Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair (14 page)

“Your son,” the judge said, “forces my son to pay
him money for his protection.”

Dommi didn’t see the big deal.
 
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.
 
“The bullies keep beating up the little
people.”

The principal looked sidelong at Dommi.
 
“What little people?” he asked.

“Like Roger,” Dommi said.

The principal was floored.
 
“But he’s bigger than you are!”

“But I can fight,” Dommi responded.
 
“Rog can’t.”

“Now see here,” the judge said.
 
“My son can fight same as anybody else.”

“No, he can’t,” Dommi said.
 
“He cries and let the bullies take his lunch
money every day.
 
So I told him, like I
told the others, that I would protect him.”

“And that is admirable, Dominic,” the principal
said.
 
“But the problem is that you
charge them money for this protection.
 
Why, if you’re looking out for the little people as you call them, do
you have to charge them money for your protection?”

Reno looked hard at his son.
 
He wanted the answer to that question too.

Dommi didn’t skip a beat.
 
“Because my daddy always told me anything
free is not worth having.
 
I’m worth
having.
 
They can’t have me for free.”

Reno smiled.
 
He
couldn’t help it.
 
And then he
laughed.
 
The judge and the principal
failed to see the humor, but Reno didn’t give a shit.

“This is outrageous!” the judge said with every
ounce of umbrage he had.

“This is not funny, Mr. Gabrini!” the principal
agreed.

“It’s funny to me,” Reno said, and his smile
disappeared.
 
“You’ve got a problem with
that?”

And it was at that moment did both the principal and
the judge remember who they were dealing with.
 
Reno Gabrini.
 
They both knew the
rumors about his mob ties.
 
About his own
mob activity.
  
About his shadiness up
and down the line.
 
They’d heard the
rumors for years.
 
Especially the judge,
who worked in the criminal justice system.

Reno stood to his feet.
 
“Go back to class, Dommi,” he ordered his
son.

“Was I wrong, Daddy?” he asked as he stood up.
 
The judge and principal looked at
Gabrini.
 
Would he rise to the occasion
and set his son straight?

“No,” Reno said to Dommi.
 
“You weren’t wrong at all.
 
If those weaklings don’t want to pay for your
services, then fuck’em.
 
Look out for
yourself.”

Dommi smiled.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said, ran and hugged his father, and then left.

The principal stood up too.
 
“You’re teaching your son an awful lesson,”
he said.

Reno knew he was.
 
And it cut him short.
 
But Dommi
wasn’t the son of a judge, or a principal.
 
He was Reno Gabrini’s son.
 
If he
wasn’t tough, he wasn’t going to make it.
 
Especially a kid like Dommi, who was a born gangster.
 
Reno wished he wasn’t born that way.
 
He wished he could mold him into a judge or a
principal too.
 
But he would only be
kidding himself.
 
Dommi could no more be
some straight lace asshole than Reno himself could.
 
“Don’t you worry about the lessons I teach my
son,” he told the principal.
 
And he left
too.

The principal looked at the judge and shook his
head.
 
“A lost cause,” he said.
 
“But don’t worry, Roger,” he added.
 
“He won’t be taking any more money from you.”

Roger wasn’t in agreement with that solution at
all.
 
“But Dom looks out for us,” he said
with some degree of anxiety in his voice.
 
“The bullies are afraid of him.
 
What am I supposed to do now?”

The judge looked at the principal too.
 
Surely he had a better answer than the one
he’d just given.

But the principal had no clever answer either.
 
“We’ll cross that bridge,” he said as if he was
saying something innovative, “when we get to it.”

Roger looked at his father.
 
He would rather pay Dom Gabrini than rely on
their unreliable principal.
 
His father
clasped his son’s hand.
 
He was thinking
the same thing too.

“What can brown do for me?” Oprah said with a smile
as the UPS man entered Champagne’s carrying a small package.
 
“I can think of a hundred things, and every
one of them requires a bed.”

Trina smiled as she continued to stand at the
computer behind the counter and review their latest acquisitions report.
 
She co-owned Champagne’s with Gemma
Jones-Gabrini, the wife of Reno’s cousin Sal, and Oprah was their new store
manager.

