Trina moved closer to Reno as Reno pressed Play. At first the video was too grainy. Then, as it cleared, they could see Jimmy beating the snot out of some black guy. He was beating him down. What they also realized was that Jimmy and the guy were both naked, and appeared to be in one of Reno’s hotel rooms. They looked at Jimmy. Reno was especially perplexed. “What the fuck is this?” he asked his son.
Jimmy hated to even discuss it, but he knew he had to. “A week ago, the night you went to Florida to check on Ma and the kids, I hooked up with a prostitute,” he admitted. “I know I shouldn’t have, but Val and I were having issues and her Period was on and I just, and I was horny as hell. So one of my friends found a girl that he figured I would find attractive, and me and the girl hooked up.”
Reno frowned. “You cheated on your wife? Are you telling us you cheated on Val?”
“We were having problems, Pop!”
“What the fuck difference does that make? Every time you have a problem with your wife you go out and find a hooker?”
“No.”
“Then stop making lame excuses,” Reno ordered, “and tell us what’s going on.”
It was tough enough for Jimmy. And now that his fear that his father wouldn’t understand at all was a reality, made it doubly tough. But it was his mess. He had to face up to it. “She was waiting for me in one of the rooms. I got in bed with her, and we started doing our thing. But then I realized the girl I picked up wasn’t a girl at all.” Jimmy looked at his father. “She was a dude.”
Now Reno realized what they had watched, and why Jimmy was naked in that video with a naked man. “So you kicked his ass?” Reno asked.
“I snatched off his wig, I snatched off his fake boobs, and I kicked his ass,” Jimmy said.
Reno nodded. He felt better now. It wasn’t looking good for Jimmy, in Reno’s eyes, when he first saw that video. And cheating on his wife was never a good thing. But at least he manned-up. “Damn straight you kicked his ass,” he said.
But Trina was not impressed. “Reno,” Trina said in a warning tone.
“What?” Reno asked. “He was in drag pretending to be a girl. He had it coming, Tree. What else was Jimmy supposed to do? Thank him for forcing him to lay down with a guy when he thought he was in bed with a female? I would have kicked his ass too.”
“You would have killed his ass,” Trina said. But she looked at Jimmy. Somehow she didn’t feel that this was the full story. “What does taking your father’s money have to do with that prostitute?” she asked him. “He’s blackmailing you?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Not him, but somebody,” he said. “They rigged the room. Finn, the guy who set it all up for me, said he was leaving town a few days later and quit his job. So now I’m figuring somebody paid him off to set me up. I haven’t been able to track him down.” Trina seemed sympathetic. That was why he loved her so much. That was why he could always talk to her. But his father? He was only coming around because he thought Jimmy put the guy in his place.
“Where’s the money now?” Reno asked.
“In my apartment upstairs. I haven’t set up the exchange yet or anything.”
“Who’s blackmailing you?”
Jimmy shook his head. “I never saw the guy before in my life. And he didn’t give me any details like that. He just wants the money.”
“How much?” Trina asked.
Jimmy swallowed hard. “Two hundred and fifty thousand. The amount I took from the safe.”
Reno frowned. “Because you beat up a female impersonator he wants a quarter of a million dollars? Get the fuck out of here!”
“Because he was in a hotel room naked with a naked man, Reno,” Trina said. “They release that tape, people aren’t going to make any distinctions about circumstances. All it’s going to show is two naked men in a hotel room.”
“Yeah, and one of those naked men, my son, is beating down the other naked man.”
But somehow it wasn’t adding up for Trina. Two hundred thousand dollars for a fight tape? “This is only part of the story,” she said to Jimmy. “Isn’t it?”
Reno looked at Jimmy. “Well is it?” he asked.
Jimmy nodded. “Yes. It’s only part of the story.”
“Then what’s the other part?” Reno asked. He was confused now.
Jimmy looked at Trina, as if he sensed she already knew. Then he looked at his father. “I kept going,” he said.
Reno, at first, didn’t understand what he meant. But when he did, his frown turned into alarm. “You kept going?”
