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19

" ... begging me for consideration," Boss Tom said, catching Trey's attention. He leaned in closer to the door. "I am not going to let you get your fingers in the middle of this bet, because I will chop them off."

"And if he loses?" Brother John Lazia said.

"If he doesn't is none of your business. Furthermore, I do not want to rile up his granddaddy if he gets wind of your shenanigans. Man's got his fist around St. Louis and fingers in Jeff City."

Trey blinked.

"You don't know he's his granddaddy."

"Have you ever seen Elliott Dunham?" Boss Tom retorted. Long silence. "No, I don't know, but I'd bet Truman's election on it."

Then Trey could safely discount the idea he had a granddaddy somewhere with his name. Not once had Trey's parents said one word about their respective families. If Trey had a granddaddy, it'd give Trey a heart attack.

"I just wanna find the Maranzano kid—" Now Trey thought he was going to have a heart attack. "—and I think you know where he is."

"Why would I know that?" Boss Tom asked testily. "And why are you getting in the Cosa Nostra's business? You have your own soldiers. You think the ones from New York do a better job? Dead is dead."

No answer.

"Ohhhh ... they're paying you to sweep Kansas City for him."

No answer.

"Well if I did know where he is, I'd have a reason to keep him hidden, wouldn't I? Especially if it meant you were dealing me dirty or getting into my business. As it happens, I have reason to believe he's dead. I wouldn't bet on that, though. Las Vegas?"

Well, that meant Lazia would think Gio was dead, except Boss Tom had inside information.

Gio would be pleased to know Boss Tom would protect him from his family, but not that Boss Tom knew where he was or that Trey now had something Boss Tom wanted too.

"Leave Dunham alone and stop creeping around with the Cosa Nostra behind my back," Boss Tom said, which was all he had to say before Trey skedaddled down the stairs, waited until Boss Tom's door opened, and started up the stairs as if he'd just arrived.

"Brother John!" Trey said heartily once he'd reached the second floor. Again. He shifted his ledgers to his other arm and held his hand out for a shake. Brother John took it and pulled him in for kisses on each cheek as Italians did. "Balance day for you, too?"

"You know how it is," he said smoothly. "How's your bet going?"

"Lazia," Boss Tom said flatly.

"Ciao, Dunham," he said.

"Yeah, tell your wife Marina loved Correggio's meatballs."

Lazia halted mid-step. "She did?"

"She woulda asked for seconds if it wa'n't rude for a woman to eat that much."

"Marie will be pleased," he said as if a little dazed. "Thanks."

"Credit where credit's due," he said as he moseyed on into Boss Tom's office, then dropped his ledgers in front of him.

Boss Tom looked up at him from under his brows. "I see what you mean about Marina Scarritt," he mumbled. Trey dropped himself into the chair across from him.

"What?"

"Interesting looking," Boss Tom sneered. "Caroline thought she was adorable, although she needs some spiffing up. Asked me twice if I was sure she was only sixteen, you two carrying on a conversation like she actually knows anything about the world."

"She's smart," Trey drawled smugly. "Those girls? Just have to dig their confidence out from under their folks' and catty girls' opinions."

Boss Tom scowled. "What were you talking about?"

"Books," Trey said firmly. "She reads. A lot. She loves Agatha Christie."

"Goddammit," Boss Tom muttered.

Trey grinned. It was no secret Trey read everything he could get his hands on, that he hired tutors for difficult subjects, and that he had a particular fondness for Agatha Christie. "What's fun about Marina is she can figure out whodunnit a quarter of the way through, howdunnit halfway through, and whydunnit just before the reveal."

"Shit."

Trey sat basking in his smugness while Pendergast examined his books. "Where are you getting George Remus's whiskey?" he finally asked.

"Does it matter? That's my biggest margin, which means you make a shit-ton of money. Higher than Rieger and McCormick combined. An' it ain't in your best interest to know."

He waved a hand, which meant Boss Tom agreed and wouldn't ask again.

It took a while for Boss Tom to get through them, but he initialed the end-of-month totals and snapped the ledgers shut. "Say, Dunham. Been wondering. What happened to your family?"

Trey pretended to look shocked. "Oh, well, my mama and three older brothers died in the epidemic." Boss Tom nodded. "My daddy died of a broken heart about a year after my last brother kicked the bucket."

"You don't have any other family?"

"Nope. Mama and Daddy never talked about where they came from, even when we asked."

"And you never went looking?"

"Why?" Trey asked incredulously. That was not feigned. "I'm twelve. I wake up and my daddy don't. I bury him and the next day I got bankers knockin' on my door wantin' me to pay the rest of the mortgage in one lump sum."

Boss Tom looked shocked. "Surely they meant arrears."

"I do not know," Trey said testily. "So I'm twelve an' I get kicked out on my ass with nothin'. How'm I supposed to go lookin' for people I don't think about? I hitch a ride with a bootlegger, his woman feeds me, bootlegger pays me to do this errand or that errand on our way here, I stay with them for a while gettin' the lay of the land, then they get the flu and die. Then I do what street urchins do and here I am."

The old man took a deep breath and pinched his nose in thought. "Well, I'm sorry about that, boy. I didn't know."

Boss Tom hadn't asked because he was curious, but his sentiment was sincere. He was a family man, and that story would pinch any good father's heart.

"You know I would've helped any kid in your situation, right?"

"I surely do, Boss." That was the absolute truth. "'Preciate it."