MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION (6 page)

“My firm does some security work for the colege, for UNLV, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I had a series of meetings over there. When they were done I thought I’d swing by and surprise you and Tree. I had no idea you had gone to Jersey.” Then he smiled again. “I had no idea I would be the one surprised.”

“Oh, man,” Reno said, looking back at Trina, who stil looked stunned. “You just don’t know how wonderful it is that you dropped by. Isn’t this guy something, Tree?” He patted his expensive coat lapel. “You’ve got the knack, boy, you hear me? You’ve got the knack!”

And Tommy did. Always had a knack for showing up right on time. It was that way when they were younger, it was that way today. But Reno was no idiot, either. He’d considered the possibility. If it had been anybody else coming with that
I just happened to be in the neighborhood
line, Reno would have been suspicious. But not with Tommy. He trusted Tommy above any man alive.

Reno sat on the bed beside Trina, looking at her and back at Tommy and they both couldn’t stop smiling. They knew it was forced gaiety. They knew it was their way of suppressing the too-tragic-to-even-think-about major matters, in favor of smiling at the minor ones. But they grabbed that little light in their darkness, in the form of Tommy Gabrini, and grabbed it ful throttle.

And although Tommy didn’t make it there in time for Reno’s mother, and his sister was in seriously bad shape, he had come in time to help Trina.

And in Reno’s book, if he was honest, and he was, there could not have been a more critical time to come.

Tommy gladly agreed to stay with Trina while Reno made his way over to ICU to check on Francine. She was hooked up to a ventilator, her head wrapped in bandages, and Reno just stood there, staring at his sister, silently praying for her recovery.

Dirty, her husband, was seated against the wal, crying uncontrolably, with MarBeth and Carmine holding vigil with him. When Reno finished his prayers he sat beside Dirty and held vigil too. But eventualy he looked at his brother-in-law and waited for him to stop crying what Reno saw as nothing more than tears of guilt.

Dirty eventualy turned Reno’s way, but he was stil crying. “I don’t know what I’l do if I lose Franny,” he said.

“Where were you?” Reno asked pointblank.

Dirty and MarBeth both looked at Reno. “What?”

“Where were you,” Reno repeated as if he were sounding out each word. “When this al went down, when your wife was taking a bulet in the head, when my mother was being gunned down like a dog in the street, where the hel were you?”

But MarBeth quickly objected. “How can you worry about something like that at a time like this, Reno?”

“Shut the fuck up, MarBeth!” Reno shot back. “I’m talking to Dirty, not you.” Then Reno looked at Dirty again. “Where were you?”

Dirty swalowed hard, fear in his eyes. “I was in the PaLargio, where you think?”

“Where in the PaLargio?”

“What you mean where? In the PaLargio!”

“The casino?”

Dirty wanted to hem and haw, he wanted desperately to say no way, but Reno was nobody’s fool. Al he had to do was go to the PaLargio and check out the video.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Around there.”

Reno let out a sharp exhale. “You had better pray Franny lives. Because if she doesn’t, if my baby sister doesn’t pul through and fuly recover, you wil answer to me.”

Dirty was now horrified, and defensive. “But what did I do? You told me to stay in Vegas with the girls, and I stayed.”

“I didn’t tel you to get drunk and gamble, you stupid fuck!” Reno was yeling now. “I didn’t tel you to put my wife in a position where she had to shoot and kil three people! How is Trina gonna live with a thing like that? Hel, I can hardly live with what I’ve done and I’m a snake in the grass compared to my wife! And you wanna know what did you do? You wanna ask me something that fucked up?”

“Excuse me, sir,” a man in a white coat came in and said. “But you’l have to tone it down. This is a hospital.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Reno asked and MarBeth roled her eyes.

The doctor swalowed hard. He and his staff weren’t fools. Al of the private security, al of the activity, al of the Italians, they had automaticaly assumed this was some sort of mob hit. And he knew he had to tread carefuly. “I’m a doctor in the ICU,” he said.

“You’re my sister’s doctor?”

“The patient here? Yes, I’m. . . yes.”

“What’s the deal?”

