Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20A | 20B | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25-26 | 27 | 28-29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35-36 | 37 | 38A | 38B | 38C | 38D | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42-43 | 44-45 | 46 | 47 | 48-49A | 49B | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57A | 57B | 58-59| 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68-69 | 70A | 70B | 71A | 71B | 72 | 73 | 74A | 74B | 75 | 76-77A | 77B | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85-87 | 88A | 88B | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94A | 94B | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98-99 | 100 | 101 | 102-103
PART V
MIRACLES
104A
F E B R U A R Y 1 9 3 1
THE SPEAK WAS jam-packed and roaring, folks eating and drinking and dancing. And there was Trey at his table, his elbow on it, his hand to his mouth, deep in thought. In the back of his mind, he knew it was dangerous to be so preoccupied that he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in his place, but he also had bouncers, cops, and assorted thugs surrounding him, guarding it and him.
His most immediate concern was figuring out who had grabbed Ida and cut her fingers off. Boss Tom was horrified. So was Lazia, when Trey asked him point blank, and Trey didn’t think he was acting. It wasn’t his style and he had run Al Capone out of Kansas City because he wasn’t going to tolerate that style.
“Dunham.”
Trey started when fingers snapped in front of his face. He looked up to see Bishop Albright standing there looking annoyed. Trey scowled. “What’d I do this time?”
Albright helped himself to the chair across from Trey’s and signaled the waitress. “Ribeye, rare. Sarsaparilla.”
The waitress smiled sweetly, curtsied, and skedaddled. Trey had never seen her curtsy to anyone before.
“Well?”
“I’m tired,” Albright announced.
“Go home and take a nap, then.”
Albright laughed, something else Trey had never seen. “That’s not what I mean.”
Trey hadn’t lived as long as he had without being able to sense this was going to go somewhere he wasn’t going to like.
“Boss.”
Again Trey looked up and to his left to see one of his bouncers holding Seamus Byrne by the scruff of his neck. Seamus was more pale than usual, making his freckles pop out.
Trey chucked his chin at the chair between him and Albright, and Seamus was shoved into it. His bouncer retreated a few steps and stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Seamus.
“You are going to tell me where, why, when, how, and what foolishness you have running through your noggin. Do you really think you can hijack my heroin without getting brought straight to me?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Seamus hissed, leaning over the table toward Trey. “I’m not smart enough, remember? You said so yourself!”
“Noooo,” Trey drawled, “I said you were lazy. You also want what other people have without having to work for your own.”
“I did not hijack your heroin!”
“Because my men caught yours.”
“I didn’t do it the first time, either!”
Trey’s eyebrow rose and his lips pursed. “I didn’t say anything about a first time. I also had word you were seen at a den, and you don’t look strung out, so it makes me wonder who you’re working for. Then I think, well, Lazia’s got it in for me because I won’t give him my Remus, so maybe he’s the one pulling your strings.”
“Nobody’s pulling my strings!” he snapped. “I’m working my own operation.”
Trey whipped out his gun and had it planted in the middle of Seamus’s forehead before he could blink. “Talk.”
Seamus blubbered. Tears began to track down his face. His nose began to run. “God’s honest truth, I don’t know. I got a wife. I got a kid. I can’t—”
“Yeah, and I have a wife and kid who almost got blown up. You know what I did to Robbie. Don’t think I won’t shoot you here.”
Seamus gulped and gulped for air. “Put, put, put—gun—down,” he panted. “Can’t—think.”
Trey lowered it and waited.
“Lazia wants the Remus,” Seamus squeezed out.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Ch—Ch—Carrollo hired me to fin—fin—find out your route. I—I—I found your heroin by accident.”
“Some tough guy you are,” Trey muttered with amusement as he studied Seamus, sitting there begging over nothing. “A’ight, look, Seamus. I’m willing to overlook the heroin you stole from me last year, and I’m willing to let it slide that you’ve been trying to find my routes, if you just tell me anything you might have heard about my house blowing up and my family almost with it?”
“Don’t—don’t—don’t know anything about that,” he hiccuped. “Or your cook.”
Albright stiffened.
“I didn’t ask you about my cook,” Trey said softly. “What’s wrong with my cook?”
“I hear—hear—heard that, that she got some fingers cut off … ?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I don’t remember. It must have got out. Everybody heard about it.”
