And Mick never took disrespect lightly.
When the convoy of SUVs arrived at Sal’s house, all of the bodies out front were gone, and the grounds had been sterilized. But the smell of trouble was still thick in the air. Mick had a nose for it, and he smelled it.
And when he got out of the SUV and went inside the home, the atmosphere was so heavy, and so tense, it made a funeral home seem lively. Reno and Trina, along with Tommy, Neeco, and Bruce, were sitting in the living room still trying to wrap their brains around just what happened, and where in the world could Gem and Lucky be.
“There’s no leads, no chatter, no witnesses,” Sal said as Mick sat down beside him. Tommy was on the other side, sandwiching Sal in.
“There were witnesses,” Tommy said.
Mick and Sal looked at him. “What do you mean?” Sal asked.
“Unless you’re discounting the two guards that betrayed you,” said Tommy. “Those two fuckers were witnesses.”
Sal nodded. “Right,” he said. “Other than those two assholes, there’s no witnesses. We got nothing.”
“I take it everybody’s in the field?” Mick asked.
“Everybody,” said Sal.
“I’ve contacted every boss I know, which is every major one. They have their people on the lookout too.”
Sal nodded. “Thanks, Uncle Mick.”
“Of course.”
“I just need to know something,” Sal said. “If they want money, why won’t they call? I’ll give them my last dime. They just need to call!”
“And you have no idea who could have done this to you?” Mick asked him.
“No idea. None.”
“No enemies then?” Mick asked.
“Sal?” Reno said. “With no enemies? That’ll be the day!”
They all smiled weakly.
“I’ve got plenty of enemies the same as everybody in this room,” Sal said. “But I still can’t see none of them pulling this shit. Snatching my baby? My wife too? I don’t see it!”
“But I’ve got my men checking every one of them out anyway,” Reno said. “You never know.”
“That’s right, Reno,” said Mick. “You can never be too careful when it comes to this kind of shit.” He and Tommy were the closest of the Gabrinis, but Mick treated Reno, above all of the Gabrinis, as his equal.
“What about video?” Trina asked. “I know they knocked out your security system. But there’s businesses all over this area. Surely there has to be some footage somewhere.”
“That was one of the first thing Robby Yale had my men check,” Sal said. “Every business within a mile of my house had broken cameras. Every one of them.”
“Not by accident,” Mick said. “That sounds like straight-up mob shit to me.”
Sal agreed.
“I had to do shit like that myself a time or two,” Mick added.
Then Robby Yale hurried into the living room.
“Hey, Robby,” Mick said to him.
“Hello, Mr. Sinatra. How are you, sir?”
“I could be better. I hope you’re interrupting us because you have some news.”
“I do, sir,” Robby said.
“What?” Sal asked anxiously.
“Sorry to bother you, boss,” he said, “but we got a read on those two missing front gate guards.”
“What read?” Sal asked.
“We’ve located them, sir.”
Sal, along with everybody else in that room, jumped to their feet. “Where?”
“A house on Julliard.”
“Julliard?” Reno asked. “There’s nothing on Julliard but an old junkyard. There’s no houses back there.”
“Yes, sir. We know that, sir. But there’s a shack on the property, and that’s where our men spotted one.”
Sal took off. He didn’t know who else was going and he didn’t give a fuck. He was going.
Mick and Tommy, and Reno and Trina, took off too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The convoy of SUVs arrive at the junkyard, but parked diagonal to the shack where there were no windows for the inhabitants to see their approach. All the men had their guns ready, and they got out to make the trek up toward the shack. Reno looked at Trina. She got behind the wheel of the SUV and then pulled out her own gun.
Reno stared at her. “They may come your way,” he said.
Trina smiled and cocked her gun. “I wish they would,” she said.
Reno smiled too, although she could tell it wasn’t sincere. Because he knew the truth. She got a high from that shit same as he did. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried. He was. But at the same time, he knew she was more useful than most men on the security detail. She could handle herself.
