Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair (6 page)

“You didn’t order me to do a
got
damn thing, first of all,” Chap pointed out.
 
“You brought me a ticket to this bitch and I
decided on my own accord to grace your presence with my presence.
 
But you know how I roll, Quinn.
 
Your ass is no innocent.
 
If that money starts looking funny, and don’t
roll in like you said it’s going to roll in, you’re going to wish I would have
kept my black ass in Jersey.”

Quinn knew her brother wasn’t bullshitting.
 
Chap had been on the wrong side of the law
all their lives, and was to this day a small-time con still looking for that
big score.
 
She believed he loved her,
but he didn’t agree to come just because she asked.
 
He came for the money.
 
“Don’t worry,” she said.
 
“You’ll get paid.”

“I better get paid,” Chap said firmly as Quinn
returned her attention to Reno.
 
That
fact wasn’t lost on Chap either.
 
He
shook his head.
 
“Don’t try to con a
conman.”

“Give it a rest, will you?
 
I’m not conning you.
 
I didn’t get you down here under any false
pretenses.”

But Chap still had his doubts.
 
“I heard Gabrini can fuck like a motherfuck,”
he said, “and that’s why all you ladies want him.
 
But if that’s what this is about; if you’re
pulling this shit so you can be the last woman standing in his life when all
the dust settles, then you’d better tell me now, Quinny.”

Quinn was getting tired of Chap’s suspicions,
although she knew he was right to have them.
 
“I told you already,” she said.
 
“It’s not about that!
 
You just do
what you’re told and you’ll get your money.
 
You’ll get paid.”

“And another thing,” Chap said as he tossed in more
chips.
 
“I don’t get the angle.
 
I don’t understand why y’all starting with
the kid.
 
Why Jimmy Mack?
 
I heard Reno was nuts about his old
lady.
 
Why can’t we start with her?
 
Why can’t we start at the top?”

“He’s nuts about Jimmy Mack, too,” Quinn said.
 
“Don’t think for a second he’s not.
 
He watch that boy like a hawk.
 
And we’ll get to his wife, don’t worry about
that either.
 
I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah?” Chap asked as he shuffled his cards and
stared at Quinn.
 
He knew she was holding
back a lot of intel from him.
 
“And who’s
doing you?” he asked.
 
“Who’s the money
man running this show?”

“Stop worrying, big brother!
 
Dang.
 
I got this.”
 
Then Quinn smiled a
devastatingly charming smile that Chap had never seen before.
 
When he realized why, his suspicions only
grew.

“Reno, hey!” Quinn said.

Reno Gabrini was approaching their blackjack table,
but his entire focus, it seemed to Chap, was on Quinn.
 
Chap heard how Gabrini liked to sleep
around.
 
Was Quinn, he wondered, already
in his bed?
 
“Aren’t you supposed to be
working?” Reno asked her.

“I am working!” Quinn said too defensively, Chap
thought.
 
“I’m working this nice young
man right here so he can spend more money.”

Reno laughed.
 
“Well that’s alright then,” he said, and extended his hand to Chap. “I’m
Reno.”

Chap played dumb.
 
“Reno Gabrini?
 
The owner?” He
shook Reno’s extended hand.
 
“It’s a
pleasure to meet you, sir.
 
A real
honor.
 
How are you?”

“I’m good if you’re enjoying yourself.
 
Terrible if you aren’t.”

“Then you’re doing great because I’m having a
blast.
 
Best time ever.”

Reno laughed and gave Chap a back slap.
 
“You’re a good liar, I see that.”

Chap couldn’t help but laugh too.
 
Gabrini had what it took, he could see
that
.

“Could I borrow this lady for a sec?” Reno asked his
guest.

“By all means,” Chap responded.

Reno placed his hand in the small of Quinn’s back,
and ushered her out of earshot of Chap.
 
Quinn felt her heartbeat quicken, and her vagina throb, as soon as Reno
touched her.

“What’s up, boss?” she asked, when they were out of
earshot of anyone else.

“What the fuck you think is up?” Reno
responded.
 
“Get your ass upstairs and
get back to work.
 
Schmooze with
customers on your own dime.
 
Not mine.”

Quinn’s soaring heart crash-landed.
 
His constant and unyielding rejection of her
was exactly why she was going to enjoy his downfall.
 
