“Maybe,” Reno admitted.
Trina was angry. “You kiss my ass, Reno,” she declared. “You stay out all times of night, do anything your ass is big enough to do, and now you’re going to question me because I missed one dinner? And for you to talk about where was I tonight? Where were you? That dinner didn’t last this long. Where did you go after you left there, Reno?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“It’s not about me, either,” Trina shot about. “It’s about your need to control every aspect of my life. I’m telling you, Reno, that is not going to happen. I love you, but you’re taking this shit too far. Nothing’s going on. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Trina settled back down. Reno’s look was so intense, she was afraid to get him going again anyway.
“I need to take a shower,” she finally said.
Reno didn’t want to let her go. Because he knew something was off with her. Something was wrong. But he couldn’t prove it, and he knew he couldn’t. He let her go.
Trina made her way to their bathroom and slammed the door. But when she leaned against it, her heart was still hammering. And she cried. She cried because of the fix she was in. She cried because she knew her husband was not going to be able to get her out of this one. She cried because she knew, once he found out, he wasn’t going to want to be her husband anymore.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Freckles just died, Dad,” Jimmy said as he hurried into his father’s office and rushed up to his desk.
Reno didn’t bother to look up. It was late at night, he had been working his butt off all day, and it was three days after his argument with Trina that still wasn’t settled. It was three days later and they still were at odds with each other. Reno was in a bad mood and didn’t care who knew it. His staff stayed out of his way. But Jimmy didn’t have that luxury. “Dad?”
Reno still didn’t look up, but this time he responded to him. “What?”
“Freckles just died.”
Reno finally looked up, but he looked up with a frown on his face. “Who the hell is Freckles?”
Jimmy couldn’t believe it. “I know you didn’t just say that. Freckles the clown, Dad? He’s only the number two biggest grossing act we have this quarter!”
Reno stood up, at the mention of money. “Where is he?”
“In the Gray Room.”
Reno grabbed his suit coat from off of the back of his chair and began heading toward the exit. “What happened to him?”
“He dropped dead during rehearsals. The paramedics are on their way.”
“The paramedics? He can be revived?”
“No. We didn’t know what else to do.”
“You told them to go around back?”
“Yes, sir. The guests shouldn’t be alarmed. They’re coming in through the back.”
“Damn,” Reno said as they made their way out of his suite of offices and toward the elevator. “The clown is dead. And he’s our number two?”
“He’s number two. He’s a big deal. A lot of our guests are going to be so heartbroken. He generates a lot of money for you.”
“A fucking clown.” Reno shook his head. The taste of his guests never ceased to amaze him.
“People love a great circus performer, Pop,” Jimmy felt a need to explain, “and Freckles is one of the greatest. At least he was. You just never took the time to see what kind of show he put on. You just signed his checks. He always said you never respected him.”
“What do I need to be respecting a clown for? He’s a clown!” Then Reno shook his head again. “A clown is my number two income generator this quarter. I’ll be gotdamn. What is this place coming to? I remember when an A-lister was always my number one.”
“An A-lister is your number one. A-listers are nine of your top ten moneymakers,” Jimmy reminded him. “But Freckles is number two.”
When the elevator doors opened, and they were about to step on, one of Reno’s security chiefs, Ben Debrosiac, was about to step off. “I need to see you, boss,” Debrosiac said.
Reno and Jimmy stepped on. “You’re seeing me,” Reno said.
“I need to see you downstairs. On the fourth floor. I was just coming to get you.”
Jimmy pressed the Lobby button and the doors closed.
Reno stared at Debrosiac. It was serious or he wouldn’t be there. “Press Four,” he ordered Jimmy.
“But what about Freckles, Pop?”
“Fuck Freckles,” Reno said. “He’s dead now. What am I going to do about it? You handle it until I get there.”
Jimmy exhaled. “Yes, sir,” he said, and pressed Four.
“What’s this about?” Reno asked Debrosiac.