But Reno ordered two of the guards to stay with the SUV in case more than one gun was needed. He didn’t want those assholes to get away. Then he hurried toward the shack with the others.
They made their way to the shack, running in a straight line to avoid detection, until they were all in position. The Gabrini men and Mick were at the front door. Robby Yale and the rest of the team, some seven men strong, were just beneath the one front window and one back window of the shack.
Sal looked at his uncle, his brother, and his cousin, and they were so much in sync that he didn’t need a count. All he had to do was do it. He did it. He leaned back and kicked the door down.
But nobody was inside. They went from room to room. They overturned the bed, looked behind desks and a dresser. Nobody. Did they get bad information? Or had those fuckers been tipped off?
Then they heard a horn blowing. Reno and Sal led the charge outside. A car, on the far side of the property, was racing away. Trina’s SUV was blowing the horn and racing behind them.
“Dear Lord, no,” Reno said. He didn’t want Trina chasing the bad guys. He didn’t want her in any high-speed chase! What the fuck was wrong with her?
But Trina was gone. And Sal led the team as they hurried to the remaining SUVs.
But not before Mick gave a directive: “Robby, you keep a team back and search inside every junk car on this property!” he yelled.
“Yes, sir!” Robby responded, as Mick and the Gabrinis jumped into one of the SUVs and, with Sal as their driver, took off. The remaining team members, except for Robby and the three men remaining back to search the cars, jumped in SUVs and followed the leader.
But Trina was leading the pack this time, with the two guards in the SUV with her, as she kicked up dust and dirt and sped off of the junkyard property.
The car they were following, an old model Ford, sped off of the property so fast that it had to swerve twice to regain control. But it didn’t break its speed. Whoever was in that car aimed to get away.
But Trina was just as determined to stop that car. She turned corners sharply. She jumped curbs and swerved to avoid traffic. She refused to allow that car, a car that could potentially be carrying Gemma and Lucky, to get away. She was confident she was going to catch them!
But Reno was sweating bullets in the SUV behind her. “Why the fuck she’s driving so fast?” he yelled as Sal drove just as fast.
“She’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to do,” Sal said. “My wife and son could be in that car!”
“I understand that,” said Reno. “But she doesn’t have to kill herself in the meantime!”
“Anybody else,” Mick said, “and I would agree with you. She would have no business being on this run period, and I would not have allowed it. But your wife is a tough lady. She’s got this,” he said.
Reno appreciated what Mick was saying. Coming from him that was a big deal. But that didn’t alleviate his fears one bit. Trina was tough and savvy and could handle it easily. But Trina was also his wife. And just like Sal wanted to find his in one piece, Reno wanted to keep his in one piece!
“Slow your ass down!” he yelled as if Trina herself could hear him. But she couldn’t. She was too busy, literally, burning rubber.
For nearly ten blocks the chase was
on, until the car blew a tire and the driver nearly lost control.
Everybody’s heart dropped as they watched the driver swerve and swerve and then drive off of the road and down a small, but steep embankment.
But he was skilled enough to not crash the car. Instead, the car came to a quick stop, and the two occupants jumped out and ran.
Trina pulled to the side of the road, and so did Sal’s SUV and the trailing SUVs behind them. Tommy and Mick, along with the other members of the security detail, jumped out and ran for the two men who had escaped the Ford, while Sal ran to the Ford to make sure Gemma and Lucky were not inside. To his grave disappointment, they were not.
Reno ran to Trina. “Are you okay?” he asked her as she got out of the SUV too.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Are they in there?”
Reno looked over at Sal. Sal, distraught, shook his head.
Reno was disappointed too. “No,” he said to Trina.
“Dammit!” Trina responded.
“Slow your ass down next time,” Reno said angrily, but Trina ignored him. She, instead, looked to see if Tommy and Mick needed help chasing the two disloyal guards. They didn’t. They had captured both and were bringing them back to the convoy.
