“She’s a fine girl, isn’t she?” Sprig turned to him for the first time. “Sal is fortunate to have her.”
Tommy stared at her, but he didn’t say a word.
“It’s real good to see you again, Tommy. Still beautiful, I see. I used to be so jealous of you. Pretty girl like me, and her boy gets all of the attention? No sir. I couldn’t let that stand. Especially when your father turned away from me, and turned to you.”
“What the fuck is your problem?” Reno angrily asked Sprig, literally moving his body slightly in front of Tommy.
Tony noticed the move. Like Sal, he was acting as if he was Tommy’s protector, although, in Tony’s estimation, Tommy didn’t need the protection.
Reno continued his complaint. “Why are you going on about that past shit? Who wants to hear about all of that past shit? He’s here for Sal, not for you!”
“I didn’t say he was here for me, Reno, you little jumped-up thug! Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Reno yelled back.
“A thug, that’s who!” Sprig proclaimed. “A mobster! Talking about you’re legit. Talking about you own the PaLargio so that makes you legit. Yeah right. You and Al Capone!”
“Fuck you, Jackie!”
“Fuck you, Reno!” Sprig yelled. “I don’t give a fuck about none of y’all! I hate every one of you Gabrinis!”
Tommy already knew that. She didn’t have to tell him that. He looked at Tony. “Where’s Gemma?” he asked him.
Tony exhaled. All of this wasteful hate, he thought. “The chapel,” he said. “She’s in the chapel.”
Gemma sat quietly on the front row. The small hospital chapel was empty and cold, but the Spirit inside of it felt warm and inviting to her. She prayed. The entire time she was there, she couldn’t stop praying. Sal was in trouble. He was teetering between life and death. She could feel it in her bones. And she couldn’t stop praying.
She had been in the chapel for nearly an hour by the time Tommy and Reno arrived. As soon as she saw Tommy, and the pain in his eyes, tears sprang in hers. She stood up, and they embraced.
Reno stood back, upset that two wonderful people like them had to go through this agony, and especially Sal. He couldn’t stop thinking about what that good man was going through. He sat on the pew behind Gemma’s, and began to pray himself. By the time Tommy and Gemma stopped embracing, Reno had his head down, his hands over his face, and was in his own world of prayer.
Tommy sat Gemma down, and then sat down beside her. He kept his arm around her. “Have you seen a doctor at all?”
“One of the doctors on the surgical team.”
“What did he say?” Tommy asked.
“He couldn’t say. Sal was still in surgery and they were trying to safely remove the bullets.”
“Bullets? “Geez. More than one?”
“Yes,” Gemma said, nodding her head. “But he’s strong, Tommy.”
“I know. He’ll get through this. He’d better. But . . . Why does it always happens to him? Why does my baby brother always have to get the short end of the stick?”
Gemma always wondered about that herself. She had no answers either.
“What happened exactly?” Tommy asked her. “Why would anybody be here in Maine shooting at Sal? Or you?”
“Or Sprig,” Gemma said.
Tommy winced. He remembered that name. His father used to call his mother that name. Sprig. “Why would anybody want to harm her?” he asked.
“I don’t know if they do. But she did tell Sal somebody named Nicky the Noose had a contract out on her.”
Reno looked up. “The Noose?” he asked. “Why the . . .” He remembered where he was. “Why would Nicky the Noose have a contract out on Jackie?”
“He told Sal he doesn’t,” Gemma said. “Sprig claimed there was this guy named Stanley who worked for Nicky. Nicky, she claimed, killed Stanley, so she went to the Brooklyn police. But they told Nicky, so Nicky put a contract out on her. But Nicky not only denies the contract, he denies ever having anybody named Stanley working for him.”
“Damn,” Reno said.
“He could be lying,” Gemma said.
But Tommy and Reno both shook their heads. “He wouldn’t lie to Sal,” Reno said. “His reach is too wide and powerful. Nicky would be better off signing is own death warrant.”