“The guy that tried to blackmail Jimmy? The guy at the safe house?”
Jimmy looked at Debrosiac too.
“What about him?” Reno asked.
“His name is Trent Chappell. They call him Chap. He’s a hood from Jersey. Small time all the way. But we also found out where he’s been staying while he’s been in town.”
Reno got it. “On the fourth floor?”
“On the fourth floor, that’s right. Right here at the PaLargio. Once we got his name, we ran a check around all the hotels. We started here, though. We figured since he was an out-of-towner and was threatening Jimmy, he might have wanted to be close to Jimmy, to watch his goings and comings, yet keep out of Jimmy’s way. Our hunch was right. So I went to the room he had stayed in. I found something I need you to see.”
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and the doors opened. Reno and Debrosiac stepped off, but Jimmy was coming behind them.
“Whoa,” Reno said, pushing him back onto the elevator and effectively preventing the door from closing. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I need to take a look at it too,” Jimmy said.
“No, you don’t,” Reno said.
“But it’s about me, Pop!”
“You go handle Freckles.”
“Fuck Freckles,” Jimmy said with a frown, and Debrosiac smiled. He wanted to laugh, but he knew Reno would kick his ass.
“Get back on that elevator,” Reno ordered his son, “and do what I said.”
“But Dad,” Jimmy started saying in that whining voice Reno hated. But Reno stopped him cold when he gave him that does it look like I’m fucking with you look. “Yes, sir,” Jimmy added with great reluctance in his voice, and stepped further back onto the elevator. Sometimes he dreaded the idea of leaving his father and moving to New Hampshire. He loved him that much. But other times he couldn’t wait to get away from him. This was one of those other times. The elevator doors closed in front of him.
“He’s right, you know,” Debrosiac had the nerve to say as he and Reno headed down the fourth floor corridor. “It’s his fight, boss. When you gonna cut him loose?”
“Never,” Reno responded. “He’s going to take over my northeastern operations and get the hell out of this crazy town. He’s going to live a normal life.”
“That’s going to be hard for a kid raised in a casino.”
Reno didn’t respond to that. Debrosiac didn’t know that Jimmy was a teenager when Reno discovered he was his son. He’d been with Reno ever since, but not during his most formative years. Reno knew he was swimming against the tide trying to tame his grown son, but he’d swim against a tsunami if it could save Jimmy from a life where he had to constantly look over his shoulder.
Besides, Jimmy had Madison now. Reno’s only grandchild. He wanted her out of Vegas too. Reno and Trina together would protect their daughter Sophia. She would be safe. They would see to that. And Reno and Trina both knew Dommi could take care of himself. Gangster was too deeply entrenched in his blood, just as it was deeply embedded in Reno and Sal and Tommy and their Uncle Mick’s blood too. But Jimmy’s sensitivity and vulnerability, the two traits Jimmy thought Reno despised in him, were the two traits Reno were depending on to keep him out of the thug life. Jimmy, Reno felt, stood a chance.
They walked around a corner of the corridor and made it up to one of the cheaper rooms in Reno’s hotel, although it wasn’t cheap. The Deluxe room, as they called it. Debrosiac swiped the keycard and they entered the room. Reno hadn’t been in one of the deluxe rooms in years, but he was pleased. It was the most economical room they offered, but it was still very nice. And fairly clean.
“So this is where he’s been holing up?” Reno asked as he looked around.
“This is the place.”
“So he’s talking now?”
“Nope,” Debrosiac said. “We’re putting it to him pretty bad, three days in a row now, but he’s no snitch. We kind of admire the guy. He won’t talk.”
“He’s protecting somebody,” Reno said. “A family member, or somebody just as close. Even brave men have limits.”
“Yeah, that’s what we figured too. And you’re right.”
Debrosiac walked over to the nightstand, reached into the drawer, and grabbed a cell phone. “He left it here.”
“On purpose?” Reno asked.
