Sal Gabrini: Love And War

by Mallory Monroe

  Tommy knew it too. And hugged Sal again. “Just take care of yourself, alright?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Sal said as they hugged.

  But Tommy was shaking his head. “The day you can teach a baby not to cry,” he replied, “that’s when I’ll stop worrying about you.”

  Sal squeezed his eyes shut. And Tommy’s embrace tightened.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sal was on his private plane heading back to Vegas when he got word that Old Man Bonaduce had been found. “Where?” Sal asked Vinnie Vazzano, his underboss.

  “Santa Ana. California,” Vinnie replied.

  “Not L.A. like that dick had said?”

  “He had been there, and on Monico Drive like his boy had said. But after your retaliation at that dealership, he took off. Landed in Santa Ana, hoping to hide in plain sight. But we snuffed out his ass.”

  “Good job,” Sal said, and then he didn’t hesitate. He ordered his pilot to change course, and take him to California.

  With a newspaper under his armpit, and a half-eaten bag of McDonald’s burgers in his hand, Harry Bonaduce walked up the side steps to the third floor and headed for his motel room in the middle of the walkway. He was in Santa Ana, California, away from the maddening crowd. But when he opened the door to his motel room, he quickly realized that he was nowhere near far enough away.

  When he saw Sal Gabrini himself sitting in the only chair in the small, stuffy room, he knew his time was up. And he decided to not go gentle. He threw the bag and paper at Sal, and tried to make a run for it. But Sal didn’t even flinch because he knew, rightly, that Harry would get no further than Sal’s outside men would allow him.

  He made it down one flight of stairs before Sal’s men grabbed him, and escorted him back upstairs, and into the motel room.

  But if Sal expected Harry to do as his sons had done and give him the runaround, he was surprised.

  “What’s in it for me?” Harry asked as soon as Sal’s men pushed him into the motel room, and onto the bed in front of Sal.

  Sal’s men, shocked that he would give up intel this quickly, looked at Sal. Sal was looking at Harry. But he didn’t respond to him.

  Harry stared at him. “Don’t you want to know who’s behind what happened to you? It wasn’t me and my boys. We didn’t mastermind that shit. Don’t you want to know?”

  “I want to know the truth,” Sal said. “No bullshit.”

  “I don’t have any bullshit to sell. But I need assurances. I hear you’re a fair man, as it goes. I need to know that you’ll spare my life if I give you what you’re looking for. You already took my boys.” Bitterness was in his voice. “I’m not giving up shit if you take me, too.”

  Sal stared at Harry. He was in no position to bargain, but he apparently didn’t know it. Sal would use it to his advantage. “Talk,” he said.

  “You’ll spare my life?”

  Sal stared at him. What kind of man would send all of his sons out to die, and want liberation for himself? Sal could not relate to this man. “You tell me the truth,” he said. “Then yes. You lie to me, then you’re already dead.”

  Harry nodded. He knew he was a man of few options. He had to take Sal Gabrini at his word.

  “Talk,” Sal said again.

  “Bronson made us do it,” Harry said. “Fast Eddie Bronson.”

  Sal continued to stare at Harry. He knew, after he saw Yvonne, that Fast Eddie could have a part in that sighting.

  “You know how he is,” Harry said. “He’s nuts.”

  “Why would Fast Eddie Bronson come after me?”

  Harry shook his head. “He didn’t tell me his secrets. He just told me what my family had to do. He made us go after you. We wouldn’t do that on our own. Go after a Gabrini? And Sal Gabrini at that? We had to be crazy to do that on our own. But he gave us no choice. We had to do it.”

  Sal was angry now. “What the fuck you mean you had to do it?”

  “We had to do it! He killed my baby boy, and he would have killed more of my family if we didn’t comply. We had to do it I tell you!”

  But Sal was still stuck at ground zero. “He killed your baby boy?” he asked. “What are you talking? Horseface Hines took out your baby boy.”

  Now it was Harry’s time to frown. “Horseface? What are you talking? Fast Eddie Bronson killed my boy, and was going to take out the rest of my family if I didn’t do exactly what he told us to do. He told us to take you out, and your wife and kid while we were at it.”

