Everybody in the room, including the mayor himself, looked at this wild man. Trina wanted to ball up and die. But she knew Reno still needed her. And sure enough, as soon as he realized he wasn’t in his casino being bothered by some drunk, but was on the dais in a prestigious rotary club, he looked out in the stunned audience for Trina.
Trina calmly motioned for him to sit back down, but he didn’t seem to understand what she was doing. He just stood there like some doofus who’d been dropped there from outer space. She tried again. He looked even more baffled. Finally, through clenched teeth, she mouthed, sit your ass back down, and he finally understood. Reno didn’t read lips, but he read Trina’s. He sat back down. The mayor told some stale joke to compensate for the awkwardness, and continued the presentations.
Jimmy drove to the McDonald’s and parked next to the gray Chevy Malibu the blackmailer said he would be waiting in. Trent Chappell, in the Chevy, pressed down his window and Jimmy pressed down his.
“You got the money?” Chap asked.
“You have the tape?”
“Yeah. You got the money?”
“Why else would I be here?”
“Don’t get snippy with me, lover boy. I wasn’t the one banging that freak.”
Jimmy wanted to kick his ass, but if he didn’t stick to the script he knew his father would kick his. “Just get in,” he said, “and let’s get this over with.”
Chap smiled. “Well alright,” he said as if he was some cowboy.
He got out of his car, walked around to Jimmy’s passenger seat, and got in. He looked around. “Where’s the money? I’m not giving up a damn thing without the money.”
“Where’s the tape?” Jimmy asked.
“Show me the money, I’ll show you the tape,” Chap said.
Jimmy hesitated, and then reached under his seat and pulled out a plastic, see-through hermetically sealed bag. Layers of money were seen. Chap’s narrow eyes widened. “Now we’re talking,” he said, reaching for the bag.
Jimmy snatched it from his grasp. “Are you crazy? Where’s the tape? You don’t get to take. You get to give first.”
Chap smiled, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a cell phone.
“The original?”
“No. It’s a copy. Of course it’s the original!”
“Show me.”
Chap played the tape. Based on the date and time showing on the recording, Jimmy knew what he was watching was the original recording of his regrettable sexual encounter in that hotel room. “Satisfied, lover boy?”
“Just give it here,” Jimmy said, and Chap handed him the phone. Jimmy handed the bag to Chap.
“Later, lover boy,” Chap said cheerfully, stuffing the bag under his shirt as he began getting out.
“Aren’t you going to count it?” Jimmy asked. He wasn’t sure if there had been enough time.
“It looks right to me,” Chap said, anxious to get away without a hitch. He hurried out, got in his car, and took off.
It wasn’t until Chap had turned out of the McDonald’s parking lot and onto the little-traveled side street, did he realize he wasn’t alone. A figure sat up from his backseat.
“What the hell?” he asked, terrified, nearly losing control of the car, when he looked through his rearview and saw Reno Gabrini. He turned around quickly, stunned, and then turned back around, his eyes moving like jumping beans plotting his next move. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Reno put a gun to Chap’s head. “Pull over,” he said.
Chap knew Reno Gabrini was not going to be as easy a mark as Jimmy was, but he had to show some meddle. “May I ask why?”
“If you want your head blown off,” Reno responded, “go ahead.”
Chap swallowed hard, and pulled over to the side of the road.
An SUV that had been driving behind Chap, pulled up behind them. Two men got out, opened the driver door, and ordered Chap out. Chap headed to the SUV and was put inside. Reno got out too, got his money from the front seat, and calmly walked over to the SUV. He got inside and ordered the driver to take off. The two men that had gotten out of the SUV got into Chap’s car, and drove away. Their job would be to ditch the car.
Inside the SUV, Chap and Reno were sitting in the last two seats. Chap was nervous as hell. This had not gone as planned at all! He thought Jimmy would be too ashamed to rope his father in. That was the calculation all along. Jimmy’s shame. But they had miscalculated badly. Not only had Jimmy told his father about the plot, his father had taken over. It was the nightmare scenario, the one Quinn assured him would never happen, coming true.
