“So that’s the great man’s old lady,” Roger said as they stared at her. “Sharp dresser. Very fine body. Gorgeous face.” Then Roger grinned. “And I didn’t mention the fact that she’s black,” he added.
Wayne looked at his partner. “Why would you? Green is the only color that interests me. All of that bullshit you be about, that Trump shit, you keep to yourself.”
Roger didn’t like it, and thought the implication was wholly unfair, but he knew where to pick his battles. “Think it’ll work?” he asked Wayne.
“It has to work. The commission won’t even consider our offer without Gabrini. It has to work,” Wayne added again, as both men watched Gabrini’s wife enter the restaurant.
Trina walked in thankful she had made it on time. If all went well, it would be the biggest investment outside of Reno’s money that she’d ever been a part of. It would require her to expend far more capital than her chain of clothing stores and all of her other independent investments combined. But this wasn’t about clothes. This was about basketball.
She had mentioned it to Reno when Wayne first approached her with the idea, to see if he would outright object to such a major deal. But Reno did major deals twenty times larger than this one all the time. It didn’t faze him at all. He just wanted to know how much of her time, rather than her money, it would require. She informed him that it wouldn’t take up hardly any of her time since she would be a financial backer only and not involved at all in the day to day operations. Reno told her to hear what they had to say, but ordered her to run it by him and his lawyers before she made any final decision. She had no problem with that directive.
When the waitress escorted her to their table, Wayne and Roger both rose to their feet. “Mr. Lowe, nice to see you again,” Trina said with an extended hand as she walked up to their table. They shook hands. “And you must be Mr. Bridgemont,” she said as she extended her hand to Roger.
“That’s me,” Roger said. “But please call me Roger.”
Trina never gave permission for any new business acquaintance to call her by her first name. She was female. She was black. She had to see what level of respect that accorded her first. “So good to meet you, too,” she said as they shook.
Wayne pulled out a chair at their table. “Have a seat, please, Mrs. Gabrini,” he said.
She thanked him, sat down, and they sat down after her. The waitress took her drink order and left them to their conversation.
Trina immediately pulled out a stack of papers. “I brought my investment portfolio along,” she said, “in case you wish to review it.”
“Yes, of course,” Wayne said. “But that won’t be necessary right now. Your husband’s name speaks for itself.”
Trina was a little taken aback when he mentioned Reno’s name. “My husband?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said again. “We need the biggest name in Vegas if we expect to pull this off. We need to convince the commission that we not only have the resources, but that we also have the local legend on board to sweeten the deal. And trust me, your husband does not need to prove anything to us.”
“On the contrary,” Roger said. “He’ll probably make us show our papers, instead!” Both men laughed. The waitress returned with Trina’s drink order, and then left again.
But Trina was still confused. “I don’t think I understand,” she said with that intelligent, serious look that got their attention in the first place.
“What is it that you don’t understand, Mrs. Gabrini?” Wayne asked.
“I don’t understand what my husband has to do with this,” Trina said.
Wayne smiled. He knew they had bamboozled her. He knew, when he set up this meeting, that they had not made themselves clear. But they had to get her excited first. Then, if their plan worked, she would still want in and would get her husband onboard, too. “He has everything to do with it.” Then he pretended he was just seeing her angst. “Now wait a minute. You do understand the terms. Right?”
“Apparently, I do not,” Trina responded. “You approached me about this once-in-a-lifetime investment in a professional women’s basketball team here in Vegas. A farm team for the WNBA. And you’re now telling me yes, but my husband too?”
“We thought that went without saying, Mrs. Gabrini.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You don’t understand,” Wayne said, leaning forward. “We need the best or we will never get this deal. You own a chain of clothing stores that are very profitable. We get that. But your husband, now that’s a different level. He owns Vegas! That’s the level we have to have if we ever expect to win this one and only bid.”
“And like we thought you understood,” Roger said, “we have to have a step approach. We start in the minors, and then position ourselves to get a major league team. This is big business, Mrs. Gabrini. You can be a part of it, or you don’t have to be. Your husband absolutely has to be. I thought that was understood.”
