Tommy Gabrini: A Family Man

by Mallory Monroe

  “But surely not to his father,” the first parent said, motioning toward TJ.

  “Yes,” Grace said, “to his father.”

  “To your baby’s daddy?”

  Grace thought she was clear. “Yes,” she said again. “His father is the only baby daddy I have. He’s my husband.”

  Both women glanced at each other as if they didn’t believe her for a second. Not that Grace cared. She didn’t.

  But to her delight, as if God himself decided to correct their impression, Tommy’s Maserati pulled up right in front of where they were standing, getting the ladies’ attention immediately, and the valet opened the door.

  “Mommy, that’s Daddy,” TJ said happily, pointing at his father’s car, but the women were too busy staring at that car themselves to notice. They were especially impressed when Tommy stepped out of the car.

  “Whoa,” said the first parent to the second one. “What a man, what a man, what a man!” And they laughed.

  “And he got what it takes, too,” said the second parent, looking down at Tommy’s midsection.

  Tommy buttoned his black suit coat and then checked to make sure all of his clandestine security that surrounded his family, without even his family knowing it, were in place. Once satisfied, he made his way up the steps.

  TJ, already anxious to get to him, jumped out of Grace’s arms and ran to the top step. “Daddy, daddy!” he was saying like he always did when his father entered his space.

  Tommy picked him up and held him in his arms, enjoying the smell, the feel, the love of his child again.

  Grace, happy too, glanced at the two parents that had doubted her. They stood there stunned. Not only did that woman have a husband, their faces seemed to say, but her husband was better than their husband? They could not believe it.

  Tommy went over to Grace and gave her a kiss on the lips. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said to her. “I thought I was going to be quite late.”

  “Not at all,” Grace said. “In fact,” she added, glancing at the two parents again, “I’d say you have perfect timing.”

  “Perfect timing?” Tommy asked with a smile. “Why would you say that?”

  “Those two ladies behind us think I’m a single parent.”

  Tommy stared at her as he continued to bounce their son. He wanted to ask why would they think that, but he knew why.

  “I told them I wasn’t,” Grace said, “but I don’t think they believed me. You showing up at the moment you did, like an episode straight out of Perry Mason, proved my point.”

  “Ah,” Tommy said, and smiled. “That perfect timing.”

  “There ya’ go!” Then Grace’s look turned serious. “But thanks for coming, Tommy, really. Des is going to be so happy.”

  Tommy felt strange that Grace would have to thank him for showing up. It was the least he could do for his own kid, and they both knew it. But he understood what she meant. Ever since that night she came to his office, he’d been making a concerted effort. And Grace being Grace, was showing her appreciation.

  He kissed her again on the lips, certain again he didn’t deserve her. She smiled, placed her arm on his arm, and they decided to wait closer to the entrance, away from the doubters.

  The talent show was nearly forty minutes in before Tommy, Grace, and TJ finally got to see the person they came to see.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer, a short, stout music teacher, “please welcome on the stage one of our very popular young ladies. Singing Faith Hill’s This Kiss, with words and lyrics by Lerner, Roboff, and Chapman, please welcome our very own Destiny Gabrini!”

  It was no surprise to Tommy nor Grace that the audience, especially the boys in the audience, went wild. Destiny was a very popular girl. But what shocked Tommy was what that announcer said would be Destiny’s talent. He thought Destiny was going to play the piano, which she could play quite well.

  “Sing?” he whispered to Grace. “Destiny? Singing?”

  Grace smiled. “You’ll see,” she said.

  But Tommy was worried sick. He loved his daughter. Loved her with all his heart. The idea that she would stand before those people and sing, something he never heard her do even in passing, concerned him. He didn’t want his poor child booed off stage!

  “I don’t like this,” he whispered to Grace as the applause died down and then a hush came over the room. Grace shushed him.

  The music started and Destiny, standing alone on stage with a microphone, looking angelic, her parents thought, began to sing:

  “I don’t want another heartbreak

  I don’t need another turn to cry.

