Sal looked at Liz. Looked her up and down. An attractive woman, he decided. “Sure thing,” he said. He knew a come-on when he saw one.
Liz smiled. “Katrina knows how to get in touch with me.” Then she blew a kiss at Trina and Gemma. “Bye all,” she said and left.
Sal looked at Trina and Gemma. “What, she from England or somewhere? Some English actress or something?”
“Not a real English actress,” Gemma said, “but she plays one in real life.”
Sal laughed.
“I’d better get back downstairs,” Jimmy said, “before Lee starts missing me.”
Sal looked at him. “You’re working with Lee Jones now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man. He’ll teach you the ropes, that’s for sure.”
Jimmy looked at Trina. “Call me as soon as you hear from Dad, please.”
“I will,” Trina said.
“Bye, Miss Jones.”
“Bye, Jimmy Mack,” Gemma said with a smile. She was still smiling when Jimmy left. “Such a sweet boy.”
“Ha!” Sal said with a one-syllable laugh. “He’s got you snowed!”
Gemma found Sal rather rude, but she quickly dismissed him anyway. And she looked at Trina. “I’ll get the paperwork back to the realtor,” she said, “and then the hard work begins.”
“The inventory?” Trina asked.
“The inventory,” Gemma said.
And then she and Trina began a discussion on the challenges ahead. Sal found himself staring at Gemma. She was black as the night, he thought, with high cheekbones and short hair, and big brown eyes as beautiful and expressive as a painting. She could very well be the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, or the ugliest. He couldn’t decide which. And that smile. And those African lips. Damn, he thought. Where did she come from?
Trina’s cell phone began to ring. She pulled it out and looked at the Caller ID. When she saw it was Reno, she quickly excused herself. “Excuse me, but I have to take this,” she said and hurried out of her office door.
Gemma began to put all of the various documents that were on the table back into her briefcase. Sal continued to gaze at her. She looked at him before he had a chance to look away.
“What are you staring at, Hawkeye?”
Sal at first thought she was going to say something pleasant. A woman who looked like her should be filled with pleasantries. He didn’t expect her to say that. “Who are you calling Hawkeye?” he asked her.
“The man who keeps staring at me as if he were a Hawk staring at his next meal. Didn’t your mama tell you it was rude to stare?”
“Well kiss your ass,” Sal said.
“You wish,” Gemma replied.
Sal at first didn’t know how to take her. Then he smiled, and then laughed. Well I’ll be damn, he said to himself.
Trina, outside in her secretary’s office, was on the phone with Reno. “Who’s Eddie?” she asked him.
Reno was on his car phone in his Porsche. He was driving back to the PaLargio. “He’s Ashley’s boyfriend,” he said to Trina. “He’s the one who did the deal with Tony.”
“And they found him already?”
“They found him a few minutes ago. They’re on their way to try and pick him up now and take him to the safe house. Then they’ll call me.”
“Will they take him to the same house where you have Ash and Coop?”
“Hell nall,” Reno said. “I don’t play that. It’s a different one. Ashley was a pawn. She and Coop don’t know shit. Once we have Eddie under our guard, I’ll let them go. But this Eddie is the key.”
Trina was always amazed at how many houses Reno really owned. From what she’d discovered over the years, he had safe houses all over the country. Or, as he once called them, emergency houses. “You think Eddie can tell you what’s going on and why they targeted Jimmy?” Trina asked him.
“If he knows he’ll tell us.”
“Don’t let them kill the man, Reno,” Trina found herself saying. The idea that there could be a mob war, or something equally as bad, worried her. Everybody changed when there was a war. Nobody, especially not Reno, remained the same.
“If he gives up the goods, he has nothing to worry about.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Reno didn’t respond to that. Trina knew better than to ask him something like that.
She wanted to tell him her good news, that she had signed the lease, but now was not the time. Which was another reason why she hated these mob wars. “Sal’s here,” she said instead.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m heading back. To pick him up. I’ll call for him when I get there. Oh, and tell Lou to have the Bentley ready. I need the space. Jimmy’s coming with me too.”
