“He’s not your uncle,” Reno pointed out. “How could my first cousin be your uncle?”
“I know he’s not technically my uncle, Pop, come on. But you and Sal and Tommy are closer than brothers. So they’re my uncles. That’s just the way it is.”
“In Jimmy’s world.”
“In your world too. You refer to him as my uncle all the time, and don’t say you don’t.”
Reno smiled. His blue eyes were filled with merriment. Sal was, despite the fact that he almost always got on Reno’s last nerve, more like a brother to him than a cousin. And always would be.
“What’s up, Reno?” Sal asked, as he walked toward his desk. “It’s been a minute.”
“It’s been a minute,” Reno agreed, looking at his cousin and how polished he always looked lately. He used to have that Mafia look all over him, even when he wore his fine suits. But every time Reno saw him lately, he looked more like a businessman than a Mafioso. Thanks, undoubtedly, to Gemma’s influence. “So what brings you to my establishment? Gemma came to her senses and dumped you?”
“Ha, ha, very funny.” Sal sat down in front of Reno’s desk. “Reno got jokes. I always said your ass was gay.”
Jimmy laughed.
“Very funny,” Reno said. “But what’s the deal? What brings you here? My money is on Gemma coming to her senses.”
“She thinks he left town already,” Jimmy said, sitting down too. “He’s supposed to be in St. Louis.”
“Oh yeah?” Reno looked at Sal. “So why aren’t you there?”
“Why are you asking? As if you care.”
“I didn’t say I cared. I’m just asking a question.”
“And I’m asking why are you asking?”
Jimmy shook his head. Those two were sometimes like cats and dogs when they got together. “Let’s keep it clean, boys,” he said.
“What clean?” Reno asked. “Sal’s the one who came waltzing in here, while I’m trying to get some work done, with an attitude.”
“The day you see me waltz will be the day you see stars.”
“Okay,” Reno said as he dropped his pen and ran his hands through his already messy hair. “What’s the problem?”
“What problem? Who said anything about a problem?”
Reno and Jimmy both stared at Sal. Sal remained silent for a long time, and then he exhaled. “Give me and your father a minute, Jim,” he finally said.
Jimmy was accustomed to exiting rooms when the older Gabrinis had to huddle. “Sure thing,” he said, and gladly left that powder keg.
After Jimmy’s decampment, Reno spoke first. “So what’s the deal? And please don’t tell me you fucked it up with Gemma.”
“She’s supposed to have dinner with some of her lawyer colleagues tonight, to celebrate her thirtieth birthday.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Some man and a woman, they’re a couple, and then this other guy. They’re meeting her at this restaurant for dinner.”
But Reno understood the problem immediately. “Some other guy?”
“Yeah.”
“You had him checked?”
“His name’s Collier Graham,” Sal said. “He’s single. Good looking. A big time womanizer.”
“So you’re sticking around to make sure he doesn’t womanize on your woman?”
“That’s the idea.”
“What, you don’t trust Gemma?”
“I trust her with my life. But these guys I don’t trust. And before you tell me I’m overreacting---”
“Overreacting? Who’s overreacting? If that was my old lady, if that was Trina, I would have done the same thing. You can’t trust these guys with your woman. Not in this day and age.”
“That’s how I feel about it too.”
“Especially a woman as remarkable as Gemma Jones,” Reno continued. “I knew her before you met her. She used to do some legal work for me. And if I hadn’t been married to Trina at the time, if I hadn’t been head over heels about Tree, I would have been all over that. And I was considering it even then.”
Sal appreciated Reno’s honesty. He nodded. “That’s what worries me,” he admitted. “I mean, I look at Gemma sometimes and I can hardly believe it myself.”
“You can’t believe what?”
“That she’s mine. I’m like, what the fuck, you know? How did I manage to win that lottery? Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve her.”
“You don’t. Sometimes my foot. You don’t. And you haven’t won her yet. You don’t win her until you marry her.”