Trey opened his mouth—
“Trey!” came a female screech from the stairs. Lickety split, Sally, clothed only in a feathered satin peignoir and feathered mules, was at his table, her fists clamped to her hips. “That bitch you hired while we were gone is high as a fucking kite—again—banging on our doors while we have customers, and screaming at us that we are taking her custom—” She stopped mid-rant and cocked her head at Seamus, her brow wrinkled. “Hey, aren’t you the boy who was hanging around out back for a while sweet-talking Ida?”
“No,” Seamus squeaked.
Trey slid his glance to Seamus.
She pointed at him with a mixture of confusion and consternation. “I could have sworn— Yes, yes, you were. Name’s Sean, right? Ida told us you were going to take her to the pictures. She was so excited. That was a few days before—” She cut that off, too. She cleared her throat. “Before she quit and moved out.”
“Seamus,” Trey murmured. “Care to explain?”
“My name is not Sean,” he said tightly.
“A good whore recognizes faces,” Trey rumbled. “Names are irrelevant.”
“She’s just a whore.”
Sally slapped him before Trey could stop her, but Seamus went red with rage. Trey had his gun to Seamus’s head again before he could launch himself at Sally.
What to do, what to do. He needed the information, but he wasn’t sure Seamus actually knew anything important.
“All right, Seamus, I’ll do you a favor.” Trey tilted his head toward the stairs, and after his bouncer dragged Seamus out of his chair and marched him down the stairs, Trey told Albright, “Be right back,” and headed downstairs. Once they were in the alley, Trey simply shot Seamus in the head. “Take him over to Carrollo and tell him to come at me like a man.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
By the time Trey returned to his table, Albright had his steak, and though he looked pointedly at the blood all over Trey’s suit, said nothing, and ate calmly while Sally sat in the chair Seamus had occupied, one bare knee crossed over the other one as she calmly smoked a cigarette.
Trey leaned over the rail and barked for another one of his bouncers, who soon appeared. “Yeah, Boss?”
“You and Sally go pack up whats-her-face’s shit and get her out of here.”
“Thank you, Trey!” Sally squealed and hopped up, stubbing her cigarette in the ashtray and following the bouncer up the stairs.
“God, they’re worse than children,” Trey said wearily as he flopped back in his chair. “You are an amazingly difficult man to shock.”
“Heard it all, done it all,” Albright said around his bite. “I haven’t had a steak this good in years, though. Hat’s off.”
Trey’s eyes narrowed. “If I’m not in trouble, you must want something.”
Albright nodded, but said nothing as he ate, savoring every bite and Trey complimented himself on his ability to hire excellent cooks. Finally, he repeated, “I’m tired.”
Irritated, Trey said, “What’s that got to do with me?”
“I am taking my family west.”
“That’s a mighty big change. How’re you going to protect your people all the way from the Rockies? No feral cats in your congregation who can be ‘God’s muscle’ and even if there were, they’re not connected the way you are.”
Albright stared at Trey from under his brows and took another bite.
Trey sat for a few seconds and let that simmer in his mind. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I ain’t doin’ ’at.”
“I’m not asking, Dunham. You owe me. Big.”
“And this is why I don’t take favors! You did that of your own accord!”
“Does it matter if it benefited you in every way?”
“I do not believe one goddamned thing you people believe.”
“I don’t care whether you believe it or not.”
Trey gestured around. “And what would your congregation think about their new bishop’s livelihood?”
Albright sucked his teeth. “I don’t think you’re going to last much longer.”
104A
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Donations can be made here, if you so desire.
Good chapter.
Cold.
“That’s what she said”
To me, she said “Humongous”.
As in, “My god, that mole is humongous!”
She played Rush songs for Mike.
But accurate and honest. Trey can’t get what he wants from that life. So, he can’t last.
Well, that’s a nicer way to read that than I got from it.
“It’s Mojeaux’s fault”
Because she asked for our X handles I connected with a bunch of you guys on X.
Because of that, a lot more political content crosses my feed.
Because of that I broke down and responded to a few things
Because of that X shoveled more of that shit my way.
Because of that I see more of what people really think.
Because of that I’m growing increasingly despairing, losing my optimistic faith in my fellow man.
And then, just when all hope was nearly lost, X pushed a video of some guy in India getting dragged out of a jail and burned alive in the middle of the street, squashing that last vestige of faith like a bug.
