Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (23 page)

“Can I smoke, Ree?” he asked him, pulling out
a cigarette.

Reno, however, was so preoccupied that he
didn’t hear him.
 
Dirty knew then that
something was up.

“Reno?” he said again.
 
Reno finally looked his way.
 
“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me.
 
What’s the matter with you?”

“I said can I smoke?”

“Take it outside,” Reno said.
 

Dirty stood to go outside, but then Reno stood
also.
 
He was getting bored with the gossip, too.
 

Outside, Reno sat on the steps of the porch,
and
Dirty
leaned against the porch rail.
 
They talked about a lot of things, mainly the
PaLargio.
 
And then
Dirty
began his fishing expedition.

“How long you gonna keep us here?”

“Nobody told you ass to come to begin with.”

“How long, Reno?”

“A month at least.
 
I’m
not rushing any reopening.
 
Why?”

“I’m curious, that’s all.
 
Fran doesn’t care that I’m gone.
 
she
seems to prefer
it that way, but I don’t plan to stay in this hicksville forever.
 
But I think that
place,
that
Clauson’s, needs a lot of help.
 
That bartending staff don’t know
nothing
about
nothing.”

“Yeah, I assumed as much,” Reno admitted.
 
“And don’t go easy on them, either.
 
They need to pull it together.”

“Don’t worry about that.
 
I don’t go easy on
nobody
.”
 
Then
Dirty
paused.
 
“So why did you move to this
nothing place, anyway?” he asked Reno.

“I told you why.
 
Trina needed a change, and so did I.”

“Yeah, but why she all of a sudden needed a
change?”

“Who said anything about all of a sudden?
 
It was planned.
 
I planned it.
 
What’s your problem asking all these questions?”

“I just was wondering if any heat was on,
that’s all, Reno.”

Reno shook his head.
 
“There’s no heat.”

Dirty smiled.
 
“Some
of the boys don’t believe it.
 
They say
you wouldn’t make this move just to satisfy some woman.”

“Then fuck’em.
 
Who cares what they think, anyway?
 
Whoever
they
are.”

“But why come here of all places?”

“Because I wouldn’t have to start from
scratch.
 
Pops left me Clauson’s, I like this little
town.
 
It checked all the boxes for me
and Tree.”

“Fran said your dad used to hide out here
whenever he got in a little hot water back in Jersey.”

“And Fran would be right.”

“She said you used to come visit him
here.
 
But she said that you hated it.”

“I didn’t hate it.
 
It just wasn’t for me back then.
 
That was then.
 
That was seventeen years ago.
 
This is now.”

“I hear that,” Dirty said and realized he was
beating a dead horse.
 
He told Drago
there was nothing to it.
 
Now Reno was
confirming it.
 
“Anyway,” he said,
standing erect, “I have to be somewhere.”

Reno looked at Dirty.
 
“Be somewhere?
 
Where the fuck you got to be?”

“Somewhere.
 
Why?”

“You don’t know jack in this town.
 
Where you going?”

“I’m going out with some of the crew from
Clauson’s.”

“Yeah?
 
Who?”

“Barkley the
bartender,
and Mondo the chef.
 
A couple of waitresses
may show up, and even the manager Nell Ridgeway.”

“Nell?”

“She may show up, why not?
 
She didn’t say
nothing
,
but she heard us planning to get together tonight.”

“You can forget Nell showing up,” Reno
said.
 
“She’s not the type.
 
Wasn’t seventeen years ago, and still isn’t
today.”

“Seventeen years ago?”
Dirty
asked.
 
“You knew Nell seventeen
years ago?”

“I wouldn’t say I knew her.
 
I fooled around with her a little, messed
around with her back in the day.
 
But she
was always a straight shooter.”

Dirty smiled.
 
“A straight shooter fucking around with you?
 
Some straight shooter.”

Reno had to smile at that one.
 
“Don’t you worry about what I did or didn’t
do,” he said.
 
“But I’m telling you this
much,
Dirty
: keep it in your pants.”

Dirty frowned.
 
“What?”

“Keep it zipped and inside your pants,” Reno
reiterated to his brother-in-law.
 
“If
you want to keep that thang operational, keep it in your pants.”

“Ah, Reno, what you talking about?
 
I know
how to handle my business.
 
You worry
about yours.”

“You just remember what I said.
 
Fran’s been through enough.”

“I won’t hurt your sister,” Dirty assured
him.
 
“I love her.
 
She’s my wife.
 
So give me a break, will you?”

“I’ll give you a break all right.
 
If you mess up.
 
I’ll give you several breaks.”

“Ah, Reno.
 
Always kidding around.”
 

But Reno wasn’t smiling.
 
Nor was he kidding around.
     

The next day, Sully walked into his office
inside the Ponder Street Community Center and was astonished to see Reno seated
behind his desk.
 
Reno was leaned back so
far that the chair was riding up on two legs.
 