Reno looked at Chap. He remembered the face, but he couldn’t place him. Every day he saw different faces in his casino, in his hotel, or in any host of other businesses he owned. Unless this guy was a regular, there would be no reason for him to remember him. But he looked damn familiar.
“What’s your name?” Reno asked him.
“George,” Chap said.
“George what?” Reno asked.
“George Clooney.”
Reno smiled. “Very funny.”
“George Bush. George Washington. What difference does it matter what my name is? You just need to know that the people I do work for are going to be very angry if I don’t show up with their loot.”
“Who are these people?”
“People who can fuck you up, boy, let me tell you. That’s who?”
Reno couldn’t believe his nerve. “People who can fuck me up?” Reno asked.
“That’s right,” Chap said confidently.
“You mean fuck me up like this?” Reno asked and hit Chap so hard in his stomach that he doubled over. It took his breath away.
“Or do you mean like this?” Reno asked and grabbed him by the catch of his collar and beat him so hard that his head was pounding against the window of the SUV, and blood was beginning to ooze.
“Now who are you working for, asshole?” Reno yelled at him. “How dare you threaten me!”
But Chap wouldn’t tell. Reno continued his assault, beating Chap to within an inch of his life, but Chap still wouldn’t tell.
When he finally let him go, Chap slumped over the seat and passed on out.
Reno was impressed with a man who refused to snitch. He was a man after his own heart. But that didn’t help him find out who set up Jimmy.
He looked at his driver. “Drop me off at the PaLargio,” he ordered, “and then take him to the safe house. Call in Debrosiac to man the operation.”
“Torture?” the driver asked.
Reno nodded. “Hell yeah.”
“To death?”
“No,” Reno said. “I need answers. I need to know who set this shit up. After we get those answers, I’ll take it from there. But I’m sure they aren’t going to make any more moves right now, since they don’t have the money, and we have him. Torture his ass to within an inch of his life, but don’t go over.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said, and did as he was told.
Reno arrived back inside of the penthouse later that night. When he saw Trina’s beautiful black body in bed, he removed his clothes and got in behind her. But she wasn’t having it. She didn’t know where he’d been. She was half asleep, but she was still Tree. “You’d better get your ass in the shower,” she said to him.
Reno smiled. “You don’t let me get away with shit!”
“Not ever,” Trina responded.
Reno shook his head, but he got out of bed, and showered.
By the time he returned to bed, Tree was fast asleep. But Reno knew her. He knew exactly how to wake her up.
When he removed the covers, slid on top of her, and began sucking her breasts, she began to snap out of it. When he moved up further, and began kissing her furiously, she began coming back to life. When he put his cock inside of her, and began to gyrate slowly, and then a little more, and then in full rhythm, she was wide awake.
She wrapped her legs around him as they kissed and fucked. They made love
for a wondrously long time. He pushed into her and kissed her and she returned his strokes and affection. She had no idea where he had been. It was late at night and she knew for a fact he had not been at the PaLargio all night. But as he continued to fuck her, she wasn’t interested in questioning him about his whereabouts. She trusted Reno. She loved him so much, she loved how he put it on her so completely, that she had no choice. She had to trust him.
CHAPTER TEN
“There’s my gorgeous grandbaby,” Reno said the next morning, a big grin on his face.
Little Madison smiled when she saw her grandfather approach, and began flapping her arms and leaning toward him.
Val, carrying Madison, had just walked into the lobby of the PaLargio just as Reno and Quinn were about to walk out. “Hey, Reno,” Val said with a smile. “Hey, Quinn.”
“Hey,” Reno said to his daughter-in-law as he took his granddaughter in his arms. “Hey, little baby girl,” he said jovially as he bounced her. “Look at Maddie Mae. Look at my Maddie Mae! I’m your grandpa. That’s right! I’m your grandpa. And I know already. You’re wondering how in the world could a man my age be anybody’s granddaddy? I’m too young to be anybody’s daddy, let alone your granddaddy. But here’s the trick: I had your father when I was only five years old. That’s right. I was a baby myself!”
