Reno's Gift (Mob Boss Series) (31 page)

“Reno
says Tommy’s a lover, not a fighter.”

“And
he is.
 
Until you cross him.”

Grace
stared at Trina.
 
One day she was going
to be just as certain and unyielding about Tommy.
 
But she would be a liar if she pretended she
was there already.
 
She wasn’t.
 
Not by a longshot.

“Let
me get this straight,” Sal said to the three mobsters who were now in Reno’s
study.
 
“You guys, not one of yous, heard
nothing at all?”

Big
Mo Mooney, Johnny Lugar, and Brian Capino were seated in front of the
desk.
 
Tommy and Sal were seated on the
front edge of the desk.
 
And Reno was
standing upright against the side wall, watching quietly.
 
Jimmy Mack stood beside him.

“Nothing,”
Big Mo said.
 
“We got nothing.
 
If Fran’s been slinging money around, then
Lefty Gromes is the only somebody she’s been slinging it to.
 
There’s no chatter on Fran Marcasi.
 
Nothing.”

“What
about Belle Patrone?” Tommy asked.

“Belle
either,” Johnny Lugar said.
 
“Nobody’s
seen any change in Belle at all.
 
I’m
telling you, Reno,” Johnny said, looking over at Reno, “nobody’s heard a
word.
 
Fran taking your kid is like,
whatta you call, out of the clear blue sky.”

“Maybe
it’s a kidnapping plain and simple,” Brian Capino said and everybody looked at
him.
 
“I mean think about it.
 
Maybe there’s no chatter because Fran and
Fran alone planned this.
 
She don’t have
kids of her own, Dirty’s dead, so who knows?
 
Maybe she decided that Little Dommi should be hers.
 
She could be on a flight to Denmark for all
we know.”

“Denmark
you dunce?” Sal said.
 

“I’m
just saying, Sal, damn.
 
I got a right to
my opinion.”

“But
it’s a dumb opinion,” Sal said.
 
“Why
would Fran pay somebody to nearly kill her brother and sister-in-law if all she
had to do was grab the kid and hop a flight?”

Brian
couldn’t answer that one.
 
He decided to
move on to another theory.
 
“Is Lefty
Gromes telling the truth,” he asked.
 
“That’s the real question here.
 
Maybe he’s working with Fran.
 
Maybe they teamed up.”

“And
maybe Martians live in your head,” Sal suggested.

“I
didn’t come here to be insulted,” Brian shot back.

“Then
why don’t you use your brains, Brian?” Sal said.
 
“Why would Lefty implicate her if he was
working with
 
her?
 
Answer that wise guy.
 
Besides, after Reno and Tommy left I worked
that guy over pretty good.
 
And, trust me,
I still know how to work guys over.
 
He
didn’t hold nothing back.
 
He don’t know
no more than what he knows, which is what he told us already.”

“This
shit is wacked,” Big Mo said.
 
“Somebody
take the kid of one of the most powerful men in Vegas, and we don’t know no
more today than we knew yesterday?
 
Nobody’s connected to nobody, nobody’s dropping cash in any big amounts,
nothing.”

“What
about Bruno Lucci?” Reno asked, and everybody looked at him.

“Bruno?”
Johnny asked.

“Yeah,
Bruno,” Reno said as he shoved away from the side wall and walked over to his
desk.
 

Jimmy
followed.
 
He stood beside Reno as Reno
sat on the desk’s edge beside Tommy.

“What
about him?” Johnny asked.

“He’s
been slinging dough around,” Reno said.
 
“What are you picking up on him?”

“You’re
joking, right?” Johnny asked him.

“Does
he look like he’s joking?” Sal asked Johnny.
 
“His kid has been kidnapped by his own sister and you, crazy fuck that
you are, think he’s joking?”

“Ah,
forget you, Sal!” Johnny replied.
 
“You
didn’t think I was a crazy fuck when your people needed more muscle last
month.”

Tommy
looked at Johnny.
 
“What kind of muscle?”
he asked him.

“What
kind you think?
 
Muscle.
 
He and Joey Joplin needed more muscle, so he
came to me.”

“
Joey Joplin
?” Reno and Tommy said at the
same time, incredulity in their voices.
 
“You’re fooling with that fool?” Reno added.

 
“Joey and I have a business arrangement
that’s nobody’s business but my own,” Sal said.
 
“So shut the fuck up and keep the fuck moving.”

“Yeah,
I got your fuck up,” Reno said.
 
But then
he settled back down.
 
The last thing he
needed to be worrying about right now was Sal getting in too deep with the
mob.
 
“What about Bruno?” he asked Johnny
again.

“What
about him?” Johnny answered again.
 
“He’s
been dead for over a month.”

Reno
unfolded his arms in shock.
 
Sal stood
from the desk.
 
Tommy remained cool, but
his heart began racing.

“Dead?”
Reno asked.
 
“What the fuck you’re
talking about?”

“You
didn’t know?” Johnny asked.
 
“Yeah, Bruno
died something like a week after he was released from prison.
 
He was over in Italy.
 
The plan was that he was going to stay there,
get in the family wine business there or some such business, and get his life
back on track.
 
I know about it because
my cousin Lonnie, who lives there too, told me about it.
 
