MOB BOSS 6: THE HEART OF RENO GABRINI (Mob Boss Series) (22 page)

“Let’s
do this then,” Reno said with conviction, and regret, as he, Jimmy, and Sal
left the room.
 
Trina clutched her baby
tighter.
 

Sal
and Jimmy were leaned against the wall behind the chair.
 
Reno was walking around the room, without
looking at the man in the chair.
 
His
suit coat was opened and his expensive shoes were purposely scrapping the
basement floor with every step he took.

Finally,
the man in the chair, Eddie Dreeson, had had enough.

“I
told your goons,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “that I
don’t know a thing about anything.
 
I’m
just an honest businessman trying to make it in this cold and brutal world.”

Reno
stopped walking and stood in front of Eddie’s chair.
 
Jimmy, with arms folded, was staring
intensely.
 
But not at Eddie.
 
He was staring at his father.

“Why
were you trying to set up my son?” Reno asked him.

“Why
would I set up your son?” Eddie answered with a question of his own.
 
He was a tall, bald black man with that kind
of charm that couldn’t be bought and sold.
 
Looking at him you wouldn’t call him the best looking guy in the
world.
 
But he had what ladies
liked.
 
Reno could see a girl like Ashley
falling hard for a dude like him.
 

“Well?”
Eddie asked.
 
“Answer my question.
 
Why would an honest businessman like me be
bothering with a nobody son like yours?
 
I wasn’t thinking about your son!
 
I didn’t tell him to put a dead body in his trunk, that’s a doggone
fact.
 
I mean, who does that?”
 
Eddie said this with a laugh.
 
He said it, it seemed to Jimmy, as if he was
toying with Reno.
 
Jimmy was getting
angry about it too.
 
Why wasn’t his
father lashing back?
 
Why was his father
letting this clown toy with him?

“But
that fool boy of yours sure did,” Eddie went on.
 
“But you know what that says to an honest
gentleman like me?
 
That says that boy
wasn’t raised right.
 
That says more
about your parenting skills, Mr. Gabrini, than sweet Ashley’s skills of
persuasion.
 
Sad, but true.”

Reno
smiled.
 
“They told me you were funny.”

“Oh,
yeah?
 
Haha or funny as in gay?
 
You have to clarify nowadays you know.”

“Haha,”
Reno clarified.
 
“But it really won’t
make much difference.
 
At least,” Reno
said as he looked at the Rolex watch on his wrist, “not in another, say,
two-three minutes.”

Eddie
smiled.
 
“Going somewhere?”

“No,
but you are.”
 
Reno pulled out a gun that
had been lodged in his belt in the small of his back.

But,
to Jimmy’s amazement, this move only made Eddie laugh.
 
He was so cocky.
 
As if they couldn’t touch him.
 

“So
you gonna shoot me now?” Eddie asked Reno.

“Yes,”
Reno said, “unless you take that honesty you brag about and answer my
questions.”

“You
should have talked to your boys, Reno.
 
I’m disappointed in you.
 
Everybody talk about you like you’re some big man who make grown men
tremble in their boots.
 
But you’re
pulling the same shit your boys tried to pull.
 
They threatened me too, man.
 
They
said they were going to shoot me too.
 
I
told them to go for it, baby, go for it.
 
I could use a little excitement.”

Then
Eddie shook his head.
 
He was really
enjoying this, it seemed to Jimmy.
 
And
Reno, to Jimmy’s dismay, was just standing there enjoying it too.
 
Why didn’t he just shoot that motherfucker
and get it over with, Jimmy wanted to know?
 
He had answers they needed, but fuck it.
 
They would just have to get their answers somewhere else.

But
Reno knew better.
 
He knew there was
no-where else.
 
This was it.
 
Eddie was all they had right now.
 
So he allowed him to have his fun.
 
He allowed him to do his thing.
 
Because he knew the game like the back of his
hand.
 
He knew there was nothing like
being hit by a man you thought wouldn’t hit you.
 
It had a way of making you cut out the crap
and get serious.

But
Eddie didn’t see the danger.
 
He kept on
talking.
 
“But your boys were just full
of bluster.
 
Just full of talk.
 
Because they didn’t do a
got
damn thing.
 
Because y’all
need me.
 
I’m no fool.
 
I know you and your goons need me, Reno.”

“But
you’re missing the point, Mr. Dreeson,” Reno said.

“Oh,
yeah?” Eddie said with a smile.

“Oh,
yeah.
 
Because there’s a difference
between my goons and me.
 
A big
difference.
 
Do you know what that difference
is, Mr. Dreeson?”

“No,
but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“The
difference between my goons and me, Mr. Dreeson, is me.”
 
Reno said this and immediately shot Eddie in
the leg, causing Eddie to release a scream of agony that could have busted somebody’s
eardrums.

Jimmy
unfolded his arms and stood up from the wall.
 
He hadn’t expected that.
 
But
neither had Eddie, who had fallen out of the chair and was now on the floor
holding his leg, and screeching in pain.

Reno
bent down to him.
 
Jimmy was amazed at
how calm his father remained.
 

“Now,”
Reno said as Eddie continued to moan with pain, “let’s start over.
 
We got off to a very bad start.
 
Why did you get Ashley and her brother to set
up my son?”

“I
didn’t get her to do shit,” a suddenly more cooperative Eddie said.
 
