Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards (14 page)

“We’re too
busy fucking to have a kid right now,” Tommy said half-jokingly.
 
“But it’ll come.
 
Just not right now.”

But then
silence ensued, as Sal thought again about the gravity of his situation.
 
Gemma left him.
 
He was in a grave place.

Tommy looked
at him.
 
“A lot’s been going on,” he
said.

“What, with
you and Liz?”

“With you
and Gemma,” Tommy said.
 
“That
discrimination lawsuit.
 
That incident at
the courthouse.
 
Blanche.”

“And that
tape showing my crazy ass acting like a hateful idiot,” Sal said.
 
“Yeah, a lot’s been going on.
 
And I haven’t figured out shit about why.”

“Maybe it’s
getting to be too much for her, Sal,” Tommy said.
 
“Maybe it’s starting to take a toll.
 
You know our lifestyle can do that to women.”

But Sal was
shaking his head.
 
“Gemma has a spine of
steel,” he said.
 
“She’s a tough
lady.
 
She didn’t leave me because of
that.
 
She left because I lied.
 
She was sitting down, she was allowing me to
explain, but then my slick ass had to lie.
 
If I wouldn’t have lied, she would still be here.”

Tommy felt
for his brother.
 
But he also felt
helpless.
 
What the hell did he
know?
 
He was no expert on women either.
 
“So what are you going to do?” he asked.

Sal was
definitive.
 
“I’m going to get my wife
back,” he said.

“And?” Tommy
asked.
 
He knew his brother too well.

“And find
that bitch who tried to take her away from me in the first place,” he added.

Tommy
nodded.
 
“That’s more like it,” he
said.
 
“Any word on where she might be?”

“My men are
on it.
 
Nothing yet.
 
But they’ll find her.”

The SUV
stopped in the alleyway that led to the restaurant’s kitchen door.
 
Victor Grotski was leaned against the wall
taking a smoke break.
 
As the manager of the
small greasy spoon, he could take breaks whenever he liked.
 
Which was often to smoke.
 
What he didn’t like was for customers to
drive up in his alleyway, usually young people trying to make out, and block
his view.
 
When the SUV drove up and
stopped, he was about to tell whoever was inside to keep it moving.
 
Until the passenger window rolled down, and
he saw Sal Gabrini sitting on the passenger seat. His heartbeat quickened.
 
“Fuck,” he said beneath his breath.

Sal waved
him over.
 
Victor wanted to run.
 
He wanted to get the hell away from
there.
 
But he knew it was hopeless.
 
He dropped his cigarette, smashed it with his
shoe, and walked up to the vehicle.
 
“What’s up, Sal?” he asked.

“Where’s
Blanche?” Sal asked.

“Blanche?
 
I haven’t seen her in years.
 
Why would you ask me about Blanche?”

“Where’s
Blanche?” Sal asked again.

“I haven’t
seen her in years.
 
I told you.
 
What, you think I’m lying?”

Sal grabbed
Victor by the back of his neck, shoved his face into the SUV and put a gun up
to his mouth.
 
“Sing that tune again and
I blow your face off,” Sal said angrily.
 
“Where the fuck is Blanche?
 
You’re her old man.
 
Now stop
fucking with me.
 
Where is she?”

“Clayton’s,”
Victor said quickly.
 
“I heard she’s been
hanging around Clayton’s.
 
But I haven’t
seen her in years, Sal, honest.”

Sal knew
better than that.
 
The only reason he was
there at all was because his men had tracked him down as the person most likely
to know where Blanche might be.
 
And what
she was up to.
 
“Get in,” he said.
 
“If she’s not at Clayton’s, you’re a dead
man.”

Victor’s
heartbeat slammed against his chest.
 
He
knew Sal.
 
He used to work for him.
 
He knew how mean that asshole could be.
 
“I don’t know if she’s there right this
minute,” he said.
 
“I’m only telling you
where I think---”

“Get in,”
Sal ordered.
 
“Nobody cares what you
think!”

