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PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

49B

When we left our newlyweds, they were snuggling in bed chatting.

“Dot think she’s worldly, knowing what’s what, being cynical and suspicious, carrying a gun—”

“She what?!”

Trey smirked. “She’s walking around heavy, Sugar. In her pocketbook. Which reminds me, I need to get you armed and sassy too.”

She whimpered. “You want me to … ”

“I most certainly do. This might be a nice, quiet neighborhood, aside from the ambulances, I mean, but in reality, there is no such thing as a nice, quiet house for a gangster.”

She snuggled a little further into his side, which Trey knew was not fake. She was a little scared. He felt really bad about that. She needed to be a lot scared.

“We’ll talk about that later, though. Dot thinks she’s knowledgeable and tough, running around town like she’s in charge of it. She’s not. She skips along home to mama and daddy. Doesn’t have a lick of sense when it comes to really living. You came up being trained to be a housekeeper and nursemaid, keep your head down, don’t talk back, quiet and respectful like, listening and stacking up clues even if you can’t put words to your conclusions. You have a sense of responsibility Dot don’t—doesn’t—have. Not because she’s dumb or lazy, because she’s neither, but because she’s got the luxury of playing and being loud and whatnot. She thinks every problem can be boiled down to simple solutions and goes off half-cocked. ‘Go away, Mr. Dunham,’ but I didn’t because I’m not one of her puppy dogs, so she didn’t know what to do. You don’t have those illusions and you ponder the problem for a while. Like an adult. Everything’s difficult for you because of the way your mind works, hopping over lily pads, not knowing all you have to do is wait for everybody else to catch up. And if they don’t, so what. Go find frogs who think as fast as you do.”

That was when she completely relaxed. He felt her sigh against his bare chest.

“So maybe, it’s that. You sit quietly and listen and think and figure it out.”

“I never figure anything out,” she muttered, bitterness heavy in her voice. “You conned me.”

He wasn’t going to apologize for that. “You just didn’t have enough information. You don’t need all the information in a mystery novel to get to the who and why and how because there’s a pattern to how a mystery unfolds and you’ve been paying attention all along.”

“Seven Dials has me stumped,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Haven’t gotten around to it,” he confessed. “Haven’t been able to read much since the bet.”

“You’re always busy. How did you have time to read and be tutored before that?”

“I lived at the speak. I do all my bookkeeping at the end of the day instead of the beginning of the next. I could lie on my divan and read for a while after I woke up. Tutors came around lunchtime, spent an hour in my office working on my lessons until I was proficient, had lunch, they left, then I went up to the front of the house at eight like I do. I haven’t had lessons since the bet, either, and I was just getting to calculus.”

Marina simply sighed.

“What’s that for?”

“You’re going to be studying calculus and you think you’re stupid?” she asked softly.

“Book smart’s one thing. Knowing what to do when you need to do it is another thing.”

“Does anybody know that? Ever? I thought grownups did, but you were able to con Father. Mother regrets taking me in. The Albrights have made mistakes. Boss Tom is twice your age and he apologized to me at our wedding. It seems to me everybody does stupid things no matter how old they are.”

Trey hesitated for a moment. “You’ve been thinking about this. Why?”

“Bishop Albright told Dot you were young,” she muttered. “I don’t … You don’t seem young to me and Dot, but he said you were in a lot of trouble.”

Trey sighed. “I don’t feel so young most days because I’m looking out for too many people, most of ’em younger’n me—them—younGER than I—”

“Yes.”

“—and when I was eighteen, I helped somebody save their speakeasy because they didn’t understand. To me, it was just common sense. Then in between my bootlegging, I whipped another couple of speakeasies into shape and got a little bit of a reputation, which is how I landed at 1520. So I’ve been doing this for a long time. Now I’m definitely in hot water.”

“Bishop told me you’d try to keep it from me because that’s what mob husbands do.”

“That is generally true, yes. Gangsters like their women quiet, obedient, and ignorant, which sounds bad, but then you think, well, if they don’t know anything, they’re protected from harm. Usually, women and children are off limits. I don’t know what they might do to a wife who knows where the bodies are buried and actively participates.”

“Then why are you telling me? Don’t you want to protect me?”

“I do, but my idea of protection and theirs is different. I need a partner, and I believe women, especially smart ones like you, should be able to protect themselves when their men aren’t around. Liz Albright was bootlegging with Rev and she’s not about to let anybody run over her. She’s not shy about throwing the first punch, either. Ask your mama. And John Lazia’s wife Marie—they were at our wedding—”

“The angry couple?”

