Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch (21 page)

Gemma rubbed the side of
his face too.
 
And they kissed.
 
Then Sal stood back up, and continued to
dress.

“How long have you been
back here?” she asked him.

“Maybe an hour.”

“An hour?” she replied,
astonished.
 
“Why didn’t you call me as
soon as you got here, Sal?
 
You had to
know how worried I was!”

“What worry?
 
I told you Tommy would take care of you.
 
I knew you were with Tommy’s people.
 
You were fine.”

Gemma had a great idea
why they wanted to keep her out of the way.
 
“How long has Reno been here?”

“He just got here,” Sal
said.
 
“I didn’t know he was coming until
he just popped up.”

“Tommy called him then.”

“Yeah.”

Which, Gemma knew, meant
that there was more going on than Sal was really letting on.
  
Reno was a busy man.
 
He wouldn’t just “pop up” for the hell of
it.
 

She stared into Sal’s
eyes.
 
Although they looked refreshed,
she could see an undercurrent of concern there too.
 
She decided to rely on his natural propensity
to tell it straight, without any sugarcoat.
 
“Sal,” she asked, her face a mask of worry, “is everything really all
right?”

Sal saw the distress all
over her face, and he hated that she had to experience this side of his life that
was all too familiar to him.
 
He lifted
her from the bed and held her by the catch of her hands.
 
“No,” he said honestly.
 
“But it will be.
 
I promise you that.”
 

Then he stared at her a
moment longer, his heart filled with regret and sadness, and then he wrapped
her into his arms.

When they made it back
downstairs, Reno and Tommy were seated on the sofa in the family room, with
drinks in their hands, conferring.
 
Sal
sat down in the flanking chair to their left, and Gemma sat down in the flanking
chair to their right.
 
Tommy immediately
suggested that she should excuse them while they talk business, and he
suggested it with that disarming smile of his, but Sal said no.
 
Tommy coddled Grace.
 
Sal knew Gemma wasn’t about to let
 
him coddle her.

Since Reno had a similar
type of wife in Trina, he fully
 
understood.
 
He leaned forward and
looked at Sal.
 
“So give,” he said to
him.
 
“What did the Feds ask about?
 
Patty Pacheco?”

“They ended up asking
about him, yeah,” Sal acknowledged.
 
“But
they didn’t start with him.”

“Who did they start
with?” Tommy wanted to know.

“They wanted to know
everything I knew about Will Murelli and Chazz Charski.”

Reno frowned.
 
“Who the fuck is Will Murelli and Chazz
Charski?”

“What do you mean who are
they?
 
They’re my people.
 
You got a problem with that?”

Reno apparently did.
 
“I never heard of them before in my life!” he
blared.

“So what if you never
heard of them?
 
What’s that supposed to
mean?
 
I’m making them up?
 
They can’t possibly exist because you don’t
know them?
 
You’re full of yourself,
Reno!”

“Fuck you, Sal!”

“Fuck you!” Sal shot
back.

“I’m here to help your
ass, all right?”

“Then help,
motherfucker!
 
All I see you doing is
questioning everything!”

“What am I questioning?”
Reno wanted to know.

“What do you think?” Sal
was eager to tell him.
 
“Who’s Will
Murelli?
 
Who’s Chazz Charski? Who do you
think they are?”

Reno was now beside
himself.
 
“I never heard of the
motherfuckers!
 
What’s so wrong with
that?”

“Who cares what you never
heard of, Reno?
 
It’s not about you!
 
Every time---”

“Knock it off!” Gemma
yelled so decisively that it caused Sal, Reno, and Tommy to lean back in shock,
and look at her.
 

She looked at Sal.
 
“Tell us what the FBI wanted, Sal,” she
ordered.

Sal wasn’t used to this
Gemma, but he smiled.
 
He could get used
to it.
 
“They were asking if I knew
anything about their deaths.”

“Their deaths?” Reno
asked.
 
“So they’re dead?”

“There you go with the
questions again,” Sal said.

“Yes, their dead,” Gemma
answered Reno.
 
“But why would they think
you would have anything to do with it?” she asked Sal.

Tommy and Reno looked at
Sal.
 
It was a good question.
  
His activities, and the company he kept, was
oftentimes a mystery to them also.

“I can’t worry about why
they think what they think,” Sal responded, not willing to get into it that
deep.
 
“I know I wasn’t involved, I know
that.”

“But they worked for you,
Sal,” Gemma said as if it were a fact.

Reno looked at her.
 
“What would you know about that?”

“They came to my house,”
Gemma said.

Reno and Tommy looked at
each other.
 
Then Tommy looked at
Gemma.
 
“Will Murelli and Chazz Charski
came to your house?

“Yeah.
 
They came to see Sal.”

Tommy looked at Sal.
 
“And you let them?”

But Sal didn’t see the
problem.
 
“What are you talking?
 
She went to work.
 
She didn’t hear anything we discussed.”

“But why would you let
them come to her house?”

“Because they work for
me!
 
And they were fucking up.
 
They told me about Danny Bronco, but that’s
all they told.”

“Danny Bronco?” Tommy and
Reno said in unison.

“What about him?” Tommy
asked.

“Chazz said he’s still
alive.”

Reno frowned.
 
“But we iced . . .” Then he realized Gemma
was in the room.
 