Jimmy’s distress hit Trina hard. He was always a young man with some degree of identity confusion. She saw it when she first met Jimmy. But she always thought it was because of how badly women treated him, breaking his heart constantly, rather than any attraction to the male gender.
Reno saw his confusion too, but Trina knew he would never admit it. Mainly because Reno gave Jimmy the impression that if he was ever even bi-curious, let alone a practicing gay, he would hate him forever.
“What do you mean you kept going?” Reno asked his son. His face was a mask of anger, disgust, and what Jimmy could only describe as fear. “Answer me,” Reno added.
Jimmy was defeated. He went up to his parents, took the phone, and found the second video. He pressed Play and handed it back to them. This video showed Jimmy and the prostitute, not fighting this time, but having a full blown sexual encounter.
“When I realized I was dealing with a guy and not a girl,” Jimmy said as his parents looked away from the video and at him. “I didn’t stop and beat his ass, Pop. I kept going. I wanted to see what it felt like. I kept going!”
Reno frowned with nothing but contempt on his face. “You wanted to see what it was like? Why the fuck do you need to see what it’s like? That’s a man on this fucking tape! He has the same pipes you have. What the fuck else do you need to know?”
“I was curious, Pop, that’s all!”
“Curious?” Reno asked in a high-pitched voice of anger. And then he threw that phone at Jimmy. Jimmy barely caught it. “Get the fuck out of my face!” Reno added, as he began moving around his office. “I’ve got your curious right here! Fucking perv! You’re curious so you let that motherfucker run a train on you?”
“He didn’t run any train on me! It takes more than one person to run a train,” Jimmy added.
Reno and Trina both looked at him. Reno was livid. “So you think this shit funny?”
“No,” Jimmy said, horrified that his father was misunderstanding him.
“You steal from me, you fuck some dude, and this is all a big fucking joke to you?”
“No!” Jimmy pleaded. “I didn’t mean it like that, Pop!”
But Reno wasn’t hearing him anymore. “Get the fuck out of my office!” he yelled. “Take that sick shit video and get out of my office!” When Jimmy, in tears again, didn’t move, Reno grabbed him by the arm and flung him toward the door. “Get out!” he yelled.
And Jimmy kept going. He’d never felt more broken in his life. Not since his mother died did he feel this alone. But he hurried out of his father’s office. Reno slammed the door behind him so hard that it bounced back open. Reno slammed it shut again, opened his suit coat, placed his hands on his hips, and began pacing the room.
Trina was near tears too, but she was also upset. “You’re as wrong as you can be, Reno,” she said to her husband.
Reno stopped pacing and looked at her. Her words shocked him. “I’m wrong?”
“You’re wrong, Reno.”
“How is this my fault? He’s a fucking pervert!”
But Trina wasn’t buying it. “He’s a young man with a big penis who fucks anything of age that moves!” Then she settled back down. “And he’s your son,” she added.
Reno let out a harsh exhale, raked his hand through his already ruffled hair, and leaned his head back. Then he looked at Trina. He looked at the woman he relied on to be his moral compass. And he knew she was only directing him in the right direction. He hurr
ied out of his office.
By the time he ordered Dommi to sit back down, made his way out of his suite of offices and up to his private elevator, the door was closing with Jimmy inside. Reno put a hand through, forced the doors back open, and then got onto the elevator with Jimmy. He pressed the Stop button, and the elevator remained where it stood.
Jimmy was stunned to see his father running him down. That was not like him on any given day. His word was always final and he never backed down. But Jimmy knew Trina was in that office too. And if Reno didn’t listen to anybody else, he listened to Trina.
Reno looked at his son. His heart felt compassion for him, but his face was still hard and disgusted. That was why, when Reno moved closer to his son, Jimmy winced and leaned slightly back. But Reno didn’t strike his son again. He pulled him into his arms.
Jimmy sobbed in his father’s arms. He didn’t want to. He knew men like his father detested tears in other men. But he couldn’t help it.
