In fact, Charlie Luciano was not in a hurry to agree to Kanemoto's offer. He had just finished a meeting with a large group of gang bosses, and the distribution of shares required careful consideration. He didn't want to upset the delicate balance among them.
After seeing Niall's signal, Charlie Luciano told Kanemoto to come back tomorrow, as he needed more time to think. Kanemoto, not one to linger, agreed and emphasized that his three million dollars were all in cash. With just a word, the money could be brought from San Francisco immediately, signaling to Charlie Luciano the seriousness of his offer.
After shaking hands and leaving, Charlie Luciano sat down, took a sip of water, and gestured for Niall to speak his mind.
However, when it came to it, Niall found himself unsure of what to say. He couldn't just come out and say, "I just saw Japanese Rear Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Director of the Navy's Aviation Department, outside the hotel."
If he said that, there would be no way to explain it. Niall was a simple young man from a small town in the West Virginia mountains, well-read through radio broadcasts and newspapers about international affairs. But how could he possibly know a Japanese Rear Admiral and consider him a dangerous person?
After quickly organizing his thoughts, Niall didn't know how to convince Charlie Luciano not to cooperate with the Japanese, but he decided to raise some reasonable doubts.
"Have you considered that if the casino's capital includes a significant amount of Japanese money, it might attract a federal investigation?" Niall couldn't outright say the money might be connected to the Japanese Navy, as it was unfounded.
"Hmm…" Charlie Luciano was momentarily stumped by the question.
"That is indeed a concern," Meyer Lansky nodded.
The gang's funds were often under scrutiny by the IRS. Many times, when the IRS ran out of money, they would look for issues in businesses operated by the mafia. The grey areas of organized crime made it easy for the IRS to find problems, resulting in fines ranging from tens of thousands to even millions.
If the funds came from others, Charlie Luciano thought it would just mean some bureaucratic hassle, perhaps a few fines, and then it would be over. The U.S. government, in general, was somewhat lenient. If a fine was paid today, they wouldn't pursue it further, allowing things to move on and the gang could come back next year without issue.
But with Japanese money, it wasn't just a hot potato. The real issue was that Japan, while having close economic ties to the U.S., was also full of friction. Japan was America's third-largest trading partner, and Japan needed to spend a lot of foreign currency every year to import various materials and equipment from the U.S. Even after the Great Depression, European countries had recovered enough to produce their own industrial goods, but Japan could not. Japan's industrial strength was far behind America's. If Japan tried to ramp up production, it could never match the output of the U.S.
Thus, Japan was heavily reliant on American exports, and even during the economic crisis, Japan desperately tried to squeeze out foreign currency to buy industrial raw materials and finished products from the U.S.
Why did the U.S. continue selling goods to Japan, even when it knew Japan had expansionist ambitions in the Pacific? The reason was simple—money.
It wasn't until Japan's foreign exchange reserves were drained and its gold reserves were shipped to the U.S. in exchange for necessary goods that America finally imposed a total embargo on Japan. By that time, there was nothing left to squeeze out of Japan.
The seemingly strong trade relationship between the two countries masked the underlying tensions in the Pacific. After World War I, the League of Nations granted Japan several German colonies in the Pacific, including the Marshall Islands, the Carolines, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Japan considered these territories part of its national territory, expanding its defensive perimeter and gaining forward bases for further expansion, like Saipan Island near Guam, which later became the headquarters of Japan's Combined Fleet.
Moreover, the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, limiting the tonnage of naval ships, effectively gave Japan dominance in the Western Pacific. The treaty allowed Japan to control certain islands, preventing the U.S. and Britain from building new naval bases in the Pacific, which was a strategic move by Japan to ensure its regional dominance.
Although this treaty seemed to limit Japan's expansion, its ultimate goal of dominating East Asia and the Pacific remained unchanged. Therefore, Japan was always looking for opportunities to break free from the restrictions imposed by the Washington System. As the architect and guarantor of the system, the U.S. would inevitably try to maintain balance in the Far East and the Pacific, resulting in irreconcilable tensions between the two countries.
For this reason, the U.S. government and military had long been wary of Japan. Even though there was no actual war between the two nations yet, allowing Japanese capital to flow into the U.S. was definitely not a good idea. It could potentially bring danger to the Italian mafia in the future.
The decision to accept the three million dollars in cash or to prioritize the future of the Italian mafia—Charlie Luciano was now at a crossroads, and the outcome would depend entirely on his next move.