“Yes, I have,” Trina said. “I left Reno and took off to Mississippi, remember? I almost messed up big time. If he wouldn’t have come and got me, I would have lived the rest of my life regretting my decision. But Reno came for me, he even married me. He gave me a second chance.”
“So you’re giving me one?”
Trina nodded. “Yeah.”
Jazz turned her body back toward Trina. Tears began to fill her eyes. “Thank-you, Tree,” she said. “I won’t mess up this time.”
“You can’t,” Trina warned. “I may be Reno’s wife, but even he won’t give you a third chance.”
Jazz smiled. Then looked beyond Trina and frowned. “Speaking of that husband of yours,” she said and Trina immediately turned in the direction of her gaze. Reno was entering Boyzie’s, Armani suit, Italian shoes and all. “And he doesn’t look any too pleased, either.”
Trina turned back around. “He’s not,” she said. “Believe that.”
Reno was eventually directed to the back booth where his wife and Jazz were seated. He looked at Jazz first, his hand on the middle button of his suit coat. “Hello,” he said. “Jazz, right?”
“That’s right, hi.”
Then he looked at Trina. “You ready?” he said. “Let’s go.”
“I was still talking with Jazz.”
“The conversation’s over. Let’s go.”
It was obvious to Trina that Reno was doing all he could to control his fiery temper. And she wasn’t about to set him off, not here, not at her old stomping ground. She stood up.
“What time do you get off?” she asked Jazz.
“Eleven,” Jazz said.
“I’ll call you later.”
“Okay, Trina, and thanks again.”
Trina smiled as she led the way out of the club. Once outside, she was surprised to see Reno’s Bentley parked where her Honda had been. “Where’s my car?” she asked him.
“It’s on its way back to the PaLargio,” Reno said. “Exactly where you’re headed,” he added as he opened his passenger side door.
“I didn’t give permission for anybody to drive my car,” she said.
“Tree,” he said with that warning tone she knew so well, “don’t make me show my ass in this parking lot. Get in the car.”
Trina hesitated, surprised by his tone, but she got in the car.
He closed the door with some force and got in behind the wheel. It wasn’t until they were well on their way, however, did he trust himself enough to speak. “I am not an unreasonable man,” he said, his tone measured. “I cut you slack, I cut you more slack than I cut my own mother. I try to see it your way, even when I don’t agree with that way. But I understand you’re a smart, independent woman who has her own thoughts on things, and I love you for that. I respect you for that. But when I tell you to keep your ass inside the PaLargio, for your own good, for your own safety, I expect you to do that, Katrina. I don’t expect to go all over the place looking for you, to nearly have a heart attack wondering if some shit just went down that I don’t know a thing about, only to have my boys call and tell me you’re at some gotdamn strip joint hanging out with some gotdamn friend!”
He stopped himself, to calm himself back down. “This shit ain’t no game, Tree. They nearly killed you in Dale!” He slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel as he said this, and glanced at her, his face a mask of anguish. “And you’re acting like you don’t get how serious this is, like it’s some kind of joke to you!”
“I know it’s not a joke, Reno. I never said it was a joke.”
“Then why did you leave without letting me know where you were going?”
“Because I didn’t want to hear any lecture from you, all right?” Trina said this with a little venom of her own. “And then after the lecture you still say I can’t go. I should be in Dale right now, at my mother’s bedside, but you won’t let me do that, either.”
“You ain’t going back to Dale.”
“Why not, Reno? Nobody’s camped out there looking to gun me down.”
“You don’t know who’s where so don’t act like you do. Dale isn’t my turf, I don’t know the players, I don’t know who’s a stranger, who’s not, I don’t know the environment. You stay on my turf until I get this craziness under control, you understand me? After that you’re free as a bird. Go to the moon for all I care.” Then he looked at her. “Well, you ain’t going to no moon because I do care and I’ll have to go with you and I’m afraid of heights.” He smiled. Trina tried not to, but cracked a smile too.
Then she looked at him. “Reinstate Jazz,” she said.
He frowned. “What? Reinstate her? What are you talking about?”
“Lee Jones fired Jazz. I want you to hire her back.”
“Lee fired her? Why Lee fired her?”
Trina looked back at the road in front of them. “She slept with one of the hotel guests.”
“Now, Tree, you know I don’t play that.” He said this as he stopped at a red light.
“I know, Reno. But she’s new to the rules.”