X users did us proud, celebrating because he was accused of being a child molester.
So, we got the left wanting to eliminate the 1st amendment, the rabble giddy about skipping over due process and getting right to 8th amendment denialism….
Aaaaaaand… I’ve had enough of social media for a while.
Thanks Mojeaux.
Heh.
Twitter is the only place GenX has a voice.
Ha. Glibs seems to have a higher concentration of us than the rest of the world.
GenX is the one, true generation.
It does seem to be the only place where people with sense will tell a knucklehead to fuck right off.
There was a great video today of some lefty college nitwit talking to Charlie Kirk and Vivek Ramaswamy. She thought that doing a 9th grade mean girls would win the day, since that how it usually goes when she is in her bubble.
It did not go so well as she had supposed.
https://x.com/AeroStudioMan/status/1836966498620895739?s=19
Plus, she thought she p0wned him by pulling her nipple out.
So, the day was not a total loss.
Wait, that doesn’t work?
It is known
Unless this place counts, I don’t do social media. Keeps me sane.
It’s lonely in here…
For dog’s sake it’s just me and OMWC! Oh! The humanity!
XY is coming over to give me a surprise and is not here yet. I don’t know what this surprise is. That’s why it’s a surprise.
I just got home. It was a… bit of a long day. But I’m semi-’round. Borderline “quite.”
It would be correct to say work today involved… copious amounts of blood. Not where it should have been. This wasn’t a big deal, apparently.
Folks were asking about my pup in the afternoon links. Here’s a pic from tonight’s walk.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240920_193037-scaled.jpg
Daisy is a Great Pyr, the white one. The black one is a Giant schnauzer we’re watching for some friends.
I am jealous. I want to run down that road with my dogs. Maybe the flush out a covey of quail or a pheasant…..
Looks like a great way to clear your head.
We have been quite happy with our decision to move here. That’s on the driveway in my front pasture. The angle hides the neighbors’ houses, but it’s pretty picturesque looking that direction, especially when the cattle are out in those pastures.
No pheasant or quail yet that I’ve seen, but we did flush a few deer a couple evenings ago. Unfortunately the land isn’t configured in a way that is good for shooting, so I’d be archery only if I wanted to take one.
The Cadillac of crossbows, made in Superior/Inferior, WI
https://ravincrossbows.com/
Lovely!
Congrats, trashy. They are such amazing dogs.
We’ve moved on to the small dog club. Our Border Terrier is almost a year old and is kicking ass across the board.
I can’t remember where you moved Trashy but enjoy your dog and your home.
Gen X is the one true generation getting screwed from both ends.
A lifetime of self centered boomers doing all the drugs, spreading all the diseases, running up the debt and building the ludicrous social security trust fund so that we have to pay for the greatest generation’s retirement, and all the crazy spending of the me generation…. and then we have to pay back all the treasuries they put the trust fund in while simultaneously paying for the boomer retirement….
Meanwhile, Y and Z run around not working, voting for octogenarian and senile lefties because social media said so and because they want free loan forgiveness.
Gen X is the baby bust. So no real political clout. We be screwed
Baby bust is right.
Wow.
Also, 1995 called, it wants its website back.
Hm. I have three brothers born in the early 60s and honestly they feel like a different generation from me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My son is from the early ’60s, definitely a different generation from me.
😆
@Rhy: Your bros born in the early 60s… what about you?
’69.
NYPD has released one body cam of the subway fairjumper shooting.
Dude clearly had a knife out.
Clearly non-compliant.
Police tried non-lethal multiple times with no effect.
But.. my hot take? I did not see the lunge at police they talked about. Also, terrible situational awareness when they drew weapons, circular firing squad style.
https://x.com/ViralNewsNYC/status/1837254369013579997?s=19
One problem is you don’t know beforehand (usually) who is mentally ill – and there are soooo many of them. Such people don’t behave normally.
Also… Sutter Avenue. *shudder*
Avoid avoid avoid
Am I seeing this right? The guy was shot 3 times and he’s lying on his side looking like he is going to stand up?
Yeah, it often takes a while.
I remember one from the old Balko nut punch days…. dude lived upstairs of his store, big naked man breaks in and comes upstairs, gets shot like 9 times for his trouble…. police have a hell of a time wrestling him under control because he is too slippery with blood.
