Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (5 page)

Drago was looking out of the window, and kept
looking out of the window.
 
“Why aren’t
you at the wedding?”

“Wasn’t invited.”

“That’s Tommy, all right.
 
Thinks he’s better than us regular
Italians.
 
Asshole.”

“You got that right.”

“Where’s my product?” Drago asked.

Dirty should have known he wasn’t going to be
distracted for long.
 
“Whadda ya’ mean
where is it?
 
It’s sold, like it’s
supposed to be.”

“Okay,” Drago said, looking at Dirty.
 
“Where’s my money then?”

Dirty hesitated.
 
“I’m
getting it together.”

“Getting it together?
 
What, I look like a therapist to you?
 
I’m supposed to wait until you
get it together
?
 
I want my money, Richie.
 
No bullshit.”

“I said I was pulling it together. You’ll have
your money.”

“When?”

“In a
 
.
. . in a couple, two-three weeks.”

Drago shook his head.
 
“That’s a problem, Richie.”
 

“What’s problematic about it?
 
You know I’m good for it.”

“I need my money now.
 
Either I get my money now, or you get two
broke legs and one broke hand.”

“Come on Drag.”

“I’ll spare you one of your hands because
you’ll need it to call Reno to come to your rescue.
 
I’m not playing with you, Richie.
 
No money, no product, no legs.”

Dirty looked at Drago.
 
The
rat bastard, he thought.
 
Who did he
think he was talking to?
 
This was Reno’s
brother-in-law he was trying to sweat!
 
Dirty had Reno on his side.
 
Reno
would squash Johnny Drago like a roach and think nothing of it if Drag even
thought about harming one of Reno’s own.
 
And the Drag knew it.
 

That was why
Dirty
spent Drago’s money as fast as he received it and didn’t give a fuck while he
was spending it.
 
He wasn’t worried about
what the Drag could do to him.
 
What
worried Dirty was what Reno would do to him if he ever found out that he was
selling drugs on the side.
 
That kind of
worry was what kept Dirty up nights.
 
But the Drag?
 
He
wasn’t losing any sleep over that cock sucker.

But Drago was no fool, either.
 
He knew there were limits to what he could do
to Dirty.
 
He knew Dirty was under Reno’s
protection.
 
But he also knew Reno.
 
And Reno hated
drugs, that
was
true.
 
But Reno loved
money.
 
Which was why
Drago made the trip to Vegas in the first place.

“Speaking of Reno,” he said.
 
“Wonder how he’d feel if
somebody mentioned it to him.”

Dirty looked at Drago.
 
“Mentioned what to him?”

“Mentioned you.
 
And your other job.
 
And the fact that your other job involves selling drugs right here in
his beautiful PaLargio.
 
Wonder how Reno
would react to that kind of news?”

Dirty stared at Drago.
 
This
wasn’t about him at all.
 
This was all
about Reno.
 
“Okay, give,” he said.
 
“What’s the deal?
 
Whatta you want?”

Drago smiled.
 
“Oh, so you wanna deal now?”

“What is it, Johnny?
 
You didn’t come all this way to nickel and
dime me over
no
dough.
 
What is it?”

Drago exhaled.
 
Might as well get on with it, he seemed to conclude.
 
“I hear Reno decided to step down as CEO of
PaLargio, Inc.”

“Yeah, so?
 
Ain’t
no
secret about that.”

“Yeah, but why?” Drago asked.
 
“What’s happened?
 
I haven’t heard about
no
heat coming down on Reno.
 
So why all of a sudden he’s laying low?
 
Why all of a sudden he’s leaving Vegas?
 
This is his town.
 
Why he gonna give this up?
 
What happened?”

“Nothing happened.
 
He just wants a change for his old lady after
what happened to his Ma and Marbeth.
 
It
ain’t got
nothing
to do with nothing.”

Drago looked at Dirty.
 
“Does it look like I was born yesterday?
 
Do I look that stupid to you?
 
Reno Gabrini wouldn’t move next door to satisfy
some female, let alone pack up his life and move across the country!
 
He would never uproot his life like that for
some broad.
 
Never.
 
You know it and I know it.
 
So cut the bull, Richie.
 
Tell me something I don’t know.”

These wise guys thought they knew all about
Reno.
 
They just knew that Reno was one
of them.
 
But
Dirty
knew better.
 
Reno would do more than
move across the country for Tree.
 
He
would move across the entire planet for her.
 
But he wasn’t about to tell Drago that.

“Just tell me what you want,” Dirty said,
“because unlike some people I know, who happens to be in this car, thank-you, I
have to work for a living.”

“Find out why.”

Dirty frowned.
 
“Why what?”

“Why Beyoncé don’t like Kim Kardashian no
more.
 
What the fuck you think?
 
Find out why Reno’s laying low.
 
Why he’s leaving Vegas.
 
What heat’s on
him.
”

“Maybe the cops are still asking questions
after what Marbeth did, and how she had to be taken out.
 