“Yes, sir,” she said, and hurried away.

As Reno made his way back over to the blackjack
table to introduce himself to the other players, Quinn headed toward the
elevators.
 
She was angry and bitter
inwardly, but outwardly she smiled heartily as she went.

But before she could make it out of the casino, Lee
Jones, a tall African-American executive in Reno’s company and one of his
oldest friends, hurried past her and made his way up to Reno.
 
“We’ve got a problem, boss,” he said as he
arrived.

Reno already knew it was serious.
 
Lee wouldn’t be downstairs if it wasn’t.
 
“What is it?” he asked.

“Guess who took the car of one of our guests and is
at this very moment heading up the Strip?”

Reno frowned.
 
“Who?
 
And what do you mean they
took
a car?”

“He stole a car belonging to one of our guests and
is now driving that same car up the Vegas Strip.
 
The
he
being Dominic Gabrini, Junior.”

Reno’s heart dropped through his shoes.
 
“
Dommi
stole a car
?
 
And he’s
driving
that car?”

“Up the Vegas Strip,” Lee added.

Reno was dumbstruck.
 
“
Up the Vegas fucking Strip
?”
he yelled.
 
And he took off running.
 
He ran like a high school track star.
 
He ran across his massive casino toward the
lobby so fast that even the faster Lee Jones could not keep up.
 

“Get his mother!” Reno yelled as he ran.
 
“She’s in her office.
 
Get Tree now!”

“I called her while I was coming to get you,” Lee
said as he ran behind Reno.
 
“She’s on her
way down.”

And by the time Reno ran into the lobby and was
about to run out of the front entrance, Trina was just running off of the
elevator and heading for the exit too.
 
Although she was coolly dressed in a pearl-white, short-jacket Chanel
pantsuit and heels, there was nothing cool about her.
 
Where Reno was stunned by his son’s behavior,
she was beyond stunned.
 
“Where is he,
Reno?” she asked anxiously.
 
“Where’s
Dommi?”

Reno saw the anguish in her big, hazel eyes.
 
“We’ll find him,” he responded assuredly, as
he grabbed her hand and they both ran out of the exit, with Lee Jones still
trying to keep up behind them.

When they ran outside, Reno’s Porsche had already
been pulled around and was waiting for them.
 
Lopez opened the passenger door for Trina.
 
The valet supervisor, Marcus, held the
driver’s door open for Reno.
 
“I already
have two cars trying to catch up with him now, sir,” Marcus said as Reno
approached.
 
“He’s driving a blue and
white Fiat.
 
I’m hoping they get to him
before the police does.”

“Fuck the police!” Reno said, as he got into his
car.
 
“He’d better hope I don’t get to
him first!”
 
Trina got in too, and they
sped off, even as the valet had to jerk his hand away in an attempt to close
her door.
 
Trina closed it herself.

Reno glanced at Trina as he waited for cars to pass
before he could make it onto the busy street.
 
He could feel her fear.

“Driving a car,” she said incredulously, shaking her
head.
 
“Wait until I get my hands on
him.
 
I’m going to beat his bony ass!”

Reno sped in front of a car, barely missing it, and
made his way onto the street.
 
His face
was a mask of anguish.
 
“I didn’t even
know he could drive.
 
Did you?”

Trina frowned.
 
“He can’t drive, Reno, what are you talking about?
 
He’s in fifth grade!
 
How can he even see above the steering
wheel?”

“He’s not
that
little,” Reno said.
 
“He can see.
 
At least I pray to God he can.”
 
Then a horrible thought occurred to him.
 
“Good Lord, Trina, what if he can’t even
see?!”
 
The thought of Dommi driving
blindly through the streets of Las Vegas, slamming around cars as if they were
bumper cars, scared the shit out of both of them.
 
And Reno drove faster.

Then Reno grabbed Trina’s hand, and they both began
to pray.

Nearly a mile away from his father, Dommi was
driving along the Strip and having the time of his life.
 
He knew how all the functions worked. He knew
how to brake, how to accelerate, how to steer.
 
He didn’t plan to steal a car and test that knowledge, but when he saw
the opportunity, he took it.
 
When that
little Fiat drove up, he knew it was his opportunity.

Now he was driving along like a seasoned pro.
 
Enjoying the view.
 
Enjoying the freedom.
 
