Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair (15 page)

“A bar, a club, what difference does it make,
Reno?
 
What are you going to do?
 
Make the club owner turn over the video
footage of my arrival and departure?
 
Are
you going to interview other patrons to make sure they saw me there?”

“Maybe,” Reno admitted.

Trina was angry.
 
“You kiss my ass, Reno,” she declared.
 
“You stay out all times of night, do anything your ass is big enough to
do, and now you’re going to question me because I missed one dinner?
 
And for you to talk about where was I
tonight?
 
Where were you?
 
That dinner didn’t last this long.
 
Where did you go after you left there, Reno?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“It’s not about me, either,” Trina shot about.
 
“It’s about your need to control every aspect
of my life.
 
I’m telling you, Reno, that
is not going to happen.
 
I love you, but
you’re taking this shit too far.
 
Nothing’s going on.
 
How many
times do I have to tell you that?”

Trina settled back down.
 
Reno’s look was so intense, she was afraid to
get him going again anyway.

“I need to take a shower,” she finally said.

Reno didn’t want to let her go.
 
Because he knew something was off with
her.
 
Something was wrong.
 
But he couldn’t prove it, and he knew he
couldn’t.
 
He let her go.

Trina made her way to their bathroom and slammed the
door.
 
But when she leaned against it,
her heart was still hammering.
 
And she
cried.
 
She cried because of the fix she
was in.
 
She cried because she knew her
husband was not going to be able to get her out of this one.
 
She cried because she knew, once he found
out, he wasn’t going to want to be her husband anymore.

“Freckles just died, Dad,” Jimmy said as he hurried
into his father’s office and rushed up to his desk.

Reno didn’t bother to look up.
 
It was late at night, he had been working his
butt off all day, and it was three days after his argument with Trina that
still wasn’t settled.
 
It was three days
later and they still were at odds with each other.
 
Reno was in a bad mood and didn’t care who
knew it.
 
His staff stayed out of his
way.
 
But Jimmy didn’t have that
luxury.
 
“Dad?”

Reno still didn’t look up, but this time he
responded to him.
 
“What?”

“Freckles just died.”

Reno finally looked up, but he looked up with a
frown on his face.
 
“Who the hell is
Freckles?”

Jimmy couldn’t believe it.
 
“I know you didn’t just say that.
 
Freckles the clown, Dad?
 
He’s only the number two biggest grossing act
we have this quarter!”

Reno stood up, at the mention of money.
 
“Where is he?”

“In the Gray Room.”

Reno grabbed his suit coat from off of the back of
his chair and began heading toward the exit.
 
“What happened to him?”

“He dropped dead during rehearsals.
 
The paramedics are on their way.”

“The paramedics?
 
He can be revived?”

“No.
 
We
didn’t know what else to do.”

“You told them to go around back?”

“Yes, sir.
 
The guests shouldn’t be alarmed.
 
They’re coming in through the back.”

“Damn,” Reno said as they made their way out of his
suite of offices and toward the elevator. “The clown is dead.
 
And he’s our number two?”

“He’s number two.
 
He’s a big deal.
 
A lot of our guests
are going to be so heartbroken.
 
He
generates a lot of money for you.”

“A fucking clown.” Reno shook his head.
 
The taste of his guests never ceased to amaze
him.

“People love a great circus performer, Pop,” Jimmy felt
a need to explain, “and Freckles is one of the greatest.
 
At least he was.
 
You just never took the time to see what kind
of show he put on.
 
You just signed his
checks.
 
He always said you never
respected him.”

“What do I need to be respecting a clown for?
 
He’s a clown!”
 
Then Reno shook his head again.
 
“A clown is my number two income generator
this quarter.
 
I’ll be
got
damn.
 
What is this place coming to?
 
I
remember when an A-lister was always my number one.”

“An A-lister is your number one.
 
A-listers are nine of your top ten
moneymakers,” Jimmy reminded him.
 
“But
Freckles is number two.”