Reno placed his hand around Trina’s waist, and pulled her close to him so that he could speak to her without the two guards that had been in the SUV with her hearing. “Try that stunt again,” he said, “and I’ll kick your ass.”
Trina looked at him. “What stunt?”
“That stunt you just pulled. You blow your horn and wait for us to get there. Then you let us take the lead. You understand? You could have gotten yourself killed!”
“Oh, Reno, please. I’ve been driving since I was ten. I know what I’m doing.”
Reno didn’t doubt it. Trina originally hailed from Dale, Mississippi, where they did a lot of strange things in that tiny, backward town. But she wasn’t in Dale anymore. “Just don’t do it again,” he said. “You did good, but don’t do it again.”
Trina smiled. At least he recognized her skill!
But then, as Mick and Tommy returned with the two guards, they both realized just how unfunny the situation was. Gemma and Lucky still were missing. Those two guards might just be the only two people who could answer why and where.
They placed them in Trina’s SUV. But this time Reno got behind the wheel. But before they went anywhere, Sal asked the million-dollar question. “Where’s my wife and son?” he asked the guards.
“Your wife and son?” one guard, the leader, asked. “We didn’t know they were taking your wife and son. We didn’t know what they were doing.”
“Then why did you leave your post?” Tommy asked.
“We got paid to,” said the leader. “Take out the cameras, and leave. That was our role.”
“You were being paid to stay there,” Tommy said.
“Not like that,” said the leader.
Reno glanced at him through the rearview. He was still cocky. He had no idea the danger he was truly in.
But Sal seemed resigned to wait. He wanted full information, not disinformation. So they all shut up and waited too. And Reno drove the SUV to the safe house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They dragged both guards down the steps that led into the basement of the safe house, and then threw them onto the concrete floor. This was one of Sal’s safe houses, and it was one of the most rustic Reno had ever seen. The dungeon in the basement of the PaLargio would out-rustic Sal’s safe house, but not by much, Reno decided. “Fucking eerie,” he said out loud.
But Sal was all about the business. Those two guards were the first tangible anything he had that was connected to what happened to his family. And he wasn’t fucking around.
He grabbed a thick chain from a group of chains that hung from the ceiling, and began wrapping it around his fist. Then he went to the first guard, the leader of the two, grabbed him by the catch of his collar and, without saying a word, began punching the shit out of him. The chain wedges on his fist caused an immediate blood flow.
Mick and Tommy were leaned against the wall, along with Trina, but Reno was closest to Sal. Just in case those cocksuckers had some tricks up their sleeves, Reno stayed close to Sal.
But as Sal continued to beat on the guard; as he continued to rain down blows on that guard as if he was beating a punching bag, it wasn’t Sal they all became concerned about. They thought he would inflict some pain. He needed to get some immediate gratification. But Sal had something more definite in mind.
The guard was screaming for his life, and the second guard, the one not yet under Sal’s punishment, stared in disbelief. Because he realized just like the rest of them were realizing that Sal wasn’t just inflicting pain. Sal, they all began to realize when he wouldn’t stop punching the guard, was inflicting death. Immediate, painful death.
Tommy moved to stop him. They needed intel from that asshole, what was his brother thinking? But Mick stopped Tommy from moving toward Sal. Mick knew exactly what his nephew was doing, and he approved of it. He couldn’t have handled it any better.
But Reno was as worried as Tommy. Sal could go overboard if given the right circumstance. And kidnapping his wife and child was always going to be the right circumstance. But Reno did not intervene. Sal ran an entire syndicate. And he ran it well. He knew what he was doing.
Sal beat that man so hard with that chain in his hand that his licks went from sounding crisp against flesh to sounding as if he was beating on a mass of soft, wet mushiness. Blood was spurting out of every pore of that man’s face, and it was splattering everywhere. On Sal’s expensive suit. On his shoes. On his face!
