Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (22 page)

“Hey,” he said when she picked up.
 
“How’s my best girl?”

“Good.
 
What about you?”

“I’m good.
 
Had that talk with Nell.”

“Oh, really?
 
How
did it go?”

“It went well.
 
Better than I expected it to go.
 
So where are you?
 
Sounds like
you’re outdoors.”

“I’m at this Chrysler dealership on
Akron.
 
I’m checking out a few cars.”

Reno frowned.
 
“I told you I was going to take care of that tomorrow, Tree.
 
I know I promised to take you this afternoon
and got caught up here at Clauson’s, but I’m devoting the entire day to you
tomorrow.”

“Reno, you’re far too busy to be worrying
about some car for me.
 
I can handle it.”

“Yeah, but I thought we agreed that you would
go home and search online, to see what you could see there.
 
And now you’re at some dealership?”

“I can handle it.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t handle it,” Reno
snapped.
 
“But I just don’t want those
salesmen handling you.
 
They see a female
and they think Christmas.”

Trina laughed.
 
“I know what you’re saying, but they can only handle me if I allow them
to handle me.
 
Besides, I have backup,
don’t worry.
 
Sully’s here with me.”

This surprised Reno.
 
“Sully?”

“Yeah.
 
He knows the owner and he’s making sure I get
a good deal.
 
That is, if I see something
I like.
 
I haven’t so far.”

“So he, what, drove over there with you?
  
Because he didn’t mention
it before.”

“No, it wasn’t planned or anything.
 
He called me after I dropped you off at
Clauson’s and asked if I wanted to hook up with the guy who owned the car
lot.
 
I told him sure, why not?
 
So he drove over and met me here, and here we
are.”

“Very thoughtful of him,” Reno said, although
he wasn’t sure if it was thoughtful or, what was the word, opportunistic?

“I’ve got to go, Reno,” Trina suddenly
said.
 
“The owner’s here.
 
He had to handle a customer service issue
first.
 
Love you.
 
Bye.”

And she was gone.

Reno hung up the phone, too.
 
But he couldn’t stop thinking about what she
had just said to him.
 
His wife was at a
car lot.
 
With another
man.
 
He didn’t like that.
 
He didn’t feel it was another man’s place to
be taking his wife car shopping.
 
Even a man as nice as Sully.
 
Then he thought about it again.
 
Especially
a man as nice
as Sully.
 

He picked up the phone again, to call for a
cab.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” the salesman asked as he
finally escorted Trina and Sully onto the Chrysler dealership’s showroom
floor.
 
A brand new Chrysler 300 was
spinning on a top.
 
Nothing else had
appealed to Trina.

“It’s nice,” she agreed, looking at it.
 

“Nice?” Sully said.
 
“It’s phenomenal, what are you talking
about?”

Trina smiled.
 
“Okay, it’s phenomenal.
 
But. . .”

“It’s fully loaded,” the salesman said,
noticing her hesitation.
 
“It has this
wonderful---”

“But what, Trina?”
Sully asked her.

“But it’s just that it’s not exactly my
style.
 
It’s kind of big and bulky and
square looking to me.”

Sully didn’t get her meaning, but he respected
her point.
 
“Okay, so what you’re saying
is that you prefer something smaller?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Maybe if you test drive it, ma’am,” the
salesman said.

“I’ve already test driven three different
cars, and none of them excited me, either.
 
Maybe I’m just not a Chrysler person.”

“Sure you are,” the salesman insisted.
 
“Everybody is.
 
Perhaps you can’t afford a brand new 300 or
any of the other cars you tested?
 
Perhaps we need to take you out back to our used car lot?”

“Perhaps you need to shut the fuck up,” a
voice that was undeniably Reno’s was heard as they all turned to the
sound.
 
Reno had entered the showroom and
was headed their way.
 
His expensive suit
coat was flapping open and he was walking in that almost parrot-toed-like gait
Trina loved.
 
She was stunned to see him.

“Reno?” she asked.
 
“What on earth are you doing here?”

“To get you a car,” Reno replied.
 
“Who is this bozo?
 
Is this the owner you were talking about
knowing, Sully?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Sully said.
 
“The owner had to leave.
 
But he said Trina would be in good hands with
his salesman here.”

“Get the boss,” Reno said to the
salesman.
 
“Who’s the boss?”

The salesman looked at Reno.
 
“And you are?”

“He’s my husband,” Trina said.
 
“Mr. Gabrini.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“Who’s in charge?” Reno asked him.

“That would be our sales manager, sir, but
he’s very---”

“Get him out here,” Reno said.

“I’m afraid he’s very busy at the moment.
 
Perhaps---”

“Get him out here,” Reno said again.
 
“And for the record, pal, the next time you
suggest that my wife isn’t good enough for your showroom, but would be better
suited
out back
, as you call it, you
and me will be going ‘
out back
.’
 
Got that, partner?”

The salesman took umbrage.
 