She did kill Vito Giancarlo’s son.
 
She killed a mob boss son.
 
That’s always gonna generate heat, and maybe
the heat’s still on.”

But Drago shook his muscle head.
 
“That ain’t it.
 
That’s over.
 
I own enough cops to know that that’s over.
 
This is some new shit, and I need to know
what it is.”

Dirty stared at Drago.
 
This
need to know
of his could at least buy
him some time until he could gamble up some more money.
 
But what if this need to know meant more to
Drago than even his money did?
 
Dirty decided to gamble now.
 

“And if I find out what you need to know,”
Dirty asked, “will you cancel my debt?”

Drago paused.
 
Then nodded his head.
 
“Yes,” he said.

Dirty was astounded.
 
The Drag never cancelled debts, he just
didn’t.
 
And
Dirty
owed him thousands.
 
“You mean to tell
me,” Dirty said, to be clear, “that if I find out why Reno decided to give up
day to day operations of the PaLargio and move out of town you’ll one hundred
percent cancel my debt to you?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”
 
Then he looked at Dirty. “But it better not
be bullshit,
Dirty
.
 
It better not be about any of that
he’s
so in love with his wifey
bullshit.
 
I want to know what would drive him to leave his beloved Vegas.”

“But I still don’t get it.
 
What’s it to you what heat is on Reno?”

 
Drago’s
stomach began to hurt at just the thought of that asshole Reno.
 
“That’s above your pay grade, pal. Don’t you
get your panties in a bunch about
that.
 
You just find out what that heat is, and
who’s putting it on him.
 
That’s all you
gotta do.
 
And you’ll owe me nothing.”

It was undoubtedly more inside the mob,
score-settling bullshit, and
Dirty
knew it.
 
But he wasn’t about to let the chance to get
out of Drago’s debt pass him by.
 
Especially with Drago threatening to tell Reno all about his
side
job.
 

Dirty was a lot of things, but he was no
fool.
 

“You got yourself a deal,” he said, extending
his hand.
 
Drago looked at that hand as
if it were diseased.
 
Dirty
pulled it back.

“When do you need this information?” he asked
Drago.

“Immediately.
 
Like yesterday.
 
You
find a way to get to Reno, find out what you need to find out, and get in touch
with me.”
 
He handed Dirty a card.
 
“You can reach me at that number.
 
Day or night.
 
As soon as you find out something
interesting, you call me.”

“I’ll call you,” Dirty said, moving to get out
of the suffocating car.

“And Dirty,” Drago said, catching Dirty by the
elbow.
 
Dirty looked at
him.
 
“If you don’t deliver exactly
what I need to know,” Drago made clear, “not only will you lose those specific
arms I aforementioned to you, but Reno will be told all about your little drug
selling operation in his establishment.
 
Which, if I know Reno, and I do, that little news will be sure to
cost you the other limbs I didn’t aforementioned.
 
So don’t fuck this up, Richie,” he
added.
 
“That’s the moral of this story.”

Dirty stared at Drago.
 
Trying
to figure him out was like trying to figure out Calculus as far as Dirty was
concerned.
 
But he knew something was
up.
 
Something major.
 
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure
that much out.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Drago.
 
“I’ll deliver.
 
And I’ll deliver no matter how I have to get
it done.”
 
He smiled that charming smile that
always caused Reno’s sister Fran to forgive him anything.
 
“Why do you think they call me Dirty?”

Drago laughed.
 
“Get the fuck outta here,” he ordered.

CHAPTER TWO

“Reno is gonna kill me, Tree,” Dirty said as
he drove Reno’s Bentley into the parking lot at Boyzie’s.
 
It was one week later, and Trina had just
returned from Detroit.

“Stop saying that,
Dirty
,
goodness,” Trina replied.
 
“He won’t mind
if I take two minutes to say goodbye to
Jazz
.”

“But he told me to bring you straight home.
 
To meet his plane, pick you up, and bring you
straight home.
 
He was clear to me,
Tree.
 
‘No detours, Dirty,’ he said to
me.
 
‘Bring my wife straight here.’
 
And here I am taking you to a strip
joint!”
 

“It’s not even that serious,” Trina said with
a shake of her head.
 
“Reno won’t mind.”

Dirty looked through his rearview mirror at
his passenger on the backseat.
 
It often amazed him how Trina was always so
trusting of Reno.
 
Didn’t she know the
man she had on her hands?
 
Didn’t she
know how brutal Reno could be?

He unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of the car,
and began walking around to the back passenger side door.
 
Trina could dismiss his concerns all she
wanted, but
Dirty
knew Reno.
 
And as soon as Reno jumped down his throat
for not obeying his orders, he wasn’t going to hesitate and tell him the truth:
Trina made him do it.
 
And that would be
the end of Reno’s rage because he could never be angry at his precious
Trina.
 
Although lately, Dirty also was
beginning to notice, there’d been some trouble in paradise.