ROMANCING SAL GABRINI Read online

  Sal looked at her, and couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Are you gonna fuck,” she asked him, “or go and see about my child?”

  Sal slung out of Gemma and ran for her, his dick still slinging cum, but Kate knew him better than Gemma. She took off back down those stairs before he could even make it to his bedroom door. He stood at the door, naked and angry, and then hit the doorjamb with his fist.

  “Gotdamn that woman!” he yelled as he hit the jamb.

  “Look at it this way,” Gemma said, sitting up fully. “If you go to get that boy and they say they’ll give him up if you give them something? Come back and get her.”

  Sal looked at Gemma and smiled. Then he shook his head and laughed. “You’re a mess, you know that?”

  She smiled too, although her heart was raging with dread.

  Sal drove his Ferrari up the back side of the small motel on Fine Street. Why Kate would have picked such a dump was beyond him. But you could take the slut out of slutville, Sal thought, but she was still a slut. But he forgot her and her questionable choices and parked his car, not in back of the motel, but in the neighboring liquor store parking lot, and got out. He had already scoped out the area, and saw nothing he would consider suspicious, and now he was heading up the back stairs to the second floor to room 29, where Kate said she left her son.

  Mikey Pacheco. A wannabe who caused more trouble than he was worth, it seemed to Sal, but because he had promised his old man, and was bound by that promise, he let the kid take him through it. Time and time again. But now that he had gone and got mixed up with a fool like Danny Bronco, all bets were off. He had changed the game mightily.

  Sal knocked on the door. But there was no response. He looked around, saw nothing, and knocked again. When there was again no response, he looked around again, took his expensive, imported dress shoe, and kicked the already flimsy door in.

  “Mikey!” he yelled as he entered, the gun in the small of his back now drawn.

  But there was no-one in the room, nor the adjacent bathroom.

  Sal left the bathroom and went back into the room, looking for any clues to the kid’s whereabouts, when the shots rang out. He immediately hit the floor as a barrage of gunfire, aimed squarely at him, sailed into the motel room breaking glass and lamps and anything else in its wake. Sal crawled onto his stomach, and went behind the bed, but the arsenal was too much to overcome. He couldn’t even get a good shot in.

  Then he heard footsteps on the outside landing, running straight toward the action as if they were the action. And Sal knew he had to make a move now. He was already a sitting duck, but he had to move now.

  And he did. He dived for the bathroom, slamming his body into the door just as the footsteps burst into the room with even more up close and personal firepower.

  And Sal started firing back. He fought like his life depended on it. But he never saw a soul. Just hails of gunfire, the spinning of bullets, and blood.

  Plenty of blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The front door of the penthouse burst opened, and Tommy Gabrini, with two men flanking him, hurried inside.

  “Tommy!” Gemma said with great relief when she saw him, and she and Kate jumped up from the chairs they had been sitting in.

  “Gem, you come with me,” Tommy said without so much as a hello. “You too,” he added as he looked over at Kate.

  “Where’s Sal?” Kate was asking. “Where’s my son?”

  Gemma wanted to ask if everything was all right too, but the look in Tommy’s eyes let her know that it wasn’t.

  “Let’s go,” Tommy said. Although his voice sounded calm, Gemma could detect an underlying anxiousness. “Don’t get anything, just come with me now.”

  “But why we got to go anywhere?” Kate wanted to know. “I want to know where Sal is. I want to know where my son is. Why can’t--”

  “Kate,” Gemma said with more than a little anxiousness in her voice, “we can ask questions later. Right now we need to leave. Tommy wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. So let’s go. We’ll ask questions later.”

  And, to Tommy’s amazement, Sal’s little hoochie mama followed Gemma’s lead and did indeed began leaving the penthouse.

  But by the time they were downstairs in the parking garage and about to board a waiting van, it was Gemma’s time to ask questions.

  She pulled Tommy aside. She pulled him by the catch of his Armani suit with no regard to the cost. “Just tell me he’s alive,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.

