Chapter 189

“Who do you think did it?”

Everyone was sitting in the office, chatting idly. By now, many people knew who this batch of goods came from.

But what was surprising was that the hot-tempered Bing Polly hadn’t done anything extreme. It was hard to imagine, but it was also possible that he was waiting for an opportunity. No one knew!

Lance laced his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair with poor posture. “I’ve always believed that if we don’t know who did something, we should look at who ultimately benefits from it.”

“Most people act with very clear direction and purpose, especially in matters that are obviously meant to cause trouble for others. It’s always there, and very direct.”

“Although this method might fail sometimes, as some people would rather suffer themselves than let others have it easy, it’s effective most of the time.”

“Don’t forget, we just sent out a batch of liquor ourselves.”

Lance’s single sentence made the few people in the room suddenly realize. “You mean, the Pasoretto family did it?”

Lance shrugged, lowering his hands and placing them on the armrests. “It’s highly likely. Polly’s batch of liquor affected their sales in the mid-to-high-end market. Alberto even asked me about it before.”

“He wanted to know from me who else was dumping large quantities of mid-to-high-end liquor. At the time, I didn’t know they had become competitors.”

“This competition has nothing to do with us. If you go to our bars and tell them a glass of liquor costs a dollar, the people will clear out immediately!”

“The low-end liquor market in Golden Port is wide open, but the mid-to-high-end market is only so big.”

In fact, the middle class’s current spending power on mid-range liquor wasn’t very strong either. For a bottle of liquor that costs seven or eight dollars, two bottles a month at most was their limit.

The ones who could truly afford it were the rich people in the Bay Area.

However, many of those rich people had a habit of storing liquor; not every time they needed a drink did they have to find a way to get it on the spot.

This determined that the market was not very large.

Someone with an exclusive business could definitely make a huge profit and also gain a lot of connections.

Providing a stable supply of private liquor for the wealthy class and high society, allowing the gentlemen to still enjoy the pleasures of alcohol during Prohibition—this kind of relationship, which was not scandalous but involved privacy, could better maintain the friendship between the two parties.

This was unlike the relationship between a pimp and a client, which people would see as a moral issue. Whereas drinking was just having a drink. Who hasn’t had a drink?

But if there were two companies competing, and one of them was selling scammed, cost-free liquor and didn’t mind selling it at a lower price, then the liquor in Mr. Pasoretto’s hands would be difficult to sell.

This wasn’t just a competition of liquor, but also a competition of connections, and it even touched upon human nature.

You sell it to me for so much, but someone else can sell it so cheaply. Is it because I’m stupid?

To prevent things from spiraling out of control, retaliation was to be expected.

What was unexpected was that the ones who made the move were not gunmen from Summuri, but the newly established Bureau of Prohibited Goods.

However, this might also be a form of probing. Many people, including them, wanted to know the Bureau of Prohibited Goods’ attitude towards this private liquor, and everyone got what they wanted—

They weren’t kidding around!

Over two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liquor flowed into the sea. “Golden Port Today” used the headline “Today’s Sea Breeze Tastes of Grapes” to describe this grand act of destroying smuggled liquor, as if it were a great victory for Prohibition!

Doing this did indeed deter some people, but only some.

“How are our bars doing now?” Lance asked.

A smile appeared on Elvin’s face. “Sales have increased quite a bit, and there are more new customers. But there’s also a problem. Should we also raise the prices a bit?”

“Their liquor prices have gone up by several cents again in the last two days. Beer is almost twenty cents a glass, without whiskey.”

“No need for now. The situation ahead will become more and more severe. There will be plenty of opportunities to make big money.”

At night, a drunkard in a fisherman’s hat, wrapped in clothes that were not very thick, shivered as he walked down the road. He originally had a cotton coat, but he had traded it for money, and the money he got was only enough for him to drink two glasses of beer.

But even so, he was willing. After all, being short one piece of clothing wouldn’t make him freeze to death, but drinking two fewer glasses would make him want to die.

He came to a bar on the edge of the Empire District and the Port District and pounded hard on the wooden door.

When the thick wooden door vibrated, it also made a metallic sound. There might be a steel plate inside.

The light came on, and the observation port on the door slid open with a clatter. A pair of eyes reflected the limited light in the dark night.

“Fuck, open the door, I’m freezing to death!” he said, standing there shivering with his arms crossed over his chest.

The person behind the observation port looked around, slid it shut with a clatter, and then the door quickly opened.

The drunkard cursed as he entered the door. A wave of heat accompanied by the smell of alcohol washed over him, and for a moment, he felt much more comfortable!

