“Oh, I can’t complain. Or at least I won’t.” He smiled that devastatingly gorgeous smile of his. “When did you get back in town?”
“Yesterday. I’m just visiting. What about you?”
“Oh, I been back for years now.”
“No shit? You left Nevada?”
“Oh, yeah, girl, where you been?”
Trying to survive after your doped-up ass tried to jump on me, Trina started to say. “When did you leave Nevada?” she said instead.
“Just after our big blow up, just after you left. I was a mess then, you know I was. Strung out on drugs, running around with everything in a skirt, I wasn’t used to that kind of lifestyle.”
Trina nodded. “I hear ya’, bud,” she said. “I wasn’t used to it, either. Only I didn’t leave Nevada. I just landed in a different place.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Vegas. Got a job waiting tables at a strip joint of all places.”
“A strip joint? You? But why? You had skills. You used to be a club manager.”
“I know. I’m in training to be one now.” Although she wasn’t sure if Reno was going to still sanction her apprenticeship. Before they hooked up for real she had a sneaking suspicion he had hired her as a management apprentice to keep her under his thumb. And even as his girlfriend she believed he liked the fact that he could keep an eye on her if she worked for him. Now, however, she was his wife. He might not see the benefits of his wife working for him. But that was too bad, Trina thought. She had every intention of continuing to work, especially in a field she enjoyed. Although she also knew she would have to battle Reno first.
“So you’re in training to manage which club?”
Trina sipped more Coke. “Don’t know which one yet. But it’ll be at the PaLargio,” she said.
“Whaaat,” Jeffrey said, the word strung out as if it were a song. “Get outta here. You serious? The Pa-Lar-gi-o?” He sounded out every syllable. “Dang, girl. I didn’t know places like that even hired people like us.”
Trina knew what he meant. Jazz, her best friend back in Vegas, felt the same way. It was as if they had placed themselves into a box and had no real hope of getting out of it. Jazz eventually stepped out, when Trina helped to get her a job at the PaLargio, but somebody like Jeffrey, who actually believed his attainments were limited, never would.
“It helps to be married to the owner,” Trina said, mainly to show him that life wasn’t as limiting as he thought. But also to tell it to somebody. Normally she wouldn’t flaunt her happiness around like that. But Jeffrey was her home boy, was good to her back in the day, before he got on drugs.
But Jeffrey didn’t seem to understand. “What you mean?” he asked her. When Trina showed him her diamond wedding ring, he looked at the ring, and then back into her eyes. At first it still didn’t dawn on him. But then, as she kept smiling, it did. “Are you trying to tell me,” he said, “are you telling me that you, are you saying that you, Tree Hathaway, married the owner of the Pa-Lar-gi-o ?”
Trina smiled. “That’s right.”
“Whaaat?”
“For real though.”
“But I thought. . .”
Trina’s heart dropped. Did he know about Reno’s mob connections too? Was it common knowledge that even an outsider like Jeff would know about it? “But you thought what?” she asked him.
“I don’t mean to be funny,” he said, “but I thought the owner of the Pa-Lar-gi-o, like all of those other casino owners, was white.”
Trina smiled. Oh, that. “He is.”
Jeffrey nodded. His smile was still there, but not as warm. “And that’s okay with your folks? You marrying a white boy, I mean?”
“They’re still getting used to it. Especially Ma. But she’ll come around.”
Jeffrey nodded again, his smile becoming warmer again, as if he was slowly coming around too. “This is some news, Tree,” he said. “I expected you to land on your feet, but damn, girl.” Trina laughed. “The owner of the Pa-Lar-gi-o? Wow. I don’t know what to say, I’m serious. But congratulations. That’s what I’ll say. Congrats. And by the way, does he have a sister?”
Trina laughed again. “Two of them, but they’re both married.”
“Damn. But lightening never strikes twice anyway, right?”
Trina didn’t know if she liked her marriage to Reno being compared to lightening striking, but in a way she understood what he meant. “I guess not,” she said.
“Main question,” Jeffrey said, holding up a finger, “is he good to you?”
This was an odd question coming from him, Trina thought, especially considering the major fight they had the night she left him, and all of the women he ran around with while they were together. But she’d moved on from Jeffrey a long time ago. “Yes,” she said. “Real good. He took me to Paris, J.”
“Paris? Paris, Texas?”
Trina laughed. Jeffrey was always good for a laugh. “No, silly. France.”
