Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4


PART I
SPEAKING IN TONGUES


5

REVEREND SCARRITT WAS everything Trey thought a preacher ought to be: Only a little shorter than Trey, medium build, handsome, and finely dressed. He was much older than Trey expected, considering his daughter was only sixteen, and his duds werenโ€™t as expensive as Treyโ€™s but a preacher ought to at least pretend to be down-market.

The good reverend was also as fake as Trey. Trey, however, was used to being able to fool shady cats who were looking for any excuse to whack him, and the reverend was used to being taken at face value by men who were desperate for Godโ€™s grace and women who wanted Scarrittโ€™s attention. That he was handsome made the job ten times easier. Trey was even willing to bet he had a side piece or two.

The missus was tall and willowy, wore fashionably feminine trousers, and had probably been considered a great beauty in her time. That had been quite a while ago for her, too, and time had not been good to her, making her look much older than her husband.

The good reverend definitely had a side piece.

The missusโ€™s makeup was expertly applied. Her fashionably bobbed and permed hair was dyed blonde to cover the gray, although it was about time for her to get her roots done.

Then there was Marina, who looked nothing like either one of her parents, was nowhere near as fashionable, and where her mother was trying very hard to look young and stylish (she was stylish), Marina seemed to be trying to look old and stodgy.

In his head, Trey had already stripped Marina down, re-dressed her, cut her hair, and put some makeup on her. Then sheโ€™d be eye-catching, although up against Dot, sheโ€™d neverโ€”

Oh, for Godโ€™s sake.

Marinaโ€™s parents wanted to keep her hidden, which would make Treyโ€™s job harder. Men with Treyโ€™s looks (not to mention money) didnโ€™t walk out with girls like Marina without an ulterior motive.

What he had to do was convince her parents he had seen something in her nobody else did. Well, he did, but how was he supposed to describe โ€œinterestingโ€? She caught his eye. He could look through all that camouflage and see what was there. But he couldnโ€™t say that. They would shut him down immediately.

It had to be something else. Perhaps he could play the tutor role for a while and let that simmer a little.

โ€œCome in, young man,โ€ said Reverend Scarritt imperiously after shaking his hand, โ€œcome in.โ€

That surprised Trey a little. Heโ€™d have bet Scarritt would keep him standing in the foyer for a barely polite amount of chatter, ask a few polite questions, politely tell him to enjoy the nightโ€™s service, and politely give him the boot.

โ€œWhere did you meet Marina again?โ€ he asked, directing Trey to a comfortable chair in the front parlor. โ€œMrs. Scarritt, Marina, could you excuse us?โ€

Trey looked around. It was a very nice front parlor, with charmingly worn furniture, gleaming millwork, bookcases full of very important-looking books and papers, and Bibles and bouquets of lilacs on every surface. It was exactly as cozy and modestly fine as a parsonage parlor should be.

โ€œKresgeโ€™s, sir,โ€ Trey said. โ€œYesterday. I was walking by and heard Marina struggling with an assignment, thought Iโ€™d see if I could help, and found her to be smart and interesting.โ€

โ€œAhย โ€ฆย smart, you say,โ€ Scarritt said speculatively as if Trey were lying.

โ€œYes, sir. I enjoy the company of smart girls who are also polite and love God.โ€

โ€œAhย โ€ฆย hunh.โ€ The love God might have been too much. โ€œAnd do you have a church?โ€

โ€œNo, sir. Iโ€™ve been looking for one, but havenโ€™t found any preachers who move me with the Spirit.โ€ Where was this shit coming from? Had he paid that much attention to his Sunday school lessons growing up? โ€œI saw a bill for your revival after I met Marina. Things working mysteriously and whatnot.โ€ Trey leaned forward and worried the brim of his fedora. โ€œIf you want to know the truth, sir,โ€ he said earnestly, โ€œI think Godโ€™s hand is in my having met Marina and I donโ€™t question Godโ€™s hand. Heโ€™s blessed me too much to ignore his voice.โ€

Scarritt observed him speculatively, but Trey knew he was assessing the extent of Treyโ€™s blessings. โ€œYou do seem to do well for yourself,โ€ he finally said. โ€œSelling insurance, Marina says?โ€

โ€œYes, sir. As I said, Godโ€™s blessed me.โ€

โ€œAnd after a few minutesโ€™ conversation you think you would like to see Marina on a more regular basis?โ€

โ€œShe expressed the same concern. But besides listening to Godโ€™s voice, Iโ€™m busy preparing a home for a future family. As I told Marina, we may or may not get along but I refuse to dilly-dally and I refuse to disrespect her and her parents by keeping my presence from you.โ€

Trey was laying it on thick, he knew, but Scarritt was nodding slowly like a wise man. This cat had been putting on a drama for easily conned folks so long he probably didnโ€™t know what was real anymore or when he was the mark.

