Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (35 page)

Trina thought about it, and then smiled.
 
“I would enjoy that.”

“Great. We can have dinner and then get on
over there.”

But then she thought about Reno.
 
She hadn’t heard from him since this morning,
which didn’t sit well with her, either.
 
But she knew Reno.
 
When he was
busy, he was focused.
 
He rarely called
her then.

She pulled out her cell phone.
 
“Let me make sure Reno doesn’t have anything
planned,” she said.

Sully felt a twinge of jealousy as she phoned
her husband.
 
Lucky dog, he thought.
 
He would give anything to be in Reno’s
shoes.
 
Anything!

Reno finally answered his cell phone.
 
“Hey, babe, what’s up?” he asked her.

“Sully’s invited me to a pickup basketball
game between the kids here at Ponder and the varsity team at Crane High.
 
Is it okay, or did you have something
planned?”

“No, I don’t have anything planned.
 
But is that what you want to do, or is that
what Sully wants you to do?”

“I want to go.
 
I’ll love to see the kids participate. I think it’ll be fun.
 
What about you?
 
You want to come along?”

“Can’t right now,” Reno said.
 
“But you go ahead.
 
Enjoy yourself.”

“Okay,” Trina said, a little
disappointed.
 
“I’ll talk to you later,”
she said, and immediately killed the call.

Sully could see her displeasure.
 
“He’s busy?”

“Yeah.”

“With Shanell Ridgeway?”

Trina didn’t respond to that.
 
And then her cell phone rang back.
 
It was Reno.
 
She smiled.
 
Did he change his
mind?
 
“Hello?”

“Hey, babe.
Sully with you now?”

“Yeah.”

“Put him on the phone.”

Trina hesitated.
 
Then handed the phone to
Sully.

Sully was surprised.
 
“Hello?” he said into the phone.

“This is Reno, how are you?”

“I’m good, Reno. How are you?”

“My wife’s going to the game with you
tonight?”

“That’s right.
 
We’re going to grab some dinner
first,
and then
head on over to Crane High.”

“I need you to watch out for her,” Reno said.

Sully nodded.
 
“I will.”

“Can I depend on you to do that?”

“Yes.
 
Certainly.”

“All right.
 
Just
wanted to make sure you understood that.”

“I do, Reno.”

“Okay,” Reno said.
 
“Tell her I love her and I’ll talk to her
later.”
 
And then Reno killed the call.

Sully looked at the phone, and then handed it
back to Trina.

“What did he want?”

Sully smiled.
 
“He wants me to be your bodyguard,” Sully said.

Trina smiled too.
  
“Now that’s the Reno I know and love,” she
said.
 
“He never misses an opportunity to
have somebody eyeballing me.”

Sully laughed.

Tommy Gabrini arrived in town an hour after
Trina’s phone call.
 
Reno had phoned him
as soon as he realized the Drag might have something to do with Jimmy’s
predicament, and he knew he would
need,
not only
Tommy’s expertise in security, but his advice.
 
Tommy wasn’t only his cousin, he was his best friend.

Tommy sat on the sofa at Reno’s home and
listened to Dirty, who sat beside him, explained how Drag approached him at the
PaLargio.
 
Tommy, as usual, was immaculately
dressed in an Italian silk suit and shoes, and unlike his cousin, there wasn’t
a strand of his blondish-brown hair out of place.
 
He was considered as unusually great looking
as Reno, but in their youth Reno had the brawn to go with his beauty and
therefore would often end up with the girl.
 

Tommy exhaled.
 
He heard what Dirty had to say, but he still wasn’t getting a clear
picture.
 
“It’s still not making sense to
me,” he said.
 
“Why would the Drag have
any beef with you, Reno?”

Reno was standing, a glass of wine in his
hand, unable to remain still.
 
Having
Tommy beside him was always a bonus for him.
 
Unlike Reno’s old man, Tommy’s father refused to participate in the
family crime business that dated back to their days in Sicily, and decided to
go legit.
 
And he made his sons, Tommy
and Sal Luca, go legit, too.
 
Now Tommy,
a former cop, owned his own security firm and a couple of west coast
restaurants.
 
Like Reno, his businesses
were as legit as they came.
 
But unlike
Reno, he didn’t carry the mob baggage.

“That’s the question,” Reno responded to
Tommy.
 
“That’s the million dollar
question.’ Drag's crazy, and he knows how much I despise those drugs he sell,
but he ain’t that crazy.
 
He knows my
muscle will outmuscle his all day long.”

“That’s why it makes no sense,” Tommy
said.
 
“The Drag can’t put any heat under
you.”

“But he thinks he can,” replied Reno.
 
“Why, I don’t know.
 
But he thinks he can.
 
Why else would he even bother to come to
Dirty for
intel
?”

Tommy looked at Dirty.
 
“And why would Dirty give him any information
whatsoever about you?”

“Because he’s a low down dirty dog,” Reno said
to Dirty’s face.

“That’s not fair, Reno,” Dirty objected.
 
“I told you I owed him money.”

“Then you should have come to me.
 
What, you think I was gonna let some punk
like Drago disable my sister’s husband?
 