  Tommy looked her dead in the eye. He was still amazed that Sal Luca had managed to win the heart of a dynamic woman like her, a woman he respected to the utmost. “I pray so,” was the honest best he could say to her.

  “But you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “He phoned me while he was en route to pick up that boy. Mobilizing men that quickly is a near impossibility.”

  “So something did happen at that motel?”

  Again Tommy hesitated. But her eyes were so sincere, yet so intelligent that there was no way he could lie to her. “Yes,” he said.

  Gemma’s heart dropped through her shoe. Then suddenly she didn’t want to know anymore. She didn’t think she could handle it. She, instead, got into the van and fought back tears, as the doors slid shut and the Van hurriedly drove them away.

  After hours and hours of sitting in Tommy’s house with no word from Sal or the boy or anybody, she knew something was super-wrong when Reno Gabrini, of all people, walked through that door and headed straight for Tommy’s office in the back of the home. He didn’t even glance her way. And he came with an entourage of men. He came all the way from Vegas, undoubtedly on his own private plane, with an entourage of men. Which meant to Gemma that if Sal wasn’t already dead, which she refused to even entertain, he was in serious jeopardy. Her heart had already pounded to near exhaustion, now she barely had a beat.

  There were men in the living room, Tommy’s men, supposedly there to assist her and Kate with whatever needs they might have, but Gemma knew better than that. They were bodyguards. They were there to protect them should there be a breach of security.

  Gemma had never experienced anything like it. First, they wouldn’t tell her anything. Then, whenever she went to Tommy’s office to force him to tell her exactly what all he knew, he would sadly say that he didn’t know anything.

  But now Reno was here. All the way from Vegas. That, to Gemma, changed everything. At first she figured big brother Tommy would have it well in hand. He just projected that kind of strength. But if Reno was needed, that meant it wasn’t well in hand. That meant something had gone so wrong, and so sideways, that they needed a pro. They needed an unconventional man to handle what she was certain now was an unconventional problem.

  She headed for the office. But one of Reno’s men, a burly one, stepped in her way. “I don’t think they want you back there,” he said.

  Gemma looked him dead in the eye. “I know. But that’s why I have to be back there.”

  The guard looked at her too. That look in her eyes made him know he was out of his league. He let her pass.

  Kate stood up too, amazed that they allowed Gemma passage through. “I’m going back there too,” she demanded.

  But the burly man would have none of that. “Sit your ass down,” he replied.

  And Kate, angry though she might be, sat back down.

  Gemma didn’t bother to knock for fear they wouldn’t let her in. So she barged on in. As soon as she did, she saw Tommy seated on the edge of the desk, Reno seated in front of the desk, and two more men standing in back side of the room. All of the men turned, when Gemma walked in.

  Reno quickly stood up. “Gem,” he said, and went to her.

  “Hey, Ree.”

  He kissed her on the lips. “Hey yourself.” He saw the worry in her eyes. “It’s gonna be okay, kid, what’s with the sad face?”

  “You heard from Sal?” she asked
him.

  Reno exhaled, and looked at Tommy.

  “Come have a seat, Gem,” Tommy said.

  Gemma tried to maintain her composure as she sat in the chair beside Reno’s. She stared at Tommy. Reno sat back down.

  “We know there was a gun battle at the motel,” Tommy admitted.

  Gemma found it difficult to hide her growing dread. “Okay.”

  “We also know that the police was called, some of the men were apparently wounded, there was plenty of blood onsite, but they all got away.”

  “But who was wounded? Was it Sal?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. None of my contacts at the police department knows anything, none of our contacts on the street knows anything.”

  “And you don’t know where he is?”

  “We don’t know that either,” Tommy admitted.

  “But what about the boy? What about Kate’s son?”

  “Mikey’s an unknown also,” Tommy said. “We just don’t know anything, Gem. I have my people all over the place. Reno has his people all over the place. We still know what we knew when I first picked you up from the Wingate.”

  Then they all heard a lot of confusion up front. Gemma was stunned the way Reno and Tommy jumped up so quickly, pulling their guns and ordered her to stay put, as they ran up front.

