that.
"He'll be working with us from now on. I'll introduce him properly later."
I got up from my seat and headed down to the basement.
Anthony followed us through the secret passage and entered the dance hall.
When we passed through the office and stepped inside, Horace—one of our own—was getting nothing but groans from the audience with his awkward jokes.
"Stop with the lame jokes and get off the stage!"
"Get down now and send the band up!"
"Come on, let's just leave. This place is dead, it's done for."
I could see the customers starting to trickle out one by one.
Which only made Horace sweat even more. Even Ida, our all-purpose muscle, could only shake her head this time, clearly out of ideas.
But then—
Beee—
What the hell? A sharp note cut through the air behind me.
The sound that followed, a long and wailing tone, was like wind whipping up dust.
Anthony, carrying an old, battered harmonica, slowly made his way to the stage as he played.
"..."
What's with him?
The harmonica's sound was low and rough, like a heavy sigh—it held a sense of quiet longing and sorrow.
It brushed against something inside the listener's chest, stirring up a distant, aching emotion.
Loneliness, rainy streets, desolate alleys, even the feeling of attending a funeral all swelled up at once.
The customers' faces reflected the same mood.
One by one, they wrinkled their noses, saying it was killing their buzz.
Anthony must be trying to ruin the business on purpose.
I was frowning at the thought.
But then, all of a sudden, the melody bounced up as quickly as a bullet shooting out of a magazine.
A sharp, electrifying tune wrapped itself around the room, and one by one, the customers started tapping along to the rhythm.
At that moment, a man from the floor climbed up onto the stage and sat down at the piano.
He stretched his fingers and placed them on the keys.
Sensing immediately what was happening, Anthony stopped playing the harmonica.
Then, lively piano music took over, filling the dance hall.
This was real ragtime—played by a professional pianist, not someone with only a few lessons under their belt.
Just as if adding firewood to struggling embers, Ida stepped in next.
She signaled to the younger women, and they each grabbed their partner and led them onto the floor.
Thanks to this, the rest of the customers put down their bags and, one after another, began to join them on the dance floor.
Fortunately, the atmosphere in the Dance Hall returned to normal. I gave instructions to the member standing next to me.
"Get that pianist's contact info and ask if he can do full-time."
"Okay, boss!"
Having barely put out the fire, Anthony made his way over to me, lightly keeping time with the beat.
"Do you always carry that harmonica around with you?"
"It's a must-have for a lone wolf. How'd you like the performance?"
"It would've been better if you'd started with something upbeat."
"But it's no fun to go straight for the gun. You have to torture them with sheer terror, drag it out until they die inside. It's like building up until you finally strike at the height of emotion."
What a weirdo.
The trouble is, I found myself nodding in agreement.
I called Kale and a few of the members into the meeting room to discuss what to do about the Klezmer Kings band.
If those guys didn't see us as pushovers, there's no way they would've ditched their set without warning like this.
It had to be a trick from a rival dance hall.
"But why didn't they mess with the La Bella Notte band that plays the early set?"
One of the members raised the question.
There could be any number of explanations, but they're all just guesses.
"Tell the La Bella Notte band that there'll be consequences if they bail on us. And starting tomorrow, track down the Klezmer Band guys and find out what happened and who's behind it."
***
The next day, the thing I'd been worried about happened.
Even when the Dance Hall was supposed to open, the La Bella Notte band didn't show up either.
The only saving grace was the unexpected arrival of that pianist who'd burst onto the scene the night before.
Jimmy Durante.
He was 24 years old, born and raised in the LES, with parents who were immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy.
He'd dropped out of school in seventh grade (at age 12) and had been working as a ragtime pianist, playing in piano bars until recently.
Patrick—who hadn't showed at the dance hall the previous day—was just coming back after meeting Durante.
"He's available for a full-time gig. Turns out he even has a band he put together with some musicians from New Orleans."
"That's great news."
The only issue is the price.
He was asking for 20% more than the previous band, but right now, we didn't have much choice.
"Wonder which bastards messed with our bands. Guess the easy days are over."
Rumors were quietly spreading that we were running a casino underneath the dance hall.
We were surrounded by enemies from the start, so the interference would only get worse.
At times like these, we had to send a message that crossing us would mean getting utterly destroyed.
The problem was figuring out who was behind it all.
I started deploying my own network to track them down.
It took four days to finally locate the band that'd blown off their set and disappeared without a word.
The members caught one guy holed up in Hell's Kitchen.
He'd been the pianist for the Klezmer Band, scared out of his wits and hiding out after being threatened in every way imaginable.
No wonder—two of his fingers had been cut off.
The other members must have been terrified when they saw that.
On top of that, the guys who'd done this to him didn't even seem to know which dance hall or gang he was from. Catching other band members probably wouldn't be any different.
I was sitting at my desk, lost in thought, when more news arrived. A member who'd been expanding territory along Ludlow and Essex Street rushed into the office.
"One of our guys got stabbed."
In broad daylight, right out on the street, one of our unit members had been stabbed. It wasn't a brawl—just a sudden, targeted attack.
"What about cleanup?"
"Kale took him to the hospital."
One of our unit members had been hit.
And it looked like these guys had planned the ambush, because they left a message for the stabbed unit member.
[Don't try to expand your territory any further]
People who didn't even know who I was—or who we were—were trying to warn us off.
Of course, I had no idea who the hell they were either.
So if we were going to answer, it had to be clear.
Clear enough for anyone to get the message.