Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) (16 page)

“I
told her she was my wife,” Jimmy explained.

“She
didn’t ask if she was your wife.
 
Her ass
knows she’s your wife.
 
She asked if she
was number one in your life.”

“But
that’s the thing, Uncle Sal.
 
She’s my
wife.
 
Of course she’s number one.”

“And
that’s the bullshit.”

Jimmy’s
anger flared.
 
“It’s not bullshit, and I
don’t appreciate you saying it is.”

“Like
I give a fuck what you appreciate,” Sal said.
 
“You’re my heart, Jimmy, you know that.
 
After Gem and Tommy, you’re it, boy.
 
You know how I feel about you.
 
I’m not going to steer you wrong.
 
I’m not going to go along with whatever you say because I know you’re
talking crap.”

“What’s
crappy about what I’m saying?
 
It’s as if
you’re suggesting I don’t love my wife.”

“You
love Val.”

“Then
what’s the problem?”

“You
love her, but she’s not first in your life.”
 
Sal looked Jimmy in his hazel eyes.
 
“Not by a longshot.”

Jimmy
stared at his uncle and then leaned forward and started eating again.
 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is
Val number one over your old man?
 
Over
Reno?”

Jimmy
didn’t respond to that.

“What
about over Tree?
 
What about over me?
 
She number one over me?”

Still
no response from Jimmy.

“What
about your Uncle Tommy?
 
What about your
Aunt Fran?
 
Well, not Fran.
 
Forget I mentioned her.”

Jimmy
smiled weakly.

“But
what about us, Jimmy?
 
If Reno was drowning,
and Val was drowning, which one would you save?”

“Could
you change it to Fran and Val?” Jimmy asked half-seriously.

“No,
I cannot,” Sal replied.
 
“Which one would
it be, Jimmy?”

Jimmy
didn’t respond.
 
He couldn’t.

Sal
nodded.
 
“Yeah.
 
I thought so.
 
And that’s why Val has a problem with you.
 
Instead of telling her the truth, you’re
telling her bullshit.
 
And she’s smart
enough to realize it.”

“But
why isn’t she number one?” Jimmy asked.
 
“She’s my wife!
 
I’m not number
one in Dad’s life.
 
Trina is.
 
I can guarantee you that.”

“So
can I,” Sal agreed.
 
“But that took time,
Jimmy.
 
They had to build to that kind of
love.
 
You’re married, but it’s a new
marriage.
 
It’ll take time.”

“And
then she’ll be number one?”

Sal
thought about it.
 
“Maybe,” he said.
 
Sal noticed the first guy.
 
He walked in earlier, and sat in the booth
all the way across the room.
 
But he
noticed him.
 
Now a second guy was
walking in.
 
He sat across the room too,
but on the opposite side of the room.
 

“Why
would you say maybe?” Jimmy asked. “What’s maybe supposed to mean?”

“It
may not get that strong,” Sal responded.
 
“Your bond with Reno is super tight.
 
And your bond with me is tight like that.
 
It’ll take a lot of love to get to that point
with Val.”

“But
you’re there already with Miss Jones,” Jimmy said.
 
“Aren’t you?”

Sal
wasn’t going to lie.
 
“Yeah.”

“So
if Uncle Tommy and Miss Jones were drowning, and one person had to be
sacrificed, which one would you sacrifice?”

“I’d
sacrifice myself,” Sal said.
 
“And let
the two of them live.
 
What are you
asking me crazy-ass questions like that for?”

Jimmy
smiled.
 
“But you asked me that same
question!”

“Listen,
Jimbo,” Sal said, leaning forward, “I need you to do me a favor.”

Jimmy
didn’t understand.
 
That came out of the
blue.
 
“A favor?”

“I
need you to get up right now and go out of the front door of this
establishment.
 
When you get out front, I
want you to get in your car and drive around to the cut.
 
Know what cut I’m talking about?”

“The
one a couple blocks up on Broad?”

“That’s
the one,” Sal said.
  
“Keep your engine
running, and I’ll be there.”

Jimmy’s
heart was pounding.
 
He wanted to ask a
thousand questions.
 
He wanted to look
around to see what had suddenly changed that his beloved uncle had to plot some
subterfuge.
 
But he didn’t ask
anything.
 