Val laughed and shook her head, and Madison grinned and put her knuckle in her mouth, staring at her grandfather.
Quinn looked at Val with whimsy in her eyes. “Did you realize how humble your father-in-law can be?”
“I’ve heard,” Val said as Reno continued to bounce and play with Madison. “He gets more modest every day.”
Quinn and Val laughed.
“It’s so good to see you again,” Quinn said to Val. “And what a nice sight to behold. Don’t you look all sexy today!”
When Quinn made that comment, Reno glanced at Val’s sizeable cleavage coming out of the waist-high zip-up jacket she wore. Val blushed when he looked at her that way. She still hadn’t been able to shake her attraction to him, and she never ever wanted him to know it. But she knew how she always made it a point to dress extra-sexy whenever she visited his turf, the PaLargio, and that fact flew in the face of her desire for secrecy.
“You’re here to see Jimmy?” Quinn asked her.
“I am actually,” Val responded. “He left so early I forgot to give him the tickets for the game this afternoon.”
“The one at UNLV?”
“Right,” Val said. “I picked them up yesterday for him and his friends. But knowing Jimmy, I just knew he was going to head straight to the game without even realizing he doesn’t have the tickets. That’s why I knew I had to drop by. Is he around?”
“He’s on the floor,” Reno said as he kissed his grandbaby one more time and then handed her back to her mother. The floor, Val knew, meant that Jimmy was working inside the Casino. “We’d better take off,” Reno added.
“See you around, Val,” Quinn said, and headed out in front of Reno.
Reno began leaving too but stopped once he was side by side with his daughter-in-law. Val could smell his aftershave, he was so close.
“Zip it up,” he ordered her. “Your husband will get to enjoy the view, but so will every flesh pounding joker in this joint. Zip it now.”
Anger filled Val’s heart and she looked at Reno. How dare he tell her how to wear her own clothes! But when she saw that look in his big, blue eyes, and realized he was showing concern for her rather than any kind of judgment or slight, she relaxed. She was naked in front of Reno once, begging him to fuck her by her actions alone, but he didn’t take the bait. And he even counseled her on what was then her failing relationship with Jimmy. She knew what kind of man he was, and she respected him to the highest. “Yes, sir,” she said, and zipped up her jacket. Her overexposed cleavage was secured.
Reno knew Val had a schoolgirl crush on him. But not because of him specifically, he felt, but because of Jimmy’s inattentiveness. Reno told that boy time and time again that he had to make love to his wife, not just give her a quick bang that paid no attention to her needs. But Jimmy was one of those big cock young bucks who was too sex crazed to hold back. He was the wham bam king. If he could get off in five minutes or less, he figured Val had better learn how to get off in that same timeframe too. He was going to change as he got older, Reno knew, but he prayed he changed before Val’s patience ran out. Because Val was a good girl, a beautiful girl, worth holding onto. The fact that she zipped that zipper without giving him any lip was more evidence of it to Reno. “That’s my girl,” he said to her, squeezed her arm, and left.
Val let out a bullet-dodging exhale after he walked away from her. She almost exposed more than her cleavage, and she knew it! That foolish crush on Reno was going to be the death of her, or her marriage, yet. “Pull it together, Val,” she said to herself, and hurried to find her husband.
Reno’s Porsche pulled up alongside the big Dodge and Ford trucks at the construction site, and he and Quinn stepped out. They were standing in front of the upturned ground for Reno’s new office building, and Bob Ernst, his Project Manager, was making his way across the mounds of dirt toward him. He was a muscular black man who wore a hardhat and big, steel-toe boots. Quinn had come onto him once too, but he rebuffed her. Reno threw a lot of business his way. Reno looked out for African-American contractors that way. Bob wasn’t about to let any entanglement with some cute assistant harm his bottom line. “What do you think, Reno?” he asked as he approached.
