Look back, ninety years back, and you can see a Long Island village to which the Red Cross is sending boxcars, filled to the brim with 24-lb bags of flour, so that people can better fend off starvation. Although you won't easily notice them, a few speakeasies and secret distilleries are tucked away here and there.
Foreword
Recently, a gang from the City picked the village as the right spot in which to rub out its leader, and leave his body in the open. Some prominent villagers have just started organizing Long Islanders, hoping to offer support to a baker's dozen of County police, who have been arrested for manslaughter.
This is the era of the Great Depression, and there are many places where life has turned cruel, where morality seems an unaffordable luxury, and where death waits nearby. Hicksville is among them.
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