But as Trina tried to explain to them how no such thing would be automatically understood by her, and how ridiculous it was for them to assume so, a car that had been parked near the front entrance of the restaurant they were meeting in, cranked up. The driver grabbed his cell phone off of the passenger seat and pressed a number. “Now,” he said into his phone, and pulled away from the curb.
Within a mere minute after he drove away, a bomb exploded inside the restaurant and ripped through its’ interior as if it was shredding it, and blew it to smithereens.
CHAPTER THREE
Nearly fifteen minutes after Trina had left, the baby was still crying. Reno had tried everything. Jokes. Funny faces. Rattles and bottles. But nothing worked.
But he still had work to do. He still had to field phone calls from his office. He still had to handle two talent issues over the phone, and over the deafening sounds of his baby boy cries for help, rather than in person. He would have asked one of his female assistants to get her ass upstairs and watch the baby, but he knew Trina wouldn’t go for it. Other than family, the baby’s nanny was the only outside person Trina trusted with their newborn. She would have had his hide if he pulled in anybody else.
But then, one of his assistants solved his problem. “Is that little Carmine?” she asked after phoning Reno about yet another issue that had arisen.
“What do you think?” he asked her. “You think I hang around crying babies for a living?”
“But why is he crying? He must be hungry.”
And that was when the lightbulb went off for Reno. The baby was hungry! And not just for milk, either. He wanted some food! Besides, Reno was hungry, too.
He ended the call and put his cell phone back in his suit coat pocket. Then he began hurrying to the kitchen. “Alright, little buddy,” he said as he bounced his baby in his arms. “I’ve got you covered. Daddy’s got you covered now.”
He opened the side-by-side doors to the refrigerator and the freezer. “Okay,” he said. “What do we have here? We’ve got steaks. You like steaks? Or what about burgers? We’ve got patties.” Then Reno saw the answer. “Hot dogs! That’s it,” he said with a smile. He looked at his son. “Want a hot dog? What kid doesn’t like hot dogs, right? It’s not my favorite food, but I can eat a couple, too.” He pulled out a pack of Ballpark Franks.
But for some reason, the baby continued to cry. “Alright, already,” Reno said, bouncing the baby. “Give me a chance to cook the shit.”
He grabbed a small pot from the pot rack and filled it half-way with water. He tore the hot dogs open with his teeth, put four of them in the pot, and turned on the stove. “Now,” he said. “Once they get ready, you’ll be alright. But you can’t be greedy. You’ve got to give them a chance to cook, alright? So stop with the crying for once in your life!”
The door to the penthouse opened. Reno, hoping it was his oldest son Jimmy, who knew all about babies since he pretty much raised his little girl daughter on his own, felt a flush of relief. “Jimmy?” He could leave the ba
by with Jimmy easily! Trina would instantly approve of Jimmy as babysitter. “That you, Jimmy?”
“No, it’s the Avon lady.” It was the voice of Sal Gabrini, Reno’s first cousin and constant foe. He entered the kitchen in his double-breasted suit looking like he owned the joint. At least that was how Reno saw him.
And it was, for Reno, the last person on earth he wanted to see right now. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m meeting Gemma for lunch in your Barker Lounge. But since I came early, I thought I’d check you out. Imagine how I felt when Stef told me he saw you hurrying upstairs like you had some emergency.” Sal looked at the baby. “Now I see what the emergency was. Please don’t tell me Trina left that baby with you?”
Reno frowned. “Ah, fuck you,” he said. “I know how to take care of my son!”
“So, what are you doing to cure what ails him?” Sal asked. “I heard him crying before I hit the top floor.”
“He’s hungry. I’m cooking him something to eat.”
“Cooking him something to eat?” Sal looked at the four hot dogs in the pot. Then he looked at Reno. “What’s that?”
“What do you mean what’s that? It’s hot dogs. I’m boiling a couple hot dogs for the baby, and a couple for me.”