Sully closed the door, amazed by the sight.

“Reno, hi,” he said with a smile that didn’t
reach his eyes.
 
“What are you doing
here?”
 
He made his way toward the desk.

“What are
you
doing here?” Reno retorted.
 
“Don’t you
have a real estate business to run?”

“Sure I do.
 
But since this was Trina’s first day I wanted to make sure she was
okay.”

“Yeah, I figured you would,” Reno said and
leaned his chair forward until it was, once again, back on all four legs.
 
“That’s why I decided to drop by.”

In Sully’s zeal to see Trina again he hadn’t
even checked all of the cars parked on the street in front of Ponder.
 
He didn’t see Reno’s Porsche.
 
There were many businesses along Ponder
Street, including his own realty office, and those cars could have belonged to
anyone.
 
But he would have recognized
that Porsche anywhere.

She had told Sully last night that Reno had
taken her to a dealership on the outskirts of Crane and had purchased her a
brand new Mercedes.
 
And although Sully
had inwardly thought it was just Reno showing off, he nonetheless liked the
man’s style.
 
Nothing
but the best for his lady.
 
Sully
liked that.
 
Especially
when that lady was Tree.

He also liked the fact that, when he pulled in
front of the Center, he saw a brand new, pearl white, Mercedes S class parked
near the front entrance.
 
That was all he
was interested in seeing.
 
After he left
Chrysler yesterday, when he put himself too far out there by going car shopping
with her, he felt as if he’d been found out.
 
But then he phoned her last night and felt as if he redeemed
himself.
 
He wanted to keep the
redemption going.
 

But he never imagined such redemption would
include Reno.
 
Again.

Sully sat in the seat in front of his desk, to
indulge Reno.
 
“So what brings you to my
neck of the woods?”

“I wanted to get something straight with you,”
replied Reno.

Sully hesitated.
 
“Such as?”

Reno looked him dead in the eyes.
 
“Katrina Gabrini is my wife.”

Sully smiled, although inwardly he was
seething.
 
“No shit?”

“No shit,” Reno reiterated.
 
“I know all about you and Blossom and many of
these so-called good, upstanding, married ladies around here.
 
I know sex is sport to you small town pillars
of the community around here.
 
But it
ain’t for me and Tree.”
 

Reno said this with deep conviction.
 
“Katrina Gabrini is completely and
unequivocally off limits.
 
Do you feel
me?
 
It’s a fact that’s not up for
discussion or debate.
 
So if you have any
predilections in that direction, Sully, you’d better change direction now
because somebody will get hurt if you don’t change course.
 
And it’s not going to be me, and it damn sure
is not going to be Trina.”

Sully stared at Reno, a look of umbrage on his
handsome tanned face.
 
“I think you need
to leave, Reno,” he said.

Reno stared at him, too.
 
And then he stood up and walked from behind
his desk.
 
The two men were now toe to
toe.

“I like you, Sully,” Reno said.
 
“You’re a good man I think.
 
But as long as my wife is volunteering here,
you’d better not try any of those little tricks you tried yesterday, pal.
 
Because if you do, there’s
going to be one room and two men.
 
You and me, partner.
 
And only one
of us will come out of that room alive.
 
Capeesh
?”

Sully didn’t back down.
 
“You can get your bullying ass out of my
center,” he said, calling Reno’s bluff, “and you can get out right now.
 
All I was doing yesterday was trying to help
a friend.
 
I thought you’d appreciate
that.
 
But since you chose to put some
ulterior motive on my actions, then I’m putting some on yours.
 
Don’t blame your insecurities on me,
Reno.
 
You’ve got you a good looking
sister.
 
A sister that’s way too good for
the likes of you, no doubt about that.
 
It’s not my fault that she finds me attractive too.
 
It’s not my fault that she figures my
plumbing knows how to stop the leak a little better than yours.”

If Sully thought Reno would take that crude
joke with a cast-off smile, he didn’t know Reno.
 
Because he immediately, without thought of
any consequences, reared back and cold-cocked Sully, right on the jaw.
 
If Sully was a lesser man, he would have
probably been out cold.
 
But Sully wasn’t
a lesser man.
 
He stumbled back, but came
up swinging too.
 

And the fight was on.

Sully bull-rushed Reno and slammed his body
into the paneled wall, calling the kinds of reverberations that caused those in
the halls just outside of the office to rush in.

“Fight!
 
Fight!” one of the young men excitedly yelled
as they saw, to their amazement, super-calm Sullivan Chambliss in a titan
battle with another white guy.

Trina was in the gym, talking to a few young
men who were telling her about their goals, when Jason, one of Pander’s young
leaders, slung the door open and announced that Sully was fighting “some white
guy.”

Every one of the young men hurried to follow
Jason, and Trina nervously followed too.
 
When she arrived at Sully’s office, he and Reno fell through the opened
door space, hitting the floor hard, with Reno on top of Sully beating the crap
out of him.