Reno Gabrini: I'm Losing You Read online

  Reno regretted arguing with Trina, too, as he sat back down at the table. They weren’t on the same page, and that always depressed him. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just let her get away with that shit. He pulled out his cell phone, and called Al Calanesi, the chief responsible for her security.

  “Sir?”

  “My wife had a meeting in Kingman this morning?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who did she meet? Male or female?”

  “Male, sir.”

  Reno knew that meant nothing. Most business people were men. “Where?”

  “At a restaurant downtown, sir. On Penny Street.”

  “Did you take any photos?”

  “Well, no, sir,” the chief said over the phone. “You said we were to follow her to make sure she was okay only. No photos, no calls to you, no spying.”

  “I know what I said,” Reno said angrily and defensively. “What the fuck you telling me what I said?” And then he ended the call. He took the glass of wine Trina left on the table, and swallowed it down with one swoop.

  A waiter, realizing his error, hurried over to the table. “Would you care for something to drink, Mr. Gabrini, sir?”

  Reno looked at him. “What are you asking me now for? My ass didn’t just get here. You should have been asking that question when I first got in here. You’d better not be treating my customers this way, you hear me? As soon as they arrive, you get to their table. Or your ass won’t be here for long.” Then Reno stood up, with shades and folder in hand, and left.

  The waiter’s knees buckled, and then he looked at his manager across the room. The manager laughed and shook his head. “Looks like you just got a taste of Hurricane Reno.” The others employees in the lounge laughed too.

  Then the manager turned serious. “Get back to work,” he ordered everybody. “You heard Mr. Gabrini. Everything better be tip top when we open. And thanks to Slowpoke, here, don’t think he’s not going to check. He will. Get to work!”

  And like busy bees, they got to work. They weren’t pretending anymore.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Vegas nightclub, far off the Vegas Strip, was packed solid with patrons and loud music and Jimmy was in one of the backrooms burying his sorrows. Not in wine, but in women. Two women. One white. One black. One was sucking his dick while he sucked the breasts of the other one. It was how, since his last breakup with his wife, he spent most of his nights. And especially after that bombshell his old man laid on him, where he was no longer going to be the head man in charge in New England. He was going to fuck and then drink and then party all night long. He wanted to get wasted. He wanted to forget his troubles and pour them into every vice he could think of. He was still reeling.

  But a knock on the door, and then a con some called Noon Devil, most called Noonie, walked in and put a momentary halt to his plans.

  Jimmy frowned. “What do you think you’re doing, man? Don’t you see I’m busy here?”

  But Noonie dismissed his concern with a wave of the hand. “You can fool with those bitches later,” he said as he walked further in. He was carrying a briefcase. “We got business. Tell them to get lost.”

  “You get lost!” Jimmy fired back.

  But the defiant look on Noonie’s face reminded Jimmy whom he was dealing with. Noonie was vicious, and came from a vicious family. He laid his head back in frustration. “Later girls,” he said.

  Both women stopped their activity, and then grabbed up their clothes and left the room. They knew not to ever comment when asked to leave. They also knew, given Jimmy and his ferocious appetite, that they’d be back.

  Jimmy pulled up his pants, and then sat up on the sofa he had been lying upon. “Make it quick, man,” he said. “I don’t come to a place like this to talk.”

  “Neither do I,” Noonie said, and sat on the ottoman in front of the sofa. He opened the briefcase. It was filled with cash. “I come to show.”

  Jimmy frowned. “What’s this supposed to be?” Had to be twenty thousand dollars in there.

  “The down payment,” Noonie said.

  “What down payment? I didn’t agree to that shit.”

  “Not yet,” Noonie said. “But I’m sure you will once you hear the terms.”

  “I already heard the terms.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Noonie said. “Stop being so close-minded, Jimmy Mack. What I came to you with last week has changed. I’m here tonight with different terms. I’ve sweetened the pot considerably.”

