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PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

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68

“NOW, SUGAR—” MARINA was frying bacon when Trey came down, her back to him, to avoid his condemnation or mockery of what she had done with him the night before. Three times. “I know—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she croaked, awash in humiliation.

“You don’t know what I’m going to say,” he said testily.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she blurted, near tears.

“Uh … why?”

“We … um, I— I did the indecent thing.”

“Yeah? So? I was there, did it with you.”

“But … I … ”

Trey waited, but she didn’t know what she wanted to say nor if she really wanted to say it.

“Yep, knew you’d do this,” he said softly, startling her when he grasped her shoulders and turned her around. He cupped her cheek and gave her a sweet smile. “Sugar, it’s nothing special. You and I having a little fun together.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Not special?”

“No.”

“But I thought— You said if we did that, it would ruin our friendship.”

He grimaced a little. “I … was wrong. This is what friends like us do. What married people do, if they have a care for one another. I see it every night at the speak.”

Utterly lost, she tilted her head. “You said that all you saw was how being indecent ruins friendships.”

“The problem, I figured out—which we don’t have—is when one person cares for the other person more. Affection on one’s part and love or something close to it on the other’s part is a disaster waiting to happen. I wasn’t thinking about how you and I don’t have that problem. There is nobody I care for more than you, and I doubt you want to get that close to Dot.”

Marina shook her head.

“And I wasn’t thinking about the fact that you and me—”

“I.”

“—I like each other equally. From what I’ve seen, folks who are equal in their affection for each other can be indecent without wrecking it, see? And almost all those people are married to each other.”

She nodded slightly. Yes, she could see what he meant, like the well-seasoned skillet.

“So that, what happened last night, is just two best pals with equal affection showing it in a different way from usual.”

“Oh,” she whispered with some wonder. “You just realized that last night when I said that, about the sweet tea … ?”

“I’d been chewing on it for a few days,” he said with a matter-of-fact nod, “being irked that my good friend dreaded having fun with me. Started watching people. Listening to what they say when they don’t know what they’re saying. And that’s when it all came clear.”

“I can’t, uh … ” She felt her face go hot. “I can’t do that without …  um, the sweet tea.”

He shrugged. “I wish you’d try, but I know you so I understand. But I have to know something and it’s going to make you all embarrassed again, but here it is: Did you have fun?”

She blinked. “Uh … well, it felt good, if that’s all right? I mean, it wasn’t fun—” She clenched eyes and her fists. “No! I mean that— Fun isn’t the right word. No, I didn’t have fun. I felt good. More than that. Like riding a rollercoaster only better— I felt … No! I mean that … ” She gave up and slouched. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say,” she mumbled. “My words are lost.”

“Mmm hm, let’s try it this way: You want to do it again sometime? Not right now,” he added hastily when he saw her expression. “I mean sometime in the future? And you won’t dread it? And I won’t be a chore?”

“You won’t think of me as a loose woman because I like it?” she whispered.

“No, Sugar, I could not think of you that way. You’re my best pal and my wife. That’s one of the things we can do together, like baseball and the pictures and Fairyland and suchlike. All I need to know is you liked it and don’t see it as a chore.”

She shook her head. “I understand now.”

“Good. Now, give me a kiss and get some food in your belly while I get ready for work.”

 

69

“WELL, AREN’T YOU chipper today,” Gio said darkly when Trey went to work.

“Well, aren’t you not,” Trey returned cheerfully.

“Albright won’t let me talk to Dot, even after last night. Not even with him right there.”

“I’m shocked she hasn’t tried to slip out of the house.”

“He’s got her under lock and key, and I wouldn’t put up with that anyway.”

“Look. Albright knows you’re on the up’n’up, but he’s not gonna be happy until you’re out of the Machine, the Cosa Nostra believes you’re dead, and you turn up Mormon with an American name. And even then he’s gonna think twice because she’s the one he doesn’t trust. Just think. He trusts you more than he trusts his own kid, so that should give you some idea that eventually, he’ll cave. Thing is, I’d try to help you, but I don’t wanna run afoul of him any more’n Boss Tom does, and I’m just as obliged to him as Marina is.”

“I figured,” Gio muttered. “Why are you so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?”

“Marina and I,” Trey pronounced grandly, “came to a mutual understanding. And came. And came.”

Gio snorted his amusement. “So the sweet tea worked.”

“I did not give her one grain of it.”

Gio’s jaw dropped.

“She doesn’t know that. She came up with the idea herself.”

“What?”

Trey nodded sagely, once again proud as punch of his little wife. “She did. Practically ordered me to get it or else she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t just lay there. Lie there. Put me on the floor, I was so shocked. You know, like when she suggested I pay you to be more attentive to Dot.”

“She does seem to be practical about things.”

“Did a little sleight of hand, told her I spiked her drink and she could drink it or not. She did. She thinks the sweet tea made her all loosey-goosey.”

“Smart. No morning-after regrets?”

“Not for me, although she was embarrassed as hell. I got to thinking about what you said about friends having fun. I explained it. She was perfectly happy to consider it something best pals who have equal care for each other—and are married—can do to have fun. And get this—I told her it was nothing special and it was exactly what she needed to hear.”

“Nothing special,” Gio said flatly. “And it didn’t hurt her feelings.”

“Took the pressure off,” Trey said vaguely as he sat down to his fake books. “Her, me, weddin’ ring, good friends—best pals—something fun we do then take care of business as usual. Life goes on. So thanks for that.”

“Glad that worked. Why didn’t you use the sweet tea after she asked you to?”

“Experiment,” Trey said matter-of-factly. “Wanted to see how far I could push her as her natural self before she froze up. Turns out, not far, but good enough for me.”

“Not like she was when she was high.”

“Not even close. Don’t want to fuck that one ever again.”

“You’re lying. Ethel said you like it as rough and dirty as any other red-blooded man.”

Trey considered. “Maybe. Someday. When we’re more comfortable with each other. Another kid or two. You know how we get the thirty- and forty-year-old women in here who can go all night without the drugs?”

Gio nodded sagely.

“Maybe by the time she’s thirty, forty, I’ll be jake with that one.” Trey paused. “Y’know, all you have to do with Dot is wait her old man out. Eighteen, twenty-one, she’ll be rarin’ to go.”

“I am afraid,” Gio said heavily, “that if I don’t get her now, I never will.”

“For all her little puppy dogs, she’s not flighty.”

“You’re competing with Dot? I’m competing with college.”

“Ohhh,” Trey grimaced.

“You know where she wants to go? Brigham Young University. In Utah.”

“Good Lord. But it seems to me Utah is the last place they’d look.”

“I didn’t think of that.” Gio sighed. “Even if I did, what father would allow his daughter to marry a man who doesn’t know how to do anything but kill and fuck and won’t live to see thirty? If he’s lucky?”

“Oh, damn.”

“Exactly.”

“Now wait a minute,” Trey protested. “You manage here just fine. You’re good with customers, good with the waitstaff. You take inventory like a champ, and you mind details. You could do something with that, restaurant or hotel or something. With your looks and manners, why— You aren’t stupid and you speak a lot better than me—I—although your accent’s a dead giveaway. Lucky we got a lot of you in this town, so you just come off like any ol’ Mafia soldier.”

He scowled. “I might not like being in the Mafia, but I’m Sicilian and I want to stay that way.”

Trey shrugged. “I guess you’re gonna have to decide how bad you want Dot and what you’re willing to do to get her.”

68-69

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