“He killed your boyfriend?” Sal asked.
“My friend at the time, yes. And I wasn’t going to let that stand. So I contacted the police in Brooklyn, told them what I knew.”
But Sal was puzzled. “Why didn’t you just tell Brent what went down?”
“What was Brent going to do about a hood hit in Brooklyn? He’s too busy investigating who stole the apple pie out of the window, what would he know about murders and contracts and anything like that?”
“But half of those cops in Brooklyn are in somebody’s pocket, Ma. You can’t trust them like that. You can trust Brent.”
“I can trust Brent to get us both killed! But you’re right. I went to the wrong cop, he notified the Noose, and suddenly I’m a wanted woman. And I don’t know what to do about it. That’s why I called you.”
Sal shook his head. This shit was major league now. He thought about Joey Moncrief, when he went to see him at the Indy 500, and how he was warning him to steer clear of the Noose. Did he know about the hit then? And why wouldn’t he tell him?
“When did it happen?” he asked Sprig. “When did Noose ice your boyfriend?”
“What difference does that make?” Sprig wanted to know.
“Just answer his question,” Gemma said. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Sprig wanted to object, but she didn’t. “He was accusing him for a long time. And was threatening him. But he didn’t go through with it until he realized how much business he was losing. It wasn’t Stan’s fault, but you couldn’t reason with him by then.”
“When did he kill him?” Gemma asked.
“About, I don’t know, three weeks ago,” Sprig said. “And as soon as I found out about it, I went to the cops.”
“And nobody tried to take you out?”
“Nobody.”
It didn’t sit right with Sal. Boyfriend had been iced for nearly a month, and she went to the cops as soon as it happened. But they still hadn’t come after her? Something was wrong with this picture.
“It’s because I’m your mother,” Sprig said, as if she could read Sal’s mind.
Sal looked at her. “What’s because you’re my mother?”
“The fact that they haven’t gotten to me yet. Nobody wants to get on your bad side, or Reno’s or Tommy’s. That’s the reason.”
Sal considered his mother. She was too quick with an answer to a question he hadn’t asked her. Something was wrong. Sal could feel it as sure as he could feel the skin on his bones.
Sprig puffed on her cigarette. Gemma looked at her. She was more nervous than a liar taking a lie detector test. When she noticed Gemma’s stare, she nodded her head. “He was a good man,” she said.
Gemma considered her. “Who was a good man?”
“Stanley. He was good. He did his dirt, but he was a good man overall. He used to treat me right, you know? Every woman can’t say that about their man. But I can say that about Stan. He treated me right. He always looked out for me.”
Gemma looked at Sal. He was in deep thought, she could tell it. Then he got up, and headed for the exit.
“Where are you going?” Sprig asked him. “Where’s he going?” she asked Gemma.
“He’ll be back,” Gemma replied. Sal was going to handle business, she knew, but that wasn’t Sprig’s business to know.
Outside, Sal closed the front door behind him, pulled out the brand new cell phone he had to purchase after destroying his old one in Vegas, and called Joey Moncrief. He needed answers if he was going to help his mother, and the only one who could give them to him was the source of her problem himself. He paced the porch in his jeans and high top Timberland’s, looking at the working class neighborhood, wondering why his mother never took advantage of all of the advantages being a Sinatra in Maine afforded her. Instead, she lived like trailer park trash in the middle of a thriving oasis. It was ridiculous to him on every level. But that was his mother. His father did a number on her, he knew that to be the truth himself, but she, it seemed to him, was finishing the job.
“Joey, hey,” Sal said into the phone when Moncrief picked up.
“What’s up, Sal Luca? Don’t tell me you miss me already.”
“I need a favor.”
“You need a favor from me? Alert the media! What favor?”
“I need a meeting with the Noose.”
“About?”
“I’ve been hearing things. About him, my mother, things. I need you to set up a meeting.”
“Your mother?”
“Joey?”
“Okay, I’ll set it up. I’m on your side, remember that. Where you want this meeting to take place? His turf, your turf, neutral turf?”
“Neutral. Your turf.”
“For when?”
“As soon as you can set it up.”
“I’ll do my level best,” Moncrief said. “So you’re taking what I said to you to heart, hun? About steering clear of another man’s turf?”
“Just set up the meeting, Joey,” Sal said. “And make it clear to that asshole: no action on any fronts until we meet. Any action going down, tell him to call it off.”
“You’re saying action was going down?”
“I don’t know if it was or not,” Sal said, “but I want him to understand that it had better not until we meet face to face.”
“You don’t have to worry about that and you know it. You’re Sal Gabrini. You have big ass muscle behind you. You have that level of automatic respect. Nothing’s going down, I’ll give my word on behalf of the Noose.”
As if his word meant shit to Sal. It didn’t. “I’ll wait to hear from you then,” he said, and killed the call.
When he walked back inside of the house, he informed Gemma that they were leaving now.
“Leaving?” Sprig asked. “Leaving town?”
“It’s late. We’re going to get a room.” Gemma stood up.
“But what about my situation, Sal?”
