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
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
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.
Gio really should be thinking about learning Spanish and getting as far away from any Italian communities as possible.
Many years ago I was in Italy, traveling via a rent car, with a Puerto Rican Air Force guy. I was driving, around a curve and crossed over the center line and got pulled over by an Italian authority.
The lawman asked if I spoke German, I said no and asked if he spoke French. He said no, my AF friend then started talking to the guy and together figured out I owed a fine for my errant behavior. I paid the bribe, a few million jillion lira or something and we were on our way. I told him I didn’t know he spoke Italian, he replied he was speaking Spanish and trying to add what he thought was an Italian accent.
Close enough, I quess
US Air Force
I know high school Spanish and if you listen closely you can understand a bit of Italian for sure. Portuguese even more so.
They’re all just retarded Latin.
Belgium has a small German language minority, and i listen to the news from their broadcaster once or twice a week. Every now and then this includes a sound bite from something like a Flemish MP speaking in Dutch. I always feel like I ought to be able to understand it but then I realize it’s Dutch.
It was nice being taken care of by a grandmotherly figure.
I pictured this scene a little differently given Gio’s job.
Then I realized, “Umm, Gio’s job? It’s probably what you think, just not what quite what you think.”
No, Gio hasn’t done THAT since he met Dot.
Mo: did you see the link I posted on the dead thread last night?
I just did. Thanks!
Great stuff as always.
Thanks!
I can’t recall ever hitting on a teeny when I was Gio/Trey’s age. What’s up with these guys? Trey is becoming Gio’s Ann Landers. I’m thinking Marina and Dot are the adults in this scenario.
Thanks, Moj, things keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Now to wait another week.
Dedthred:
Tres Cool:
So I’m shopping for a slug barrel and a shorter (18.5″) barrel for my classic Mossberg 500A 12 gauge.
Any recommendations on an on-line retailer ?
RC:
Rifled slug barrel?
Run saboted slugs through that and you should get good results. The trick is finding the right ones to run. I probably tried 5 different kinds before I found the best one for my gun. I could do 3” groups at 100 yards.
No recces on a retailer. Sorry.
My rifled slug shotgun was a great hunter. Any number of deer and a bear. It was just picky about what I fed it.
Thanks, counselor.
Im looking to give the old gal a tune up. I sent the s/n off to Mossberg. She was built July 5, 1970.
A rifled barrel may be in order, in case Tres Jr wants to deer hunt. Myself, I love venison and nothing beats a deer roast done in a crockpot. But Im also lazy.
I’m more about bunnies, pheasant, and fish.
Thank you so much.
This was difficult to read–in a weirdly positive way. A lot of myself rumbling through a couple characters. Evan, a very confused boy.
I just let Marta the shepherd out. Here in the ‘hood (GT can co-sign that) in her backyard she found 2 juvenile coons (hah!).
Had them backed-up, and when I found her they were puffed-up and ready to scrap. Thankfully, that dog listened when I called her off.
Pretty sure two of them would have dealt with her. Even better that I got the rott puppy in the house, because he was about to see what the ruckus was.
Did I miss a style guide update? Is ‘Juvenile coons’ the new ‘urban youths.’
It seems a bit on the nose but okay.
I dont know raccoon behavior enough to know if they work in pairs when challenged, or if one will bail out.
Why can’t someone write a decent script for Jason Statham. He is a good action actor. No one will confuse him for Laurence Olivier but he’s got decent range for the genre and has genuine fighting skills.
He’s done some really fun action movies but so many throwaway movies. Give the man something decent.
They can barely produce a good script let alone for an action movie. The testosterone has been sucked out of Hollywood and the little talent that is left looks down on action movies as beneath them.
They’ve always looked down on action movies. Alfred Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper for the male lead in Foreign Correspondent, but Cooper turned it down because big stars don’t do thrillers. He couldn’t get the female lead he wanted either, which is how he wound up with decidedly B-list Laraine Day.
Lock Stallone and Crowe in a room together with a full bar and a computer and don’t let them out until they hammer out a script, it’d be a good one.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4779682/?ref_=nm_flmg_c_9_act
Bad.
Worse yet, there is a sequel.
Morning all
Morning Beau and anyone else.
Wife and I went and saw Dune Part 2 yesterday afternoon then went for Thai for dinner (instead of dinner and a movie). Really enjoyed the movie even with the omissions/deviations and timeline compression (several years become more like several months).
Well, the time skip preserves Chani’s strong woman who don’t need no man status.
I’ll be watching the Dune movies. I’m hoping having read the books decades ago will give me just enough context to follow without noticing/caring about the changes.
Adapting a novel, especially epic novels, to screen requires a considerable amount of change in the very best case. I think Jackson did a fine job with LOTR, for example, and I was in a similar place with them (read the books decades ago, etc.)
Dittoes. Do the movies cover more than the original book? That’s all I’ve read but it is a childhood favorite.
No clue. I think I read three(?) of the books.
When I say decades, I’m thinking four decades.
Somewhere between two and three for me.
Good morning!
Mornin’
Cold and cloudy with rain coming in. I was thinking about starting yard work. Maybe not.
Off to the gym.
Good morning, DEG, NA, JI, Beau, Stinky, and Ted’S…. ::looks at avatar:: if you really ARE Ted’S. ::narrows gaze::
And good morning to you, too, RCD!
It’s a good morning so far. Looks to be a totally ordinary day. My favorite.
Yeah; that’s me.
Old avatar was me at the top of Overlook Mountain, August 2015.
New one is me at the Hunter Mountain fire tower, September 2023.
This week’s Powerline fun has distracted me before I head to the gym.
Coffee time, bitches!
☕🌄
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yN3lUM-r6bk
🎶🎶
Yup. Just spun up a weekend French press.
Those euphemisms …