  Jimmy was interested, but only just. He knew he wasn’t about to go along with what Noonie was asking.

  “You want to hear the new terms?” Noonie asked.

  “Just spill it out, Noon. Nobody’s got time for your melodrama.”

  “A million a year,” Noonie said.

  Jimmy was stunned. He knew Noon was a big-time drug dealer. He knew he was nasty business. He just didn’t realize on what scale. “A million?” he asked.

  “A million,” Noonie said. “I’ll stand to make ten times that myself, so why not shoot you off a prized amount for your cooperation? It’ll be a win-win for both of us.”

  “And it’s weed only?” Jimmy asked.

  “Weed only, dude,” Noonie said, pleased to see that Jimmy’s interest was now heightened. “That’s all I sell. It’ll be beautiful, Jimmy. All you have to do is provide my people with five rooms out of each one of your hotels. The cops will never even think about raiding your old man’s hotels. They don’t want to tangle with any Gabrinis. It’ll be the perfect set up.”

  “Five rooms?” Jimmy asked.

  “At each one of your hotels, yeah,” Noonie said. “We’ll bring in the weed, have our dealers pick it up directly from the hotels, and they’ll take it from there. Weed is going to be legal in every state in the union someday anyway. I just want to make my money while I can. And you can get rich too, Jimmy, and all without relying on your old man to do a damn thing. I know how important your independence is to you.”

  Jimmy frowned. “Keep my old man out of this,” he said.

  Noonie smiled, and threw up his hands. “I’m just stating a fact. I heard how he demoted you.”

  Jimmy looked at him. “How did you hear that?”

  “You told one of your partners who work for you,” Noonie said. “They told one of their partners, who told one of their partners, who told me.”

  Jimmy shook his head in disgust. He couldn’t believe he would be betrayed like that. But it was the very problem his father said needed fixing: hiring his friends!

  “Are you in, Jimbo?” Noonie asked. “Do you wanna make this money while we can, or not? What’s your old man paying you? Fifty thou a year? A hundred thou? Man, please. You could make that much in a little over a month with me! You’ll be independently wealthy. And all you’ll have to do is provide the rooms. I’ll do the rest. It’s like the easiest money you will ever make in your life.”

  Jimmy stared at Noonie. And then he looked at the briefcase filled with cash. Easy money, Noonie called it. Easy as pie. But Jimmy’s old man had always taught him that there was no such thing as easy.

  The SUV was parked on the dead-end street, in the heart of the hood, when the Chevy drove up and stopped at the curb behind it.

  “He’s already here,” Bo Jackson said into the wire he was wearing.

  “Do everything the way you normally do it,” Reno responded. He was in a van, parked around the corner, but had Bo wired with a listening device and Bo’s shades wired with camera so that he and his men could see the action unfold.

  Bo got out of his car and made his way to the SUV.

  “Can you see who’s in that front seat?” Reno asked as Bo walked.

  “No,” Bo responded. “It’s too tinted. They never let me see him.”

  Reno, with Luggi beside him, sat in the van and watched the transaction unfold. Bo and his brother had been in the basement of the PaLargio, in the Bowels, waiting for the call to come in. The call came in tonight. H
e was to meet the money man responsible for paying the Jackson brothers the gambling money they needed to steal millions from Reno’s casino. “As soon as he gets inside of that SUV,” Reno said to his driver, “I want you to head that way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Reno picked up his Walkie Talkie and pressed the button. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready, Boss,” one of his men, in a second van on the same street, responded.

  “When I give the word, I want you to head one street over. The target is a black SUV. I want that sucker hemmed in: you from the front, us from the back. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Reno continued to look at the monitor in his van. As soon as Bo opened the door to the SUV and stepped inside, Reno pressed the button of his Walkie Talkie again. “Go now!” he ordered.

  The van in front took off one way, while Reno’s van took off in the opposite direction. Both vans ended up on the street over at nearly the same time, and then floored the gas as they drove toward the idle SUV.