The doctor explained the deal in great detail. He admitted that it wasn’t optimistic about her prognosis, saying that it was touch and go at this point, and MarBeth started crying uncontrolably when the doctor gave the prognosis. Carmine was holding her, consoling her, but she refused to be comforted. Dirty couldn’t be comforted either. It was just a mess. There were no two-ways about this. This was just a mess.

Reno left. Went into the quiet room of the hospital’s chapel, sat in the back, and closed his tired eyes. Somehow this felt weird to Reno, as if this hit was al about him. But that would be nonsensical since he had nothing to do with what MarBeth did to Eddie Giancarlo, and any mobster worth their salt would have known that.

But what about some newbie? Some mobster who wasn’t worth shit, some friend of Joey Laster’s? But that made no sense to Reno, either. No friend of some nobody hood could have penetrated his security at the PaLargio without being some big-time hood among the bigs. Like Vito Giancarlo, for instance. Which meant, Reno knew, if he retaliated, he would be dragged down into yet another mob war. But for them to go after the women, after his mother and sister and wife, was teling. It was as if they wanted to make certain he was dragged back in. They wanted to make certain he sought his retribution.

But that was their game. They wanted Reno to play their game.

He prayed for his mother’s eternity, prayed for his sister’s recovery, and left the chapel in search of Tommy. To talk this thing through. Because Tommy was the only man in whom he trusted enough to bear his soul.

By the time he got back to Trina’s room, and saw that she was asleep, he and Tommy sat down in chairs beside each other. For the longest time not a word was spoken, just the soft hum of Trina’s snoring, as they both sat in amazement at how peacefuly she slept. And they took their own counsel.

After a long, serene time had passed, Reno looked at his cousin. “Where’s Sal Luca?” he asked.

“In Seattle. Getting on my last nerve. He’s my baby brother, and I love him to death, but he drives me crazy, Reno.”

Reno wanted to smile at that, but didn’t have the energy. He then leaned forward, rubbed his hands together, exhaled.

“Settle down, Ree,” Tommy said. “She’s going to be al right.”

“Settle down, Ree,” Tommy said. “She’s going to be al right.”

“Physicaly, yeah. She’l be fine. But I don’t know, Tommy. She had to kil three people. I had to ice one in my entire lifetime, one man, and I’m stil reeling from that. How in the world is she going to come back from kiling three?”

“Easier than you,” Tommy said.

Reno looked back at him. Tommy was seated there, his legs crossed, looking his usual elegant self. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tommy hesitated, his bright green eyes sparkling with revelations. But he chose his words carefuly. “She knows how to see it for what it is,” he said.

“And I don’t?”

“No, you don’t. But with Trina, I think she understands she had no choice. She had to kil those men. You had to do what you had to do too, but you can’t see it that way. You blame yourself. No matter how ludicrous, you always blame yourself. Trina hates that she was put in that horrible position, but she’s a strong lady, Reno. She doesn’t dwel on what she cannot change, she accepts it. Yes, she was put in a horrible position, but what can she do? She didn’t put herself there. She didn’t tel those gunmen to come to the penthouse and try to kil her. She understands that. You never have.”

Reno stared at his cousin. “I pray you’re right, Tommy.”

“I’m right. I’m not saying this won’t change her forever, it wil. But she’l stil be Tree. And if God can forgive her, she’l probably figure she might as wel forgive herself. But you, Reno, never get to that second part. You figure you don’t deserve forgiving.”

“I don’t,” Reno said. Then he shook his head, the emotions too raw. He changed the subject. “What’s with security?” he asked. “I assume you were the one who took care of it?”

“I did.”

“But where are my people? I don’t recognize any of these guys.”

“They al belong to me,” Tommy said. Tommy, a former cop, owned two successful restaurants in the Seattle area, but his main source of revenue was his security firm, one of the best in the country. “I checked the videotape before I came to the hospital,” he went on. “Those gunmen came in, with their own passkey, through the basement, Reno.”

Reno was astounded. “Are you serious?”

“They came in, al concealed in ski masks, I mean it was out of a horror movie. And they were able to triple-passcode through your elaborately intricate security that I personaly had instaled, so I know it’s elaborate, and made their way to that penthouse.”

“There’s a breach?”

“A major breach. Only a handful of your security people have access to that basement passkey, Reno, and even less know the triple passcodes. So until we find out the source of that breach, my people handle al security.” Tommy looked at Reno. “Agreed?”