“Two hot dogs,” Sal asked with incredulity in his voice, “for a baby?”
“That’s right.”
“For a brand-new baby, Reno?”
“What brand new?” Reno asked. “He’s been here for nearly two months.”
“You buy a car that’s two months old. Isn’t it still brand new to you?”
“Hell, no!”
“Reno, you can’t give a baby, brand new or otherwise, hot dogs!”
“Why the fuck not? That’s what kids like!”
“But he ain’t no kid yet, you moron! He’s a baby!”
“Who the fuck are you calling a moron?” Reno asked. “He’s hungry and I’m going to feed him. And Trina’s breast milk ain’t cutting it. I already tried that.”
Sal frowned, and sniffed.
“What’s your problem?” Reno asked.
Sal sniffed down at the baby’s diaper. “That baby’s stank!” he said.
Reno, being Reno, took immediate offense. “Your ass stank!” he fired back. “Don’t you dare call my kid stank!”
“The baby did a boo-boo, Reno. He needs to be changed! That’s why he’s crying. He doesn’t want no fucking hot dogs. He wants a clean diaper!”
Reno sniffed around the baby’s diaper, too. “Damn,” he said with a frown of his own. “He is stank!”
“Change him,” Sal said.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean? Change him. Change your son.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
Sal couldn’t believe it. “Trina has you spoiled rotten, boy! You fathered four children.”
“Five,” Reno said. “Don’t you dare forget Nicky.” Nicky was a child by another woman Reno didn’t know he had until just before the child was killed by one of Reno’s enemies.
“But you have all of those children,” Sal said, “and you mean to tell me your slick ass don’t know how to change a freaking diaper?”
“I’m a working man. When the fuck I get time to be changing diapers?”
“Trina’s a working woman and she can do it with her eyes closed!”
“You change him,” Reno said, handing his son to Sal. “Since you’re the expert.”
“What expert?” Sal asked, holding the crying baby away from his expensive suit. “I never said I knew how to change no freaking diaper. I never changed one, either.”
“Why the hell not?” Reno asked him.
“Because . . . I’m a working man. I don’t have time to be changing no diapers!”
Reno shook his head. “Just give me the baby,” he said as Sal handed the baby back over. Reno was dressed in a suit just as expensive as Sal’s. Both men looked so out of their depth that it was achingly obvious to both of them. “Clear off the table,” Reno ordered.
“What table?” Sal asked. “The changing table?”
“What changing table?” Reno asked. “I’m talking the dining room table. Clear it off.”
“You nasty sonafabitch!” Sal yelled. “People eat on that table. I eat on that table. Nobody wants to smell shit while they’re eating!”
“Then where am I supposed to change him, Sal? On the floor?”
“Just come with me,” Sal said, and they headed for the nursery. They searched high and low for what they would use as a changing table. But they found nothing suitable.
“So where am I supposed to change him, Mr. Genius?” Reno asked.
“How am I supposed to know? I told you I don’t do this shit!”
Reno shook his head again and headed for the powder room in the foyer.
“What’s in there?” Sal asked.
“A toilet,” Reno said. “That’s where the rest of us wipe our asses. What’s his problem?”
“Speak English, Reno.”
“Where do you take your crap?” Reno asked. “In the toilet, right?”
“Right,” Sal said, nodding.
“That’s where he’s going to take his.”
“But his ass already took his!” Sal reminded Reno.
“Let’s just do this, alright?” Reno placed Carmine Gabrini over the toilet bowl. “Now, you hold him while I remove his diaper.”
Sal held onto the baby and turned his head from the stench.
“You drop my baby down this toilet bowl if you want,” Reno warned him. “You’ll be next.”
“Just do it, Reno!”
Reno removed the diaper. “Damn!” they both said together.
“Smells like a fucking sewer,” Sal added. “Where did that shit come from?”
But Reno, being Reno, took offense. “You’re talking about my baby’s shit? His shit come from the same place your baby’s shit come from.”
