#28. Joseph "Cross"

Lore

The Dealmaker

"In the 1951 case of New York v. Joseph Cross, charges against the gangster were dropped when eyewitnesses claimed the murder weapon was the man's own shadow."

– Trials and Tribulations: Strangest Court Cases of the Twentieth Century


"Sure pal. Flip the coin. Heads you win."

– Cross to a demon who is getting a bad feeling about this deal

As the story goes...

In Italy with the Allied army, PFC Joseph Cross found an ancient double-headed coin. That night, he dreamt of a demon and struck a deal. The demon would fight for him, and "after his last fight," the demon would get payment.

After the war, the New York underworld was rocked as a terrifying new force moved in. Cross's outfit took over and soon ran numbers, protection, and extortion in all five boroughs. At night, enemies would get a personal visit from Cross and what those who survived called "living shadows." For years, Cross owned the town.

As he grew obsessed with wealth and power, Cross turned deeper to the occult. He waded through the blood of New York's wizard population to accumulate magical artifacts and monstrous henchmen. But after Cross obtained the Shrouded Gauntlets of Belzar, things began to turn for the worse. Strangers appeared in town looking for him – hard looking figures with archaic cloaks and ancient weapons. Battling these cloaked vigilantes with his fists and guns was far harder than scaring the New York hoodlums. But Cross, with his demonic henchman, held his own.

Valhalla is the ultimate loophole in his deal with the demons, and the frightening but charismatic mobster holds his place in the Grand Tournament for love of battle and fear of the alternative. But now Cross and the demon have a new wager, and like-minded legends are placing bets of their own.

Connections

• Caspian stole Cross's coin and quickly gave it back
• Considered a "metaphysical rulebreaker," a "rogue soul" and a "cosmological cold-case" by Nix

Context

Cross is the gangster, with a bit of spooky demon stuff mixed in to make things interesting. Cross was a private first class (PFC, an entry-level military rank) in the American army during the Italian campaign of World War II. The campaign took place from 1943 to 1945.

Joseph Cross was likely drafted into the war, which would put his age as a soldier somewhere between 18 and the high 30s, maybe even age 40. Let's go with the average age of an American soldier at the time, which was about 26. If we say Joseph was 26 in 1943, he would have been born at around 1917, making him about 34 years of age during the 1951 case of New York v. Joseph Cross.

Although the Italian-American Mafia isn't specifically mentioned in Cross's lore, it is a clear source of inspiration. Whether Cross had Italian ancestry or not, he clearly became the high crime boss of all of New York City ("soon ran [crime] in all five boroughs"). A lot of what makes up the pop culture idea of a "gangster" comes from organized crime that flourished during the Prohibition Era (1920s–1930s, when alcohol/"moonshine" became illegal). Any organization Cross may have been in charge of, it likely had rules and customs similar to those upheld by the Mafia.

The whole "deal with the devil" thing is a well-known trope. There's no obvious connection between this and gangsters that I can see, although it does remind me a little of Lovecraftian cultists (someone in the early to mid 20th century showing interest in objects and powers that humans normally couldn't or shouldn't mess with).

Blasters and gauntlets are ideal weapons for a gangster in the mid 20th century. Blasters are obvious, since guns were/are the most efficient weapons. Knife/katars could work here, but we already have Lucien for that. Gauntlets make sense not just from a lore perspective (Cross's gauntlets are the actual Shrouded Gauntlets of Belzar), but also from the fact that boxing was very much a thing in the 40s and 50s.