Reno and Sal Gabrini: Fire with Fire

by Mallory Monroe

  “I don’t know. The cop walked up. I didn’t get a chance to ask him. But it had to be recent. He stopped working for him like a couple weeks ago, and he claims to have heard the conversation.”

  “Damn, Sal. Why would they claim something like that?”

  “It’s bullshit,” Sal said.

  “I know it’s bullshit. I didn’t say it was true. I’m just wondering what could be the reason for them to go there.”

  Sal shook his head. “Hell if I know! But I know I’ve got to tell Reno.”

  Gemma began shaking her head. “Tell Reno? Jealous as that man can get when it comes to Trina? Sal, I don’t know. I don’t know about telling Reno.”

  “What do you expect me to do? I can’t keep that shit from him, even if it is bullshit. And you need to tell Tree. She has a right to know too.”

  “It’s not Tree I’m worried about,” Gemma said. “It’s Reno and his reaction, regardless that it’s bullshit, is what worries me. He might beat her ass anyway.”

  Sal frowned. “What do you mean beat her ass? Reno doesn’t beat on Trina.”

  “Not like that, no,” Gemma said. “But if she fucks up, or he perceives that she might have, he’s been known to spank her ass, Sal. He’s done it many times before.”

  Sal smiled. “Fucking perv! I knew it!”

  “That’s not funny, Sal. I’m serious. You’ve got to handle this information very delicately.”

  “Alright already. I get it. We’ll invite them both to dinner,” Sal said, “and tell them together.”

  Gemma placed her arm on his arm and they began walking again. Neither one of them was looking forward to that dinner.

  “Got another case?” Sal asked her as they walked.

  She looked at him. Was he that concerned about some nonsense some lawyer told him? “Why are you asking me that again?” she asked. “I already told you no. I’m done for the day.”

  “Good,” Sal said, patting her hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here. These courtrooms give me the creeps!”

  Gemma smiled and shook her head. Typical Sal. Strongest man she knew when it came to big things. Little things like courtrooms and carnival rides? A jelly belly! But her jelly belly, she thought affectionately as she moved closer against him and they made their way toward the elevators.

  But not before Sal took one final look back, as if he was halfway expecting that lawyer to reappear and tell him he was bullshitting all along. He had no such luck.

  After Sal and Gemma left the corridor, the door of that courtroom did reopen, and that attorney, who had claimed to be in preparation for an upcoming hearing, did peep out to make sure Sal was gone. And then he headed, in the opposite direction, out too.

  Once he was sure he was out of Sal’s sight, he pulled out his cellphone, contacted Pump Futarda himself, and told him the job was done.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After the dinner orders were taken by the waiter, and the menus were confiscated, it was Reno who leaned back and broke the ice. “Okay give,” he said to Sal.

  Sal looked at him. “Excuse moi?” He responded as if he was just some innocent Frenchman.

  “What gives?” Reno asked. “I know your slick ass didn’t invite me to dinner unless something’s up. You might have invited Trina. But not me and Trina. What is it?”

  “You know it’s very hard to be civil with a fool like you,” Sal said. “Sometimes I think my life would be so much easier if I took your stupid ass, mixed it into a fresh batch of concrete, and then shoved it six feet under!”

  “Yeah, right, Sal,” Gemma said. “If anything ever were to happen to Reno you’ll be crying all day and night: ‘Oh, Reno. My poor Reno. I’m so sorry, Reno!’” She and Trina laughed and high-fived.

  Reno smiled too. But Sal didn’t find it humorous at all. “On my worse day I wouldn’t mourn his ass,” Sal said. “Are you serious? Me? Mourn him? Get real!”

  “Anyway,” Trina said. “Reno’s right, you know. This dinner date was too sudden to be a casual get together. Something’s up. What is it?”

  Gemma looked at Sal. Sal exhaled. “I went to the courthouse today to check on Gemma. A couple lawyers sat in front of me and were going on about stupid shit I will not repeat here. One of those lawyers mentioned Trina. When I confronted him about it, he gave me a reason why they tried to kill Trina last night.”