“I’m handling it.”
Sprig stared at him, and then smiled. “That’s why I called you. Because you’re a man of action, always has been. Tommy, he talks a good game, but you don’t talk much. You do. You handle your business. That’s why I called you.”
“More like you didn’t have anybody else to call, but whatever.” He looked at Gemma. “Ready, babe?”
“Yeah,” Gemma said, rising and coming toward him.
“You marry that girl, Sal,” Sprig said. “Don’t let her get away too. And she’s a lawyer, and all the trouble you’re always getting yourself into? Marry her, Sal.”
Sal found it almost reprehensible that his mother would be advising him on marriage. It was because of the shit she pulled and the shit his old man pulled that had him afraid of love as it was. And she had the nerve to be advising him? He ignored that advice.
“I think it would be a good idea if you stayed the night with Brent, or Tony, or one of your relatives,” he said to her. “I don’t think you should stay here tonight.”
She laughed. “And why not?”
“The contract, remember? There are papers out on you.”
“If they wanted to take me out like that, they would have done it already. And now that you’re here? Forget about it. I’ll be fine. You just worry about yourself.”
Sal started to lash out at Sprig, but Gemma beat him to the punch. “Then why did you call him here if you’re so fine?” she asked her. “He’s a very busy man. You called, he dropped everything and came. Because that’s the kind of man he is. But if you’ve got it all under control, and you’re fine and all the rest of it, then please let us know so that we can go on with our lives. He’s here for you. Point blank period. You need to listen to what he’s telling you.”
And just like that, Sprig changed her tune. Which astounded Gemma. How could she turn it on and off like that so easily? This woman, Gemma was beginning to feel, was full of shit.
“You’re right,” Sprig said to her. Then she turned to Sal. “I apologize, Salvie. I’m just
probably overwhelmed with it all. I’ll call Brent, ask him to have one of his men keep an eye out. I don’t need to leave the house, that’s all I’m saying.”
Sal nodded. Whatever, he thought, placed his hand in the small of Gemma’s back, and got himself and his lady away from there.
CHAPTER TEN
The best hotel in town turned out to be a Bed and Breakfast on a sloping hill on the edge of town. It also happened to be the only B & B in town. Sal drove his Maserati into the parking lot, and he and Gemma, with his hand on the small of her back, made their way inside. He wasn’t too keen on an intimate place like this, but he wasn’t putting Gemma up in anything less than the best. And this B & B was the best in town. He just had to show some restraint. When he fucked her, and he was going to fuck her, he knew he couldn’t go overboard. He wasn’t giving any of these nosy biddies a peep show at his lady’s expense. But first they had to secure the room, and from the way the old biddy behind the counter was behaving, that wasn’t a slam dunk either.
“A vacancy?” she asked again, as she looked through her guest book.
Sal stared at her as she nervously flipped the pages. Who still used guest books in this computer age anyway, he wondered?
“A vacancy?” she asked again.
“Yes, a vacancy,” Sal said again. He and Gemma exchanged a glance.
“I need to make sure we have a room available.” She was a white woman, early fifties, who, Sal and Gemma noticed, kept flipping through pages without really reading the pages. “I’m not quite sure if we have a room available. I’m not quite sure if---”
“If what?” Sal asked, and the woman looked up. “Who do you think you’re dealing with? You think we’re idiots? You know how many people are staying in this establishment and you know it off the top of your head. This isn’t exactly the Waldorf. This is a tiny-ass Bed and Breakfast in a tiny-ass town. Now cut the bullshit, lady. Do you have a vacancy or don’t you?”
Gemma normally would not have advised such a hard response, but this chick, in her opinion, deserved it. And besides, Gemma thought with a smile, this woman was no shrinking violet.
“You will watch your language, young man,” she said.
Sal was thirty-six years old. Being called a young man inwardly amused him.
“And my name is not Lady,” the woman continued. “My name is Maggie. Or Mags if you like.”
“Do you have a vacancy?” Sal asked her yet again.
“You’re a Sinatra,” she said. “Correct?”
“Incorrect.”
Then the woman smiled, as if she was relieved. “You’re not a Sinatra?”
“No. Hell no.”
“Why would you think he was a Sinatra?” Gemma wanted to know.
“The fancy dancy car. The bling.” She was looking at Sal’s Rolex and the gold chain around his neck. “The general flamboyance. I assumed he was one of them.”
“But what does it matter to you?” Sal asked. “Why should you care who I’m related to?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. But the owner of this establishment, as you called it, doesn’t want any Sinatras anywhere near this place. I know it’s unfair, I know it’s probably illegal too, but this is her place and I only work here. A job I absolutely must have, by the way.”
“But why would the owner feel that way about one family?” Sal wanted to know.
“It’s a long story, I assure you, and even I don’t know the full story. So I won’t bore you. But yes, I am happy to say, we have vacancies. You and your wife are welcome.”
She began recording the information. It wasn’t lost on either one of them that the woman was assuming they were married, and a part of both of them wanted to go along with the charade for peace sake. But the bigger part of both of them knew they couldn’t.