  But the SUV wasn’t idle for long. As soon as its driver saw the van coming from the front, and Reno’s van coming from the back, he floored the gas of the SUV too and took off, not front nor back, but sped across the street, across the sidewalk, and crashed through a wooden, dilapidated storefront.

  “That fucker’s crazy!” Luggi yelled as their van took off after the SUV.

  But it wasn’t an easy ride because the SUV didn’t stop once it crashed through the storefront. It kept driving toward the back of the riggety building. Reno’s van and his second van followed, determined to catch the crook, and was aided when the SUV attempted to crash through the back of the building. It crashed, but not through. The SUV jackknifed sideways and died where it hit.

  The vans stopped too, as Reno and his men jumped out. But the van’s driver got out, with a sawed-off shotgun, and began firing with rapid fire as he walked toward them. The passenger, the money man, got out firing too, and Reno and his men had to duck for cover and fire back. Reno killed the driver, Luggi killed the money man, and Bo Jackson got out of the SUV trembling in fear.

  Reno ran up to the money man, to see just who this wise guy was, but he was damned if he knew him.

  Luggi took a look too.

  “Ever seen him?” Reno asked.

  Luggi shook his head. “Never.”

  Reno looked at Bo. “What about you? This is your first time seeing his face, or so you claim. You know this joker?”

  Bo nervously looked at the dead body. He was a thief, but he was no murderer. This kind of violence was new to him. He shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “I don’t know him.”

  “Great,” Reno said. “Just great.” They were forced to kill the only link they had to the mastermind. He exhaled. “Take his picture,” he ordered Luggi. “Pass it around. Somebody better know his name.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Reno began heading back to the van.

  “What do we do about the Jacksons?” Luggi asked. Both Bo and his brother Aubree had been under guard in the Bowels. “They’re free to go?”

  “Hell no,” Reno responded. “What are you talking? They aren’t free to do shit until I find out who’s behind their flimflam. And then I’ll see. Take his ass right back with his brother.”

  “My brother still needs a doctor,” Bo said.

  Reno looked at Bo. He was shaking in fear. He was no hood. “Get Doc to take a look at his brother,” he ordered Luggi.

  Bo was grateful. But he was still too shaken to show it.

  Reno supped up more gravy on his biscuit as Trina, in her bathrobe, sat at the table with him. It was ten at night, Reno had just made it back to their penthouse on the top floor of the PaLargio, and their two youngest children were sound asleep.

  “They tried to stay up,” Trina said. “But they couldn’t hang. Dommi fell asleep before Sophie did.”

  Reno smiled. “His punk ass.”

  Trina tried to smile too, to forget about their argument earlier, but the strain in their relationship hung over them like an elephant in the room. Reno continued to eat the homecooked meal Trina had prepared for him, and she continued to quietly sip her tea.

  After a while of this, she spoke again. “When I picked up Dommi from school today, I spoke with a couple of his teachers.”

  Reno looked at her. “Yeah? What did they say? His ass still acting up?”

  “They said no. Ever since we went up there and had that conference with all of his teachers, he hasn’t been misbehaving at all.”

  Reno looked skeptical. “Not at all? That doesn’t sound like Dommi,” he said.

  “It didn’t sound like Dommi to me either. They said he’s quiet now. Doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything. Not even his work.”

  “Now that part sounds like him.”

  But Trina was serious. “I’m just worried. I talked to him about it tonight.”

  This interested Reno. “What did he say?”

  “Typical Dommi nonsensicalness. He said he’s okay. He’s just tired right now. He said he’ll get in trouble again soon enough. Just wait and see.”

  Reno chuckled between bites of food.

  “Then I had to spend thirty more minutes telling him we don’t want him to get in trouble. We’re glad he’s behaving.” Trina smiled. “It was awful.”

  Reno exhaled. “I’ve been too busy lately. It’s not fair to the children and I know it. I’ve got to make it up to them.”

