Tommy Gabrini: Every Which Way But Loose

by Mallory Monroe

  “Okay,” Peter said, “I’ll be blunt. I think I have served you very well, even as my workload has increased tenfold in the last year.”

  Tommy stared at him. “You want a raise? Is that what this is about?”

  “A raise? No,” Peter responded. “More shares in the GCI? Yes,” he added.

  But Tommy frowned. “More shares?”

  “Yes, sir. You own fifty percent of the company. I own only one percent. I think, given my value to this organization, I can at least be offered an additional percentage.”

  Tommy didn’t hesitate. “No,” he said.

  Peter was surprised by his bluntness. “No?”

  “No. I will entertain a raise, and you can put a proposal on my desk, but not a percentage. That’s not going to happen.”

  Tommy’s cell phone rang as Peter digested his unequivocal response. Tommy would not have bothered to even glance at the Caller ID. But because it could be Grace, he glanced. When he saw that it was Grace, he answered immediately. “Hey.”

  But all he heard were commands. Seemingly police commands. “Get out of the car!” the officer demanded.

  “What is this about, officer?” Grace could be heard saying.

  “Grace?” Tommy said into the phone.

  “Didn’t I say get out of the car?” the officer could be heard saying again. “Get out!”

  “I’m getting out,” Grace said as movement could be heard. “My hands are up and I’m getting out.”

  Tommy’s heart fell through his shoe as he stood to his feet.

  There was conversation, but it was muddled now. But Tommy did hear one officer say Grace was under arrest, which prompted him to quickly pull out his GPS tracker phone, to get a read on her location. He began running out of the board room.

  Peter stood up. “Is everything alright?” he asked. “Tommy?”

  But Tommy was already gone.

  Peter smiled, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed the number.

  “How did it go?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.

  “He turned me down cold. The bastard.”

  “What did you expect? Bastards are bastards, and Tommy Gabrini is world class.”

  “He got the call,” Peter said.

  The voice was surprised. “Already?”

  “Already,” Peter said. “What does it mean?”

  “It means it worked,” the voice responded. “It could not have worked better. His world is falling apart, and he does not even realize it. He thinks one plus one equals two, and we must never allow him to think otherwise.”

  “Until it’s too late?”

  The man laughed. “You catch on fast, Mr. Grant. Yes. Until it’s far too late.”

  Peter let out an exhaustive exhale. He knew Tommy Gabrini. His only hope was that this man, this character they were all depending on, knew him too.

  Tommy arrived at the Seattle Police Department. The same department he once worked as a police captain. The same department his father once ran. But this was hardly a welcomed return.

  The desk sergeant, an old hand with twenty-five years under his belt, immediately rose to his feet when Tommy walked in. “Captain Gabrini, sir,” he said.

  Tommy didn’t waste words with pleasantries. His heart was still hammering. “Get me Chief Christie,” he said.

  “Chief busy right at the moment, sir.”

  Tommy looked at him as if he was insane. “I said get me Chief Christie, Sergeant!” he ordered.

  And the sergeant, seeing that look in Tommy’s eyes, quickly complied. He picked up the phone, and dialed his chief’s extension. Within seconds, Lew Christie was coming down the hall that led to the front desk.

  “Tommy!” he said jovially as he came.

  “My wife was taken into custody,” Tommy said quickly, hurrying toward him. “Where is she?”

  Christie had never seen Tommy this unhinged. Not Mister Cool! “You okay, Cap?”

  “No, I’m not okay,” Tommy said forcefully. “My wife was taken into custody. Where is she? I want to see her and I want to see her now.”

  Christie remained calm. “Let’s go in my office and talk about it,” he said, touching Tommy’s elbow.

  But Tommy snatched away from him. “I’m not going any fucking where until my wife is taken out of some gotdamn jail cell and brought to me immediately.”

  Christie was offended. “Now hold on,” he said angrily. “You don’t run this anymore!”

  “You won’t be running it either,” Tommy said, “if you don’t bring my wife to me and bring her to me now!”