“New to what rules? That you don’t fuck up at work? That ain’t no new rule.”
“That every man that sings your praises doesn’t mean what he says.”
“Oh, so she’s some naïve virgin girl now that can easily be had? Is that what you expect me to believe? And if it’s true, you expect me to hire back somebody like that as a manager apprentice to someday run one of my clubs?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Trina tried again. “I’m saying she messed up. She knows she messed up. And I want you to give her a second chance.”
“Mixing friends and business is a bad combination, Tree.”
“I know that. But she’s my closest friend and she needs my help. You said I own the PaLargio too now, didn’t you say that?”
“You do own it. What’s mine is yours. And just so there won’t be no bullshit, I already had my attorneys change my will. You get it all when they get rid of me.”
“Don’t say it like that!”
“You know what I mean.”
“Then I want her hired back. And I want her hired back at the Taffeta under Lee, because he’s the best.”
“You’re training under Amos, my GM. He’s the best.”
“Amos is a conceited asshole who thinks he knows it all. Lee knows it all. I can handle Amos, Jazz can’t. She’ll get the best training she can get under Lee. And that’s who I want her under.”
Reno exhaled, turning a corner and then another. “What if Lee won’t take her back?”
“Lee has no choice. Besides, he’ll do whatever you tell him to do.”
Reno looked out of his rearview mirror, looking to make sure their security was doing its job. Then he glanced at his wife, at her shapely legs coming down from under her cute chiffon dress. “You’re using up a lot of good will with me, you know that?”
“I know that.”
“I don’t fuck around when it comes to my business. That’s why I don’t hire friends.”
“I know that, too.”
Then Reno exhaled. “She’d better be worth it, that’s all I got to say.”
Trina smiled. “She’s worth it.”
“Now back to this excursion of yours today,” Reno started, but Trina cut him off.
“I went to see my friend, Reno, that’s all it was about. And if I want to go see somebody else tomorrow, I’ll go see somebody else.”
Reno looked at her. “Like hell you will!”
“I will go. I refuse to be a prisoner, Reno. If it’s my time, it’s my time, but I won’t just sit around some hotel acting like I’m terrified of living. You go. You’ve been all over Vegas since we got back, sometimes coming back home so late it’s almost daybreak.”
“I’m handling business, Tree--”
“I didn’t say you weren’t handling business, although I don’t know too many businesses that keep those kinds of hours.”
“I keep those kinds of hours
. The men I have to meet with keep those kinds of hours. What you think I’m off to some titty bar somewhere, sleeping around with some female somewhere?”
It had crossed Trina’s mind. “No, that’s not what I think. I’m just saying you get around, and you get around at all hours. Why can’t I have the same level of freedom too?”
“Because you’re my wife!” he yelled. “Because somebody tried to take you away from me! Because no wife of mine is gonna disregard what I tell her to do!”
“And if she does disregard it? What you gonna do, Reno? Beat me? Put me over your knee and spank me? Lock me up at the PaLargio, which is what you’re trying to do now?”
“I’m not trying to,” he started, ran his hand through his hair, and then shook his head. “You know what? Believe whatever you want, all right?” He pulled his car into the circular entranceway of the grand PaLargio Hotel and Casino, the waterfalls lifting up in a magnificent sweep, and then cascading back down. The valet staff, who knew Reno’s Bentley on sight, hurried to greet them.
“But you’d better not leave this place ever again,” Reno said firmly as the valet moved to open the passenger door, “without checking with me first.” Another valet moved to open Reno’s door as he removed his seatbelt. “That much is not debatable, Tree.”
“You say,” Trina said as she moved to get out of the car.
“Damn right I say,” Reno said as he also stepped out of the car.
“Good evening, Mr. Gabrini,” the valet greeted him.
“Good evening, Mrs. Gabrini,” the second valet greeted Trina.
“Hi, Milo,” Trina said, trying her best not to display her anger.
Reno, however, hurried toward the entrance as Trina began heading inside without him. Trina’s valet also spoke to Reno, but he didn’t respond, and both valets were surprised that he didn’t slap a hefty tip in their hands. He’d never, not ever, left them standing without a tip.
Carmine came up to the couple as they entered the PaLargio, as they, Trina far in front, began moving swiftly across the massive lobby of marble and glass.
“Hey, Trina, how you doing?” Carmine asked as Trina passed him. But she just kept walking. Carmine stopped and looked at her, then looked at an approaching Reno.
“What’s her problem?” Carmine asked.
