ONE
Ten Years Later
The seagulls lifted their wings and flew across the Jersey shore like scavengers on the hunt. In Atlantic City, Reno and his oldest son, Jimmy Mack Gabrini, walked slowly along the boardwalk as the gulls squawked and squealed and competed for attention. It was an overcast early morning, barely seven a.m., and the tourists that were already out and about were few in number. Both Reno and Jimmy were out in force, however. Both of them wore Bermuda shorts that dropped along their thighs, and although Jimmy wore a dark blue Lakers t-shirt tucked out, Reno wore a pullover V-neck shirt tucked in. They arrived in town yesterday afternoon. Jimmy, at his father’s request, sat in on a number of business meetings that lasted well into the night. But before they headed back to Vegas, Reno wanted to talk.
“Tell me what you think,” he said to his son as they walked.
“I don’t know, Dad,” Jimmy replied. “It looks kind of dead to me. All I see is a bunch of old buildings and a bunch of old people walking around. Not that there’s anything wrong with old people, of course there isn’t. But the PaLargio is young and hip. Atlantic City seems old and. . . well, old.”
Reno smiled. “You suffer from a disease my son. You know what that disease is?”
Jimmy inwardly chuckled. “No, sir,” he said, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You can only see in the moment,” Reno responded. “That’s what you suffer from. Momentary sight. Yes, at seven a.m. it’s an old crowd. Why wouldn’t it be? But Atlantic City after dark is as young and hip as Vegas. Maybe even more so because the young people here have more purpose. They aren’t wandering around making spectacles of themselves, they’re spending their hard-earned coins in the casinos and the clubs and making businessmen all across this region very happy indeed. We were too tired to get out last night after all of those meetings, but believe you me this place, at night, is on fire.”
“Even so,” Jimmy said, holding true to what he believed, “I don’t see this as a PaLargio kind of town.”
Reno was pleased to hear it. He didn’t want his son to become an echo chamber where he said whatever he thought his old man wanted to hear. He was fast becoming his own man, and Reno liked his progression. “So your advice to me is that I shouldn’t build?”
“That’s my advice, yes, sir. And it’s not just because of what I’m seeing now, either. I’m talking the whole package. I just don’t think this area would be good for our brand.”
Reno nodded and inwardly smiled. “I like that. You’re going with your gut. Good. That’s how your old man does business, and that’s how I want you to conduct business. If you don’t feel it, you don’t do it. You know why?”
Jimmy could recite chapter and verse why, thanks to the way Reno constantly drilled it into his head. “Because if you aren’t emotionally invested,” he said, “then that lack of passion will show in your business.”
“That’s right,” Reno said, proud that Jimmy was finally internalizing what he had been preaching to him. “It’ll show from the foundation to every brick laid. The tourists won’t understand why, but they just won’t get a connection to your place. Something will be wrong to them, and eventually they’ll stop coming. So good,” he said as he led them up a ramp to a bench that overlooked the shore. “I’ve been toying with this idea of building here in Jersey for years and years and still haven’t pulled the trigger. Now that I have you feeling pretty much the same way I do, I just might keep it holstered for a little while longer still.”
They sat on the bench and watched the barely populated white sand beach as the early tide rolled in. The ocean breeze had Reno’s thick brown hair blown forward, framing his face and squinting his blue eyes, and Jimmy, looking at his father, was taken aback by his old man’s beauty. He always knew he was a good looking man, but here in Jersey, not far from where he was born and raised, he never looked more relaxed and attractive to Jimmy. And Jimmy got it now. He finally could easily see why so many of his female friends had been trying foolishly to give him their numbers to give to his father.
For a long few minutes they stopped talking and chose to take in the ease of the morning instead. Reno had one leg crossed over his knee and his arm across the back of the bench, effective hugging his son without touching him. Jimmy sat straight back and still, with his arms folded and his eyes straight ahead. Reno looked at his oldest child. He didn’t raise Jimmy. He didn’t even know his son existed until a few years ago when his mother, who was now deceased, finally came clean.