When they stopped embracing, he decided he needed to tell his father exactly how he felt. Reno still had his arms around his handsome son, as if he wanted to tell him he was sorry, but it was Jimmy who spoke first. “Ever since I met you,” he said, “I was a teenager who felt as if I could never live up to your image. What boy could, Pop? You’re the strongest, toughest man I know. But sometimes I don’t feel so tough and strong. Sometimes I feel vulnerable and sensitive and not at all tough and rugged like you and Uncle Sal and Uncle Tommy always seem to be. And I’m not gay. I know that sounds crazy after what I did, but it’s the truth. If I was gay, I’d admit it. But I’d been curious and, when that opportunity came with that hooker, I took it. I hate myself for taking it, but I did. And to prove what kind of coward I was, I beat the guy down afterwards. I got what I wanted from him, then I beat his ass like I was some tough guy.”
“You are a tough guy,” Reno said. “But you’re a guy. We guys do stupid stuff.”
Jimmy stared at his father. There was no other man more perfect than he was to Jimmy. “Have you ever slept with a man before?” he asked him.
Reno frowned. “What is that your business?”
Jimmy was shocked that he didn’t say no, or slap him, outright.
“You did something stupid,” Reno said, “but you’d better not let it happen again. You’re no bachelor. You’re a married man with a baby. Did you wear protection?”
“Yes,” Jimmy said as if that went without saying. “Of course! I would never endanger Val like that.”
“You wouldn’t endanger her,” Reno said, “but you’d fuck around on her? Is that it?”
“I was wrong,” Jimmy admitted.
“You can lose your family over that,” Reno reminded him. “You’d better cut that shit out.”
“Have you ever cheated on Mom before, Dad?” Jimmy asked his father.
Reno frowned again. “What’s with you and my personal life? I’m not the prick being blackmailed for banging a dude! Don’t you worry about what I’ve done. I’m telling you what you’d better not do again.”
“I won’t,” Jimmy said. “It was just that one time. I’m not gay. I know how much you’d hate me if I was.”
Reno was surprised by those words. “I wouldn’t hate you, what are you talking?” he asked. “Look at me,” he added.
Jimmy looked at him.
“You’re my son,” Reno continued. “I will always love you no matter what. I can never hate my son even if you were gay. I’m not built like that.”
Jimmy’s heart soared with inward happiness. “Thanks, Dad,” he said.
Reno, however, looked at him curiously. “But, just so we’re clear, you’re not gay. Right?”
Jimmy smiled. “I’m not gay, Pop. I’m a heterosexual man. I love women, and yes, their equipment, way too much.”
Reno smiled too, and rubbed his son’s arms. “Keep it that way,” he said. “You have a wife, and a baby. My grandbaby. I’ll tear you apart if you hurt either one of them.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t mess up again. But I need to say this.”
“Oh, Lord,” Reno said. “Another confession?”
Jimmy smiled. “Nothing like that, Dad. I just want to say that it’s great to know that if anything were to happen to me, you’d take care of my family.”
That went without saying to Reno. “Nothing’s happening to you,” he said quickly.
Reno was tough as nails, but Jimmy also knew that when it came to any talk of his family in trouble, he dreaded even thinking about it. “Anyway, thanks,” Jimmy said.
Reno squeezed his arm again. “Now what about this asshole blackmailer? What’s the deal with that?”
“I’m supposed to contact him by this afternoon to set up a meeting time and place. I was going to call Uncle Sal this morning and see if he can let me borrow a few of his men.”
“You don’t need Sal’s men,” Reno said, pressing the elevator’s Open button. “You have me.” The elevator doors opened. “Set it up. But let it be late today. I have some damn luncheon I have to attend.”
Jimmy smiled as they stepped off of the elevator. He loved when his father took control. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“And you’d better pray to God Val doesn’t ever see that tape.”
“But how can we ever be sure there won’t be any copies out there, even after we pay the money?”
