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PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

74B

Trey feigned being a king reigning over his kingdom, completely engrossed in what was happening in his jam-packed speakeasy. Nothing else was out of the ordinary or interesting. But his heart was racing and his mouth was dry and for the first time in years he was truly terrified. What did he want with this life? Why did he stay?

This was all he’d known since he’d been run off his property, alone, having had the good fortune to fall in with a nice bootlegging couple who needed an extra pair of hands. His goal was to be a lawyer. He could sell 1520 back to Boss Tom or to Lazia at half its asking price and go to law school, but the longer he put it off, the less right it seemed. Except … He had a wife now. He was going to be a daddy. He should do something respectable whether he felt like it or not.

What would it be like to be out of the Machine? Would he have to move somewhere else and get a clean start? Did he want to live in terror over each decision he made? Or would life be just as fraught living on the right side of the law and making no money? He couldn’t live off his tiny fortune forever; lawyers didn’t make much and families were expensive.

But he did have a family to support. He certainly didn’t want his children to grow up poor, never knowing where their next meal was coming from, but he also didn’t want them to grow up with a thug for a daddy, never knowing if he’d come home, whether he be in the hoosegow or in a grave. No, he had to make enough to be able to get out of the Machine before his baby was old enough to understand daddy might not come home one day.

*  *  *

“They’re gone.”

“Out of the speak or out of town?”

“It’s been almost forty-eight hours. What do you think?”

It had taken a while for Trey to track Gio down at the home of one of the widows whose garage he used as a warehouse, way on the other side of Wyandotte County in Kansas. Gio had slept on her divan and was, at this moment, at the kitchen table eating supper and being pampered and fussed over. Trey hadn’t even begun looking for him until earlier this afternoon when Boss Tom had told him the capo was gone.

“Gio, you gotta leave,” Trey said as the widow put a plate of cookies in front of him. Trey smiled at her. It was nice being taken care of by a grandmotherly figure.

“I am not leaving Dot,” Gio said around his fried chicken. “If she still thought I hated her, I’d leave, but we’re together now, as much as we can be, I mean.”

Trey didn’t know quite how to counter that. “Lemme ask you somethin’. You really like Dot for herself or is she a symbol of what you’re lookin’ for? What you wanna be?”

Gio scowled. “What does that mean, a symbol of what I’m looking for? What I wanna be? You make me feel stupid when you talk like that.”

Gio wasn’t stupid, as his uncle had said. He was uneducated. He could tot sums and read, but that was about it, and now Trey understood why Gio was so touchy and sometimes aloof.

“It means, are you in love with the idea of a girl like Dot, and not Dot herself? Because she’s head over for you in spite of your past, and I’d hate to see you get in trouble over her then come to find out later you like things about her, but not really her.”

“Are you warning me off her?” he demanded. “Albright put you up to that? Or Marina?”

“No. I’m asking you if she’s worth risking your life.”

“Yes,” he said decisively.

“Is she worth risking her life?”

“I’m not worried about that. Albright can protect her and if he couldn’t, he’d have put me in the ground himself, not have me fixing the boiler at the church every Tuesday.”

Trey almost brought up the bounty, but he couldn’t trust this cookie-wielding granny with that much information.

“Is she really?” Gio asked, for the first time sounding uncertain.

“Is who really what?”

“Is Dot really in love with me?”

“Yes, and you know she isn’t flighty.”

“Did you tell Marina about what happened?”

“’Course I did. I don’t keep bad shit from her. Too dangerous. I want you to get out of town.”

Gio sneered at him. “You just want to protect your own skin and the speak.”

Trey blinked. “That isn’t unreasonable. I keep you on, it’s just me indulging someone else’s romance at the risk of my life and livelihood. You think they’d hesitate to firebomb the place if they knew I’d hidden you? With all of everybody inside? Maybe customers, too?”

Gio stilled, then his mouth twisted in concession and he heaved a deep sigh.

“I don’t owe you anything. I will keep you on because I need you, but I want you to get a good feel about how much it could cost me and maybe a whole lot of other people.”

“Thank you,” he muttered. “How many people saw the resemb­lance?”

“Nobody but me, so far as I can tell.” He paused, then admitted, “Boss Tom already knew who you were.”

Gio’s jaw dropped open.

“He threatened to turn you over if I insisted on having the speak and Marina. You have Albright to thank for getting you out of that jam.”

“Are you going to tell Albright about this?”

“Naw, but you have confessing to him down pat. I figure your conscience will get to you eventually. Now finish up there,” Trey said as he arose, fished a one-hundred-dollar bill out of his money clip and gave it to the widow, then put his hat on, “and get your ass back to work.”

74B

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