He got himself run over by a car.
 
But yeah, Bruno’s dead.”

Sal
looked at Reno.
 
“Then why was Belle
Patrone running around talking about Bruno dropping coins for your execution?”

But
Reno was thinking.
 
Everybody knew that
anguished, pensive look.
 
He was thinking
hard.

“There’s
a connection,” he said.
 
Trina walked
into the study just as he said it.
 
But
they were all so riveted on Reno that nobody noticed.

“There
has to be,” Reno continued.
 
“Dirty and
Bruno were friends back in the day.
 
Bruno was convicted and forced to serve ten years in prison thanks to
me.
 
Then Dirty was iced thanks to
me.
 
Belle starts telling me all about
Bruno and how he’s in for the kill against me when that fucker isn’t even alive
and she has to know it.
 
Why else would
she use his name of all people?
 
Then
Fran pays Lefty to get rid of me and my wife, and then she takes my son.
 
There has to be a connection.”

“Fran
was in the shop,” Trina said, remembering, and everybody turned her way.

“Ah,
Tree,” Tommy said.
 
“The doctor said
you’re supposed to get some rest.”

But
Reno knew she could handle it.
 
He wanted
to know what she knew.
 
“Your shop?”

“Yeah,”
Trina said.
 
“When Belle came into the
shop the first time and asked if I was your wife, Fran was in there.”

“But
what difference does that make?” Sal asked.

“Maybe
that’s why Fran told Lefty to go the mayor’s house that night,” Jimmy
suggested.
 
“Because she found out some
kind of way that Belle was staying there and it would be a great way to take
the heat off of her, by putting it on Belle.”

“Or,”
Reno said, and everybody looked at him.
 
“Fran and Belle were in it together.
 
That’s why Belle was feeding me that bullshit about dead Bruno.
 
She needed to keep me distracted while they
plotted and schemed.
 
There’s a
connection between Fran and Dirty, but if I was a betting man, and I am, I’m
willing to bet there’s a connection between Belle and Bruno.”

“And
Belle is the only one still around,” Tommy said, “who knows what that connection
is.”

Everybody
immediately stood, knowing their walking papers without being instructed, and
they all began hurrying out.
   

But
Reno stopped Jimmy.

“I
know,” he said.
 
“I’ve got to be Adam
Cartwright again.
 
I’ll stay here at the
Ponderosa with Ma and the ladies.”

“You
watch entirely too much TV,” Reno said with a smile but then he stared at his
son with an affection that even he found startling.
 
He leaned over and kissed him, and then
hugged him.
 
What would he do without
Jimmy?

But
then Trina stopped Reno as he moved to get away too.
 
She placed her hands on either side of his
upper, muscular arms.
 
He looked her dead
in the eye.
 
“Bring our child home,
Reno,” she said to him.

Reno
nodded.
 
He wanted to promise that he
would.
 
But somehow he didn’t know if
that was true.
 
For the first time in his
life, he felt lost.
 

And
somebody was going to have to pay.

THIRTEEN

Belle Patrone offered no
solace for Reno.
 
She denied any
knowledge of anything as if it was her birthright to deny.
 
She knew nothing about Fran kidnapping
anybody.
 
And she stuck to her story with
an assurance that bordered on arrogance.

She was sitting in a
chair in the living room of her safe house.
 
Reno was standing in front of her, and Tommy and Sal were standing behind
her.
 

“You know where she is,
Belle,” Reno said.
 
“I know your
ass.
 
You know where she is.
 
And you know where she has my son.”

“You’re wasting your
time, Reno.
 
I don’t know your sister and
I don’t know anything about her taking your son.
 
I’m sorry this had to befall you, but you
can’t keep accusing me of bothering with your family.
 
Yes, I went to see your wife.
 
Yes, I was hopeful that I still stood a
chance with you.
 
But it’s a far cry from
wanting to fuck you, to wanting to fuck with you.
 
I’m not fucking with you, Reno.
 
I wouldn’t do that.”

The sincerity in her eyes
stopped Reno cold.
 
He was inclined to
believe her.
 
But he couldn’t be weakened
by his history with her.
 
There were too
many coincidences.
 
There were too many
wheels lining up behind her wagon.

“If you’re not involved,”
Reno said to her.
 
“Why did you lie?”

“I didn’t lie!”

“Bruno is dead, Belle.”

Belle looked at Reno with
shock on her face.
 
“Dead?
 
Since when?”

“Since two-three months
ago.
 
Just after he got out of
prison.
 
And you knew it all along!”

“I didn’t know any such
thing, Reno, how could you say that about me?”

“Then how could you know
for a fact that he was making noises about getting revenge on me?
 
It was so much chatter, you claimed, that you
had to come down to the boardwalk when I was in Atlantic City and tell me about
it.
 
Then you had to come to Vegas to
warn me about all of this scary chatter of Bruno’s.
 
How could a dead man talk so loud,
Belle?
 
You tell me that?”

“I only told you what I
heard,” Belle said, still looking convincingly innocent.
 
“I never told you he told me any of that
shit.
 
I only told you what I heard.”

“But it’s awfully strange
that nobody else heard what you heard.
 
Nobody!
 
Just you.”