“And the name is?” the woman asked as she prepared to write it in the guest book. That was so antiquated to Gemma also, considering everything was computerized nowadays, but it was refreshing to her too.
“Gemma Jones,” Sal said, “and Sal Gabrini.”
The woman hesitated only briefly in her writing, but she kept on going. Then she smiled, gave them the key, and showed them up the stairs, to their room.
Just as Sal had feared, it was a regular room in a house. No expectation of hotel-type privacy here. But that was the least on his mind. He wondered why he was there at all.
“Your mother asked you to come,” Gemma said, as she began to unpack their luggage that was now on the bed.
“But why did she ask me?” Sal wondered. “There’s no sense of urgency with her. Even if a small timer like Noose had a contract on my head, it’s urgent for me. But not for her.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Who Noose? No. It doesn’t work that way. He’s no partner of mine, I’m not just calling him up like that. I called an intermediary. We meet on neutral ground.”
“Where?”
“Boston.”
Gemma stopped packing and looked at him. “You’re going to Boston?”
“That’s the plan.”
“When?”
“Probably in the morning. It’s just a day trip. I take the plane, I should be back in a few hours. You’ll stay here until I get back.”
“I can’t go with you?”
Sal was already shaking his head. “To meet with scum like Nicky the Noose? No way. You stay here.”
Gemma agreed. Sal knew these people better than she would ever know them. When he told her she couldn’t do something regarding that murky, underground world he knew so well, she didn’t question it.
“Could you drop me off at your mother’s?” she asked him.
Sal looked at her. “You want that?”
“Yeah, I do. Maybe I can get to know her better.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
“I know. But I want to try all the same.”
Sal nodded. “If you see any problems, you call Brent. I’ll get his number and give it to you. But call him first, and then call me.”
“Will do,” Gemma said with a smile. Then she pulled out her bathrobe, her towel, and her bath kit. “I’m going to take me a nice, hot bath,” she said.
“Sounds good,” he said, ready to get naked and bathe with her. But as he looked around the room, he realized there was no bath in the room.
Gemma laughed, she’d already figured that out, and began heading for the exit. “You’ll just have to wait your turn, Mr. Gabrini,” she said.
Later that night, when they both were alone in bed, naked and face to face, Sal rested his hand on the side of her face.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“You know you’re welcome, babe.”
“I know.”
“Hard for you?”
“Oh yeah. I won’t lie about that. Just being in the same room with her makes me ill. I’ve got so much shit stored up, you know?”
Gemma rubbed the side of his face. “I’m glad you came, though. Especially when she told us about that Noose character. She really does need help.”
Sal rubbed his thumb across Gemma’s dark, luscious lips. “What do you think about her? Truly, I mean.”
“Where you’re concerned and her part in your pain, she’s full of shit.”
Sal looked at her. “You get that too?”
“Oh, hell yeah, Sal. She’s not taking responsibility for anything. I know your father hurt her, but she still hurt you and Tommy. She refuses to accept even that fact.”
Sal nodded. “I know. Makes me want to get us on our plane and go home.”
“But you can’t now. Not after what she said about the Noose.”
“Yeah. She’s got me by the balls once again.”
Then he stared at Gemma. “But you? I love you,” he said and kissed her on the lips. “You know that, right?”
She smiled. “I know it.”
“You’re my special lady. And don’t you ever forget that.”
Gemma studied his sincere eyes. “I won’t, Sal
,” she said.
He put his arms around her, pulled her closer, and gave her a long, passionate kiss. And then he was kissing her neck, and her breasts. But he didn’t linger there. There was a certain part of her that he wanted badly tonight, and he didn’t waste time getting it.
He moved down, between her legs, and began to lick her. Gemma licked her lips at the expert way Sal went down on her. It was the feel of his tongue. He knew how to lay it flat against her clit, and rub, and then to slice it inside of her slit, and lick in that super-long, lingering lick he mastered.
He was licking her that way now. He was slicing up and down her ridges and licking up every tap of vaginal juices that flowed out of her. And when he took his thumb and finger and parted her, and began to eat her, she let out such a forceful sigh, and lifted her slender black body so high off the bed that he had to get up on his knees to stay inside of her. And he stayed inside of her. He kept eating her so hard that she thought she was going to cum right then and there.
And then his dick wanted what his mouth had and it would not be denied a moment longer. He sat on the back of his lower legs, pushed her body closer to his, and guided his missile, as it seemed so stiff and straight to Gemma, into her. They looked at each other with a knowing, longing look as that familiar feeling of penetration overtook them. He wasn’t even stroking her yet, he was just entering her, and already they were at that place where nothing mattered but how it felt. And how the feeling was as tangible to them as the act itself.
When he started gyrating her, when his dick began to push in further, then pull almost out, and push in further still, there was a collective sigh of enchantment. They were enchanted by the way they made each other feel. Sex for them was always more than just sex. It was almost cathartic for them. It was as if Sal was releasing inside of Gemma, and Gemma was accepting, his very being. He lifted her up, to where they were mouth to mouth now, as he fucked her.
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