But as he looked at his son he saw a mixed-race version of himself. He had Gabrini eyes and Gabrini intensity, and although his complexion was closer to his African-American mother’s complexion than his father’s Italian heritage, his nose and lips and cheeks were all Reno.
It wasn’t in looks alone, either. But in style too. He had his old man’s swag. He had it in spades. And although he wasn’t half the natural leader his old man was, he was no follower either. The way Reno saw it, Jimmy Mack was a young man who danced to the beat of his own drum, and didn’t give a damn who liked it or didn’t.
Reno liked his style. He liked his strength, too. That wasn’t the problem. It was that fearlessness, that death wish Reno sometimes wondered if Jimmy had, that concerned him about his son. And after that awful episode that had Jimmy fighting for his life, Reno could see it even more starkly now. It was as if Jimmy cared even less about this life and therefore had it in him to take the kind of risks that could cost him his life. It was that side of his son, that reckless, devil-may-care side, that still kept Reno up nights.
But it wasn’t as if Reno was blameless in his son’s attitude. He wasn’t. And that was why he needed to talk to him.
His cell phone buzzed as soon as he was about to go there, and he pulled it from his pocket. He read the text message, responded to it, and then put his phone away again. Jimmy waited for his father to tell him what the message was about, but Reno didn’t say a word. Which wasn’t surprising since he never did. Jimmy even wondered why he would suddenly think, just because his father for the first time ever invited him on a business trip with him, that he would tell him everything going on in his life. That was pure lunacy. The way Jimmy saw it Reno didn’t even share everything with his own wife, a wife he was super-close to, why would he go there with his son?
“Nice breeze,” Jimmy decided to say. “You came here as a kid, didn’t you?”
“I did. Used to run up and down that boardwalk like it was nobody’s business. This place was pulsating with life then.”
“Is that maybe why you keep coming back here? To see if you can recreate your carefree childhood maybe?”
“Maybe,” Reno said, although he knew that wasn’t it at all. But he needed to end that conversation so that he could start a far more pressing one. The one he had been avoiding for far too long.
He looked at his handsome son, at his soft curly hair and warm golden skin. “We haven’t discussed what happened, James,” he said.
Jimmy’s heart began to tighten. He knew immediately what his father meant. “Nothing to discuss.”
“There’s plenty to discuss.” Then Reno’s face frowned in distress. “Look at me,” he said to his son.
Jimmy braced himself and looked at his father. The care and concern in his eyes almost made him want to cry. His father worried too much when there wasn’t anything to worry about, and it bothered Jimmy.
“I had to make a decision, son,” Reno said.
“I know, Pop. You made---”
“Hear me out,” Reno said with a hint of irritation in his voice. “It was a terrible choice, but I had to choose. My enemies saw to that. But the thing is, son, I don’t want you to ever think that because I chose you instead of your baby brother or Trina, that it meant that I loved you less. It didn’t mean that at all.”
“I know that, Pop.”
Reno stared at his son. He only called him Pop when he was upset with him about something. And Reno knew it was a
ll about that decision he made. Jimmy might not know it yet, and he might have convinced himself that he was cool with the decision his father made, but Reno knew better. “You have every right to hate me, Jimmy, for what I forced you to go through.”
“You didn’t force me to go through anything,” Jimmy said, irritable himself now. “Tony Tufarna had a gun to Ma’s head, and to little Dommi’s head. What were you supposed to do? You couldn’t let them kill the baby. And Ma had to stay around to take care of the baby.”
Reno nodded. “That was my thinking, yes.” Although Reno knew, and perhaps Jimmy too, that it was far more complicated than that.
“So how could I be upset about something you had no control over?” Jimmy asked. “Tony Tufarna said either I leave this earth or they did. You offered to die for all of us, but he wouldn’t let you. He figure killing one of us would be more punishment to you.” Then he looked at his father. “You did what you had to do, Pop.”
Reno gazed into his son’s eyes. He expected to see coldness there, but it wasn’t there. He saw compassion and concern. It actually startled him. “You don’t hate me?”
