Reborn in 1878: America's Number One Bandit

Chapter 99 The Plan to Divide Up Chinatown

“AAAAAGGGHHHHH! FUCK!”

Patrick Callahan stared intently at his right arm.

Where his wrist and fat hand should have been, there was only a bloody, mangled stubble.

Dark red, scalding hot arterial blood gushed out with a "sizzling" sound, instantly staining the front of his blue uniform red and splattering the faces of the two rookie officers behind him.

"My hand...my...my hand!"

Callahan's scream came a beat too late; his brain seemed to have just finished processing the visual shock.

"catch him!"

"Grab that son of a bitch! Take my hand and get my money back!"

He roared at the two interns who were still in a daze.

"Move, you two spineless cowards, FUCKING MOVE!"

O'Malley and Finn then suddenly realized what was happening.

"Chase! Chase quickly!"

"He ran into the alley!"

The two men drew their guns and stumbled into the narrow, slippery alley.

But they only chased them in less than twenty feet.

A stench, a mixture of rotting fish entrails, urine, and cheap gin, hit me.

The alley was winding and full of garbage and manure buckets; there was no sign of the homeless man anywhere.

"Damn it... he... he's gone!" Finn leaned against the wall, almost throwing up last night's dinner.

O'Malley's face turned pale: "We need to go back, Captain...!"

The two ran back into the street, where Callahan had collapsed to the ground.

Several patrol officers, alerted by the screams, surrounded him, trying to stop the bleeding by strangling his severed arm with a tie.

“That damned Irish bastard…” he roared through gritted teeth, “I want him dead, I want his whole family dead!”

The vendors who had already set up their stalls all retreated back into their shops and doorways the moment the tragedy occurred.

The doors were tightly shut, and the windows were locked.

Two hours later.

San Francisco, Portsmouth Square, Police Headquarters.

The director's office was filled with smoke.

Chief Marcus Harrison, a square-jawed Anglo-Saxon.

He was placing his spotless leather shoes on his desk.

He stared at the American flag fluttering in the square outside the window.

“My police captain, Patrick Callahan.”

"In broad daylight, on your own turf, your right hand was chopped off by an Irish vagrant."

He turned his head and stared at the man on the sofa, Quinn O'Doyle.

He was the head of the Irish Hills gang: "King of Kearny Street".

He controlled all the Irish laborers at the docks, as well as more than half of the city's bootlegging business.

The tragedy occurred right on his land.

He has to give Harrison an explanation.

At this moment, Iron Fist Quinn, who could terrify his underlings in public, was like a student who had done something wrong.

His freckled face was filled with humility.

“Chief Harrison, this is a tragedy, a damn, shameful accident! I swear…”

Harrison interrupted him: "An accident crippled my captain. An accident that made all of San Francisco know that my cop was crippled by an Irish potato!"

"This is no fucking accident, Quinn!"

Harrison slammed his fist on the table: "This is a disgrace! A slap in the face to me, to the entire police department!"

"Your men, those Irish bastards who've drunk themselves into oblivion and lost all sense of propriety have gone out of control!"

Quinn broke out in a cold sweat instantly.

He knew what Harrison meant.

This has nothing to do with Callahan's life or death; it's about the "rules."

"Director, please calm down... please calm down..."

Quinn quickly stood up, took a thick brown paper envelope from his pocket, and placed it on the desk.

Inside the envelope were at least five hundred American dollars.

"Chief, I swear to God, I have no idea where this mad dog came from."

"This is not only a disgrace to you, but also a disgrace to our Irish community! We are law-abiding business people, we respect the law, and we respect you!"

He patted his chest and said, "Give me three days. Just three days."

“I’ll turn the Irish hills upside down and drag out every rat from every sewer, but I’ll find this bastard who killed Captain Callahan for you!”

"I will personally tie him to stones and sink him into the bay!"

Chief Harrison put his feet back on the table and slowly lit a cigar.

“I don’t want him to sink into the sea, Quinn.”

Harrison exhaled a puff of smoke.

“I want to make it public. I want everyone to see this is the price.”

"I understand...I understand!"

Quinn nodded repeatedly: "Hang him! We'll find him, hand him over to you, and put him on the gallows!"

"That's your business."

Harrison waved his hand impatiently: "If this person hasn't shown up in my cell in three days..."

He paused, then smiled coldly, "Then I'll have to personally lead my men to your Kearny Street and search every house. I think I should be able to find quite a few things you don't want me to see."

"Chief, it won't take three days! I guarantee it!"

