Reno continued to stare ahead, and continued, it seemed to Trina, to be distracted. “She’s all right,” he said.
“All right? I think she’s a little more than that. She’s beautiful. And she’s nice.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want you getting too cozy with her.”
Trina looked at him. “And why’s that?” she asked him.
“Whatta you mean ‘why’s that?’ Because I said so,” he said and glared at her. “That’s why.”
But Trina was shaking her head. “Not good enough, Reno. Why is it that I can’t get cozy, as you put it, with Belle? Why not?”
“Because I know her and I want you to stay away from her.”
Trina looked at him. Finally they were getting somewhere. “You know her?”
Reno hesitated. “Yeah.”
“You know her how?”
“Whatta you mean how? I know her.”
“What I mean, Reno, is in what way do you know her? Did she used to be your girlfriend?”
Reno didn’t respond.
“Reno, was she your girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend, girlfriend,” Reno said with a hunch of his shoulder. “What’s a girlfriend? I fucked her.”
Trina’s heart dropped. She suspected that was the type of relationship they had had, but it still hurt to hear. “Once?” she asked him.
Reno looked uncomfortable.
“More than once?”
Reno nodded. “More than once,” he said and glanced at her. “A lot more. We go way back.”
Trina frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“When was I supposed to tell you anything? The mayor didn’t let us out of his sight the entire night. I wasn’t discussing my personal life in front of that clown.”
“But yet you can go into some private room with this longtime friend you used to fuck. The mayor wasn’t around then. You found a way to get away with her, but you couldn’t give me that same consideration?”
“That’s nonsense, Tree, and you know it.”
“It’s not nonsense!”
“So what are you trying to imply? That I took her into some room to fuck her? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“Then what the fuck are you saying? I told your ass we were old friends! She wanted to talk to me. So we went and talked. Why the fuck you trying to turn it into something it’s not?”
“Because I want to know what’s going on, Reno. I want to know why she showed up at my store the other day asking if I was your wife.”
Reno glanced at her. “She showed up at the store?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“What did she say?”
“She wanted me to confirm that I was your wife. When I did, she said okay and left.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Trina said. “And I want to know why. I want to know why she didn’t so much as acknowledge the fact that she met me before when we were introduced by the mayor tonight. If this is all so innocent, why is she so secretive? Why she couldn’t discuss what she had to discuss with you in front of me? Why did they have to get you alone with her?”
“It certainly wasn’t so I could fuck her, that’s for damn sure.”
“Forget that, Reno. I told you that’s not what I was thinking. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Reno exhaled. That was the question of the night. “I don’t know yet,” he said.
“But something’s up?”
“She claims it is. She claims this guy I had some dealings with in the past, this guy named Bruno Lucci, is trying to make some noise.”
Trina’s heart began to pound. “What kind of noise?” she asked.
“Noise. You know.” He glanced at her. She knew.
“So what, you don’t believe her?” Trina then asked.
“I don’t know if I believe her or not.”
“But if it’s about some guy from your past, then why did she come to my store and ask if I was your wife? Why did she need to know that?”
Reno glanced at Trina. That might be the scariest part of this for him. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
“It’s almost as if she wants you back, Reno,” Trina said. “Maybe something happened and she wants you back. Maybe she’s just using this Bruno person as a way to get back in good with you.”
“She’s not the type, Tree.”
“But you don’t know that. When was the last time you saw her? Years ago? For all you know she could---”
But Trina couldn’t finish her sentence. An SUV slammed into her side of Reno’s Porsche and caused the speeding Porsche to lost traction and tilt on two wheels, ready to go airborne and possibly flip, but Reno managed to regain control of the steering wheel enough to slam it back down on all fours.
“Are you all right, Tree?” he was yelling as he grabbed for her with one hand and kept steering the car with the other.
The impact of the crash caused Trina’s body to smash into the inflated airbag, jerking her forward. She yelled that she was okay and Reno grabbed the wheel with both hands and fought to get the car back under control. But he overcorrected as soon as the tires slammed back onto the pavement. Although his maneuvering stopped the car from flipping over, his overcorrection caused the car to go into a series of spins. When the car ultimately came to a complete stop, he looked again at his wife. Although she was shaken up, she appeared okay. He was fine too. Then he realized that they were on a back road with no traffic at this time of night, and the SUV that creamed them hadn’t stopped to assist, but was getting away fast. This was no simple hit and run, he felt it in his blood.
And he took off after the big tank of a truck, holding down the airbag so he could see as the SUV was no match for the speed of his Porsche. He easily made it up to the speeding truck.
Trina held on as Reno decided to use a pit maneuver to slow down the absconding vehicle, hitting the side of the truck near the back just enough to cause the truck to go into a spin. The SUV immediately lost traction and flipped twice. Then it was rolling across the darkened road, sparks flying from underneath, and landed upside down near a ditch.
Reno stopped just behind it, grabbed his gun from his glove compartment, and unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Wait here,” he ordered his wife, and jumped out of the car.
Trina immediately got on her cell phone, calling Frank Spillane, one of Reno’s longtime body men, as Reno made his way to the SUV. He had his gun at the ready, but was still looking around on the empty road, in case an ambush was a part of the scheme.
