Chapter 161: Communications Department

The yellow flame of the single kerosene lamp on the table flickered as a cool draft seeped through the window frame of the Minetta Street apartment. Outside, the low rumble of a late-night milk wagon rattled over the cobblestones, its iron-rimmed wheels echoing faintly through the narrow alley below.

​Ricky sat back in a creaky wooden armchair, his arms resting casually on the armrests as he studied the young man sitting across from him. Standing silently in the dim corner near the hallway door was John, his hands folded loosely in front of his coat.

​Gary MacKellar adjusted his flat cap, his fingers fidgeting nervously with the cloth brim. He was in his mid-twenties, thin-built, with quick, observant eyes that darted between Ricky and the shadows near the door.

​"So," Ricky said softly, his voice breaking the quiet of the room. "Marcus tells me you’re taking over the watchers."

​Gary swallowed, clearing his throat. "Just for a bit, Boss. Me and Marcus... we go back a ways. He asked me to step in and keep an eye on the tenement boys for a few months while he and others go up north somewhere." 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

​Ricky leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. "I haven’t seen your face aroun before. How long have you been operating in the Village?"

​"Eight years, give or take," Gary said, shifting in his seat. "Back when Danny was still running things on the block five to six months ago, most of the neighborhood boys signed on with him to haul crates or run bootleg liquor. I didn’t care much for warehouse labor. I preferred working alone—gathering quiet information for clients who paid good cash to know who was meeting who behind closed doors."

​He paused, glancing at Ricky with a subtle trace of hesitation. Everyone on the block knew what had happened to Danny more than three months ago. Danny had taken his crew into an ambush trying to save his employer, only to be cut down by Frank Knox. Sitting in the same room with the young man who now commanded the entire operation made Gary’s pulse beat a little faster. There was an easy, calm authority about Ricky that made the small apartment feel narrower than it was.

​"Marcus says you know the streets better than most," Ricky noted, evaluating him with an even stare. "Tell me, Gary... do you know how to handle a gun? If Knox’s men push into Minetta, can you hold a perimeter and defend your watchers?"

​Gary let out a short, self-deprecating breath and shook his head. "To be straight with you, boss... no. I ain’t much of a boxer, and I’m no marksman either. But I know how to run, I know how to disappear into an alley, and I know how to keep a secret." He paused, leaning in a fraction. "Plus... I got the birds."

​Ricky tilted his head, a mild flicker of interest in his eyes. "The birds?"

​"Pigeons, Boss," Gary said, his demeanor relaxing slightly as he hit a topic he knew inside and out. "I keep two lofts up on the tenement roofs off Bleecker. Trained ’em myself."

​"Messenger pigeons?" Ricky asked calmly. "Did you set that network up on your own?"

​"I inherited the base of it from my old man," Gary explained, his fingers settling down as he spoke. "He ran a private courier service years back. He had his own flock and used to send scrambled letters for high-paying clients. That way, even if somebody managed to shoot a bird down and snatch the note, they couldn’t read a single line of it. It just looked like gibberish on paper."

​Ricky raised an eyebrow. "Is your father still running the service?"

​"No," Gary said quietly, his eyes dropping to the wooden grain of the table for a split second. "My old man never showed me how he scrambled those letters. He kept his cipher methods locked up tight. When he passed, the courier business went with him. I kept the lofts, though. I use the birds now and then whenever I need to send word across town faster than a boy can run."

​Ricky sat in thought for a moment, processing what Gary had just laid out. In an era where telegraph lines could be monitored and phone wires could be tapped by precinct detectives or rival syndicates, a secure, off-the-grid aerial relay was invaluable.

​"How far can your birds fly?" Ricky asked. "And how fast?"

​"Easily as far north as the Bronx," Gary answered without hesitation. "I’ve seen my father sent one of them to Westchester County and had ’em back in the loft before sundown on the very same day. No horse or motorcar in Manhattan can cut through city traffic faster than a homing pigeon."

​Ricky nodded slowly, a calm smile touching the corners of his lips. A fast, physical communication line spanning from the waterfront up to the northern outskirts of the city—without relying on public wires—was a massive strategic asset.

​"How would you feel about taking over as our primary communications coordinator?" Ricky asked smoothly. "You’d get a higher base salary, full privileges as a division leader, and a dedicated team of men under your command."

​Gary blinked, caught off guard by the directness of the offer. He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing over at John, who remained standing quietly by the door, before looking back at Ricky.

​"I... well, I don’t quite know what to say, Boss," Gary admitted, fidgeting again. "I’m fairly new to this group. I’m used to working in small circles. Will you give me a few days to think it over?"

​"Take your time," Ricky said easily, waving a hand. "Even if you decide against running a full division, your basic work wouldn’t change much—you’d still handle incoming and outgoing messages. But if you take the post, I’ll teach you cryptography."

​Gary frowned slightly, pronouncing the unfamiliar word carefully. "Crypto... graphy?"

​"It’s the formal science behind what your father was doing," Ricky explained, leaning his forearms on the table. "Scrambling messages. Except it goes much further than simple letter swaps. It uses mathematical patterns, substitution grids, and key phrases. With a proper cipher, even if Frank Knox or the coppers intercepted one of your notes, they could stare at it for a month and never read a single word without the decoding key."

​Gary’s eyes sharpened with genuine curiosity. The mention of his father’s hidden work struck a deep, quiet chord inside him. Years ago, after his father had been murdered in an alleyway, Gary had searched the old family flat and found a set of small, leather-bound notebooks tucked under the loose floorboards behind the bathroom tub. Every page had been filled with tight rows of numbers and scrambled letters that made no sense to him. He had kept those notebooks hidden in his coat ever since, refusing to let his father’s legacy die in complete obscurity.

​Seeing the sudden shift in Gary’s expression, Ricky reached casually into the inner lining of his heavy wool coat. Opening his system interface interface silently, he selected a basic text on entry-level ciphers and purchased a compact volume. Sliding his hand back out, he placed a slim, leather-bound book onto the table—An Introduction to Practical Cryptography.

​The thick leather cover thumped softly against the dark wood.

​Gary stared at the book in the amber lamplight. "What’s this?"

​"An introductory guide," Ricky said smoothly. "Consider it a preview. If you accept the position, the book is yours to keep. There’s a lot more to Cryptography that I will be able to provide for you than just one book."

​Gary hesitated for a brief second, then reached out and pulled the book toward himself. He opened the cover, his thumb flipping through the crisp pages. His eyes skimmed across diagrams of Caesar wheels, grid matrices, and frequency tables.

​A quiet silence fell over the room as Gary read through a paragraph detailing basic substitution methods. It matched the exact visual layout of the strange lines he had stared at in his father’s hidden journals for years.

​He closed the book slowly, holding it flat between his hands, and looked up at Ricky.

​"I can really learn how to read and write like this?" Gary asked, his voice steady now.

​"You can," Ricky replied. "And you’ll be teaching your top bird-handlers how to use it, too."

​Gary took a slow breath, his posture straightening as he set the book firmly on his side of the table. "Alright, Boss. I’m in. I’ll take your offer."

​Ricky smiled, extending his hand across the wooden table. "Glad to hear it. Welcome to the Founders, Gary. We’ll draw up your formal contract tomorrow, but as of tonight, the communications network is in your hands."

​Gary reached out and shook Ricky’s hand with a firm, solid grip. "You won’t regret it, Boss. I’ll have the lofts ready by morning."