Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

PART I
SPEAKING IN TONGUES

7

TREY STALKED INTO 1520 at two in the morning as livid as he had ever been in his entire life. With one direct challenge as to Trey’s intentions with Marina, Scarritt had put him on his knees. It had been a humiliating show of obeisance Scarritt demanded and Trey wanted 1520 so badly he did it, which made him as much of a whore as his gigolos, on his knees in front of Scarritt figuratively sucking his cock, Scarritt looking at him with a calm smirk of satisfaction.

Now Trey had a very good idea why Boss Tom hated him so much he was willing to hand 1520 over to Trey, and Trey didn’t need to know particulars. He also now knew why Boss Tom thought getting Marina pregnant would wipe that fucking smirk right off his face.

And Trey was more than willing to comply because he couldn’t justify murdering that son of a bitch.

Not yet anyway.

“You’re late,” Vern said as Trey stalked by the bar. The place was packed to the rafters and the band was jamming, and it still wasn’t nearly as loud as it was in that fucking tent.

“I got Jesufied,” Trey snarled, ready to snap anybody’s neck.

Vern’s eyebrow rose. “Already?”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘Already?’”

“Scarritt’s gonna put you through hell, makin’ sure you know who’s boss.”

That snapped the remaining thread on Trey’s temper. “Goddammit!” he roared, putting his fist through the mahogany bar top. Trying to anyway. “Motherfucking son of a goddamned bitch,” Trey swore with the pain that exploded through his knuckles and arm so hard he sprouted tears.

Vern looked at him calmly. “How are you going to explain a broken hand to Scarritt, nice insurance salesman like you? Had to use your right hand?”

“I’m left-handed, you motherfucker! An’ it ain’t broke! Get back to work!”

Could this night get any worse? He stalked halfway to the stairs before turning right back around and snatching a bottle of whisky off the backbar. “Get Ethel to my office. I know she’s not doing anything!”

He snatched a brick of ice out of the brand new freezer before going up to his mezzanine office, then dropped himself on his divan. He laboriously opened his bottle and tipped it up, drinking a quarter of it in one swig and grimacing at the heat racing down the back of his throat.

“God, you’re pathetic when you lose,” Ethel sneered, from the doorway, cloth wraps in her hand.

Of course she’d know. “Battle, not the war. Shut up and strap my hand.”

She folded her legs to sit on the floor in front of him, and they were silent as she worked, carefully weaving tweed strips in and around his fingers like a boxer, then over his knuckles.

“This may surprise you,” Ethel said quietly, startling him, “but I want you to win that bet.”

That sure as hell did surprise him. “Whatta you care?”

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do if you lose?”

“If I win, things go on as normal except I’ll have to pay Boss Tom for protection. If I lose, things go on as normal. If I don’t get her pregnant at all, then I’m gonna have some problems.”

Her lashes fluttered up. “What?”

“Getting her pregnant was an order,” he muttered. “Getting it done in two months was the bet.”

Ethel’s mouth pursed into an O. She looked a little peaked, to boot. “How do you plan to do that? You need access and she’s a preacher’s daughter and she wears trousers and she’s sixteen and you’re twenty-four … Unless her daddy’s jake with his kid courting so young, you won’t get any chances at all.”

“Ethel, as God as my witness, I have no idea how to get in her trousers.”

“Well, you do have a knack for getting in a good girl’s drawers—”

“I have never gotten in a good girl’s draws.”

“No, because you dump them as soon as they say yes. I think you’re something else for doing that, but now you have to.”

It was the have to that made it an unattractive endeavor. “She’s buttoned up tighter than your ordinary good girl.”

She bent back to his hand. “It’s not just you. It’s all of us. If you go down, we all do.”

“This is not the only whorehouse in the city.”

“No, but it is the only whorehouse in the city where we’re treated with a little bit of respect, with the only pimp in town who makes sure of it.”

Trey shrugged. “That’s life, doll.”

“Trey,” she tried again while she knotted the ends and sat back to look him square in the face, “this is our home.”