Even just smelling the alcohol made him feel very comfortable.

There weren’t many people in the bar, only seven or eight, a stark contrast to the previous liveliness.

He came to the bar counter and said to the dazed bartender, “How much is a glass of beer now?”

The bartender came back to his senses. “Twenty. If you want to add whiskey, it’s forty.”

“What?”

“It was thirty a few days ago!”

The bartender said with an indifferent expression, “You said it yourself, that was a few days ago.”

Perhaps the smell of alcohol here was too strong, so much so that the drunkard’s throat began to move up and down involuntarily. He now had a strong craving for a drink.

His voice lowered a bit. “Can you make it cheaper?”

“Thirty-five cents?”

The bartender shook his head. “Sorry, that’s not for me to decide.”

Liquor prices across the city were rising. Even if these drunkards didn’t drink now, they would still have to drink sooner or later.

The drunkard felt the few coins in his pocket. What the hell!

He hesitated for a moment and decided to leave this place and go to the bar next door. It was a bit far, but he heard the prices were cheaper.

He was about to leave when the bartender, bored, casually asked, “Not having a drink?”

“I can pour you a little extra on my own authority.”

He was very clear on how to choose between “a little extra” and “an extra glass.”

He shook his head and stood up. “It’s too expensive here. I heard the Lance family’s bars haven’t raised their prices and are even cheaper than yours. They only charge twenty.”

This wasn’t the first customer to say this to the bartender, and the bartender’s expression became less polite. “Then please get the fuck out of here, and don’t come back again. You’re not welcome here!”

Originally, the drunkard hadn’t decided to leave. He was just hoping to use this method to force the bartender to compromise. Even if it was just five cents cheaper, he might have stayed.

But the bartender’s sudden change of face made him feel as if he had been humiliated. He immediately started shouting loudly, “A bomb is only twenty over there, but you’re charging forty here, and I’m not even allowed to say it?”

The remaining few drunkards all looked over. Some of them looked surprised, while others’ eyes were wide!

The bartender shouted angrily, “Someone, throw this bastard out! I don’t want to see him again!”

Two strong guys came over and sandwiched the drunkard between them. The drunkard was scared, but it was too late now.

He was dragged out, beaten up, and then robbed of all the money on him—a total of only sixty-five cents—and then kicked out.

Although he was taken away, the bartender knew that his words had sown some different ideas in the minds of the other customers.

After closing time, he told his boss what happened today. And his boss, during the day, went to the Red Dog Gang’s headquarters, a strip club.

Bill sat behind his desk, smoking. The bar’s business had been terrible lately, which made him very dissatisfied.

If the business had naturally gotten worse, if people had become poorer, he wouldn’t have thought much of it. But the reason the bar business had gotten worse was that the liquor prices at Lance’s bars were too low, which annoyed him greatly.

You don’t want to make money yourself, and you’re dragging me down with you!

“…That’s about it. The money I made over there last night was less than twenty dollars.”

A cadre’s words quickly resonated with the others. The bars in the Empire District had been almost completely defeated, and profits had plummeted.

The looks these people gave him also carried a faint expectation—You have to talk to Lance.

Compared to other gangs involved in violent crime, the Red Dog Gang valued making money more.

Bill hesitated for a moment and nodded. “I’ll talk to Lance…”

After they left, Bill got Lance’s phone number through his connections at the police station and dialed it.

During the day, Lance would be at the firm. The issue of illegal immigrants had been fermenting these past few days. George had also started writing a series of related reports, reporting on the lives of illegal immigrants in the Federation, their work, and so on.

These reports, which had great news value, would bring him more attention and might even make him the New Journalist of the Year.

Many people came to thank Lance for everything he had done for them, and of course, they also thanked William along the way. In their eyes, William was Lance’s subordinate, although there was nothing wrong with seeing it that way.

Lance was chatting with some people from the Empire. More than a dozen veterans had come from there. They didn’t want to die a meaningless death on the battlefield, so they fled.

After a long journey, they finally arrived in the Federation.

They had contacted Elvin before they came and knew that Lance would recruit them, so as soon as they arrived, they hurried over.

As they were talking about the situation back in their home country, the phone suddenly rang. The man in the lead, who was once an officer, stood up proactively. “Mr. Lance, we’ll go and get familiar with the environment first…”

Lance nodded slightly. “Of course. If you need anything, just tell anyone here. As long as it’s reasonable, I will satisfy you.”

They quickly left the office.

Lance picked up the phone. “This is the Wanli Firm, I’m Lance…”

(End of this chapter)