Reno inwardly sneered. Now he was certain Swann had far more on his mind than some business venture. “Good morning,” he said.
But he rallied and slapped on his best smile. “Welcome! I didn’t expect to see you in our meeting, but the more the merrier. Come on in!”
Reno and Trina entered the suite, and Bobby closed the door. “Come and have a seat, guys. Would you like some champagne?”
“This time of morning?” Reno asked. “And at a business meeting? Who does that?”
Trina wanted to smile. Reno was being silly the way Bobby usually was. He was giving Bobby a taste of his own medicine.
“Sit down,” he said to the power couple. “Please. And in answer to your pointed question,” Bobby added to Reno, “I thought champagne would be a nice tribute to Mrs. Gabrini’s brand. It was carefully thought out I assure you.”
“This entire so-called meeting was careful thought out, and the aftermath you were hoping for, I assure you!”
Bobby glared at Reno. But continued to smile. Reno and Trina took a seat on the sofa. Bobby sat on the same sofa, beside Trina.
“So how are you?” he asked her specifically.
“I’m good. And you?”
“I’m fantastic! I didn’t know Reno was involved in your business, but that’s okay too. It’s all good.”
“He’s not involved in my business,” Trina said, “but I like to get his input whenever I’m considering more expansion. He is, after all, one of the premiere businessmen in this country. I would be nuts not to utilize his expertise.”
“How right you are,” Bobby said, with a shake of his head. He looked at Reno. “So what do you think? Would you consider Champagne’s a worthy investment?”
“Champagne’s is always a worthy investment,” Reno responded. “But that’s not the question I have in mind. My question concerns the investor. And if he’s worthy of Champagne’s.”
Bobby was fuming, and Trina could tell it. Reno had crossed the line. “Perhaps you can give us more details, Bobby,” Trina said. “What role do you envision for yourself? Do you want to open up individual franchises, or invest in the Champagne’s brand overall?”
“The brand,” Bobby said. “That way,” he added, to take a dig at Reno, “I can work closely with you, pretty lady. And you are very beautiful, I must admit.”
Trina was waiting for Reno to explode, but he didn’t. To her pleasant surprise, he saw right through Bobby and the rise he was trying to get out of Reno. Trina, however, kept it all business. “What kind of investment are we talking about?” she asked Bobby.
“How much are you willing to give up?” Bobby asked. “If it’s not enough for my time, I’m sure we could throw in some unconventional incentives, say, that would make it profitable for me.”
“Unconventional incentives?” Reno asked him. “Such as?”
“Oh, I’m sure Mrs. Gabrini and I could think of something! I, for one, for example, like full body massages. Perhaps she does too.”
Reno’s temperature was rising, but he didn’t take the bait. Bobby was surprised. He thought that would surely take Reno over. He was surprised.
“Or, I don’t know,” he continued, “we could make arrangements suitable for the both of us.” He looked at Trina. “How about that, Mrs. Gabrini? How do you feel about an unconventional addendum should we make a deal?”
“I say thank you for considering Champagne’s, but no.”
Bobby was upset. “No?”
“No,” Trina repeated herself.
“To our making a deal, or to the addendum to the deal?”
“Both,” Trina said.
“May I ask why not?”
“I don’t think it would be a good fit.”
“May I ask why?”
Reno was done. “She just told you why, asshole! It’s not a good fit. She’s an upscale brand. You’re a lowdown, dirty bastard. Bad fit all around.”
Bobby smiled, although he was dying with hatred inside. “I eat men like you for lunch,” he said to Reno. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with,” Reno responded. “It’s your ass who’s clueless.”
“Oh, I know all about your reputation. The big, bad gangster, give me a break! You’re a gangster alright, but you’re no more big and bad than Pee Wee Herman!”
Reno jumped up from his seat. Bobby jumped up too. Trina jumped up between them. “Okay, that’s enough!”
“No, now, this cocksucker think he can handle me? I want your ass to try it!”
“I want you to try to handle me!” Bobby fired back. “I’m Bobby Swann, bitch. Who the fuck are you?”
