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PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

41

MARINA CONTINUED TO float along like a dust mote, looking at people blankly when they congratulated her. She couldn’t muster up the barest of polite responses, not even to Boss Tom, whom she knew she must. She simply stared through him, unblinking until he pulled her close to hug her and whisper, “I’m sorry,” in her ear. Mrs. Pendergast went on about what an adorable girl she was and what pretty babies Marina and Trey would make. So far as Marina could tell, the Pendergasts were absolutely sincere. Mob bosses probably didn’t say “I’m sorry” much.

Trey’s grandparents were falling all over themselves to make her feel welcome and loved, but she didn’t. The Lazias … In all the explanations the Albrights gave her, she didn’t know why they were there. They weren’t Trey’s friends or allies and it was clear they weren’t happy to be present. They were both chilly, their smiles devoid of warmth.

The cake was delicious. She couldn’t taste it.

The punch was grape-flavored. She didn’t like it.

The oatmeal raisin cookies had been made by a master baker. She hated oatmeal and raisins.

The macaroons were too sweet. She would’ve used more coconut.

The atmosphere was tense. Everyone scattered as soon as possible.

Sister Albright practically had to drag Dot out by her hair.

It must be one thing, she thought vaguely as she sat in a stranger’s car on the way to a house she had never seen that that stranger had bought just for her, to have sinned and borne the consequences. It was another to have been forced into sin, not remember any of it, then beaten, reviled, and cast out for it.

Her belt-buckle wounds were trying to scab over, but Marina scratched and picked at them when she was upset. Sister Albright and Dot had tried to keep her from doing it, but she couldn’t stop. Not now.

As they approached Hospital Hill and drove past General Hospital, the storm abated. By the time Trey parked in front of a cluster of cute little houses two blocks from the hospital, it had stopped and the sun had begun to burn off the moisture. Trey got out and came around, handing Marina out, holding onto her, which was fortunate.

“What’s this here, Marina?” he asked softly, looking at her sleeve.

“I have a sore,” she muttered. “I scratched.”

“Got your pretty dress all stained.”

She shrugged listlessly.

“Oh. Well … ” He hesitated. “Uh, anyway, there’s our house. That one,” he murmured, pointing directly across the street.

He hadn’t lied about it. It was adorable, making her forget about her sore and the blood stain. She stared at the navy siding and crisp white gingerbread trim around gleaming beveled-glass windows. The front wall consisted entirely of a deep bay window through which she could see white sheers flanked by what she thought were white-and-royal blue tromp l’oeil curtains. The roof was steeply pitched with a small square box jutting skyward from the back half of the house, two small white-shutter-flanked windows on either side of the roof peak.

The long, narrow, covered porch was to the side, set back so far away from the street and flanked by so many big hedges that it was nearly invisible. Marina crossed the street and walked down the sidewalk. The front door was even farther back, cloaked in the hedges’ shadows, which felt secure instead of threatening. It was a pretty door, its dark polished walnut framing a lovely beveled-glass window.

Trey slipped around her to unlock it and hold it open for her. She stopped cold just two steps into the vestibule. She looked around, then put her trembling fingertips to her open mouth.

“Welcome home, Marina,” he said softly.

Home. This was her home. She would live in this, this, this utterly beautiful place with the most beautiful built-ins and furniture she had ever seen in a private home. No matter how grand and lovely the Albrights’ house was, they didn’t have things this nice because their rowdy boys destroyed everything. It hit her like a ton of bricks: this was hers, not a room in a parsonage where she was little more than an indentured servant (albeit a content one) and not a guest in a house she couldn’t leave because she had nowhere to go.

It was beautiful, but it was magnificent because it was hers.

“You did this for me?” she croaked.

“Yeah, I live at the speak. Lived. I, uh … it’s not as big as I wanted to get you, but I gotta be careful with the money and whatnot. I, uh … we ain’t but the two of us, with just enough room for a baby.”

“That’s a radio.”

“Your daddy’s.”

“You … stole it from him?”

“Yeh. Your daddy’s stash of cash paid for this house an’ your car. But don’t let that slip to nobody, ’cuz Boss Tom don’t know all what your daddy had.”

“Oh. Um. All right.”

“Go’t the kitchen and see if it’s big enough.”

In the back of her mind, Marina understood he was anxious. “Small is easier to keep,” she whispered, not sure whether to be horrified by the fact that Father had had that much money or that Trey had stolen it from both him and Boss Tom. She had learned a lot about Boss Tom Pendergast in the last few weeks, enough to know one did not trespass him without dire consequences. She moved her feet toward the back, through the small dining room with a beautiful round oak table, into an equally beautiful kitchen, sparkling with white built-in cupboards, including a Hoosier. There was a brand new stove and—

“Is that …” she began, gaping at it, “ … a refrigerator? With a freezer?”

“I don’t hold with iceboxes when there’s these things.”