  “Taking them to the carnival will help,” Trina said.

  “The carnival?” Reno asked. His eyes roamed down, to Trina’s breasts, as her cleavage was showing between the front closure of her bathrobe.

  “They like that sort of thing,” Trina continued, noticing his roam. “Especially Dommi. It’ll be fun.”

  Reno nodded. “We’ll see,” he said. He glanced at her breasts again. “So how was your day?” Then, he added, “After our little squabble?”

  “It was okay,” Trina said. “And I didn’t mean to imply the meeting was nothing, Reno. It was a big deal. But nothing for you to worry about, is what I was trying to say.”

  “Who did you meet with?” Reno asked. He wanted her to admit it was a man.

  “This guy named Garry Marshall. He’s interested in partnering up.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yep.” Trina hesitated, and then decided to just put it out there. “Gemma and I are looking into taking Champagne’s to the next level.” She said this and looked at Reno.

  Reno didn’t respond.

  “At first I was thinking about opening five more stores across the country,” she said.

  Reno didn’t hesitate. “No,” he said.

  “Reno!”

  “I said no. I don’t know why you keep bringing this up. Every year you bring this up!”

  “And every year you say no.”

  “And I’ll continue to say it. You aren’t putting that kind of responsibility on your plate. No way. We’re both too busy now. I was just telling you how busy I was. It has to be affecting our children. Something has got to give, Trina. I can’t be traveling across the country on business, while you’re traveling across the country too. That’s not going to work.”

  “We could have made it work,” Trina said.

  “No, Tree, no.” Reno was firm.

  “It’s a moot point anyway,” Trina said. “I’m not opening five more stores.” She was doing something far more dramatic than that, by licensing her brand with many other investors, but now was not the time to get into it with Reno. She decided to leave that discussion for another day.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed by his unwillingness to let her run her business her way. She was. She even leaned back and folded her arms, in an unconscious show of her disapproval. But when she folded her arms, she immediately caught Reno’s attention because her bathrobe slid open, and one of her breasts popped out.

  “Shit,” Reno said when he saw her exposed breast. He’d been wanting
to fuck her since he saw her this morning. He pushed the plate away from him. “Come here. Come here, Tree.”

  Trina knew what he wanted. She wanted it too. Their love life had been too inconsistent of late. But she’d rather continue to deal with why he wouldn’t let her run her business the way she wanted to run it. But she also knew that was a losing battle.

  She got up and stood in front of him, between him and the table. He stood up, sat her on the table, opened her bathrobe, revealing her nakedness, and began sucking her breasts.

  He rubbed and sucked and took one hand and began massaging her clit. And then he leaned down, and was between her legs.

  Trina leaned back, resting on her elbows, as he licked and sucked her.

  He unzipped and began jerking on his penis as he licked her. But it was a quick arousal. Trina had him hard within seconds. And then he stood up, his dick sticking straight out, and put it in her.

  He lifted Trina up and into his arms as his penis made poking motions deep inside of her wetness. He looked into her eyes, and she looked into his eyes, as they fucked. It had been nothing but stress lately, their life, and it was taking its toll on both of them. But right now, as they made long, passionate love, they were in sync. They were one. Their eyes became hooded, and then closed, as they couldn’t help but enjoy the ride.

  It didn’t take long for Trina to cum. And then Reno behind her. And they held onto each other as they continued to gyrate, as they continued to make love, until all feelings were gone.

  And there were tears in Trina’s eyes as Reno continued to fuck her. Because she knew she had to make a decision that was best for her business. Because she knew, no matter what that decision was, Reno was not going to approve.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jimmy Mack, who left Vegas a couple days ago and was back at his home base inside the Hotel New Hampshire PaLargio East, was leaned against the front desk in the lobby. It was three in the morning and the lobby was dead silent but for the boastings of Jimmy and his buddy, housing supervisor Clovis Markees, who couldn’t sleep either. They were joking around about their favorite subject: basketball.