  The chief knew the pull Tommy had. He knew the connections he had to men like Mick Sinatra and Reno Gabrini, and to his own mobster brother Sal. Especially Sal. Christie used to work under Sal. And even Tommy was rumored to be a mob enforcer himself. Christie looked at his sergeant. “Call downstairs. Tell them to bring Mrs. Gabrini up here now.”

  The sergeant, not at all surprised that the chief would bow down so easily to Tommy, quickly did as he was told.

  “Now,” Christie said to Tommy with a big smile on his face. “Let’s wait in my office.”

  But Tommy was waiting right where he stood. He wasn’t moving until he saw Grace for himself. He looked at the chief. “What’s the charge?” he asked him. “Or does that matter anymore?”

  “It matters. Even when you were my captain, back in the day, it mattered.”

  Tommy stared at him. Christie once worked under Tommy and was as crooked as a road. Still probably was. But that wasn’t Tommy’s concern. Grace was.

  And he remained concerned until he saw her enter the reception area looking no worse for wear. Except she wore handcuffs.

  If Christie had not objected as vociferously as he had, Tommy would have himself. “Take those gotdamn cuffs off of her!” he yelled to the officer bringing Grace up. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  The officer, thinking Grace was a prisoner, as she was, didn’t understand. But he didn’t hesitate either. He knew they had a high valued prisoner. He knew the rules changed based on status. He quickly removed the cuffs.

  And Grace quickly ran to Tommy. Tommy pulled her into his arms. And then looked at her. “Okay?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “I’m okay.”

  Tommy looked at Christie. “What’s the charge?” he asked again.

  “Let’s go to my office,” Christie said.

  And this time, with Grace by his side, Tommy complied. He and Grace followed the chief to his office.

  When the door was closed, Christie didn’t hesitate. “Ellen Matanzas filed a battery charge against your wife,” he said.

  Tommy frowned. “Ellen Matanzas?” he asked. “Who the hell is Ellen Matanzas?”

  “She was that woman who slapped me at the SLS event,” Grace said to Tommy. Then she looked at the chief. “Why would she file a charge against me? I was only defending myself.”

  “She hit Grace first,” Tommy concurred. “Grace kicked her ass, but only after she hit her first.”

  “And you witnessed it?” Christie asked Tommy.

  “Yes! I witnessed the entire episode. That woman has some nerve.”

  In a way Christie was relieved. He really didn’t want to have anything to do with those ruthless Gabrinis! “Okay, on your word Cap, we’ll let her go. No charges will be filed. But try to stay out of trouble, Mrs. G, alright? Ellen can be a handful.”

  “So can I,” Tommy said, his face unwavering in its seriousness, “if this nonsense happens again.”

  Christie understood. It wasn’t his idea anyway.

  But when Tommy and Grace left the precinct in Tommy’s Ferrari, and after Tommy ordered his men to retrieve Grace’s SUV still on the side of the highway, Grace couldn’t stop thinking about Ellen’s nerve.

  “Some women are just vindictive that way,” Tommy said, speaking from vast experience.

  “But that’s not what this is,” Grace said, in heavy thought. Then she looked at Tommy. “She did it on purpose.�
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  Tommy glanced at her as he drove. “On purpose? What do you mean?”

  “She was very nasty toward me to begin with, but then she and Shameika got into it.”

  “Okay.” They stopped at a red light.

  “She pushed Shameika down or something, I’m not sure. Shameika lost her balance in any event. But then, all of a sudden, Ellen slaps me when the argument was between she and Meek. As if I was her target all along.”

  Tommy looked at her. “As if you were the target?”

  “Yeah,” Grace said, more convinced now than ever. “But why, Tommy? I never met the woman before that night. She seemed jealous that the girls took to me more than expected, but that can’t be it. Why would she target me?”

  “I don’t know,” Tommy said, as the light changed and he began driving again. “But I will find out,” he promised.

  Tommy heard the front door open and then close as he sat the butcher’s knife on the center island. He sat down himself.