“There you go with that again.”
“What are you waiting on?” Reno asked. “That’s what I wanna know. Take the plunge. What are you waiting for?”
“It’s not the right time,” Sal said.
“And when will the time be right, Sal? Answer that?”
“I can’t answer that. Because I don’t know. But I know it’s not the right time right now. Maybe when it’s not so dangerous to be a Gabrini. Maybe then.”
“Maybe never then,” Reno said.
“Maybe never,” Sal admitted. “But I’m not going to be selfish and jump up and do it anyway. I don’t want her to marry me, realize what she’s done, and then start looking back on her life before I came along as the good old days. I couldn’t live with that, Reno.” He shook his head. “I don’t know about anybody else, but I couldn’t live with that.”
Reno understood. He always admired that about Sal. Of all of them, he was the most unselfish.
Sal considered Reno. He and Tree still had a strong thing going, and they’d been to hell and back. “So how do I hold onto her?” he asked.
Reno exhaled. “Best I can tell you is to love her, man. Love her hard.”
“Hard?”
“Hard as you can love her! And then you’d better hope, Sal Luca, with all that’s within you, that she doesn’t wise up to your slick ass and get the hell away from you as if she had fire in her feet!”
At first Sal wanted to lash back at Reno, but Reno started smiling. And then Sal smiled, shook his head, and couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
“I feel like a spy, Uncle Sal,” Jimmy Mack said as he and Sal sat in a back booth in the Rosemont Restaurant. “All I need is a pair of binoculars and a Sherlock Holmes cap.”
“Welcome to my world,” Sal said. “Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”
“Who is this guy anyway? Because I’m sure your people had him investigated, and I’m sure you’ve seen photographs of him.”
Sal smiled. “Smart ass,” he said affectionately.
“So who is he, Unc?”
“Some wannabe player, a nobody.”
“His vice?”
“Women. That’s the problem. He’s got women up and down the line.”
“So he’s good looking?”
Sal gave a head nod toward the entrance. He had been eyeing Collier, who was standing in the restaurant’s foyer waiting for a table, for the past few seconds. “There he is,” Sal said. “What do you think?”
Jimmy turned in the direction of Sal’s nod. And Collier Graham, a tall, nice-looking black man, began following the waitress to his table. Sal knew which table he had reserved because he bribed the maître d to get the info. Sal also secured himself a booth that would give him an optimal view of a man who was undoubtedly and, in Sal’s view, foolishly vying to be his rival.
Although Jimmy could see how Collier had what it took to entice a bevy of women, Jimmy didn’t see where Sal should be worried. “He’s good looking,” he admitted, “but he’s not what I would call great looking. He’s got nothing on you, Unc.”
Sal kept his eyes on Collier, who was now perusing the menu. “Yeah? So I’m better looking than that guy?”
“You’re way better looking.”
“And I’m richer, that’s a fact.”
“And you’re richer, that’s right.”
“And I’m smarter.”
Silence from Jimmy.
Sal looked a
t him. “And I’m smarter,” he repeated.
But Jimmy gave his uncle a sincere look. “I’m not going to go that far,” he made clear.
Sal snared at Jimmy. Jimmy laughed. “Just kidding! Of course you’re smarter. You’re the smartest man I know. You’re the smartest man on the planet!”
“Stop slinging shit,” Sal said, “before you get your own ass knee-deep in it.”
Jimmy laughed again.
But Sal’s attention was on Collier.
“So what’s the deal, Unc? He’s supposed to meet Miss Jones here?”
“Him and two other lawyers, yeah.”
“So why didn’t you just show up with her?”
“Because, as far as she knows, I’m in St. Louis, remember?”
Jimmy didn’t understand. “So you’re spying on her, to see if she’s having an affair with this guy?”
“She’s not having an affair with him or anybody else, watch your tongue, boy! That’s my woman you’re talking about. That’s Miss Jones you’re talking about. She’s nobody’s whore, alright?”