And he wasn’t waiting on any backup. He hurried to the truck with his gun at his side. Once he saw the young driver of the truck attempting to crawl out, he grabbed him and pulled him out. Then he put the gun to the young man’s throat.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked him.
“Don’t shoot,” he begged. “Please don’t shoot!”
“Tell me who you are or you’ll be out of this world in two seconds, motherfucker! Who are you?”
“I’m Ollie,” he said. “Oliver. My name’s Oliver.”
“Why did you just try to kill me?”
“I wasn’t trying--- It was an accident.”
“Bullshit! Why did you just try to kill me?”
“But I didn’t---”
Reno cocked his weapon. Ollie immediately responded. “He paid me to.”
“Who paid you?”
“Lefty. Lefty Gromes paid me to do it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why,” Ollie said. “Please don’t hurt me. I needed the money.”
“Fuck you and your needs! You think I care about you and your needs? Why did this Lefty Gromes decide to pay you to take care of me?”
“I told you I don’t know! He didn’t tell me any of that. He asked if I wanted to make some extra money. I told him I did. I nee
ded it, man. So he told me to track you down and ram you.”
“Ram my ass. He told you to track me down and kill me.”
The young man swallowed hard. “I wasn’t gonna kill anybody.”
“Yeah, right. Where can I find Lefty Gromes?”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Where can I find Lefty Gromes?” Reno repeated with a louder voice, pushing the gun harder against his throat.
“At the Smoke-n-Gun,” Ollie said quickly, to avoid further antagonizing an obviously already antagonized Reno. “He works there. I needed the money, man, that’s the only reason I did it. Don’t kill me.”
Reno stood up straight, with Ollie still on the ground.
“You don’t want me to kill you,” he said. “But you had no problem trying to kill me.”
“No, no, it wasn’t like that. I was just trying to scare you a little. That’s all I was trying to do.”
“My wife was in that car, you fuck!” Reno screamed. Then Reno shot Ollie in one knee cap and then the other one, causing the young man to scream out and grab those knees.
“Now that’s how I scare people,” Reno said. Then he aimed the gun at Ollie. “Mention my name to any cop, or any other human being on the face of this earth, and you’ll see what else I do to people. Don’t fuck with me,” he added. “Don’t you ever fuck with me!”
Then Reno hurried back to his nearly decimated Porsche, got in, backed up with a swerving turnaround, and took off. Ollie, trembling and howling in pain, grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket, and nervously, with fear still in his heart, called for an ambulance.
SEVEN
The battered Porsche pulled into the three-car garage alongside Trina’s Mercedes and Reno’s Bentley. Jimmy Mack, with Dommi in his arms, hurried into the garage from inside the house, as his parents got out of the battered car.
“Frank Spillane’s here, Pop,” Jimmy said as his eyes immediately went to the Porsche. “With his men. What happened to the car?”
Trina took Dommi and wrapped him in her arms. She was still shaken. Reno, without saying a word, hurried toward the entrance. He looked back at Trina and Jimmy, who were both looking at the damaged car. “Get inside!” he ordered them both.
Trina and Jimmy, with Dommi in Trina’s arms, hurried and did as he commanded.
Once inside, Reno and Frank Spillane went into Reno’s home office. Jimmy looked at Trina.
“What happened?”
“Some guy rammed us.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know, some guy.”
“Did Pop take care of him?”
Trina looked at Jimmy. “And what is that your business?” she asked him.
Jimmy nodded. “He took care of him. Did he find out why the guy pulled that trick?”
“I’m sure he did. He wasn’t going to discuss it with me, but I’m sure he did.”
“Frank came with a couple of guys. They’re out front now.”
“I know,” Trina said. “We saw them when we first drove up.”
“Who called them? Pop?”
“I called them. He and Frank go back a long way. He trusts him.”
Reno and Frank returned, with Reno putting a weapon in the small of his back, underneath his now wrinkled suit coat.
“Everything okay?” Trina asked him.
“It will be,” Reno said, kissing her on the lips. “I’ll be back.”
“I’m going with you, Pop,” Jimmy stepped up and said.
“No you aren’t. You’re staying here with your mother and your brother.”
“I’m going with you, Pop,” Jimmy said again, with even more conviction.
Reno looked at his son. People were gunning for him left and right and what did he expect? He expected his son to not be tainted by all of this? Was he out of his mind?
He looked at Trina.
“I can protect myself,” she said to him. “Dommi and me will be fine. You go handle your business.”
Reno loved this woman. He loved her with words that couldn’t be uttered. And the thought that she could have been killed tonight just for being with him cut to the heart of him. He leaned over and kissed her hard on the mouth. Trina knew it wasn’t a sensual kiss. She knew it was the kiss of a man fed up.
Then Reno placed his fingers to his mouth, and then tapped them on Dommi’s forehead. “Take care of my wife,” he said to him.
“Okay,” Dommi replied. And then Reno, Jimmy, and Frankie Spillane walked out of that door.