  But Gemma wasn’t about to stay anywhere. By the time she made it up front, and saw Kate hugging a young man she assumed was Mikey Pacheco, and then when she saw Sal standing there, all in one piece, her heart soared.

  “Sal!” she said so heartfelt that both Reno and Tommy felt its depth. She ran to Sal’s opened arms and slammed against his body. Sal stumbled back and lifted her into his arms.

  “Babe!” he said as he twirled her.

  Then she stood back on her two feet and looked at him. “Are you hurt?” she asked him nervously, patting him all over his body. “Did they hurt you?”

  “It was close, I’ll say that, but no. Thank God. I’m all right. I’m fine.”

  “But where were you all this time?” she asked.

  “Yeah?” Tommy asked.

  “With the cops,” Sal said and Tommy and Reno couldn’t believe it.

  “Those fuckers!” Reno screamed. “They told us they didn’t even see you at the scene! Those fuckers!”

  “That was the cover,” Sal said. “I was detained by the cops. Me and Mikey both. And Mikey here had gone to the store, stupid kid, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He missed the fireworks.”

  “I heard’em though,” Mikey said and Gemma looked at him. He was a gaunt little kid, with a voice that hadn’t quite become a man’s voice, and she was floored. All of this pain and agony over some child like him? Some wannabe gangster like that? She wanted to beat his ass her own self. But she had Sal back. That trumped all of her concerns. She realized, as Tommy had already realized, that she was still holding onto Sal and probably wasn’t about to let him go.

  “So how did every one of those shooters get away, but you got caught?” Reno wanted to know.

  “There was a cop who was right nearby, something like in the next parking lot or something because he heard the gunfire and had his sirens blaring within no time. But for once in my life a cop saved my bacon because those gunmen took off when the sirens began to sound. But I didn’t know that they had took off like that. I was still trapped in that bathroom. Since I wasn’t sure what was going on, my ass stayed put. Then the cops showed up. One of them knew me, and he immediately called Pop. And Pop got his guys to keep me out of it.”

  Tommy frowned. “Pop?” he asked.

  Reno smiled. “Hot shit,” he said with a grin. “You mean to tell me that Uncle Benny actually came through for your ass?”

  “That’s why I couldn’t make any contact,” Sal said. “Not so much as a phone call to my lady while he worked his magic. He was working on it.”

  Reno looked at Tommy. “Surprised that your old man would do that for Sal? For Sal of all people?”

  “Fucking stunned,” Tommy said, and Reno laughed.

  “But what was it all about to begin with?” Tommy wanted to know. Then they all looked at Mikey. He was young, barely seventeen, and he had Kate’s small eyes.

  “I don’t know you, kid,” Reno said, “but I know your old man. And your old man, he’s a standup guy. He ain’t no bullshit artist. So I don’t get it. I don’t get how Patty Pacheco’s kid could be dumb enough to get mixed up with a fool like Danny Bronco. That guy’s a fuck up, you know that? A gotdamn maniac. And you go and get yourself mixed up with him?”

  “And why would Danny put a contract out on you?” Tommy asked. “What’re you to him?”

  “It wasn’t about Danny,” Mikey said in that kid’s voice of his. “I wasn’t mixed up with him. I was doing business with Barf.”

  “Barf?” Reno asked. “Who the fuck is Barf?”

  “Drug dealer in Jersey,” Sal said.

  “So you were running drugs?” Reno asked. “You that kind of scum?”

  “But it wasn’t like that,” Mikey declared. “I was doing what I was doing, yeah, but I was just trying to make some money. I was making a lot of nothing runs for him, that’s all I was doing. Then Barf starts acting funny with people money, he ends up dead, and now Danny wants to put the blame on me.”

  “You iced him?” Reno asked.

  “No! One of his guys did. But Danny, he won’t believe me. I didn’t even know he and Barf were any kin, that Barf was his brother, until after Barf died.”