  Ellen Matanzas, drained from yet another busy day, entered the foyer of her suburban home carrying a bag of groceries and thumbing through a stack of mail. She didn’t realize she had an uninvited guest until she rounded the arch from her dining room and entered her kitchen. But even that reaction was delayed as she focused more on her mail than on where she was walking. It wasn’t until she looked up, as she was about to sit her bag on the center island, that she saw the man sitting there. She let out a sudden, one-syllable scream, the bag fell through her arms with its contents crashing to the floor, and Tommy stood up.

  “Mr. Gabrini?” Ellen asked nervously. She expected some blowback from Grace, but never ever a visit from her husband! “What are you doing here? How did you get into my home?”

  Tommy began walking toward her. “Who put you up to it?” he asked.

  Ellen attempted to smile through her nervousness. “Who put me up to what? What are you talking about?”

  Tommy was not about to play games with this bitch. “Who put you up to it?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ellen responded. “Your wife and I had a disagreement, and I concluded that the best way to resolve the matter was to let the authorities decide. But she did knock me down. Even you saw what she did to me.”

  “And I saw what you did to her,” Tommy said. “I will only ask you this one more time: who put you up to it?” he asked for the final time.

  But Ellen did not heed his warning. She continued to insist no one did. She continued to insist that she did not know what he was talking about. “Nobody has to put me up to anything,” she said. “When I see an injustice, I respond on my own. I put myself up to it.”

  What happened next stunned even Ellen. Tommy moved so fast that she didn’t realize he was moving at all until he was upon her. She tried to scream but he covered her mouth, grabbed her by the arm, and grabbed the knife. He placed it at her neck.

  “Tell me who,” Tommy said, “or you will die in this kitchen tonight! Who put you up to it?”

  And every ounce of Ellen’s self-assured bravado was gone. “Rondo!” she yelled.

  Even Tommy was amazed at how quickly she broke. But this was still the bitch who had placed her hands on his wife. He kept that knife at her neck. “Rondo who?” he asked.

  “Rondo Jefferson,” Ellen said, her body on the point of collapse from pure fear. Her forehead now beaded with sweat. “He made me do it. Rondo Jefferson!”

  Tommy knew who she was talking about, and was shocked to hear the name. Rondo Jefferson was Grace’s deceased ex-husband’s brother. An ex-husband who died at Tommy’s own hands. “Why?” he asked her.

  “He made me do it!” she cried, her entire focus on that knife. “He said if I didn’t publicly confront her, and then humiliate her by filing charges against her, he would expose . . .”

  Tommy waited for more, but it didn’t come. “He would expose what?” he asked her.

  “He would expose what he claims are my underhanded financial dealings,” Ellen admitted. “And I’d go to jail myself. So I had no choice. I had to do it.”

  “You went to him?”

  “No! I don’t even know him. He came to me. I don’t even know him! Please move that knife! I can’t bear it anymore! Please remove that knife!”

  But Tommy was in deep thought. He could understand Rondo wanting revenge for his brother’s death. But what he couldn’t understand was why he would think having Grace slapped and then arrested on some trumped up battery charge would do the trick. That didn’t sound right to Tommy. It sounded like a trick itself.

  But this woman here, this Ellen Matanzas, was just a pawn in the game and he knew it. She didn’t know shit. But she’d slapped his wife. He didn’t slash Ellen’s throat, or anything fatal as that. But he did take her hand in his hand, the hand that had slapped Grace, bent it back as far as it could go, and broke every bone in it. She fell to her knees in pain.

  “Touch my wife again,” he warned her, “and it won’t just be your hand. I’ll break every bone in your body too.”

  He removed his hand from hers, sat the knife back on the countertop, and left. But Ellen, still terrified, still in unbearable agony, collapsed to the floor.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Grace was relaxing beside the pool by the time Tommy made it home. He stopped momentarily at the back patio, staring at his family. The baby was in Grace’s arms, staring up at her, and Destiny was in the pool, with her nannies on the side of the pool’s edge wading their toes in the water. It was such a wonderful scene to Tommy that he felt a sense of rightness. He did what he had to do in the corporate world, and in the underworld too. But a man in his position needed the stability of a family like this. A calming presence in his turmoil. A world so different to come home to.