  Reno frowned. “You don’t have to put it that way, Sal. Trina doesn’t want to hear you say somebody tried to kill her.”

  “Well how am I supposed to say it?”

  “Without the melodrama!”

  “The melo-what?” Sal asked.

  “You know what I’m talking about. You know Trina’s still upset about what happened last night.”

  “How am I supposed to know she’s still upset?” Sal asked. “I’m no fucking mind-reader.”

  “Your ass right about that,” Reno fired back. “You have to have a mind to be a mind-reader!”

  But Trina was tired of their back-and-forth. “Just stop,” she said to both of them.

  But Reno suddenly realized what Sal had originally said. “He told you the reason?” he asked Sal. “What reason did he give?”

  Sal looked at Gemma. But Gemma wasn’t about to touch that one.

  “What?” Trina asked.

  “This lawyer claimed, and I already know it’s bullshit,” Sal added, “but the guy claimed Futarda targeted Trina because of some one-night stand they supposedly had together.”

  Trina’s heart dropped. But Reno stared at Sal angrily. Then he reached over the table and grabbed him up by the catch of his expensive coat lapel, pulling him up. “You’re gonna tell that shit in front of my wife, Sal?”

  Gemma and Trina both rose up to try and separate the men.

  “You’re gonna tell that shit in front of my wife!”

  Sal pushed Reno away from him. “She has a right to know, too, Reno. I don’t keep shit from her the way you do!”

  Reno angrily stared at Sal. And although Trina was pulling on his suit coat and urging him to sit back down, it wasn’t until he looked around and realized half of the eyes in the upscale restaurant were staring at him did he even entertain the idea. But then he sat back down.

  Sal, straightening his own suit coat, sat back down too.

  Trina and Gemma sat down as well. But despite the sudden flareup, it wasn’t lost on Sal that Trina had not issued a denial.

  Her silence wasn’t lost on Reno either. He looked at her. “Set this motherfucker straight,” he said to her.

  “Whoever this lawyer is,” Trina said, “what happened last night had nothing to do with that.”

  Reno, Sal, and even Gemma looked at Trina hard. What kind of denial was that? “What do you mean?” Reno asked, a fixed frown on his face. “What had nothing to do with it?”

  Then Trina dropped the hammer. “I planned to tell you tonight.”

  Now it was Reno’s heart that was hammering. “Tell me what?” he asked. Even Sal and Gemma were shocked that there was anything at all to tell.

  “About that one-night stand,” she said, “between me and Pump.”

  Reno’s eyes grew so big they looked like pop eyes. Sal and Gemma’s grew a centimeter too. And Reno frowned. “What the fuck kind of answer is that? What one-night stand? What are you talking, Tree?”

  Trina exhaled and leaned back. “It happened years ago.”

  Reno stared at her. Sal and Gemma waited for him to ask more. They were too riveted to just mind their own business and leave.

  But Reno was a strange cat. He just sat there, staring at her as if he was still in disbelief.

  Finally, after it seemed like forever, Reno responded to Trina. “You had a one-night stand with Pump Futarda?” he asked her.

  “It happened a long time ago, Reno.”

  “Fuck the long time ago!” Reno yelled. Other restaurant patrons looked at them again, but he didn’t care. “Were you married to me when you had this one-night stand?”

  No
w it was Trina’s time to hesitate. “Yes,” she said, “but we weren’t together then.”

  “Weren’t together?” Reno was about to jump out of his skin. “What the fuck that means?

  Now Trina was frowning. “It means what I said. We had broken up then. Remember? Remember when you left me for nearly a year and wasn’t going to come back to me? When you wanted that divorce? Remember that shit, Reno?”

  But all Reno remembered was right in front of him. “What are you saying?” he asked her. “Are you saying your ass cheated on me?”

  “Your ass left me!” Trina saw the people looking over again and realized she had to lower her voice. “You left me,” she said in a softer voice. “How can I cheat on somebody who’s no longer there? I wasn’t going without sex a whole year, or however long that was, because you decided you didn’t want to be married anymore. I didn’t walk out on you. You walked out on me! And told me to get a divorce. I know you were broken up when you left. I know you had issues, Reno. But you left me. And you wouldn’t even return my phone calls, or tell me where you were. None of that shit! So I’m supposed to give up on dick, too, because you gave up on me? Fuck you!”

