1520 Main

21

Do what you have to do.

Trey had known better than to ask, but clearly Reverend Scarritt got around. Both his grandparents, so horrified by the task and then ... do what you have to do.

Trey had lied about driving back to Kansas City. He simply didn't want to be a guest in someone else's house and possibly get caught up in conversation because he'd want to stay a while. He went back to his hotel, got the same things he had the day before, plus a good night's rest.

Not really.

His mind was too full of all the information he'd been deluged by.

The fact that he even had family to begin with.

They wanted to claim him, keep him as theirs.

His father, not dying of a broken heart, but an overworked one that was doomed from birth anyway.

His grandfather, whose name was Elliott, named after his pirate great-grandfather, old and dying himself, from his sugars, also handed down. Obviously Trey's father hadn't been angry enough to keep from naming his eldest son after his father.

His grandmother, whose name was Susanna, from an old and prosperous Chicago family that had died out penniless from the stock market crash of 1893.

Besides Trey's father, Elliott and Susanna Dunham had had four daughters, all of whom were alive and well with families of their own. One was in California. One was in Louisville. One was in Chicago. The last was in St. Louis. Trey would have liked to meet her, but he was short on time.

He still didn't know his mother's maiden name because he'd forgotten to ask, but he needed to swim through all this bullshit first.

For some reason, unburdening himself to this man he didn't know, one he shouldn't (didn't) trust, had felt good. The three of them had talked and laughed long into the night, after the restaurant closed and they were moved to the bar. Trey wasn't interested in trying to drink the old man under the table, but his grandmother could hold her martinis like a champ. Slowly, the old man told him his story, made the connection to Boss Tom, which was really nothing more than business as usual since Prohibition began: bootlegging whiskey. Nothing in that was foreign to Trey or unexpected, once he realized Grandfather Elliott (as he insisted upon being called) ("Sir" was too formal) was as influential as Boss Tom was.

TJ may run Kansas City, but I have connections in the governor's office he doesn't, and I could buy him and Ready-Mix six times over. I don't have anything on him; he doesn't have anything on me. We know each other in passing.

He was not, however, on speaking terms with Cosa Nostra, as Boss Tom was, and he wanted to keep it that way.

The thing we Dunhams do is keep to ourselves. No favors taken or granted. We walk a very fine line, but we go our own way. Not leaders, not followers.

Trey had a promise from them that they would visit Kansas City sometime soon. As he drove west the next morning, he found himself growing used to the idea of family visiting. By the time he unlocked the front door of 1520, was looking forward to it.

He stopped in the doorway and looked around.

It was quiet. Clean. Nothing was out of place. The soft sound of footsteps on the servant staircase told him one of his tenants was going to work. The back door whispered open and shut. There was a soft knock on the front door behind him, which startled him. He opened the door a speck, and three pieces of paper were shoved through.

He took them, closed the door and saw it was a bill of lading. His brow wrinkled. A delivery of Remus was waiting for him at Union Station. That was new. Usually he picked it up at all sorts of places around town, but never directly from Union Station.