Reno moved around Trina so fast that Trina twirled around. But not before Reno knocked Bobby so hard across his face that Bobby fell completely over the sofa. Reno hurried over to Bobby, with Trina hurrying behind him. “I’m Reno Gabrini, bitch!” Reno yelled at Bobby as Bobby attempted to get to his feet. “That’s who the fuck I am!”
“You hit me?” Bobby said. He stood up, holding the side of his face. “How dare you!” he cried. “I’ll press charges. I swear I will!”
“Press charges?” Reno asked, amazed by his sudden insolence. “Get the fuck out of my face! Press charges? Your ass fired! Press that!”
Trina stayed by Reno’s side. She didn’t give shit for Bobby, and wasn’t trying to protect him from Reno’s onslaught. She just didn’t want her man caught up in an altercation with some spoiled superstar that could cost him his freedom. “Nobody’s pressing charges,” she said.
“Oh, yes, I am!” Bobby fired back. “I will go straight to the police! And how dare you threaten to fire me. You can’t fire me! I’m Bobby Swann!”
“I’m not threatening to do shit to you,” Reno said. “I’ve already done it. Your ass is fired! This my shit, motherfucker. You don’t run this! You’re fired. Get your shit and your fucking entourage and get off of my property now! You’re fired. Your remaining shows are canceled effective immediately!”
Trina could see that this turn of events stunned Bobby. He couldn’t believe it. He looked to Trina. “He just fired me,” he said. “Your genius husband just fired me.”
“I heard him, Bobby,” Trina said. “You don’t have to keep repeating it.”
“Will you tell this fool that he can’t fire me?”
Trina couldn’t believe Bobby would have said those words. She slapped him hard across the face, shocking Bobby, and pleasantly surprising Reno.
“Don’t you dare call my husband a fool!” Trina yelled to the obnoxious star. “He pays your salary up in this bitch. He does that. He’s your boss, not the other way around. He said you’re fired, then you’re fired. We invoke the moral clause. You tried to hit on the boss’s wife, and the boss, nor his wife, was going to stand for it. Get your shit, like Reno said, and get the fuck off of our property. And get off now!”
Bobby couldn’t believe it. He now held both sides of his face because of these violent people. And they had the nerve to fire him? To fire him? He was beyond stunned.
But Trina was just tired of it. She looked at Reno. “Let’s go before we really hurt this motherfucker,” she said. And Reno, pleased beyond measure, gladly followed her out.
But once out in the corridor, and with the door closed, they both sobered up. Trina even shook her head. “That little display of ours could cost us millions of dollars in ticket sales we’ll have to return. Not to mention everything else.”
“Yeah, I know,” Reno said. “But fuck it. His sneaky ass is up to something, and I want him off of my premises. I can’t stand his ass!”
Reno’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out and looked at the Caller ID. “It’s Jimmy,” he said to her, and answered quickly. “Yeah, son, hey. What’s up?”
“We just landed,” Jimmy said, “with cargo in tow. Where do you want me to take him? To the Bowels?”
“No,” Reno said. “Take him to the Stanton. I’ll meet you there. Oh, and Jimmy?”
“Yeah, Boss?” Jimmy responded the way Reno’s other men would have.
“Tell those bozos they better not let him use the bathroom,” Reno said.
Jimmy laughed. He’d heard about how Sam almost got away. “Sure thing, Pop,” he said, and Reno ended the call.
“He’s back in town?” Trina asked.
“Yup. With Marshall right with him.” Then Reno exhaled. “Call Security. Tell them I want Swann and his group out of here now. Cancel the show for tonight and get the Entertainment group to notify future ticketholders. It happens.”
“Be careful with Garry,” Trina said. “He’s even slicker than Bobby. Don’t believe a word he says.”
Reno found that to be an odd warning, given that he never believed a word any target said, but he nodded, kissed her, and began to leave.
“I’ll be at Champagne’s when I finish here,” Trina said. “Call me there if you need me.”