  “No, your ass wasn’t fucking me,” Reno quickly retorted. “Your ass was too busy fucking Pump Futarda!”

  “It didn’t get that far,” Trina said.

  Everybody looked at her with renewed hope in their hearts. Especially Reno. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I didn’t fuck him. It didn’t get that far.”

  Reno was puzzled. “Tell me what that means.”

  “He asked me out on a business date. He was going to give me pointers about keeping the PaLargio up and running more efficiently. You left me in charge of the PaLargio, remember, when I didn’t know shit about running no hotel and casino. So I needed help, and he was offering. At least that’s what he told me. So I agreed to have dinner with him in the penthouse. And, yes, before the evening was out one thing was leading to another thing.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Reno asked.

  “We kissed, alright?” Trina responded. “But that’s all we did! He wanted more. Yeah, he did. But I wouldn’t let it go any further than that. In fact, when I realized where it had already gone, I told him to leave. It wasn’t right. I couldn’t do that to you, although you were doing all kinds of shit to me. So he left. And that was the last time I saw him.”

  Reno was relieved. Even Sal could see that. But he didn’t want Trina to think he took that kissing part lightly. He didn’t. “Pump Futarda. Your ass kissing on Pump Futarda! Of all people, you pick his ass? Why him?”

  “He’s one of the men who helped me out when you left. And believe you me every one of them wanted to get in my panties. Every one of them, Reno! A lot of them were your so-called friends. But I didn’t think Pump was like that. He was nice.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet he was.” Reno was turning around in his seat. “I’ll bet he was real nice. He knows how to seduce the ladies, Tree. Don’t your ass understand that? Why the fuck you think we call him Pump? That’s all his ass does!”

  Then Reno gave Trina a look that she knew was undeniable. “Wait until I get your ass home,” he said.

  Gemma and Sal glanced at each other. Gemma’s fear about Reno’s reaction was coming true. “Y’all weren’t together, Reno,” Gemma said.

  “Yeah,” said Sal, “I remember those days too. You weren’t coming back to her. You made that perfectly clear. What happened to your little boy took you over the edge, and you weren’t having anything more to do with any of us. I can understand Trina waiting. It was her duty to wait. But when those days turn to weeks, and weeks turn to month after month after month after month, with no communication, what the fuck was she supposed to think?”

  Reno had no response to that. Just had that brooding look on his face. Which, Sal knew, meant that he wasn’t arguing the point.

  “You left her,” Sal said. “It was over. One night she was lonely and slipped up. And that’s what it was. She slipped up and let that joker kiss on her. But I want you to name the fucker at this table who’s perfect? None of us are! Not even your precious Tree! So cut the bullshit, Reno. You left her. The only reason you came back to her was because Tommy got on your ass. But that was not your plan and you know it. Trina knew it. We all knew it! So stop playing the victim. Your ass was the victimizer, as usual.”

  Reno still said nothing. And Trina wasn’t about to justify her actions to a man who had left her twisting in the wind for damn-near a year, or however long it was. She would have felt differently had she gone all the way with Pump, but she didn’t. And she wasn’t going to feel bad because she needed companionship when Reno left her.

  “We have to look at the big picture,” Gemma said.

  Reno and Trina looked at her. “What big picture?” Reno asked. He respected Gemma’s brainpower mightily.

  “Why would this man, this Pump person, have his lawyer mention that one-night stand?” Gemma asked. “And it wasn’t really a one-night stand. It was more like a one-night stand down. But why would that lawyer bring it up?”

  “Yeah,” Sal said. “And that lawyer wasn’t talking like it happened years ago. He was talking like it was weeks ago. Maybe even days ago.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Trina said. “The only time I had any contact with Pump Futarda was that year Reno was gone.”

  “But it’s totally in line with the narrative,” said Gemma.

  Reno looked at her. “What narrative?”

  “For some reason,” Sal said, answering for Gemma, “they want you to believe that shit just happened. They want you and Trina at each other’s throats.”

