Reborn in 1878: America's Number One Bandit

Chapter 103 The gangster eats the gangster

The basement of Ross Precision.

In the corner, there was a huge lathe and a steam press.

There are no windows here; the only ventilation shaft blows in a wind mixed with the city's smog.

"Ten rifles, Ross. We're taking them tonight."

Declan Morrissey is the leader of the Finnian Brotherhood.

His face, pockmarked and weathered by Belfast rain and whiskey, was covered with a haphazard, ginger-yellow beard.

"Ten? Ten?"

Solly growled in a shocked low voice, "Morichi, are you fucking insane, or do you think I'm some kind of fool you can manipulate at will? Jesus Christ!"

“That’s a Gatling gun! You know what I mean? Not some Irish blackthorn stick from your backyard. It’s the federal government’s prized possession, the big thing Uncle Sam used to fuck Indians’ asses. They strictly forbid selling these things to private individuals, let alone to a bunch of nomadic travelers like you!”

Solly held up three greasy fingers: "Three. No more than that. This is the limit of what I can get, I managed to scrape it out from the lost inventory. And you have to buy it at three times the price."

A tall Irishman behind Declan suddenly spat a thick wad of phlegm forward.

"Bullshit, you jerk!"

The tall man cursed in a thick Corkshire accent, “Don’t try to pull your damn, birthright tricks on us. Three guns? Three guns aren’t enough to tickle anyone, are they? The Queen’s corgis?”

Declan quickly stopped his men from drawing their guns.

“Soli, we all fucking know you guys.”

"You bunch of loan shark bastards will auction off your wives' underwear in public, as long as it's trimmed with gold, if the price is right. And you're talking to a fugitive like me about fucking federal law?"

He stopped talking nonsense, pulled out a heavy leather bag, and slammed it on the table.

The crisp sound of gold coins clinking echoed in the stuffy basement.

"The official price is 1,500 silver dollars. We'll offer 3,000. Ten guns, 30,000 dollars. Cash, you can count it, not a penny less."

Soli's pupils instantly contracted to two pinpoints.

Thirty thousand yuan!
But his businessman's instinctive greed detected an even stronger scent of urgency in the other party's exorbitant offer.

This alone shows that they desperately need this shipment.

Solly started rubbing his hands together, a subconscious gesture he made whenever he schemed against someone.

He forced a fake smile onto his face.

"Declan, my friend, my dear friend."

"You're insulting me, and you're insulting the value of this shipment. This isn't buying a pound of rotten potatoes on the street corner! This is risking my life!"

He gestured exaggeratedly with his neck: "If they find out, those sons of bitches in Pinkerton will skin me alive and hang me on a lamppost on Mission Street! Thirty thousand dollars? That's only enough to buy two of my fingers!"

He held up five fingers and gently waved them in front of Declan's eyes.

"Five thousand."

"What?" Declan's red eyes narrowed.

"One, five thousand US dollars."

"Ten machines, fifty thousand dollars. Not a penny less, and you'd better get out of my territory right now. Go find your toys somewhere else, and see who in San Francisco dares to take your job besides me, Solly Ross!"

"Fuck your ancestors for eighteen generations, Ross! Why the hell don't you go rob a bank?"

The tall Irishman was completely enraged. He suddenly drew his gun and pressed the muzzle hard against Solly's forehead.

The air in the basement seemed to freeze instantly.

Solly's bodyguard, Bruno, immediately raised the short-barreled shotgun hidden under his trench coat, the huge double-barreled muzzle pointed at the tall man's chest.

With just a single movement, he could blast a hole the size of a washbasin into the opponent's chest.

"boom!"

A loud slap.

Declan slapped the tall man hard across the face with a backhand.

"Put your thing away, you brainless idiot!"

Declan roared, "We're here to do business, not to cause trouble! Do you fucking want to call the police?"

"Well, well, what a greedy vampire."

Declan stared intently at Solly for a full ten seconds.

"Fifty thousand it is."

He gritted his teeth: “But you must deliver the goods now. In addition, we also need two hundred Winchester repeating rifles, five hundred Colt Peacemakers, and one hundred thousand .44 caliber bullets.”

“Of course! Of course!” Solly Ross grinned from ear to ear. “Money talks. Bruno, take them to the B-side warehouse. Money, I want gold. I don’t trust those green bills with dead men’s heads on them; they’re too hard to even wipe your ass with.”

