William pulled an old contract from the briefcase he carried.
"Jim Beam White bourbon whiskey, forty dollars per gallon; Wild Turkey 101 bourbon whiskey, forty-five dollars per gallon; Jose Cuervo Gold tequila, fifty-six dollars..."
He read through all the main varieties they smuggled, buying time to review his plan.
Rupert's patience was wearing thin.
"Sal, looks like you found someone who can do nothing but read tables to insult me!"
"Calm down and hear me out. For the liquors I just listed, I need you to lower your prices by twenty to thirty percent..."
William's words infuriated Rupert. As Rupert drew a dagger and pressed it straight against his throat, both sides pulled their guns in unison.
The threat of gunfire spread through the night breeze at the abandoned port.
"That's why I need you to calm down. Otherwise, these negotiations can't continue."
William sighed.
"I don't want to discuss any of this with you! You don't know a damn thing, you arrogant, nasty little brat. You've been testing my patience from the start, and you're demanding lower prices the moment you open your mouth. This isn't negotiation. It's provocation."
"But what if all these terms are contingent on the Maroni Family doubling its orders?"
Rupert froze.
Gotham was a paradise for lawbreakers, and that naturally included the illicit liquor trade. Shipments bound for cities in other states suffered annual losses of twenty to fifty percent, mostly from seizures by federal police.
But Gotham had no such problem, which was why Rupert was willing to offer Maroni lower prices.
If the Maroni Family really could buy twice as much, he wouldn't mind diverting some shipments from other cities.
The problem was that a city's total demand stayed constant. The Maroni Family's sales territory covered roughly twenty-nine percent of Gotham, while