Victor gave
in.
 
Or at least pretended to.
 
He moved toward the back of the truck, to get
onto the back passenger seat, but then decided to make a run for it.
 
Sal saw it before his driver could, and he
jumped out of the SUV and took off after Victor.

They ran and
they ran.
 
Sal was older, but he was in
better shape.
 
He eventually overtook
Victor just as he was about to climb a fence.
 
Sal grabbed him down by the catch of his jeans and knocked him to the
ground.
 
Then he placed his expensive
shoe on top of Victor’s slender frame.

“You’re a
fucking loser, moron,” Sal said.
 
“Losers
always get caught.
 
Now tell me where
that bitch is, and you tell me the truth!”

Sal’s driver
finally ran up to the two men, since driving in that field wasn’t
possible.
 
But he was in worse shape than
Victor.
 
He was bent over.

Victor knew
he was in trouble.
 
He knew he had to
come clean or he was going to die a horrible death.
 
But coming clean didn’t ensure Sal would let him
live either.

“Talk!” Sal
demanded.

“She didn’t
. . . She was. . .
  
She didn’t go to see
your wife because she wanted to.
 
She
didn’t want to.
 
But he made her.”

Sal
frowned.
 
“Who made her?”

“I don’t
know,” Victor said.
 
“She wouldn’t tell
me who.”

“You’re
lying!” Sal said.

“I swear to
you I don’t know, Sal!
 
Why would I lie?”

Sal grabbed
Victor again and was about to beat him down until he was willing to talk, but
shots suddenly rang out.
 
Sal and his
driver dropped to the ground, pulling out their own weapons as they did.
 
Sal was on his back firing a volley of shots
as the car was speeding away, but he doubt if he hit so much as a hubcap.
 
But at least he nor his driver were hit.

But Victor
Grotski, they quickly discovered, was gone.

Reno and Trina
and their two youngest children, Dominic and Sophia, were just sitting down to
dinner when their doorbell rang.

“I’ll get
it,” Dommi said quickly, and was about to stand up, but his father just as
quickly ordered him back down.

“You aren’t
getting shit,” Reno said.
 
“Sit your ass
back down.”

“
Reno
,” Trina said with umbrage as she
tossed her napkin onto the table and began to rise.
 
“The language!
 
He might behave as if he’s a grown man, but
he’s still just a little boy.”

   
“While you were working late at Champagne’s
last night, this little boy was around my casino pinching old ladies asses,”
Reno said.
 
“One even threatened a
lawsuit.
 
Your little boy found it
amusing, and said all I had to do was destroy any tapes and she wouldn’t have a
leg to stand on in a court of law.
 
That’s what your little boy said.”

Gemma was
mortified.
 
“Why you little fucker,” she
said to her son, and even Dommi covered his mouth.

“The
language, Katrina,” Reno said, mocking his wife.
 
“What about our sweet little boy here?”

“Sweet my
ass,” Trina said, prompting Reno to laugh, as she made her way to their front
door.
 
She knew it was somebody they
knew, somebody who did not have to be announced, or the front gate guards would
not have let them through.
 

When she
looked through the peephole, she saw that she was right.
 
She opened the door.
 
“Hello, Sal,” she said as he stepped in.

“How are
you, Tree?” They hugged.

“I’m
good.
 
How are you?”

That was a
rhetorical question even to Trina.
 
Because he looked awful.
 
Unshaven, a suit that looked as if it had been slept in, bloodshot
eyes.
 
Sal was a man who prided himself
on having himself together.
 
Not
tonight.
 
“She’s not here,” Trina
informed him.

He nodded
his head.
 
“I know.
 
She’s staying at her old house.”

Trina was
puzzled.
 
“How did you know that?
 
She said she didn’t tell you where she was
going.”
 
Then she shook her head.
 
“Never mind.
 
What am I thinking?
 
You and Reno
always know me and Gemma’s every move.
 
But when we need to know where y’all keep y’all slick asses, we have to
damn near put spy planes in the air.”

