"Black cats and crowns," Alfie scoffed. "I'll tell you what yer problem is. Yer stuck in your fuckin head."
Tommy took another drag of his cigarette, waiting for Alfie Solomons to finish his rant.
"Clear as day, you've gone mental."
I'm not the one shooting at seagulls from a window in fucking Margate.
The window was open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze. In the distance, Tommy could see ships, but he wasn't focusing on the ships, he was studying the man seated across from him, looking comfortable and very much alive in a green velvet vest, white shirt, and black slacks.
Tommy continued to smoke, letting Alfie's words roll off him.
I'm a god too. I can rise above insults.
Except the truth was, they weren't insults, they were accurate observations. He was losing his grip. Outsiders said he was losing his head. Alfie Solomons, for all his seemingly mindless drivel, was quite perceptive.
Even with half his face blown off.
He watched Alfie raise the binoculars to one eye and peer out the window of his dimly lit margate apartment. The apartment itself reminded him of an antique collector's shop, crammed with furniture, multiple lamps, chandeliers, clocks, odds, and ends. A place full of meaningless things, collecting dust, suffocating. Or maybe that was the smoke in his lungs. He could feel the tightness in his chest as he stifled a cough. He found himself staring at Solomons's glazed blue-green eye and scarred face as the man peered out the window.
Shooting at ships. Is this what he's been reduced to? The man didn't even have his dog.
"How's Ada?" Alfie asked, lowering the binoculars.
"I need to shoot someone Alfie," Tommy said, ignoring the question. Solomons had no right to speak of his sister. After their impromptu wedding, Solomons and Ada had had a turbulent marriage. There were the Russians to deal with, then the Changrettas.
And the loss of the baby.
His sister had been devastated after giving birth to a stillborn girl. She was going to name her Rose. Then John had been gunned down. Solomons had been this continuous thorn in his side with the constant double crossing and betrayals that had seemed to escalate in frequency and intensity after the loss of his child. Then Tommy had decided to kill Solomons and sever his personal and professional relationship with the man once and for all.
Why didn't I kill him?
Alfie had asked him where his mind had been when he was trying to kill him on that beach. Tommy didn't want to think about that day because it reminded him of the uncertainty he had felt, the instability beginning to catch up with him.
"She's with a colonel isn't that right?" Alfie asked, breaking into his thoughts.
Younger's dead. And she's pregnant again.
We are not discussing my sister. He did not wanting Alfie to know that his sister was alone and pregnant. She was better off without Solomons in her life. Her and Karl.
"And Karl? The little lad must be all grown up yeah? He still playing chess? I taught him you know."
Tommy remembered toppling the king over on Karl's chessboard.
Black cats and crowns and fallen kings.
"So we are in agreement about Mosley?"
"How's the third Mrs. Shelby?
The words dredged up memories from the past.
May.
After Grace gave birth to Charlie, his marriage to May had crumbled.
It's her or me.
One last ultimatum. One last chance. Then one day without warning, she had thrown him out of her house, changed the locks, told her staff not to let him back in. Then he'd married Grace, had lost Grace, had and lost May again when she had come to visit years later at his new gin distillery, trying and failing to reconcile with him when she saw that he hadn't changed, was haunted by Grace's ghost, then Lizzie with Ruby…
I should have told her I could change. I should have convinced her.
Instead, he'd gotten Lizzie pregnant, become an MP, transformed into this version of himself he never would have conceived of years ago.
Throwing a party with a fucking ballet. Who was he trying to convince? Who was he turning into?
The memories began to swirl around and around in his head that was now beginning to throb.
"Honestly Thomas, you should have stuck with the first. I guess third time's the charm? Although I have to say, the first one had a better pedigree for politics. Wouldn't mind having a wife like that."
First Mosley, now Alfie, digging into him, trying to get him to crack. Referencing May, alluding to Lizzie's sordid past. And was he really sitting there trying to make a play for his ex- wife? The thought of Solomons within close proximity of May made his blood begin to boil
A nerve twitched in his jaw, but he said nothing.
Solomons changed the track of the conversation.
"And Michael's back? No longer mental? He must still be after what I've been hearing about the stock market crash."
God damn it.
Another sore subject.
He'd forgiven Michael against all his better judgment and because of Polly's urgings, as well as what he'd gone through with the Changrettas, given him a job, one job in America, and Michael had lost the money.
And there's the new wife.
Tommy didn't like the looks of her; blonde, with wide cunning eyes, ambitious eyes, cold calculating eyes. Gina Gray. She had Michael wrapped around her finger. Had him come back with a "business proposition" that involved taking his crown, exiling him to some hell hole similar to the one Alfie Solomons was currently in, alone, surrounded by traitors.
"So this fascist. Yer goin to kill him."
Tommy didn't like the note of amused skepticism in Solomons's voice.
"I had a recurring dream, I saw you in a field with a big black horse and you said goodbye and Bang.
Tommy said nothing. He remembered shooting that black horse, how the cold metal felt against his temple, closing his eyes.
"All right then. Well, what now?"
Tommy tossed his cigarette onto the floor and leaned forward.
"I will continue… He paused, collecting his scattered thoughts and reaching for his flat cap. "Till I find a man that I can't defeat." He looked Solomons right in the eye. There was a knowing gleam in the man's good eye, a look Tommy didn't like.
Life is so much easier to deal with when you're dead.
The thought came, unbidden to his mind, Solomon's voice echoing in his head along with Grace's breathing. He rose to his feet and walked out of the room without another word.