Thanks Moj,
I’m a little (or a lot ) confused. Somehow I thought Albright had left his previous life behind him and was just a traveling doctor for the critters.
Trey, on the other hand, seems to be unaware of everything as well, sort of. It’s getting curiouser and curiouser.
/Wait for another week
Albright is a bishop of a Mormon congregation (ward). He is ALSO a veterinarian. Mormons don’t have paid clergy. It’s all volunteer.
In Missouri, Mormons could be shot on sight until 1976. It was called the Extermination Order. So.
Because of his past, Albright is connected to the mob and the machine. Also, because bean counters in his congregation keep Boss Tom’s honest set of books (the precedent for this idea was set in Vegas–see “Mormon Mafia“). He is bishop because of his connection because the mob and the machine can help him out if all the godfearing Christians get it into their heads to carry out an extermination. Thus, Albright provides services for Boss Tom who will protect his congregation.
So Albright wants Trey to take his place as bishop to carry on the bookkeeping and protection. Only Trey can do that because he’s connected, but would still be outside of the machine and mafia’s business.
Ahhh. Thanks, that helped a lot to undo the confusion in my head.
Another great chapter Banjos! (Just kidding Moj. I bow my head at my screw up the other day.
Trey seems too distracted to stay in that line of work. Maybe it is time to move to the Territory of Hawaii with his family and veg for a decade or so.
Oh, Trey can do something I can’t do (Marina can do it too), which is to keep all 100 of his plates spinning in the air.
I would sit amongst broken dishes designing a self-spinning plate.
lol I can barely keep one plate spinning.
One of the last things I learned to do in college was to juggle (basic three-beanbag. Not for academic credit.) It occurs to me that if I’d learned how to do so earlier, I might have had a more successful college career.
– Find the center of the bottom,
– hot glue a nut to it.
– Affix a span of all thread in the chuck of a drill,
– thread plate onto allthread,
– turn on drill.
– Duck and run.
Ha I did actually teach myself that in my teens. Not very successfully but I can generally keep it going for a bit.
Ha, Dad got obsessed with juggling. He’d go on semi-tours/ vacations performing at schools and teaching kids how to do it. Like a gym performance instead of a speech. He got paid a few hundred per. I think $500 from a Florida gig got us to Epcot. He taught me and older bro, as well. We were also part of his touring side gig.
He was good at teaching ’em. I am happy and proud I still can, even a few tricks. Dad’s best were, IIRC, four clubs; five balls; a shotput; and a mix of two bigger objects and a penny. <– Coins are hard as fuck to juggle, 'specially with other objects. My best: Normal three ball juggling, and if I work at it a bit, the floater where ya get one ball in the middle and two on the outside without them crossing. I can juggle two with one hand, and if I work at it I can juggle back and forth from left to right with only the individual left and right hands being 'in charge' of juggling the two balls.
Hrm. Pride is a big thing coming up tomorrow with my fifth year anniversary of The Incident. I was thrilled juggling is 'like riding a bike.' I could develop new tricks if I steadily worked at it, but it's never been My Thing. Great trick to know, and really does help overall hand eye coordination. Dad originally made us learn to help with baseball and other sports. His Tiger Dad thing.
OT: TCM this evening has “The Lives of Others” which is a great film about the late stage of the DDR and the Stasi.
I highly recommend it.
Saw that a few years ago – the end was so bittersweet.
👍🏻Soooo good.
It has been too long since I watched it. I don’t get that channel but fortunately I have the DVD.
Ossi dystopia porn is one of my favorite genres.
Have you ever seen this, rhywun?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URq7m3-SOtA
Nope. Sounds interesting.
Wishlisted the original 25fps version 🤪
I know not your favorite, but the whole thing is on youtube.
Glorious ’70s, like a long play Clockwork Orange. And arty too!
Fantastic, fantastic film. Been a while, but damn.
Mojeaux:
https://robbreport.com/shelter/celebrity-homes/chris-pratt-katherine-schwarzenegger-house-brentwood-1235575063/
On the one hand, it’s your property. On the other hand, WTF?! Buy another property.
Rich people are so gross lol
And on yet another hand:
“0.83 acre estate”
is an abuse of the language.
O.
M.
G.
That’s worth prison rape.
Meh. If FLW can have his houses torn down, than so can this guy.
FLW’s buildings are notoriously badly designed with regard to plumbing/water/HVAC and are hard to maintain.
