Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards (21 page)

When they
walked into the hospital and up to the floor where they were told the Joneses
could be found, Sal and Gemma held onto each other so tightly that they walked
as if they were conjoined twins.
 
Until
they entered the room.

When they
saw Rodney and Cassie Jones lying there, stretched out on two twin beds, both
Sal and Gemma nearly fainted where they stood.
 
Not because they were dead.
 
But
because they were lying there talking to each other so casually.
 
They were talking as if they were just shooting
the breeze.

Gemma was so
happy she could hardly contain her joy.
 
“Mom!” she cried as she ran to her parents.
 
“Dad!”

Reno and
Trina, when they saw the scene for themselves, had tears of joy in their eyes
too.
 
They couldn’t believe it!

And
Sal.
 
He stood still as a rock.
 
He couldn’t even fathom how they could have
lived.
 
He saw Rudy’s man take them
toward the car.
 
He saw Rudy at the
car.
 
But he couldn’t dwell on how this
could be so.
 
He was too busy praising
God that it was so.
 
He was too busy
watching Gemma’s face go from dread to joy and he was overcome too.

He walked
over to his in-laws.
 
Reno and Trina
walked over too.
 
Gemma had hugged her
mother and then her father and was now sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed.
 
Both parents had cuts and bruises.
 
It was obvious they had been there.
 
But there was nothing life threatening that
Sal could see.
 
They seemed to have made out
better than he did.

Gemma got up
when Sal approached them.
 
She was happy
for him too.
 
“It’s okay, Sal,” she said
and took his hand.
 
“They’re going to be
okay.”

Tears welled
up in his big blue eyes as he looked upon his mother and father in-law.
 
And he couldn’t speak.

Rodney Jones
used to question his daughter’s affiliation with a man like Sal Gabrini.
 
He even tried to end the relationship
himself.
 
But after he got to know Sal,
and the kind of man he truly was, he became Sal’s greatest admirer.
 
And although he knew that bombing was undoubtedly
all about Sal and his dealings, he also knew Sal was loaded down with guilt
because of it.
 
“It’s okay, Sal,” he felt
a need to say.
 
And Sal looked at
him.
 
“They came to our house, forced
their way in, and flew us here on a private plane.
  
They called the head man and he told them to
take us to that warehouse, where he was.”

“He told his
guy to put you in the car that exploded,” Sal said.
 
“How could you have survived?”

“He told his
driver to go and get more supplies.
 
They
planned to keep us in that warehouse as bargaining chips for whatever they
wanted.
 
We were just going inside the
warehouse when the driver got into the car and cranked up.
 
Then it exploded.”

“Rudy, the
head man, was he inside the car?” Reno asked.

Cassie shook
her head.
 
“He was near the car, but he
wasn’t in it.”

Reno and Sal
looked at each other.
 
Was that fucker
still alive?

“What
happened to him?” Sal asked his in-laws.
 
“Did his people take him away?”

“When I came
to,” Rodney said, “I heard a lot of commotion inside the warehouse, and it
sounded like people were running out a different way.
 
Then I remembered the ambulance coming.
 
The driver was dead.
 
I remember seeing that.
 
And another guy was dead.
 
But yeah, the head man was put in an
ambulance too.
 
Not the one I was in, but
he was placed in one.”

Sal squeezed
Gemma’s arm.
 
“I’ll be back,” he said,
she nodded, and he and Reno left the room.

“Is he
okay?” Cassie asked Gemma.
 
“He’s walking
like he’s in pain.”

Gemma
smiled.
 
“He’s okay,” she reassured them.

Rudy Red was
in bad shape.
 
He was closer to the car,
apparently, because he got the worse of the deal by far.
 
His guys must have thought he was dead and
had no problem leaving him behind.
 
Sal’s
men took care of him and got him off scene.
 
Rudy’s men, at least the ones that were in the warehouse, ran for their
lives.

After
discovering that a Rudolf Balotti was indeed a patient there, and after
entering Rudy’s room, Sal and Reno were surprised he was still breathing.
 
But he was.
 
And he was doing so on his own.
 
They were also surprised that his men had abandoned him so
thoroughly.
 
Not one was stationed on his
door.

“They think
you’re dead, Rudy,” Sal said as he made his way to his enemy’s bedside.

Rudy moved
his head over to look at Sal.
 
He closed
his eyes from the drugs they had undoubtedly given him.
 
And then opened them again.
 
“It was you,” he said in a voice that was
barely a whisper.

“You’re just
figuring that out?” Reno asked.

“Why was it
you?” Sal asked.
 
He wanted to hear it
from the horse’s mouth.
 
“Why were you
trying to destroy me?”

It took Rudy
a long time just to swallow.
 
“I wanted
to keep you away from him.”

“Your son?”
Sal asked.

“
Your
son,” Rudy admitted.
 
“But you’re always too quick.
 
No matter what I tried, your slick ass
survived it.
 