“Hello, Mr. Postman,” Oprah said gaily.
 
“Is it me you’re coming to see?”

The UPS man smiled as he approached the
counter.
 
“If your name is Katrina
Gabrini, it is.
 
But since I know Mrs.
Gabrini, I’m pretty sure it’s not you I’m coming to see.
 
But it’s nice to see you.”

Oprah laughed.
 
“Same here,” she said, and extended her hand.
 
She was a young, smart, attractive
African-American woman with the kind of understated charm a store owner
loved.
 
“I’m Oprah Davenport,” she said
as they shook.
 
“I’m Mrs. Gabrini’s new
store manager.
 
Nice to meet you too.”

“How it’s going, Dave?” Trina said when she looked
up from the computer.

“Perfect now that I’ve met perfection,” Dave said
with a grin as he handed her his electronic signature interface to sign.
 
But his eyes were on Oprah.
 
“You’re the first Oprah I’ve met,” he
added.
 
“Other than the real one, I
mean.
 
Not that you aren’t real.”

“Right, yeah?” Oprah said with a smile.
 
“My mom just loves her.
 
I was born in Chicago twenty-one years ago
and my mom didn’t hesitate to give me a name everybody would recognize as a
name that belongs to somebody else.”

He laughed.

“The story of my life!” Oprah added.

While they continued to shoot the breeze, Trina
opened the small package Dave handed to her.
 
When she saw that it was a newspaper clipping, she was intrigued.
 
She also saw a DVD inside.
 
But as she read the clipping, and realized
what it was about, her puzzlement turned into confusion that turned into pure
horror.
 
Her heart fell through her
shoe.
 
Her change was so pronounced that
even Dave saw it.

“Are you okay, Mrs. G.?” he asked her.

But Trina was too floored to respond.
 
She looked around as if she was lost.

“What is it, boss?” Oprah asked.

“I’ve got to,” Trina started saying, but didn’t
finish.
 
Then she grabbed the package,
along with her keys and phone off of the countertop, and began leaving.
 
She hurried back, and grabbed her purse.
 
“I’ve got to go,” she said, and hurried out
of the door.

Dave looked at Oprah.
 
“She looks like she saw a ghost,” he
said.
 
“But that can’t be.
 
I don’t deliver ghosts.”

He and Oprah laughed, but Oprah was concerned.
 
The stability of her boss meant the stability
of her coins.
 
Oprah was highly
concerned.

Sal Gabrini, and his African-American wife Gemma
Jones-Gabrini, sat quietly in the restaurant and waited for Reno and Trina to
arrive.
 
Neither one of them were known
for their punctuality, so Gemma didn’t gripe and complain about it.
 
But Sal did.

“They act like we don’t have shit to do,” he
complained.
 
“We’re busy people same as
they are.”

And they were busy.
 
Sal, as CEO of the Gabrini Corporation, and Gemma as an attorney in
private practice, they both were extremely busy.
 
But Gemma wasn’t worried.
 
“They’ll be here, Sal,” she assured her
husband.

“And I just want Reno to start that shit with me,”
Sal said.

Gemma shook her head.
 
“I should have never told you.”

“Yes, you should have.
 
You don’t know Reno like I know him.
 
He might bring a gun to this cat fight.
 
He might want a pound of flesh for what
amounts to a lot of noise about nothing.”

“Nothing?” Gemma asked incredulously.
 
“Sal, because of your little driving lessons,
Dommi stole a car and drove it!
 
He could
have killed himself or somebody else.
 
What do you mean noise about nothing?”

“I taught Dommi well.
 
He wasn’t killing anybody.
 
He knew what he was doing.
 
You have to let a man be a man.”

“But he’s not a man,” Gemma pointed out.
 
“He’s a fifth grader, Sal!”

“That’s a lie,” Sal quickly stated.
 
“He was born in the fifth grade.
 
He’s ready to graduate now.”

Gemma couldn’t help but laugh.
 
“You need to quit,” she said.

“But am I lying?
 
You ever seen a fifth grader like Dom before?
 
Hell if I have!
 
That boy scares the shit out of me sometimes!
 
Reno need to understand that he can’t baby
him.
 