  Sal’s men looked at him. Word had already spread throughout his organization about how he iced Horse for inciting a war with the Bonaduces over some bullshit poker game. But it wasn’t true? Sal had killed one of his own, and it wasn’t true? They were stunned.

  But not nearly as stunned as Sal was. “You’re lying,” he said to Harry.

  “Why would I lie?” Harry asked him. “You already said I had to tell you the truth to spare my life. You think I’m going to lie about who killed my baby boy? My baby boy was killed. That’s the fucking point! But now I get to live.”

  It was those last words that shook Sal out of his shock. He looked angrily at Harry. “You get to live?”

  Harry was now terrified by that look in Sal’s eyes. “You promised me,” he said. “You told me if I gave up the mastermind, you would spare my life. You promised me, Gabrini. You’re supposed to be a man of your word. Such as it is. Or was that all b.s. too?”

  Sal rose to his feet, putting his own men on guard. Harry rose to his feet, too.

  “You are the man,” Sal said, “who ordered your sons, your own sons, to kill me and my family. You’re the man who put this shit into motion. Not Fast Eddie Bronson.”

  “You knew that when you agreed to the deal,” Harry said. “I wasn’t denying my sons carried out the hit. I never denied that.”

  “You have to pay for what you tried to do to my family,” Sal said.

  “But you gave me your word,” Harry shot back. “You promised to spare my life! You gave your word. Such as it is,” he added again.

  “You have to pay, motherfucker!” Sal grabbed Harry and flung him to the floor. Then he jumped down on him and beat his ass. He beat him mercilessly. He beat him to the white meat.

  And then he stood up, and stomped him until he had nearly stomped him to death. He stomped his legs until both of them were broken. He stomped his arms until both of those were broken. He stomped and stomped until Harry Bonaduce was within an inch of his life. And then Sal stomped some more, provoking Harry’s screams, until Harry was within a half-inch of his life. “Your life is spared, motherfucker,” Sal said. “Such as it is.”

  Then Sal stood erect, and wiped the sweat beads from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Dump him on the side of any road,” Sal ordered. “Let his ass crawl to a hospital.”

  And then Sal walked out and headed downstairs for the SUV that awaited him. His men knew what to do with the trash.

  But on the flight back to Vegas, Sal was devastated. He killed Horseface Hines on bullshit information? He killed one of his own without making certain? But everybody was telling him the same thing. Everybody claimed to be certain that Horse had done it. What more was there to talk about? Apparently, plenty, Sal decided, if Harry Bonaduce was to be believed.

  He picked up his phone and called Robby Yale, the member of his team he instinctively trusted the most. “How’s my wife?” he asked him.

  “I checked an hour or so ago. She’s good, sir.”

  “I want you to take over her security detail,” Sal said. “I know you’re above that now, but nobody’s above looking out for my wife.”

  “Of course not, sir. It’ll be my honor. I’ll get over there right away.”

  Sal at least felt better. He didn’t want to involve Reno and Tommy unless he had to. He wasn’t going to hesitate, if he had to.

  But for right now, he needed to clean up this mess because it was a mess of his own making. “I also want you to call a fa
mily meeting,” he said to Robby.

  The Gabrini crime family was an intricate syndicate. It included underbosses, caporegimes (crew chiefs or lieutenants), and more foot soldiers than a small army. Sal had to be more specific. “Who with?” Robby asked.

  “Everybody in leadership,” Sal said.

  Even that was a sizeable number. “Everybody?” Robby asked.

  “Everybody in leadership,” Sal responded.

  “Where?” Robby asked. “Chicago?” They usually met, on the rare occasion they had such meetings, in Chicago.

  But Sal wasn’t about to leave Gemma and Lucky again. Not until he had a better handle on what was going on. “Vegas,” he said. “The meeting will be in Vegas.”

  But when Sal ended the call with Robby, it wasn’t the meeting he was thinking about. It was Horseface Hines. Or Timothy Hines: his real name. And Timothy’s family. And the fact that he might have killed an innocent man, an innocent member of his own family, on bullshit information!