“I don’t think so. He cleared out of here the day of the meet. Took everything else. I think he forgot that his cell phone was in this drawer. It was pushed back enough that the maid could have glanced, saw that the Bible hadn’t been stolen, and closed the drawer back up. She never looked far back enough to see it. But check this out,” Debrosiac said, as he pulled up the relevant texts, and handed the phone to Reno.
Most of the texts were incoming, with someone asking for Chap to phone. Then one text asked how did it go with Jimmy? It was damning evidence, to be sure, but what shocked Reno was when he looked at the top of the text page. Then he looked at Debrosiac.
“That’s right,” he said. “And we checked it out. They’re siblings.”
Now Reno remembered, just like that, where he had seen Chap before. And he was off.
He hurried out of that hotel room, got on the elevator, and made his way back up to his office suite. When he entered the outer sanctum, he ordered Quinn Chan, who was seated behind her desk, to come with him. Quinn was already terrified that Chap had taken the money and skipped town, and they were already asking for that money, but she didn’t figure how Reno would know anything about that. Until she followed Reno into his office and closed the door behind her.
“I’m still trying to get those final numbers together,” she said, as if this was business as usual. “I should have them on your desk by close of business to . . .”
But Reno didn’t give her a chance to finish her thought. His fist was too busy connecting with her face and knocking her backwards. She fell as his blow left her dazed, and she looked up at him stunned.
“I normally wouldn’t hit a lady,” he said, “but since you aren’t one anyway, I will have no problem beating the shit out of you. Remember that. Now stand your ass up!”
Quinn quickly, nervously stood up. “What did I do?” she asked, holding the side of her face, fighting back tears.
“Why did Chap blackmail my son?” Reno asked her.
“Chap? Who’s Chap?”
Reno grabbed Quinn by her long black hair and jerked her head back. “Don’t fuck with me,” he warned her. “I am not in the mood!”
Quinn could see the rage in his intense blue eyes. He already was a hard man on an ordinary day. This was no ordinary day.
“Why was your brother blackmailing my son?” Reno asked again.
Quinn knew playing dumb was not going to cut it. “Where is he?” she asked. “Is he alright?”
“Answer my question, Quinn. Why was your brother blackmailing Jimmy?”
“Because I asked him to,” she said, with defeat in her voice.
That made no sense to Reno. But when it came to crooks and thieves, few things did. He released her hair. “Why would you ask him to do something like that? For the money?”
“No! I don’t want any money. I have a job I love. I have a life I love. Why would I want to jeopardize everything I love?”
“Then why did you ask him to blackmail Jimmy?”
“Because I had no choice!”
Reno knew better than that. “What’s that supposed to mean? You had plenty of choices! You could have said no.”
She was distressed. “No, I couldn’t,” she said.
“You could have come to me.”
“No, I couldn’t!”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I would have been fired and would have lost everything I love!”
Reno frowned. “What are you talking? Who would fire you? You work for me.”
“And your wife,” Quinn said, her face unable to conceal her anguish.
Reno was dumbstruck. “My wife? What does my wife have to do with this?”
“You won’t believe me. You’ll take her side. You always take her side.”
Reno snatched her hair back again. “What does my wife have to do with this?” he asked her again.
“She’s the one who got me involved,” Quinn said in pain. “She’s the one who told me I had to find somebody to deal with Jimmy, to blackmail him. That’s why we had the video of Jimmy with that male prostitute. She set him up. She paid his friend Finn to get the girl and then get lost. She had the whole thing filmed. She’s psycho, Reno. She made me do it!”
“That’s a fucking lie!” Reno yelled, and released Quinn’s hair from his grasp. “That’s a lie! Why would Tree want to set up her own stepson? What the fuck are you talking about? Why would she do it?”
“You’ll have to ask her that,” Quinn said. “But I swear to you, Reno, she’s the one.”
