The Operation Begins

At Wilkie's office, they now subscribed to practically every notable newspaper and tabloid in New York. Early in the morning, when Nell and Wilkie arrived at work, they didn't do anything else—they were entirely preoccupied with reading the papers.

Nell lounged on the sofa with a steaming pot of coffee and hot milk on the coffee table, casually flipping through all kinds of tabloids, feeling rather at ease.

He recounted a strange sight from this morning. Normally, milk is delivered by milk trucks—everyone knows that. These days in America, there are vehicles that can barely qualify as cold-chain transport, capable of delivering milk at low temperatures from factories to urban households. Quite impressive.

But with the Great Depression worsening and costs in New York soaring, driving one of these refrigerated vehicles just for a morning milk route used up more gas than the value of the milk being delivered. So those trucks had pretty much stopped running.

Now, in this supposedly fully modernized New York, a new kind of delivery method had emerged:

Dog-drawn milk carts!

What a sight. Nell had woken up extra early today and saw a milk-delivery lady at the bottom of his apartment building using two big dogs to pull a small cart. The cart was loaded with boxes of bottled milk, which she delivered door-to-door according to each apartment's milk subscription number.

It gave off a nostalgic, 1950s vibe...

The two big dogs were quite well-behaved, not even wearing muzzles. They just calmly rested by the apartment entrance with their milk cart. Nell was curious enough to consider asking how much it cost per unit of weight to deliver milk this way—was it cheaper than cold-chain delivery?

Hahaha...

Maybe the cost per kilometer was one bottle of milk and one steamed potato? If that were the case, it would surely be cheaper than gasoline. The Great Depression really was a strange era—who would've thought this kind of thing could make a comeback?

After delivering milk to Nell's building, the dog-pulled cart, led by the delivery lady without even needing a leash, headed off to the next apartment.

Riding his motorcycle, Nell passed the milk-delivery dogs. This juxtaposition of retro and modern on the streets of New York felt surreal—almost indescribable.

"Looks like the market is inevitably going to get worse..." After seeing the dog-drawn milk cart, Nell had completely lost faith in the Republican government.

"By the way, I heard Roosevelt plans to repeal Prohibition," Wilkie said, putting down his newspaper and taking a sip of coffee.

"Not surprising. Back in the day, the federal government alone collected over $200 million annually from alcohol taxes." Nell had long expected Roosevelt would go down this path.

Naturally, just as there were people who supported Prohibition, there were also strong voices demanding its repeal. Take, for example, those Midwestern farm owners—their corn was mainly used for livestock feed and distilling alcohol, so they absolutely hated the ban.

Roosevelt, being a Democrat, we've mentioned before—no matter what happens, the Southern states would support the Democratic Party. So his real battleground was the industrial states in the East and the agricultural states in the Midwest.

In the East, he promised to expand infrastructure, boosting demand for steel, cement, machinery, and vehicles—thus pleasing the factory owners and capitalists. In the Midwest, he called for the repeal of Prohibition, giving the corn grown by farmers and agricultural monopolies a larger market.

His policies were quite targeted, clearly aiming to win over the upper and middle classes who held social influence—gaining their support in terms of both votes and money.

Compared to Roosevelt's focused campaign platform, Hoover's slogans felt weak and ineffective. He still clung to liberalism and market self-regulation. That was a dead end—supporters were abandoning Hoover in droves, flocking to Roosevelt, who at least looked like he could get things done.

"My wife says people in her circle are denouncing Roosevelt," Wilkie said cheerfully.

His wife was closely involved with women and children's protection groups. She had brought them tens of thousands of dollars in supplies and donations—they naturally welcomed her participation, even if it was mostly for show.

A bunch of women gathered together, chatting mostly about jewelry, fine food, or other interests. But Roosevelt's high-profile declaration that he would repeal Prohibition upon taking office really angered them. After all, Prohibition had been passed largely thanks to the efforts of feminist and child-protection groups a decade earlier.

Now Roosevelt was essentially overturning a law they had fought so hard to pass. He had positioned himself as the enemy of the "new woman." Of course they'd sip afternoon tea while badmouthing Roosevelt.

"Hahahaha, that's normal. There's no one in the world loved by everyone. The only thing loved by all is the U.S. dollar." Nell laughed and set down the newspaper.

Public opinion about Wilkie's discount wholesale fresh supermarket was glowing. That lucky family who won a free order and received a year's supply of toilet paper even made the front page. The family, posing happily with a mountain of toilet rolls, looked ecstatic.

In short, Wilkie's supermarket was a major success. As long as it continued to operate well, it would gain more and more favor with New Yorkers—improving Wilkie's own reputation and strengthening his image as a man of the people.

"Hmm... what about Mr. Fiorello?" The supermarket was running smoothly, but they hadn't heard anything from Fiorello's side yet.

"Tomorrow!" Wilkie squinted his eyes.

Meanwhile, Fiorello, who had been keeping tabs on the New York Police Commissioner, discovered that he would be spending the night at his mistress's home—and a significant amount of his bribe and embezzled money was hidden there.

Fiorello was serious about this. If he was going to make a move, it had to be clean and decisive. He needed to build a rock-solid case, catching the man red-handed—with both the person and the evidence present—so they could proceed with prosecution.

And how do you catch someone red-handed? You call in the IRS special agents, whose eyes gleamed green at the scent of hidden money, and those cops who made a living off legal civil forfeiture.

Since the bribe money was hidden in the mistress's home, it obviously hadn't been taxed. And any untaxed income is subject to back taxes and fines. Participating in this operation meant they could make money—so the IRS agents were fired up and ready to go, planning to stay up all night.

This strategy not only avoided using New York's local police, which could risk leaking the news, but also brought more forces onto Fiorello's side, forming a united front against the Democratic Tammany Hall.

Fiorello was an old hand at this—clever and experienced.