“No way, Reno,” Sal said. “It ain’t the same. That’s some real shit there.”
“And what’s your baby’s shit? Fake? I’ll take real any day of the week over fake, you fake-ass motherfucker!”
“Just hurry up,” Sal said as Reno began wiping the baby’s bottom with toilet tissue. “Hurry.”
“I’m hurrying!” Reno decried.
“Damn,” Sal said, his face completely scrunched up. “This funk can gag a maggot!”
Reno looked at Sal. “I got your gag right here,” he said with bravado.
“What are you two geniuses doing?”
They both turned. It was Gemma Jones-Gabrini, Sal’s African-American wife. They didn’t even realize she had just entered the penthouse and heard their voices in the foyer’s powder room. When she saw what they were doing, she pushed Sal aside. “Oh, for goodness sake!” She immediately took charge of the baby. “Poor baby! What are these two fools doing to you?”
“Thank goodness you’re here,” Reno said. “Put the diaper on him, will you, Gem? I’ll go check on the pot.”
Gemma was puzzled. “What pot?” she asked.
“Reno, the baby whisperer,” Sal answered, “is cooking a couple of hot dogs for Carmine.”
Gemma couldn’t believe it. “Hot dogs?”
“Yeah, hot dogs,” Reno said. “What’s wrong with hot dogs? It’s not like I was going to go overboard or anything. I wasn’t going to put no chili peppers or sauerkraut or anything like that on them.” His cell phone began to ring. “I’m not stupid!”
Sal looked side-eyed at him. “Says who?” he asked.
“Says your mama, motherfucker!” Reno responded. Then he answered his ringing phone before Sal could zing him back. “This is Reno.”
The first thing he heard was a lot of noise, and then sirens in the background, and then the voice of Bono, the lead guard on Trina’s security detail. “She went in,” he said. “We didn’t think nothing of it, Boss. We knew about the meeting. We didn’t think nothing of it!�
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Reno frowned. “What the fuck are you blabbering on about? Get to the fucking point!”
“There’s been an explosion. There’s no survivors, Boss! There can’t be!”
Reno’s heart dropped through his shoe. “An explosion where?”
Sal and Gemma both looked at Reno when they heard the word explosion.
“At the restaurant,” Bono replied. “At Kal’s. Your wife went in and then it exploded, Boss!”
Reno’s eyes stretched wide when he realized what Bono was saying. Trina was in that explosion. His wife was in an explosion?
And Reno didn’t delay. He took off out of the powder room. He was moving so fast that his feet literally slid up to the penthouse front door and he ran into it. Then he flung it open and ran out. Sal took off behind him, glancing back at his wife as he hurried out of the powder room.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ll take care of the baby and the hot dogs. Go!”
Sal didn’t hesitate. He went. He hurried after Reno.
CHAPTER FOUR
It looked like a war zone. What looked like dozens of fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances clogged the parking lot to such an extent that the police tape extended all the way out to the street. Kal’s restaurant, an upscale eatery near the outskirts of Vegas, had been ripped apart. Reno and Sal couldn’t believe it as Reno drove his Porsche as far up to the cordoned off area as he could get, and he and Sal jumped out. And both of them had the same question: how could anybody survive a blast that deep? How could anybody survive?
Reno saw that the police were turning away all anxious family members and gawkers. They had to wait. Nobody was allowed on the premises. Reno looked at Sal. Sal’s heart dropped when he saw the desperation and anguish in Reno’s eyes.
“Which way you’re going?” Sal asked him.
Reno checked out of the scene. Then he looked back at Sal. “Left,” he replied.
“Go,” Sal said and plotted his distraction.
As Reno positioned himself near the left end of the police tape, he looked back at Sal. Sal moved toward the right end of the tape, totally opposite from Reno. And then he yelled. “He’s got a bomb!” he cried, pointing toward the far end of the building. “He’s got a bomb!”
Reno Gabrini- the Man in the Mirror Page 2