It’s usually the roofs people (rightfully) complain about, but that’s a strawman. What makes this brick and glass, poor imitation of FLW’s groundbreaking designs so important that Pratt and his wife should be prison raped?
I mean, de gustibus and all that, and I wouldn’t want to live in MCM, but that was a beautiful piece of architecture.
Was it, though? I’m trying to find some pics of it online other than the tiny pic in the article and am not having much luck.
Also, I thought you hated modern architecture. Am I losing (lost) my mind?
Also, also, don’t get me wrong; I hate to see great examples of architecture torn down. I think Americans in general are far to eager to do so. But, not every building is a masterpiece.
Also, also, also, I wonder if this would be a story if the Kennedy offspring had married a good atheist Democrat.
Also, also, also, also: He was active from approx 1890-1955. How much worse was he than his contemporaries with regards to plumbing and HVAC? Did the term HVAC even exist in his lifetime?
I don’t like brutalism. I love midcentury modern, especially atomic and Googie. It hits my nostalgia boner just right.
Back on the old TCM boards, somebody was talking about trying to get a historical designation for the house Fred Astaire was born in because it was on the market and she feared the new owners would want to tear it down for being in terrible condition.
She got quite irritated with me when I told her to buy the place herself rather than use the state to tell the owners what to do with it.
I thought Pratt was a horrible icky right-winger. Or is that why this is a news story?
The story is celebrities tearing down a house the writer liked. And they did it without asking permission!
I know absolutely nothing about him other than his appearance in Parks & Rec.
He has a successful movie career now.
$12M would buy a lot of land and a decent house, not OSB and cardboard house built to insane current building codes.
Location, location, location.
Work from home.
Not guilty.
“….designed by modernist architect…”
Kill it. Erase it from the earth.
Mötley Crüe has chosen to cover the Beastie Boys’ Fight For Your Right. Someone make them stop. They are such a fun hair metal band but they haven’t done a single decent cover song.
Motley covers?
If you haven’t heard any, then you are lucky.
What are you talking about? “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” was perfectly adequate.
I would grudgingly agree if they didn’t make a mockery of Helter Skelter and Anarchy in the UK.
Very dead thread now, but for posterity’s sake I’ll add that they did a very good live cover of Jailhouse Rock. Last track on Girls, Girls, Girls
That said, I do not want to hear them probably mangle Fight For Your Right.
Yay! Saturday!
Don’t despair cyto, CommaLa is going to fix EVERYTHING!
🤥🌤️🌈🥞
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LE2pgA8Q2bY
🎶🎶
Excellent song for y’all. *lights rhywun signal*
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w869Avr_fXI
Weekend bonus track!
🦖🎸😎
Fiberfest this weekend! Woohoo!
https://www.lvfiberfest.com/
😋
Is this a regular thing?
Good morning all.
The news is on featuring one of the greatest dangers to liberty that ever existed: a grieving parent.
Son committed suicide by overdosing on pink salt – InstaCure/ Prague powder/ Pokelsalz/ Sodium Nitrite. I think everyone here knows what it is. It cures meat preventing botulism.
“He got it online! Anybody can get it! He only paid $18 for it! We must ban it! Sodium nitrate will do the same thing!”
The kid found out about it on a ‘grim reaper’ website. These evil fucks encourage people to commit suicide and give instructions on how to do it.
They must also be banned, fuck the first amendment.
No one should ever have to bury a child. It would never happen in a perfect world. When it does happen the parents lose their minds and go about trying to wrap the world in bubble wrap. They declare war on whatever their child succumbed to. I looked up one of those ‘War on Cars’ guys once and found out his kid killed himself driving drunk.
The biggest trouble with these people is that everyone sympathizes with them, it is impossible to talk sense to them and they are relentless.
I am sorry that Liberty is so scary and dangerous but you cant have my guns, my car, my sausage or whatever reading material I choose.
A brave new world wont bring your child back. It wont save anyone.
I would ban falling down (gravity) if I could. ‘Specially for old people.
Newton can go to hell!
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/southeastern-pa/striking-bucks-workers-concerned-about-health-benefits-county-ready-to-negotiate/article_1afa028c-7799-11ef-b104-177d0004437c.html
Fire them all. You’re getting what you voted for. Assholes. I’d be shocked if 1% of them were Trump voters.
“Government workers”
Thanks Sean, I need a laugh in the morning