But Sal kept beating his ass. He kept pounding the life out of that guard. His anger, his rage at the very thought that the man he hired to protect his wife and child was the very man who put them in severe jeopardy, kept him pounding him. He wasn’t getting out of this alive. Not on Sal’s watch!
It got so bad, and so bloody that Reno began to worry if it was too much for Trina to witness. He looked at her. She was tough just like Mick had said, but she had her limits. And even if she didn’t, Reno had limits for her.
And Sal’s carnage was getting to be too much.
“Tree, go upstairs,” he ordered.
This time, Trina didn’t object. It was like watching a terrible car wreck. You knew it was going to affect you later, but you couldn’t turn away from it. She was glad Reno turned her away from it. She gladly went upstairs.
And Sal kept pounding. If the guard wasn’t already dead, he was dying fast. His face was so soft, and so disfigured by Sal’s onslaught, that it became unrecognizable.
And finally, after blow after blow, Sal struck his final blow. Remarkable to all of them, including Sal himself, his final blow inverted the guard’s nose. It pushed inward like a sponge.
The guard was dead for his deeds against a Gabrini. There was no doubt about that.
Sal was so tired that his arms felt as if they were carrying steel. But he wasn’t done yet. They messed with the wrong motherfucker, he kept saying to himself, when they decided to fuck with him. He stood to his feet.
The second guard had lost his lunch just from what Sal had done to his partner, and he kept backing up away from Sal until his back was against the wall.
Sal slowly followed him to that wall. He stood over him, the bloody chain still wrapped around his fist. “You want a taste of what your partner in crime just got?”
“No, sir, Sal. I’d rather not.”
Sal hated the sight of him. He hated disloyal, yellowbelly men like him with a passion. But he had to get answers. “Where are the motherfuckers who took my family?” he asked him.
The guard wasn’t about to hesitate. He wasn’t about to obfuscate. He wasn’t about to do anything but answer Sal’s questions truthfully, clearly, and as fast as he possibly could. “They’re gone. Back to their country.”
“Where?” Sal asked.
“Somewhere
in Europe. They never said, but their accent was European.”
Sal exhaled. Foreigners involved in this shit. All he needed! “Who paid you?” he asked. He knew he had to follow the money.
And that guard knew he had to tell it all. “Pump Futarda,” he said quickly. “Pump paid us.”
“That’s bullshit!” Reno shouted. “Pump ass dead!”
“He paid us before he died. I swear!”
“Why did he pay you?” Sal asked.
“I don’t know why. He didn’t say why. He just told us what we had to do, and how much he was willing to pay us to do it.”
“But then he died, but you did it anyway?”
“His boss got in touch with us.”
“His boss?” Sal asked. “Who the fuck is Pump’s boss? His syndicate dons were killed too.”
“Not them. The big boss. The one they all worked for.”
Sal and Reno both looked at Mick.
But Mick shook his head. “I never heard that shit. Pump was the head of the Selassie family and worked for himself, was all I knew.”
“So this big boss gets in touch and does what?” Reno asked the guard.
“He tells us the plan is still on. He says we’ll still get paid.”
“What did he want you to do?” Sal asked him.
“Disable the security monitors at your house, the men onsite would give us the second part of our pay, and then we were supposed to leave our posts.”
Sal’s jaw tightened when the guard said those words. Leaving their post meant leaving Sal’s family alone and vulnerable.
“Go on,” Reno said.
“We were supposed to lay low at the junkyard until tonight, and then he was going to send a car to pick us up and put us on a private plane to get us out of the country. But Bosh got bored and started walking around the junkyard. We just knew nobody would ever find us back there. Nobody goes back there anymore. That place had been abandoned years ago. But apparently one of your men saw him.
“How much did Pump pay you?” Reno asked.
Reno and Sal Gabrini: Fire with Fire Page 14