Chapter 81 - Why Does This Feel So Thrilling
Kid Dropper was sprawled on the bed, snoring. The room reeked of alcohol from the amount he'd drunk.
The problem was, he wasn't alone.
A woman was lying next to him on the bed.
Cory hadn't expected this at all. His eyes flickered in confusion, and when our eyes met, he bit his lip and lowered his head.
We needed to adjust the plan. I quietly backed out of the room.
***
Room 205, Cory's room.
"What happened?"
"I-I swear Dropper came in alone. I followed him all the way from the bar right up to here. I think the woman must have stayed in the room—she's the one Dropper brought over from the bar two days ago."
Cory had kept an eye on Dropper and completely overlooked the woman.
The other members with us had also focused solely on Dropper.
It's understandable, if I think about it. But I felt a weight in my chest.
Have we gotten careless, drunk on our recent success.
Or have we started thinking this job is too easy?
Even if you succeed ten times, a single mistake can ruin everything.
That's the biggest risk when you're a criminal.
"What should we do, Boss?"
Cory held his forehead, looking troubled.
"Did you forget what we're doing here? If we slip up, we're all dead. We're changing the plan, Cory."
Things just got slower and more complicated, but the overall framework was the same.
I was in the middle of explaining the revised plan when suddenly, somewhere out in the hallway, we heard a door open.
We stopped talking and listened intently.
Then, out of nowhere, someone knocked on our door. It was a light tapping sound, as if with their fingers.
It was 3 a.m.
Someone had left another room and come to knock on our door.
This wasn't something normal.
Go check, Cory.
I gave the signal with my eyes, and Cory, pulling his scarf up to just below his eyes, crept over to the door like a cat.
This was a time before door scopes were common.
Cory lifted the cover attached to the small peephole in the center of the door and looked outside.
Then he turned his head, mouthing something at me with a startled expression.
His lips formed the words, "The woman from next door."
What the fuck...
I swallowed the curse that almost slipped out and slid under the bed.
I stuck just my hand out, signaling Cory to let the woman in.
I drew my gun, preparing for anything, and stared out from under the bed.
My view was limited—I could only see Cory's feet.
The door opened as quietly as possible.
I saw a pair of long, slender legs in the hallway. Bare feet.
The two pairs of feet hesitated, then moved toward the small table.
Soon, the woman spoke in a whisper.
"You're here to kill Kaplan, aren't you?"
Kid Dropper's real name is Nathan Kaplan.
No wonder—this didn't feel like a woman I'd just bumped into at the bar.
"Who are you?"
"Beatrice Castante. But everyone calls me Alma."
"I wasn't asking your name—I want to know why you came here."
"I thought you might just leave because of me."
"..."
"I'll get out of your way. Kill him."
Cory seemed just as rattled as I was.
An awkward silence filled the room.
Alma was the one to break it.
"Kaplan's a bastard who raped my friend's girlfriend. Even after Johnny shot him and left him at death's door, even after his own child ended up disabled, he didn't care at all."
"Wait... are you talking about Johnny Spanish?"
"That's right. I was the girlfriend"
I'd heard the story from Tanner once.
He said that Johnny tied his cheating girlfriend to a tree and shot her. She survived, but the baby she was carrying lost two fingers to the bullet.
But now I realized that it wasn't cheating—she was raped, and the father was Kaplan.
The hatred in Alma's voice grew as she continued.
"When he got out of prison, I went to see him, hoping maybe something would be different. He handed me two dollars. Said it was payment for entertaining him. He treated me like a prostitute."
Cory seemed completely absorbed in the story. He didn't reply.
"Well, maybe it's my fault for falling for an idiot like Johnny. But that's that. I just don't want to share the same sky with the bastards who ruined my life."
She said she wanted to kill them all.
"Johnny's dead, so now it's Kaplan's turn. What can I do to help?"
Alma's chilling, resolute voice echoed softly throughout the room.
As long as there were no women involved, there was no reason to change the plan.
The problem was whether we could trust her, but there was a way.
Cory couldn't answer Alma's question.
Since he couldn't make a decision, I had no choice but to step in, even if it made me look weak.
"Take her outside right now and hand her over to the boys. Keep her detained and assign someone to watch her until the job is done. The rest goes according to plan."
It was ridiculous, but there was no other way.
When Alma started to reach under the bed, Cory stopped her.
"You heard him, right?"
"Yeah. I could tell just by his voice. He seems like someone who'll get the job done without any loose ends."
"Cut the nonsense and get ready to go."
Alma set her shoes down on the floor. She'd been holding them in her hand all along. It seemed she never intended to go back to the room where Dropper was.
"I didn't hear or see anything. Oh, and I didn't lock the door. Hope that helps…"
Handing Cory the key, Alma hurried out of the room.
Only then did I crawl out from under the bed.
I stood in the room for a moment, staring at the big bag. Inside were the props for disguising Dropper as a German Spy.
I decided to leave it there for now and quietly slipped out of the room.
***
Room 203.
Taking care of a guy who's fast asleep is all too easy.
Slide.
As soon as I climbed onto Dropper's body, I clamped his mouth and nose shut.
But with a sudden jolt, Dropper's eyes flew open, and, reacting instinctively, he reached not for my hands but for the pillow.
Was it an animal instinct responding to danger?
He tried to reach for the gun hidden under his pillow.
