The reporters snickered at his use of language.
“If that’s the case, Mr. Gabrini,” the third reporter asked, “then it should be easy for you to answer our question. How many African Americans do you have working in this building in senior management positions? Or in any management positions at all?”
“The Gabrini Corporation’s home office,” Sal said, “has plenty of managers of the black persuasion.”
“We didn’t ask about the corporate office. We asked about the Vegas office, where the accusers allege the discrimination took place. How many black people are in management positions in this office?”
Sal hesitated. Gemma looked at him. Why didn’t he just answer the question? If he didn’t know, why didn’t he just say so? Unless, she thought with alarm. Then she quickly leaned into him. “Say you don’t know,” she whispered.
“I don’t know those stats,” Sal responded. “You’ll have to take that up with HR. I’m trying to run a company here, not bean count.”
Then he took Gemma by the hand, and they walked out. But the questions continued to be hurled.
While the media was still being held in the pressroom, Sal’s car had been moved to the back of the building, and Sal and Gemma were able to leave undetected. During the presser, Gemma’s car had already been driven to their home. Now they were on the way home too.
But the silence wasn’t golden. It was tense. Sal was uneasy, and Gemma was concerned. It had not gone the way she had hoped.
“Motherfucking press,” Sal said with anger in his voice. He was driving, but not in his usually fast way. He was almost lumbering along. “They’ll sell their soul for a story. They’ll sell their soul to try and tear somebody down.”
But Gemma wasn’t thinking about the press. She was thinking about the man she had married. The man she loved with all her heart. She looked at him. “How many, Sal?” she asked.
He knew what she meant, and he wasn’t going to insult her intelligence by pretending he didn’t. He looked at her. “In the corporation worldwide? Or in the Vegas office?”
Gemma didn’t respond to that. He knew she meant the Vegas office. He and he alone ran the Vegas office.
Sal continued to drive. Then he looked at her again. “I have plenty of minority employees.”
“How many managers?”
Sal looked away again. Then he looked at her again. “None,” he said.
Gemma’s heart dropped. She was floored. “None, Sal? You don’t have a single minority in not one management position?”
“What do you want me to say? I wasn’t looking to hire this color or that color. I was looking to hire people.”
“Blonde, blue-eyed people who also happened to be beautiful women? Are those the people you looked to hire?”
“Don’t cheapen me like that,” Sal shot back. “You know that’s not true! I hired people who I knew through the years could make the Vegas office soar. It’s still a new office. Some people didn’t expect me to pull it off, but I did. And all of my managers are men and most of them are Italians. Because they’re the people I know. They’re the people I work with. They had the experience this office needed. I tried to find minorities with that same level of experience. I looked, Gem. I didn’t find what I was looking for.”
“Then you should have looked harder,” Gemma said. “Or asked me. I know plenty of African Americans who could have filled that bill. I’m sorry, Sal, but I can’t give you a pass on this. If people like us don’t give minorities a shot, they won’t get a shot.”
Sal ran his hand across his face.
“Am I wrong?” Gemma asked, although she knew the answer.
“No,” Sal said. “You aren’t wrong.”
“Then why didn’t you promote any of those minorities you yourself said were exemplary workers?”
Sal didn’t know why. It never even occurred to him that he needed to pay attention to that. He never had before. But Gemma was right. He should have.
They continued to drive in silence, as he had no good explanation for her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They all sat around in the family room: Reno and Trina on one sofa. Sal and Gemma on the other sofa. Sal, it seemed to all of them, looked spooked. Those allegations, and the way the media was playing it up, were already taking their toll.
“How are we going to handle this going forward, guys?” Trina asked.
“It’s the media,” Gemma said. “The media is going nuts.”
“Tell me about it,” Reno said. “They’ve been hanging around the PaLargio up my ass too. It’s crazy.”
Reno and Trina were on the board of the Gabrini Corporation, just as Sal and Tommy were on the board of Reno’s company. They had every right to ask questions. But they were mainly there because Sal was family.
