Everybody nodded their heads. She had a point they couldn’t dispute. Sal smiled, and squeezed her hand. That was his reasoning exactly. “As I said,” Sal said, “Gemma’s my attorney.” But then he looked at Reno and Tommy and said a word Gemma knew, but didn’t understand why Sal would suddenly be saying it. “Gitmo,” he said to the men.
Although Gemma didn’t understand what Sal meant using that term, Tommy and Reno understood loud and clear. It was the term all three of them used when they needed the others to get information, but was not in a setting where they could be specific.
GITMO: Get In Touch (with) My Organization. Which meant they were to contact Angelo Romano, Sal’s main man. Which meant there was more trouble than just this arrest.
Reno nodded. “You know it,” he said.
Reno and Tommy walked into the safe house after a long conversation with Sal’s men. Angelo told them about Victor’s claim that Rudy’s son was Sal’s son. They were both shocked, but they knew that kind of problem was for Sal and Gemma to handle. Their task was singular. Victor was the target. When they saw him sitting downstairs, in the middle of the basement, with a swollen face and a battered body, they knew their task was practically done.
“Damn,” Reno said as he and Tommy surrounded him. “Sal beat the shit out of you.”
“Where’s Blanche, Victor?” Tommy asked him. “That’s your name, right? Victor? Where’s Blanche?”
Victor could barely speak. His mouth should have been wired shut. He was in bad shape. But Reno and Tommy didn’t give a fuck.
“Where’s Blanche?” Tommy asked him again.
It took all the strength Victor had. “I don’t know,” he managed to say, and Reno managed to wrap his arm around Victor’s neck. Then he leaned his head back and pointed a gun to his brain. “Come again, motherfucker,” Reno said.
Victor began to move around in an attempt to break free of Reno. But he stared at that gun. He was on Sal’s turf. He knew it was no use. “Dead,” he admitted.
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Reno said. “Who iced her, Victor?”
He hesitated again. “I did,” he said.
Tommy and Reno looked at each other.
“Rudy said I had to. She told her story to Sal’s old lady. That’s all he needed her for. He was gonna kill me if I didn’t take her out.”
“I thought she was your woman, Victor,” Reno said. “That’s how you treat your woman?”
Victor could only shake his head. Nothing about his life was right, including what he was forced to do to Blanche.
“Here’s what else you’re going to do,” Reno said to him. “You’re going to turn yourself in, admit to killing Blanche because she cheated on you, and take your punishment. Keep Rudy Red out of it. Your ass better keep Sal out of it. It was all on you. And what do you get in return?”
Victor looked at Reno as if he was about to tell him what the surprise in the bottom of the Crackerjack box was.
“You get to live,” Reno said. “Your ass is going to jail for life, but you get to live.”
Early that next morning, Gemma’s monumental task was to get Sal out on bail. But the State of Nevada pulled out all the stops. It was obvious from the beginning that their unwavering desire was to make certain Salvatore Luciano Gabrini was never released.
Gemma sat at the Defense table beside her husband with a wariness she couldn’t suppress. The District Attorney himself was handling the bail hearing, and he was masterful. Tommy, Reno, and Jimmy were among those in the court’s gallery, and even they were impressed. They had the big fish now. They had Sal Gabrini. And they wasn’t about to let him go.
“He is a man of means,” the D.A. said in his argument to the judge, “which automatically makes him a flight risk. He’s a menace to society, your honor. Any man who would kidnap, rape, and murder an innocent woman, as we are alleging Mr. Gabrini has done, in the most vile and inhumane way. He has a trail of murder and wreckage as big as this city, and a man like him should never again see the light of freedom. We contend, in fact, that Salvatore Luciano is a mob boss and the undisputed head of the Gabrini organized crime family syndicate. Granting bail to a man such as this would be tantamount to granting bail to a serial killer.”
Tommy and Reno looked at Gemma. Why wasn’t she objecting to such outlandish accusations? They weren’t some organized crime family! Why wasn’t she standing and voicing her outrage? Sal was concerned too. He wanted to beat the shit out of that arrogant D.A. But he trusted Gemma. He remained still and waited.
