MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (11 page)

“But
it still doesn’t make sense,” Jimmy said.

“It
makes sense,” Ashley said.
 
“You saw all
those drugs that guy had.
 
He probably
was a dealer.
 
They probably followed him
to our house and now they’re looking for their money, or their drugs, or
both!
 
They may even search my house,”
she added, as she was beginning to panic too.
 
“They may try to plant drugs in my house and claim---”

She
looked up and stopped talking.
 

Jimmy
looked at her. “Claim what?” he asked.
 
Then he looked where she was looking, and Cooper turned and looked where
they were looking.
 

Coming
into the bar, not from the front door but from a back door they didn’t know the
bar had, was Reno Gabrini.
 
He wore
shades over his eyes even though it was late evening, and had two burly bodyguards
walking just behind him.
 
Cooper’s heart
dropped.
 
Jimmy’s heart soared.

Cooper
looked at him.
 
“You said you wasn’t
calling your old man, Mack!
 
You said you
was calling Miss G.”

“That’s
who I called,” Jimmy said, pretending to be just as annoyed.
 
“She must have phoned him.”
 

Jimmy,
in truth, was banking on Trina’s loyalty to his father when he first offered to
phone her.
 
Coop and Ash were so dead-set
against him phoning Reno, that they viewed Trina as a good alternative.
 
They didn’t know, but Jimmy did, just how
close and loyal she was to his father.

 Reno
removed his shades when he arrived at the booth.

“How
did you know I was here?” Jimmy asked his father.

While
Reno’s guards surveyed the half-empty room, Reno surveyed the threesome in the
booth.
 
That fast-behind Ashley was
behind this shit, he could feel it in his bones.
 
“Let’s go,” he said.

“Go?
 
But Dad you don’t understand.
 
My friends need help.
 
I was playing basketball when---”

Reno
looked at his son.
 
“What are you
deaf?
 
What did I just say?
 
Let’s go.
 
Now.
 
All three of
yous
.”
 
He added this
he in his still-distinct Italian-style Jersey accent and phrasing.
 

All
three stood and followed Reno as he headed back out the way he entered.
 
The bodyguards then followed them.

Jimmy
could see two cars parked behind the bar: his father’s Porsche and a dark SUV.
 
Cooper and his sister glanced at each other
when they saw the two vehicles.
 
Especially the Porsche.
 
Reno
Gabrini was the last human being on earth Cooper wanted Jimmy to call!
 
He knew Mr. Gabrini.
 
He’d seen him around the PaLargio ever since
he first started hanging with Jimmy Mack.
 
He saw how he would lose his cool at the drop of a hat and everybody in
that entire organization acted as if they were scared of their own shadows
whenever he was anywhere near them.
  
That was why they put the body in Jimmy’s car.
 
They were certain Jimmy would be too afraid
to call his father if he was knee-deep in it too.
 
But, Cooper thought angrily, he called him
anyway!

Jimmy,
however, felt as if his back was against the wall when he decided to put that
body in his car.
 
Ashley would have been
accused of murder and who knows what else if the cops would have found that
body in her house.
 
He couldn’t let that
happen.
 
He would take some serious heat
for it, especially now that his father was involved, but he couldn’t sit back
and let Ashley end up in prison because of his fear and inaction.

Reno
walked over to his Porsche and leaned against it, folding his muscular arms as
he did.
 
He was dressed in an expensive
suit, but a full day of work and more work had rendered it rumpled and stained,
which was usually the case with Reno and clothes.
 
  

Jimmy
and his friends followed Reno, rumpled clothes and all, while the bodyguards walked
around the place to make sure it was still a secure location for Reno to be in.
 

“Okay,
talk,” Reno said when all three stood in front of him.

Cooper
and Ashley looked at Jimmy.
 
Jimmy was
always amazed at how tough-talking Coop always got so quiet whenever Reno was
around.

“I
was playing basketball,” Jimmy began.
 
But
his father cut him off.

“I’m
not talking to you,” Reno said.
 
“You,”
Reno then said to Cooper.
 
“Tell me what
happened.”

Cooper
swallowed hard.
 
“Nothing happened.
 
I don’t know why Mack called you in the first
place.”

Jimmy
looked at Cooper.
 
“What are you
nuts?
 
You have to tell him, Coop.”

“There’s
nothing to tell,” Cooper said angrily, staring at Jimmy.

Jimmy
looked at his father.
 
“There’s a dead
body in the trunk of my car,” he said as if he still couldn’t believe it
himself.

Reno
unfolded his arms and his two guards, hearing this news from where they were,
looked over too.
 
“A
what
?” Reno asked, astounded.

Jimmy
felt a surge of tears.
 
He wanted to fall
into his father’s arms at just the thought of the mess he was in, but he beat
back the urge.
 
“A guy, a dead guy.
 
His body is in my trunk.”

Reno
frowned. “Who the fuck is it?” he asked, still unable to believe it.

Jimmy
looked at Ashley, a move that led Reno to look at her too.
 
But Ashley looked at Cooper.

“Lamar,”
Cooper said.
 
“His name is Lamar.
  
I don’t know his last name.”
 
He said this as tears began to appear in his eyes.

But
Reno wasn’t buying it.
 
It seemed to him
that Coop made up that name off the top of his head.
 