Jimmy was genuinely shocked. “Hate you? How could I hate you? Why would you think I would hate you for doing exactly what I would have done?”
Reno didn’t respond to that. Truth, he knew, could be unspeakable sometimes.
Jimmy could see how unconvinced his father really was. “I could never hate you, Pop,” he said firmly.
It was unspeakable, Reno decided. He also decided that dwelling on it would only make it worst. He therefore looked at Jimmy and smiled. “So you don’t hate me?”
“No,” Jimmy said, glad to see a smile on his old man’s face. “I’ll never hate you.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why are you calling me Pop? You only call me Pop when you’re upset with me.”
Jimmy frowned. “What?”
“You only call me Pop when you’re upset with me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” Reno said firmly. “That’s the only time that word comes out of your mouth. Otherwise, I’m Dad.”
Jimmy smiled and then laughed. “Pop, I mean Dad, I mean fuck!”
Reno laughed.
“I call you Pop,” Jimmy said, “whenever we’re discussing something heartfelt. I noticed that a long time ago. It just comes out like that.”
“Heartfelt, hun?”
“That’s right.”
“So when you were calling me Dad during that business conversation we had a few minutes ago, meant we weren’t discussing anything heartfelt? Right?”
Jimmy wanted to laugh. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“Slammed right into it,” Reno offered.
“From here on out you’re Pop, okay? No matter how I feel. No misunderstandings could possible come from that. Deal?”
Reno chuckled. “Deal,” he said and he and his son shook hands. Then Reno turned serious again, and kept his son’s hand in his grasp. “Just know you mean everything to me, James,” he said. “I love you dearly and I’ll never hurt you again.”
“You didn’t hurt me that time, Pop. That wasn’t on you. That was all on Tony Tufarna. And I’m sure,” Jimmy added, looking his father dead in the eyes, “you took care of Tony Tufarna.”
Reno never wanted his son to know that side of him. He never wanted his son exposed to the kind of violence he was exposed to. But Reno’s father was a mob boss and that mob life latched onto Reno like a second skin. It never let him go. He never joined any mob or any crime family or syndicate, but he didn’t have to. He never visited the rodeo, but the rodeo kept visiting him. Now Reno had enemies that his son was taking on as his own. And although Reno never visited the rodeo, Jimmy Mack seemed to be itching for an invitation.
“Yes,” he said to his son, “I took care of Tony Tufarna.”
Jimmy was pleased, and couldn’t suppress it. He smiled. “Good,” he said.
“I hated to have to go there,” Reno said. “That level of violence always takes something out of a man. But I had to go there.”
Jimmy’s smile dissolved. His father always brought him back to earth. His father always had a way of reminding him that there were always consequences.
“Let’s go,” Reno said, patting his son on the leg as he stood to his feet.
“Where to?” Jimmy asked as he began following his father.
“Café just past the Tropicana. I’ll race you there.”
“You’ll race me? Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” Reno said and took off running. When Jimmy realized that his father wasn’t joking around, he took off after him.
As father and son ran along the boardwalk, generating looks and comments by their sudden burst of activity alone, Jimmy was nonetheless confident that he would eventually overtake Reno. Reno was fast for a man his age, but Jimmy was in a different league. Even with his father’s head start, Jimmy just knew he would overtake him. His age, and pride, demanded it.
But as they ran past Caesar’s Palace, and Donald Trump’s hotel, and store after store after store, Jimmy continued to lag. It was a matter of a mere second or two, but Reno made it to the café first.
There was a difference once they arrived, however. Whereas Reno was now hunched over, barely able to catch his breath, Jimmy’s juices were just beginning to flow. He looked as if he hadn’t broke a sweat.
“You’re getting old, Pop,” he said with a smile as his father bent over hyperventilating.
“Fuck you,” Reno said, not so far gone that he’d lost his feistiness.
Jimmy laughed. “Not a day goes by when I don’t hear those wonderful words from your lips. Reno “Fuck You” Gabrini. What a legacy you’re leaving your sweet, innocent son.”