  Grace didn’t realize he was in the backyard until Destiny started screaming Daddy! She began peddling her little feet to get to him. Grace turned and smiled. The baby’s eyes stretched, confused by the sudden noise that rocked his peace, as he looked at Grace for reassurance.

  “It’s alright, sweetie,” Grace said, bouncing her baby boy. “It’s only Daddy. We get excited when he shows up.”

  Tommy smiled when she said that. The idea that they loved when he made it home was music to his ears. He was pleased that he and Grace had rebuilt their marriage into a strong home life for them and their children. He needed this like he needed air to breathe.

  “You’re home early today, Daddy,” Destiny said when she made it to the edge of the pool beside her nannies.

  “That’s right,” Tommy said, as he made his way toward Grace. “And you’re all wet.”

  Destiny smiled. “I’m swimming better and better,” she said. “Aren’t I?” she asked the older nanny.

  “You are,” the nanny responded. “You keep working hard, you might be an Olympic swimmer one of these days.”

  If Tommy and Grace were concerned that she would fill their daughter’s head with false hope, Destiny reassured them that she was not that easily persuaded. “No thanks,” she said to her nanny. “I don’t want to swim in the Lympics. I just want to swim in my daddy’s pool.”

  Tommy and Grace laughed. Although Grace and Destiny moved back into Tommy’s home after the remarriage, Destiny still remembered being shuffled between two houses. She still referred to the house Grace lived in after the divorce as Mommy’s house, and the house Tommy lived in as Daddy’s. Now that they all lived in Tommy’s house, those distinctions were still present in her mind. But her parents didn’t rush her. The passage of time, they knew, and a sense of stability, would change her words.

  “Keep swimming, Des,” Grace said. “Show Daddy how well you can swim.”

  Destiny gladly obliged and began swimming again.

  Tommy leaned down and kissed Grace on the mouth. He groaned it felt so good. Then he sat on the side of the lounger next to her, and looked at the baby in her arms. “How is he?” he asked.

  Grace looked down at TJ. “He’
s great,” she said. “Aren’t you, little man? Aren’t you just the most precious thing?”

  TJ stared at Grace and then grinned. Tommy laughed. “He knows how to turn on that charm, doesn’t he?”

  “Tommy Gabrini is his father,” Grace responded. “What do you think?”

  Tommy laughed again. Then he and Grace looked into each other’s eyes. “And how are you?” he asked.

  Grace nodded. “I’m better. I took three bathes after I got home. I didn’t go back to the office.”

  Tommy’s eyes showed pure compassion for his wife. “I’m so sorry you had to sit up in that stank-ass jail,” he said.

  “And the woman who put me there?” Grace asked.

  “She got hers,” Tommy said.

  Grace nodded her head. “Good,” she said. She didn’t condone violence of any kind, but what Ellen pulled was sneaky and underhanded and could have ruined Grace’s career if her husband wasn’t a man like Tommy Gabrini with significant power in this town. She would have still been sitting in that jail cell if it wasn’t for Tommy. “But why did she do it?” she asked.

  Tommy placed one of Grace’s hand in his own. Her hand was so soft compared to what Ellen’s now broken hand. “She claim somebody threatened to expose her if she didn’t do it.”

  “Expose her with what?”

  “She’s a tax cheat or some sort of cheat, and he knew it.”

  “Who knew it?” Grace asked. “Who threatened to expose her?”

  Tommy hesitated, but he knew she had a right to know. “Rondo Jefferson,” he said.

  Grace was shocked. “Rondo? Ed‘s half-brother? Why would Rondo want me arrested?”

  “Perhaps because his own brother is no longer with us thanks to me,” Tommy reminded her.

  “No,” Grace reminded him, “Rondo’s brother is no longer with us thanks to his own stupid actions. You did what you had to do. But Rondo wasn’t close to Ed like that. They hated each other. Most times they wouldn’t even acknowledge that they were brothers at all. Why would he suddenly want this kind of revenge? Did you talk to him?”