“First of all,” Reno said, “we aren’t paying shit. Second of all, if a fucker come at you with blackmail, you’d better be willing to break every bone in his body to ensure he doesn’t even think about releasing any copies to anybody. And you make it clear to him that he’ll be held personally responsible if any copy is released. You beat them to within an inch of their life, or don’t beat them at all. That’s the world your little curiosity has thrust you into. And you’d better perform.” Although, in truth, Reno was not about to let Jimmy participate in any beat downs. That was his wheelhouse. He wasn’t sending Jimmy anywhere near that road.
But Jimmy didn’t get the memo. He nodded his understanding. It all just got real to him right now. And he was determined to make his father proud of him again. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”
“Set up the meeting,” Reno said. “Our place, our time. And get your ass back in my office and tell your mother you’re okay. Between you and Dominic, you have her worried sick.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said, gave his father another hug, and then hurried away.
CHAPTER NINE
“Which one is yours?” the woman at the wives table leaned over and asked as the ceremony entered its second hour.
“The bored one,” Trina responded, and the woman smiled.
Reno was on the dais inside the downtown rotary club and was one of five guests of honor. He was to be given the greatest of the honors, the key to the city, and was therefore slated to be the last one to receive the prestigious award. But he was bored to tears. Everybody could see that he wasn’t exactly elated, but Trina saw it even more starkly. He didn’t want to be there. He cared about as much for awards and recognition as he did for hemorrhoids and gun shots. But she made him come. Because she felt he deserved it. Nobody gave more to the poor in Vegas, to the disenfranchised throughout the county, nor to making sure that their so-called sin city were inhabitable for good, Christian families too, than Reno.
But despite her best efforts, Trina could tell how angry he still was about being there. She was in the audience at the center table, sitting with the wives of the other honorees and with the wife of the mayor. The mayor was presenting the awards. Reno was sitting on stage in his black tuxedo, with his legs folded and his hands clasped and resting on his lap. His thick brown hair, which was usually in eternal disarray because of his constant need to rake his hands through it, had been freshly cut by the PaLargio barber just before they left the penthouse. And with his intense blue eyes, his sculpturally handsome face, and his big, muscular body, he looked gorgeous to Trina. The best looking man on stage. But whereas the oth
er four honorees seemed tickled pink to be there, Reno looked glum.
And as the orchestra conductor played yet another concerto, Reno closed his eyes a time or two, terrifying Trina that he was about to fall asleep, but he opened them up again quickly.
“Which one is yours?” another wife, this one on the opposite side of Trina, leaned over and asked her. For some reason, and from the moment she arrived, the wives had all gravitated to Trina. Partly because of the warmth of her personality. Partly because she was young and energetic and they were middle-aged and pleased to be out on the town at all. And partly, Trina suspected, because she was the only African-American at the table while all of the husbands on stage were white. She intrigued them. “Mine is the bald one,” the woman added.
“Mine is the bored one,” Trina responded to the second wife, and she, like the first one, laughed too. But like most women who noticed Reno for the first time, the woman’s look lingered, and then moved downward toward the obviously thick bundle between his legs. Trina couldn’t help but smile. Reno was the personification of sexiness. It just oozed off of him like a sweet smelling soap. When the wife glanced back at Trina and realized she’d been caught, that Trina saw her scoping out her husband, the woman smiled. And Trina did too.
But it was no smiling matter when the mayor began his presentations and Reno, to Trina’s horror, began to doze off. He didn’t doze off through all of those insufferable concertos. He didn’t doze off through all of those stale jokes the mayor had been telling. He waited until the heart of the ceremony, the awards presentation, to fall asleep! Trina was livid.
She knew she had to do something. Reno was a big-time snorer. This event was being taped and was going to actually be broadcast on local TV. She couldn’t have her husband sitting up there sleep on TV, as if he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t, but that wasn’t their business.
With precious few options, Trina decided to discreetly get the attention of the man sitting next to Reno. Once the man saw her, she motioned for him to elbow Reno. She assumed he had enough sense to gently elbow Reno, but the man, instead, shook Reno hard. Bad move, and Trina knew it. Because as soon as the man touched Reno with such decisiveness, Reno not only woke up, but jumped straight up out of his chair. “What, motherfucker?” he yelled as he jumped up.
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