He didn’t check out
anything.
 
He got up and began heading
for the nearest exit.

Sal
got up too, as if he was heading for the restroom.
 
But instead of going down the hall, he went
into the kitchen.

“You
again,” the chef said impatiently.
 
“May
I help you?”

But
Sal didn’t bother to answer.
 
He walked
swiftly to the back door, went out of it, and was prepared to run.

But
as soon as he stepped out of the back door, six different guns, held by six different
men, were pointed directly at him.
 

The
gig was up.

He
felt cornered unlike he’d ever felt cornered in his life.

“FBI,”
one of the men proudly yelled.
 
“Freeze
motherfucker!”

Gemma
stepped out of the courtroom, carrying her overstuffed briefcase and turning on
her cell phone.
 
After checking her
messages and finding nothing pressing that needed her attention, she began
looking around the crowded courthouse.
 
To her pleasant surprise, she saw Reno and Tommy downstairs, looking
around too.

She
smiled and began hurrying downstairs to greet them.
 
They were undoubtedly looking for her.
 
But then, as she thought about it, she
stopped in her tracks.
 
A woman bumped
into her because of her sudden stop, but then walked around her, looked angrily
at her, but kept going.
 

But
Gemma remained still.
 
Reno
and
Tommy were looking for her?
 
These men were far too busy running their
respective corporations to come down to the courthouse just to see her.
 
Unless they had no choice.
 
Unless something awful had happened.
 
Unless something awful had happened to Sal!

Gemma’s
heart pounded as she began rushing down the stairs.
 
Reno saw her first, and then Tommy, and they
met her on the bottom stair.

“Is
he alright?” she asked nervously, breathlessly.
 
“Tell me he’s alright!”

“He’s
alright,” Tommy said, unable to hide the great frustration on his face.
 
“But there’s problems.”
 
Then he exhaled.
 
“Let’s go.”

And
Reno and Tommy both escorted her out of the courthouse, put her in their
waiting limousine, and the limo dashed off.

But
they got into a separate car.
 
They had
secured Sal’s woman, but they still had work to do.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The
penthouse was pin-drop quiet as Gemma and Trina sat on the sofa and waited for
that door to open.
 
It had been nearly
four hours since Gem was deposited at the penthouse, and not a word had come
down yet.

Yet
another hour came and went as they waited.
 
And Gemma couldn’t bear it.
 
On
three separate occasions, Gemma was going to go find out what she could
herself, but Trina stopped her.

“You’ve
got to let them handle this,” she told her.
 
“If you don’t think Tommy and Reno want to get to the bottom of this,
you aren’t thinking straight.
 
Nobody
alive, not even you, wants it more than those two men.”

Gemma
knew it was true.
 
But the waiting was
torturous.

Until
the front door finally opened, and both Gemma and Tree jumped up.
 

But
it wasn’t Reno nor Tommy.
 
And certainly
not Sal.
 
It was Jimmy.

“They
aren’t back yet?” he asked.

Gemma
and Trina both sat back down.
 
“No,”
Trina said to her stepson.
 
“What did you
find out?”

“Nothing,”
Jimmy said as he plopped down in the chair, flustered and worried too.
 
“Absolutely nothing.
 
I went out with a crew of Dad’s men, and we
hit the Strip hard.
 
But nobody knew
anything.
 
Tommy’s men and Uncle Sal’s
men hit the rest of the town, but they haven’t found out anything either.”

“This
is crazy,” Trina said, equally concerned.

“It’s
nuts,” Jimmy agreed.
 
“Even those
witnesses at the restaurant said those men were with the FBI.
 
They said they were wearing blue jackets with
FBI written on them and everything.
 
But
the Feds are playing dumb.
 
They claim
they had nothing to do with it.”

“This
is maddening,” Trina said.
 
“What in the
world is going on!”

Gemma
stood up and began pacing again.
 
“It’s
unbearable,” she said, her face anguished and frustrated.

“They’ll
find him, Miss Jones,” Jimmy reassured her.

“Yeah,
but when?” she wanted to know.
 
“When
he’s at the bottom of the river?
 
When
he’s down there with his hands tied and he’s fighting for his life?”

“Don’t
say that, Gemma!”

