Chapter 122: Ashes & Storm

In his small office overlooking the docks, Circular Jack dipped his steel-nibbed pen into an inkwell and kept writing. Stacked manifests and shipping manifests covered half his wooden desk, the steady scrape of his pen the only sound against the distant noise of harbor cranes outside.

​The door opened quietly. One of his workers stepped inside, slipped through the gap, and clicked the latch shut behind him.

​Jack didn’t look up from his ledger. "I’m busy, Miller."

​"Boss, it’s started," Miller said in a hushed voice, leaning his back against the door frame. "Barney and Kid Yorke are at each other’s throats down on Gansevoort. Shots fired across the avenue."

​Jack paused, his pen hovering a fraction of an inch above the paper before he resumed signing his name. "That’s their business."

​"Shouldn’t we send a squad down there to step between ’em?" Miller asked, stepping closer to the desk. "If they start tearing up the boundaries, the whole district goes up."

​"We’re vastly outnumbered down there, Miller," Jack replied calmly, blowing lightly on the wet ink. "Besides, the coppers are on the precinct payroll for a reason. Let them handle the crowd control. My responsibility to this gang is making sure the books stay balanced and the money keeps moving. We supply them with weapons and ammunition—it isn’t my fault if those two idiots decide to point the iron at each other."

​Miller shifted his weight, rubbing his jaw. "And what happens when Frank gets back? What’s he going to say when he hears we sat on our hands?"

​Jack finally set his pen down in the groove of his desk and leaned back, crossing his arms. "If you knew Frank Knox half as well as you pretend to, you’d know he doesn’t give a damn about street squabbles, as long as his brother is breathing. So long as nothing happens to Barney, there’s nothing for us to worry about."

​Miller swallowed hard. "That’s the thing, sir. I’ve been hearing some disturbing talk from the runners."

​Jack narrowed his eyes slightly. "What kind of talk?"

​"Kid Yorke’s top saloons were torched to the ground last night," Miller said, lowering his voice even further. "And Barney’s third-tier stash house was emptied out on the exact same night. Everything inside gone."

​Jack tilted his head, tapping his index finger against his elbow. "Hmmm... That’s a busy night for both of them."

​"I also heard Barney caught a round in the calf when Kid’s boys ambushed Gansevoort..." Miller paused, looking at the floorboards before meeting Jack’s gaze.

​Jack’s relaxed posture stiffened. "And?"

​"He succumbed to his death, boss," Miller said flatly.

​Jack snapped upright, his chair legs scraping violently against the floorboards as he stood up. "What?! Are you serious?!"

​"I wish I wasn’t, sir," Miller said quickly. "He was found dead in his private room above the Indy Saloon. Some of the boys outside said he bled out, but the police wrapped the place up and took the body for an autopsy."

​"Jesus Christ..." Jack ran a hand over his face, his calm composure vanishing into raw stress. A heavy vein throbbed on the side of his temple as he stared at his desk, imagining the storm brewing on the horizon. "If Frank comes back from Tammany Hall and finds out his brother died over a damn business dispute, he’s going to lose all reason. He’ll burn Greenwich and Chelsea to the ground himself."

​Jack grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and shoved his arms through the sleeves. "Get the wagon ready. We’re going to Chelsea right now to find Kid Yorke before he goes into hiding. I need to get the truth straight from him before Frank steps off the train."

​Miller nodded, reaching for the brass door handle. "Should I rally the rest of the crew, boss? Bring ten or twelve guys just in case Kid’s boys get jumpy?"

​"No," Jack snapped, waving his hand. "Bringing a war party will just make ’em shoot first. Just bring the wagon and two men to drive."

​"Right away, sir." Miller opened the door and hurried down the hall.

​Inside a dim, quiet warehouse on Sullivan Street, tucked neatly between Bleecker and Houston, the air smelled faintly of damp wood and raw cotton. In the center of the concrete floor sat a mountain of wooden crates, stacked five feet high and holding nearly a ton of pure white powder.

​Reggie stood near the crates, lighting a cigarette and tossing the spent match onto the floorboards. Across from him, Peter rested his hands on his hips, while Henry leaned against a structural pillar, cleaning under his fingernails with the tip of his pocketknife.

​"I take it Barney’s officially cold?" Reggie asked, letting out a trail of blue smoke.

​"Yeah," Peter said quietly. "I had my gun out to do it myself, but in the end, he saved me the lead. He drank the poison my sister kept locked in her closet three years ago."

​Henry chuckled softly without looking up from his knife. "Ironic, ain’t it? The big boss of Greenwich, killed by a whore’s old potion."

​Peter scoffed, shaking his head. "Yeah. Funny world."

​"So what’s the play now?" Henry asked, closing his pocketknife with a sharp snap and sliding it into his vest. "Do we just play dumb and act natural when Frank shows up asking questions?"

​"Hell no," Reggie replied, tapping his cigarette against his thumb. "Playing dumb gets you a bullet in the back of the head with a guy like Frank Knox. We move this entire stash today. Scatter the crates throughout NoHo. We already have half the shop owners on the avenue on our payroll—we’ll store three or four crates per cellar where nobody thinks to look, and keep two of our own guys posted at every location."

​"And us?" Peter asked. "Where do we go?"

​"We take asylum in the Bowery," Reggie said firmly. "The Bowery Boys are more than happy to offer us safe houses and muscle in exchange for heavy discounts on this powder. Frank will eventually figure out we orchestrated the whole domino effect, and by the time he does, we won’t be anywhere near his jurisdiction."