"Of course you don't believe me."

Declan put away his gun and spat on the ground: "Only gold is worthy of your noble bloodline."

Half an hour later, the people from Declan carefully weighed the last gold bar using the portable balance they had brought.

The gold weighs over 80 kilograms in total, mostly in the form of eagle coins, with some old gold bars of dubious origin bearing Spanish coats of arms.

They shimmered with an insane glow under the kerosene lamp.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Morrissey.” Soli stroked a gold bar greedily.

"Fuck you, Ross," Declan replied coldly, leading his men toward the warehouse in Block B.

……

Two o'clock at night, the streets of San Francisco.

Two heavy four-wheeled carriages emerged from the back alley of Ross Fine Works, their heavy wheels rolling over the wet cobblestones.

The coachman pulled his hat down low, and the horses' hooves were even wrapped in thick cotton cloth, making their movement almost silent.

They traversed the hustle and bustle and filth of the Barbary coast.

The carriage headed east, straight for the long dock.

Tonight, a cargo ship named "Dublin Girl" will depart for Ireland.

On the dock, a few windproof gas lamps swayed in the thick fog, their light faint.

"Stop! Damn! What are you doing transporting so late? Can't you see it's getting foggy?"

A dock foreman, wrapped in a thick sailor's overcoat, walked over, grumbling and cursing.

Declan leaped down from the carriage and strode forward.

He subtly slipped a heavy roll of silver dollars into the other man's hand.

The steward weighed the item in his hand, and his initial hostility instantly transformed into obsequiousness.

"Oh, so it's Mr. Morrissey's personal belongings."

He didn't even glance at the carriage again; the roll of money had already disappeared into his coat pocket. "Hurry up! Damn it, don't delay Tide! We all know the rules, load it into Warehouse A, quick! You over there, come give me a hand!"

Several porters who had been waiting nearby immediately surrounded them.

They were all dressed in dirty, coarse work clothes, wearing hats that covered most of their faces, and were taciturn.

A dozen or so huge crates were carried onto the ramp leading to the warehouse.

Declan and his men followed closely behind, personally escorting the shipment.

They scanned their surroundings warily, but failed to notice that in the shadows as the last crate was carried onto the ship's railing, a man mingling with the porters lightly smeared a hidden corner at the bottom of the crate with his phosphorus-covered fingers.

It was a cross mark that was almost imperceptible.

Soon, the ship set sail. Below the captain's cabin on the Dublin Girl, in a relatively comfortable cabin, the celebrations had already begun.

"cheers!"

Declan raised his glass high and clinked it heavily with his six men.

"To Ireland! To the freedom that is about to come!"

"Brothers! Listen up, you fucking bastards! When we get back with this horde of stuff, those damned Englishmen will be in for a world of hurt! We'll rip their guts out of their fat bellies and use them as bagpipes!"

"Hahaha! Boss is right!"

The guy who had been slapped earlier was now chugging down a whole bottle of liquor, air escaping from his broken teeth: "I'm going to use the Gatling gun to smash that British commander who hanged my cousin in Limerick, along with his damn noble horse, into a pile of mangled meat paste!"

"That's right! Fuck them to death! Burn their manor to ashes!"

"For Ireland!"

These desperados were still basking in the euphoria of their impending success, fantasizing about returning to their homeland and unleashing a reign of terror.

They were completely unaware of the slightest movement outside.

In the cargo ship's hold, the only light source came from two kerosene lamps that were mostly covered by blackout cloth.

The sailor who had left his mark on the dock was leaning against a burlap sack that smelled of cloves and pepper, watching all of this with a cold gaze.

He was not a sailor, but a member of the gang entrusted by Lawson.

Seven porters, who were supposed to disembark before the ship left port, unexpectedly stayed behind and were gathered around the dozen or so crates marked with faint phosphorescent symbols.

The foreman made a hand gesture.

The two men immediately stepped forward and, using a crowbar wrapped in thick cloth, quietly pried open one of the largest boxes from under the nails.

Inside lay a Gatling gun with a bluish-black sheen, its six barrels neatly arranged.

The foreman waved again.

Four burly men lifted another identical crate out of the shadows deep within the warehouse.

However, the portion size of this bite was noticeably larger.

"Swap".

The Gatling gun was swiftly and steadily lifted out by two strong hands and placed into another empty box that had been prepared beforehand.

The substitute box, filled with stones and scrap iron that could be found everywhere in the ballast at the dock, was put back in its original place.