  I don’t want to learn the hard way

  Baby hello, oh no, goodbye.

  But you got me like a rocket

  Shooting straight across the sky.

  It’s the way you love me

  It’s a feeling like this.

  It’s centrifugal motion

  It’s perpetual bliss.

  It’s the pivotal moment

  It’s impossible.

  This kiss, this kiss

  Unstoppable

  This kiss, this kiss!”

  Tommy was stunned. Destiny wasn’t awkward at all, and she had the movements, the sound, the confidence of a pop star! A very raw, very young, very not-yet-ready-for-prime-time pop star. But the talent was there.

  When she finished, Tommy, Grace and TJ stood on their feet, and so did half the audience, in unbridled applause. Destiny, as if she was a consummate professional, smiled, curtsied, and left the stage. She could have come back for an encore, as many of those who performed before her did, but she didn’t. Destiny would say, they knew, that that wasn’t her thing.

  When they sat back down, Tommy looked at Grace as if she had kept some secret from him. But he knew the truth. He had been an absent father.

  Tears were in his eyes as he listened to the remaining performers. He didn’t know who sang what or who did what. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about Des. His little girl had the voice of an angel, and he didn’t even know it. It was a shocking realization.

  And even though Destiny didn’t win or place that night: the white judges from that white school gave all three awards to white girls. One deserving, two not so much, but that wasn’t the issue to Tommy. He was the issue. And the fact that he didn’t even know his little girl could hold a tune, let alone carry one throughout an entire song.

  He had to do better by his family. There was no denying it.

  He had to do better.

  Later that night, after taking the family out to dinner to celebrate Destiny’s triumphant debut performance and finding out, to Tommy’s relief, that she wasn’t going to run away to Hollywood to become a singer, but still wanted to be a journalist when she grew up, Tommy’s cell phone rang. It was Sal.

  “I need to take this,” Tommy said, got up from the restaurant table, and made his way outside.

  Both Grace and Destiny watched him with trepidation.

  “He’s going to have to leave,” Destiny said. “Isn’t he, Mommy?”

  Grace was watching Tommy walk out of the restaurant too. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “He’ll have to leave,” Destiny said as if she already knew it for a fact and was steeling herself for the letdown.

  But Tommy still had the capacity to pleasantly surprise her, Grace knew, and she was counting on it tonight. This was Destiny’s night. She only hoped Tommy understood that.

  Outside, Tommy did understand it. That was why, as soon as Sal told him the meeting with mob boss Joe DeLuca was set, he wanted to know for when.

  “Tomorrow night,” Sal said, to Tommy’s relief.

  “Where?”

  “You won’t fucking believe it,” Sal said. “At his house.”

  “His home?” Tommy was surprised too. “In Alabama?”

  “He didn’t say where, but I assumed it had to be here in Seattle. I assumed it was some house he’s renting, and he would like for us to be his guests a
t dinner. I was surprised he didn’t ask us to bring our wives.”

  “My wife isn’t going anywhere near that fucker,” Tommy said. “And we won’t be eating any of his food, either. He may try to poison us.”

  Sal laughed. “I doubt that, Tommy!”

  But Tommy wasn’t kidding. “I don’t like it, Sal.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You think he’ll come for a Gabrini?”

  “I don’t know. What if he sent Mayflower after Grace? And since you don’t know him like that, and I don’t either: change the location.”

  “To where?”

  “Tell him we’d prefer a more public setting. He can still pick the place, since we’re the ones calling for the meeting, but I’m not going to that fucker’s house. He’ll be in total control if we do that.”

  “Damn, Tommy, you got me nervous now.”

  “Mayflower targeted Grace. I don’t know why or who paid him or forced him or none of that shit. I’m taking no chances. Besides,” Tommy started to say, but didn’t continue.

  “Besides what?” Sal asked him.