​Henry looked around the empty warehouse, letting out a dry laugh. "I still can’t believe how easy it was. The Duster bosses are so divided these days that even Circular Jack didn’t bother coming down to Gansevoort to check on the noise."

​"The golden age of the Dusters is already turning to dust, Henry," Reggie said, his voice turning cold. "The moment Frank started spending all his afternoons down at Tammany Hall shaking hands with politicians, everything went to hell. The street level went unmanaged, Barney went rogue, and Yorke went paranoid."

​A heavy silence fell over the three men, broken only by the distant clatter of wagon wheels out on Sullivan Street.

​Reggie took one final drag of his cigarette and dropped the butt, stomping it flat under his boot. "Anyway... once Frank finishes tearing himself apart trying to figure out who hit his brother, we’ll finish the job. We’ll put Frank in the dirt right beside Barney and take over Greenwich for good. We’ll run the Dusters the way they should’ve been run from the start."

​Twenty-four hours later, the air inside the municipal morgue was freezing and smelled strongly of carbolic acid and formaldehyde.

​Frank Knox stood motionless beside a metal slab, staring down at his brother’s pale, rigid face. Beside him stood Police Captain Thompson, resting his hands behind his back, and a clean-shaven man in his early thirties wearing a tailor-made black wool suit.

​The man in the suit reached out and patted Frank gently on the shoulder. "I’m truly sorry for your loss, Frank. I’ll let Charles know you’ll need a couple of days away from the hall to handle the arrangements."

​Frank didn’t turn his head. His eyes remained fixed on Barney’s sunken cheeks. "Make that a week," he said, his voice flat and devoid of any emotion. "I have some internal issues back home that require my personal attention."

​The suited man hesitated, then gave a brief nod. "A week, then. Take care of yourself, Knox." He turned on his heel and his leather shoes clicked against the tile floor as he walked out the heavy double doors.

​Once the door clicked shut, Frank spoke without looking at the officer beside him. "How did he die, Captain Thompson?"

​Captain Thompson cleared his throat softly. "He sustained a minor gunshot wound to his left calf during the riot on Gansevoort. But that didn’t kill him, Frank. The coroner found heavy traces of a synthetic poison in his stomach lining. His heart failed."

​"So there was a rebellion among my men," Frank said quietly, his voice dangerously smooth. "And they used the chaos to murder him."

​"I can’t say for certain, Frank," Thompson said cautiously, shifting his weight. "We swept up several of Kid Yorke’s lieutenants this morning. Based on their statements, Yorke only moved on Gansevoort because his top saloons were burned down overnight. They claim it was a business dispute over liquor margins and cocaine distribution. When we questioned some of your men, they said Barney went out looking for blood because his stash house was cleaned out that same night."

​Frank stood completely still as the pieces connected in his mind. The coldness in his eyes deepened, though his expression remained unreadable.

​"Oh..." Frank murmured softly. "So not only did they rebel... they stole my cocaine."

​Captain Thompson’s relaxed posture vanished, replaced by a flick of anxiety. He looked around the empty room before stepping closer to Frank. "Should my officers be worried about our weekly arrangement, Frank? If your territory is falling apart—"

​Frank turned his head slowly, his jaw setting as he forced a terrifying, hollow smile onto his face. "Of course not, Captain. The payments will continue as scheduled. In fact, I might need to borrow a few squads of your men over the next few days."

​Thompson raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

​"For a deep cleanup," Frank said, his smile vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. "There are still a few bugs crawling around in my house. Whoever planted that poison might be the primary cause, but every man involved in that street war played a hand in my brother’s death."

​Thompson rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Am I going to get dragged into a political mess for this, Frank? If the department starts throwing heavy muscle around your territory without a warrant—"

​"No, Captain," Frank interrupted smoothly. "You won’t be in any trouble. I’ll compensate you with a generous bonus as soon as this cleanup is finished. But right now, I have to hold a proper burial ceremony for my brother. He was the only family I had left."

​Thompson stayed quiet for a moment, then sighed, adjusting his cap. "Alright, Frank. Do what you have to do. But remember... if this blows back on the precinct and I go down, you’re coming down right alongside me."

​Thompson turned and walked away, the heavy doors swinging shut behind him.

​Frank stared at the closed door for a second, a dry, cold murmur escaping his lips. "No, Captain... I think you’ll be promoted."

​Once he was completely alone in the echoing room, Frank turned back to the metal slab. He looked down at Barney’s lifeless face. The cold, unreadable mask on Frank’s face slowly began to crack, replaced by a vein-bulging, dark fury.

​Without warning, Frank pulled his right fist back and struck Barney’s cold chest with a heavy, dull thud.

​He pulled his arm back and struck him again. And again. Slowly, rhythmically, pounding his dead brother’s chest while his face stayed horrifyingly calm, tears welling in the corners of his eyes without ever falling.

​"If you hadn’t been such an idiot..." Frank muttered under his breath between heavy, thudding blows. "If you didn’t have such a damn inferiority complex... if you had just listened to me for once in your miserable life, you wouldn’t be lying on a slab."

​He stopped his fist, resting his bruised knuckles against the cold skin of Barney’s sternum, his breathing heavy and ragged.

​"You would’ve been a captain by now if you hadn’t deserted the military," Frank whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "I would’ve been the one taking orders from you."

​Frank stood up straight, smoothing down the lapels of his wool coat with trembling hands.

​"Don’t worry, little brother," Frank murmured, reaching out to straighten Barney’s collar. "I’ll avenge you. But you should’ve seen the demon standing right beside you, tempting you with liquor and luxury. I warned you to watch your back. I gave you every piece of advice you needed to survive... and you did everything except listen."