“No, sir! I didn’t mean it like that. But why are you spying on her, if you already know her intentions?”
“Because I don’t know his. Because I’m willing to bet you any amount of money that those other two people aren’t showing up at all.”
Now Jimmy understood. “I see. So he’s trying to make a play for Miss Jones?”
“Right. And since she and I don’t live in the same town, and even if we did I would be out of town an awfully lot, I can’t allow that. Nobody’s taking her away from me.”
Jimmy looked at Sal. “She loves you, Uncle Sal. She wouldn’t leave you.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t know men like I know men. We can be some dirty dogs. We can have some mighty barks. I just have to make sure he understands I don’t just bark, I bite.”
Jimmy knew that to be the absolute truth.
After several more minutes of waiting, Gemma Jones finally walked into the restaurant. “There she is, Unc,” Jimmy said, nudging Sal with his elbow.
Sal looked toward the entrance. And there she was. His woman. Looking as fine as wine in her gorgeous puce colored skirt suit with a bright-white scarf around her neck. She had undoubtedly come to the restaurant straight from the courthouse. She worked hard. She took her responsibility as an attorney very seriously. Even to the point, he learned recently, that she was now licensed to practice, not just here in Nevada, but in Sal’s other most frequented states of Washington and New York as well. Just in case, she told him, he would ever need her to represent him. He loved that about her.
What he didn’t love, and what kept him up nights sometimes, was the fact that every man in the joint was now taking peeps at her. Back in the day, when he used to think that only big-breasted blondes were the definition of beauty, he wouldn’t understand why a woman like Gemma would turn heads. But boy did he understand it now!
Even the waiter that was now escorting her to Collier’s table seemed impressed just to be walking with her. And Sal completely understood why. She was tall, black as the night, and sexy as all get-out. Most women walked with their heads down slightly and with their backs slightly hunched, but Gemma didn’t. To Sal she gave models a run for their money. Straight-backed with head held super-high, that was Gemma Jones all the time. She was a sight to behold, Sal thought, as she made her way to Collier’s table.
“She’s gorgeous, Unc,” Jimmy said, approving too. “I’m still surprised she hooked up with a dude like you.”
Any other man would have taken Jimmy’s comment for the joke he meant it to be. But not Sal. He was dead serious. “So am I,” he said.
Collier Graham stood up when he saw Gemma approach. “Hey there,” he said joyously and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, as she air-kissed him, a comforting fact not lost on Sal, who was staring at the twosome like a hawk. She began removing her scarf. “Where’s everybody? I thought they’d be here by now.”
“They would have,” Collier said, “but I’m afraid they can’t make it.”
Gemma was about to sit down. Instead, she stared at Collier. “They can’t make it?”
“Afraid not,” he said. “But don’t look so defeated. I’m here! You and I can have a blast. We don’t need them or anybody else.”
Gemma began to put back on her scarf. Collier suddenly became concerned. His true plan, to have her in his bed by night’s end, was beginning to look as if it was about to crumble. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.
“I don’t know what game you think you’re playing,” Gemma said with a twinge of anger in her voice, “but you’re playing with the wrong one.”
“I’m not playing any game, Gem. I’m taking you out to dinner. How is that a game?”
“And Pam and Eddie just conveniently canceled, right?”
“I wouldn’t say it was a convenient decision, but yeah.”
“Bullshit,” Gemma said.
Now Collier was the one showing a flash of anger. “What did you just say to me?”
“Bullshit,” a male’s voice was heard, and Collier and Gemma both turned around. And there was Sal, with Jimmy Mack behind him, arriving at their table. Gemma was floored. Collier was confused.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“Your worst nightmare. A white man who don’t give a fuck.”
Collier was still confused. Gemma got in between the two men and took Sal by the arm. They were already causing a scene. “Let’s just go,” she said to Sal.
Although Gemma managed to steer Sal away, and they began to leave with Jimmy behind them, Sal continued to look back at Collier. And he couldn’t just leave. He broke away from Gemma and went back to his wannabe rival.
