Chapter 159: Rebellion

By the following afternoon, the early edition of the Evening World was pinned to the wooden display board outside the tavern at the corner of Bleecker and Morton Streets. The bold headline read: "PORCELAIN SLAYERS: POLICE HUNT MASKED SERIAL KILLERS IN VILLAGE."

​Inside, the pub was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with local tradesmen, dockworkers, and shopkeepers. The heavy air smelled of stale lager, pipe tobacco, and damp wool coats.

​A thick-set drayman slammed his glass down on the mahogany counter, pointing a calloused finger at the front page. "Serial killers! You see what the precinct bulls are calling ’em? Serial killers!"

​Old Sean, the tavern keeper, leaned over the bar, wiping a mug with a flour-sack towel. "It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is. Little Clara Schmidt stood right there in the Ninth Precinct station house, telling the captain straight to his face that two Hudson Dusters dragged her into the alley by her hair. And what did the captain do? Wrote down ’unidentified assailants’ and asked her if she was sure she hadn’t been drinking!"

​"Aye, but he sure found his pencil when those two Dusters turned up dead on Bank Street!" a cobbler called out from a corner booth. "One sliced clean across the neck, the other with a knife hole through his forehead—and both of ’em with their manhood cut off and stuffed right in their teeth!"

​The tavern quieted down for a second, several men exchanging grim, knowing nods.

​"They got what they deserved," the cobbler added stoutly. "Every woman in the ward can walk to the bakery without fearing those animals tonight."

​"The coppers don’t care about Clara, and they don’t care about us," a young butcher’s assistant chimed in, leaning against a timber pillar. "Frank Knox has every precinct captain from here to Fourteenth Street on his payroll. When the Dusters shake us down for protection money, the coppers look the other way. But the second somebody puts a blade into a Duster’s throat, the whole department comes running with whistles!"

​"It’s a fix, plain and simple," Old Sean grunted, slamming his rag on the wood. "We’ve had three months of lootings, rapes, and beatings since winter, and the bulls never raised a hand. Now these fellas in the white masks show up, clear the streets, and save the jeweler’s shop next door, and suddenly they’re the villains?"

​Before anyone could answer, the double front doors swung open with a loud bang.

​The chatter in the room cut off instantly. Two men in greasy woolen coats and flat caps stepped over the threshold. The taller one had a brass knuckle duster glinting on his right hand, while the shorter one held a heavy lead pipe resting against his shoulder. They were Hudson Dusters collectors.

​The tall thug sneered, scanning the silent room. "Look at all these sour faces. What’s the matter, boys? Somebody die?"

​He walked up to the bar counter, tapping his brass knuckles against the wood. "Alright, Sean. Hand over the weekly ten dollars. And tell the rest of these greenhorns on Bleecker Street to have their envelopes ready by five o’clock."

​Old Sean stood unmoving behind the counter, his broad chest rising and falling slowly. "Not another copper cent."

​The tall thug raised an eyebrow, letting out a dry, cruel laugh. "What’d you say to me, old man?"

​"I said not another copper cent!" Old Sean shouted, his voice echoing off the tin ceiling. "We pay you ten dollars a week so our windows don’t get smashed, and then your boys smash ’em anyway! What’s the bloody point of paying protection to the ones doing the robbing?!"

​"You getting brave because of some fairytale about men in white masks?" the short thug barked, stepping forward and shaking his lead pipe. "We run Greenwich, you old fool! Pay up, or we burn this taproom to the ground tonight!"

​"Get outta my pub!" Old Sean roared.

​Before the tall thug could reach for his pocket, a heavy glass lager mug smashed across the side of his jaw. He stumbled sideways, blood spraying from his mouth.

​"Get ’em out!" the cobbler yelled.

​The entire tavern erupted into a frenzy. Four dockworkers surged forward, tackling the short thug to the floorboards and kicking the lead pipe out of his hand. Old Sean reached across the bar, grabbed the tall thug by his collar, and dragged him headfirst over the counter, slamming his face into the hardwood floor.

​The patrons grabbed the two collectors by their arms and coats, hauling them toward the front doors.

​"Throw the bastards out!"

​The double doors flew open, and both Dusters were hurled violently down the stoop, crashing into the muddy gutter of Bleecker Street. Empty beer bottles and wooden stools rained down after them, shattering against the cobblestones around their heads.

​The tall thug scrambled to his knees, clutching his broken jaw and spitting blood into the dirt. "You’re dead!" he screamed, his voice cracking with rage as he backed away down the block. "Every single one of you in that pub is dead by nightfall!"

​Old Sean stood on the stoop, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, surrounded by thirty cheering neighborhood men. "Tell Frank Knox to come collect it himself!" he yelled after them.

​A few blocks away, inside a darkened back room of a Perry Street saloon, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. Heavy curtains blocked out the afternoon light, and the air reeked of cheap rye whiskey and stale sweat.

​Marshal "Red" Redding—Frank Knox’s chief enforcer—sat behind a round oak table. On a porcelain plate in front of him sat a bright red, ripe tomato. Red held a polished pocket knife in his right hand, methodically slicing thin wedges off the tomato and lifting them to his mouth with the blade tip.