It was his, too. It was the only home he’d had since his father died and he loved it. “I am the most selfish cat in town. Why’d you think I’d do it for you?”

She scowled. “Boss Tom gave you an order. You save yourself, you save us.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re hintin’ around I goose her along a little bit, that ain’t an option.”

“Ask me, it’s the only way you’re gonna get it done in time,” came Vern’s crackly voice from the doorway. “Little bit in a sodypop, she’ll never know. Need three cases of gin tomorrow.”

Trey opened his mouth to give his old wizened bartender a good dressing-down, but he’d vanished. “Don’t you learn anything watching shit that goes down here every night?” he demanded of Ethel.

“I wasn’t hinting and I wouldn’t like it, but if you get stuck … You told me once if you had a soul, you’d sell it to the devil to own this place.”

“Why are you so goddamned sure I won’t be able to do this on my own?”

“I’m thinking about what-ifs,” she said testily, smacking his injured hand.

“Goddammit,” he hissed.

“Which you didn’t do before you made that bet.”

Trey sighed heavily. “A’ight, what got your draws in a twist?”

“Solly Weissman was here with his boys tonight.”

Immediately disturbed, Trey rubbed his mouth and chin. “Shit,” he whispered.

Solly “Cutcherheadoff” Weissman was Boss Tom’s personal bodyguard and Trey had no personal need to kill the cat even though he deserved it for various things. Nobody in town wanted to deal with him. He was one of the cats who hit up the speaks with a race wire to get the results of any given race before the bets were called. Solly was a big guy, six-four or thereabouts and at least three hundred pounds, and everyone was so intimidated they gave him what he wanted.

Trey didn’t run a race wire for that very reason, so why had Solly suddenly popped up at 1520? It couldn’t be to keep an eye on Trey for Boss Tom; Solly wasn’t that smart and the bet was only two days old.

“Ran up a tab they didn’t pay, said something about being on the house, wanted Alice, but she knew he wouldn’t pay so whatever she said to him got him to back off quick.”

“You think he found out about the bet?”

“He said some things that make us think he did. If so, it’ll be all over town by Saturday.”

The more Trey thought about the situation, the more he realized how deep in hot water he’d gotten himself. Trey didn’t gamble against the house but somehow he’d managed to fuck up when it mattered most. Why? Because Boss Tom had something Trey wanted.

And that had been Trey’s fatal mistake: coveting someone else’s racket instead of taking his money and building his own somewhere away from the Machine. Just like Seamus Byrne. He’d gotten caught by his own greed in spite of his intentions.

“She’s not completely disgusting, is she?” Ethel asked.

Trey shook his head. “She’s my type. Little younger than I’d like but she’s got some smarts up under that bun that she doesn’t know are there. Daddy doesn’t know they’re there, either, or else he doesn’t care.”

“Oh, that’s peachy. Propose.”

“Condition of the bet was that marrying her wasn’t going to qualify as winning.”

“You don’t have to marry her. You just have to propose. You’d get access as a fiancé that you wouldn’t get as a suitor.”

He grimaced. “Not sure if he’ll count that as cheating, and if he thinks he might lose he might accuse me of it.”

“Oh.”

They sat there and looked at each other, Trey and Ethel, the way they had when Ethel had told him she was tired of waitressing and was moving upstairs, which would mean the end of sharing the divan. It wasn’t a painful memory; in fact, Trey barely remembered when he and Ethel had been lovers. But Ethel had been with him a long time and he could see why she might fear her life being upended because Trey was a stupid shit.

“How’s Ida working out?” he muttered, looking away first.

“Good,” she said with some measure of surprise. “She’s a good girl. Quiet. Does a good job. So far.”

“A’ight, get back to work.”

“‘Why, thank you, Ethel,’” she sneered.

“Why, thank you, Ethel,” he sneered in return as she huffed out of his office on a whiff of perfume.

The door slammed and Trey hung his head between his knees. “God almighty, what have I done?” he whispered, then attempted to get stinking drunk.

7

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