“We were trying to wait for the ring.”

“The
ring?”

“We
were trying to wait for him to marry her.
 
Then we knew we would get a big payday.”

Reno
wanted to look at Jimmy.
 
He wanted him
to hear for himself that Ashley Cooper wasn’t the angel he took her for.
 
But he had a job to do.
 
He had to forget that Jimmy was standing
there, and do his job.

“What
changed?”

“I’m
bleeding here, Reno.
 
I’ll bleed to death
if you don’t staunch this blood flow.”

“I’m
not staunching shit until you tell me what’s going on here.
 
Now what happened that made you and Ashley
decide not to wait on some marriage that she thought was going to happen?”

Eddie
held his hand tighter over his leg wound and leaned his head back.
 
The pain was still just as excruciating.
 
“She had dinner with you and your wife,” he
said to Reno.
 
“She knew then you wasn’t
about to let her marry your son.
 
So we
had to go to plan B.
 
We had been
approached a few weeks back.”

“Approached
by whom?”

“This
guy.
 
I don’t know his name.
 
Some guy.
 
He said Tony Tufarna would pay top dollar to get the goods on Jimmy
Gabrini.
 
I didn’t know who the fuck Tony
Tufarna was, but I assumed he was Mafia.
 
I asked what was top dollar.”

“And
what did he say?”

“Two
hundred thousand.
 
Reno, I’m bleeding here!”

Reno
placed his gun on Eddie’s hand, which caused it to press into the wound and
force Eddie to scream out again.
 
“Don’t
fuck with me, Dreeson.
 
Tell me why he
wanted to get the goods on my son.”

“He
didn’t say why,” Eddie said as sweat began to pour down his face.
 
“He just said he wanted to get your son and
he wanted us to set it up.
 
He said it
had to be elaborate.
 
He said if that boy
of yours was anything like you, Ashley had to be the one to lure him.
 
But me and Ash, we knew we would need help.
 
So we got her brother on board.”

Jimmy’s
heart dropped.

“Her
brother?” Reno asked.

“I
promised to give him twenty thousand when we got paid.
 
He jumped at the opportunity.”

Reno
knew Jimmy hated hearing all of this, but he kept going.
 
He had to get his answers.
 
“Who killed the guy in the trunk?” he asked
Eddie.

“They
did.
 
He was already dead when my guys
brought him to Ashley’s house.
 
That
blood and vomit they put on the floor, and those drugs, didn’t belong to that
guy at all.
 
It was all stagecraft.”

“So
you expect me to believe that you allowed a man you never saw before to bring a
dead body and drugs into your girlfriend’s house and trusted that the guy would
pay you like he said?”

“He
paid me.
 
Part of it anyway.
 
I had to meet the dude and he paid me.”

“Meet
what dude?”

“Tufarna’s
right hand man.
 
Marcasi.”

It
was Sal’s time to unfold his arms and push away from the wall.

Reno,
too, was stunned.
 
“Marcasi?
 
Ritchie Marcasi?”

“Yeah,”
Eddie said.
 
“You know.
 
Dirty.
 
He said he’s your brother-in-law.”

Sal
looked at Reno.
 
Reno looked as if he was
ready to jump out of his own skin.
 
That
damn Dirty again!

But
Reno had more questions.
 
“Dirty said he
worked for Tony Tufarna?”

“That’s
what he said, yeah.
 
He gave me fifty
thousand up front.
 
Said the rest was
guaranteed as soon as they arrested Jimmy Gabrini.
 
He didn’t even have to be convicted.
 
Just arrested.
 
But Jimmy was more gifted than I thought he
was.
 
I thought I could put a light tail
on him after they loaded the body in his trunk in case Coop had a change of
heart.
 
I figure any son of yours would
be too stupid to realize he was being tailed.
 
After they arrived at the location, I was going to put Ash and Coop in
my car and we would take off.
 
The cops,
some cops Mr. Tufarna apparently owned, were supposed to be there in hiding,
and make the arrest.
 
But that boy of
yours spotted our tail and lost us.
 
Then
that silly-ass Ashley and her punk-ass brother let him call you.
 
Then it all went sideways after that.”

Eddie
let out another scream of pain.
 
“Now
will you please get me some help?” he pleaded.

But
Reno wasn’t through with him yet.
 
“Where
did you meet Dirty?” he asked.

“I’m
dying here, Reno!”

“Where
did you meet Dirty?” Reno yelled back.

“At
the Pocca Club,” Eddie said between gritted teeth.

Reno
frowned.
 
“What the fuck is the Pocca
Club?”

“It’s
a hangout, what you think it is?
 
It’s
where nobody ask no questions and nobody give no answers.
 
Dirty hangs there sometimes.”

Reno
stood erect.
 
Then motioned to Sal, his
head nodding toward the door.

Sal
went to the door and opened it.
 
Lou and
Briggs, a burly white man, and two other big guys came in.
 
Reno ordered Briggs and his men to get a
doctor in to look at Eddie’s wound, but to keep Eddie downstairs in one of the
hotel rooms until his story could be checked out.
 
Then he turned to Lou.

“Find
Dirty,” he said to him.

“Dirty?”

“That’s
right.
 
Seems like my brother-in-law has
been busy.
 
Contact me when you find
him.
 
Nobody lays a hand on him.
 
That’ll be my job.