Scarritt was silent for a few more seconds, then said abruptly, โ€œYouโ€™re welcome to stay for supper, Mr. Dunhamโ€”โ€

โ€œTrey, please, Reverend.โ€

โ€œTrey. And attend service with us this evening. Iโ€™ll pray on this and seek Godโ€™s will.โ€

โ€ข โ€ข โ€ข

TO TREYโ€™S THINKING, supper was a goddamned catastrophe. The food was awful, the conversation was boring, and the reverend was a prick. What made him an insufferable prick was the upper-crust accent. Trey would like to emulate it but it sounded fake to his ears. He couldnโ€™t pinpoint why. By contrast, the missus and Marina were so silent they might as well not have been there at all.

Trey was no stranger to a long con, but the beginnings of a new one were always rough. He was running up against the edges of his theological knowledge and he wasnโ€™t even going to try bullshitting his way through it. He had to give examples of the other preachersโ€™ methods that didnโ€™t โ€œmoveโ€ him spiritually. He was congratulating himself on having scraped through that, only to be asked where he lived!

โ€œI have a room off my office, but I decided to look for a little house perfect for a newlywed couple to grow into a family of three.โ€

โ€œWhereโ€™s your office?โ€

Trey gave him the address he used when he needed a respectable one. It really was an insurance agency, and Trey paid the cat who ran it to be able to use the address, have packages sent, and have messages taken. But Trey had never given it to anyone who might drop in.

โ€œI travel too much to justify the expense,โ€ he explained when Scarritt asked him why he didnโ€™t get a room.

โ€œAh. Frugal too.โ€

โ€œI cut corners where I can.โ€ That was the absolute truth.

Then came the questions about where he was from (โ€œMinneapolisโ€), where heโ€™d traveled (โ€œWell, I havenโ€™t been to Chinaโ€), if heโ€™d been to Italy (โ€œRome is very grandโ€), what his favorite place was (โ€œDefinitely Seville, in southern Spainโ€). The reverend was adequately impressed, which was a good thing because Trey was never going to admit he was a farm boy from a hick town halfway between Columbia and St. Louis, had never been anywhere but a library, and the only reason he liked southern Spain was because there was a chunk of it right smack dab in the middle of Brush Creek and he had a lot of reasons to be near Brush Creek, mostly having to do with mixing concrete and burying folks there. If the Country Club district was an actual representation of Seville, Spain, then Trey knew heโ€™d like it. If he ever went. Which was not likely.

But Scarritt, it seemed, had been everywhere.

Trey didnโ€™t believe half what Scarritt said. Either he was letting Trey weave enough rope to hang himself or he didnโ€™t know Trey was bullshitting, which meant he was also bullshitting. Trey absolutely believed Scarritt had been to Europe, but not as a tourist.

Trey heard war stories all the time. Some men bragged, some men wouldnโ€™t speak of it at all, and some men ended up drinking a lot of tears with their hooch.

โ€œYou were in the Great War, sir?โ€ Trey asked politely.

โ€œYes,โ€ Scarritt said shortly, which meant he wasnโ€™t a cat who told war stories. He wanted to have the sophistication of having travelled to Europe on something other than a warship, doing something more sophisticated than digging ditches.

After three eternities and a second plate of awful food, Scarritt excused himself to get ready for the eveningโ€™s service. The missus and Marina would do their after-dinner chores and get ready. Trey was welcome to inspect the reverendโ€™s library.

Trey was ready to inspect the bottom of a glass of whisky.

But books were Treyโ€™s second favorite thing, so he made himself comfortable in front of the parsonageโ€™s biggest bank of bookcases. A cat could tell a lot about another cat by the books he kept on his shelves, which wasnโ€™t the same as what he actually read. But in this caseย โ€ฆ

Bottom shelf, books on baseball, boxing, and horse breeding and racing. Baseball and boxing, Trey understood. The horses said something Trey thought he understood, but couldnโ€™t be sure.

Second shelf up, travelogues and reference books of many different countries.

Third shelf up, histories of the Great War, religious historiesโ€”a good portion of which were about Mormonsโ€”and biographies of famous people Trey would consider good people.

Top shelf, textbooks from the seminaryโ€”Baptist, looked like. Some Methodist and Lutheran. A bunch of Bibles, various types and editions, and an equal number of concordances.

Trey went back to Scarrittโ€™s disproportionate anti-Mormon collection, which told him a whole lot more than everything else put together.

Mormons were a weird Christian sect with a twitchy trigger finger because it was Missouri law Mormons could be shot on sight. Trey thought the Extermination Order was a bit much for a few quiet people, but one of the things Mormons had a reputation for doing was spinning gold out of straw. Any group that large and that cohesive with money was to be feared.

Likeย โ€ฆย the Machine.