When the elevator doors opened, and they were about
to step on, one of Reno’s security chiefs, Ben Debrosiac, was about to step
off.
 
“I need to see you, boss,”
Debrosiac said.

Reno and Jimmy stepped on.
 
“You’re seeing me,” Reno said.

“I need to see you downstairs.
 
On the fourth floor.
 
I was just coming to get you.”

Jimmy pressed the Lobby button and the doors closed.

Reno stared at Debrosiac.
 
It was serious or he wouldn’t be there.
 
“Press Four,” he ordered Jimmy.

“But what about Freckles, Pop?”

“Fuck Freckles,” Reno said.
 
“He’s dead now.
 
What am I going to do about it?
 
You handle it until I get there.”

Jimmy exhaled.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said, and pressed Four.

“What’s this about?” Reno asked Debrosiac.

“The guy that tried to blackmail Jimmy?
 
The guy at the safe house?”

Jimmy looked at Debrosiac too.

“What about him?” Reno asked.

“His name is Trent Chappell.
 
They call him Chap.
 
He’s a hood from Jersey.
 
Small time all the way.
 
But we also found out where he’s been staying
while he’s been in town.”

Reno got it.
 
“On the fourth floor?”

“On the fourth floor, that’s right.
 
Right here at the PaLargio.
 
Once we got his name, we ran a check around
all the hotels.
 
We started here,
though.
 
We figured since he was an
out-of-towner and was threatening Jimmy, he might have wanted to be close to
Jimmy, to watch his goings and comings, yet keep out of Jimmy’s way.
 
Our hunch was right.
 
So I went to the room he had stayed in.
 
I found something I need you to see.”

The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and the
doors opened.
 
Reno and Debrosiac stepped
off, but Jimmy was coming behind them.

“Whoa,” Reno said, pushing him back onto the
elevator and effectively preventing the door from closing.
  
“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to take a look at it too,” Jimmy said.

“No, you don’t,” Reno said.

“But it’s about me, Pop!”

“You go handle Freckles.”

“Fuck Freckles,” Jimmy said with a frown, and
Debrosiac smiled.
 
He wanted to laugh,
but he knew Reno would kick his ass.

“Get back on that elevator,” Reno ordered his son,
“and do what I said.”

“But
Dad
,”
Jimmy started saying in that whining voice Reno hated.
 
But Reno stopped him cold when he gave him
that
does it look like I’m fucking with
you
look.
 
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy added
with great reluctance in his voice, and stepped further back onto the
elevator.
 
Sometimes he dreaded the idea
of leaving his father and moving to New Hampshire.
 
He loved him that much.
 
But other times he couldn’t wait to get away
from him.
 
This was one of those other
times.
 
The elevator doors closed in
front of him.

“He’s right, you know,” Debrosiac had the nerve to
say as he and Reno headed down the fourth floor corridor.
 
“It’s his fight, boss.
 
When you gonna cut him loose?”

“Never,” Reno responded.
 
“He’s going to take over my northeastern
operations and get the hell out of this crazy town.
 
He’s going to live a normal life.”

“That’s going to be hard for a kid raised in a
casino.”

Reno didn’t respond to that.
 
Debrosiac didn’t know that Jimmy was a
teenager when Reno discovered he was his son.
 
He’d been with Reno ever since, but not during his most formative
years.
 
Reno knew he was swimming against
the tide trying to tame his grown son, but he’d swim against a tsunami if it
could save Jimmy from a life where he had to constantly look over his shoulder.

Besides, Jimmy had Madison now.
 
Reno’s only grandchild.
 
He wanted her out of Vegas too.
 
Reno and Trina together would protect their
daughter Sophia.
 
She would be safe.
 
They would see to that.
 
And Reno and Trina both knew Dommi could take
care of himself.
 
Gangster was too deeply
entrenched in his blood, just as it was deeply embedded in Reno and Sal and
Tommy and their Uncle Mick’s blood too.
 