And Gemma simply listened. She listened to every argument the District Attorney had to make. And then the attorney sat down. And Gemma stood up.
“Your Honor,” she addressed the court, “Salvatore Luciano Gabrini has been charged with the murder of a Blanche Delilah. The District Attorney is asking that no bail be set. They are so stubborn in their request that they won’t even suggest an amount should the judge rule against their request. But yet, when asked why no bail should be granted, the only real evidence they provide is that Mr. Gabrini is a man of means. Everything else were pure conjecture, innuendo, and, if I may be so bold, lies, your Honor. They are lying on Mr. Gabrini. They call him a mob boss. Indeed, they say he is the, and I quote, ‘undisputed head of the Gabrini crime family syndicate.’ There is no Gabrini crime family syndicate, your Honor. So to refuse to grant bail based on a fact that is not in evidence will be wrong and unconstitutional on its face.”
Reno and Tommy were beginning to feel better about the situation. Gemma was clear and forceful to them. They looked at Sal. He looked pleased too.
“Then,” Gemma continued, “the D.A. insisted that Mr. Gabrini was a menace to society, a murderer even, and to set bail for his release would be tantamount, he said, to granting bail to a serial killer. How’s that? Where’s the proof of that? Mr. Gabrini has never been convicted of any crime, let alone a series of murders. He runs a major corporation, so he’s absolutely no flight risk. The idea that he has been running around disrupting this city is a farce. Mr. Gabrini is a successful businessman handling his own business. He’s not menacing anybody. I would ask that bail be granted, and I ask, given Mr. Gabrini’s true record, not the D.A. fantasy record, that the bail be set at no more than two hundred thousand dollars.”
Gemma sat down. She knew the bail amount she requested was woefully small, but that was by intention. She needed to give the judge room to appear fair and impartial. He could grant Sal bail, but he could grant it at an astronomical amount. Sal and Gemma didn’t care about the amount. They just wanted the judge to grant bail.
And he did. The D.A. speculative claims were dismissed. “Bail will be set,” the judge said, “at five million dollars.”
Gemma stood up. “Thank you, your Honor,” she said, and sat back down beside Sal. Sal squeezed her hand.
But before Sal could be processed out, Victor Grotski came in and confessed to the murder of Blanche Delilah. He came with irrefutable evidence, with information the State had not released to the public, and eagerly confessed. Court was reconvened later that afternoon, and all charges against Salvatore Gabrini were dropped.
Although Reno and Tommy sat mute, they were bursting with gladness inside. But they were in a court of law. They weren’t about to let cops and judges get any rise out of them, happy or sad.
Besides, they knew they had their work cut out for them. Rudy Red was still on the loose. Sal’s supposed son was in Rudy’s camp. They had more work to do.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As soon as they made it home, Sal headed to his home office. Reno and Tommy hurried behind him. Gemma hurried behind them.
When she arrived, Sal had already opened the wall that hid his massive gun collection, and was pulling out weapons.
“We need to talk, Sal,” Tommy said.
Sal stopped pulling out guns and exhaled. They were all standing around his desk. Gemma stood beside Tommy.
“Is it clean?” Sal asked.
Ren
o nodded. “It’s clean. My men did a full sweep. It’s clean.”
Gemma knew what they meant. Reno’s men had entered their home and checked it inside out for any listening devices the police or anybody else might have planted. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of others entering her home without her permission, but Reno was there to supervise. It was the price of being a Gabrini. A price well worth the cost.
“Did you guys talk to Ang?” Sal asked.
“We talked to him,” Tommy said. “We talked to Victor too.”
Sal nodded. “I already figured that one out when they told me he confessed. Was it a payoff,” he added, “or did he really ice Blanche?”
“It was no payoff,” Reno said. “He snuffed her out alright. He says Rudy Red made him do it.”
Gemma frowned. “Who’s Rudy Red?”
Tommy and Reno didn’t look at her. They looked at Sal. This was yet another ghost in his closet that could strangle his relationship with Gem. And they didn’t like it.