“Yes. Marie knows everything about Brother John’s operations, she’s smart as a whip, and she’s got moxie. She helps him. I envy that. But I like nice girls, too, so I didn’t think I’d ever have that and I wanted to get out so I could settle down without having to worry about it.”

“I’m not that smart, Trey,” she said soberly, “and I’m certainly not brave or, or, or— I’m not Dot, much less Sister Albright. Please don’t expect that from me. I’ll fail and then you’ll be disappointed or mad.”

Trey almost got mad about her putting herself down like that, but she did have a point. She wasn’t stupid, but she was young, inexperienced, frightened, and ignorant of the real world. He needed to ease her into it, teach her little by little, build and keep her confidence in herself.

“All I’ll say is you’re definitely smart enough, but I’ll allow as how I need to teach you a few more things before you don’t feel stupid.”

She heaved a resigned sigh. “Start at the beginning, please. When we met. The lies you told me. Who you really are. All I know is you’re not an insurance salesman.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “We haven’t talked about that, have we? Sorry about that, Sugga. I forgot, in all the rush. The insurance salesman is my cover for everyday people who aren’t connected to the Machine or Mafia. I didn’t make it up for you. I rent an address from a real insurance salesman where I can pick up mail or have a meeting if I have to. You remember? I took you to that office space, the one I said was mine?”

“Noooo … Uh … ”

He smacked his head. “’Course not. We spent the evening in a hotel room having sex.” He felt her throat bob and her body tense. He sighed. “A’ight.”

“Um … that family, the one you said you paid out on an insurance claim … ”

His brow wrinkled. That was the first thing she wanted to know about? “Their house did burn down, yeah. The mama was fixin’ supper an’ her wood stove was old an’ got outta control. I did help ’em, sorta. Boss Tom told me to take ’em a buncha food an’ whatnot, find ’em a place to live. Spent all day doin’ ’at.”

“You said their baby died.”

Trey grimaced. “Yeah, that’s true. Too much smoke in his little bitty lungs.”

“Aw,” she whispered. “You really were sad.”

“I was. That was in no way a lie. Anyhoo, the daddy, he didn’t have no work—”

“Any.”

He felt himself flush. He also felt her caress his shoulder as if comforting him. He didn’t know if that was conscious or not.

“Right. Thanks. So I found ’em a little house an’ the daddy a job.”

“So … in a way, you were doing the actual job of an insurance man.”

“The lie was, I said I had to pay out on an insurance policy. Folks like that don’t have insurance at all, but if they did, a real insurance adjustor would just inspect the damage and offer what seems like a lot of money but not enough to replace what they lost.

“You wouldn’t know this, but Boss Tom, if he knows about somebody’s problem, he’ll take care of it, no strings attached. Everything you need and more. They’re never part o’ the Machine, just folks in trouble. Boss Tom is sorta this town’s insurance policy—if their pride will let them ask for help or if they have the gumption to do it or if they even know how he operates, which a whole lotta folks really don’t.”

She struggled once again to look at him. She seemed to need to look him in the eye to figure out if he was sincere or not, but she always had to be surprised enough to do it. “I didn’t know that, either.”

“Why would you? If the people who need help know, he’s usually a last resort. If he happens to hear about it, one way or’t’the other, he’ll take care of it. And in return, all those folks will vote for whoever Boss Tom wants them to. That day, I was the only one available to do it ’cuz all his other soldiers were busy an’ Lazia ai—isn’t—that charitable. You need to remember his name now. John Lazia. Marie. His enforcer is Charlie Carrollo, who’d kill me if Lazia let him.” She shuddered. “Eh, I’d kill him if Boss Tom would let me. Then there’s Solly Weissman, Boss Tom’s bodyguard, who hates me almost as much as Carrollo does. There are a bunch of others. I’ll give you their names and then I may give you a pop quiz,” he teased.

She chuckled softly.

“Lazia’s the boss of the Sicilian Mafia, on the North side in Little Italy. They don’t operate like Boss Tom, but they will do what he asks because they need him more than he needs them.”

Marina said nothing, but by now he knew better than to interrupt her thinking until she got all those details sorted and tucked away.

“The emergency when you couldn’t go to Dot’s talent show,” she began again. “That was because Bishop Albright would want to be introduced to you and he would be suspicious? And you said you’d rather not talk about it because you didn’t want to tell me a story you’d forget?”

“Yes,” he said, proud as punch. “A good lie is short on details. The best lie is the one a cat tells himself. See, those lily pads’re gonna make things a lot smoother ’tween you and me. Albright and my granddaddy go way back to their bootlegging days, which none of us knew until they met up again at our wedding. My granddaddy went by Boss Elliott back then, and Albright thought Elliott was his last name. But Albright being the bad cat he is can’t be conned if he’s paying attention. I knew he was connected to the Machine so there was a good chance he’d recognize my name, and I was praying Dot wouldn’t let it slip. If I’d stopped to think about it a minute, I would’ve given you a fake name.”

