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 | 104A | 104B | 105A
PART V
MIRACLES
105B
Marina knew the line to Boss Tom’s office would be long by six a.m., and he typically left at noon. She didn’t bother showing up at six because she refused to stand in line.
She was too angry.
It was Trey’s fault for taking the bet, but it would never have occurred to him to propose it. It was Boss Tom’s vast experience and his own state of devoted fatherhood that should have kept him from making such a wager. When he had looked at Marina that day, he had seen only Reverend Gil Scarritt, not a sixteen-year-old girl too ignorant to know how to make a baby.
Marina showed up at the threshold of Boss Tom’s office at eleven forty-five, having walked proudly past the line, squeezed herself past all the people on the stairs (some who didn’t want to let her by until she said the magic words Mrs. Dunham), and down the hall until she was in front of Boss Tom’s man.
“Miz Dunham,” he rumbled.
She curled her lip a little. “Hrmph.”
“You’ll have to wait till this one’s done.”
She nodded regally, hearing the man behind her growl a little. Boss Tom’s man growled back.
When the person before her was finished, he left with a red card in his hand. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted, but that didn’t concern her. She was going to get what she wanted, and what she wanted was to get her husband out of his pickle.
She entered the room when allowed, looked at Boss Tom with some contempt, refused his hand when he offered it, and took her seat with confidence. She might only be eighteen, but—
“Little bit uppity, aren’t you?” Boss Tom snarled. “Especially for someone who wants something from me.”
“You owe me,” she snapped back.
He drew back a little, surprised.
“Me,” she reiterated. “That girl you took out of her home and plopped in the middle of a gang war.”
“Hm. I can’t argue that. Dunham told me you’d grown a backbone, but I didn’t think it was that stiff. Does he know you’re here?”
“No. This is between you and me.”
“And you thought showing up loaded for bear to bargain for a speak that isn’t yours was a good idea?”
Marina’s mouth tightened.
“I think I like this moxie you’ve got,” he said approvingly.
“I’m not that sick, pregnant girl at a wedding a year and a half ago.”
“You are still just a girl, though.”
“I don’t want to be an eighteen-year-old widow with a baby, so let me tell you what you will do for me.”
His eyebrows shot into his hairline and he began to laugh. Marina, stoking her anger to keep her fear from growing, was ashamed that she was proud about having earned Boss Tom’s approval. She squashed that immediately.
Finally, he wound down. Wiping his eyes, he said, “I want to hear this.”
“Buy 1520 Main from Trey. Half price.”
Boss Tom chuckled. “No.”
Marina didn’t think he would, so she said, “Then keep John Lazia and Charlie Carrollo off his back.”
He looked at her speculatively for quite a while. “You know an awful lot about his business for somebody who was a sheltered preacher’s daughter a year and a half ago. I don’t know where you’re living now, but I know that a girl smart enough to high-tail it out of town and stay away for weeks will probably not come back for good until she knows she can trust her man to protect her and her baby.”
It suddenly occurred to Marina she had no leverage at all, and Boss Tom wasn’t going to honor any obligation he had to Marina for getting her into this mess. Also, he was smarter. And older. And a lot more powerful.
Logic and honor had no sway over power—
“You can’t trust Trey to protect you and your baby. That is not what I presume you believe. That is a fact.”
—especially when power had more logic on its side.
“You would be a fool to trust him to protect you, and you are anything but a fool. What you apparently don’t know is that his asking price is twice market.” Marina’s mouth dropped open a little and his mouth twitched up. “You know what that means, then. I knew you were sharp. I told Trey when he won the speak I’d buy it back at half price—market price, remember—and let him stay on as manager, but he turned me down. Since then, John Lazia’s twice offered to buy it at half price, or near enough, and let him stay on as manager, but no sale. I told him a year ago he could walk away from 1520 Main at half price, stay on as manager if he wanted. Two weeks ago, I told him he could leave and go anywhere in the country and have his family and do whatever he’s planning to do next, but that time, it was not with an offer of payment. Not my fault he deliberately priced himself out of the market because he never wanted to sell it at all.”
Marina swallowed, unwilling to hear what she knew she was going to hear.
“But he wouldn’t take his opportunities then and now he doesn’t have any, even at market, because it’s too hot for anyone else to touch. So you have to ask yourself: Which does he love more? You or the speak?” He paused and after a second of study of her face, he tilted his head. “You already knew the answer to that,” he said softly.
Pityingly.
“He loves his people.”
“He loves his power,” Boss Tom corrected kindly.
“But the Remus … ” she protested weakly.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s no longer on the table. George and I have cut a deal. As of next month, the Remus belongs to me. Trey will continue picking it up on the schedule Remus has set out, but he will pay me instead of George directly and I will resell it to anybody I feel like. Since Trey is no longer the sole retailer, 1520 has lost that advantage.”
“Well, surely—”
“George is protecting his brand. Trey has had power, but it’s slipping. George doesn’t trust him to be able to protect it much longer, the same way you don’t trust him to protect you. I can protect the whisky and you. So, m’dear, here is what you will do for me.
“Tell your husband to walk away from 1520 Main, with the promise from me that nothing will change. I will allow him to find and train a suitable manager who will keep everything as it is. He has my word on that, as he has always had it. Or he can hand it over to me free and clear and stay on as manager. Or he can hold onto it with the last sliver of his last fingernail and get himself shot and the speak burned. At this point, I don’t care what happens to him or the speak.”