Sal didn’t like it either. But there was nothing he could do to change it now. “He’s a hood I knew when we first moved to the west coast. Drug dealer mainly. He ran operations from Seattle to L.A. to here in Vegas. He was much older than I was. I was like eighteen-nineteen. He was like thirty-something. But his old lady was more around my age. And she was tired of what he was putting out. So she came to me.”
Gemma smiled. “And you obliged her I’m sure.”
Sal wasn’t able to smile, but he only hoped, as he told her more, she would hold onto that smile. “I obliged her,” he said. “But we had to be careful. Neither one of us had any power back then, and Rudy Red had plenty. We played around behind his back.”
Then Gemma hesitated. She frowned. “Blanche Delilah?” she asked. “Rudy Red’s girlfriend was Blanche Delilah?”
Sal knew that wasn’t the main story. “Yes, Gemma,” he said. “It was Blanche.”
“So you think she hooked up with this Rudy Red and thought telling me about your relationship would take you down?”
Sal nodded. “That’s what we think, yeah.”
“But why would something like that take you down?” Gemma asked.
“It almost did,” Tommy said.
“Don’t underestimate the love a man has for his woman, Gem,” Reno said. “In our game, it’s called leverage. Rudy must have known how much Sal loves you, and he wanted to exploit that knowledge.”
“He wanted to turn the people I love most against me,” Sal said. “He wanted to turn you against me with Blanche. He wanted to turn Tommy against me with that discrimination lawsuit.”
“But how would that turn Tommy against you?” Gemma asked.
“Because it could have destroyed the corporation Tommy worked so hard to build,” Reno said. “Everybody knows Tommy don’t play when it comes to his coins.”
Tommy smiled. “That’s true,” he said.
“So you figure this Rudy Red was behind all of this?” Gemma asked.
Reno nodded. “He’s behind it. Sal’s people have been beating the pavements. My people have been beating the pavements. They all come back to the same name: Rudy Red Balotti.”
“But when none of that shit worked,” Sal said, “he tries to gun you down at that courthouse.”
Gemma stared at Sal. “So you think I was the target?”
Sal nodded. “Yeah, Gem. I think so. He wanted to take it to another level.”
“How do you mean?”
“When his henchmen missed you,” Sal said, “he knew he had to stop working around the edges and come straight for me.”
“By setting you up for Blanche Delilah’s murder?” Gemma asked.
Sal nodded. “Yeah.”
“But what if it’s not him? What if this Rudy Red turns out to be innocent?”
“It’s him,” Reno said. “We didn’t just take Victor Grotski’s word for it. Like I told you, once we got a name; once we knew the fucker behind this shit was Rudy Red, my people and Sal’s people were able to go to the right sources. They all confirmed that it’s Rudy. It’s him.”
Tommy looked at Sal. “He’ll be here in Vegas in a couple days,” he said.
Sal was pleased to hear it. “Good. Where’s his hangout?”
“He runs some chop shop across town,” Tommy said. “A major operation in a warehouse that looks condemned. Every end of month he comes down to pick up the loot.”
“He’s always been a creature of habit,” Sal said.
Tommy nodded. “That’s what you can count on. But you can’t get close to him. Don’t even try it. They call him Fort Knox Walking when he goes anywhere because of the level of security around him. But the thing is, where he goes, his security goes. Even inside buildings. They don’t hang outside.”
“His driver too?” Sal asked.
Tommy smiled. “His driver too.”
“So it’ll have to be the car,” Sal said.
“When he and his men go inside,” Tommy suggested, “that’s when your men will have to strike.”
Sal nodded. “Me and my crew can handle it. We shouldn’t need any backup. It has to be a small operation by definition.”
“Does that mean I can go back to my life now?” Tommy asked with a smile.
Sal smiled too. “You can go back. And thanks for coming.”
“But don’t do any remote control shit, Sal,” Reno warned. “If it’s going to blow, it’ll have to be the old fashioned way.”
“You mean plant the bomb and go?” Sal asked.
“Plant it and go,” Reno agreed. “That’s the only way. Just hang around close enough should something malfunction. But you can’t try to detonate by remote. The Feds are too technologically sophisticated now. I hear those fuckers can trace even a throwaway if it’s connected to a bomb. It’s not worth the risk.”