“Or
will they find him when he’s six feet under, in a cement grave?
 
Isn’t that one of the mob’s techniques
too?”
 
Tears were in her eyes.

Trina
hurried to Gemma, to hold her.
 
But Gemma
pulled away.
 
She wanted no comfort.
 
She wanted Sal!
 
“Is this the life I can expect, Trina?
 
Is this it?
 
Will I walk around wondering if my man is in a watery grave or a cement
grave?
 
Are those my choices?
 
Is this what I can expect?”

Jimmy
covered his face with his hands.
 
The
thought of his uncle in either of those situations scared the shit out of
him.
 
It scared Trina too, but she wasn’t
going to sugarcoat this either.

“Yes,”
she said to Gemma.
 
“This is exactly what
you can expect.
 
Yes!”

Gemma
stared at her.
 
Her heart was racing, but
growing faint too.
 
It was the oddest
feeling!

“If
you want to be a Gabrini, then this is what you can expect.
 
So get used to it, Gem.
 
If you want to be with the big boys you’ve
got to put on your big girl panties and deal with it.”
 
Then a hardness came into Trina’s eyes.
 
A hardness Gemma had never seen before.
 
“This is not, on any day of the week, an easy
life.”

Gemma
needed to understand.
 
“Then why do you
live it?” she asked her.

“Because
I’m with Reno.
 
That makes it a good life.
 
Not easy, but good.
 
The absolute best life I could have ever
had.
 
Because Reno’s in it.”

Gemma
exhaled.
 
“But where is Sal?” she asked.

Trina
rubbed her arm.
 
“I don’t know, baby,”
she said.
 
“But Reno and Tommy will find
out.
 
You rest assured of that.
 
They’ll find him.”
 
Then Trina looked at Gemma’s worried face,
and Jimmy’s worried face, and she sighed.
 
“Come on guys, we aren’t helping.
 
Let’s get something to eat.”

She
headed for the kitchen, and Jimmy followed her.
 
And Gemma was about to.
 
But her
original question haunted her.
 
Was it a
watery grave, or a cement grave?
 
Were
they going into the kitchen to eat while Sal was dying, and he could be saved
if they would only think outside the box?
 
This was her man.
 
He always
talked about how she was his responsibility.
 
He even had the audacity to tell her own father that.
 
But she felt the reverse was true too.
 
Sal was her responsibility.
 
Not Tommy’s.
 
Not Reno’s.
 
Hers.

She
hurried to her handbag, grabbed her cell phone, her keys and her wallet, and
took off.

Reno
and Tommy walked out of the backroom of the pool hall and headed back for
Reno’s Porsche.
 

Once
inside, Reno sat behind the wheel and Tommy sat in the front passenger
seat.
 
Reno pulled out the DVD.
 

“How
the hell did Mooney get that tape?” Tommy asked.

“He
owns the restaurant,” Reno said.
 
“When
he heard Sal Gabrini had been arrested there, he ordered his manager to hide it
from the cops and then get it to him.
 
They got it to him.
 
And he
contacted me.”

“And
even Mooney, who hears everything, hadn’t heard of any heat on Sal.”

“None,”
Reno said.
 
“Nobody’s heard a damn
thing.
 
Fucking radio silence
everywhere.”

“But
why?”

“Who
knows with your brother.
 
He don’t tell
us about the shit he’s got going.
 
He
don’t tell nobody nothing.
  
Now his ass
is missing and we have little of nothing to go on.”

Tommy
ran his hand through his hair.
 
He was
normally the pristine one, but on this day his hair was as ruffled as
Reno’s.
 
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” he
said.
 
“Let’s see if we recognize any of
these fools.”

Reno
put the DVD in his car player and he and Tommy watched the video.
 
And the witnesses they talked to were
right.
 
Six armed men, all with guns
waiting at the backdoor of the restaurant.
 
And they all did have on FBI jackets, just as the witnesses said.
 
As soon as Sal stepped out that back door,
they pointed the guns at him.
 
They
apparently identified themselves as law enforcement because Sal placed his
hands in the air and was frisked, cuffed, and driven away.
  
The last anybody had seen of him.

“Recognize
any of them?” Tommy asked Reno as they studied the faces of those so-called
agents.

“No.
 
Not one of’em.”