“Wouldn’t the same be true if he put a contract out on Sal’s mother?”
“I don’t know about that,” Tommy said.
“Yeah,” Reno admitted. “That’s why he wouldn’t have done it. Not the Noose. Somebody else maybe, but not the Noose.”
Reno looked at Tommy. “We’ve got to talk to Jackie. Get her to tell us the truth for once in her life.”
“Good luck with that,” Gemma said. “That woman is a handful.”
“Says who?” Sprig’s voice suddenly said and they all turned toward the sound. Sprig had entered the Chapel and was walking toward them. “I don’t appreciate being talked about outside of my presence.”
“Who gives a,” Reno started, but again, he remembered where he was. “Who cares what you don’t appreciate?” he said instead.
“Tell us about the contract,” Tommy said, hating to so much as look in her direction. But he had to make sure that whomever harmed Sal, didn’t try to finish the job. “Who signed it?”
“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?”
“Sprig,” Gemma said. “Just answer his question please.”
Sprig exhaled. She leaned against a pew across the aisle from theirs. “I told you. Nicky the Noose.”
“We’re over that,” Tommy said. He almost said mother but caught himself. He, in truth, didn’t know what to call her. “It’s not the Noose. Who signed the contract?”
“If I’m lying about Nicky, what makes you think I’m not lying about the contract itself?”
Tommy stared at her. “Because you aren’t. Because you’re so scared you can hardly stand up. Why is there a contract out, and who signed it?
Sprig smiled. “You were always the brains of the family. Sal and Reno? Forget about it. But you, Tommy, you was the total package. Great brains and great looks. I’m not surprised at all that you’re so successful. And you didn’t have to sleep your way to the top like Reno did.”
“Who signed it?” Tommy asked before Reno could lash back.
Sprig hesitated. Even Gemma could see her fear. “The Noose,” she said.
Tommy stared at her. “The truth can help your son. Your baby boy who still loves you, who came here to help you despite the fact that even a child knows he shouldn’t give you the time of day. But he came. And you can help us protect him. But you won’t do it.”
“It’s all about her,” Reno said.
“Right,” Tommy agreed, and continued to look at his mother. “It’s always been about you and nobody else. Pop mistreated you, so what do you do? You take off. You leave your sons in that abusive situation, but at least you got away.” Tommy’s look turned as cold as ice. “Who signed that contract?” he asked her.
There was a long pause this time, but the response was the same. “The Noose,” she said.
And then the door of the Chapel was opened, and a surgeon, still in his scrubs, came in.
Gemma, Tommy, and Reno scurried to their feet. Gemma moved out in front of them.
“He’s alive,” the doctor said. But his words didn’t comfort them, they scared them. Those words meant that at some point there had been some doubt, at least on the part of the doctors, that he would live.
“He’s in a bad state, I’m not going to pretend he isn’t,” the doctor further said. “And he’s not completely out of the woods yet. But if he’s a fighter---”
“He is,” Tommy and Reno said in unison.
“Then he might just pull through. But it’s touch and go at this point.”
“Can he be moved?” Tommy asked. “By plane I mean?”
“To a better facility you mean?”<
br />
“Can he be moved?” Reno asked. It wasn’t the man’s business where.
“Not right now of course,” the doctor said, “but if and when he stabilizes, yes. He can be moved.”
“May we see him, doctor?” Gemma asked.
“Are you Gemma?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.”
“He asked for you. He came to when he first got here and was asking for you. Yes, you can see him. But he’s heavily sedated and won’t wake up. But you can see him.”
Tommy and Reno began to follow as well, although Sprig didn’t bother. But the doctor stopped them. “No way am I letting all of you in the recovery room. Just one---”
“We want to see him too,” Reno said.
“I can’t allow---”
“We want to see him too,” Tommy said.