But the Machine and the Mormons co-existed like bees and flowers. They were the only honest men in town and teetotalers to boot. Boss Tom had Mormons in every position of money and booze control because they could be trusted with both, make money multiply like magic, and could also back it up at the point of a gun.

They claimed Jesus Christ as their savior, but they preferred the temple-clearing Jesus to the peace-and-love-preaching Jesus. They also had less love for the federal or state government than they did for the outfits. They had the money, firepower, and balls to take on the Machine and the Mafia. They wouldnโ€™t win, but theyโ€™d do some serious damage before they got obliterated.

And Boss Tom would lose his trusted bean counters. They didnโ€™t like the Machine, but they had families to feed like everyone else. Missouri simply didnโ€™t bother with Prohibition much unless somebody was going to profit, and Kansas City was openly wetter than the Mississippi, so the Mormons didnโ€™t feel obliged to obey a law the state and city didnโ€™t feel obliged to obey which didnโ€™t affect them anyway.

It was also telling that despite Scarrittโ€™s obvious antagonism toward Mormons, he allowed Marina to run with Dot. His desire to keep Marina hidden from menโ€™s gazes must run deep.

Then there was the fact that Pendergast wanted to steer clear of Dotโ€™s bishop-daddy. It was just another reason Trey had to get Marina and Dot separated.

Trey searched the rest of Scarrittโ€™s bookshelves for any fiction whatsoever, but there was none. Upon reflection, it didnโ€™t surprise him. Too bad, too, because that was a topic upon which Trey could expound for days. In fact, once Trey got out from under the Machine and into a nice little house just right for a newlywed couple, the first thing heโ€™d do would be to install a very large library and stock it to its gills.

Nobody knew that Trey was a country boy turned gutter rat who cleaned up good, with a thirst for money, which he could not get without knowledge. He didnโ€™t want to be some ignorant mob boss, stupider than the men he ran just because he had money and didnโ€™t mind putting people in concrete at the slightest thing.

Trey had put men in concrete (not at the slightest thing) (he wasnโ€™t that hot-headed), but he was far more educated than almost everybody else in his circles.

Not educated enough. He had not yet read every book at the Kansas City Public Library and he had yet to read the latest Agatha Christie novel. Knowledge was power and he found power in everything. Even the most insignificant, forgettable books he read had nuggets he could use and he wrote these down in a little notebook he carried in his breast pocket.

It was only his extensive reading that made it possible to speak well in respectable circles, although his rube accent and bad grammar habits gave him away if he werenโ€™t careful. He couldnโ€™t afford to speak properly day-to-day and he hovered precariously between the two, sometimes slipping into one or another because at some point, it all blended, none of it sounded right anymore, and he got confused.

Then there were the words he mispronounced because heโ€™d never heard them and seen them spelled at the same time. Tucson was not, in fact, pronounced tuckson. Fortunately, the very kind girl he was going with at the time gently corrected him before he made a fool of himself in front of anyone else. He stopped seeing her very soon after that, he was so embarrassed. He purposely mispronounced words he did know because his cohorts would accuse him of putting on airs, but then heโ€™d forget when he needed to remember andย โ€ฆ

Most days, Trey didnโ€™t know which language to use, where, and with whom. It was all a jumbled mess in his head and mouth. It was exhausting, and he was almost to his limit, particularly because Scarrittโ€™s speech was head and shoulders above Treyโ€™s carefully practiced educated middle-class accent.

Trey was thinking about this when Scarritt walked in fixing his cuffs.

โ€œYou have an impressive library, Reverend,โ€ Trey said, once again struggling with his accent.

โ€œThank you,โ€ he returned absently. That was not a cat who read for pleasure, else heโ€™d have puffed up like a banty rooster.

โ€œDo you read fiction, sir?โ€

โ€œNo,โ€ Scarritt said and Trey braced for a long explanation. โ€œItโ€™s a waste of time.โ€

That wasnโ€™t what Trey had expected. โ€œOh. Not because itโ€™s sinful?โ€

โ€œMy congregation reads the Bible. The second I preach against something that may or may not tempt them to sin, it will make it attractive. There is likely good to be found there, but just as likely sin and the last thing I want to do is whet an appetite to sin.โ€

Trey couldnโ€™t fault the logic.

โ€œAnd I would have to read it to find the good, but it has never interested me. Marina struggles with her literature assignments in school, and quite honestly, Iโ€™d be bored, too.โ€

Of course she was bored. It was assigned. Talking about themes and symbols and metaphors and whatnot killed any enjoyment whatsoever.

He was gonna fix that. Pronto. She may never like algebra, but dammit, he would make her enjoy reading so they could have something to talk about. He only had a few weeks to get this girl pregnant with proof, and it would be harder to do if he couldnโ€™t talk to her.

And the first book Trey was going to coach her through was Elmer Gantry.

5


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