​On the floor three feet away, three Duster collectors were kneeling on the rough boards. One had his arm bound in a blood-stained cloth sling; another had a white bandage wrapped tightly around his forearm; the third was uninjured, trembling violently with his hands clasped behind his head.

​Red chewed slowly, his cold, pale eyes fixed on the three men. On the table beside his plate lay a nickel-plated .38 snub-nosed revolver.

​"Let me get this straight," Red said softly, his tone flat and unhurried. "You’re telling me you had a shopkeeper cornered, and then two guys playing dress-up in white masks walked in and whipped all three of you?"

​"Red, I swear to God!" the man with the sling gasped, his voice shaking. "They weren’t normal! They moved like bloody lightning! He snapped Mickey’s arm like a dry twig before we could even pull the trigger!"

​Red paused, a piece of tomato resting on the tip of his knife halfway to his mouth. "Mickey had a gun."

​"The gun dry-fired, Red! It—"

​BANG!

​The heavy gunshot roared in the small room, filling the space with black powder smoke. The thug with the sling jerked backward, a dark hole blossoming in the center of his chest as he fell flat on his back, gasping his last breath.

​Red didn’t even blink. He lowered the smoking snub-nose revolver, pointing it directly at the second man with the bandaged arm.

​"Red, please!" the second man shrieked, throwing his hands up. "We didn’t know—"

​BANG!

​The second bullet struck him square between the eyes. He collapsed sideways over his partner’s legs.

​The third thug—uninjured but terrified out of his mind—scrambled up from his knees and bolted toward the batwing doors.

​A broad-shouldered lieutenant standing by the doorway casually stuck out his heavy boot. The fleeing thug tripped over it, slamming face-first onto the floorboards with a heavy crash. The other gang members standing around the room chuckled softly.

​Red walked over slowly, his polished leather boots clicking against the wood. He stood over the groaning man, aimed the revolver straight down at the back of his head, and squeezed the trigger.

​BANG!

​Silence returned to the room, save for the faint ringing in everyone’s ears.

​Red turned back toward his leather chair, setting the revolver on the table and wiping tomato juice off his knife blade with a linen napkin. "Get these three carcasses out to the alley. They’re spoiling my appetite."

​Four young gang members rushed forward, grabbing the bodies by their boots and hauling them out through the rear door, leaving dark crimson trails across the floorboards.

​Red sat back down, picking up another slice of tomato. He looked up at his primary lieutenant, Clarence. "So who are these faceless clowns? Are they so ugly they can’t show their mugs in broad daylight?"

​"Nobody knows, Red," Clarence said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "Some folks are saying they’re ex-cops. Others say they’re a crew from the Bowery trying to push us out of Greenwich."

​"Ex-cops don’t slice off a man’s cock and stuff it in his mouth," Red said flatly, popping the tomato into his mouth. "That’s personal. That’s somebody trying to make a statement."

​"What about the precinct?" another lieutenant asked, adjusting his wool cap. "Can’t we get Captain Teague to put more bulls on the street and round ’em up?"

​Red let out a harsh, rasping laugh. "Teague takes our cash to look the other way when we do business, but he’s too yellow to hunt phantoms in dark alleys. If the precinct coppers catch these guys, great. But we ain’t waiting on the NYPD to protect our territory."

​"What’s the play then?" Clarence asked.

​Red leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "These white-masked bastards only show up when our boys are working. They want to play heroes for the neighborhood? Fine. We give ’em plenty to react to. I want every man we got out on the streets tonight. Mug every gent with a watch chain, pull every shopkeeper out into the gutter, and take whatever you want. We turn Greenwich into a war zone until those masked bastards step into the light. And when they do, we surround ’em and riddle ’em with lead."

​Clarence gritted his teeth, a dark grin spreading across his face. "That’ll draw ’em out for sure."

​"One more thing, Red," the second lieutenant mentioned. "Word just came down from Bleecker Street. Old Sean and the shopkeepers at the corner tavern just beat up two of our collectors and threw ’em in the dirt. Said they ain’t paying the ten dollars protection no more."

​Red’s eyes narrowed into tiny, dangerous slits. "Is that so?"

​"They think those white masks are gonna protect ’em now," the lieutenant added.

​Red stood up from his chair, sliding his revolver back into his shoulder holster and picking up his coat. "Then we need to set a proper example. Clarence, take Mickey ’Gimpy’ O’Shea and twenty of our best boys. Go down to Bleecker and Greenwich."

​"What do you want done with the tavern?" Clarence asked.

​"Trash every shop on that block," Red said, his voice dropping into a chilling whisper. "Break Old Sean’s legs, crack the skulls of anybody who stands in your way, and burn that bloody pub down to the foundation. Make sure every merchant in Greenwich Village sees the ashes tomorrow morning, so they remember who actually owns these streets."

​Clarence nodded firmly. "Consider it done, Red."

​"Move out," Red ordered, turning back to his table. "Let’s show these neighborhood fools what happens when they place their faith in ghosts."