Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full (20 page)

“You sound like your father,” Amos said, shaking his head.  “Preach!” he added, and she laughed.

 “Anyway,” Trina said, “I’d better get this medication to my mother.  She hasn’t taken it for three days, I just found out, so she needs it.”

“All right.  I’ll let you go.  But good seeing you again, Tree.”

“You too,” Trina said, walking away.  “See you around.”

“You’ll be at the church celebration this afternoon, I take it?”

“A picnic in this cold weather,” Trina said, still finding that hard to believe.

 “It’s not a picnic, Tree.  It’s a founder’s day celebration.  It’s an annual church tradition.  Didn’t you know that?”

“Hell nall,” Trina said with a smile.  “When I was younger, if my parents went right, I went left.”  Amos laughed.  “And I mean every time,” Trina added.  “But yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Then I’ll see you there,” Amos said as he watched her walk away.  Then he shook away all of those fantasies he still had of being with her, and headed for the drugstore. 

FIFTEEN

In the rundown tenement, Reno took the stairs two at a time.  He wore a pair of faded jeans and a sweatshirt, looking nothing like the hotel mogul he was known as.  But he couldn’t get up those stairs fast enough.  He was getting too old for this shit, and he knew it, but he couldn’t let that bastard get away with this. 

His sister Fran, with the bruises still fresh on her face, was hurrying behind him, as if she was going to make sure he didn’t let that bastard get away. 

But Reno wasn’t thinking about her.  Because he knew her.  Because he knew this could have all been avoided if she would just leave these bad boys alone.  But oh no.  Not Fran.  Every relationship she ever had, including the one with her deceased husband, was contentious and abusive.  And always with blowback that always blew back to Reno.

The lowlifes who lived in the building were coming out of their own little apartments as Reno made his way up the stairs.  They knew what was about to go down.  They knew a man like Reno Gabrini wasn’t inside their establishment just for the hell of it.  They knew what Pac-Man had done to his baby sister, and they knew Reno was out for blood. 

But not one of them was about to call the cops.  Mainly because most of them were either wanted by the cops themselves, or should have been.  Besides, they were looking forward to the show.  Having an angry Reno Gabrini in their little bolt hole of a residence was a great treat for them.  It was a hellava burden for Reno, but a treat for them.

When Reno made it to the door at the top of the stairs, he didn’t knock or even bother to turn the knob.  He busted the flimsy door open with his broad shoulder.  He busted the door half off of its hinges.  If you go in tough, you come out tough, was what his mob boss father had taught him.  So he went in tough. 

As soon as the door flew open, he could see Pac-Man making a run for it toward his kitchen window.  Reno made a run for it too, knocking over furniture as he ran, until he reached the window and grabbed the foolish kid.  He slung him down from the window frame, then slammed his face down onto the kitchen table.  And the beating commenced.

“Hit me, motherfucker!” he roared as he beat him.  “Hit me!  You wanna rearrange somebody’s face, rearrange mine!  You fucked with my sister, why can’t you fuck with me!”

Blood was beginning to gush out of Pac-Man’s nose and mouth, but Reno kept beating him.  Fran had made it into the apartment and was needlessly egging her big brother on. 

“Beat his ass, Reno!” she was yelling.  “Beat his ass, beat his ass!” 
Just like he beat mine
, she wanted to add.

Reno grabbed Pac off the table and slung him down into one of the kitchen chairs.  His face was already beginning to swell as the blood continued to trickle out.  And Reno stared at the loser.  He was crying and trying to cover his face.  He was ready to get on his knees and beg for mercy.  Already.  He didn’t put up a fight, he just caved.  And this was the kind of piece of trash his sister liked.  A punk like this.  A fucking kid!  And Reno couldn’t do it. 

His plan had been to tell him to stay away from his sister.  His plan had been to tell him that he’d kill that sonafabitch if he so much as thought about touching his sister again.  But Reno didn’t tell him a damn thing.  Because he knew his sister.  Because he knew she wasn’t about to leave this good looking, sorry-excuse-for-a-human-being stud alone.  She was talking her big talk now, and yelling all kinds of obscenities at her boyfriend now.  But give it a few days, Reno knew, and she’d be back wanting more.