“You would do that?” she whispered. “He’s been nothing but loyal to you. He’s done everything you’ve ever asked him to do.”
Boss Tom hooted. “‘Loyal.’ I am pretty sure he was skimming from me, but I could never figure out how or prove it. It takes a very smart man to get that by me and my men over in Albright’s congregation, but if he was, he wasn’t greedy about it. I can appreciate that. But! He also apparently still has his old bootlegging operation I’m not getting a cut of, and he and I are going to have a chat about that. Lastly, he won the bet because you were drugged. I do believe he didn’t do it, but someone loyal to him did.”
“Ethel Routetska,” she breathed before thinking. “He didn’t know.”
“That’s neither here nor there to me,” he said matter-of-factly. “So in the first case, he’s been cheating me, both the speak and his bootlegging. In the second case, someone else cheated for him. Loyal. Don’t talk to me about your husband’s loyalty, because the only thing he’s loyal to is himself and that gin mill, and I think it comes in a distant second.”
It went unsaid: Marina wasn’t even in the running. She tried again anyway. “But … the, the men you needed to be … gone, and um … And, and, and votes … ”
“I can get anybody to do those chores. He’s not exactly my first choice, especially when he feels free to tell me no.”
She said nothing, wringing her fingers, trying to keep her expression neutral, trying to still her thundering heart, trying not to pant to catch her breath.
“Marina, he has never been willing to give up that speakeasy at all, using the flimsiest of excuses and asking double what it’s worth. Will he ever give it up or will he go down in flames trying to keep it? And listen, sweetheart, whether he does or doesn’t, ultimately, that’s up to you.”
Defeated, she simply lowered her head.
105A
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.
Defeated, she simply lowered her head.
Even though she was defeated, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets something out of this from Boss Tom due to her moxie.
Well, that was a total surprise!. Marina, the big girl, learned quickly that money = power, whether it’s Boss Tom or Trey.
Now the ball is sort of in her court and more decisions to make.
Thanks, Moj. Another week…
I have a confession. I like Joker: Folie à Deux.
I’m still stuck on you ruining steak. Go sit by Suthen.
Porterhouses are 8.99/lb this weekend.
That’s a stock up price!
Dry aged. Medium to medium rare. Beurre Maître d’Hôtel applied liberally.
Heaven on a plate.
Let’s Go Brandon!
Bless your heart
I have a confession. Bro impressed me by making his own judgment and not simply accepting what some random internet hate bros threw up on the you tubes. Good on ya bro, now if you can stop being such an incredible douche in every other aspect of your life you might be on to something.
So…you like it, too. Sounds about right.
Hypercunt is a big fan of prison rape scenes.
Wait…there’s a prison rape scene?
The Joker gets raped in the prison shower by three guards after calling them fat.
Is the plan to just keep making the Joker’s backstory more and more dark? Like, in the next movie will he rape a child? Maybe go Jeffery Dahmer on someone? Vote for Donald Trump?
Firsters are much better. We have no origin stories. We arrive, we First, and we leave. You don’t even need to know our names.
😐
Also, I’m pretty sure the Joker raped one of the Robin’s and Batwoman at some point. He raped the latter two to death.
Or maybe it was Batgirl. It was one of the derivative female versions of super heroes that no one actually cares about but which have to be shoehorned in for no good reason.
Dude. You take that back. Barbara Gordon was my hero.
Whelp, that got away from her a bit.
😟
Trey learned to be a hood, not a businessman.
I admire Marina’s brass balls.
Police escort for the team bus(es) for Buckfucker State. Ridiculous. Make the primadonnas walk.
BLACK GIRL MAGIC
https://youtu.be/8ikcRlI3QQM
This guy is doing the lords work.
Today’s punch has 2 cops just jump a deaf guy with cerebral palsy in a parking lot unprovoked.
They absolutely wail on the guy, repeatedly tase him, and then accused him of attacking them.
Prosecutors are going with that, as is the judge, despite video proof to the contrary.
There is a bit of mitigating factor in the form of a lying suspect…. but, well, you need to watch this one. Public outcry is needed here. They are trying to put him away based on a lie, and it might just work.
The worse or more abuse the cops are, the more vicious they become in trying to ruin you.
I’ve posted a lot of stuff from the Civil Rights Lawyer. They never quite gain the traction around here you’d think they would.
I watch his channel. My youtubing and glibbing are done at different times.
Is the victim black?
He gabs too much and edits videos excessively. Though maybe he is hitting Tonio’s demographic with his look?
‘Ted S. on October 12, 2024 at 3:44 am
Is the victim black?’
Yes, but why would that matter?
Happy national chess day!
😋☕
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KDl0LLH4q7I
🎶🎶
Checkmate!
Good morning, Sean, Ted’S., and NA!
😁
I think I’ve heard the word abortion 19 times since I’ve been up this morning.
I want bad things to happen to Democrats.
Turn off your TV, better yet throw it away. Also stop looking at “news” sites on the intertubes.
Blow up your TV
It is all about FREEEDOM! … to kill babies.
After my latest was born I’ve found abortion to be even more repulsive than I did before.
That kid has 100% different personality than his brother and it was developed in utero at a fairly early stage of development. These dems want abortion up to and after birth. I used to scoff at the whole sacrificing children to Moloch, but the more I think about it, people really do sacrifice their children in a vain attempt to find prosperity.
FWIW, I see more commercials about dick pills.
Blue chew!!!!
I’ve heard that what commercials you see depends on your demographic. 😉