“And let’s get one thing straight,” he said, “just because I don’t live in this town, doesn’t mean I don’t live in this town. You understand what I’m saying to you?”
“The only way I can understand that,” Collier said, “is if I spoke Stupid, which I don’t.”
Sal raised his fist and was about to knock Collier Graham into next week, but Jimmy grabbed Sal’s hand and stopped his aggression. Gemma, thankful that Jimmy was there, hurried up to Sal and grabbed him.
“He’s not worth it, babe,” she said. “You know that.”
Sal continued to stare at Collier. “Yeah,” he said. “I know that. Why should I hurt my knuckles on that hard mug?”
Gemma wanted to smile, but she didn’t want to encourage him. “Exactly,” she said, and like the grown-ups they tried to be, she, Sal, and Jimmy left.
Collier, angry for real now, took his napkin and threw it on the table.
Later that night, when he and Gemma were lying naked in bed in the spoon position, he didn’t try to make love to her. He just wanted to hold her, which pleased her. His reaction to Collier’s smart remark also pleased her.
“I’m proud of you,” she said.
“Why? Because I didn’t rearrange that bastard’s face?”
“Because you were man enough to walk away. That’s a big deal in my book, Sal. It’s easier to walk away.”
“That’s what you think. It’s harder to walk away. It takes something out of a man. But I’m glad I did. For your sake.”
Gemma smiled and then she thought about something. She turned around, where her ass was no longer facing him, but her face was. “Is that why you stayed in town an extra day? Just to make sure Collier didn’t show up alone?”
Sal leaned on his elbow. He hated to admit it to her face, but he wasn’t going to lie to her. “Yes,” he said.
Gemma rubbed one of the stiff nipples on his muscular chest. Her look was sincere, concerning.
“I know that makes me look like a chump in your eyes.”
Gemma looked at him and frowned. “A chump? Are you serious? There is nothing about Sal Gabrini that anybody could even dream about calling a chump.”
“Then why that look?”
>
“What look?”
“That constipated look.”
Gemma smiled. “Oh, boy, please, I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“About you. And what a remarkable man you are.”
“Yeah. I was thinking too.”
“About how remarkable you are?”
He slapped her ass. “About how remarkable you are, yes. And about us.”
Gemma hesitated. “What about us?”
“This long distance stuff.”
Gemma hesitated again. “We’re in a long distance relationship.”
Sal looked at her. “I’ve been thinking if maybe you were getting tired of it. Based on the little comments you’ve been making.”
She exhaled. “It’s not that I’m tired of it, Sal. I just don’t want our relationship to suffer because of it.”
Sal braced himself. This was not easy for him to say. “I want you to consider moving to Seattle, Gemma,” he said. Then he looked at her, to gauge her reaction.
Her reaction wasn’t exactly joyous. It was more circumspect. “I have been considering it,” she said.
“And?”
“And I haven’t decided yet.”
“You passed the Washington State bar,” Sal said, “so you can practice law there. I can set you up in your own practice, or you can even come to work as one of Gabrini Incorporated’s staff attorneys.”
She smiled. “You’ve certainly been considering the move.”
“Hell yeah I have.”
“But, Sal, you don’t exactly be in Seattle that much either. The last thing I want is to relocate all that distance, leaving my friends and my career here in Vegas, only to be alone in Seattle.”
Sal nodded. That was a consideration. “I hear you. And I promise you I’ll slow down. But I can’t promise you I can slow down right now. Not right now. There’s too much going on.”
Gemma smiled. She loved his honesty. “I promise you,” she said, “that I’ll continue to think about it.”
“Don’t just think about it, Gem,” he said. “I want you to figure out how we can make it work. Because no matter what, either you’re coming to live in Seattle, or I’ll have to live in Vegas. And Vegas is Reno’s country. I don’t want to live under Reno. Not ever.”
Sal Gabrini 3: Hard Love Page 5