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PART I
SPEAKING IN TONGUES

20-A
(Please note: This was a long-ass chapter. I’ve split it in two, about at the halfway point.)

BY THE TIME he and Gio picked the girls up from school, Trey didn’t feel like being witty or deceptive. At Kresge’s, he told them he had received some disturbing news he’d rather not talk about and hinted he might not be good company for the rest of the evening. Even Gio was surprised. Marina very obligingly told him she had a lot of homework to get done, but hadn’t wanted to spoil the evening’s plans by saying anything.

He really liked that girl.

Unfortunately, his mood didn’t abate throughout the evening. Around eleven, he told his assistants, “I’mma be gone for a coupla-three days. Gio, you cover for me with Marina tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?” Gio asked, concerned. “You’ve been off since you got your books checked.”

“Nothin’ to do with Boss Tom or Lazia or the bet or Scarritt or the speak or Marina. I just gotta sort somethin’ out.” With that, he got in his car and headed east as impulsively as he did everything.

He got to St. Charles five hours later, but he was in no condition to meet Elliott Dunham, no matter the man’s station in life or condition or health. He found a decent hotel, paid a girl to go get him a nice set of duds, paid another one to bring him a bath and breakfast, and paid a third to bring him a cigar, a bottle of whisky, and her pussy.

He drank, smoked, and thought of Marina the whole time the gal rode him.

He went to bed at his normal time and by evening, had found out almost everything he wanted to know. He was shocked to find out Boss Tom hadn’t been blowing smoke about the existence and station of Elliott Dunham, who was a filthy rich bigwig in and around St. Louis. Moreover, he was a retired federal judge! Whether he was Trey’s grandfather or not made only half a difference. He had to know who this cat was, why he was wearing Trey’s eldest brother’s name, and why Boss Tom did not want to piss him off.

The wife was some sort of society matron and they lived in a Second Empire mansion in a very swank neighborhood. He had a Duesenberg Model J—and so did she.

“Good Lord,” Trey whispered to himself, wondering if they were up to sharing the wealth.

He shook that off. No, he didn’t want their money. Money was cheap. He wanted information.

He’d caught part of their routine and followed what he thought was their car. Along around suppertime, he was leaning up against a tree in a park, a newspaper in front of his face, when he finally got a good look at the old man and it was like looking in a mirror—if Trey were about a hundred years old and a hundred pounds too fat.

Boss Tom was generally a bad gambler, but he would’ve won that bet.

Trey was so shocked he nearly dropped his newspaper and then fumbled with it, fighting the breeze to keep hold of it, which drew the old man’s attention. And then the old man stopped cold, staring right back at him where he was still trying to be smooth.

Smooth was out the window.

Trey smirked wryly and shoved himself away from the tree, then sauntered across the street to where his future stood. The old man’s eyes narrowed and the old woman by his side, dressed in the height of fashion, watched also, her mouth pursed. They both stood straight and proud, which did Trey a whole lot of good.

He stepped up onto the sidewalk, stood in front of the old man—they were the same height—and said, “Trey Dunham.”

The old man looked him up and down, then drawled, “Took you long enough.”

“I had more important things to do than look up a likely dead relative I never heard of,” Trey shot back.

The old woman’s face softened into a smile and she held out her hand. Trey took it and kissed the back of it. “Ma’am.”

“I thought I had seen a ghost,” she said crisply with a regal nod.

Trey’s eyebrow rose. “Of a man who’s not dead?”

She smiled and her eyes sparkled. “Of the young man I married.”

“I’m not dead yet! Come, boy. I hope you’re not here for money, because I’m not giving you any even if I do like your gumption.”

“Don’t need money,” Trey said as he fell in beside them and admired their quick pace. “I want to know why I only just heard of you yesterday.”

“I couldn’t tell you that,” said his grandfather. “A boy should be interested on his own behalf.”

“I’m interested when I need to be.”

“I’m sure. We were on our way to dinner, but you knew that.”

“No, sir, I did not.”

“I shouldn’t believe you, but I do. Join us.”

Trey followed them into a very fine restaurant and attempted to remember his manners and mind his diction. They were seated, their menus brought. Trey ordered what he thought might be the least expensive thing on the menu and refused a pansy little soft drink. “Remus, if you have it.”

Both grandparents and the waiter gaped at him. He raised an eyebrow. “St. Louis might not have the action Kansas City does, but I know how this state feels about the Eighteenth Amendment so I know you’ve got whisky. The good stuff, not tobacco swill.”

At a small gesture from his grandfather, the waiter gave a little bow and said, “Very well, sir.”

He looked back at the old man who studied him with a look Trey couldn’t decipher. He took him in from well-coiffed head to well-shod toe. “You’re one of Boss Tom’s people.”

Trey shrugged and took his whisky from the waiter with a nod of thanks. He smirked when the waiter put an Old Fashioned in front of his grandfather and a dirty martini in front of his grandmother—which they had not ordered.

He liked these people.

For the first time since his father died, Trey suddenly felt like he belonged somewhere, to someone, that his name fit.

Finally.

And it had only taken fifteen minutes.

“I,” he said after a sip and a nod of appreciation for its fineness, “am a respectable insurance salesman.”

“And my name’s Fiddlesticks.”

Their dishes came and Trey again had to concentrate on his table manners. They weren’t difficult rules, but there were so many of them in such a precise order.

“Trey,” his grandmother said. She had a delicate voice, but also commanding.

“Yes’m?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“And you are here to learn where you came from.”

“Yes’m.”

His grandfather grinned. “That isn’t all,” he said right before he put a piece of steak in his mouth. “You want to know the connection between me and Boss Tom.”

Trey nodded, then relaxed and dug into his Cobb salad.

“Where are you staying?”