“They had the nerve to ask me how many African Americans were in senior management positions within my company,” Reno continued.
“What did you tell them?” Gemma asked.
“I said none of your damn business, that’s what I told them.”
Sal looked at Reno. “How many?” he asked.
Reno frowned. “How many what?”
“How many blacks do you have in management?”
Reno didn’t have to think about it. “Dozens,” he said. “I can’t give you a number off the top of my head. But plenty. Why?”
“Sal doesn’t have any,” Trina said.
Sal, feeling betrayed, looked at Gemma.
“I didn’t tell her anything,” Gemma declared.
“Nobody had to tell me,” Trina said. “Your press conference told me. Your refusal to answer the question told me.”
“None?” Reno asked. He was surprised. “Damn, Sal.”
But Sal was still riding the guilt. “I didn’t think about it, okay?”
“But that’s the problem,” Reno said. “Nobody thinks about it. Nobody wants to accept that you have to give everybody a fair shot. That’s why this whole fucking country is out of whack.”
Reno’s cell phone rang. “If we don’t pay attention,” he added as he pulled out his phone and looked at his Caller ID, “who will?”
Gemma and Sal looked at each other and smiled. Reno was saying exactly what she had told him.
Reno answered his phone. “Yeah, Jim, what is it? Dominic misbehaving again?” Reno’s oldest child, Jimmy, was babysitting his kid brother and sister.
Gemma interlocked her arm with Sal’s. “You okay?”
“I’m mad as hell, but I’m good.” He looked at her. “What about you?”
Gemma nodded.
“What about your managers, Sal?” Trina asked. “Maybe some of them were discriminating.”
“I’m investigating it now,” Sal said. “But so far, nothing. We haven’t turned up anything. Because it’s a con. It’s a money grab just like I said. They already lied when they injected my name into it. None of that shit about me is true. Tell racist jokes. Giving promotions in exchange for sexual favors. All lies. So I know they’re liars.”
Trina studied him. “So you don’t cheat on Gemma then?” she asked him.
Sal looked at her. He was stunned that she would ask such a thing. “No,” he said defensively. “Hell no! I don’t cheat on my wife.”
But Gemma could tell Trina, like almost all of their friends, had her doubts. Mainly because Sal was out of town so much and never discussed that part of his life. But Gemma didn’t care what Trina or anybody else thought about Sal. She believed him.
Reno ended the call with his son.
“What did he want?” Trina asked. “Dommi’s acting up again?”
“He said there’s a video circulating on YouTube.”
Gemma and Sal looked at each other, and then at Reno. “Showing what?” Gemma asked.
“Showing Sal, when he was a cop, telling some racist joke.”
Sal’s heart fell through his shoe. There was a time in his past when he was that guy. But he was nothing like that anymore.
; “What kind of racist joke?” Trina asked.
Reno looked at Sal. “Want me to pull it up?” he asked.
“No,” Gemma said. She already knew about his past. He confessed it to her. She didn’t need to see any evidence of it. “I’m sure it plays right into the hands of his accusers.”
“Pull it up,” Sal said. He didn’t want Gemma to see him at his worse, but if it was out there she needed to know what she was up against.
Reno followed the instructions Jimmy had given him and went to the YouTube video in question. Then he handed his phone to Sal.
Trina went and sat on the opposite side of Sal and the three of them watched the video. Reno didn’t bother to watch it. He grew up with Sal. He knew how terrible he used to be. But Gemma and Trina only heard the stories. Now they were about to witness one. They watched the video attentively.
Sal was in what appeared to be a squad room, and was dressed in a policeman’s uniform. He was so young that it stunned Gemma. He looked to be in his early twenties. He was handsome even then. But the words coming out of his mouth weren’t.
“Fucking animal,” he said to his laughing colleagues. “Wearing his pants all the way down his ass like some stupid idiot. I wanted to pull them all the way down and give him a swift kick. So guess what? I did.”