Reno needs to understand what he
has on his hands.”

“Speaking of Reno,” Gemma said, and then motioned
toward the door.

Sal looked toward the entrance and saw Reno as he
removed his shades, pushed his hair off of his forehead, and made his way to
their table.
 
Gemma smiled when he
arrived.
 
“Hey, Reno,” she said
jovially.
 
They were good friends.

Reno smiled too, leaned down, and kissed her on the
lips.
 
“How are you?” he asked as he
gathered his suit coat and sat in the booth seat across from them.
 
“Don’t answer that,” he added.
 
“I know how you are.
 
You’re with Sal.
 
Poor thing.”

“Not funny, Reno,” Gemma said.
 
And then she laughed.

“Very funny,” Sal said.
 
Then he looked at Reno.
 
“Where’s Tree?” he asked.

“I thought she would beat me here,” Reno said, and
pulled out his cell phone.
 

When he called Trina, she didn’t answer.
 
“She’s probably stuck in traffic,” he
said.
 
“She’ll be here.”

“Before she comes,” Sal said, “maybe we can clear
the air about this Dommi situation.
 
I
don’t see where I owe you any apologies. I don’t see where I did anything
wrong.”

 
“Oh, you
don’t?” Reno asked.
 
“Teaching my baby
how to drive without my permission is no big deal to you?”

“No!
 
I’m his
uncle!”

“You’ll have to be my brother to be his uncle.
You’re his cousin.”

“Whatever!” Sal said.
 
“I have a right to be there for him.”

“There you go twisting it around again,” Reno
said.
 
“I didn’t say you didn’t have a
right to be there for him.
 
If something
happens to me, I know you and Tommy will take care of my family.
 
You have every right to be involved in all my
children’s lives.
 
But what you don’t
have a right to do is teach him something that could get him killed!
 
And driving, I think any rational adult will
agree, can get him killed.
 
He’s not
ready to drive!”

“Oh, yeah?
 
Then why did he drive so well, Reno?
 
How many people did he kill when he was driving, Reno?
 
How many accidents did he cause?”

“None.
 
But
that’s no thanks to you.
 
I just so
happened to catch up with his slick ass in time!
 
My son is a handful, Sal.”

Sal and Gemma both caught the emotion in Reno’s
voice when he said those last words.
 
They
looked at him.
 
His eyes looked tired and
his coloring looked drained.

Reno leaned back.
 
“He’s a handful,” he said with resignation in his voice.
 
“And I’m worried sick about him.”

Sal was at first surprised by Reno’s honesty, and
then touched by it.
 
“He’s a good kid,
Reno.”

“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?
 
He’s in a kid’s body, but he’s not a kid.”

Sal had to nod about that.
 
“No.
 
He’s not.”

“The world expects him to behave like one,” Reno
said, “but he can’t.
 
Like just this
morning. You know where I was this morning?”

“Where?” Gemma asked.

“In his principal’s office,” Reno said.
 
“Seems that man-child of mine was running a
shakedown operation on the weaklings in his school.”

Sal laughed.
 
“A shakedown operation?” Gemma asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Reno said.
 
“He protects them from the bullies in
exchange for cash.”
 
Sal laughed
again.
 
“He’s running a racket right out
of the fifth grade,” Reno added.

Gemma shook her head.
 
“Does Trina know?”

“Not yet.
 
I
didn’t want her to run up to that school and beat his behind.”

“Why not?” Gemma asked.
 
“He deserves it.”

“Not in front of his classmates, he doesn’t,” Reno
said.
 
“He has a reputation to uphold.”

Sal shook his head.
 
“See, this is what I’m talking about.
 
Reno and his infamous hypocrisy.
 
You’re having a fit because I taught your son how to drive, while you’re
busy teaching him how to run a numbers racket in school!
 
But I’m the bad guy.”

“I’m the bad guy,” Reno said.
 
“I’m his father.”

Another note of emotion in Reno’s voice.
 
Sal and Gemma glanced at each other.
 
They didn’t know how to take this side of
Reno.

“So what do you propose to do about it, old man?”
Sal asked him.

Reno ran his hand through his already messy
hair.
 
“Teach him,” he said.