“Blanks
again.
 
We keep firing blanks!”

“I
don’t get it,” Reno said, watching the replay.
 
“Why would they pretend to be FBI?
 
Why the ruse?”

“And
they didn’t try to disguise their faces,” Tommy said.
 
“It’s as if they knew we wouldn’t know them.”

“Or
anybody else in Vegas,” Reno said.
 
Then
he and Tommy looked at each other.

“They
aren’t locals,” Tommy said.
 
“And they
aren’t any crews I know of in Seattle.
 
Jersey either.”

“Out-of-towners
alright,” Reno agreed.
 
“But who sent
them?
 
What the fuck do they want with
Sal?”

Reno’s
cell phone rang.
 
“It’s Tree,” he said
and answered quickly.
 
“What’s wrong?” he
asked her.

“Gemma’s
gone,” Trina said.

Reno
frowned.
 
“What do you mean Gemma’s
gone?”

Tommy
snatched the phone from Reno.
 
“Gone
where, Tree?”

“Put
it on Speaker!” Reno said.
 
Tommy placed
the phone on Speaker as Trina responded that she didn’t know where Gemma
went.
 

“Jimmy
and I went into the kitchen,” she said.
 
“We thought she would be in soon enough.
 
I know how she needed some space.
 
Some quiet time to pray for Sal.
 
I knew that.
 
But when she was
taking too long, I came to look for her.
 
I saw where her purse had been rifled through.
 
And she was gone.”

“How
did she get away?”
 
Reno asked.
 
“Who took her?”

“A
cab, Reno.
 
There’s a thousand out there
waiting to take the hotel and casino guests wherever they need to go.
 
She took a cab.”

“Did
you find out where the cab took her?”

“Yeah.
 
Jimmy got in touch with the cab driver.
 
He dropped her off on Ames Street.”

Tommy’s
heart dropped.
 
He and Reno looked at
each other. “What the fuck?” Reno asked.
 
Then he spoke into the phone.
 
“How would she know about Ames Street?”

“How
should I know?” Trina responded.
 
“I
don’t even know about Ames Street!
 
What’s so special about Ames Street?”

“Where’s
Jimmy?” Reno asked.

“I’m
here, Pop,” Jimmy’s voice was heard in the background.

“Stay
with your mother and siblings,” Reno ordered.

“Will
do,” Jimmy promised.

Reno
ended the call.
 
And looked at
Tommy.
 
“I’ll be damn,” he said.

And
Reno took off, swerving the car several times as he gained full control, and
sped toward Ames Street.
 
It was barely
in Vegas, since it was on the edge of town, and it wasn’t much of a street
either, but more a small private strip of pavement that led to a dead end.
 
But it was a deadly place.

Reno
drove his Porsche slowly onto the narrow street.
 
To say it was in the hood would be an
understatement.
 
Reno once joked that
people gladly ran to Dodge to get off of Ames Street.
 
Every building on it was vacant and
condemned.
 
Every person on it was hiding
out.
 
That was why no-one was ever
seen.
 
But by Reno’s own estimation,
hundreds of people lived there.

A
testament to that fact was when Reno and Tommy stepped out of the car.
 
A group of badasses came out with guns,
surrounding them.
 
Until one of them, one
of the leaders, realized who it was.

“Fuck,
it’s Reno Gabrini,” he said, astounded.
 
“It’s Reno Gabrini y’all!” he said louder.
 

And
every weapon that had been drawn, was pulled back.

The
leader: a short, muscular black man, walked up to Reno.
 
“You want something?”

“Yeah,
as a matter of fact,” Reno responded.
 
“Gemma Jones.”

The
man continued to stare at him.
 
Then he
looked across the car at Tommy.
 
“Who’s
he?”

“Tommy
Gabrini.”

The
leader recognized the name.
 
“I heard
about you,” he admitted.
 
“Never seen you
before, but I heard about you.
 
Dapper
Tom, they call you.
 
Don’t they?
 
With your fancy clothes and your supposedly
great beauty.
 
But that’s just your
cover, isn’t it?
 
I heard about you.
 
Unlike Reno here and your brother Sal, who
everybody knows, you’re one of those closet badasses.
 
You’re slick with your shit alright, but
you’re full of shit too.”