“Sir, I didn’t mean to imply---
”
 
But
Sully
shook
 
his head as if to say:
you don’t want to go there
.

I’ll get Mr. Bresen,” the salesman decided to
say, and hurried off.

Trina smiled. “You scared that poor man half
to death, Reno.
 
You aren’t in Vegas
anymore.
 
You can’t throw your weight
around anymore.
 
That man doesn’t
understand your style.”

“To hell with him.
 
Gonna
tell you to go
out back
where he
sends the poor people.
 
I got his ‘
out back’
right here.”

“I don’t think he meant any harm, Reno,” Sully
said with a smile.

“Yes, he did,” Trina disagreed, refusing to
minimize it.
 
“That was exactly what he
meant.
 
‘Oh, look at
her,
she can’t afford these nice, showroom cars.
 
Let’s take her out back, to the cheaper, used cars.’
 
Reno’s right.
 
He knew exactly what he was doing.”

Sully was inwardly seething.
 
This was supposed to be his chance to spend a
little helpful time with Trina, to get to know her better and see if that
buzz at first sight
spark was real, but
Reno had to show up with his take-no-prisoners style and ruin everything.
 

“Trina doesn’t seem to like anything here,
anyway,” Sully said.
 
“So you seem to
have wasted your time.”

“I don’t waste time,” Reno said as Sam Bresen,
the sales manager, hurried out onto the showroom, putting on his coat as he
came.
 

“Mr. Gabrini?” he said, extending his hand.

“Yeah, how are you?” Reno asked, shaking the hand.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“What’s the best, the fanciest, the all the
bells and whistles car you have on this lot?”

Bresen looked at Reno as if he didn’t have a
brain in his head.
 
“Well, sir, you’re
looking at it.
 
This is our
showroom.”
  
And he said it as if he
wanted to add,
duh!

Reno
caught
 
his
snide tone, but let it slide.
 
“This is all they’ve got, Tree,” he said to
his wife.
 
“Any
car in
here tickle
your fancy?”

Trina smiled.
 
“Nothing.”

“Oh,” the sales manager said when the deal
looked as if it was going south fast.
 
“I
get it now. You mean you want me to show you the best of the best?”

Reno stared at the man.
 
“No, I want you to show me the worse of the
worse.
 
What are you, a wise guy?
 
The best of the best.
 
Yes.
 
That’s what we want to see.
 
That’s what I said.
 
The best of the best.”

Bresen smiled nervously.
 
He could do without the sarcasm.
 
“Follow me, please.”

Sully actually placed his hand on the small of
Trina’s back to escort her out, but Reno looked at that hand on Trina, and then
he looked at Sully with a sidelong glare.

“Excuse us?” he said to Sully.

Sully smiled, played it off.
 
“Oh, I forgot.”
 
He stepped back.
 
“I just try to treat the ladies with
respect.”

Reno chided him.
 
“Keep your hands to yourself.
 
You couldn’t be any more respectable than
that.”

Sully laughed, although he was still seething.

They walked out of the front door to the side
of the building, where a big truck had just unloaded a group of covered
cars.
 
Bresen uncovered one of them.
“This is the best,” he said, as he unveiled a sharp, baby blue Chrysler 200 S
Convertible.

But Trina still wasn’t impressed.
 
It wasn’t quite her, she said again.

Reno thanked the disappointed sales manager,
and he, Trina, and Sully walked back toward the front.

Reno then extended his hand to Sully.
 
“Thanks for all your help, Sul.
 
But I’ll take it from here.”

“Okay,” Sully said, shaking the extended
hand.
 
“Sure thing.”
 
Sully looked at Trina.
 
She smiled and thanked him too.

As Reno walked Trina to his Porsche, Trina looked
at him.
 
“Don’t you have work to do,
Reno?”

“It’ll get done,” Reno said as he escorted
her.
 
“It’s my job to find you an
automobile.
 
That’s my job.
 
Nobody,
and I mean
nobody,” he added, looking at her, “takes over any job of mine.”

Trina knew what he meant, but she also knew
Sully didn’t mean it like that.
 
But trying to tell Reno that would be like trying to tell a fired
bullet to go back into the gun.
 

When Reno sat her down on the passenger side
of his car, and as he walked toward the driver’s side, looking drained, she
looked out of the side mirror.
 
Sully was
seated inside his SUV, staring at her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The dinner party at the Gabrinis went off
without a hitch.
 
It was a small affair, with
Blossom and her husband, Tammy Ames and her husband, Sully, Jeff, and Dirty in
attendance.
 
After dinner, as they
gathered in the living room, they were all subjected to Blossom and Tammy
telling all kinds of tidbits about the locals.
 
From who was sleeping with whom, and who to trust and not trust, to
which family man had a record and was a thief from way back.
 
Jeff, a true city boy, found most of the
gossip captivating.
 
“She did
what
,” was his usual refrain.
 
Dirty, however, was bored.
 
He looked at Reno.