Quinn bowed and left the office.

The moment the office door closed, the humble smile on his face vanished instantly.

Instead, it was replaced by a ferocious aura that seemed ready to devour people.

“O’Malley’s Tavern”, the Irish Hills.

The basement of the tavern.

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

Quinn O'Doyle kicked over an oak table, scattering beer and cards all over the floor.

"Son of a bitch!"

His fleshy face turned purplish-red, and the veins on his neck bulged like earthworms.

"Which fucking idiot is it?"

His most capable subordinates—

"Crippled" Sean, "Iron Hammer" Murphy—

They all huddled in the corners.

"How many times have I fucking told you this?"

Quinn grabbed a bottle and smashed it against the wall, splashing brown liquor everywhere.

"You can rob! You can steal! You can kill! You can even fuck those Italians' mothers! I don't fucking care!"

He was panting heavily, pointing his finger at everyone: "But you fucking! Aren't! Allowed! To! Touch! The! Cops!"

"They are the rules!"

Finn roared, “They’re part of our business! You pay them and they shut their eyes! That’s how we can be kings on the docks! What bastard doesn’t understand something this simple?”

"Boss..."

Sean the Crippled spoke with a forced smile: “We’ve all asked. None of the brothers on the street know that homeless man. He… he just appeared out of nowhere.”

Quinn slapped Sean across the face, sending him spinning halfway around.

"Do you fucking think I'm an idiot?"

"Find him!" Quinn pointed outside the door. "Dig three feet into the ground! Find that damned vagrant! I don't care whose brother or cousin he is! I want him alive within three days! I want to hand him over to Harrison myself!"

“Otherwise,” he sneered, “we’ll just have to wait to be drowned by Harrison!”

His men scrambled out of the room.

Quinn plopped down in a chair, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and was about to gulp it down when the tavern curtain was lifted again.

“Quinn, my dear friend…” came a slick voice.

Quinn's brow furrowed even more deeply.

Luigi Sforza walked in, dressed in an overly sophisticated silk suit for San Francisco, with his hair slicked back and a thin Italian cigar dangling from his lips.

He was the king of the Latin Quarter in North Beach and Barbary. He controlled more than 70% of the brothels in San Francisco, especially the expensive ones that claimed to be imported directly from France.

"What are you doing here, Sforza?"

Quinn hated the rancid smell on this "pasta".

"Don't be so irritable, Finn."

Luigi spread his hands dramatically, followed by two bodyguards as tall as iron towers: "I heard about your little trouble. A police captain? Oh dear, that's unfortunate."

"Get the hell out of here!"

Quinn yelled, "Are you here to mock me? Tell me, you skunk, what do you smell?"

"Hehe..." Luigi wasn't angry. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

Almost simultaneously, several more people entered through the door.

"Quinn, the wine here is still as awful as horse piss."

The speaker was a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a respectable coat, named Solly Ross.

Solly doesn't associate with gangs; he only does big business.

He was the city's largest wholesaler of weapons and pharmaceuticals (morphine).

From thugs to railway security guards, everyone had to buy their "tools" from him.

Accompanying him was the Dutchman Van Kerk.

He was a remnant of the Sydney Ducks, the underground mayor of the Barbary Coast, specializing in "Shanghai trips" and opium dens (for white people only).

The others were of similar strength to them.

They are among the largest underground forces outside of San Francisco's Chinatown.

"Damn it," Quinn cursed, putting down the bottle.

"Looks like today's a big day. Did you guys plan this?"

“We smell blood, Quinn,” the Dutchman Van Coe laughed.

“And there’s the smell of money too.” Solly Ross pushed up his glasses and added calmly.

"Stop fucking cryptic!" Quinn said impatiently.

"Okay, my friends."

Luigi Sforza stood up: "Something happened to our neighbor."

He gestured smugly toward Chinatown.

"Chinatown has changed."

"Old and fat Master Long is gone. Loan shark Jing Hai is dead. Even the most cunning He Wei has fled!"

Luigi licked his lips excitedly: "Overnight, those three old bones stuck in the cesspool are all gone!"

The room fell silent.

Quinn's breathing also became heavy.

He certainly knew about this news, but his anger just now made him temporarily forget about it.

Chinatown has always been a tough nut to crack for them.

They certainly looked down on those Qing dynasty men who wore queues.

But they were also wary.

The three major sects are not to be trifled with.

Those yellow-skinned monkeys fight like madmen.

They used kitchen knives and axes to hold onto their territory in San Francisco.