Reno was dumbstruck. He wouldn’t trust Quinn’s word right now if his life depended on it. But why would she even go there? She had to know he’d kill her ass if she was caught lying on his wife. But this shit wasn’t in a vacuum for Reno. Trina had been acting strange the last few days, and she still hadn’t produced these girlfriends she supposedly was hanging out with, nor had she named the bar where they supposedly hung out. But this shit about her setting up Jimmy was a lie. Reno knew it was. But he had to check it out. Something was going on with his wife. Something major. He had to check it out.
Reno phoned Debrosiac and ordered him to take Quinn to the safe house with her brother. Once Debrosiac arrived, he would make his way to the penthouse. To Trina.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Trina bounced Madison on her knees and smiled whenever the baby smiled. “I love fat babies,” Trina said as Maddie tried to put her knuckle in her mouth.
“Then you must adore, Madison,” Val responded with a smile. “Jimmy gives her anything she wants. All she has to do is point.”
“Reno’s the same way,” Trina admitted. “This is going to be one spoiled child. But greatly loved.”
Val nodded her head. “Yes,” she agreed. “She is much loved.” Then Val looked at Trina. She knew she had to be delicate. “He’s working late again, hun?” she asked her.
Trina knew who she meant. “Yup,” she said, still bouncing Maddie. “He’ll never be a nine-to-five man.”
“Neither will Jimmy,” Val said. “So I understand that.”
But Trina was no fool. “But you have an issue you would like to discuss?” Trina looked at her. “And it involves Reno.”
Val nodded. “I know he cares about us,” she said. “But sometimes I wonder.”
Trina stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“The way he treats us. Me and Jimmy I mean.”
“Say what you mean, Val. How does he treat you?”
“Like the other day, in my case,” Val said. “I came to the PaLargio to give Jimmy some tickets he forget to take with him. I was dressed on the sexy side, I’ll admit it. I had my jacket zipped down a little to show some cleavage. But so what, right? I know who I belong to. But Reno comes up to me and tells me to zip it up. He says Jimmy can see my cleavage, but so can all these other guys.”
“But that’s true, right?” Trina asked.
Val didn’t expect that r
esponse. “I mean, yes, it’s true. But so what? You dress sexy. I see you!”
“But I don’t dress sexy around Reno. Not in public I don’t. You have to use your brains, Val. Zip it down a little if you like. There’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t do it when you’re around your husband or mine. They aren’t the kind of men who like to see other men assessing their wives, or, in Reno’s case, daughter-in-law. You’re like a daughter to him. He’s very protective of you.”
Val didn’t like to hear that, and Trina could tell it. “I have a father,” Val said. “I don’t see him as my father.”
“No,” Trina said, “you see him as your man.”
Val’s big eyes stretched even bigger. “I do not!”
But Trina wasn’t playing games. “You see that bundle between Reno’s legs and can’t help but wonder how it’ll feel between your legs.”
Val was even more shocked. “How can you say such a thing, Ma? I would never---”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Trina interrupted her. “I’m not saying what you would or wouldn’t do. I’m saying what you feel. And I’m not mad at you, Val, don’t think that I am. We’ve been through this before. Women have a thing for Reno, I get that. And you aren’t immune to it. That’s why you can’t picture him as a father figure. He’s too sexy, he’s an older man, and you have a thing for older men. He’s your dream man. It is what it is. I know it. Reno knows it. You know it too.”
Val felt so exposed that she felt ashamed. But she knew she couldn’t lie to Trina. She respected her too much. She did love Reno that way, and she hated herself for it. She hated the dreams she had of him. She hated that she could see Reno pounding his big cock into her while Jimmy was doing her. She hated the idea that she didn’t want to leave Vegas because she wouldn’t see him as often.
She looked at Trina. “I love Jimmy,” she said. “I would never hurt him.”
Trina smiled. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“Then why do I feel so guilty about not wanting to him to take that job in New Hampshire? Why do I feel like Reno is trying to get rid of us?”
Reno Gabrini: A Family Affair Page 11