“Those are—” She couldn’t speak. Mother had wanted one for the longest time but Father claimed it was vanity to own such an expensive thing. Now, thanks to Bishop Albright, Marina knew “vanity” meant he wanted that money for more fine things and women. And radios. “—expensive,” she finished weakly.

“I bought a smaller house so I could have the freezer,” he said apologetically. “Walkin’ around flashin’ cash an’ livin’ it up with big houses and whatnot is invitin’ any cat with a grudge or a green streak to try to take it away. My clothes are upper-middlin’, same as the speak­easy, but otherwise, I try to lie as low as possible, so cats don’t know how much money I really got an’ where it’s coming from.” He paused. “Hope you don’t mind it’s not so grand as I should provide for you.”

She went to the refrigerator and opened it. A blast of cold, dry air hit her, which was most welcome. “No, no I don’t mind at all.”

“There’s a new washer out on the back porch.”

That was when Marina could finally bear to look at him. Hat in hand, he looked as anxious as he sounded, which was not familiar to her. Nor was his speech, which was oddly endearing.

Her brow wrinkled. “Bishop said you wanted to marry me, but Boss Tom wouldn’t let you and then he did. I thought he was saying that to make me feel better.”

Trey shook his head.

“You really did want to court me before you made the bet?”

He nodded. “No matter how we got here, we’re here an’ I’m glad. Might as well make the best of it. I got money, but I’m a little bit of a tightwad. I got plans, an’ so I … ”

She gestured weakly at the refrigerator.

He shrugged. “Buy once, cry once. Learned that the hard way.” He laughed bitterly. “I learn everything the hard way, mostly just ’cuz I’m a stupid shit.”

“You’re not stupid!” she gasped, appalled to hear such an awful thing come out of the mouth of the smartest person she’d ever met.

“I was stupid to take that bet without getting all the details worked out up front and to my satisfaction.”

“If you had, would you still have taken it?”

“Yes,” he growled. She bit her lip. “I’m a bad man, Marina,” he said with a tiny snarl. “I want what I want an’ I’mma get it any way I need to. Legal, illegal, moral, immoral, I do not care. I wanted my speak and I wanted you.”

“In that order,” she said softly, unable to be offended, but it begged to be said.

“Some days yes, some days no.”

“But you didn’t drug me,” she reminded him. “If you were that ruthless, you would have.”

He was a little stymied by that. “Well, fact remains, I was determined to get you pregnant and I did. I didn’t really cotton on to the fact that I’d be yanking you into the heart of the Machine and making you the wife of an underboss, but here we are an’ I ain’t lettin’ you go.”

She glanced pointedly around the kitchen. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“Besides they make our life easier, the wife of an underboss has to have these things. It ain’t just for our convenience. It’s for appearances. I can live in my dump of an office and share a bathroom with a dozen whores—”

She flinched.

“—but my wife an’ baby can’t.”

“You just said you didn’t want anybody to know—”

“Sugga, Boss Tom lives in one of the biggest mansions on Ward Parkway. John Lazia’s got two houses, one on a lake and speedboats to go with it, and lives in a high-class hotel ’cuz he’s a flashy front for the real power in Little Italy, who live modestly. Quietly. They hide behind Lazia’s ostentatiousness and pull the strings. I got a lotta money, Sugga, but not enough power, nobody to hide behind, and I’m not threatening enough to keep people off my back. So I hide behind being modest because I have to, not because I’m naturally that way. This house says I can provide for a family, but that I don’t have the cash to buy a grand house even though I do. I’m protecting myself. But I am not going without a freezer, and no cat in town would blame me.”

Marina numbly turned away to climb the back staircase, which turned once before opening into a small square landing, each of the other three walls with an open door. The bedroom on her left was dominated by a gleaming new sleigh bed. The bedroom on her right was unfurnished save for a baby crib and buggy, but Marina’s bags were sitting there waiting to be unpacked. The bathroom, straight ahead and narrow, was also plain, with white beadboard walls to within a foot of the ceiling capped by a plate rail, a white-and-black hexagon tile floor, a white sink on a spotless chrome base, an oversized claw-foot tub with a curtain and a— She gasped. “A shower,” she whispered in awe.

“Yeah,” Trey said gruffly from behind her. “I like my baths, but they ain’t quick enough sometimes.”

She gulped. “Trey, I … ” She couldn’t think of one word to say.

“I want you to be comfortable and maybe happy, but I ain’t gonna lie an’ say I did all this for you. I want my wife to do her job but it’s easier for people to do a good job if they got good tools.”

Marina nodded in understanding and relief. Yes, her job was to be a good wife, and she was well prepared to do that. It would, indeed, be easier to do it with the tools Trey was giving her, including a small home that would not demand as much attention as the parsonage.

“C’mon down and see the car.”