Trey told them, then said, “I got—” He stopped, took a deep breath. “I have business to tend and a girl back home—” They hadn’t missed his grammatical slip-up, but were too polite to say anything. “—so I can’t stay long. I had wild hare to shimmy on over here.”

“Where is your family?” Grandmother asked softly. “My son?”

Trey’s eyes narrowed. “He’s dead.” She gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth. “As is my mother and three older brothers. Why don’t you know that? Better question: Why don’t I know about you?”

She looked away. Grandfather cleared his throat. “Ah, words were said,” he muttered, his voice trembling. Moisture glistened in his eye. “It … I was an ass. We wanted your father to marry in the church and your mother was Methodist and … ”

Trey’s jaw began to grind. “What church?”

“Catholic. Her parents felt the same way about Hank. We got into it. The kids ran away. Never heard from them again.”

“That’s it?” Trey asked tightly, remembering now his father never went to church with him, his mother, and brothers. “You didn’t like my mother’s god? So you let your son go? Never looked for him? Never found out what had become of him? My oldest brother was eighteen when he died. Even if you didn’t like my mother, you had four grandsons, one of whom was orphaned at twelve, and you never … ?” Trey could barely speak, he was so furious, but his grandparents sat in ashamed, mournful silence.

“My mother,” he growled, “was a soft-spoken, loving woman. My father was kind and gentle. They were both smart as whips. We were all hard-working. We went to church—yes, Methodist. We boys went to school and our parents minded our marks closely. And you—and they—threw us away for your fucking god? You know what?” he barked, whipping his napkin off his lap and throwing it into his chair. He stood and snatched his fedora off the empty fourth chair. “I hope your god damns you to whatever hell you believe in.”

“Trey!” his grandmother cried as he strode out of the restaurant. “Trey, no! Come back!”

He heard her running after him, but he didn’t slow, turning out on the sidewalk.

“Trey, please!” she cried. “You’re our family! My only son’s only son! You are mine!” she screamed, then broke down in sobs he could hear from as far away as he was.

He slowed. He hadn’t been anybody’s since his father died of a broken heart because the only child he had left wasn’t enough to live for.

“YOU ARE MINE!”

He stopped.

Thought. How badly did he want to belong to somebody? What strings would come with this?

“Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face, son!” the old man boomed. “You came looking for your grandfather. You found him. Now what?”

Trey dropped his head back to look at the sky. It was his father who’d taught Trey and his brothers to read, to do sums, to throw a baseball, to work, to save. It was his mother who’d sung to him and rocked him and stroked him to sleep and made sure his older brothers didn’t torture him too much. Trey didn’t know how he would have turned out if his family hadn’t died, but life had done its best to break him. He was far from broken, but he was also far from anything his father would’ve wanted him to be.

“TREY!”

He hated her. Hated them. Hated that he’d had to navigate the world alone as a twelve-year-old orphan when there were two people right there who could’ve taken him in if— They couldn’t have done anything about his mother and brothers’ deaths, but they could’ve given his father more reason to live, or at least adults to lean on in his grief. But their pride, their fucking pride … In what? Religion.

It was always religion.

“PLEASE!”

Trey was twenty-four. He was swimming in a pool of men twice his age who liked their lives of crime and would die early because that was what mob bosses did. Trey wanted to get out filthy rich and alive, and as far away from the mob as possible. But when he could stand to think about it, he admitted he had no one to live for. He didn’t even have his own twelve-year-old boy who needed his father.

And now, here, these people … this old woman, rich as Croesus (he didn’t know how to pronounce that, either), a bigwig in St. Louis, was standing on a street corner with people streaming around her, screaming at him, begging a twenty-four-year-old gutter rat to stay.

What was he waiting for? He had to leave because he didn’t owe these people anything. He had to stay because—

He turned with a sigh and trudged back to his grandparents. Once he was within arms’ reach, he gently gathered the weeping old woman into his arms. He was almost surprised when the old man threw his arm around Trey’s shoulder.

The three of them slowly made it back into the restaurant and to their table. Trey seated both his grandparents, then himself. They each nibbled at their suppers a little to gather themselves.

“What happened?” his grandfather asked low.

“Spanish flu,” Trey muttered. “We had a farm near Redbird.”

“Henry always did want to be a farmer,” his grandmother whispered to her plate.

“Yeah,” Trey murmured. “Mama got sick first. Died. Then my three older brothers went bang, bang, bang like that. It was just my father and me left. About a year after my last brother died, I got up one morning and my daddy didn’t. I was twelve.”

Trey’s grandfather cleared his throat and studied his meal. His grandmother was doing the same, as well as sopping up tears with her napkin.

Trey’d gotten his tears beaten out of him. He had none left.

“I figure he died of a broken heart,” Trey concluded quietly. “I wasn’t enough.”

“What had he been doing that year?”

“What we did, only more of it. Plowing. Feeding the animals. Milking the cows. We had a woman out to do laundry, but I did the hunting, fishing, and cooking. Didn’t do a whole lot of cleaning. Didn’t have time.”

“Was it a big farm?”

Trey shrugged. “Fairly. We had hands. Added more acreage each year. Growing, what with my brothers. I don’t know what happened to it, except some cats who said they were bankers came along and told me they were calling the loan and get out if I couldn’t cough it up.”

“Did you verify that?”

“I looked at the records when I had a minute,” Trey said testily. “We were four months in arrears. I wouldn’t have been as patient if I were a banker, not if I could see which way the wind was blowing. Not even being that far in the hole would make my daddy come crawling back to you for help, so what does that tell me?”

“I’m sorry about that,” the old man croaked. “But whatever happens here, now, I need you to know the last thing your father would’ve died of is a broken heart. He was too strong for that.”

20A

If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.

Speakeasy staff.