“Will do,” Reno said, and left.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Reno drove through the woods growing weary of the exercise. He didn’t have a handle on anything anymore. Not whoever it was that was stealing from him. Not his own talent at the PaLargio. Not even his wife. Their relationship was improving, and Reno was grateful to God that it was, but he still saw that sadness in Trina’s eyes. He didn’t see that spark anymore, and that worried him mightily.
He parked in front of the safe house Reno named the Stanton because of its proximity to Stanton Street. It was a shack, plain and simple. A shack in the woods. The perfect place, he felt, to conduct his hellish business. Business these assholes kept forcing him to conduct.
He got out of his Porsche, buttoned his double-breasted Armani suit, and headed for the front door. When he entered, and saw Jimmy in one piece after his excursion into the bowels of Hungary to retrieve their target, he felt better. But as soon as he saw their target, Garry Marshall, sitting there in all of his smugness, his angst returned. And he was in no mood for chitchat.
Garry was seated at a table. Reno sat across from him. Jimmy stood beside his father. The security detail lined the walls, waiting for Marshall to make one false move. It was a tense situation, and Garry, the handsome black businessman who usually had a charming smile on his face, wasn’t trying to pretend he wasn’t in serious trouble.
“You knew Samantha Jessup?” Reno asked him.
“No,” Garry responded.
Reno frowned. “What the fuck you mean no? She ID’ed your ass! She said you were the money man behind the whole scheme.”
“What scheme are you referring to?” Garry asked.
“Oh, so you’re dumb now? You don’t know shit about it now?”
Garry leaned back. He knew he had not been flown back to the states on that sixteen-hour flight for the hell of it. “I didn’t know her. But I knew she wanted the money, so I planned to meet with her early next week when I returned from Budapest. I was there on business, and minding my own business. I was shocked, absolutely appalled when this abduction occurred. And that son of yours would not tell me anything.”
“It’s not his job to tell you shit,” Reno said. “It was his job to bring you in. He did his job.”
“But bring me in for what?” Garry asked with strain in his voice. “Of what crime am I being accused?”
“Cut the crap, Marshall!” Reno declared. “Just tell me your role.”
“My role in what, may I ask?”
“Your role in my casino losses.”
Garry shook his head. “I have no role in your casino losses. I didn’t know you had any casino losses!” He leaned forward. Jimmy moved closer. The security detail stood erect. “Look, Gabrini, I don’t know what problems you’re having, or why you’re having those problems, but I have nothing to do with it.”
“So Sam Jessup just happened to ID you for no reason? Sam Jessup just happened to lie about you agreeing to pay her if she could get her unsuspecting boyfriend to catch her in a sex act with my son, and then for that same boyfriend to become so enraged that he kill my son? That was all just a figment of her imagination?”
Garry rubbed his perfectly symmetrical bald head. His big, brown eyes were unable to conceal his exhaustion, and his face was unable to conceal his concern. Reno knew he was involved in this shit. He just had to find out how deep.
Reno also knew Marshall would wilt under the pressure. It was just a matter of applying enough of it. “You said yourself,” Reno said, “that Sam wanted to get paid. Paid for what? Her looks? Her dress style? Nothing? Why did you agree to meet with her next week?”
“It has nothing to do with your casinos, or your son.”
“Then what does it have to do with, motherfucker? Stop telling me what it’s not about. Tell me what it’s about. Why did Sam want money from you?”
Garry shook his head and folded his big arms.
“Why?” Reno asked again, his face perplexed. “Stop making this shit complicated. Just spit it out. Damn!”
“It was blackmail money,” Garry finally said.
Nobody expected that. Not Jimmy. Not the security detail. Especially not Reno. “Blackmail?” Reno asked. “Sam was blackmailing you?”
Garry rubbed his head again. “Yes.”
“Why? What she had on you?”
“She said she had dirt on Trina.”
Jimmy frowned. Reno’s heart pounded. “Dirt on my wife?”
Garry nodded. He had the look of a man who was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. “Yup,” he said. “And it has nothing to do with your casinos, nor your son.”
“Then what does it have to do with?” Reno asked.
“Sam Jessup phoned me, while I was en route to Hungary, and told me that she knew about Florida.”
