Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (25 page)

Dirty looked at Jannie.
“What mess?” he asked her.

“About Jimmy, her son.
 
She
claims Fred Ridgeway is his daddy, but we know better than that.”

“Who’s Fred Ridgeway?
 
Her old man?”

“Her ex-husband.
 
But
he’s black as tar and Jimmy’s almost white as you and me.”

What the
fuck
,
Dirty
thought.
 
“So you’re saying this Jimmy
has a white father?
 
Is that what you’re
saying?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jannie
said.
 
“You’ll see what I mean.
 
He’s in Nebraska for the summer, but he’ll be
back.
 
You’ll see what I mean.”

Dirty remembered what Reno said about Nell,
and about how he “fooled” around with her all those years
ago.
 
“So,” he asked, careful not to sound too
eager, “how old is this Jimmy?”

“Seventeen,” Jannie replied without
hesitation.
 
“And he’s a good kid,
too.
 
Graduating with honors from what I
hear.
 
But he’s no more Fred Ridgeway’s
son than I’m his daughter.”
 
Jannie said
this and laughed.

But it was no laughing matter to Dirty.
 
Reno had said that he and Nell fooled around
seventeen years ago.
 
He remembered that
distinctly.
 
Seventeen years ago, Reno
had said.
 
Seventeen years ago,
Dirty
thought with growing relief.
 
So that was it.
 
That was it!

No, Drago wouldn’t believe that Reno would
pack up and move all this way for a woman.
 
But he’d believe all day long that Reno would pack up and leave, and do
anything else, for a son.
 

Dirty smiled.
 
Would
it be this easy?
 
Had he found the answer
this easily?
 
And from
some silly-ass girl like Jannie?
 
He pulled her against him, and wrapped her in his arms.
 
He could kiss her right now, but she didn’t
even know how to do that.

But Jannie, mistaking his sudden affection for
lust, moved back on top of him for another unfulfilling, but
better-than-nothing, round.
 
She wasn’t
in love with Dirty, but she felt a sense of closeness to him.

Nell felt a sense of closeness to Reno, also,
as he and she worked closely together in preparation of Clauson’s grand
reopening.
 
Day after day and night after
night, Nell became Reno’s right hand lady.
 
She knew where the bodies were buried, she often joked, from the lax
bookkeeping to the nightmare in the kitchen to the incompetent bar staff.
 
She had complained, regularly, but Gweneth
Plant and Doug Clauson would not entertain even a hint of change.
 
Once, Gweneth threatened to fire her for
speaking out.

“Fire you?” Reno asked, as he and Nell stood
at the file cabinet in his office and went through the hundreds of service
requests from staff that went unanswered.
 
“For giving her information to improve the place?”

“Exactly,” Nell said.
 
“She saw it as insubordination and Doug
Clauson agreed with her.
 
It was a
nightmare.”

“It sounds like a nightmare,” Reno said as he
stared at yet request for a storeroom leak.
 

Nell looked at Reno.
 
He had on his reading glasses and looked so
attractive to her at that moment in time that she wanted to kiss him.
 
But he wasn’t that kind of man.
 
He was all business all the time.
 
Oddly enough, his lack of interest in her
recommended him to her even more.

“What do you have?”

“Did you know there was a leak in the
storeroom?”

“Been there for a long time, too.”

“Why wasn’t it repaired?”

“Because Gweneth and Doug Clauson said not
yet.
 
So we used buckets when we had a hard rain and lived with the stench.”

“That’s amazing,” Reno said, shaking his head.

Nell exhaled.
 
“I’d better get some coffee,” she said, heading for the exit. “Looks
like another long night.”

Just as she opened the door of Reno’s office,
however, she saw Trina walk into the restaurant up front.
 
She immediately stepped back in, leaving the
door opened.

Trina walked into Clauson’s and looked
saw
that the place was empty except for one Hispanic
waitress sweeping the backside of the restaurant.

“Hi,” she said to the older woman.

“Hi.”

“I’m looking for Mr. Gabrini.”

“Oh.
 
Yes, ma’am.
 
He’s in his
office.
 
Go straight to the back and it’s
the last door on the right.”

“Thanks,” Trina said and headed for Reno’s
office.

She saw that the door was opened before she
saw anybody else.
 
Just as she entered
the office, she saw a woman wrapping her arms around Reno’s neck, thanking
him.
 
Reno returned her embraced, mainly
because she was thanking him for improving Clauson’s when it was in his best
interest to improve it.
 
But she cared
enough to thank him.
 
He held her because
he was pleased that he didn’t ruin her, and that she still could feel humanity
toward him.
 
He closed his eyes and held
her tightly.

But then he felt a presence and opened his
eyes.
 
When he saw Trina standing in the
doorway, looking stunned, he immediately moved out of Nell’s embrace.

“Tree,” he said, attempting to smile.

But Trina wasn’t smiling.
 
She saw how he held her, and how he closed
his eyes so tightly.
  
And she took off.