“Teach him what?” Gemma asked.

“How to be himself,” Reno said.
 
“How to deal with his fucked up nature,” he
added.

By the time Reno made it home to their estate on the
outskirts of Vegas, later that night, he had reached Trina by phone an hour
earlier.
 
She met up with a couple of
girlfriends she hadn’t seen in years, she told Reno, and they were going out
for drinks.
 
Give her regards to Sal and
Gemma.
 
Reno was upset, because she could
have phoned him hours earlier, but he held it in.
 
It wasn’t Sal and Gemma’s problem.
 
But now, later that night, as he was going up
the stairs and coming into their bedroom, he felt no such restraint.

Trina was seated at the mirror in their bedroom,
combing her hair.
 
Reno walked up behind
her.

“I put the children to bed about an hour ago,” she
said.
 
“You can wake them if you want to
say goodnight to them.”

“Where were you, Tree?” Reno asked her.

Trina quickly looked at him through the mirror.
 
Did he know?
  
“I told you where.”

“What girlfriends you just happened to run into
after all these years if you were leaving Champagne’s and coming straight to
the restaurant?
 
Where did you just
happen to see these long lost friends?”

“At Champagne’s,” Trina said.

When Reno realized a female clothing store would be
a logical place to see friends she hadn’t seen in a while, he looked flustered.

“It’s your own damn fault,” Trina said.
 
“You walked right into that one.”
 
But then her look lingered.
 
She knew he was concerned, but she couldn’t
go there.
 
Not yet.
 
“We were in phone contact, Reno.
 
I don’t know why you’re tripping.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you
were out at God knows where and I didn’t know where!
 
Anything could have happened to you.”

Trina frowned.
 
“What are you talking about?
 
I
had a few drinks with some old friends.
 
How does that translate into putting my life in danger?”

“You’re my wife.”

“And practically everybody in Vegas knows that,
Reno.
 
That is not a secret.”

“We made a deal, Tree.”

Trina didn’t remember any deal.
 
“A deal about what?”

“Security.
 
That’s what!”
 
Reno came in testy,
but he only getting worse.
 
“You begged
me to pull my men off of you.
 
It feels
like a violation to be followed around like that, you said.
 
You even questioned if I trusted you.”

“Damn right I did.”

“So I pulled them off, but only on the condition
that you let me know where you were at all times, Tree.”

“I did let you know.”

“Bullshit!
 
You told me you were out with some girlfriends you haven’t seen in ages
and you’ll talk to me later.
 
You
couldn’t even give me the name of the place because you didn’t know the name,
and before I could ask any more questions you had to go.
 
Like calling me was cutting into your having
fun time!
 
Like I’m some
got
damn punk bothering you!”

“You’re making something out of nothing, Reno.”

“Nothing?”
 
Reno asked.
 
“Nothing my ass!
 
We had a deal, Tree!”

“Okay.”
 
Trina
needed him to calm down.
 
“I’m sorry I
wasn’t more specific, alright? I apologize.”
 
But that odd look of his wouldn’t let up.
 
It was stressful enough.
 
“What is it now?” she asked him.
 
“I told you nothing’s going on.”

“That’s what you’re saying.”

“But you don’t agree?”

“I don’t.”

“And why not?”

“Because I smell a rat, Tree, and my nose is never
wrong.
 
Now who were these
girlfriends?
 
Were any of them
boy
friends?”

Trina couldn’t believe what he’d just asked
her.
 
“What?”

“You heard me.
 
Was any of those girls dudes?”

Trina dropped her comb and got up.
 
“I’m not going to dignify that with a
response,” she said, and began to head toward their bathroom.
 
“You want to go there, you go there.
 
But not with me,” she added, as she walked.

But Reno wasn’t about to let her just walk away like
that.
 
He grabbed her by the arm and
pulled her toward him.
 
The nearness of
her, the sweet scent of her made him feel all the more concerned.
 
He couldn’t lose her.
 
Not to anybody.
 
“Where were you that you couldn’t show up for
a dinner you knew was important?”

“I told you where I was.”

“You said you were out with long lost
girlfriends.
 
You didn’t say where.”

“I told you I was at a club.”

“I thought it was a bar.”