Chapter 6: Little Italy

On the streets of Chicago in the evening, Josh stood in the wind and felt dishevelled.

It had only been a few hours since he had returned home and his newly purchased car had already been stolen.

It was an experience he had never had before.

In his previous life, living in the safest country, he had never encountered such a situation and had hardly even heard of it. (T/N: Lol the brainwashing)

But America was different; in New York City alone, from January to March 2022, the number of stolen cars exceeded two thousand...

If this was the case in 2022, imagine how rampant car theft must have been in the early 1940s.

It was no surprise, then, that Josh, unprepared after buying a car, fell victim to such a situation.

So what did he do when he discovered that his car had been stolen?

Call the police?

Josh shook his head as he looked at the patrolman in the distance.

Come on, the arrest rate for car theft in America, even sixty years later, is not high, let alone in this time!

Moreover, the corruption of the American police force was very high at that time. Without money or power, you couldn't expect them to do anything.

Finally, there was a very important problem: the car Josh had bought at lunchtime had not even been registered yet...

So, even though Josh felt frustrated, he could only accept his bad luck.

No car? Then he would just walk!

Josh had originally planned to drive around to see what "fun" places Chicago had to offer at night, but now he could only grab a quick bite nearby and go back to sleep.

Without a car, there was no way he was going to wander around in the American night of this era, even with a gun.

Before long, the time had moved to the next day.

After packing, he went out again, not on foot but by pre-ordering a taxi, and returned to the grocery store from yesterday.

On entering, he found that it was not Old Hawk standing behind the counter, but a young girl of about twenty.

"Good morning! What can I help you with?" the young girl asked warmly when she saw Josh.

"Is Old Hawk not here?" Josh replied with a question instead of stating his purpose.

After all, Old Hawk was the owner of the store; it was unlikely that this girl could make decisions about buying gold.

"Are you looking for my grandfather? Wait a minute, he's working in the back, I'll go get him." The girl didn't mind Josh's attitude and turned to go to the back of the shop. She was Old Hawk's granddaughter and often helped out; she had seen her share of mysterious customers like Josh and was unfazed.

Soon Old Hawk came out and was quite surprised to see Josh again.

"Good to see you again, young man! Back for more gold?"

"Yes, your prices are quite reasonable, so I decided to exchange some more. I just don't know if you can handle it," Josh nodded.

"Ha ha, young man, I know what you're worried about, but don't underestimate Old Hawk. This shop has been here for decades; it may look small, but it contains many valuable items. See that? Even though they're all second-hand, even the amount of gold you exchanged yesterday wouldn't be enough to trade for any of the watches in this cabinet," Old Hawk said, pointing with a smile to a nearby display case.

If Old Hawk hadn't mentioned it, Josh wouldn't have noticed. However, after taking a closer look at the case, he realised that Old Hawk was not exaggerating.

There were not many watches in the case, only seven or eight, but each one was in excellent condition.

Although he didn't know much about watches, having never been able to afford high-end watches in his previous life, he recognised the brands.

Patek Philippe, Rolex, Breguet... Although it was the 1940s, each of these famous watches would be worth at least a thousand dollars today - assuming they were genuine, of course.

Even if only half of them were authentic, their value would exceed the gold in Josh's possession.

He could only regret his lack of experience.

"120 ounces, the purity should be about right!" With Old Hawk so confident, Josh hesitated no longer. As he had done yesterday, he pulled out a small pouch and placed it on the counter.

Twelve gold bars weighing over 3.4 kilograms sounded like a lot.

But in terms of volume, it wasn't much at all; after all, the density of gold was what it was.

Each bar weighed 10 ounces, not much bigger than a Snickers bar.

So even though Josh had taken it out of the system, it didn't raise any suspicion.

"Nice stuff, I'll take it all at yesterday's price, how about that?" Old Hawk picked up a gold bar, weighed it and smiled.

"Sure!" The price offered was indeed quite fair, and Josh naturally had no objections.

In no time the 120 ounces of gold were exchanged for $4,800.

Receiving the money, Josh felt a surge of excitement.

After stuffing the thick stack of bills into his pocket - actually, directly into the system's inventory—Josh said goodbye to Old Hawk and walked out of the shop.

Turning two corners and making sure no one was watching or following him, he planned to hail a cab to take him to a car dealership to buy another car.

After all, Chicago, the third largest city in America, was quite expansive.

The public transport system in America was also very poor; it was quite inconvenient without a car.

As for car theft, Josh had already thought of a solution: he would always park in deserted areas and then store the car directly in the system's warehouse. How could it be stolen then?

But calling a taxi was not so easy. Yesterday he had been lucky and found one immediately, but today he waited for more than ten minutes without seeing a single free taxi.

Just as he was getting impatient, a Ford drove past.

Although cars of this era all looked somewhat similar, Josh immediately recognised it as the car he had bought yesterday and which had now been stolen.

There was a very noticeable scratch on the back of this car when he bought it, just like the one in front of him.

His mind racing, he immediately took off after it.

Although the speed of cars at that time was already over seventy miles per hour, because they were in the city and during wartime, Roosevelt had ordered a ban on high-speed driving; even on highways the maximum speed could not exceed 35 miles per hour.

So the speed of the other car was not fast, just over twenty miles per hour.

Driven by youth and frustration, Josh managed to keep up for a while.

But when the car turned at a intersection ahead, Josh stopped.

There was no safe place ahead; it was the immigrant district, Little Italy. Two streets further on was Chinatown.

Unfortunately, unlike the famous tourist attractions and bustling markets in later years, the Little Italy and Chinatown of this era were synonymous with slums, not much better than the segregated black neighbourhoods.

From the original body's memories, his parents had often warned him not to get too close to Little Italy and Chinatown.

So Josh was now quite reluctant.

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