“She’s doesn’t have a problem,” Reno said without breaking his stride behind her. “What’s your problem?”
“They’re here,” Carmine said, keeping pace with him.
“They’re here,” Reno repeated with a frown. “Who’s here?”
“Tommy and Sal Luca.”
Reno exhaled. “Good,” he said. “Tree!” he yelled and she stopped walking, although she didn’t turn around. He and Carmine walked up to her.
“Where you going?” Reno asked her.
“To work,” she said. “And I’m already late.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Trina was about to leave again, but Reno took her by the arm. “Come upstairs with me. I got some people I want you to meet.”
“I’ll have to meet them later,” she said, walking away. “I’m going to work.”
Reno stood still and watched her leave. Carmine looked at Trina, and then stared at Reno, expecting him to slap the shit out of her. Nobody disputed Reno Gabrini like that.
But Reno didn’t so much as call her back to him. He just watched her, a kind of sad, regretful look on his handsome, but weary face. Then he instead went to the private elevator where the elevator man immediately ushered he and Carmine onto the elevator. When Reno realized Carmine was still staring at him, even after the elevator doors closed and they were on their way to the penthouse, he frowned.
“What?” he asked his brother-in-law, frustration all over his face.
“Nothing, Reno,” Carmine said, backing up.
Reno sighed a great sigh of anguish. He felt as if he was making a mess of everything, and didn’t know how to stop the hemorrhaging. So he leaned against the shaft, leaned back and folded his arms, and didn’t even try.
EIGHT
Tommy Gabrini and Sal Luca Gabrini could not have been more different. Tommy was taller, older, slim, trim and elegant, his Italian silk suits and Ferragamo shoes an unlikely style for a man who used to be a cop.
Sal Luca, on the other hand, still had cop written all over him. He was shorter than Tommy, five-nine in his stocking feet, with a muscular physique that gave him that bulldog, compact look. Although Dapper Tommy, as they sometimes called him, was a favorite with the girly-girl, beauty queen types, Sal Luca was a favorite with the freaks. With the women with no inhibitions. With females just like him.
Tommy stood at the window of Reno’s penthouse, his hands in the pockets of his pleated pants, his ribbed stomach perfectly flat against his snow white dress shirt, as he looked out at a sweeping view of Vegas at night. He found the neon lights, the waterfalls, the energy itself too ostentatious and gaudy for his taste. To him it wasn’t beauty, but was a treacherous woman trying too hard to please, or ignorance cloaking itself in a train of feathers. Loud, yes, it was certainly loud. But what else, he wondered.
He turned as the door to the penthouse opened and his cousin Reno and Carmine Rossi walked in. Sal Luca, who was seated on the sofa flipping through a magazine, stood to his feet when they entered. They both respected Reno, and Tommy even loved him. Sal Luca, however, could barely stand the sight of him.
“Tommy, Sal!” Reno said as he headed toward his cousins. Although he and Sal Luca hugged, it was Tommy who got his biggest welcome. They bear-hugged, holding onto each other, Reno even closing his eyes tightly in a show of affection he rarely displayed. But this was Tommy here. Tommy Gabrini. The one man Reno respected most in this world.
Tommy was a little taken aback by Reno’s display, especially when he held onto him, clung to him in a way that concerned him. There was no man tougher than Reno, and for him to be this spooked, made Tommy uneasy. He pulled back from his cousin. Looked at him. “You okay, Ree?” he asked him.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Reno said, embarrassed by his own display, trying to avoid his eyes. “It’s been a long time, that’s all.”
“Too long,” Tommy said. “And listen, we’re real sorry about your father, and Joey.”
“I know,” Reno said, nodding.
“We would have come to his funeral,” Sal Luca said, “but we didn’t wanna be disrespectful. Your old man wouldn’t have wanted us there, Joey wouldn’t have wanted us there.”
“I know.”
“Or we would have come. So that’s off the table.”
Reno rolled his eyes. He knew it would start, he just didn’t expect it this soon. “It was never on the table, Sal Luca. Never. Understood?”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Then stop sayin’ because there’s nothing to say.”
“What you blowing up my ass for?” Sal asked. “I’m just sayin’.”
“Sal,” Tommy said in his unaffected, calm way, but it was enough to quiet his baby brother. Reno and Tommy exchanged glances. Just as Reno had his baby brother Joey before he died, Tommy had Sal. His biggest fan. His body man. His shadow.
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