Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (16 page)

“Besides
what?” Tommy asked him.

“I
don’t feel I thanked you properly, Tommy, for taking care of my family.
 
I always ask a lot of you, and you always
come through for me.
 
Now I need to come
through for you.
 
Your lady just
witnessed a terrible thing.
 
I want you
to get her away from there and bring her to me.
 
The least I can do is soothe her pain and ease her burden.”

The
idea of Reno soothing and easing anybody’s anything was laughable to almost any
human being who would hear it.
 
But not
to Tommy.

“You’re
right, Reno,” he said, staring again at Grace.
 
“A change will probably do her a lot of good.
 
Despite the fact that you’ll be there too.”

“Very
funny,” Reno said as Tommy smiled.
 
“Ask
Tree and Jimmy what happened to them the last time they thought they were being
funny.”

“Just
playing,” Tommy said.

“Yeah,
they were just playing too.
 
But anyway,
I’ve got a meeting I’m already late for.
 
You and Grace come, and bring Sal with you, the big lug.
 
We’ll make it a family affair.
 
Have a barbeque or something.
 
It’ll do Jimmy a world of good too.”

“Okay,
you’re on,” Tommy said.
 
“Now all I’ve
got to do is convince Grace.”

“Convince
her?” Reno asked.
 
“Convince her my
foot!
 
You tell that woman to get her ass
on the plane, that’s all you’ve got to tell her.
 
And you tell her she’d better not give you
any lip or you’ll knock hers through her throat.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“Oh, yeah, she’ll really wanna
marry me then, Reno.
 
She’ll really want
me then.”

There
was a pause.
 
“You talk like she’s the
reason y’all aren’t married yet in the first place.”

Tommy
was always amazed at Reno’s perceptiveness.
 
Because it was true.
 
Tommy was
ready, but he hadn’t pressed the issue because he knew a part of Grace wasn’t.
 
A part of Grace was concerned that a part of
him was still that playboy he used to be.
 
He exhaled.
 
“Something like
that,” he admitted.

FIVE

Trina
sat on the bed in her bathrobe, her legs crossed, talking on her cell
phone.
 
She had just gotten out of the
shower, and Reno had just gotten in.
 
Gemma
Jones, Trina’s friend and business partner, had phoned her about Liz Mertan,
another friend and business partner.
 
When she said that Trina wasn’t going to believe this one, Trina braced
herself.

“What
has she done this time?” she asked.

“Two
overweight ladies walked into our store today.”

“Okay.”

“I
hadn’t been there ten minutes because I was in court today, and was putting my
things away.
 
I saw the ladies when they
walked in and thought nothing of it.
 
They looked like regular customers to me.
 
Well, Miss Super Thin Liz hurried to the
front door before the ladies could cross the threshold good and told them that
they were in the wrong store.”

Trina
frowned.
 
“Are you serious?”

“As a
heart attack, Tree.
 
And the store wasn’t
empty either.
 
There were at least three
or four people looking around when she said that.
 
And those ladies she insulted were
middle-aged tourists, obviously educated and well put together, who probably
saved their hard-earned coins all year to come to Vegas and have some fun.”

“And
she proceeded to insult them.”

“Big
time.
 
But get this: when one of the
ladies said she didn’t understand, Liz didn’t mix words.
 
‘We don’t service people like you,’ she told
them.”

“Oh
no she didn’t.
 
No she didn’t, Gem!”

“Oh,
yes she did,” Gemma said.
 
“And of course
they immediately took her comment to mean that she didn’t service
African-Americans, since that happened to be their race.”

“But
regardless of how they took it,” Trina said, “her butt was wrong to even go
there.
 
No, we don’t have nearly enough
clothes in their sizes, which is going to change by the way, but she should
have let them find that out for themselves.
 
She didn’t know why they walked through that door.
 
We sell more than clothes!
 
We sell hand bags and shoes and accessories
she knows that!”

“I
hear you.”

“Hell,
they could have been coming in to purchase a gift for their daughter or their
niece, she didn’t know any of that.”

“I
told her everything you just said.
 
I
also told her it was against the law to discriminate like that.
 
Everybody’s welcome in our store, I don’t
care if they weight a thousand pounds and couldn’t fit a shoe in the
store.”
 
Then Trina calmed back
down.
 
“I hope you apologized to the
ladies.”

“You
know I did,” Gemma said.
 
“Both of those
ladies looked like they were about ready to tell Liz where she could take her
little comments, and one of them looked as if she was going to help her take it
there.”
 
Trina laughed.
 
“But yeah, I apologized effusively and told
Liz about her skinny butt right in front of them.”

“Good.
 
I hope you embarrassed the hell out of her
the way she tried to embarrass those ladies.”

“Don’t
you know I did,” Gemma said.
 
“And I gave
the ladies fifty percent off of whatever they picked.
 
And guess what?
 
One of them could wear a cute blouse that we
sold and she was able to get half off of that.”

Trina
would have given her the blouse for free, but at least fifty percent was
something.
 
“That’s good, Gem,” she
said.
 