  And just as importantly, had somebody in his organization, in his family, set it all off?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Aston-Martin drove up to the storefront campaign headquarters in downtown Vegas and Gemma parked at the curb. Robby Yale, riding shotgun on the passenger seat, unbuckled his seat belt. “Wait just a sec,” he said, as he got out of the car.

  Gemma reached into her backseat and grabbed her purse and phone. She felt as if Sal was overdoing it by assigning his number two, a man who had right-hand man status in Sal’s world, to be her bodyguard. But given the events of the last few days, she wasn’t going to argue with him. Besides, Sal did give her one compromise: she was still allowed to drive herself around, rather than one of his men. Although, Gemma thought wearily, even that little compromise took a lot of hemming and hawing from Sal as well.

  Robby walked around to the driver’s side door and looked around. When he saw that backup was in place, which consisted of not one, but two additional cars of Sal’s men strategically parked, one in front of their vehicle and one, further back, the main backup driven by Cab Coleman, he opened the door for Gemma.

  Gemma stepped out and, with Robby beside her, walked across the sidewalk and entered her headquarters. To her pleasant surprise, they had many volunteers, and all of them were on the phones and crazy-busy already. She didn’t expect to be this fully staffed yet. Tyler, she decided when she saw him across the room giving direction to one of the volunteers, had risen admirably to the occasion.

  She, with Robby on her heels, headed in his direction. When he saw her coming, he broke away from the volunteer and hurried to her side. “Gem, am I glad to see you!” He then looked at Robby. “Your bodyguard, I take it?”

  Gemma smiled. “How did you know?”

  “Because I know your husband and he was not about to let you just waltz around town, after what’s been happening, without a bodyguard.”

  “I know, right?” Gemma knew Tyler had heard rumors about Sal’s mob ties, but he had no idea if those rumors were true or, if they were, the full extent of his involvement. And Gemma aimed to keep it that way. She changed the subject. “This is really nice, Ty,” she said, looking around. “How did you get so many?”

  “I did a few radio interviews at stations the college kids listen to,” Tyler said. “I explained how you decided to run for D.A. to even the playing field of justice for the little guy, and they came running. And I mean in a big-ass way. We may have to find a bigger office once you actually have your official launch.”

  “That’s a nice problem to have,” Gemma said as she made her way to her all-glass office near the back of the big space. Tyler and Robby followed her.

  “I took the liberty of ordering the official campaign posters without your input,” Tyler said as they walked.

  Gemma looked at him. “May I ask why?”

  “I felt that you would be too modest to go all-out. And we need to go all-out.”

  “What does that mean?” Gemma walked into the office and turned on the light.

  “You’ll see when they get here,” Tyler responded. “But I think you’ll be pleased.”

  “Show it to me now,” Gemma said as she walked behind her desk.

  “I want to surprise you.”

  “I don’t like surprises,” Gemma said. “Show it to me now.”

  She could tell Tyler didn’t like her request, but she decided that was his problem. Nobody was going to put her name and likeness on a poster without her approval, she didn’t care how much he disliked her request.

  Tyler was smart enough to know he had no choice but to do as she ordered. “As you wish,” he said. “I’ll go get it.” And he left her office.

  Robby looked at her and smiled. “He thought he was running this bitch,” he said.

  “He is,” Gemma said as she picked up the stack of mail on her desk. “I’ve given him tremendous latitude because I have two other businesses to run and can’t be everywhere. But his authority extends up to a point.”

  “That poster a line crossed?” Robby asked.

  “We’ll see,” Gemma said. Then she heard a familiar sound. When she looked out of her glass-enclosed office and saw Sal’s Bugatti drive up behind her Aston, she was surprised. “Did you know Sal was coming?” she asked Robby.

  Robby looked, and was as surprised as she was. “No ma’am. He didn’t mention it to me.”

  “Me either,” Gemma said.

  “But I know he’s worried about you,” Robby said.