“Wow. For real, though? So you’ve seen Paris since last we met.” Trina smiled. It was a line they used to use as kids. Whenever one of them went away for summer vacation or something, they’d come back and claim that they saw Paris the last time they met. It was from a poem they once had to read for a school project, and became their running gag.
“Yes,” she said as a sadness washed over her. She missed that old Jeff, the best friend, the school mate, before they made the biggest mistake of their lives and became lovers. “I’ve seen Paris since last we met.”
“That’s great, Tree,” he continued. “If anybody would, I knew it would be you.” Then he smiled. “You certainly look good,” he said, his gorgeous eyes scanning the length of her. “Real good.”
Trina smiled, but felt uncomfortable with his scan. “So what about you?” she said. “What you been up to?”
“Was working over at Maxi’s garage for a minute.”
“Really?”
“Was, yeah. Got laid off a few weeks ago. The economy, you know.”
“I know. It’s bad all around.”
Jeffrey stared at her, as if something had suddenly dawned on him. “Tree?” he asked.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You don’t think your husband, I mean the owner of the PaLargio, could consider hiring me, could he? I mean, I worked casinos all up and down Reno, you know I did. Was good at it too.”
“Until that drug culture, which you know is a major part of every show town like Reno, like Vegas, took control.”
“But I been clean for over two years now, Tree. I can’t stand that shit now. I just wanna make it now.”
Trina stared at him. Who was she to judge anyway? “Yeah, sure, Jeff. I’m sure there’s some place we can find for you.” That was a bold statement, she knew it. But she also knew Reno would do that favor for her.
Jeffrey grinned. “Oh, Tree,” he said, unable to hide his elation, “you don’t know what this means to me. I been wanting to leave this town since I got back here, but the job kept me here.”
“Where’re your folks?”
“They’re here too, but they’ll be happy when I’m able to give them some real cash again.”
Trina laughed. “I hear that,” she said.
“I see your folks around town sometimes, but I don’t think they remember me. So I just don’t even bother to speak.”
“They know your name, that’s all,” Trina said. “I don’t think they ever knew your face. They just knew that I hooked up with the club bouncer and took off with him. But anyway,” she added, pulling a pad and pen from her purse, “I’ll give you my cell number. Come to Vegas in a couple weeks, to the PaLargio. I should be back in town by then. Ask for me. I’ll hook you up.”
Jeffrey smiled, wanted to kiss her. “You have made me a very happy man,” he said, knowing that Katrina Hathaway always kept her word. “Oh,” he said, thinking of something. “What do I call you? What’s your last name now?”
“Gabrini,” she said proudly. “Katrina Gabrini.”
And Trina had to smile, too, because Reno was screaming those very words this morning, as he pounded her.
THREE
The Gabrini family’s east coast compound was located in Somers Point, New Jersey, some eighteen miles southwest of Atlantic City, and was barely visible from the street. The massive security gates, manned by men with guns and dogs, opened electronically and the limo carrying Reno and his brother-in-law Carmine Rossi, a man he used to call his cousin when they were kids, made its way to the back of the property, where the actual home stood. Ritchie, Reno’s other brother-in-law, a muscular young man everybody called Dirty, met the limo at the front door. When Reno stepped out, the two men hugged.
“How’s Ma?” Reno asked him.
Dirty shook his head. “She’s Ma. One minute she’s fine, talking good sense, getting along with the people. The next minute she’s all mad and frustrated, talking about how Pop’s gonna kick our asses when he gets back. We say, ‘Ma, Pop’s dead, you know that.’ She looks up at us, with those big blues, you know, but she don’t see nothing. Just look. She’s in and out. She’s Ma.”
Reno exhaled, looked around. “I see security’s beefed up,” he said, buttoning his suit coat and glancing around at the numerous armed guards around the compound. “That’s good. You done good, Dirty. You done good, Carmine!” he yelled across his shoulder as Carmine came around from the other side of the limo and stood beside him. Both men looked up to Reno, and both were thrilled he was there, to give them some direction. They weren’t accustomed to being in charge, and neither felt completely comfortable with the role.
Reno walked through the double doors and down the long, marbled hall that led into the massive gathering room. He saw his mother on the sofa, plump and plain, seated as if she was still in mourning, and his two sisters, MarBeth and Francine, seated on either side of her. They, too, looked up to Reno, and when he stepped down into the room, both MarBeth and Francine ran to him. He hugged them both.
“Frank Partanna’s dead, Reno!” MarBeth proclaimed and Carmine, MarBeth’s husband, rolled his eyes.