“I hear you,” Sal said, nodding. “I hear you, Reno.”
“There’s a vacant building across the alley from the warehouse,” Tommy said. “You and your men can wait there and make sure there are no glitches. Then take off around back before the cops get there.”
“And if there are glitches,” Sal said, “and we don’t get out of the area in time, then I’ll have a backup story. I was looking to purchase that vacant building.”
“Good idea,” Tommy said. “But set it up today. They will check it out you know. Plan to meet with the realtor over there.”
“But it’ll have to be somebody in our pocket,” Reno said. “If the cops call, the realtor can claim he was running late, but your alibi was right. He was supposed to meet you over there.”
“But remember to call and schedule the appointment,” Tommy said. “We need all the records in place should the Feds check. And they will check.”
Sal nodded. He understood.
There was a time when Gemma would have left the room before she allowed herself to hear about an assassination plot like the one the men were discussing. But after that arrest and the jeopardy this Rudy Red put her husband in, where the State was talking about giving Sal the death penalty, she wasn’t thinking about Rudy Red’s welfare. He started it, Sal was going to finish it. Her concern wasn’t about their target. It was about what was driving their target.
“What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why would he do all of this? It can’t possibly be because Sal was sleeping with his girlfriend twenty years ago, or however long it was. That can’t possibly be the reason, right?” Gemma looked from Sal to Tommy and Reno, and then back to Sal.
Sal knew it was time to have another come to Jesus meeting with Gem. He couldn’t tell her while he was incarcerated. They both knew, even though it wasn’t supposed to be allowed, that their conversations were more than likely being listened to. But he was out now. He had to come clean. He looked at Tommy and Reno. “Give us a minute,” he said.
As Tommy and Reno left the room, Gemma’s heart began to pound. What now?
“Sit down, Gem,” Sal said, and she took a seat on the couch in the office.
Sal sat down beside her.
One night in jail had aged him already, Gemma noticed. He was not the kind of man who was going to be able to be locked up. He would kill himself first. That was why, she decided right then and there, that she was going to always be his attorney first. She was always going to do everything in her power to keep him free.
But when he didn’t start talking, she became more concerned. “What is it, Sal?” she asked him.
“Remember when Blanche told you that I was the father of her child?”
Gemma’s chest squeezed. “Is it true?”
“I didn’t know shit about it,” Sal said. But then an anguished look appeared on his face. “But it might be true, yeah.”
Gemma’s heart dropped.
“I found out the morning the Feds arrested me. She had a boy, Gemma. All along we were thinking she meant some baby, or at least some minor child.”
“That’s how she made it sound.”
“I know. But she got pregnant twenty years ago, when we were kids fooling around. She had to tell Rudy it was his kid or he would have killed her and me both. And he would have, Gem. He was a bad man back then. My old man might have been high ranking in the police force, and I might have been gearing up for my own police career, but that didn’t mean shit to gangsters then. It just meant Rudy would have enjoyed icing me all the more.”
“But what about this child?” Gemma asked. “How can you be certain he’s yours, Sal? And I thought you said you never saw her pregnant.”
“I didn’t,” Sal said affirmatively. “From what I understand she got Rudy to let her go to Arizona while she was pregnant, to stay with his mother or somebody. I never saw her pregnant. Nobody did.”
“How did Rudy find out the boy wasn’t his?”
“Victor Grotski started fucking around with Blanche and Blanche told him. And Victor, being the snitch that he is, went straight to Rudy with the news.”
“So what happened?” Gemma asked. “He took a DNA test?”
“That’s when he ordered it. From the way I figure it, he got some sample from the kid under false pretenses because he didn’t want the boy to know the truth. And it was confirmed. The boy wasn’t his. And he supposedly went nuts. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill Blanche right then and there, and then come looking for me. But Victor convinced him to keep her around. That I was the real enemy here because I had the power to take that boy away from him if the truth ever got out. So he used Blanche to begin his takedown of me. He needed her to get to you.”
Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards Page 14