The doctor looked into the eyes of these two men. They were obviously very powerful. Their commanding presence alone made it clear they were no slouches. They were undoubtedly the two men responsible for all of these burly guards that were suddenly patrolling his hospital as if it was a police state. And he knew the deal. He could say yes, or he could say no and then be forced to say yes. “And who are you guys?” he decided to ask them.
“His brothers,” Tommy said.
The doctor exhaled. They didn’t pay him enough to risk his life. “Follow me,” he said, and Gemma and both Gabrinis followed.
All three of them felt out of place as they stood at Sal’s bedside. He was asleep, hooked up to an assortment of breathing apparatus, and although he should have looked weak and helpless, to them he looked strong. Even Gemma was able to steel herself from crying. Just seeing him again made her feel better. He was going to make it. Somehow she knew it now.
“As soon as the doctor gives the ok and we can move him,” Tommy said, “I want him at my house in Seattle.”
“Your house?” Reno asked. “No, Tom. The PaLargio will be the perfect location for his recovery. He can get around-the-clock care at my place.”
“He can get around-the-clock care at my house.”
“But the PaLargio is in Vegas, and so is Gemma. Sal is going to want Gem around.”
“She can be around. She can come and stay with Grace and I any time she wishes, she knows that.”
“But you and Grace work your butts off. She’s running her company and you’re running yours. When are you going to have time for Sal?”
But Tommy wasn’t going for it. “I guess you and Trina are retired?” he asked Reno.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You won’t be at his bedside day and night either,” Tommy said. “He comes to my house. In Seattle.”
“No,” Gemma finally said, and both men looked at her.
“No?” Tommy asked.
“He’s going home,” Gemma said.
“Home? To your home?”
“To his home. To the Wingate. That’s where he’ll want to be, and that’s where he’s going to be.” Gemma looked at the two men, especially Tommy, to see if there was any objection. They were his blood, but he was her man.
“And what about you?” Tommy asked. “You’re a busy attorney now, always trying cases. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take a leave of absence and be with Sal. I’m going to be with Sal every step of the way.”
Both Tommy and Reno relaxed. That was what they were hoping for. An honest to goodness, sacrificial, out on a limb commitment from Gemma.
“That makes sense,” Reno said. “Gemma’s his woman. She should make the call.”
“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “He’ll go home. I think that’s a good idea. Sal loves the Wingate. He would want to be at home.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The entire staff stood quietly in the lobby of the Wingate Luxury apartment building as the ambulance and limousines drove up. From the Estate Manager to the General Manager to the maids, janitors, and doormen, everybody felt the change in the atmosphere as starkly as they felt the palm of their hands. Their boss, their leader, the owner of the entire Wingate complex, had fallen over a week ago in Maine, and was returning home today. And from what they’d been told, he wasn’t going to be returning in the strong position that they were accustomed to seeing, but on a stretcher, hooked up to machines, and he might be comatose. They worried about themselves. What would become of them if Sal didn’t recover? But they worried more about Sal, and what was going to become of him.
They saw, from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lobby, that Miss Jones and Mr. Tommy and his wife had gotten out of the limousine. Mr. Reno and his wife, and even young Jimmy Mack Gabrini, were also getting out of that limousine. But their eyes kept going back to Miss Jones. She looked deathly worried to them, as if all of this drama was way over her head, and Tommy seemed to be holding onto her as if she would fall without his support. They all looked stressed and strained. This was all so new, or so assumed the staff, to rich, easy living people like them.
But the collective heart of the staff grew even fainter when they saw Sal Gabrini enter his own lobby on that stretcher. It seemed surreal to them, this big, powerful man down on his back like that. Their eyes followed that stretcher from the moment it entered all the way until it was entering the back, private elevator up to his penthouse. The entire medical staff, and Reno, his son, and Grace and Trina, followed the stretcher upstairs. But Tommy and Gemma remained downstairs, to speak with the staff.