His colleagues laughed harder.
“He said he was going to tell on me,” Sal continued. “Said he was going to report me to IA. I told him oh yeah? You’re going to tell? Then I slammed his fucking head into the fucking concrete.”
They laughed even harder.
“‘Run and tell that, motherfucker,’ I said. He shut his black ass up then.”
Then the recording went dead.
For a moment, everybody just sat there. Reno patted the top of his head, Trina leaned back, and Sal and Gemma didn’t do anything. They just sat there. Until Reno’s cell phone rang again. Sal handed it to Reno. Reno looked at the Caller ID.
“Jimmy again,” he said, and answered.
Sal looked at Gemma. He could see the pain in her eyes.
Reno hung up.
“What now?” Trina asked him.
“Jimmy says the video is on the news. Local and national. Even CNN is showing it. All a part of their racist cop theme. Sal, they say, is a shining example of why minorities have such negative views of cops.”
“That makes no sense,” Trina said. “He’s not even a cop anymore. He’s not like that anymore.”
“We know that,” Reno said. “But the world don’t give a fuck.”
Then Reno shook his head. “The Gabrini stock is going to be in freefall, folks,” he added. “We might as well prepare for a bumpy ride.”
And just as he made that proclamation, his phone, as well as Sal and Trina’s phones, began ringing. Nervous board members and jittery investors no doubt.
Reno and Trina stood up and answered their calls. But Sal was looking at Gemma. She was the only one he was concerned about. “I’m so sorry, babe,” he said with anguish in his eyes. “I was the asshole of assholes. Racist to the core. I’m sorry I was that man back then, and I’m sorry you had to see it.”
“It was a jolting thing to see,” Gemma admitted. “I don’t recognize that person.”
“But it was me,” Sal said. “I was that person. I hate to admit it. I would rather die than admit it. But that prick you just saw was exactly who I was.”
“And somebody’s trying to take advantage of who you used to be,” Gemma said. Then she thought about it. “Maybe it was somebody in that squad room,” she suggested. “Who else would have this recording? And why was it being recorded to begin with?”
Sal had no answers to give her. It was hard enough just knowing she had to witness him at his lowest. But she needed to see it. She needed to know how the public would perceive it because he knew it wasn’t going to be perceived as anything but what it was: a racist cop on a racist rant about how he brutalized a minority suspect. Pure and simple.
But when Gemma took his hand anyway, and whispered that she loved him despite his past, he knew he was going to weather this storm too.
The next evening and Blanche Delilah wrapped her shawl tighter around her slender frame as she and Victor Grotski waited in a beat up sedan. “How much longer, Victor?” she asked. “This shit is boring. I don’t want to spend my entire evening sitting in this smelly car. How much longer?”
The car was sitting idle in the parking lot across the street. Victor had binoculars. “As long as it takes,” he said, staring out of those binoculars. “That’s how much longer.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Then shut the hell up,” he said, and looked at her. “You think I’m doing this for my health? They tell me what to do. I tell you what to do. That’s how it works.”
But Blanche wasn’t interested in how it worked. They were across the street from Gemma Jones-Gabrini’s law firm, and had been sitting for nearly three hours in that beat-up sedan. Many people had come and gone, but their target hadn’t even arrived. The idea that this would be as easy as Victor was making it out to be didn’t ring true to her. “If I’m going to do this,” she said, “I want to be paid up front.”
“You get paid when the job is done,” Victor declared. “Who do you think you are? These people aren’t playing, Blanche. They expect results. They expect you to get this right. They have this planned to the last detail.”
Blanche looked at Victor. Her eyes were wide with curiosity. “Who are they?” she asked. “And why can’t I meet them if I’m going to put myself out like this?”
“You just do your job. Let me worry about the rest.”
“But you know how Sal is, Victor. He’ll kill me if this doesn’t work.”