I quickly pinned his arm with my knee and grabbed his gun with my left hand.
It had to look like an accidental death—no blood, and no marks from strangulation.
Pressing down on his arms with both knees, I clamped his mouth and nose shut with my hands.
The bed shook violently as he thrashed, desperately trying to break free.
At last, Dropper's body went limp and stopped moving.
I began dressing him in the clothes hanging on the rack.
Just as I was putting his pants on, Cory, who had handed the woman off to another team member, opened the door and walked in.
"Is it done?"
"Go get the stuff."
After checking that Dropper was dead, Cory returned to his room and dragged in the big bag.
Once we'd finished dressing Dropper, Cory and I scattered the homemade bombs, the unfinished dynamite, and its components across the floor.
The clippings from the newspaper were tucked inside a copy of Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, which we slid under the bed.
On the wall, we pinned up an enlarged map of New York Harbor, with an X marking a specific point.
When the work was finished, I surveyed the room.
You could almost feel the mad zeal of a German Spy preparing for an act of terror.
I was satisfied.
Alright, let's get started.
I opened the window in the room.
"Grab his legs."
Cory and I lifted the corpse and tossed it out the window.
We'd laid out thick fabric below, so it didn't make enough noise to wake the neighbors.
Cory locked the door to the room where Dropper had been and went back to the room he'd been staying in.
I headed for the back of the building, at the end of the hallway where I'd already scouted out the metal fire escape.
We moved the body from where it had fallen to a deeper part of the alley. I approached the shadowy figure lingering near Dropper's corpse.
It was Marcus, waiting in the cold.
"Clench your teeth."
I punched Marcus in the face and gut.
He stifled a groan, wiping his lips with his hand; just enough blood smeared across.
Any gun would do, but in my hand was Dropper's pistol. I handed it to Marcus.
"Shoot at the spot I told you about."
"Y-Yeah."
I was just leaving the alley, leaving only the body and Marcus behind, when—
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Four gunshots shattered the dawn on Bowery Street. My team and I watched as people began gathering, then we joined the crowd ourselves, blending in like onlookers.
***
NYPD Manhattan Headquarters.
Marcus, arrested at the scene, now sat across from a detective, being questioned.
Among the gangsters and sluggers, the name Kid Dropper was well known, but the police called the suspect by his real name: Nathan Kaplan.
"So you're saying Kaplan suddenly lunged at you to grab hold of you?"
"Yes, with a gun in his hand."
Marcus explained that, fearing for his life, he rushed at Kaplan to stop him from firing.
His split lip and bruised abdomen served as evidence of the struggle.
In the end, after the scuffle, two bullets struck Kaplan.
The first two shots went into the wall and the air; the third hit Kaplan's leg; the fourth traveled diagonally, from his neck up toward his head.
"Kaplan's a pretty big guy—how did you manage to overpower him?"
"If he hadn't been drunk, I would've been dead."
"All right, let's go with that for now. But what were you doing wandering the alley at that hour?"
Marcus licked his cracked lips before continuing.
"I started to suspect he was a German spy a few days ago."
"Oh, come on. What are you talking about?"
The detective frowned and tossed the file he was holding onto the table.
"I know Kaplan well. Before he did time in prison, he was a gangster charged with theft, assault, and murder."
'I even know he's working as a labor slugger now.'
'But a German spy?'
"Marcus Reinlich. You're part of the family of Johann Reinlich, the German immigrant who arrived on the Eiderho in 1883, right?"
"...Yes. He's my grandfather."
"And yet you're telling me you were tracking a German spy? What are you, Sherlock Holmes...?"
Click.
The interrogation room door opened and several men entered.
Among them, Michael, dressed in a police uniform, spoke to the detective.
"We checked Kaplan's motel room. Turns out, the bastard really is a German spy."
"What?"
"Looks like he was preparing a bombing. There's more than enough evidence."
The detective's gaze shifted to the men standing next to the police officer.
"We're from the Bureau of Investigation. Regarding this incident…"
"Is Edgar Hoover here too?"
Suddenly, Marcus, who was being interrogated, stood up and asked for Hoover. At that, a man who'd been standing in the back quietly stepped forward.
"I'm here."
"Ciaran told me to find you. Hoover, you were suspicious too, right? That Kaplan might be a German spy. That's why you had Duquesne keep an eye on him as well."
— Find Hoover and bring him in. He's the one who could change your future.
Marcus had followed Ciaran's instructions faithfully.
And he could see Hoover's expression twitch ever so slightly.
'What is going on here?'
Hoover clenched his teeth to hide his confusion.
All he'd said to Ciaran was something along the lines of, "I'll see if there are any agitators among the strike protesters or if there's any evidence."
Then, yesterday, Hoover received a telegram from Ciaran.
— A friend has found an important clue regarding the organizers of the strike. We're tailing them now to secure solid evidence.
That was all Hoover knew about the situation.
But things were taking a strange turn.
"Hoover, did you know about this?"
"Were you suspicious of the connection between Duquesne and Kaplan?"
The senior investigators, all with years of experience, were now peppering questions at the 22-year-old rookie investigator who had only just graduated from law school this year.
'Why does this feel so electrifying?'
He managed to suppress a grin at the corners of his mouth.
Hoover calmly gave a slight nod.
That was all he could do for now.
Because he didn't really know anything.
With everyone's attention on him, Hoover stared intently at Marcus, as if trying to read his mind.