“Tree!”
Reno said with panic in his voice.
 
“Tree!”

He immediately ran out of the office behind
her.
 

Nell stood there momentarily.
 
She wasn’t sure why she did what she
did.
 
She didn’t want to take this man
away from his wife?
 
But she did feel
some vindication.
 
She didn’t understand
why.
 
But she felt it sweetly.

Reno, however, felt anything but
vindication.
 
He felt panic.
 
He ran down the hall, out onto the front of
house, and with the lone waitress looking on, snatched out of the revolving
door.

But he was too late.
 
Trina was in her car and speeding off, her
wheel at first spinning before gaining traction and leaving in a swerve and
then a correction.

Reno’s panic multiplied.
 
He couldn’t lose Trina, or even come close to
losing her.
 
This was a crazy
mistake.
 
How could she think this wasn’t
a mistake?

He ran to his Porsche, jumped in, cranked up,
and took off, spinning his own wheel as he went.

By the time he made it home, he was relieved
to see Trina’s car in the driveway.
 
He
hurried out of his car, made his way into the door-it was unlocked, which upset
him.
 
Didn’t she realize there were
crooks and cranks in Crane, too?

“Tree?” he yelled as soon as he entered,
locking the door behind him, and then he headed upstairs, taking two steps at a
time.
 

Trina moved to close and then lock the bedroom
door behind her, but he was too fast.
 
He
pushed the door open, nearly knocking her backwards.

“Get away from me!” Trina yelled, tears
already in her eyes.

“What’s the matter with you, Tree?” Reno
asked.
 
“How could you think I’d do
something like that?”

“Because I have two eyes!
 
Because I saw you holding that woman!”

“She was just thanking me!
 
It had nothing to do with nothing.”

“Then why were your eyes closed so tight?
 
Why was there so much emotion behind that
hug, if it was nothing?
 
I’m no fool,
Reno.
 
I know what I saw!”

“But I wouldn’t do that to you.
 
You know that!”
 
Reno said this with such feeling, that it
gave Trina pause.
 

And slowed down her anger.
 
This
was Reno she was accusing.
 
Reno.
 
The idea of him being unfaithful to her
wasn’t something she ever wanted to face.
 
But was she now just as clueless as so many of the wives of those men
she used to see at the strip club?
 
Did
Reno have her completely snowed too?

“Oh, Reno,” she said crying.
 
“Why did you have to do that?
 
Why did you have to do that?”

Reno looked around, searching for the right
words to say.
 
“Because it. . . Because I
didn’t. . .”

Trina was puzzled.
 
“Because you didn’t what?”

Reno looked at her.
 
“Because I didn’t ruin
her.”

Trina stared at him.
 
If it was any other man, she would declare it
nonsense and seal the deal.
 
But it was
Reno.
 
And she knew exactly what he
meant.
 
She hurried to him and he pulled
her into his arms.
 

“I would never hurt you,” he said into her
hair, his arms comforted by the feel of her flesh, her bones,
her
.
 
“I would never hurt you, Tree.”

Trina closed her eyes.
 
She had to believe him.
 
Clueless, snowed or not, she chose to believe
him.

The next day, the day Jimmy Mack was set to
return back home from Nebraska, knocks
were
heard on
Nell’s front door.
 
When she looked out
of her peephole and realized it was Reno, she quickly opened up.

“Reno,” she said, surprised to see him,
although she probably shouldn’t have been.

“Can I come in?” he asked her.

“Sure,” Nell said as she opened her door
further and allowed him passage in.

When she closed the door, she offered him a
seat.

“No, I’ve got to run.
 
I just wanted to address this before we get
to the job.”

Nell’s heart began to pound.
 
“Address what?”

“I like you as my manager.
 
I think we work very well together.”

“So do
I
.”

“But Katrina, the woman who came to my office
last night?
 
She’s my wife.”

Nell hesitated.
 
“Okay.”

“I don’t want any misunderstandings when it
comes to my wife.”

“Neither
do
I,
Reno.”
 
Then she studied him.
 
“What is this about?”

“Last night.
 
She caught me embracing you.”

“So?
 
That was no big deal.
 
Dang.
 
You act like I
fell into your arms on purpose.”

“I don’t know if it was on purpose or
not.
 
All I know
is
you went to get us some fresh coffee, and then you suddenly came whizzing back
over to me and hugging on me.
 
Then my
wife shows up.
 
I’m a lot of things,
Nell, but nobody on the face of this earth has ever thought of me as a fool.
 
And if they did,” he added, looking her dead
in the eye, “they regretted it later.”

Nell’s heart began to pound.
 
She understood.
 
This man wasn’t playing any games with
her.
 
“Okay,” she said.
 
“I know where I stand.”
 

Reno hated being so blunt with her, but he had
no choice.
 
It was either hurt her
feelings, or continue to hurt Trina’s.
 
And he wasn’t hurting Tree.

“I’ll see you at Clauson’s,” Reno said and
turned to leave.