  “We’ve got families to think about. Wives and children. We can’t take the chances we used to take, Sal. As incredible as it seems, we’ve got people who love us and rely on us to be there for them. Neither one of us have earned an A in that department. And it’s not like we’re getting any younger.”

  “That’s the truth,” Sal agreed. “Okay, I’ll get him to change the location. But how public it’ll be? That’ll be up to him.”

  “Or we just won’t show up,” Tommy said. “That’s up to us.” But then he looked into the restaurant and saw Grace and Destiny staring at him, as if they just knew he was about to fly the coop. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, ended the call, and went back inside to his family.

  “Everything okay?” Grace asked when he sat down.

  “Yep,” Tommy said.

  “Who was it?”

  “Sal.”

  “Uncle Sal,” TJ said.

  “He set it up?” Grace asked. She knew Sal was going to set up a meeting with DeLuca.

  Tommy nodded. “We’re still working out the logistics,” he said, “but yeah, he’s agreed to meet.”

  Grace nodded too. It was a start, although she hated when he had to deal with mobsters. Some of them were honorable and respected the Gabrini position in the hierarchy of families, but some were just ruthless. But she knew one thing for certain: Tommy could handle himself.

  Destiny, however, didn’t know what her parents were talking about and didn’t care. She had a different concern. “You’re going to have to leave?” she asked her father.

  “Leave on your special night, when you debut your talent to the world? Not on your life, little girl,” Tommy said, and Destiny beamed.

  Grace beamed, too. And they ate vigorously. All except for little TJ. He was already stuffed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tommy and Sal walked into the small coffee shop in Seattle’s trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood and took a seat near the back hallway. With Tommy in his stitch-perfect Armani suit, and Sal in his pinstripe, double-breasted Valentino suit, they both stood out like sore thumbs. The shop was loaded with latte-swilling young professionals buried in their iPads and their iPhones, or buried in their youth and idealism as they talked loudly, laughed loud, and behaved as if decorum be damned. Even Tommy, who was usually someone young people enjoyed to be around, felt out of place.

  “I feel like a dinosaur compared to this crowd,” he said to Sal.

  “You? And get a load of this menu.” Sal had on a pair of reading glasses just to read the tiny words on the menu, and he handed his glasses and the menu to his brother.

  Tommy put on Sal’s glasses, and although he could see the words on the menu, he had no clue what they meant either. “Is this food?” he asked.

  “It’s all in abbreviations,” Sal said. “Like reading a fucking text message.”

  Tommy smiled. “The arrogance of youth,” he said.

  “Sirs.”

  Tommy and Sal looked up at the young man who had just arrived at their table.

  “Yes?” Sal asked.

  “He will see you now, sirs,” the young man said, and motioned for them to follow him.

  “About time,” Sal said, popping up from the table buttoning his suit coat. “Who do he think he is leaving us waiting this long?”

  Tommy got up too and they followed the young man through a series of hallways that led to the first door on the right. From the outside, they didn’t realize the coffee shop was that big.

  But when the young man opened the door to let them in, it was small again. Just a regular, small office with Joe DeLuca himself, the head of the southern mafia, sitting on the edge of the desk. Smiling like a big, fat, Cheshire cat. “Tommy and Sal Gabrini,” he said jovially. “Come in! Come in! Please come in!”

  Tommy and Sal were a little taken aback by his gaiety, but they walked on in. The young man stayed outside of the office and closed the door behind them, closing them in. Sal glanced at Tommy. They had backup outside of the restaurant. But inside? They were on their own.

  “Have a seat, please,” DeLuca said. “It’s so good to see you gentlemen this evening.”

  Sal sat down. Tommy didn’t.

  “Want anything to drink?”

  “You mean like that shit they were serving out front?” Sal responded.

  DeLuca laughed. “Yeah, like that.”

  “No, thanks!”

  DeLuca laughed again. “I must say I was surprised to get your phone call, Sal. I didn’t think you Gabrinis would have any dealings with the likes of me.”