“Sweet and innocent my ass,” Reno said with a one-syllable laugh as he stood erect again, brush his hair out of his face, and then made his way into the café.
Reno stood at the entrance and began looking around. Jimmy walked in and stood beside him.
“I’ve got to pee, Pop,” he said.
“The language!” Reno said seriously. “We’re in mixed company here. The proper phrase is, ‘I have to use the bathroom, Pop.’”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. His father was about as “proper” as a pig in a sty, but he humored him. “I’ve got to use the bathroom, Father.”
“Okay, you go pee,” Reno said without realizing what he had just said. “I see somebody I need to talk to.”
Jimmy smiled and shook his head as he made his way for the restrooms.
Reno headed in the opposite direction, around the bar and up to a window seat near the back. Belle Patrone was seated at the table, smoking a cigarette in a no-smoking café, looking out of the window. Reno knew she had bodyguards in that restaurant with her, but if they were any good he would not be able to pick them out. He picked out every one.
“Belle!” he said as he approached her table.
Belle looked at him and smiled. “Well, well. My favorite mobster.”
Reno grinned and leaned down to her. “That’s my line,” he said as he kissed her on the mouth. Then he sat down in front of her. Although she was always a few years older than Reno was, she had aged beautifully. He sat there staring at her beauty. He was still fond of her. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?”
“A minute my foot,” Belle said, tapping her ash onto the saucer on the table. “It’s been more like hours and days and months and years! You don’t stay in touch when you promised you would.”
“What can I say? Life got in the way, Belle, and it was a motherfucker.”
Belle laughed a loud, throaty laugh and then shook her strawberry blonde head. “Same old Reno. I missed you, my friend.”
“I missed you too.”
“Yeah, sure. Is that why you didn’t bother to call me all those other times you were in Atlantic City?”
Reno threw up his hands. “Guilty as charged,” he said as the waitress arrived to take his o
rder. “Nothing yet,” he said to the waitress and then she hesitated before leaving. Bad move, Reno thought.
“Ma’am,” the waitress finally said to Belle, “I’m sorry but we don’t allow smoking in this establishment.”
Belle gave the girl her best blue-eyed devil look. “Get the fuck away from me,” she said.
The girl, undoubtedly stunned, scampered off.
Reno shook his head. “You need to cut that shit out,” he said. It was that side of Belle, that crass, uncaring side, that made Reno dump her all those years ago. The only reason they remained friends was because he had an affinity for Belle’s father, who was a mob boss just as Reno’s father, and Reno promised that he would look out for her when her old man died. But when he died such a promise proved completely necessary. Belle looked out for herself.
Reno leaned forward. “So what made you text me this time of morning when you never bothered all those other times I was in town?”
Belle had seen him last night. He didn’t see her, but she saw him. And remembered him. Every inch of him.
“I wanted to see you before you left town,” she said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. Especially after that hit on the PaLargio. Are you okay now?”
Reno nodded. “I’m good. Thanks for asking.”
“I heard you served it up to Tony Tufarna.”
“Guilty again.”
She smiled. “For a man who declares up and down he’s not Mafia, you serve it up better than any mobster I’ve ever known, Reno. And I’ve known them all. In every sense of the word.”
Reno laughed. “Yeah, I heard you were a promiscuous so and so.”
“But not when I was with you,” Belle said firmly. “Let’s get that straight. When I was with you, I didn’t so much as look at another man thank-you very much. You were fucking other women, and I knew you were, but I remained true to you. But after you dumped me, hell yeah I played the field. Why the hell not?”
Reno decided to joke with her. “Don’t tell me you’re still bitter about our breakup?”
As he expected, she snorted. “Get real,” she said, and Reno laughed. “Breaking up with you was the best thing that ever happened to me. You had me dick-whipped, Reno. You had me craving that big-ass dick of yours day in and night out. I didn’t want any other joystick anywhere near my joyhole. Not the way you kept me filled. But now, forget about it. I have my pick of the litter. Although,” she said, looking hard at Reno, “none can compare, my friend.”
Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) Page 3