“What happened to your hand?”

“I was mad your daddy put me on my knees that first night at church and I punched my bartop, ’cuz I’m a stupid shit.”

She didn’t protest that time. “You said you were too embarrassed to say. That was the truth, but you didn’t have to explain anything.”

“An’ as far as I can remember, which ain’t much, mind you, those are the only lies I told you. An’ for the record, I put your daddy on his knees when I kicked him outta the parsonage and stripped it bare. Everything he had ’cept what really belongs to the church is Boss Tom’s or mine now, an’ Boss Tom don’t know what I took he shoulda had. But your daddy— Oh, he squalled and cried and begged an’ that was downright satisfying.”

“Dot and I were wondering if it was a sin for a thief to steal from a thief?”

“Stealin’s a sin. Stealin’ from a thief don’t bother me. Doesn’t bother me. I ain’t stealin’ from nobody who’s tryin’a live his life—”

“You’re getting lazy again.”

Lawdy, this was going to be a minefield of embarrassment and he decided simply to make a habit of speaking the way he knew how, not switch back and forth, and suffer his milieu’s mockery for putting on airs.

“All right,” he said heavily and began again. Slowly. “The folks who come to my speak know they’re paying a lot for what they could get somewhere cheaper, but I don’t water my whisky, cut my dope, or hire prostitutes who can’t act.”

She whimpered, but she was duty-bound as his wife to know everything and help him, because that was what he wanted and a good wife did what her husband wanted.

“I pay well and no one in my place can complain about how I treat them as long as they follow my rules, which aren’t hard or too many. I have my own set of morals and I abide by them.”

She heaved a long sigh, which he took as relief. “Are you from Minneapolis?”

“Nope.”

“So everything you told Father … ?”

“Most of everything else was the truth or close to it. He just didn’t think about what I was really saying. I have not been to Europe, but I didn’t say I had. If he had said, ‘Have you been to Spain, yes or no?’ I’d have said no, but that I love the Country Club District. There were other things like that. He’s not a good enough conman to know when he’s being conned.” He paused. “I grew up on a farm in a little town called Redbird, about halfway between St. Louis and Columbia. Mama, daddy, three older brothers.”

“They all died. Your mother and brothers died of the flu and your father died a year later of a broken heart. That was the truth?”

“Yes, although my granddaddy insists my father died of an overworked heart, so I don’t know which is true.”

“Can’t they both be true?” Marina whispered, now swirling her fingertip in his chest hair of her own volition, her wedding ring flashing in the sun, which felt … good. Right. Proper.

“Maybe,” Trey said gruffly, then cleared his throat. “I didn’t know I had a granddaddy until a few weeks ago. I found out about an Elliott Dunham, dithered for a minute, then set out for St. Louis to check for myself. Lo and behold.”

“That was the day you were so down in the mouth?”

“Distracted. Anyhoo, I found out both my sets of grandparents disowned my parents because they wouldn’t join each other’s churches, so they ran away and were never heard from again.”

“Were they happy together?” Marina asked softly. “A happy home?”

“Yeup. Miss ’em. Miss that. It’s what I want to have again.”

“While being a mob boss?” she asked in a small voice.

“Noooo. I told you I want out and now I have a bigger reason. I have an end game and I have never told anyone this but you’re my wife and I need help and I trust you because you’re a good woman and don’t take that as a knock on your looks. But you must never tell anybody else, not Dot, not the Albrights, not anybody ever or give any hint because it might get me killed, you hear me?”

“Trey, I don’t want to know these things,” she said desperately. “Please don’t make me responsible for knowledge that’ll hurt me.”

“Yanno,” he said slowly, “every time you say something like that, I know I married the right woman.”

“Why?” she asked with painful confusion.

“Most people want to know secrets. They’re slobbering for them. You instinctively know better, which is why I know I can confide in you. I wanted to confide in you while we were courting, but you’d question why it was a secret.”

“Oh.”

“I want to go to law school.”

“Law school?” she squeaked. “But you— High school? College?”

“All you have to do is take a test. I could pass that test right now, but I’m trying to lay my path very carefully. The mob would rope me into defending them, but I want to be a respectable lawyer—”

She gasped. “Lawyers aren’t respectable at all! Look at Sydney Carton! He wasn’t respectable!”

“Sugar,” he said solemnly, stroking her back, “Sydney Carton is why I want to be a lawyer. He was the hero of that book.”

49B

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

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