Now I’m the one who’s not
going to survive.”

He began
coughing, as if to drive home that point.
 
But if he expected sympathy from Sal and Reno, he was mistaken.

“Water,” he
requested.

Sal ignored
him.
 
This man tried to kill his wife and
tried to set him up for a murder that would have put him on death row.
 
He wasn’t about to honor any request he
made.
 
“How did you find out the boy
wasn’t yours?” Sal asked.
 
“Blanche?”

“Victor,”
Rudy finally said.
 
“Victor Grotski.
 
I just wanted you to stay away from my
boy.
 
That’s all I wanted.
 
I didn’t want any war with the Gabrinis.
 
But she wanted revenge.”

 
“Blanche?” Sal asked.
 
“What kind of revenge could she want?
 
I never did anything but help her ass.”

“Not
Blanche,” Rudy said, his voice still a whisper.
 
“Fran.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“Fran?
 
Fran who?”

“Your sister
Fran, Reno,” Rudy said.
 
“Fran Gabrini.”

Sal was
stunned.
 
Reno was mortified.
 
“What the fuck does my sister have to do with
this?” he asked.

“She came to
me,” Rudy said.
 
“She’s one of my
ladies.
 
She likes the bad boys.
 
When she found out, she tried to get me to
take Sal out.
 
When she found out, she
made it her mission to get revenge on Sal.”

“When she
found out what?” Sal asked.
 
None of this
was making sense to him.
 
Why would Fran
be after him?

“When she
found out about her mother.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“What about our mother?”

“She found
out that Sal had killed her mother.”

“What are
you talking?” Sal asked with a frown of his own.
 
“I never killed her mother!”

“My mother
died in a shootout at the PaLargio,” Reno said.
 
“Sal had nothing to do with it!”

“Not your
mother,” Rudy said.
 
“Sal’s mother.”

Now Reno and
Sal were really stumped.
 
What in the
world was he talking about?
 
Sal had to
take out his own mother when his mother tried to take out Gemma, but what did
that have to do with Reno’s crazy-ass sister Fran?

“Spell it
out, Red,” Sal ordered. “Tell me what you know.”

“I told
you.”

“But Sal
didn’t kill our mother and Fran knows that,” Reno made clear.

“Sal killed
Sprig Sinatra.”

Reno was
still confused.
 
“But Sprig was Sal’s
mother.
 
Not Fran’s.”

“She was
Sal’s mother,” Rudy said, “and Fran’s.”

Sal was so
angry by this craziness that he jacked up Rudy by the catch of his hospital
gown.
 
Rudy’s eyes widened with
pain.
 
“Now you listen you rat bastard!”
Sal said.
 
“Tell me what you’re talking
about, and you tell it to me straight.”

“She said
Reno’s daddy raped Sprig,” Rudy said to Sal.
 
“Sprig was married to his brother, to your old man, but Reno’s dad
wanted her.
 
So he raped her one day.
 
He was a mob boss.
 
He took whatever woman he wanted.
 
He wanted his sister-in-law, so he had
her.
 
She knew she couldn’t tell what he
did to her just like Blanche didn’t tell me.
 
She knew she was dead if she told.
 
So she left her entire family, including her sons, and fled back to
Jericho, to her hometown.
 
She said she
knew her husband wouldn’t come there looking for her because he was afraid of
her brother Charles.
 
So she had the baby
there, and then gave it to Reno’s father.
 
Reno’s father forced his wife to accept it as her own.
 
But she was never that woman’s child.
 
Sprig was her mother.”

Reno and Sal
couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
 
Fran was Sal’s sister, not Reno’s?
 
Sal even released Rudy from his grasp as he took in the gravity of what
he’d just heard.
 
He looked at Reno.

“Is it
possible?” Sal asked.

“We had some
fucked up parents,” Reno said.
 
“Your old
man was fucked up and mine was too.
 
Hell
yeah it’s possible.”

“We’ve got
to find Fran,” Sal said, his heart racing.

“I don’t
know where the fuck she is,” Reno said.
 
“But I’ll find her.
 
You’d better
believe I’ll find her.”

Then Sal
looked at Rudy.
 
“Where’s my son?” he
asked.
 
“Where can I find him?”

Rudy shook
his head.
 
“I raised him.
 
I’m all he’s ever known.”
 

Sal waited
for more, but Rudy was done talking.
 
He’d said too much already.
 
But if
he thought his deathbed confession was enough to spare him from Sal’s wrath, he
was mistaken.
 
He was still on his
deathbed.
 
Reno went to the door, to make
sure nobody entered, and Sal used the very pillow Rudy laid upon as his weapon
of choice.
 
He smothered him and
smothered him until he was dead.
 
And
then he returned the pillow, to its rightful place, behind the dead man’s head.

As Reno’s
men searched frantically for Fran, and Sal’s men searched for the young man who
was supposed to be Sal’s son, he and Gemma went about their daily living and
tried to push through all of the background noise they knew was still
there.
 
