Romancing Tommy Gabrini (36 page)

But
it would be less than an hour later, after they had changed and dressed and was
about to go downstairs to a late breakfast, did everything change.
 
A call came in from Jimmy Mack, asking Tommy
to come upstairs, to the penthouse.
 
And
his voice said it all: something was wrong.

“Thanks
for coming,” Jimmy Mack said as soon as Tommy and Grace walked in.
 
Tommy’s heart dropped when he saw tears in
Jimmy’s eyes.

“What’s
the matter?” he asked as he stepped across the threshold of the home, ushering
Grace in with him, and closed the door.
 
“What’s happened?”

“They
took Trina away,” Jimmy Mack said.

Tommy
frowned.
 
“Who took Trina away?”

“They
said they had to question her.
 
I told
them they had to wait until Dad got back, but they said they didn’t have to
wait until anybody got anywhere.”

“Who’s
they?”
 
Tommy was about to panic.
 
Was this a mob snatch?
 
What was he talking about?

Then
Reno came out of his home office, talking on his cell phone.
 
And although he was livid, at least, Tommy
felt, he was there.
 

“You
find out now, you understand me?” Reno was yelling on the phone.
 
“Now, Artie!
 
I don’t wanna hear nobody’s shit about knowing nothing.
 
You find something out!
 
You get the
got
damn mayor on the phone if you have to!
 
Those fuckers waltz into my house and take my
wife and nobody knows where they took her?
 
You’d better tell me something good real fast, Artie, I mean it!”
 

When
Reno looked up and saw Tommy, he became visibly relieved, too.
 
“Tommy,” he said, acknowledging him.
 
Then he turned his attention back to the
phone.
 
“Just get the fuck off of this
got
damn phone and handle your
got
damn business!” Then he calmed back
down, a weariness in his voice.
 
“Just do
it, Artie,” he said and killed the call.

And
Tommy pounced.
 
“What’s happened to
Tree?” he asked Reno.

“Law
enforcement came and got her.
 
The
motherfuckers!”

“Police
or Fed?”

Reno
hesitated, anguish in his eyes.
 
“Feds,”
he said.

“Ah,
geez, Ree,” Tommy said, displeased.
 
“Anything going down?”

“Nothing,”
Reno insisted.
 
“That’s the crazy
part.
 
I was just being a husband and a
father and running my business.
 
I
haven’t been involved in any shit since Georgia.
 
Now, of all times, they decide to take my
wife?”

“Where
did they take her?”

“We
don’t know yet.
 
I just got back.
 
Jimmy called me on my cell when they were
first taking her away and I hurried to the police station.
 
But the cops claimed she wasn’t there and
wasn’t expected there and they didn’t know shit about it.
 
I hate dealing with those Fed fuckers, but I
hurried over to their field office.
 
But
they claimed they didn’t know a damn thing, either.
 
So I called everybody I could think to call,
got my men on the streets, and I came back here.
 
I just got here.”

Tommy
could feel Reno’s anguish.
 
“We’ll find
her, Reno,” he promised him.

Reno
looked at Tommy.
 
He was the one bright
light in this whole affair.
 
Other than
his wife Trina and his son Jimmy Mack, Tommy was the only human being he
trusted unconditionally.
 
They called him
Dapper Tom because of his sophisticated style, but Reno also knew his ruthless
side, a side few others ever saw.

Reno
managed to smile at him.
 
“You have a
knack for showing up right on time, you know that, brother?”

“Anything
for you, Reno.
 
But I need you to keep it
together.”

Reno
nodded.
 
And then that anguished look
returned as he, once again, thought about his beloved Trina.

Then
his cell phone rang.
 
He answered
quickly.

“Tell
me some good news or get the fuck off of this phone,” Reno blared.
 

Grace
was taken aback by Reno’s bombastic style, there was no doubt about that.
 
But she understood it.
 
Trina had been taken.
 
If she were in Reno’s shoes, she’d be equally
pissed.

Reno
frowned.
 
“Where?” he asked into his
phone.
 
“Are you certain?”
 
Then he shook his head.
 
“Those fuckers!” he yelled.
 
“I’m on my way.”

Reno
killed the call.

“Where?”
Tommy asked.

“Police
station.”

Tommy
shook his head.
 
“The first place you
went.”

“Right,”
Reno said, hurrying for the coat rack.
 
“They
take my wife downtown like she’s some common criminal.
 
Who do they think they’re fucking with?”

They’re about to find out
, Tommy thought.

“Jimmy
Mack, you stay here with the baby,” Reno ordered.

“Yes,
sir,” Jimmy Mack said.
  

Then
Reno looked at Grace as he put on his coat.
 
His blue eyes looked her up and down as if he was just noticing her for
the first time.
 
“How are you, Grace?’ he
asked.

“I’m
okay,” she replied.
 
“I just pray Trina’s
okay.”

“Yeah,”
Reno said.
 
“You stay here with Jimmy and
the baby,” he ordered her.
 
“Tommy, you
come with me.
 
I need you.”