But Jimmy’s sensitivity and vulnerability, the two traits Jimmy thought
Reno despised in him, were the two traits Reno were depending on to keep him
out of the thug life.
 
Jimmy, Reno felt,
stood a chance.

 
They walked
around a corner of the corridor and made it up to one of the cheaper rooms in
Reno’s hotel, although it wasn’t cheap.
 
The Deluxe room, as they called it.
 
Debrosiac swiped the keycard and they entered the room.
 
Reno hadn’t been in one of the deluxe rooms
in years, but he was pleased.
 
It was the
most economical room they offered, but it was still very nice.
 
And fairly clean.

“So this is where he’s been holing up?” Reno asked
as he looked around.

“This is the place.”

“So he’s talking now?”

“Nope,” Debrosiac said.
 
“We’re putting it to him pretty bad, three
days in a row now, but he’s no snitch.
 
We kind of admire the guy.
 
He
won’t talk.”

“He’s protecting somebody,” Reno said.
 
“A family member, or somebody just as
close.
 
Even brave men have limits.”

“Yeah, that’s what we figured too.
 
And you’re right.”

Debrosiac walked over to the nightstand, reached
into the drawer, and grabbed a cell phone. “He left it here.”

“On purpose?” Reno asked.

“I don’t think so. He cleared out of here the day of
the meet.
 
Took everything else.
 
I think he forgot that his cell phone was in
this drawer.
 
It was pushed back enough
that the maid could have glanced, saw that the Bible hadn’t been stolen, and
closed the drawer back up.
 
She never
looked far back enough to see it.
 
But
check this out,” Debrosiac said, as he pulled up the relevant texts, and handed
the phone to Reno.

Most of the texts were incoming, with someone asking
for Chap to phone.
 
Then one text asked
how did it go with Jimmy?
 
It was damning
evidence, to be sure, but what shocked Reno was when he looked at the top of
the text page.
 
Then he looked at
Debrosiac.

“That’s right,” he said.
 
“And we checked it out.
 
They’re siblings.”

Now Reno remembered, just like that, where he had
seen Chap before.
 
And he was off.

He hurried out of that hotel room, got on the
elevator, and made his way back up to his office suite.
 
When he entered the outer sanctum, he ordered
Quinn Chan, who was seated behind her desk, to come with him.
 
Quinn was already terrified that Chap had
taken the money and skipped town, and they were already asking for that money,
but she didn’t figure how Reno would know anything about that.
 
Until she followed Reno into his office and
closed the door behind her.

“I’m still trying to get those final numbers
together,” she said, as if this was business as usual.
 
“I should have them on your desk by close of
business to . . .”

But Reno didn’t give her a chance to finish her
thought.
 
His fist was too busy
connecting with her face and knocking her backwards.
 
She fell as his blow left her dazed, and she
looked up at him stunned.

“I normally wouldn’t hit a lady,” he said, “but
since you aren’t one anyway, I will have no problem beating the shit out of
you.
 
Remember that.
 
Now stand your ass up!”

Quinn quickly, nervously stood up.
 
“What did I do?” she asked, holding the side
of her face, fighting back tears.

“Why did Chap blackmail my son?” Reno asked her.

“Chap?
 
Who’s
Chap?”

Reno grabbed Quinn by her long black hair and jerked
her head back.
 
“Don’t fuck with me,” he
warned her.
 
“I am not in the mood!”

Quinn could see the rage in his intense blue
eyes.
 
He already was a hard man on an
ordinary day.
 
This was no ordinary day.

“Why was your brother blackmailing my son?” Reno
asked again.

Quinn knew playing dumb was not going to cut
it.
 
“Where is he?” she asked.
 
“Is he alright?”

“Answer my question, Quinn.
 
Why was your brother blackmailing Jimmy?”

“Because I asked him to,” she said, with defeat in
her voice.

That made no sense to Reno.
 
But when it came to crooks and thieves, few
things did.
  
He released her hair.
 
“Why would you ask him to do something like
that?
 
For the money?”