“Jimmy?” Trina asked with fear in her voice.
“Don’t worry,” Reno said. “He’s been up my ass about seeing that girl and I promised him he could. I’m going to take him to see her. He can stay there with her and Coop while Sal and I go and interrogate Eddie. After I talk to Eddie, then I hope to let Ash and Coop go. That should satisfy Jimmy.”
“I wish he wasn’t involved in this at all.”
“So do I,” Reno said with a frown on his face. “God knows so do I.”
CHAPTER NINE
Reno’s Bentley roared through Vegas heading for the outskirts of town. Sal Luca sat on the front passenger seat, and Jimmy Mack sat on the backseat.
“And you haven’t heard a thing?” Reno asked Sal.
“Nothing,” Sal said. “Not one word. And I checked around too. Most of the wise guys I know thought that fucker was dead. Some of them thought he killed himself after you took the PaLargio from him.”
“Get your facts straight, Sal,” Reno said irritably. “I didn’t take shit from Tony. He lost it. I bought that place fair and square.”
“Nobody said you didn’t. It was just a figure of speech, damn, Reno. Maybe Jimmy’s right. You’re overreacting to everything.”
Reno glanced at his son through the rearview mirror on the windshield. If they’d been through what Reno had been through in this life, they’d be overreacting too. Reno had lost one son behind some crazy man seeking revenge, he wasn’t about to lose another one.
He turned onto Lexington and headed for the house at the end of the cookie-cutter, suburban street.
“And what about this Eddie Dreeson?” Sal asked. “Nobody never heard of him either. Where did he come from?”
“He’s a small time hood,” Reno said. “Deal in stolen goods mostly. A nobody. This alliance with Tony was supposed to be his big payday.”
“Yeah, we got his payday alright,” Sal said, and he and Reno bumped fists. They used to bumped heads most of the time, especially when Sal was disrespectful to Trina early on, but few men, in Reno’s opinion, were better than Sal at sniffing out thugs.
Reno pulled into the driveway of the small, block house at the end of the street. Jimmy, so excited to see his friends again, was already unbuckling his seatbelt.
“How much was the payday?” Sal was asking.
“Two hundred Gs,” Reno replied.
“Well damn,” Sal said. “How a punk like Tony Tufarna get to toss that kind of dough?”
“He’s got to have a backer,” Reno said as he killed the engine.
“You mean like wise guys?”
“Hell yeah,” Reno said. “Who else would be targeting me?”
Sal lifted his eyebrows. “You got a point there,” he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car.
Jimmy was out first, followed by Reno and Sal. All he could think about was Ashley, and if she was okay after the beating his father had put on her. The idea of it still angered Jimmy. And if she had any bruise on her at all, he thought as he moved ahead of his father and Sal, then somebody was going to answer to him. He knew it was all bluster and no bite. But he couldn’t help how he felt.
And just as he was about to run up the steps to the front door of the house, that same house exploded
with such an explosion that it threw Jimmy back against his father. Reno immediately grabbed him and threw him to the ground, covering his son with his own body. Sal, too, was thrown to the ground as the once peaceful house went up in a blaze of smoke and fire.
As soon as the ringing subsided somewhat in Reno’s ears, and he was able to regain his senses, he jumped to his feet. Sal and Jimmy, too, were getting to their feet.
“Get in the car!” Reno ordered Jimmy.
But Jimmy wasn’t trying to hear that. “Ashley’s in there,” he was saying. “Ashley!”
He ran toward the house, but Reno pulled him back. Even Sal had to come over and help keep Jimmy back.
“I’ve got to help her!” Jimmy was screaming. “What are you doing! Ashley’s in there! I can’t let her die like this! I can’t let her die!”
Jimmy broke free from both men, with his torn shirt the only thing left of him in his father’s hand. He began running up what was left of the steps. He began running to get to his beloved Ashley.