You know better than that, Dirty!
 
But your stupidity may have gotten this whole ball rolling, and we still
don’t know why.”

But Tommy was still confused.
 
“Why would you owe a guy like the Drag money,
anyway, Richie?”

Reno walked away.
 
That was another headache for him that he
didn’t even want to deal with right now.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“Nothing,” Dirty said.
 
“I just owe him money.”

Tommy looked at Reno.
 
Reno shook his head.

“Drugs?”
Tommy asked and then looked at Dirty.
 
“You’re selling drugs for Johnny?”

“I’m not selling
nothing
for nobody.”

“Quit lying, you lying cocksucker!” Reno
yelled.

“Take it easy, Ree,” Tommy said.
 

Reno calmed back down.
 
“I can’t deal with that shit right now.”

“Understood,” Tommy said.
 
“Just take it easy.”

But Reno was still hot.
 
He pointed at Dirty.
 
“In the morning you get your ass back to
Vegas.
 
Take care of my sister.
 
I’ll deal with you later.”

“I’m going back already.
 
You told me I had to leave.
 
Why you keep throwing it up in my face?”

“You kiss my ass, Dirty!”

“Reno?” Tommy asked.

“You kiss my ass, Dirty!”

 
“Reno?”
Tommy asked again.

Reno settled back down.
 
“What?”

Tommy exhaled. “So what do you think is going
on here?
 
Maybe this kid Jimmy Mack sells
drugs and somehow has a connection to the Drag?”

Reno shook his head.
 
“No.
 
No way.
 
The kid is straight. I
had him checked out.”

Tommy stared at Reno.
 
“You don’t think he raped that girl, what’s
her name?”

“Kandi Tucker,” Reno said as if her name were
a contaminant.

“You don’t think he raped Kandi Tucker,
either.
 
Do you?”

Reno looked Tommy in the eyes.
 
“No, I don’t.
 
I think the Drag’s people got to her somehow because the alternative may
be worse.”

“They may hurt her?”

“Or her family, yes,” Reno agreed.
 
“And I think they did what they did to her as
an example of what could come if she didn’t toe the line.”

“You think she and her family are in danger
then?” Tommy asked.

“I don’t know.
 
Drago never does it the sensible way.”

Again, Tommy stared at Reno. “You don’t think
this has anything to do with the kid.”

“You got that right,” Reno said bitterly.
 
“This shit here, this mob shit here, has
everything to do with me.
 
Got
dammit!”
Reno
said and tossed his glass of wine across the room, shattering the glass.
 
Both Tommy and Dirty winced.
 
Reno began moving around again.
 

“You can’t get away from it, Reno,” Tommy
said.
 
“You know that.
 
I know it.
 
But I thought. . .”
 

Reno nodded.
 
“So did
I
, Tommy.
 
I thought after MarBeth did what she did to
Vito Giancarlo’s son, and after the price I had to pay for that hit, I thought
it was over.
 
If I don’t bother them,
they wouldn’t bother me.
 
Out of sight, out of mind.”

“But old wounds heal
slow
,
Reno.”

“Yeah.
 
And I’ve open so many wounds in my life, so
many wounds, that this shit could go on forever.
 
I don’t even know what Drag’s got to do with
this, but something’s up.
 
What’s up and
why?
 
Nobody knows.”

Dirty looked at Reno, as if suddenly
remembering something.
 
“Except Vito,” he said.

Both Reno and Tommy looked at him.

“What about Vito?” Reno asked.

“One time I called Johnny on his cell, to tell
him that the boy was back from Nebraska, and I hear Vito talking to a waiter or
somebody in the background.”

“What was he saying?”

“He was saying nothing.
 
Just talking to a waiter.
 
It’s just that Vito was there, with Drag, and
the last time something went down Vito was involved.
 
It was Vito’s son, after all, that Marbeth
iced.”

 
Reno
looked at Tommy.
 
Tommy nodded his
head.
 
“They’ve always been close, Vito
and the Drag,” Tommy stated.
 
“It’s
possible.
 
Vito may know what’s going
on.”

“Or is the real muscle behind it.”

“Bite your tongue, Reno,” Tommy said. “It’s
one thing to fight Johnny Drago.
 
It’s
something altogether different to fight a mob boss like Vito Giancarlo.
 
He’ll kill his own mother to prove a
point.
 
And he has the muscle behind him
to handle any job.”

“But what beef he’s got with me now?
 
That shit with Marbeth is over.
 
What could he have against me now?”

“And he’s still your godfather,” Dirty said.

Tommy looked at Dirty.
 
“You have got to be kidding me? You think
that means something to a coldblooded killer like Vito?
 
There’s no honor among thieves, Richie.
 
They’re all just thieves.”
 
Then he looked at Reno.
 
“Maybe Vito’s still bitter about what happened
to his son, Reno, that’s the only thing I can see.”

But Reno shook his head.
 
“So why didn’t he exact his revenge when he
had the chance?
 
I could have killed that
fucker, and he knows it, but I didn’t.
 
I
let him go.
 
What’s his problem now?”