Reno’s heart was hammering now. Trina hadn’t been herself lately. He knew it was because of what happened in Florida. He also knew Garry Marshall had been there, trying to woe Trina by pretending to be interested in going into business with her. Just like that asshole Bobby Swann had pretended. But Marshall had no connection to that murder attempt on Trina’s life. He had no connection to that plane crash later. He was in Florida, but why would he be a victim of blackmail? And what dirt could Sam Jessup have on Trina? “What did she know about Florida?” Reno asked him. He couldn’t wait to know, and he dreaded knowing.
“She knew about me and Trina.”
It was agony for Reno with every additional word this man spoke. He had to brace himself. “What about you and my wife?”
“She said she knew that Trina and I had sex while we were in Florida.”
Reno lost it. “You’re a fucking liar!” he yelled, and jumped over the table like a madman. He grabbed Garry by the catch of his shirt and they both fell to the floor. And Reno started pounding him. He pounded him for Trina’s honor. He pounded him for Trina’s dignity. He pounded him because he knew this asshole was lying on his wife. He pounded him.
It took Jimmy, and damn-near half of the security detail to pull Reno off of Garry Marshall and to get Marshall off of the floor, and back in the chair.
Jimmy was still holding onto his father, as Reno struggled to break free. “We’ve got to hear him out, Pop,” Jimmy whispered to Reno. “Just hear him out!”
Reno jerked away from Jimmy. His hair was tussled now, and down over his forehead, and his eyes were red with fire. He was tired of this shit. He was tired of these men dragging his wife into this shit!
Jimmy realized it too. He could see his father was in no shape to continue this interrogation. He therefore took over. “That’s the only reason you planned to pay off Sam? Because she wanted to blackmail you? Why should you care if she knew about some affair you had? You’re just a man doing his thing. Why would you care?”
Garry was wiping the blood from his lip, and nursing the bruises Reno put on his face. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t,” he said. “But I knew who Trina was married to, and I didn’t want that kind, this kind, of drama in my life.” He looked at Reno and Jimmy. “I�
�m not lying. Trina and I had an affair, albeit a one-night stand sort of affair, in Florida. It was the night you showed up at that hotel, Reno, looking for her. She had been with me that night. She made it clear to you that nothing happened, and I went along with the charade. But something did happen. It devastated Trina that she slept around on you. But it happened. Why would I lie?”
Reno didn’t know why. All he knew was that he had to get out of Garry’s sight, or another one of their live witnesses would join the Mexican and Sam and end up dead. He left the safe house.
Jimmy ordered the men to keep a close eye on Marshall, and followed his father outside.
Reno stood at his car door, as if he was attempting to regain his composure, as Jimmy walked up to him.
“Keep talking to him,” Reno ordered Jimmy. “Find out everything you can from him. Torture his ass if you have to. But don’t kill him. I was out of line. We don’t need another dead witness.”
Jimmy understood. “Will do, Pop,” he said. “And if it’s any consolation,” Jimmy said, “I don’t believe that shit about Ma either.”
Reno looked at his oldest child. He wasn’t without his flaws, but he was improving mightily. “Thanks, son,” he said, got in his car, and sped off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Oprah stood behind the counter at Champagne’s and looked at the inventory list. Then she frowned, and looked at Trina, who was also behind the counter tagging a small stack of socks. The shop was empty, but for the two of them, along with two additional salesclerks upstairs in the stock room.
“Boss,” Oprah said as she continued to stare at the computer, “why did we order so many Bridgemont scarfs? It seems as if we ordered triple the amount from last time.”
Trina moved over to the computer and looked at the list. “Where?” she asked.
Oprah pointed to the line. “There,” she said.
Trina looked at the amount, and shook her head. “Good catch, Ope,” she said. “That’s an error. We ordered two-hundred, not five-hundred. Contact Bridgemont and send back the overstock. Tell them they will pay for postage, and that we will cancel any future orders if it happens again. Vendors like to pull that shit every now and then, for their own bottom line, and you have to be alert to it. Good catch,” Trina said again. “We don’t have room in this store for anybody’s overflow.”
Reno Gabrini: When His Woman Cries Page 12