Although Trina didn’t know it, Reno ordered Frank and his men to remain outside of the house, protecting his wife and child. Reno and Jimmy then got into Trina’s Mercedes, and left.
When they arrived at the Smoke-n-Gun tavern, Reno drove around the small establishment, sizing it up front to back. Then he parked in the front parking lot, and he and Jimmy got out and went inside.
After getting a customer to point him out, Reno and Jimmy walked slowly toward a big, burly black man at the bar. The crowd was animated, all white except for Lefty Gromes, and the country and western music was on full blast. Reno sat on one side of the counter and Jimmy on the other. Sandwiched between them was Lefty Gromes, a big man with an egg-shaped ball head.
Lefty looked first at Jimmy, and was about to object to his closeness, until he looked at Reno. He started to make a quick move to get up, but Reno placed his hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.
“We can handle it here, Left, or we can handle it in the back of this joint. But either way,” Reno made clear, “we’re going to handle it.”
Lefty stared at Reno, as if he thought he still had a choice, and then he regained his senses and got up. And escorted father and son down a long, dark hall that led to a small office. As soon as he opened the door and walked in, and Jimmy and Reno walked in beside him, Jimmy slammed the door shut and Reno slammed Lefty Gromes against the now-closed door.
“What did I do?” Lefty pleaded.
“Who hired you?” Reno asked.
“What are you talking about? Nobody hired me.”
“Who hired you?” Reno asked him again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. Who hired me for what? To work here?”
Reno released Lefty and stood erect. He had a wise guy on his hand. He looked at Jimmy. Jimmy was watching him as if he was watching some gangster movie he couldn’t get enough of. He wanted to grab him and tell him that this was no damn movie, and that what he was doing was something he should never want to emulate, but his son was no fucking fool. He knew what his father was about. It broke Reno’s heart, but his son was, in a lot of ways, just like him.
Reno therefore pulled out his revolver, grabbed Lefty and slammed him, back first, on the desk, forced open his mouth, and then shoved the gun deep down inside of it. Lefty struggled and gagged, but could not break free from Reno’s muscular hold.
“Two things are going to happen tonight,” Reno said, fighting to maintain control of the big man. “Either you’re going to tell me who hired you to take me out, or I’m going to take you out. Those are the options. There is no third choice. And if you think for a second that my word is not my bond, then you should phone Ollie. Heard from Ollie lately?”
Reno could see the heightened fear enter Lefty’s eyes. Reno’s eyes strengthened too. Only they strengthened with rage. “Now you talk to me, motherfucker,” he said, “or you’ll be talking to the daisies in the hole they toss your ass in!”
Reno then removed his gun from Lefty’s mouth. “Now who hired you? You tell me the truth!”
Lefty started shaking his head, as if to convey that he truly didn’t know, but Reno grabbed him by the catch of his collar and began banging his head into the desktop repeatedly. Lefty was crying that he didn’t know anything, but Reno kept banging. Jimmy was silently egging is father on. But Reno needed no encouragement.
And after about the eighth bang, Lefty yelled okay, okay, he did know something after all.
Reno banged h
im one last time for good measure, and then lifted him up. Blood was streaming out of his ear.
“Talk,” Reno said.
“I don’t know the name,” Lefty said, touching his hand to his ear and looking at the hand, and his own blood. “I wasn’t given a name.”
“Describe him.”
“Her,” Lefty said.
Reno hesitated. “Her?”
“It was a woman, not a man.”
Jimmy looked at his father. Reno was staring at Lefty. “Describe this woman,” he said.
Lefty looked as if he was trying to remember. “She was white,” he said, “average height, kind of skinny, blue eyes, how the hell should I know? All you motherfuckers look alike to me.”
“Call her,” Reno ordered. “Tell her you want to meet with her.”
“I told you I don’t know her like that. I don’t have her number.”
Reno was about to grab him again, but his instincts told him to ease up.
“I’m telling you the truth, man!” Lefty blared. “I don’t have her number. She didn’t give me one. She paid me half now, and she said she’d meet me tomorrow night and give me the other half. That’s how we planned to do it.”
“Where were you supposed to meet her?”
“Here. In this office. Tomorrow night at eight-thirty.”
“How much did she pay up front?”
“Couple thousand.”
“How much did you pay Ollie?” Jimmy asked.
Reno almost rolled his eyes. What the fuck difference did that make, he wanted to yell at his son. But he didn’t. Because he understood what was going on. He understood that Jimmy was new to the game and wanted all of the salacious details. In time he would know better. In time, Reno thought sadly, he would lame, maim or kill to get his answers and then get the hell away from there.
“You heard my son,” Reno said to Lefty. “How much of that cut did Ollie get?”
Lefty did roll his eyes. “One,” he said.
“Thousand?” Jimmy asked.
“Hundred,” Lefty replied.
“You cheap bastard,” Jimmy said with a smile. “What a terrible thing to do to your fellow man. Pop you ought to shoot him just for being such a bad paymaster.”
Reno didn’t joke around when it came to business. He was handling his business. He therefore ignored Jimmy’s advice and released his grasp on Lefty, pushing him away from him.
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