Chap­ter 25: The Deal begins with a sur­pris­ing request. Mar­vin Skrupske­lis, a man of mod­est appear­ance and an unas­sum­ing past, approach­es Isaac Moskovitz not as a labor agi­ta­tor but as a con­cerned fig­ure with insight into deep­er cor­rup­tion. Dur­ing their dri­ve along Broad Street, Marv reveals that he’s no stranger to the strug­gles of the work­ing class. He grew up fix­ing shoes, lis­ten­ing to union talk, and observ­ing how pow­er moved qui­et­ly through cities like Philadel­phia. As he unfolds the sto­ry of Gus Plitzka—a man entan­gled in debts to Nig Rosen and exploit­ing vul­ner­a­ble neighborhoods—Isaac’s inter­est is piqued, espe­cial­ly when Chona’s name enters the con­ver­sa­tion. Though Isaac ini­tial­ly resists get­ting involved, the men­tion of Chona trans­forms his detach­ment into pur­pose.

The issue at hand is water—a resource so essen­tial yet manip­u­lat­ed by pri­vate inter­ests. Gus Plitz­ka, who con­trols sev­er­al lines feed­ing neigh­bor­hoods like Chick­en Hill, has been rerout­ing access in exchange for bribes. His deal­ings risked dry­ing out the wells that ser­viced mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties, pri­mar­i­ly Jew­ish and Black fam­i­lies. Isaac, though wary of overt con­fronta­tion, rec­og­nizes an oppor­tu­ni­ty. By pres­sur­ing Plitz­ka through Rosen’s net­work, they could force a change with­out impli­cat­ing them­selves. This type of sub­ver­sive activism wasn’t uncom­mon in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. When gov­ern­ments turned a blind eye to infra­struc­ture in poor­er dis­tricts, citizens—often through unions or reli­gious alliances—took mat­ters into their own hands, blend­ing moral­i­ty with maneu­ver­ing. Marv knew this, and Isaac began to under­stand the neces­si­ty of qui­et resis­tance.

The con­ver­sa­tion takes on weight when Marv shifts the top­ic to an insti­tu­tion­al­ized boy—Dodo—whom Chona once cared for deeply. His con­fine­ment, tied to an unjust accu­sa­tion, sym­bol­izes a larg­er issue of sys­temic abuse and racial­ized pun­ish­ment. Marv’s sug­ges­tion is bold: lever­age union work­ers from the rail­road, trust­ed and orga­nized, to orches­trate a dis­creet extrac­tion dur­ing a sup­ply deliv­ery. Isaac bris­tles at the idea of break­ing laws, but the moral cal­cu­lus changes with Chona’s mem­o­ry on the line. This is not just about one boy—it’s about right­ing a lega­cy wrong and restor­ing dig­ni­ty where the sys­tem has failed. Isaac’s influ­ence over the union net­work becomes the key. By deploy­ing work­ers who owe their pro­tec­tions to him, he can move dis­creet­ly while main­tain­ing plau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty.

Their agree­ment isn’t forged with loud promis­es, but through mutu­al under­stand­ing and shared grief. Marv, with his blunt obser­va­tions and firm val­ues, rep­re­sents the ground­ed work­ing class. Isaac, a man of cul­ture and influ­ence, embod­ies access to change—but only when remind­ed of what’s at stake. Togeth­er, they sketch a plan that treads the line between vig­i­lan­tism and jus­tice. His­tor­i­cal­ly, such strate­gies echo the actions of ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Jew­ish-Amer­i­can coali­tions that inter­vened in both local pol­i­tics and civ­il rights mat­ters. Their tac­tics, though qui­et, often shaped out­comes where offi­cial pol­i­cy failed. Isaac now steps into that lineage—not as a rad­i­cal, but as a cus­to­di­an of mem­o­ry and a silent agent of jus­tice.

As the plan forms, details come into focus. A truck from the rail­road will deliv­er sup­plies to the insti­tu­tion. Among the crates, a hid­den com­part­ment will pro­vide cov­er for Dodo once he’s slipped out. Tim­ing must align with a shift change; a loy­al work­er will pose as a deliv­ery dri­ver. The institution’s guard will be distracted—coincidentally, a cousin of one of the union men owes Isaac a favor. Every step is risky, yet care­ful­ly designed. The goal is not just to extract Dodo but to avoid scruti­ny entire­ly. This way, the nar­ra­tive remains intact for the pub­lic. The boy van­ish­es, and no one looks too close­ly at how or why. That kind of pre­ci­sion requires both courage and coordination—traits found only where trust runs deep.

Isaac’s role is now set. He’ll move the pieces but stay behind the cur­tain. Marv, mean­while, will act as the bridge between the union team and those on Chick­en Hill who know the full sto­ry. The deal is not writ­ten on paper, but sealed through cul­tur­al codes—loyalty, grief, duty. For Isaac, it’s a turn­ing point. No longer con­tent with dis­tance, he choos­es involve­ment, though shroud­ed in secre­cy. The chap­ter clos­es not with a hand­shake, but with silent acknowl­edg­ment: the machine is now in motion. In places where offi­cial jus­tice often lags behind or nev­er comes at all, this is how sto­ries get rewritten—through whis­pers, risks, and qui­et resolve that no one out­side the com­mu­ni­ty will ever tru­ly under­stand.