That was something Mother had not had, either. Father had never allowed her to learn how to drive, even, but that was likely because he didn’t want her to catch him out with one of his floozies. In fact, Marina couldn’t think of one woman in her congregation who could drive. Sister Albright was the first woman she’d ever met who could not only drive, but had her own car. Oh, how she wished she could show Mother this, to flaunt it, to punish her for her cruelty to both Marina and her real mother.

“Where are my parents?” she asked abruptly as she followed Trey back down the stairs, through the back porch, where she stopped and gaped at the automatic wringer washer, and out to the cute but tiny back yard.

“Which ones?”

“Um … grandparents.”

“Don’t know.” He paused. “You want me to try to find your real ones?”

“Um … yes. Please. I … have to know.”

“A’ight.”

There was a tiny outbuilding at the back of the lot, the sidewalk going past to the alley, where a Model T sat, polished and shiny, seeming to wait for her.

“It ain’t new,” he said matter-of-factly, “or fancy—appearances—but it’s only two years old and it runs good. You can go shopping or whatnot and there’s room in the back for a baby to— Well, honestly, I don’t know how you drive around cartin’ a newborn.”

Marina gulped. It wasn’t as fine as the car Father drove and definitely not as fine as Trey’s, but it was hers. She could go anywhere, do anything, at any time. She didn’t need permission. She didn’t have to depend on the bus. She didn’t have to wait for Trey to pick her up. She could go to Dot’s church if she wanted, and her activities, dance, have fun and play like they did.

And best of all, she didn’t have to walk to the grocery store anymore!

She was permanently bound to a person—a person who liked her and was kind to her—but suddenly, she was free! No woman she knew had that kind of freedom, except Sister Albright.

But the only thing she could say was, “Thank you.”

“Least I could do.”

Most men wouldn’t even do that much. That said, it took money to run a household and she had to have some to do her job right. “Pin money?”

He nodded. “I didn’t know how much women usually get an’ it wa’n’t polite to ask anybody who’d have any. I know the speak’s expenses, so I pulled down from that. I figured one-fifty a month, not countin’ utilities—” Her mouth dropped open. Again. Her face might as well freeze that way. It’d be more efficient. “—oughta take care o’ the house an’ whatever you need or want. Baby comin’ an’ all.”

“Oh golly gee whiz,” she whispered, her eyes wide, a hand to her chest.

He scowled. “That’s my budget an’ not a penny more.”

“Trey, fifty— Umm, fifty is generous. One-fifty is … I can’t— Oh, my goodness.”

He harrumphed. “Then pay the utilities with it and save the rest.”

“Pay the utilities?” she gasped, horrified.

He immediately looked confused. “Yeah. You keep the house books. Inn’at what wives do?”

“No,” she squeaked again, her register climbing. “The husband does that. The wife only has enough for household expenses and a few trinkets. Some women only have enough for trinkets. Not Sister Albright, but they’re—”

“Well I ain’t doin’ the house books so I’ll teach you. I got enough bookkeeping on my plate.”

This nightmare was turning into a pleasant dream, but still a dream she would awaken from and await the day she had the baby and was turned out to be a maid or dressmaker. “I took bookkeeping, but—”

“Oh yeah? Even better. You got open accounts at Emery, Bird, and Thayer, and Harzfeld’s. Jones and Macy’s, too. You gotta dress better. Part o’ my image. I can’t have you lookin’ like a middlin’ preacher’s daughter whose folks are deliberately keepin’ her ugly, shovin’ her up against a looker like Dot.”

Oh. That … hurt.

“Now, you all gussied up like y’are now? I like that, you turned out the way I knew you could be. That’s good an’ all, but you ain’t got the wardrobe yet. Somethin’ like Dot’s, never wearin’ the same thing twice.”

“You noticed her clothes?” she breathed, almost devastated to know Trey did notice Dot was “a looker.”

“’Course I did. I gotta know who I’m dealin’ with an’ clothes tell me a whole helluva lotta things people don’t know they’re sayin’.”

That made her brain tired. “That’s not part of the pin money?”

“No. That’s me providing for my wife. But for God’s sake, lose the trousers.”

“Sister Albright gave them to people whom they flattered.”

“Good. You can take Dot and go shoppin’ or somethin’.”

“But—”

“Marina, I ain’t rich—yet—but I gotta spend money to make money and your job is to help make me look good. Speakin’ of, I gotta go to work. Remember my rule: You stay offa Main Street south o’ 14th Street.”

Then he was gone after having dropped a kiss on her forehead so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. She turned around in this quiet, beautiful little house in a quiet, beautiful little neighborhood except for the ambulances going to the hospital, then plopped into a beautiful big overstuffed chair because her legs could no longer hold her up.

So much.
So beautiful.
All hers.
No need to ask permission for … anything.
Everything paid for.
A house.
A freezer.
A radio.
A car.
Anything her heart desired …

 

A baby.

 

 

 

That was when she began to cry.

41

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

Speakeasy staff.