“Hel yeah,” Reno said as if that went without saying.

Then he leaned back, ran his hand through his already ruffled mop of brown hair. He looked over at his sleeping wife. “This thing had me worried from the beginning, Tom, to be honest with you. When Carmine told me what MarBeth had done, and now this. I don’t understand it. Why would Vito hit the PaLargio? He knew I had nothing to do with what happened to Eddie, he knew that. Something ain’t right about it, man. I mean, I knew he wanted revenge---”

Tommy looked at Reno. “He said that?”

“Didn’t have to. He gave me some song and dance about how much he loves MarBeth and how he’s our godfather and would never do a thing to harm a hair on our head.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Hel na’l. Vito’s not reliable. He’s the one who gave me that bad intel on Frank Partanna, don’t forget that. He’s the one who claimed he didn’t even know Partanna had a son and that lack of information caused a
got
damn mob war.”

“So,” Tommy asked, “what are you going to do?”

Reno looked at Trina again. “Keep her safe,” he said. “No matter what.”

“You think she can be safe at the PaLargio?”

“With your people surrounding the joint, I’m sure she would. But after Ma’s funeral I’ve got to get her away from here, at least until I can figure out what in the hel is going on here.”

Tommy was nodding. “That was my recommendation, too. In fact, I think you and Tree should come to Seattle. Until we can figure this al out, like you said.”

Carmine came into the room, his cel phone in his hand.

“What’s the matter?” Reno asked. “Franny okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Carmine said, “there’s no change with Franny.” He extended his cel phone. “Phone cal for you.”

“For me? Who is it?”

Carmine hesitated. “Vito Giancarlo.”

Reno and Tommy looked at each other. Then Reno took the phone, stood up, and walked toward the back side of the room.

Tommy looked at Carmine as Reno spoke on the phone. “What’s that about?” he asked Carmine. “Why would Vito be caling Reno after what’s happened?”

Carmine shook his head. “He wouldn’t tel me nothing. Said he had to speak to Reno and had to speak to him now. I didn’t like his tone and I told him so. I said you wanna speak to Reno so bad, why didn’t you cal Reno on his own
got
damn phone? I mean the nerve of that guy. But he doesn’t have Reno’s number, he says, except his number at the PaLargio. And nobody’s answering at the PaLargio.”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s getting crazy out there.”

“Tel me about it.”

Reno kiled the cal, walked back over to his chair, and handed the cel phone back to Carmine.

“What did he want?” Carmine asked.

Reno sat back down. Shook his head as if he was stil amazed himself. “He said he had nothing to do with the PaLargio hit.”

“What?” Tommy asked, astounded.

“He must take us for fools!” Carmine angrily declared. “Who else would have made that kind of hit, on you of al people, on your wife and your dear mother? Who else? And he just happened to make the hit after his own son gets capped and capped by your sister? The nerve of that guy!”

Reno exhaled, ran his hand through his ruffled hair again. “Something’s wrong,” he said again.

“Hel yeah something’s wrong,” Carmine said. “Vito Giancarlo’s wrong! I say we hit back tonight, Reno, and hit hard. Get him and his lieutenants and any other fucker crazy enough to be associated with him!”

But Reno was shaking his head. “No,” he said. “That’s their game. Somebody’s trying to rope me into their game.”

“So you believe Vito didn’t do it?” Tommy asked him.

“I don’t know,” Reno said, heartfelt. “But the last time I went after a mob boss half-cocked, with bad information, caused me my own son. I’m not making that mistake twice.”

“So you and Tree wil come with me?”

“For a few days, yeah, after Tree gets out and after I get Ma safely in the ground.” Reno’s voice choked on those last words. Al three men, in fact, looked solemn at that pronouncement.

Then Reno exhaled. “I need help,” he admitted.

“You got help,” Carmine said. “You got me.”

“You and MarBeth are staying here with Franny.”

Carmine frowned. “Ah, Reno, come on. Dirty’s her husband. Why can’t he stay with her?”

“Because you and me both know Dirty ain’t worth a shit. I want you to stay here too, guard her night and day, Carmine, until she recovers. I should be back by then.”

Then Reno looked at Tommy. “But I’m going to need help. Serious help. Firepower I can trust.”