As expected, the driver before them turned out to be a rather chatty fellow—so much so that he even hinted he could make a decent pimp—uh, that is, a necessary "matchmaker" for human connections.
The two got into the car and began chatting like old friends. The driver naturally asked where they were from. When he heard they were from Brooke County in neighboring West Virginia, he said he'd heard of the place. A classic immigrant-developed, coal-resource-based county.
A place that had continuously supplied industrial lifeblood to major cities like Pittsburgh, and in return received technological, cultural, and financial support necessary for development from those same big cities.
In this day and age, there wasn't much in the way of social rifts. Go back one or two generations—three at most—and everyone was an immigrant. Who's nobler than whom? The only ones truly "noble" are the big capitalists. Politicians? They're just their employees.
Just like Pittsburgh's very own Carnegie. When workers went on strike, he brought in five thousand state National Guardsmen and his own private enforcers to suppress them. They launched a full-scale battle near Pittsburgh, with guns, cannons, planes, and armored vehicles—anything and everything at their disposal. A "friendly" round of negotiation and counter-negotiation, with weapons doing all the talking. No one backed down.
When the conversation shifted to jobs, the driver got straight to the point. He asked if Nael and Frederick wanted to take a detour to see Pittsburgh's employment agency. Judging by their decent clothes and the fact that they could afford a cab, he guessed they were the sons of small-town shopkeepers or farm owners—high school graduates, perhaps—with a bit of money in their families.
People who didn't want to follow their fathers' footsteps in a little town, and instead came to the big city seeking fortune. As a city man himself, the driver felt a moral obligation to show these two what Pittsburgh really looked like beneath its surface.
Frederick didn't mind the detour, so he told the driver to go ahead.
With a practiced flick of the turn signal, the driver darted into the next street just as the traffic light was about to change. In a flash, they arrived at the employment agency—an industrial-style building clearly built during the post-WWI boom, uniform and massive.
The glass doors stood wide open. A steady stream of people came and went: suit-clad office workers, industrial workers in suspenders and vests, and even a couple of patrolling policemen.
At the entrance stood several bulletin boards, completely plastered with job postings. The corners of the papers curled from poor adhesive. The typewritten words were boringly uniform—mostly just "Wanted: So-and-so. Salary: This much."
At the driver's suggestion, the two stepped out to take a look. The driver, ever helpful, led them inside, explaining that thousands of people pass through here every day.
Nael asked, "How many people actually get hired in a day, and how many come looking?"
The driver clapped his hands and pointed to the flipping job boards. "Maybe two or three hundred get hired a day. But those looking? At least two thousand. Sometimes even more. It's not even a case of too many monks and not enough porridge. It's no porridge at all. People have gotten into fights over job postings. That's why there are cops standing out front."
Partly to stop pickpockets among the dense crowd, but more importantly to step in quickly if violence broke out.
Perhaps Pittsburgh's elite had already smelled something in the air. They knew that even the smallest unrest could spark a massive fire in this dried-out forest of a city.
"Then why hasn't anything exploded yet?" Frederick asked, curious.
He'd only ever come here for quick bootlegging deals, staying a few days at most. He had never cared—or bothered—to understand Pittsburgh's social dynamics. Now that he was observing closely, something felt off. This so-called golden age clearly wasn't as prosperous as it appeared.
"It's simple. They're still hiring people every day," Nael replied before the driver could.
Makes sense. If folks can't find work, they'll do whatever it takes to survive. But as long as jobs are still being offered, there's still a sliver of hope. Just like dangling a carrot in front of a mule. The mule can see it, can't quite reach it, and after pulling the cart for days, maybe—just maybe—it gets a nibble.
The general sentiment is that there are opportunities everywhere, jobs everywhere. The employment agency does keep posting jobs daily, after all. It creates a laughable illusion of a thriving economy.
People who don't land jobs initially might blame bad luck. But if they see others succeed, they'll start to think they're being too picky. They lower their expectations—and often, they do get hired.
They could've done better work. But by applying downward, they become overqualified labor, willing to work for less. What capitalist wouldn't be thrilled?
Frederick nodded, lost in thought. Then he resumed chatting with the driver in the car. He wanted to know Pittsburgh's factory operation rates—whether steel production was still running day and night.
That was the right question. In the days of Carnegie's steel trust, production was practically 24/7. Even in the dead of night, cabbies like the driver had to pick up white-collar managers leaving their night shifts.
But over the last couple of years, things had changed. The market simply didn't need that much steel anymore. Night shifts were scaled back, and there weren't as many execs needing rides at night.
Factory utilization was clearly down.
That was very useful intel. Frederick nodded and pulled out a small notebook from his pocket, jotting down everything the driver said—along with what he'd seen at the job center.
Nael helped fill in the blanks where needed. By now, he had a strong hunch: Frederick's trip to Pittsburgh wasn't just about bootlegging. He was likely investigating the signs of an impending economic crisis.
But since the man hadn't said anything outright, Nael didn't ask. He'd been hired, after all. His job was to be a good sidekick and play his part well.
They wrote all the way until they reached the hotel where they would be staying.