Reno looked at the punk they called Pac-Man, looked at his sister who was out for blood herself, and began heading out of the door.

Fran, however, was astonished.  “That’s
all
?” she asked her brother as she watched him leave.  She was behaving like the loud Jersey girl she was.  “After what he did to me that’s all you’re going to do to him?”

“He got the message,” Reno said as he began walking down the stairs.  The crowd moved back as he moved past them.  Every one of them knew Reno Gabrini’s reputation, and only Fran seemed dissatisfied by his display.

“Reno!” she yelled at her brother as he exited the boarding house and hurried down the stoop.  He was nearing his Porsche in front of the building by the time Fran caught up to him.

“Reno, you hear me!” she yelled, walking fast in her tight jeans and high heels.  “He’ll say that was nothing!  He’ll say he’s not scared of you, Reno, if you let him off this easy!”  When he still kept walking, she rushed up to him, grabbed him by his muscular arm, and turned him around.  “You hear me, Reno!” she yelled.

But as soon as he turned around, Reno grabbed her and slung her against his car.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he yelled at her.

“My problem?  Are you joking?  He’s the one who kicked the shit out of me!”

“What are you fooling with him for?” Reno wanted to know.  “What are you fooling with a lowlife like that for?  In this hellhole of a place?  You sleep with a dog and then you’re mad because he acts like a fucking dog?”

“But you see what he did to me!”

“Then leave him the hell alone!  Stay away from him!  Haven’t you learned anything, Fran?  Dirty put you through this same shit, time and time again, and you kept running back to him too!  Now you go dredge up another sewer dweller and expect me to clean it up when they start stinking on your ass!  I’m over it, Fran, and I mean it.  Don’t you dare call me about some boyfriend beating your ass ever again.  Because I’m not coming.  And I mean that.”  He looked at her, to make sure she understood his meaning.  And then hurried to get in his car.

“So that’s it?” Fran asked loudly, not understanding a damn thing.  “You’re going to let him get off with a little slap around, Reno?  That’s it?”

Reno cranked up his car.

“Reno!” she yelled and began to hit on the window of his Porsche, but he sped off.

“Reno, wait!” she yelled.  “
Reno
!” 

But he was long gone.  He didn’t stop until a red light stopped him.  Then he closed his eyes. 

“I miss my wife,” he found himself saying, and then he opened his eyes.  And as the light turned green, it was an eye opener. He missed her, but he could easily remedy that situation.  He could remedy it today.

He picked up his car phone, and phoned his pilot.

Although it was a cold, wintry day in Mississippi, it was a festive day too.  The whole town seemed to have turned out for the Founder’s Day celebration at the Hope Tabernacle Baptist Church, honoring Trina’s father, Cecil Hathaway, and three other men who founded the church nearly forty years ago. 

Trina made her way through the crowd, reminiscing with many old friends, until she ended up with three of her oldest friends.  And they talked and talked and laughed and talked.  They talked about how Dale had changed so little.  They talked about the famous residents who made good, and the infamous residents who didn’t make out so well.  And then Betty, one of Trina’s oldest friends, decided to talk about Reno. 

“I wouldn’t risk it,” she said to Tree.

Trina looked at her.  Although they were old friends, they had never really been particularly close.  More like rivals than friends, if you asked Trina.  “You wouldn’t risk what?” she asked her.

“Marrying a man like Dominic Gabrini,” Betty said.  “You’ve got to know how much other women want him.  I mean, I checked him out on the internet, Tree.  For a white man, he’s kind of hot.”

The other women laughed.  Trina found that qualifier insulting, but she wasn’t about to get into it with some narrow-minded woman like Betty who could only see the world from where she sat.  “I don’t find being married to my husband risky at all,” Trina said.

“But the women,” another friend said.  “I’m with Betty on that.  How do you handle that aspect of it?”

It was a sore spot with Trina.  For all of her marriage she’d heard about Reno and his alleged infidelity.  Nobody had any proof of a damn thing, but that didn’t stop the talk.  Now these ladies, who didn’t know Reno from Adam, was creating their own gossip too.  Just because he was wealthy and good looking.  It was as if nobody believed he could possibly love Trina and Trina alone.  As if, and this was the part that galled Trina the most, nobody believed she was enough for him.

“There’s nothing to handle,” she said.

