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PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

72

“GODDAMMIT!” TREY RAGED as he tore his mezzanine office apart.

Now, Trey was a generous judge of people, outwardly giving them the benefit of the doubt until they gave themselves enough rope to make him tighten the noose. He was harsher in his opinion of himself, more so than he was of others. But this was not his fault and he had every right to be angry with Marina.

He did not have the right to bust up her house just because he was angry with her. Lonely. What married woman got lonely? What married woman didn’t want to get her man out of the house so she could run her routine without tripping over him? She liked fucking, so he made sure to give her enough sugar to make her think it was the dope getting her where she liked to be.

Picture shows?

Fairyland?

Reading?!

He didn’t have time for that anymore! He had a business to run! It demanded even more time than it had before because of the money he was paying Boss Tom! And he still had to put up with Lazia hanging around on the fringes, waiting for his chance, with Carrollo in the shadows! Never mind Solly Weissman trying to fuck with Trey’s head, putting out rumors of the rack and ruin he was about to visit upon the speak and possibly Trey himself! Fucking was about as much fun as he had time for!

She was talking about Agatha Christie with some other cat, and that was how to get in her trousers. Agatha Christie!

Carville probably thought she was pretty too. He wondered if he’d told her. And if Trey were in Carville’s shoes, he’d try to convince the woman to leave her good-fer-nothin’ husband. Trey wasn’t sure Carville was the kind of cat to take that tack, but just in case—

He hopped in his car and headed on over to East High School, which was, coincidentally, right up the hill from Elmwood Cemetery. That was one place he would never go again till he died, and the only reason he wanted to be laid to rest there was because that was where all the important cats were buried.

He seriously considered busting into the cat’s classroom and making a scene, getting him fired for cavorting with a married woman (or any woman at all—immorality contracts and whatnot), but Carville had gotten Marina ahead of Dot, because Marina was through algebra and into trigonometry, which she’d taken to like a duck to water, given patience, time, and good explanations.

Trey was a generous man. If he could allow as how the Reverend Missus was crackerjack sharp, he could allow as how Carville had done what he’d been paid to do and done it well. Unlike with the Reverend Missus, Trey couldn’t bring himself to visit life-ruining consequences upon Carville because he had been kind to Marina.

He was waiting outside his classroom, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette.

“Bye, Mr. Carville!” called well-dressed and pretty girls flirtatiously as the students spilled out the door after the bell rang.

“You too, girls,” the man called absently. It was a confidently absent reply, one a distracted cat would give to people he had power over and from whom he wanted to keep his distance.

A couple of the prettiest girls stopped when they saw Trey and looked him over appreciatively. It happened a lot, especially with girls who knew they were pretty. He didn’t care. He lifted an eyebrow to ask why they were bothering him, and they harrumphed away.

Trey rolled off the wall and around the doorjamb. “Carville,” he said.

Startled, Carville looked up at him. “Well, hi, Mr. Dunham,” he said, bewildered. “Did something happen to Marina?”

“Nothing firing you won’t fix.”

Carville’s mouth dropped open.

“I know you got feelin’s for my wife—” The cat’s color drained. “—so you’re fired. Ain’t gonna do nothin’ else ’less you come sniffin’ ’round her very cute ass that belongs to me, hear?”

To Trey’s surprise, his expression turned resolute and he straightened. “Do your worst, Dunham,” he sneered. “I have done nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Do you or do you not have feelin’s for my wife?”

“I do,” he shot back, “but unlike you, I like her for herself, not for what she can do for me.”

“Have you or have you not tried to poison her mind against me and offer to take her away?”

“I don’t know what she told you, but it wasn’t like that.”

“She didn’t tell me anything. It’s what I’d do.”

He sneered. “I’m not you.”

“But you did.”

“Yes, I did! And she refused. Even if I thought I could win her affections, which I couldn’t because she’s in love with you, I wouldn’t have to drug her to do it.”

That hit Trey in the gut. He would have preferred Carville simply sucker-punch him.

“And I would appreciate her—”

“I appreciate her!” Trey blurted before he realized how stupid it was to defend himself to some cat with a crush on his wife. But then, Trey was a stupid shit.

“Mmm hm,” Carville hummed derisively, with a look of such blatant contempt, it nearly knocked Trey on his ass. “You owe me a week’s pay. Send it by courier and don’t come here again. This is a respectable school with a lot of pretty teenage girls and I will have you put on the blacklist as soon as you leave. No decent father will tolerate his girl within speaking range of a Machine underboss who’s drugged a sixteen-year-old to get under her skirt to win a bet.

“I am in love with your wife,” he sneered. “That’s true. And you probably heard that from Stanley, who doesn’t like you much more than I do. But so what. Marina is smart and kind and sweet. I would make a much better husband than you. But I can control myself, and I never thought I had a chance. So go ahead and try to ruin my life and see who gets a brick thrown through his expensive plate glass windows by a mob of angry and scared fathers. The Machine won’t care since the speakeasy is yours.”

Trey stood completely speechless, hating himself for feeling the same way he felt when he tripped in front of Marina, but unable to muster his swagger because Trey was an honest man and everything Carville said was true—up to and including the fact Carville probably would make a better husband for Marina than Trey.

“You’re still fired,” he ground out, then turned on his heel and left to salvage what was left of his pride.

*  *  *

He went home after work the next morning expecting … He didn’t know what he expected. The back porch light was on, as usual. The rest of the house was dark and quiet, as usual. There was no light from the top of the stairs lighting his way. That was not usual.

Marina was asleep. That too, was unusual.

He sighed and went to the bathroom to clean up, then stood in the threshold of his room naked, dripping wet because he couldn’t spare the time to dry off to look at his sleeping wife, pregnant with his child, as interesting in sleep as she was awake although in a different way. It had only been three months since they’d married and he was already taking her for granted.

Carville was wrong about one thing: Marina didn’t love Trey and that was okay. She was never going to. He might have taken it personally, but he doubted Marina had the capacity to truly love anybody. She didn’t know what it was. Trey did, having watched his father and mother.

Trey also knew what being in love really was. He had been. Once, with Florence. And see how that turned out.

So Trey didn’t expect to have that kind of marriage in any case, which was why it didn’t bother him. He also knew that because Marina had grown up with no love whatsoever, she wouldn’t believe anybody who told her they loved her.

What he did know was that he didn’t want to hurt his best pal.

He drooped, too exhausted and beat down to carry himself with pride, and trudged around the bed to his side. He climbed under the covers and didn’t touch Marina. He needed to conserve his energy for their trip to Fairyland tomorrow.

72

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