  “How about that?” Sal said, folding and then unfolding his leg. This guy was a little too buttery for his taste, and it was making him uncomfortable.

  Tommy wasn’t feeling it , either, Sal figured, especially since Tommy had not sat down, but was on the side of the desk, leaned against the wall. Although they called him Backdoor Tommy, he never had his back to any door.

  “I’ve been an admirer for years,” their host continued. “You and Tommy both, and your cousin Reno too. That man is a business genius, I tell you! Little guys like me can learn a lot from a titan of industry like him.”

  Sal glanced at Tommy. Can you believe this guy? his facial expression was saying.

  “So,” said DeLuca, “how can I help you boys?”

  Finally business, Sal thought.

  “What interest do you have in Seattle real estate?” Tommy asked him.

  “None whatsoever,” said DeLuca.

  “Then why have you been buying up so much of it?”

  “Me? Nall! You got it all wrong. I haven’t been buying up shit.”

  “You’re DeLuca Construction?”

  “I own the name, yes. But my son runs the company. Now he might be buying around these parts. He lives in Spokane. But you’ll have to ask him about that.”

  “I’m asking you,” Tommy said. “Your signature is on every document. Not your son’s. Yours.”

  Sal didn’t even know that. But he knew Tommy would do his homework. He always did.

  And it seemed to stump DeLuca. He continued to smile, but the Gabrinis could tell he was less bold with it. “I might have signed something to that effect,” he said, “but I didn’t read the fine print.”

  “Bullshit,” Tommy said. “You read it. And you know how I know you read it? Because I’ve been doing a little reading about you.”

  DeLuca continued to smile, but he was looking at Tommy suspiciously. “Oh, yeah? And what did you find?”

  “I found that Stanley Mayflower worked for you. And I don’t mean in the traditional sense either.”

  DeLuca stumbled at first. “I might have known, I mean, I might have thrown him some work every now and then.”

  “Did that work you threw to him include killing my wife?” Tommy asked him pointblank.

  Sal and Tommy both stared intensely
at DeLuca. They both were ready to draw their weapons if he tried any shit.

  But he just frowned. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t dare put a contract out on the wife of Tommy Gabrini! I might be stupid, but I’m not crazy. Or is it I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid? I can never get that right! But I can tell you this: I would never do any such thing. You have the wrong man. And yeah, I might have signed off on a property or two. But so what? Is that a crime all of a sudden? I’m not that kind of man. I respect you boys with the utmost respect. I wouldn’t do anything like that to you.”

  There was a knock on the door, and then a man both Tommy and Sal recognized walked in. He had apparently been listening. If the heat got hot, he apparently was to break it up. Tommy and Sal had gotten out of bad situations that way, too, by having one of their men walk in, many times before.

  “Pauley’s here!” DeLuca said happily, and then stood up. “Which means I will have to leave.”

  “We’ve got to go, Boss,” said Pauley.

  “This is Pauley Sabbatino,” DeLuca said. “My second in command. Pauley, meet the Gabrinis.”

  Pauley used to be a cop, just as Tommy and Sal had been cops. But unlike Tommy and exactly like Sal, he was as crooked as they came. Tommy had been his boss too. But none of them, not Pauley and not the Gabrinis, so much as acknowledged any history between them. “Nice meeting you,” Pauley said to them. “We gotta go, Boss,” he said to DeLuca.

  “Anyway,” DeLuca said, “you heard the man. Hope to see you boys in the near future. But I say again, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I would never harm your wife, Tommy, or any other Gabrini. And I didn’t ask Mayflower to do that either. I mean, his own sister died. How could you think that was intentional?”

  He wasn’t privy to what they were privy to, that was why. But they didn’t go there. Sal stood up too.

  And then he and Tommy left the office.

  Once outside, and Tommy and Sal were seated in the backseat of their SUV, the head of their detail came up to the window. Tommy pressed it down.