  “So he can get her back after all these years?” Reno asked. “Fat chance! I’ll kick her ass if she even looks at him hard again!”

  “The point is why,” Trina said, “why is he doing this?”

  “He wanted you before,” Sal said. “Maybe Reno’s right. Maybe he still wants you.”

  “After all these years?” Trina asked. “No way. Ain’t nobody’s pussy that good! And he didn’t even sample mine.”

  “But he knows it’s good,” Reno said.

  Sal, Gemma and Trina all looked at him. “I told you I didn’t let it go there,” Trina said to Reno. “How could he possibly know it’s good or not?”

  “He knows it’s good,” Reno said, “because I married you. He knows my standards. He knew it was good.”

  Although Gemma and Trina laughed, Sal didn’t crack a smile. Because he knew exactly what Reno meant. It was a man thing. It was an if a man like Reno Gabrini joined that club, it had to be a slammin’ club kind of thing.

  But the idea of Pump with his wife in any capacity just drove Reno nuts! He could see Trina’s tight brown ass across his lap right now, and his hand slapping the shit out of it!

  He shook his head. “How could you?” he asked again. It was rhetorical, but it still cut deep. “Pump Futarda? How could you, Tree?”

  “I didn’t even know you knew him, Reno. He claimed he didn’t know you!”

  “At that time, I didn’t know him either. But what difference does that make? You still almost-fucked him!”

  “Who did you almost fuck while you were gone?” Trina asked, angry that he would hold her to an impossible standard after it was him who put her in that bad position to begin with! “Hell, forget when you were gone. Who have you fucked since you’ve been back? If you wanna go there, we can go there, motherfucker. We can go there!”

  Reno obviously didn’t want to go there, Sal and Gemma realized, because he clammed up.

  Then Trina calmed back down. “I told you I didn’t fuck that man.”

  “Kissing him, fucking him,” Reno said. “What’s the damn difference?”

  Gemma and Trina smiled and shook their heads. Sal laughed. “Reno stop. Just stop, okay? You know the damn difference.”

  Reno smiled. “Whatever,” he said.

  But Sal, being Sal, laid the cards on the
table. “Your marriage has always been messy,” he said to Reno and Trina. “Let’s face facts. Your marriage has always been messy as hell. At least messier than mine and Gemma’s, and our marriage isn’t perfect either. But this is different, Reno. They targeted Trina. A murder almost took place behind this shit and we’re arguing about the parts that don’t matter anymore. Your ass left her. Damn right she went out on a date. Big fucking deal! You gave her permission by leaving her for all those months. You don’t leave a good woman and expect to not get competition. But that’s in the past now. That’s over with. What isn’t over is the threat to her. They tried to kill her, Reno. That shit still real.”

  And just like that, Sal’s very astute summation woke Reno out of his petty stupor. Because Sal was right. The threat to Trina had not abated.

  Trina looked at Reno. “It’s not about that one-night stand,” she said. “I didn’t want to have anything more to do with him, and Pump knew it. His kiss wasn’t even good to me, and he knew that too. This isn’t about that nothing-burger night. He wants you to believe it’s about that, but it’s not. It can’t be.”

  “I agree,” said Sal.

  “As do I,” said Gemma. “And as a lawyer, I’ve seen many coincidences in my time. I’ve gotten clients off because of coincidences. But this lawyer suddenly showing up in the courtroom in which I happened to be trying a case, and then for him to tell Sal about something that happened so long ago while pretending it just happened, is too coincidental even for me.”

  Trina nodded. “Yeah, what she said,” she said. “He’s trying to drive a wedge between Reno and me, and it has nothing to do with what he wants us to think it has to do with.”

  “And you had no other contact with him after that one night?” Reno asked her.

  “No contact,” Trina said. “None.”

  Reno leaned back. “Then we’re back to square one. We still know who. We still don’t know why.”

  “What are we going to do about who?” Trina asked. “He has to be dealt with.”

  Reno looked at her. Testing her. “What do you suggest we do? Kill him?”

  “Torture him first. Find out what his ass is up to. Then do it.”