Planning to have the car back in the round
before anybody knew it was missing.
 
He
even had on a pair of his father’s sunglasses, although he was sitting on the
edge of the pillows to see through the windshield, and to reach the
brakes.
 
But he could reach them.
 
He even tried to lean a little to the side,
the way he saw the cool guys do in rap videos.
 
He was having a time.

He also knew he was flirting with danger.
 
He knew his father would kill him if he ever
found out.
 
But Dommi’s constantly
calculating brain was certain that he had covered his tracks sufficiently
enough that no way his father, or mother for that matter, would ever know.

His small brain was enlightened, however, when he
stopped at a red light the way his Uncle Sal had always instructed him, and two
cars pulled up on either side of him.
 
The guys in one of the cars he recognized as his father’s valets.
 
He tried to hide his face from them.
 
But when he looked to the right side of his
stolen Fiat, and saw, not some strangers, but his father AND mother, his heart
momentarily stopped beating.
 
He almost
pissed in his pants.
 
And when his father
jumped out of his Porsche and began pointing at him and hurrying to his car,
yelling words he couldn’t hear, Dommi knew he had two choices: either die at
his father’s hands, or floor it.
 

He was about to floor it.
 
But his father beat on the passenger side
window and angrily pointed a finger at him, motioning for him to let the window
down.
 
Dommi pressed down the window,
realized it was the driver’s side window, and then pressed down the passenger
window.
 
He decided to smile, to play it
off.
 
His parents always liked when he
smiled.
 
“Hey, Daddy,” he said
jovially.
 
“Funny I should see you here.”

But Reno wasn’t trying to play with his incorrigible
son.
 
“Move from this spot and I’ll kick
your fucking ass!” he said to him.
 
“You
hear me, boy?”

Dommi’s heart was pounding.
 
And he was nodding.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said.
 
And all thoughts of
flooring it
, or even pretending that he had done nothing wrong,
went out the window too.

By now cars behind them were honking their horns and
Reno was ordering his valets in the second car to drive off to clear up that
lane.
 
Trina was also getting out of the
Porsche so that she could get behind the wheel to drive it back to the
PaLargio.
 
They both wanted to give a
finger to the honkers, but they were still too terrified for their son.

Dommi quickly moved over to the passenger seat in
the car, taking his pillows with him, as his father got in behind the
wheel.
 
Reno quickly snatched those
shades off of his son’s face.

Dommi’s mother, Trina, was already out of the
Porsche and heading toward the Porsche’s driver side.
 
But as Reno was getting into the Fiat, she
poked her head into the passenger side window.
 
“Have you lost your damn mind?” she asked her son.
 
Her anger was driven by the terror she felt
for her son too.
 
She was shaking.
 
“You could have killed somebody, Dommi!”

“If he hasn’t already,” Reno said, shaking too.
 
He looked at his son.
 
“Did you run into any cars, boy?”

“No, sir,” Dommi said sincerely.
 
When Reno and Trina continued to look at him
as if they were doubtful, he frowned.
 
“I
swear!”

“Wait until we get you home,” Trina warned with
clenched teeth.
 
“Wait till we get you
home!”
 
Then she got into Reno’s Porsche,
and sped off.
 
She moved in front of the
Fiat, and Reno followed her in.

Reno was pleased that Dommi was safe, that the world
was safe from Dommi, and that the stolen vehicle was now under his care and
control.
 
He was no longer fearful.
 
But his anger was rising as every second
passed.
 
He watched Trina as she drove
his Porsche.
 
The way she kept running
her hand through her flowingly beautiful hair, something she only did when she
was super nervous, made him angrier.
 
He
hated when anybody upset his wife.
 
Especially when it was all a bunch of bullshit.

And this was bullshit on steroids as far as Reno was
concerned.
 
He said nothing to his
son.
 
He was too afraid he would rip him
apart if he spoke right now.
 
He just
drove in that little-ass car that was the direct antithesis to any car Reno
Gabrini would be caught dead in.
 
But, to
his surprise, it wasn’t a bad ride at all.

But Dommi, who often forgot about his father’s rage
until it was far too late, wasn’t thinking about the ride anymore.
 
He was shaking in his boots.
 
And knowing his father, he knew he had good
reason.
 
Knowing his father, he knew this
was only the beginning of his pain.