  Gemma nodded. That much was for certain. “Yes,” she said. “I know.” And in one way, it warmed her heart. Sal was everything she could have hoped for in a man and more. But in another way, it was disconcerting. He was too worried about her. For a man with his responsibilities, especially now that he was taking over those responsibilities full time, that couldn’t be good.

  She and Robby watched as Sal got out of his car, only gave a cursory glance at Cab Coleman and his other men on Gemma’s guard duty, and entered the headquarters. When he stood at the door looking around for her, and then spotted her in the office, she waved him back. He buttoned the flap-over of his double-breasted suit and made his way to her office.

  When he opened the door, and entered, Gemma’s heart felt that squeeze of emotion. He was overdoing it in every way: from the super-tight security, to his own presence at her campaign headquarters when he had too many other things he needed to be doing. But boy did she love him for it. She smiled as he headed toward her desk. “Hey, Sal.”

  Sal could no longer see Gemma’s beautiful smile and not smile too. Those days were gone. “Hey yourself.”

  “What’s up, Boss?” Robby asked.

  “What’s up?”

  “I thought you had a meeting to attend,” Gemma said as Sal walked around the desk to stand beside Gemma. They kissed on the lips.

  “I still have a meeting to attend,” he said as he placed his hand on the small of her back, and felt his penis stiffen. He wanted some, but knew this was not the time. He, instead, looked hard at her as her brown eyes reflected like golden grain against the sunlight in the room, and her dark skin looked so satiny smooth that he felt the urge to kiss it. So he did. Right on the forehead. He was proud, in every way, that she was his woman. “That’s an impressive crowd you’ve got yourself out there,” he said. “Are all of them paid staffers?”

  Gemma laughed. Sal was bankrolling her entire campaign. “Keep your shirt on, Sal. They’re all volunteers. College kids, according to Tyler.”

  Sal was pleased. “Very impressive! We may just do some damage with that much muscle.”

  Gemma shook her head. “Leave it to you to make a campaign for district attorney sound like a mob plot.”

  Sal and Robby laughed. And then Tyler entered into the office with poster in hand.

  “Hello, Sal,” he said as he headed for Gemma’s desk.

  “What’s up?” Sal asked. “Good job rounding up that many volunteers this early in the game.”

 
; “Great, right?” Tyler asked. He was surprised to hear Sal give him a compliment. “And thanks,” he added.

  “What’s that?” Sal asked, looking at the poster.

  “This, sir,” Tyler said as he laid the rolled-up poster onto Gemma’s desk, “is our opening salvo.” He unfurled it. “I hope you like it.”

  The poster was a picture of Gemma, a very nicely captured picture, with the caption: Gemma Jones for District Attorney. The People’s Defender.

  There was nothing inherently wrong or arrogant with the poster, Gemma thought, but she and Sal both noticed a glaring omission. Sal especially noticed it. But before he could say a word, Gemma spoke up. “You omitted my last name,” she said to Tyler.

  Everybody looked at Tyler. “Yes, I know,” he said.

  It was only then did Sal realize it was on purpose. And he didn’t like what he suspected was the reason.

  “You were a well-known attorney in the community before you married Sal,” Tyler said. “You’re well-known as Gemma Jones. I thought we should capitalize on that name recognition.”

  “Okay,” Gemma said, “now give me the real reason.”

  Sal was pleased that she caught Ty’s bullshit too.

  Tyler exhaled. “Okay, you’re right. I have concerns.”

  “What kind of concerns?” Sal asked him.

  “The Gabrini name means many things to many people here in Vegas. To some, it’s Reno Gabrini and the PaLargio. But to others, it’s Sal Gabrini and . . .”

  “And GCI?” Robby asked.

  Tyler glanced at Robby, but then looked at Gemma and Sal. “And Mafia,” he said. “And if Gemma becomes too associated with that Gabrini meaning, then she might as well pack it in now.”

  Gemma rolled up the poster and handed it back to Tyler. She now realized that Tyler approved the poster without her consent, not because of what was written on it, but what wasn’t written on it. “Change it,” she said. “My name is Gemma Jones-Gabrini and I want that on every poster, every piece of stationary, and every paycheck that goes out of this campaign. You understand?”