“I know this is a tough time for all of you,” Tommy addressed them. “It’s a tough time for us as well, as you can imagine. Miss Jones here, who I’m sure all of you know, will be spending more time here during my brother’s recovery. What I want to make clear is that Miss Jones will have authority to make all decisions related to the Wingate, to the Wingate staff, and to Mr. Gabrini himself.”
“We already know that, sir.” It was Carmen, one of Sal’s long-time maids.
Tommy and Gemma looked at her. “You already know what?” Tommy asked her.
“Mr. Sal told us a long time ago that we were to treat Miss Jones’ word, not as if it was as good as his word, but as if it was his word. He told us that when she first started coming around regular.”
“Good,” Tommy said, relieved, “so it should be nothing new to any of you then. Because that’s exactly right. Her word is Sal’s word. In every aspect.”
William, the general manager, looked at Gemma. “How is Mr. Gabrini, ma’am?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ulysses Camdon, Sal’s estate manager, echoed. “We saw him on the stretcher, but what is his prognosis?”
Gemma looked at all of the people facing her. Sal loved these people and treated them with high respect. Which made them, in turn, treat him equally respectful. She wasn’t about to do anything to make them feel any less toward him. “I’m not going to stand up here and say he’s fine, or even that he’s going to be fine,” she said. “I don’t know. The doctors don’t know yet. His condition is stable, but unchanged. He’s breathing on his own, which is great, he’s in and out of consciousness, but he hasn’t turned that corner yet.”
“Will he ever turn the corner?” Carmen asked.
“We pray he will.”
“How long will it take?”
“The doctors said it could take days, it could take weeks, or even months or years.”
“Years?” some of the staff couldn’t help but say.
“Yes,” Gemma said. “Years. But Sal is strong,” she said, and had to stop herself from breaking down. She steeled herself. “He’s going to turn that corner. I can’t say when, but he’s going to turn that corner.”
“Yes, ma’am, “Carmen said, and then Tommy thanked them for their service, and then he and Gemma made their way upstairs too.
Tommy sat at the head of the table, with his wife Grace to his right, and Reno, Trina, and Jimmy to his left. They all had drinks in front of them, but nobody was drinking. It had been a long, long week. They all had eventually converged in Jericho, to escor
t Sal back home. Now he was home, and the gravity of it all, the fact that doctors and nurses would be a part of his home until he fully recovered, was weighing down all of them. And the manner in which Sal fell didn’t help matters either.
“I just can’t understand it,” Jimmy said. “Usually when things like this happen, when somebody targets a Gabrini, we find out who’s behind it, or at least we have a good idea by now. But Uncle Sal falls, and nobody knows a damn thing.”
“I’ve got my men on it,” Reno said. “Tommy’s got his men on it, and you know Sal’s men are on it.”
“But nothing?” Jimmy asked.
“Nothing,” Reno said. “Noose wasn’t behind this, but Jackie keeps insisting he was, and that’s where we are.”
“Jackie? Is that your mother?” Trina asked.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “If you want to call her that.”
“That lady is a trip and a half,” Reno said. “She tried to make it all about her. He should stay here in Jericho, with his mother, she said, as if we were going to keep him in that backwater town. She was out of her mind. And I didn’t see where she wanted him to stay because she was so concerned about him.”
“You saw right,” Tommy said. Then he did a quick rub of his face with both hands. Tommy usually looked pristine. He looked unshaven and haggard right now. “I just wish we knew who was behind it.”
“Same here,” Reno said. “Just keep him under tight security until we do get to the bottom of it.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Tommy said to his closest cousin. “Saran wrap couldn’t be tighter. On him and Gemma as well.”
“How’s she really doing?” Grace asked Tommy. “I’m worried about her.”
Tommy took Grace’s hand in his. “She’s doing great. But you know Gem, she was tough to begin with.”
“Yeah, she was,” Trina agreed. “That sister didn’t play even when she was a child.” They all laughed.
“And that’s exactly why she’s perfect for Sal,” Tommy said with a smile. “She keeps him out of trouble.”
Sal Gabrini 3: Hard Love Page 13