“But he’s dead,” he
said.

“I know that.
 
And you know that.
 
But they claim otherwise.
 
So I’m looking into it.
 
Got Zoo looking too.”

“Zoo?” Reno asked,
frowning.
  
“Who the fuck is Zoo?”

“Scotty Zumpano.
 
Friend of mine.”

Reno shook his head.
 
Sal and his “friends.”

“That’s exactly why,” Tommy
said, “letting Chazz and Will come to Gem’s house wasn’t a great idea.”

“It wasn’t a problem at
that time.”

“It’s a problem now,”
Reno said.
 
“They’re both dead after
having visions of a dead man themselves.
 
This shit going sideways fast, Sal, and your shady friends aren’t
helping.
 
And what about Patty
Pacheco?
 
The Feds think you had
something to do with his prison break?”

   
“Sure they think so,” Sal said.
 
“They want me to bring them Patty, and
they’ll take me out of the Chazz and Will equation.”

“In other words,” Reno
said, “they won’t pin murders you didn’t commit anyway on you?”

Sal smiled.
 
“Right.”

“Lousy fuckers.
 
I hate cops!”

“Watch it, Reno,” Tommy
said with a smile of his own. “Sal and I used to be cops.”

Sal’s cell phone began to
ring.
 
“And I couldn’t stand y’all asses
when y’all were,” Reno said to laughter from Tom.

“It’s Zoo,” Sal said as
he looked at the Caller ID.

“Put it on Speaker,” Reno
ordered, and Sal obliged.
 
Gemma was
still in the room, but they all seemed resigned to the fact that she was in it
now.
 
The fact that she had the balls to
tell them to knock it off, something they would normally not ever tolerate, put
her in the mix.

 
“Hey, Zoo, what’s up?” Sal asked.
 
“Any word?”

“It’s gonna cost you,”
Zoo said.

“You know I’m good for
it.”

“Five thousand, although
it’s worth more, but you’re my friend.
 
You was there for me when nobody else was, Sal.
 
You get what I call my Sal Discount.”

Reno rolled his eyes.

“Fine, Zoo,” Sal said,
“now what you got?”

“Nothing on Danny Bronco.
 
And I mean nothing.
 
I don’t know where Chazz and Will got their
intel from.”

“But you have something?”
Sal asked.

“Yeah.
 
Patty Pacheco.”

Sal glanced at Reno.
 
“What about Patty?” he asked.

“Patty’s working for Fab
Menza.”

When Gemma saw the
shocked expression on, not just Sal’s face, but Tommy and Reno’s, she knew the
entire dynamic had changed.
 
Sal stood
up.
 
Tommy and Reno moved to the edge of
their seats.

“Fab Menza?” Sal asked,
astounded.

“Fab Menza,” Zoo said.

“Don’t fuck with me,
Zoo!”

“You know I wouldn’t do
that to you!
 
But I’m telling you
straight, Sal.
 
He’s the one who
orchestrated Patty’s prison break.
 
And
get this: Patty’s the one who iced Will and Chazz.”

Reno fell back in his
seat, amazed.
 
Although Tommy looked
acted calm, Gemma could see the concern on his face too.

“I’m still digging,” Zoo
said.
 
“Soon as I get more, I’ll call
you.”

“Okay, Zoo, thanks.
 
We’ll hook up.”

“Word,” Zoo said, and
hung up.

Sal clicked off too.
 
He looked at Reno first, and then Tommy.
 
“What the fuck,” he said.
 
“Fab Menza?”

“Who’s Fab Menza?” Gemma
asked anxiously.

It was only then did they
remember she was in the room too.
 
Sal
sat back down.
 
“Bad news,” he said.
“He’s real bad news.”

“But who is he?”

“Our uncle,” Reno
said.
 
“Fabio Menza Gabrini.”

Gemma couldn’t believe
it.
 
“Your uncle?”
 
She looked at Sal.
 
“Your father’s brother?”

Sal nodded.
 
“Yep.”

“But I don’t
understand.
 
That should be good news,
shouldn’t it?
 
That means that he’s on
your side.
 
Doesn’t it?”

Reno looked at her
incredulously.
  
“On
our
side?” he asked her.
 
“That asshole isn’t on anybody’s side but his own!
 
He hate our guts and we hate him!
 
Even my old man, and my old man was a
ruthless sonafabitch, thought Fabio was too evil for him.
 
On our side my foot!
 
He’s a sadistic pile of shit!
 
That’s what side he’s on!”

 
Gemma couldn’t believe the emotion that name
was eliciting from all three Gabrini men.
 
But she needed to know more.
 
If
she was going to walk down this road with Sal, she needed to know more.
 
She looked at him.
 
“He’s a mob boss then?”

Sal understood, too, that
she had to be informed.
 
With a woman
like Gemma, it wasn’t going to work any other way.
 
“You can call him that, yeah.
 
Officially?
 
He’s a car salesman.”

“So why would he get
Patty out of prison?
 
What would be in it
for him?”

Tommy and Reno both
looked at Sal.
 
They knew the answer, but
it was Sal’s place, they felt, to tell her.

Sal leaned back and
rubbed his hand across his mouth.
 
Then
he looked at his woman.
  
“Revenge is in
it for him, Gem.
 
He wants revenge.”