Reno wore sunglasses and didn’t bother to remove them. “I think you’re making good progress. Although I was hoping for more.”
Bob smiled. “You’re killing me, man. Nothing satisfies you!”
Reno smiled too. “Just keeping you honest,” he said, and Bob laughed.
“I told Reno about the joist problem,” Quinn said to Bob. “I told him you said it could pose a delay.”
“That’s right,” Bob said. “They delivered the wrong ones, Reno. I’m talking by the tons. I’m working on correcting that issue as we speak. But it will delay us a bit.”
“How long?”
“Two, three days, given the size of the order. I’m praying no longer than a week tops.”
Reno nodded. “Keep praying. A week I can give you. But no more.”
Reno’s cell phone rang.
“There won’t be any more screw ups, I promise you,” Bob said, as Reno checked his Caller ID. When Reno realized who it was, he answered and moved away.
Although Quinn continued to smile and chitchat with Bob, she was worried. She had no idea how it went with Chap last night. He was supposed to call her afterwards, but she received no call, no text, not a thing. She had been blowing up his cell phone all night and early this morning, but he wasn’t answering. She couldn’t track him because his tracker was disabled. She knew he checked out of the hotel yesterday, in preparation of the drop, and they were supposed to meet up at her place afterwards. But Chap didn’t show up. Now they were breathing down her back asking if her brother took the money and ran. She assured them he had not.
When she saw Jimmy this morning he was behaving as if the drop had gone well enough. He had no idea Quinn was involved, or that Chap was her brother, so he didn’t have to put on any show for her. That was why she felt confident the drop had been successful. Jimmy was behaving as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He was behaving as if he gave up the money, and got the reassurance that his secret would never be exposed.
But where was Chap? He wasn’t dumb enough to run off with the money. He knew he’d be dead within the hour if he tried that shit. Or did he?
Reno returned to their side. “I’ve got to run,” he said. “Bob, have one of your men take Quinn back to the PaLargio, will you?”
“I sure will, Reno,” Bob said.
Quinn looked at Reno. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“It will be. I’ll talk to you later,” he added, and Quinn and Bob watched
as he got into his car, and sped away.
“Wonder what that’s about?” Quinn asked, still gravely concerned.
“Whatever it’s about,” Bob responded, “it’s got nothing to do with us.”
But Quinn wasn’t so sure.
It had everything to do with Dominic.
Reno sat in the principal’s office with the principal, a parent introduced as a judge, and a little boy no older than Dommi himself. The principal wouldn’t discuss the affair until Dommi arrived from his classroom, which made the judge comment just who exactly was running this school. But Reno remained mute.
When Dommi finally arrived and saw his father sitting in the principal’s office with his legs crossed, his arms folded, and sunglasses still on his face, he knew he was in deep shit. He also knew he had to stand up for himself.
“What’s this about?” Dommi asked, playing as dumb as possible.
“Have a seat, Dominic,” the principal ordered.
Dommi didn’t particularly respect his principal. Unlike Reno, the principal was a man who would often threaten to punish Dommi in all kinds of ways, but never did. Dommi figured it was because he didn’t want to lose that tuition money his parents paid every year for him to attend such an expensive school. If his father wasn’t there, he would ask more questions of the principal before he sat down. But his father was there. He sat down in the chair across from him. “What’s this about?” he asked again.
“You know your father,” the principal said, “and you know Roger, your classmate here. This is Roger’s father, Judge Zanderfeld. He says Roger informed him last night of something very troubling.”
“Yeah?” Dommi asked. “Like what?”
“Stop asking questions and listen,” the principal said. But Dommi also saw the principal glance over at Reno after he said it, as if he was wondering if he had sounded too harsh. Reno didn’t move a muscle, and the shades he wore didn’t give away anything. Dommi decided to unnerve his principal even more.
Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair Page 9