The lid was closed again, and several new nails were hammered in inch by inch with a small hammer also wrapped in cloth.

Even the slightest knocking sound was masked by the groaning of the keel as it twisted in the waves and the low-frequency vibrations of the engine.

Ten minutes later, the first box was switched.

Then came the second bite, the third bite...

Winchester, Colt, boxes of bullets—any box marked with a mark was replaced with pre-prepared counterfeits using the same method.

When Declan and his men finished their third bottle of whiskey in the cabin and started singing Irish tunes with their arms around each other, the switcheroo was nearing its end.

The sailor stood up and glanced at his pocket watch.

He walked to a hidden door leading from the cargo hold to the deck and, imitating the call of a seagull, gave a signal of two long and three short calls.

Soon, a small, flat-bottomed boat disguised as a night fishing barge silently approached from the side and rear of the cargo ship.

"Do it!"

The actual weapons crates were hoisted up and slowly lowered down the ship's side onto the small boat, where they were quickly covered with tarpaulins and fishing nets.

As the Dublin Girl sailed out of Golden Gate Bay and into the dark waves of the Pacific Ocean, the barge, laden with cargo, also turned around and disappeared into the thick fog of the San Francisco docks.

Declan Morrissey and his Finnian lunatics will travel halfway around the world with $50,000 worth of stones and scrap metal to liberate the Ireland they've been dreaming of.

……

The mastermind behind all of this, Lawson, witnessed the entire perfect double-cross from the perspective of a member of the gang.

From the moment Declan stepped into Ross Precision's basement, it was under Lawson's complete surveillance.

Ross Precision, along with its underground arms factory, skilled workers, and network of connections, will sooner or later fall into Lawson's hands.

Double-crossing someone on your own turf is the most foolish thing to do.

The best hunting grounds are always on flowing water.

The San Francisco docks, having been infiltrated by both the Green Mountain Society and Chong Tuo, had long become Lawson's gateway.

Here, sailors, porters, dispatchers, and even bribed stewards are all pawns on his chessboard.

He controls the lifeblood flowing through this city.

Switching a few boxes on a ship about to set sail is easier than stealing a wallet from a drunk sailor.

At this moment, in his luxuriously decorated office on the second floor of Ross Precision, Solly Ross was savoring the fruits of his victory.

He sat behind his mahogany desk, gazing greedily at the mountain of gold bars piled on the surface.

gold!

This is true wealth!

This is the only thing that will never betray him, the only thing in this damned world that can be trusted!
Solly picked up a heavy gold bar; its weight gave him a near-orgasmic sense of intoxication and security.

Those damned Irish idiots, only fit to be laborers on construction sites and docks, drunk and fighting amongst themselves, dare to dream of getting their hands on a weapon as powerful as the Gatling gun.
However, their foolishness and arrogance led to their wealth.

$50,000 worth of gold.

This would be enough for him to buy two more buildings in North Beach.

He only cares about San Francisco and Chinatown now.

Who would have thought that the yellow-skinned monkey named Qingshan would actually clean up the three major gangs and even stupidly shut down all the opium dens!

A sinister sneer cracked across Solly Ross's face.

Isn't this a money-making opportunity that's just fallen into our laps?

The emergence of a highly profitable and tempting vacuum is simply impossible to ignore.

He planned that after a few days, Quinn O'Doyle and his group would join forces to crush the Green Mountain Society as well.

His coffee beans and guns should be laid out there.

Especially his new treasure, the latest purified morphine from the Ross Chemical Plant.

The opium dens in Chinatown are gone, aren't they? No problem.

Opium, that filthy, inefficient, and foul-smelling substance, should have been eliminated long ago; it belongs to the garbage of the last century.

Morphine, this is the true enjoyment of civilized people!

Solly could almost picture that beautiful scene.

Thousands of Chinese, pale and emaciated with vacant eyes, lined up to enter his clinic and pharmacy, exchanging every penny they had painstakingly earned in the laundry room and on the construction site for a shot of medicine that would send them to heaven.

No, they don't even need cash.

He can take their land deeds, their daughters' indentures, and even everything they own.

He will turn them into the most docile slaves and Chinatown into his own highly profitable plantation.

This is what you call a damn business!
Solly Ross was absolutely thrilled with his plan.

He took a satisfied sip of his drink and leaned back comfortably in his chair.

(End of this chapter)