Tommy
knew that Reno could never say those words to any other man, and was about to
leave with him.
 
But he looked at Grace
and saw the apprehension, and the anxiety, in her big brown eyes.
 
She wasn’t accustomed to the kind of razzle
dazzle lifestyle that too often defined Reno’s existence.

He
placed his hand in the small of her back.
 
“She’s coming with us,” he told Reno, and then assisted her out of the
door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They
took Reno’s limo and headed for the police station.
 
Tommy and Grace sat on one side and Reno sat
alone, on the seat across from them.
 
Grace watched as he anguished over his wife’s fate, and as he and Tommy
speculated on what might have caused his wife’s detention to begin with.

It
seemed almost surreal to her.
 
This Reno,
first of all, was nothing like she expected.
 
He seemed so concerned about his wife that it was almost touching, but
he seemed so angry too.
 
It was as if he
experienced life from either extreme.
 
It
seemed to Grace that he was the kind of man who could be either deliriously
happy, or devastatingly unhappy.
 
Which
made for an unsettling impression.

And
by the time they arrived at the police station, her impression didn’t change
when Reno’s temper took over at the first sign of resistance.

“You
remember me?” he asked the desk sergeant who just told them that Trina was
being interrogated and couldn’t have any visitors right now.
 
“You’re the same fucker who told me my wife
wasn’t here.
 
I was running all over town
because of your lies.”

Grace
whispered to Tommy.
 
“Don’t you think you
ought to settle him down?”

“Hell
no,” Tommy whispered back. “If they had rounded you up and brought you here I’d
be raising hell too.
 
Reno knows what
he’s doing.”

And
Reno kept the pressure on, too.
 
“So
after lying your ass off to me, you now expect me to believe that yes, she’s
here, but she can’t see anybody?
 
Not
even her attorney here?”
 
He motioned
toward Tommy.
 
Tommy was no attorney,
but, the way Reno saw it, they didn’t know that.
 
“I thought it was against the law to keep a
client away from her attorney.”

The
desk sergeant seemed flustered, but he held to his guns.
 
“I do as I’m told,” he said as a cop out,
Grace thought.
 
“And I was told that
Katrina Gabrini is currently being interrogated and cannot see anyone right
now.”

“You
lying sonafabitch!”
 
Reno blared.
 
“Who do you think you’re dealing with?
 
Don’t make me come across this desk and kick
the living shit out of your
got
damn---”

“Get
Chief Clark,” Tommy interrupted, mainly to spare Grace any more of Reno’s
explosive use of the English language.
 
He knew the police chief would have limited authority over who the Feds
decided to interrogate, but it was the only card he could play right now.

The
sergeant swallowed hard.
 
He was
hardnosed himself, but he knew about Reno Gabrini and his mob connections.
 
He wasn’t about to put his own life at risk
for the sake of some
  
Federal agents who
already thought they were superior to the local police.
 
That was why he even entertained Tommy’s
request.

“Chief
Clark?” he asked.

“That’s
right,” Tommy said.
 
“Tell him I need to
see him.
 
I’m Tommy Gabrini.
 
He knows me.”

Ordinarily,
the sergeant would have resisted, but not this time.
 
Not where these Gabrinis were involved.
 
He picked up his phone and contacted his
chief.

Reno
ran his hands through his already messy hair and began walking around the
lobby.
 
Tommy walked Grace to the bench
against the wall and they both sat down.
 
He crossed his legs and placed his arm across her shoulder.

“You
okay?” he asked her.

“I’m
okay.”
 
Then she looked at Reno.
 
“I don’t know about him, though.”

“Don’t
you worry about Reno.
 
He can handle
this.”

“He’s
very bombastic, isn’t he?”

“You
would be too,” Tommy pointed out, “if people messed with you and yours the way
they were always messing with Reno.
 
He
can’t show any weakness or he’s done for.”

“But
it doesn’t seem to working here.”

“No.
 
But what else can he do?
 
Thank them for their trouble and leave his wife
in their hands?”

Grace
realized that that was the point.
 
Reno
was in a tough spot.
 
“He seems to really
love Katrina.”

Tommy
squeezed her upper arm and pulled her body closer against his.
 
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said to
her.

It
would be another few minutes, however, but then Chief Clark came out and saw
that it was, indeed, Tommy Gabrini.

“Captain
Gabrini,” Clark said as he hurried toward Tommy and extended his hand.
 
The sergeant was surprised by the title given
to Tommy, and, in truth, so was Grace.
 
She knew Tommy said he used to be a cop, but hearing somebody refer to
him with his old cop title was kind of shocking.

Reno
hurried over, too, as Tommy stood up and shook Clark’s hand.
 
Grace stood up, too.

“Des,
how are you?” Tommy asked.

“Overworked,
underpaid, should follow in your footsteps.”
 

Tommy
laughed.
 
“You should,” he said.

Grace
could tell that Reno wasn’t a man who finessed any matter and therefore seemed
slightly impatient with Tommy’s more jovial style.
 
But he apparently trusted Tommy to handle his
business because he held his peace.