  Reno looked at Tommy. Then back at the kid. “His brother?” he asked. “Gotdamn,” he said.

  Tommy shook his head too. Then they both looked at Sal.

  “I know,” Sal said, his hands on his hips. “It’s fucked up.”

  “Danny Bronco don’t play like that,” Reno made clear. “He says the kid iced his brother, he don’t care if somebody else confesses, he’s going after the kid.”

  “You can’t let anything happen to my boy,” Kate started saying, and just her voice annoyed Sal.

  “You know what,” he said and looked at the bodyguards in the room. “Get her ass out of here and get it out now!” He began to pace the room as if her mere presence was irritating him.

  Tommy looked at one of his men. “Take her and the boy to a safe house.”

  “Number three?”

  Tommy looked at Reno. Reno thought about it, then nodded his head. “That’ll work,” he said.

  “Do it,” Tommy told his man.

  After some resistance, and more mouthing off, Kate and Mikey realized they didn’t have a choice. They did as Sal ordered and followed the two bodyguards, both of whom worked for Sal.

  Then Tommy and Reno, Sal and Gemma, took seats in the living room. Sal would have preferred to not have Gemma there, but he knew she wasn’t about to go to her room while the men discussed strategy. Wasn’t going to happen.

  “What do we know so far?” Reno asked.

  “He still lives on the Shore,” Sal said. “He’s still doing what he do.”

  “If he’s got a hot contract,” Tommy said, “his people are going to be on the lookout.”

  “That’s the thing,” Sal said. “His people said if I go in, they’ll stand down.”

  Reno and Tommy both looked at Sal. “They told you that?” Reno asked.

  “Yeah. They gave me their assurances.”

  But Reno was amazed. “Why would they do a fool thing like that? And since when did you get that kind of pull? Only bosses have that kind of pull.”

  Tommy was looking at Sal with amazement in his eyes too. He suspected his brother had mob connections for a long time. But he never could finger those connections. Now he was talking as if there were more than just mob connections at work here. Tommy was amazed as he continued to stare at his younger brother.

  Gemma was staring at Sal too. But she wasn’t staring at him with any amazement, but with deep confusion.

  “The only thing that matters now,” Sal made clear, �
�is that they’ll stand down. Nobody’s fighting any battles for a screw-up like Barf.”

  “So what you’re telling us,” Reno said, “is that Danny’s lieutenant has his eyes on the top spot?”

  “Yeah,” Sal said, and both Reno and Tommy were looking askance at him.

  “Whatta you looking at me like that for?” Sal asked, offended. “I’m not his fucking lieutenant!”

  “Okay, okay, let’s just settle down,” Reno said. “So what you’re telling us is that his men will give us a window, if we choose to take it?”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Sal said. “Not all of his men now. But most of them.”

  “But is that the only way?” Tommy asked.

  Reno frowned. “Hell yeah,” he said. “If you find a problem then you have to stamp that problem out, or it’ll come back to bite you in the ass. I know this from personal experience. They know Sal looks out for Mikey. So Sal’s ass is on the line now too. And if they can’t go for Sal, they’ll go for Gemma.”

  Sal’s heart squeezed at just the thought of it. Tommy leaned his head back. “I know,” he said.

  Reno looked at Sal. “What’s your suggestion?”

  “We hit and we hit hard tomorrow morning.”

  “As early as that?”

  “The element of surprise, yeah,” Sal said. “As far as they know I’m still hot, I’m still in police custody. We hit in the morning, something like four a.m., and with his men standing down, it’ll be in and out.”

  “Nothing’s in and out,” Reno pointed out. “Except in the movies. As a veteran of many wars,” he added, “nothing’s a piece of cake like that. Nothing’s in and out.”

  “Okay, whatever Reno, damn,” Sal said, his usual irritation with his cousin showing. “But it’s doable right?”

  Reno exhaled. “Yeah. If his men mean what they promised you, hell yeah.”

  “Okay,” Sal said. “So we need to get our people together.”

  “How many do you have?” Reno asked Sal.