Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor (23 page)

“Where’s Carmine Fontaine?” he asked.

His men were surprised.
 
Who the fuck was Carmine Fontaine?
 
But from the look on the perp’s bruised face,
he knew exactly who Tommy was talking about.
 

But yet he played dumb.
 
“Who’s that?”

Reno or Sal would have busted a cap
in his ass just for fucking with them, but Tommy was not Reno nor Sal.
 
He remained calm.
 
“At least you didn’t pretend to not speak
English.”
 
Tommy said this and
smiled.
 
“What’s your name?” he asked
him.

The man was in pain.
 
He didn’t give a fuck.
 
“Joe,” he said, throwing any name out there.

“Regular Joe?”

“That’s right.”

“Your last name, Regular?”

“I don’t have one.”

The guards looked at each other.
 
Who did this character think he was dealing
with?
 
But like so many others, he was
underestimating Tommy too.

“Do you have a wife, Regular?” Tommy
asked him.

He looked at Tommy.
 

“What about children?
 
What about a mother and a father?”

“What are you . . . What do you
mean?”

Tommy had hit a chord.
 
The guy looked downright terrified.

“If you don’t tell me everything I
ask you about Carmine Fontaine, and you don’t tell me right now, I will have my
people track down your entire extended family and, to put it mildly, murder
them.”
 
Then Tommy calmed back down.
 
“Start talking,” he ordered his captive.
 
“Or the pain you’re feeling now will pale in
comparison to the pain your loved ones will feel.
 
Talk.”

And just like that, Regular Joe
became a regular snitch and started singing like a canary.
 
Tommy shot him through the forehead when he
was done.

Carmine Fontaine and his skeleton
crew of men were in the trailer in the woods, and their disgraced doctor was
working frantically to save the man that had been hit.

“How many did we lose?” Carmine
asked.

Lucenti, his number one, didn’t
understand.
 
“Everybody,” he said.
 
“But us.
 
We’re all that’s left.
 
What are
you asking that for?”

Carmine had a bottle of whiskey in
his hand.
 
He took a big gulp.
 
He belched.
 
“We got those bastards, though,” he said.
 
“They didn’t see it coming, and we got those
bastards!
 
They took my sister out, I
took them out.”

“Mick the Tick was there,” Lucenti
said.
 
“That’s a problem.
 
I saw Mick the Tick!”

“So what?
 
We got him too.
 
His people won’t lay a finger on us because
we’re the phantom of their
got
damn
opera.
 
We’ll be out of the country as
soon as the dust clears, and nobody will be the wiser.
 
They won’t trace those men to me.
 
Our mission is accomplished.
 
We got those bastards!”

“All but Tommy Gabrini,” Lucenti
reminded him.

“Ah, who cares?”

Carmine’s man, the one on the
operating table, screeched out in pain.
 
“Shut the fuck up!” Carmine yelled back, and then maliciously poured
whiskey on his man’s wound.
 
The man yelled
louder, lifting his upper body from the table.
 
Carmine laughed, as the doctor, horrified and scared, tried to
frantically wipe away the liquid.

“Who the fuck is Tommy Gabrini
anyway?” Carmine asked again.
 
“He’s just
the lover boy.
 
I’ll take care of him
later.
 
It’s the fighters I wanted.
 
It’s the Reno and Sal assholes I wanted taken
out.
 
And we got those motherfuckers!”

“And Mick the Tick too,” another one
of Carmine’s men said.
 
“There’s going to
be hell to pay for taking out that asshole.”

Suddenly the house went completely
black.
 

“What the fuck?”
Lucenti
asked, as they all looked around.

Carmine didn’t say a word.
 
He reached for his gun and quickly rolled
onto the floor.
 
His men, following his
lead, did likewise.
 
But just as they
did, shots rang out from what felt like a phantom visitor.
 
They began shooting back, in the direction of
the shots, but they were just shooting in the dark.
 
Carmine couldn’t see shit, but he fired
bullet after bullet after bullet.
 
He
could hear his men falling.
 
He could
hear his wounded man dying.
 
But he kept
on shooting.
 
Nobody was taking him out!

And then suddenly the lights were
back on.
 
What he heard was true.
 
Every last one of his men had been taken
out.
 
But nobody was there.
 
Where were the gunmen that had been gunning
for him?
 
Not a soul was seen where he
had been shooting!

Then he felt a presence behind
him.
 
He turned quickly, his gun
aiming.
 
Tommy Gabrini, flanked by
Branson Nash and five of Tommy’s other men, were standing there.
 
And every last one of their weapons were
trained on Carmine’s terrified face.

“Looking for me?” Tommy asked.

“Ah, fuck,” Carmine said, knowing the
gig was up.
 
Branson Nash kicked the gun
out of Carmine’s hand.

“I heard you’ve been plotting my
demise,” Tommy said, “and my brother and cousin’s demise, for all this
time.
 
Just plotting and scheming.
 
After all this time.
 
And what did it get you?
 
You know what it got you?
 
It got you this,” Tommy said, and aimed his
rifle away from Carmine’s face, and down to his genitals.

“No,” Carmine said, mortified as he
covered his genitals with his hands. “No!”

But Tommy wasn’t taking no for an
answer.
 
He shot him dead center.

Carmine screamed and stood up,
grabbing his now bleeding genitals, and tried to run out of the house.

“Where are you going?
 
You’re crazy enough to target my family,” Tommy
said, “you’re crazy enough to fight back!”

Tommy tossed his gun to Branson and
gave Carmine a hard kick in the ass.
 