“Were they okay with that?
 
Did they leave the store happy?”

“Oh,
yeah.
 
They seemed fine after that.”

“Wait
until I get my hands on Liz,” Trina said as the water in the shower stopped
running and she could hear Reno getting out of the stall.

“She
is so insensitive,” Gemma said.
 
“You and
I have worked around racists and haters all of our working days, so we get
it.
 
But Liz act as if she doesn’t
understand shit.”

“Oh,
she understands it all right,” Trina said.
 
“She just has that streak in her where she has this need to feel
superior to people.
 
She always has to
make somebody else small to elevate herself.
 
I’m sorry I ever agreed to partner with her.”

 
“It was my fault.
 
She was my friend before you even knew her
name.
 
But after today, I’m beginning to
regret the move too.”

“You’re
an attorney,” Trina said to Gemma.
 
“What
can we legally do?
 
Can we buy the witch
out?”

Gemma
laughed.
 
“Only if the witch is willing
to be bought out.
 
But we’ll talk.
 
I know you’re busy.
 
You and Reno’s been invited to dinner by the
mayor himself, and you have to tighten up that appearance, girl.
 
Everybody’s not able.”

“Everybody
doesn’t want to be able, either,” Trina said.
 
“I didn’t even vote for him.”

Gemma
laughed.
 
“So is it a full blown dinner
party, or just you, Reno, and the mayor?”

“Just
us, as far as we know.”

“You
lucky bitches.”

“It’s
not about us, you can bet that,” Trina said as Reno stood in the doorway of the
bathroom, naked, wet, and drying off.
 
She stared at him as she talked on the phone.
 
“Reno says it’s all about the mayor and his
reelection bid coming up.
 
That’s why
this dinner invite all of a sudden.
 
He
believes Reno can deliver him some Italian votes, and I can deliver him some
black votes.”

Reno
asked, with mouth movement alone, who was she talking to.
 
Trina mouthed Gemma.
 
Reno, satisfied, nodded.
 

“I
can understand where he would think of you that way,” Gemma said.
 
“You have been getting politically active
lately.
 
So I see where he would think
you could deliver a vote or two.
 
But
Reno?
 
I never knew him to be involved
like that.”

“He’s
not.
 
And I’m not either, not to where I
can deliver votes for somebody.
 
But
that’s how these politicians think.
 
They
think races are monolithic.
 
Everybody
does everything in lockstep.
 
It’s
ludicrous, but that’s how they think.
 
Reno says he invited us just so he can kill two birds with one
stone.
 
The Italian bird and the black
bird.”

Gemma
laughed.
 

Reno
also said that if they should have any permit issues with the PaLargio
rebuilding process, the mayor would be a good person to personally know.
 
But Trina wasn’t about to tell all of that to
Gemma.

“Anyway,”
she said, “I’d better finish getting dressed.
 
Oh, I meant to tell you.
 
Guess
who’s coming to town?”

“Who?”

“Guess,
Gemma.
 
Guess.”

“I
have no idea.
 
Who?”

“Sal.”

Sal
Luca?
 
Mister Wisecracks?”

“One
in the same.
 
He’s coming, along with his
brother Tommy and Tommy’s fiancé Grace.
 
Reno’s having a cookout in their honor.
 
We want you to come too.”

There
was a slight hesitation.
 
“I’ll see what
I can do.”

Trina
smiled.
 
She knew Gemma.
 
Gemma seemed to like Sal’s energy, and the
way he wasn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with her, when he was last in town.
 
She was going to be there if it was the last
thing she did.

“Before
I hang up,” Trina said, “did you get the names of those ladies Liz insulted?”

“I
did.”

“Give
them to me,” Trina said, grabbing a pen and pad from the nightstand.
 
“Where are they staying?”

“Caesar’s.”

“I
want to send them a couple of gift cards.
 
I hate that Liz dampened their fun.”

“I
hear you, girl,” Gemma said as she retrieved their information, gave it to
Trina, and then they hung up.

“Liz
insulted somebody?” Reno asked Trina.

“Yeah,”
Trina said as she sat the pad and pen back on the nightstand.

“Who?”

“A
couple of the boutique’s customers.”

“Why
would she insult her own customers?”

“Because
she’s stupid like that,” Trina said as she removed her robe and tossed it
aside.
 
“She and Gemma have been friends
for a long time, that’s why I hooked up with her.
 
But even then I knew it wasn’t going to
work.
 
But Gemma just seems to love her
and she was the only one of us who didn’t already have a job and could work in
the store on a daily basis, so I went with it.
 
Of course, that was before the PaLargio went down.
 
Now I have time on my hands and can devote it
all to the boutique.”

“You’re
there more than Liz is.”

“I
know.
 
And that was the plan.
 
I’ll give her a break until the PaLargio’s
back in business and I’m once again preoccupied.
 
They know my duties to the PaLargio will
always come first.”

Reno
inwardly smiled.
 
“So what did she do?”
he asked, staring at Trina’s now nude, freshly scrubbed, beautiful black body.