“Why wouldn’t it work? It’s the truth! You were his kept woman and his wife didn’t know. It’s high time she found out.”
“But what if she already knows and this is a waste of time? What if Sal told her?”
“Get the fuck outta here! I told you what kind of woman she is. She’s a lawyer and she’s black. She’s not going to take all that shit Sal’s been slinging and still be with him. She knows nothing about what he really does when he’s out of her sight. Sal won’t come at you. He’ll be too busy trying to hold onto her.”
“You talk like he loves the bitch.” Blanche looked at her. “Sal doesn’t love anybody but his brother Tommy. And you know it.”
“He loves his wife,” Victor said. “I know that.”
Blanche didn’t like to hear that kind of talk. She still had a soft spot for Sal. But Victor was her man now. She had to keep the peace. “I don’t get it,” she decided to say. “Why would her knowing what kind of sleaze ball Sal is help anything? Who cares?”
“Rudy cares,” Victor said, and then looked at her as if he had just revealed a secret. “That’s who.”
Blanche’s heartbeat quickened. A puzzled look appeared on her face. “Rudy? Rudy Red? Rudy is behind this?”
Victor wasn’t supposed to reveal so much. But she had a right to know. He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. He’s pulling the strings.”
“But why? Why would he care about something like this?”
“He found out, Blanche.”
Blanche couldn’t believe it. “He found out? When?”
“He found out! Fuck when. The gig is up. I had to beg his ass to spare you. So you’d better be glad he’s letting you work your way back into his good graces.”
“He found out everything?”
Victor nodded and looked back toward the law firm building. “Everything,” he said.
Blanche still couldn’t believe it. Her eyes were darting back and forth, searching for answers. “But I don’t get it. Who told him? How could he know?”
“He knows.”
Again, Blanche was searching for answers in her mind. And what good would this do? She looked at Victor. “But I still don’t get it. How would telling Sal’s wife about my relationship with Sal help Rudy?”
“He’s a man with a plan. I told you that. You just do your job. Sal is a tough guy. But he ain’t shit compared to Rudy.”
Then Victor’s eyes grew large. “I’ll be gotdamn!” he yelled as he grabbed his binoculars to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
“What is it?” Blanche asked excitedly, and then looked toward the law firm too. When she saw that a tall black woman had walked out of the door and was now heading toward a car parked at the curb, she frowned. “Who is that?”
“That’s her,” Victor said with anguish. “That’s the wife. Gotdammit!”
Blanche was shocked. “I thought you said she hadn’t arrived yet. But she’s been inside all this time? I could have gone in hours ago?”
“They told me she drives a BMW,” Victor said. “Those fuckers said to look out for a BMW. There’s no BMW here. I’ll be gotdamn!”
Blanche looked at Gemma Jones-Gabrini. She was tall and statuesque. Dark and lovely. Very attractive.
“So that’s Mrs. Sal Gabrini,” she said. “That’s the one he picked over all of us.” Jealousy took root in Blanche’s heart. Sal was always her favorite, although the feeling, she knew, was never mutual. “She doesn’t look so special to me,” she added.
“She’s hot,” Victor said.
Blanche looked angrily at him.
Victor looked at her. “What are you looking at me like that for? Sal Luca think she’s hot.”
“What do you think?” Blanche asked.
Victor looked again at Gemma’s long black legs, and her beautiful black face, and her bouncy, natural hair. She was hot, Sal got that much right. But he didn’t give a damn either way. “She’s driving a Porsche,” he said as Gemma opened the door to her husband’s Porsche parked at the curb, and got inside. “Who the fuck confuses a Porsche for a BMW?”
They watched as Gemma drove away.
“What do we do now?” Blanche asked. “We can’t follow her all over town.”
Victor exhaled. “Go inside her law firm,” he said. “Schedule an appointment to see her. This ain’t the way he planned it, he wanted a surprise visit, but fuck it. We just need you to be able to meet with her.”
Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards Page 6