“Oh, really now?” Betty asked.  “So you’re saying you have the perfect marriage? Is that what you’re saying to us?”

“I’m saying I have a marriage.  We have ups, we have downs, we have good days, we have horrible days.  A marriage.”

“But you trust him?”

“With my life.  Excuse me, ladies,” Trina said.  She always found it unseemly to be talking about her marriage to women she knew just wanted something to run and tell.

The women, however, knew when they were being played.  “She knows we’re telling the truth,” Betty said to the group. 

“She always was a very private person,” one of the other ladies said.

But Betty disagreed.  “Is that what you call it?”

“That’s what I call it.  What do you call it?”

“I call it denial,” Betty said, and the other women laughed.

“Tree!” a voice said behind Trina as she moved as far away from the gossipers as she could get.  When she turned around, Amos Cates was approaching her with two glasses in hand.

“Punch for the lady,” he said as he handed her a glass.

She smiled.  Even he was better than the gossipers.  “Thanks.”

 “I saw you over there with your friends.  They were trying to read you like a book, weren’t they?”

Trina laughed.  “They tried.  But I’ve had better women than that reading me.”

Amos laughed and raised his glass of punch.  “You’re all right, Tree,” he said as they clanked their glasses and drank the Kool-Aid. 

He frowned and looked at the glass.  “I know this is a church,” he said, “but damn.  I mean darn.”  Trina grinned. “At least they could have had some wine up in here.”

“Now you know these ladies at Hope Tabernacle are not about to be that progressive.  They haven’t changed a bit, and they’re proud of it.”

“I know,” Amos said, smiling and staring at Trina.  “But hope springs eternal.” 

Trina looked into his eyes as she took another sip.  She also noticed how he wouldn’t stop staring at her.  She removed the glass from her lips and smiled.  “What?” she asked him.

“I still can’t get over it,” Amos said.  “Trina Hathaway married to the owner of the PaLargio. When your mother told me that, I couldn’t believe it.  I stayed at the PaLargio before, at that beautiful place, and you own it now?”  He shook his head.  “The idea that a kid from Dale could fly that high is kind of amazing.  You have to admit that, Tree.”

“But you became a doctor,” Trina said.  “That’s amazing.  That’s the real accomplishment.  All I did was fall in love.”

Amos looked at Trina, and his heart sank.  She fell in love.  That was the point to him.  That was what he craved and wanted now above anything else.  To be in love.

On the front side of the church, where most of the older people were congregating, Amos nor Trina realized that the man she had fallen in love with was on the premises.  He had hugged his in-laws and were now laughing and talking with them.  It was cold, and Reno wore his jeans, sweat shirt topped off by a leather bomber’s jacket.  He had on gloves, but he still felt cold.

“Oh, this is nothing for a northern boy like you,” Cecil said, laughing.  “I thought you were born in New Jersey.”

“I was!  But my cold ass hasn’t lived there since I was a teenager!  It’s freaking cold out here!”

Both Cecil and Earnestine laughed.  There was a time when they were not at all pleased to have their daughter marrying a man whose father had been a mob boss.  There were even allegations that Reno was one himself.  But over the years Reno Gabrini proved his mettle to them.  He treated their daughter right.  That was what mattered to them.  Now they loved him like a son.  And Reno loved them too, and treated them like the mother and father he no longer had.

“How’s business these days, Reno?” Cecil asked.  “The PaLargio reopened to a lot of fanfare, but this economy is slowing up a lot of good people.”

“That’s the beauty of my business, Pop.  My customers are never too broke to gamble.”  Cecil laughed.  “So business is good, thank-you very much.  It’s been booming since the re-launch.”

“I’m glad to hear it.  Katrina’s little boutique business doesn’t seem to be faring as well.  She keeps saying things will pick up, but I don’t know.”

“I don’t either,” Reno said.  “She gives me that song and dance too about how things are going to get better tomorrow, but I’m not buying it.  It takes up too much of her time and her money and with no return on either.  But she’s working the fire out of it, I’ll give her that.  She’s devoting full time to the effort.”

Cecil looked at his son-in-law.  “What about her duties at the PaLargio?”

“She’s neglecting her duties at the PaLargio,” Reno said bluntly.

“She says you want her to move the boutique over there.”