But then a second explosion rocked the little that remained of the house, and rocked him back onto his butt. Reno and Sal then hurried over and pulled an even more devastated Jimmy back from the fire.
And they all just knelt there, as neighbors began to run out of their own homes too. They all were unable to believe what they were viewing. Especially Reno, Sal, and Jimmy, because they knew the truth. Ashley and Cooper and all of Reno’s people who manned the safe house, could not possibly have survived a blast like that.
The doors to Trina’s office barged open and a small army of guards, led by Lou and Artie, hurried in. Trina, who was sitting behind her desk on a conference call with the agent to one of the PaLargio’s biggest stars, stood to her feet.
“You’ve got to come with us now, Tree,” Lou said as he walked toward her desk.
“I’ll call you back,” Trina immediately said and clicked off the telephone. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s been a breach.”
“The safe house?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What kind of breach?”
Lou exhaled. “An explosion.”
Trina’s heart dropped. “What about Ashley and her brother?”
“I don’t know the details like that, ma’am.”
“But Reno’s heading to that safe house,” she said, beginning to panic. “And Jimmy and Sal Luca are with him. What about them?”
“They’re all okay. That I know. They’re shaken, but okay. They’re answering questions from the authorities now, but then Reno’s heading home.”
Trina began to think. The idea of Reno exposed like that! “Get him a full escort coming back in,” she ordered.
“I offered that, ma’am,” Lou said, “but he declined.”
“I don’t give a damn what he declined!” Trina blared. “You get an escort for my husband and you get it now!”
Lou nodded his head. Trina was right. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Right away. But right now you have to come with me.”
Trina didn’t hesitate. “To where?” she asked as she began hurrying toward him.
“The penthouse. Reno ordered me to make sure you and the baby stay right there, under guard, until he gets here.”
Trina wasn’t about to defy that order. Just as she was hoping Reno didn’t defy hers.
“Move that motherfucker and move him now!” Reno screamed into his car phone. He was flying up Las Vegas Boulevard with Sal on his front passenger seat and Jimmy in the back. Four SUVs were escorting them in: two in front of the Bentley, two in the back. Trina, to Reno’s surprise, had insisted upon it.
“Number ten is gone,” he continued. “Burned down to the ground. So move him. We’ve got a super-ass breach and I don’t know how deep.”
Briggs, one of Reno’s men, was on the other end of the phone. “Take him where, boss?” he asked. “To another one?”
“No. If they knew about this one in Vegas, they’ll know about the others in Vegas.”
Then Reno thought about it. “Take him to the basement, Briggs,” Reno said and Sal, surprised, looked at him. But Reno kept talking. “Don’t use any new people,” he ordered. “If they haven’t been with us for years, don’t use them. If there’s somebody who’s been with us for years that you don’t trust, don’t use them. Don’t take any fucking chances, Briggs! We can’t afford another fuck-up.”
“Yes, sir,” Briggs could be heard saying loud and clear over the phone. Then Reno killed the call.
“Gotdammit!” he yelled as he rammed his palm against the steering wheel. “That fucker killed those two kids! How could he kill kids!”
Then he thought about Jimmy, and looked at his son through the rearview mirror on his windshield. Jimmy had begged him to release Ash and Cooper. Trina had begged him. Now this. But if Reno expected emotion from Jimmy, he didn’t get it. Jimmy was staring out of the side window, as if he was in a trance.
“Who the fuck would target them, though?” Sal wanted to know. “Tony Tufarna?”
“It’s crazy. Tony’s no idiot. He had to know those kids didn’t know shit.”
“But he killed them anyway?”
“Because it wasn’t about them,” Reno said, driving faster, hitting his steering wheel again. “It was about me.”
Jimmy looked at his father.
“You?” Sal asked.
“Me,” Reno confirmed. “He was sending a message to me.”
Jimmy waited for his father to continue, but nothing more was said. So Jimmy asked the question as he fought with everything within him to maintain his composure. “What’s the message?” he asked.
Sal turned and looked at Jimmy. “Don’t fuck with Tufarna,” he said. “What else?”