Finn's men once got drunk and went to Chinatown to have some fun, only to be found dead in a ditch at the dock the next day, their bodies stabbed at least thirty times.

From then on, they developed a tacit understanding.

If you don't bother me, I won't bother you.

But now...

“That piece of land has been vacated.”

The Dutchman Van Kerk greedily said, "Opium dens, prostitutes, gambling dens..."

"And there are still more than 40,000 fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered!"

Luigi added, "The protection money they pay from each shop every month is a fucking mountain of gold!"

Solly Ross calmly stated, “It’s not just that. Chinatown is a closed, perfect market. They need weapons for self-defense, they need morphine for anesthetics. Previously, these businesses were monopolized by Boss Long and Jing Hai. Now, we can take over.”

“Wait a minute,” Quinn interrupted them. “I heard a new branch called the Green Hills Society has taken their place. It’s not empty.”

"Don't be intimidated by them. Chinese people love to play tricks. Even if they take down three major gangs, they'll surely suffer losses themselves. It'll probably be a lose-lose situation, haha! This is America. It will take them a month to replenish their manpower."

"Ha!" The Dutchman Van Coe spat dismissively. "It's best to strike before they've established themselves properly! What's a half-dead gang? How many of them can still fight? Dozens? A hundred?"

“How many men do we have in total?” Van Coe stood up, pointing to himself with his thumb: “My men could fill a bar on the Barbary coast! Quinn, your men could shut down the docks! Luigi, your Italians are as numerous as flies!”

"A newly arrived Chinese gang, still fucking counting their money, do you think they can stop several of us from joining forces?"

Luigi Sforza laughed too: "The Dutch are right. They're like a rat that just died of overeating, lying on a pile of gold coins, unable to move. What we have to do now is go in, stomp on its belly, and take the gold coins back."

Quinn O'Doyle's breathing quickened.

This is an opportunity that has fallen from the sky!

If we could acquire a portion of Chinatown...

He could earn back ten times the amount of money he lost to Chief Harrison this month!

"so……"

A greedy glint rekindled in Quinn's eyes: "You mean..."

“We’ll join forces,” Solly Ross declared definitively. “We’ll liberate Chinatown.”

Luigi stood up, walked to the table, dipped his finger in the spilled whiskey, and drew a rough square on the dirty surface to represent Chinatown.

"Now, gentlemen..."

He made a sharp cut on the frame with his finger.

"We should discuss how to divide this piece of fat meat."

San Francisco, North Beach, Police Precinct.

Trainee officers O'Malley and Finn stood in front of the sergeant's desk.

Their uniforms were fairly clean, but their rookie panic was impossible to hide.

"What's the matter again?"

Inspector Donovan, a grizzled old man, was buried in a pile of yellowed reports without even looking up.

"Mr. Inspector..."

O'Malley's Adam's apple bobbed: "It's about Chinatown."

Donovan stopped writing, looked up impatiently, and glared at them with his gray eyes: "That idiot Callahan, didn't he just have his hand chopped off? You two brats are under my jurisdiction now. Spit it out!"

"Yes, sir."

Finn picked up the conversation, slightly more composed than O'Malley: "Captain Callahan is injured. And the Chinatown patrol..."

Donovan leaned back, the chair groaning under its weight.

"You two little brats who haven't been weaned yet. You fucking prick up your ears!"

"Your job isn't to be police officers, you're fence posts! Understand?"

“I don’t understand, sir,” Finn shook his head honestly.

"Fuck!" Donovan cursed. "You guys are standing on the corner of Dublin Street and Dublin Street. Just fucking standing there!"

"You see those Chinese people hacking at each other, splitting each other's heads in half with axes, you fucking stay right there!"

"You see them huddled in the basement, smoking that black, shit-like stuff, foaming at the mouth like dead dogs, you fucking ignore them!"

"You hear the woman screaming inside, being fucked by a hundred men, you fucking cover your ears!"

Donovan's voice lowered and became fierce: "Your only job is to keep a close watch! Make sure these yellow-skinned bastards don't cross that street! If they dare to take a bloodstained knife out of Chinatown, you can use your batons to knock their dog brains back into the pigsty!"

"Our job is isolation! To lock this plague in that cesspool! Let them kill each other in there, let them rot and die!"

"As for the rules inside? Who's in charge? Who collects the money? I don't give a single fuck!"

"Do you understand now?"

"Yes, sir!" The two rookies trembled at the shout and stood at attention, saluting.

"GET OUT!"

(End of this chapter)