Although it
was funny to him, Sal couldn’t even manage a smile.
 
He had weightier matters on his mind.
 
“Reno here?”

“He’s
here.
 
He’s at dinner.”
 
Trina closed the door behind them.
 
“Come on back.”

“Thanks,
Tree, but I’m not hungry.
 
I’ll wait for
him in his office.”

Trina
couldn’t recall the last time Sal turned down a meal when he came to their
house.
 
This breakup was serious.
 
“Suit yourself,” she said, and began walking
back toward the dining room.
 
Sal headed
for Reno’s home office.

He was
sitting on the leather couch, leaned back with his legs spread out across the
floor, thinking about Gemma, when Reno walked in.
 
He came within minutes.
 
As soon as Reno saw his cousin, and the
wretched state he was in, he closed the door behind him.
 
Whatever differences he had with Sal, and he
had many, he still loved him like a brother.
 
That was absolute.

He walked
slowly toward the sofa and sat down beside him.
 
Only he sat on the edge and looked back at Sal.

“You look
like shit,” Reno said.

“Oh, nice,
Reno.
 
You’re a very comforting man.
 
Thanks.”

“I heard
somebody was playing target practice on your ass today.”

“More like
warning shots to spring some thug I was running down, but yeah.”

But Reno
wasn’t buying his cavalier attitude.
 
“First shots ring out around Gemma, now around you. What’s going on,
Sal?”

“Damn if I
know.”
 
Sal leaned up.
 
“I don’t know.
 
It’s a bunch of shit going down and I can’t
connect the dots.
 
Then Blanche shows
up.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“Who the hell is Blanche?”

“Blanche
Delilah.
 
She used to live in my house in
Chicago.”

Reno
smiled.
 
“Oh, you mean the blonde?”

Sal
hesitated.
 
“Yeah.”

Reno studied
Sal.
 
“Gemma found out, didn’t she?”

“Trina
didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me
what?” Reno asked.

Sal leaned
back.
 
“Gemma left me, Ree.”

Reno was
shocked.
 
“Left you?
 
Because of Blondie?”

“Because I
lied to her.”

Reno’s heart
dropped.
 
“You lied about what?”

Sal still
felt foolish.
 
“The house.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“The house?
 
What house?
 
The one in Chicago?”

“I told her
I didn’t own a house in Chicago.”

Reno was
floored.
 
“But wasn’t she there
before?
 
That night Tommy got shot?
 
Wasn’t she there?”

Sal
nodded.
 
“She was there.”
 
Anguish was in his voice.
 
“My dumb ass forgot she had been there!”

Reno couldn’t
believe it.
 
“So you lost your wife
because you lied about a house she already knew you had?”

“I was
trying to keep her.
 
I didn’t want
anything Blanche said to her to be the truth, so everything Blanche said to her
had to be a lie.
 
Including that house.”

“What was
Blanche lying about?” Reno asked.
 
“Fucking you?”

“She told
Gem she was the mother of my son.”

“Get outta
here!”

“That’s what
she told her.”

“A lie,
right?” Reno asked.

“What kind
of question is that?
 
Of course it’s a
lie, Reno!
 
I would never do that to
Gem.”
 
Then he exhaled.
 
“I fucked up.
 
I keep fucking up with her.
 
What’s wrong with me?”

“That’ll
take too long to answer,” Reno responded.
 
“Let’s stick to things we can realistically change.”

“Fuck you,”
Sal said halfheartedly.

“So you have
this major-ass problem,” Reno said.
 
“Gemma’s left and you’re not okay.”

“No, I’m not
okay.
 
I’ll never be okay until I get her
back.”

Reno
couldn’t agree more.
 
“Damn straight,” he
said.

“I blew it,
Reno,” Sal said with even more pain in his voice.
 
“I blew it big time.
 
I lied to hold on to her.
 
I called myself holding onto my wife.
 
And she caught me red-handed.
 
Why do I always fuck it up?”