Carmine fell out of the front door, onto the porch, still holding his
bleeding genitals.
 
And Tommy followed
him onto the porch, and kicked him off of the porch and onto the dirt yard
below.

“I can’t take it!” Carmine was
crying.
 
“Kill me!
 
Kill me now!”

“I can’t do that, Carmine,” Tommy
said.
 
“I need you to suffer.
 
I need you to understand that you can’t shoot
down my family like dogs in the street and expect no retribution.
 
You are in the retribution phase of your
scheme.”

Tommy continued to kick him.
 
Carmine continued to scream in pain.
 
Until he fell down, giving up.
 
Tommy took his shoe, and pressed it down on
his already wounded genitals, and twisted.

Carmine screamed in so much agony
that he passed out.
 
He completely
blacked out. Branson Nash ran out, and tossed Tommy the rifle.
 
And it was only then, when Carmine was no longer
capable of suffering, did Tommy shoot him through the heart, and finished the
job.

You could hear a pin drop.
 
Reno was pacing, Sal was pacing, and Tommy
stood in the back of the room leaned against the wall.
 
There had been word every hour on the hour.
 
Now no word for several hours.
 
It was getting to them.

Less than a year ago it was a
different situation.
 
They were all at
the hospital then, but Reno, Sal, and Mick Sinatra were laid out, fighting for
their lives.
 
Tommy was taking care of
business.
 
They all made a full recovery
and resumed their normal lives.
 
Mick had
the shortest convalescence and, along with his wife and sons, returned to
Pennsylvania a week after the shooting.
 
He would be there now, Tommy knew, but he was out of the country on
business.
 
Reno had the longest convalescence,
and still wasn’t a hundred percent.
 
But
Tommy had been there for him.
 
He was
here now, for Tommy.

The women went to check on the
progress nearly fifteen minutes ago, but they still hadn’t returned.
 
Sal was ready to go find out what was taking
them so long, but Tommy told him to stay put.
 
“They’ll be back,” he said.
 
“Stop
worrying.
 
I’m the one who should be
nervous.”

“What are you talking?” Sal
asked.
 
“I’m the one!
 
You’ve been through this shit before.
 
I haven’t!”

The Nurse came into the waiting room
and all of the men stood up.
 
Tommy
walked up to her.

“Mr. Gabrini?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“They’re ready for you now.”

Tommy could feel his heartbeat
quicken as he, flanked by Reno and Sal, made his way to the room.

When he saw Trina and Gemma smiling,
he felt better.
 
But when he saw Grace,
holding their nine pound baby boy in her arms, joy flooded his soul.
 
He went to her, he went to
them
, and looked at his brand new
son.
 
Sal was right on his heels, looking
too, and Reno right behind them.
 
They all
stared at the wrinkled little baby.
 
Tommy picked him up into his arms unable to stop grinning.

“He looks like an old man,” Sal said.

“He looks just like you,” Reno said.

Tommy laughed.
 
“I don’t care about the looks,” he said.
 
“But if he has Sal’s heart, he’s going to be
a great one.”

Sal smiled.
 
“Yeah,” he said, bursting with pride.
 
“He looks just like me!
 
His uncle!”

“I’m his uncle too,” Reno said.

“His
real
uncle,” Sal said.

Tommy looked at Grace and shook his
head.
 
“They’re fighting over him already.”

“I know,” she said with a smile.
 
“Isn’t it wonderful?”

Tommy laughed, and then stared at
her.
 
“And how are you, Mrs. Gabrini?” he
asked.

“Tired,” Grace admitted.

“Thirty hours in labor,” Trina
said.
  
“You have a right to be!”

Everybody laughed.

“But I’m happy,” Grace said.
 
“I’m so happy he’s here!”

“So am I, darling,” Tommy said,
echoing her.
 
Their marriage was still
new, but it had already felt like the best decision they’d ever made.
 
He held Grace’s hand.
 
“I have a daughter, I have a son, and I have
a wife I adore.
 
I’m happier than I ever
though I could possibly be.”

The hospital room door opened and
Destiny came in holding her nanny’s hand.
 
When she saw her parents, she ran.
 
“Mommy!
 
Daddy!”
 
She fell over on the side of the bed, her long
ponytail bouncing, and Grace placed an arm around her.

“Hey, baby!”

“I got five happy faces in school
today.”

“You did?” Grace asked.
 
“That’s exceptional, Desi!”

Then Destiny looked at the human
being in her father’s arms.
 
“What’s
that?” she asked.

“Sal,” Reno said.

“I got your Sal right here, Reno!”

“This is your little brother,
Destiny,” Tommy said.

“He came?” Destiny asked excitedly.

“He came,” Tommy said, and knelt down
so that Destiny could get a good look at him.
 
“Isn’t he adorable?”

“He’s big!”

“Almost as big as you are,” Tommy
said.

Then Destiny looked at her
mother.
 
They did not tell her any
stork-like fairy tales about childbirth.
 
She knew he was once in her mother’s stomach, and had to come out
through her.
 
“Did it hurt, Mommy?” she
asked.

“Yes,” Grace said honestly.

“Does it still hurt?” Destiny asked.

On this Grace was equally
honest.
 
“No, baby,” she said.
 
“It doesn’t hurt at all.
 
In fact, it feels fantastic.”

Tommy looked at Grace.
 
“Yes,” he said, heartfelt.
 
“It’s fantastic.
 
It’s the best feeling ever.”
 
And they leaned over both of their children,
and kissed.

Every adult there knew how easily
this day could have never been.
 
And they
felt what Tommy and Grace felt.
 
There
was not a dry eye in the room.