“What you telling him that for?” Carmine asked in his heavy New Jersey accent. “You think you know and Reno doesn’t? Seriously? Gees, MarBeth!”
“I was just talking to my brother,” MarBeth shot back. “Can I talk to my brother for two seconds without my husband blowing a gasket? Gees, Carmine!”
Reno moved away from both of them, as the ridiculous argument continued, and leaned down on his haunches in front of his mother. “Hey, Ma, how you doing?” he asked her.
His mother, Belle Gabrini, ran her wrinkled hand through his thick hair. “You have good hair,” she said to him, her voice husky, strained. “Not like Joey. Joey never had nice hair. Always blown out too far. Joey got big hair. You got nice hair.”
“We keep telling her Joey’s dead like Pa, but she ignores us,” Francine said. Reno ignored her.
“Taking your medicine, Ma?” he asked his mother.
“What medicine?”
“For the high blood pressure. The doctor prescribed it for you, after Pop died.”
His mother dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Doctors. What do they know?”
“She taking her medication, MarBeth?” Reno glanced back and asked his sister.
“She’s taking it when she’ll take it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said, Reno. She takes it through the week, the weekends not so much. That’s just Ma.”
“But that blood pressure’s nothing to fuck around with, MarBeth,” Reno warned. “She has to take it every day. And I want you and Franny to make sure she takes it every day.” He stood up. Nobody in the family disputed Reno, but MarBeth tended to give him the hardest time.
“We’re doing our best, okay?” she said. “Pop ain’t here no-more to handle Ma. She ain’t used to taking orders from us, okay?”
“We’re like prisoners here, Reno,” Francine said like the wining younger sibling she sometimes could be. “Carmine and Dirty, they won’t let us go anywhere.”
“And you ain’t going nowhere,” Reno shot back. “Not yet anyway. Did Ma at least take her medicine today?” Reno asked. He really hated coming around his family. He felt as if he had to micromanage everything whenever he was around them, and he was no micromanager. But they were so needy, so quick to drop the ball and expect him to pick it back up for them, that they often proved exhausting. And now with his father out of the frame, he knew it was only going to get worst.
“She took it today,” MarBeth said. “I make no promises for tomorrow, but today she took it.”
The butler came into the room, spoke to Reno, and whispered something in Dirty’s ear. Dirty smiled and followed the butler out of the room.
“What’s that about?” Reno asked Carmine.
Carmine shook his head. “I don’t know,” Carmine said. “Do you know, Francine?”
“Do I know what?”
“What Dirty’s up to?”
“How should I know what Dirty’s up to? Dirty don’t tell me a thing about his business. He says it’s his business.”
Reno sat next to his mother, leaning back in a slouched position, taking her hand. He was more tired than he thought he was. Of all his family members, she worried him the most. “Why don’t you go and lay down, Ma, get you a little nap? You’ll feel better.”
“I feel fine. But you, you don’t look so good, Dominic. What’s that woman doing to you?”
This response threw Reno. He hadn’t told his mother, and forbad Carmine and Dirty to tell her, that he married Trina. He didn’t want to overload her with too many changes too fast. “What woman?” he asked her, to be clear. You never could assume where his mother’s progressing dementia was concerned.
“That black woman you bought here that time. Whatshername? Your father called her Hot Chocolate, but I know that can’t be her name.”
“Her name’s Katrina,” Reno said, his heart aching for her just by saying that name.
“Yeah, that one. Hazel Eyes. She not treating you right, Dominic?”
“She’s treating me just fine, Ma.”
“I don’t think she’s treating you right. You need an Italian girl. They know how to treat a man.”
“Yeah, Ma, sure,” Reno said, patting her hand. And just as he patted that hand, Dirty entered the room with an Italian girl. Only this one wasn’t some figment of his mother’s imagination, but was a woman Reno always bedded whenever he was in Jersey. A few times he even flew her out to Vegas, to the PaLargio, to fuck her.
Dirty was grinning ear to ear. “Look who I dredged up, Reno,” he said, unable to contain his glee. “Sophie Torenelli.”
“Hi, Reno,” Sophie said, coming toward him. She was a tall, bosomy Italian, with long, slick black hair, a small, pretty face, and a very curvaceous body. A body Reno couldn’t help but scan as he stood to greet her.
“Sophie, how you doing?” he asked her as she came into his arms. It was not unusual for this to happen. But this time Reno pulled back from her.
Sophie was surprised by the pull back, but she continued to smile. “You look good, Reno.”
MOB BOSS 2 Page 3