Something wasn’t right here.
 
Something stank like shit to Reno here.
 
“Why is this Lamar in my son’s car?” he asked
Coop.

“It’s
not our fault,” Ashley decried.

Reno
looked at her.
 
“What?” he asked
irritably.

“It’s
not my fault.
 
I didn’t do anything wrong
so you can step off right now and stop trying to pin it on me.”

Oh,
yeah, Reno thought.
 
Something was
seriously fucked up here.
 
“Who said
anything about pinning anything on you?” he asked her.

“I
know what you’re trying to do, but you can forget it.
 
It’s not my fault and you aren’t going to
make it my fault!”

Now
she was just annoying.
 
“Who do you think
you’re talking to?” Reno asked as he began to move toward her.
 
Before Ashley found herself ten feet under,
Jimmy grabbed his father’s arm to hold him back.

“She’s
just stressed out, Dad,” he said in her defense.
 
“We’re all stressed out.”

Reno
started to tell that silly-ass girl what she could do with her stress, but he
knew he had bigger battles to wage than any fight with her.
 

“Tell
me what happened,” he said to her.
 
“And
leave nothing out.”

Ashley
folded her small arms in a way that lifted her large breasts.
 
This was supposed to be one of her seduction
tricks.
 
Reno knew that game too well.
 
As if he could be that easily led!
 
His son could, and many young men like him,
but Reno certainly couldn’t.
 
But it was
so engrained in her to try, he knew, that she had to try anyway.

She
was certainly pretty, he thought, which meant, undoubtedly, that she had his
son wrapped right around her finger.
 
Why
these young guys always went for looks first was a mystery to Reno.
 
He always went for sass first, even when he
was Jimmy’s age.
 
The sassier the woman
the better, in his opinion.
 
That was how
he ended up with a woman like Trina.
 
That was how Jimmy ended up with a woman like this girl here who could
bat those eyes and tease with a little cunt and make him feel as if it was his
obligation to protect her and to get her out of whatever mess she found herself
in.
 
Because there was no doubt in Reno’s
mind that whatever led to there being a body to put in a trunk, had everything
to do with her.

But
Ashley still was resistant to talk.
 
Jimmy moved next to her.
 
“It’s
okay,” he said.
 
“My dad will look out
for you, don’t worry.
 
Just tell him what
happened.”

“Lamar
came over to my house to hang out,” Cooper told instead.

Reno
looked at him.
 
“You knew this Lamar?”

“Yes,
sir.
 
I knew him when we both used to
work at Crawdaddy’s, but I hadn’t seen him since those days.
 
But he called and wanted to come over and
kick it, and so I said why not.
 
But I
didn’t know he had gear with him, he didn’t say nothing about bringing no
smack.
 
I didn’t know he had anything like
that until I came back from the kitchen.
 
He was already getting high.”

Ashley
folded her arms tighter, and lifted her breasts higher.
 
Reno looked at those breasts and then back at
Cooper.
 

“Then
he started having convulsions,” Cooper continued, “like he was having some kind
of fit or something.
 
And that’s when I
called my sister.
 
She called Jimmy
Mack.”

“To
keep her out of trouble,” Jimmy said, “we decided to move the body.”

Reno
shook his head.
 
“As simple as that.
 
You decide to move a body.
 
It’s a felony to move a body, but who the
fuck cares, right?”
 
Then Reno calmed
back down.
 
“Go on,” he said with a frown
on his face.
 

“We
were driving around,” Jimmy said.
 
“We
were driving to this place Ash knew about.
 
This place where we could leave it.
 
But that’s when I realized somebody was following us.”
 

The
bodyguards immediately began to come over when they heard that Jimmy had been followed.

“Who
was following you?” Reno asked his son with heightened interest too.

“We
don’t know,” Cooper said.
 
“But it was
clear they were following us.”

“But
I lost them,” Jimmy said proudly.
 
“I’m
certain of that.”

Reno
looked at his guards.
 
They both seemed
to have that doubtful look on their faces too.
 

Reno
looked at Jimmy.
 
“Give me your keys.”

“Sir?”

“Give
me your car keys.”
 

Jimmy
quickly complied.
 

“Now
go get in my car and wait for me,” Reno ordered.

“But
Dad,” Jimmy said.
 
“What about Coop and
Ashley?”

Reno
looked at his son.
 
“Get in my car and
wait for me.”

Jimmy’s
heart began to pound.
 
He knew there was
no arguing with his father when he had that look in his eyes.
 
He got into the Porsche.
 

Reno
looked at Lou, the larger of the two large guards.
 
And Lou knew exactly what to do.
 
“Let’s go,” he said to the brother and
sister.

But
Ashley snatched away from him.
 
She
looked at Reno.
 
“I want to go home,” she
said with a whine in her voice.
 
“I don’t
want to go anywhere with him, I want to go home!”

“Young
lady,” Reno said as calmly as he knew how, “I don’t give a flying fuck what you
want to do.
 
Get your ass in that SUV and
do exactly what Lou tells you to do.
 
You
and Cooper both.
 
Now get!” Reno pushed
her away from him when he said that.
 
Ashley stumbled, but his tone alone was enough to make her stop
resisting.
 
She and Cooper followed Lou
to the SUV.