Jimmy’s heart dropped. He knew what that meant. He knew his father was now under the gun. He knew there would probably be another mob war. But it was all Reno’s fault, as far as Jimmy was concerned. He should have never detained Ash and Coop. If he wouldn’t have kept them at that so-called “safe” house, they would be alive right now. And there was no getting around that cold, terrible fact, as far as Jimmy was concerned.
He looked back out of the window, and refused to think about anything at all.
Reno’s Bentley and the SUVs stopped at the entrance at the PaLargio and the armed guards, with their weapons concealed, hurried out to escort Reno, Sal, and Jimmy into the building. Lou was waiting for them in the lobby.
“My family?” Reno asked as he walked up to Lou inside the crowded lobby.
“They’re secure,” Lou said as he followed Reno and his entourage to the private elevator. “What about Eddie Dreeson?”
“I told Briggs to move him. But I don’t want that discussed. We’ve got us a nasty breach and I want it sealed before anybody knows anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you downsize?”
“I did. I pulled every man I didn’t personally recruit off of the detail. The only ones left are the vets.”
“That’s not a one percent guarantee either, but it’s the best we’re going to be able to do right now. Get a list of the ones remaining and give it to Sal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’ll have his people check out each and every one of them.”
“Will do,” Lou said. “What about Briggs? You told him to downsize too?”
“Yeah, I told him. Gotdammit. Yeah.”
They all stepped onto the private elevator, Reno, Jimmy, and Sal, and rode up. They all stepped off at the penthouse.
Twenty armed guards were roaming the corridor outside of the apartment.
Sal laughed. “Damn, Reno,” he said. “The pope don’t get this much protection. What are you doing?”
But Reno would have none of that. “My wife and child are in that penthouse,” he said. “What do you think?”
As soon as they entered the penthouse, Trina ran to Reno and threw her arms around him. He swept her up into a big bear hug.
“I’m all righ
t,” he said.
Trina stopped hugging him to look him over. “You look so tired,” she said.
“I’m okay.”
The phone began to ring. Lou hurried to answer it.
“What happened?” she asked. “Are they dead?”
Reno exhaled, slung open his rumpled suit coat, and placed his hands on his hips. “Yes,” he said.
Trina looked distraught. “Those poor children!”
Then she looked at Jimmy. Reno and Sal looked too.
“I’m so sorry, Mack,” Trina said.
Jimmy murmured something that no-one could understand.
“Speak up, kid, what did you say?” Sal asked him.
“I said,” Jimmy said loudly this time, “who’s going to tell their parents?”
Reno’s heart dropped. It had certainly come down to that. He reached out to Jimmy, but Jimmy pulled away.
“Telephone, Reno,” Lou said as he held the house phone up.
“I’m going to my apartment,” Jimmy insisted.
“No,” Reno said firmly. “Until I get a handle on what exactly is going on here, you stay put. I’m sorry, I know you can’t stand my guts right now, but no. You aren’t going anywhere.” Then Reno hurried to answer the phone. Sal pulled out his cell phone, and began to move away too. He had to find out if any of his contacts knew this safe house bombing was coming.
Trina went over to Jimmy and rubbed his arm. “It’s a rough time right now,” she said to him. “But it’ll all work out.”
It was obvious to her, however, that Jimmy didn’t want to hear that positive talk right now. But to her surprise he did tolerate her show of affection. At least for a moment. He fault back the tears Trina knew he wanted to shed, and tolerated her kindness. But as soon as the memories reappeared, of that horrific explosion, of the fact that Ash and Coop were in that explosion, he had to get away. He tore away from Trina and hurried down the long hallway inside the big penthouse. He entered the bedroom that used to be his bedroom before Reno gave him his own apartment, and slammed the door.
The sun was going down again, but you wouldn’t know it by the energy along the Vegas Strip as Reno and Trina sat quietly in patio chairs on the penthouse balcony. They sat in direct contradiction to the energy around them, because both of them were emotionally and physically drained.
MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) Page 11