But as one day turned into
another day, and one week was pushing toward the end of a second week, and still
no word on either front, they decided that they couldn’t live their lives
waiting for something to be settled that was completely out of their control.
They decided to stop holding their breath and live.
 
They didn’t know what in the world Fran was
up to, or if Sal would ever know if Rudy, Junior was his flesh and blood, but
they knew they still had each other.
 
And
they were going to start acting like it.

They went to
the movies.
 
Gemma felt like a teenager
again as she sat in the theater on Sal Gabrini’s arm.
 
She hadn’t been to a movie in years, as she
and Sal never made time for such a frivolous activity.
 
But now they were making time for everything.

“Nobody acts
like this,” Sal said as he watched.
 
“Who
acts like this?”
 
They were watching
Black Mass
, a movie about the life and
times of mobster Whitey Bulger, and Sal was finding some scenes incredibly
unlikely.
 
“They should be ashamed of
themselves,” he added.

“And you
shouldn’t?” Gemma asked with a smile.

Sal couldn’t
help but smile too, and pulled her closer.

Her parents
recuperated at Sal and Gemma’s home in Vegas, but was anxious to get back to
their own home in Indiana.
 
They left a
week ago.
 
Now it was just Sal and Gemma.
 
Just the two of them.
 
And they were loving it.

After the
movies, they left the theater for a slow ride in the country.
 
They were in Gemma’s Aston-Martin and Sal was
driving.
 
They were hand in hand.

He looked at
her.
 
“How did you like it?”

“It was
okay.”

“Yeah, it
was okay.
 
Unrealistic, but good.”

Gemma
smiled.
 
“What made you want to go to a
movie all of a sudden?”

“To try
something different,” he said.
 
“We work
all the time.
 
We need to play some.
 
I plan to prove to you, for the rest of my
life, how grateful I am to have you as my wife.”

Gemma’s
heart swelled.
 
She started to tell him
that he didn’t have to prove a thing, because she knew he was grateful.
  
But she didn’t go there.
 
Their marriage needed this shake up.
 
Sal had not been giving it his all, he wasn’t
in town enough to give it his all, but over the past few months he was
changing.
 
That was what she loved about
Sal.
 
Whenever he saw a problem, he fixed
it.
 
He didn’t complain or deny it. He
fixed it.
 
He was fixing their marriage.
  
She would be denying his effort if she
minimized their past issues.
 
“I’m very
blessed to have you as my husband,” she said instead, and looked at him.
 
“You’re a wonderful guy, Sal.
 
The best around.”

Sal leaned
over and kissed her as he squeezed her hand.
 
It was supposed to be a peck.
 
And
it was initially.
 
He had to keep his eyes
on the dark, quiet road.
 
But he felt
something powerful in that peck.
 
Something that made him want more.
 
He glanced at her again.
 
She was
feeling it too.

“I think we
ought to go home now,” he said, “or I won’t be able to make it.”

Gemma
glanced down at his bundle, saw that it was already expanding, and looked back
up at him.
 
“Sure you’re able to make it
now?” she asked with a smile.

As soon as
she asked it, Sal could feel his dick throb with a deep pulse.
 
“Fuck no,” he said, “but I’m not risking your
freedom.
 
I’m not letting some cop arrest
you for indecent exposure.
 
I’ll get
there.
 
It might be too late, but I’ll
get us there.”

He floored
it and got them there.
 
They made it
home.
 
But they couldn’t make it any
further than stepping in the front door, closing it, before Sal was all over
her.

He kissed
her as he undressed her.
 
She kissed him
as she undressed him.
 
And he had his
pre-cum dick in her wet pussy even as he carried her up the stairs.
 
He sucked her breasts as he carried her.
 
She ran her hands through his hair as she
felt the fullness of his cock puncturing her as he walked.
 
Sal had the biggest dick that had ever
entered her, and she couldn’t wait for every inch to massage her.
 
And the way he was sucking her.
 
She could hardly contain her lust.
 
By the time Sal was laying her across the bed
and getting on top of her, she was already feeling orgasmic.
 
She was already on the verge of a climax.

And when he
started fucking her; when he started putting it on her so hard that she was arching,
not just her back, but her ass too, she began having rolling orgasms.
 
One after the other.
 
Sal wouldn’t relent.
 
He wouldn’t let up.
 
He kept thrusting into her with deeper and
deeper thrusts, and moving his cock in directions that amazed her slender body.

Gemma legs
were wide open as Sal pounded her.
 
He
was in so deep that all that could be heard throughout their entire home was
the slapping sounds of his balls against her inner thighs.
 
And Gemma was loving every slap.
 
She was holding onto his tanned, sweaty back
as he fucked her long and hard.
 
Her eyes
were closed and her hips were raised as she couldn’t stop her body from having
orgasms even if she had wanted to.
 
Which
she did not.

Sal was
loving her too.
 
He was sitting on his
knees and holding onto her hips as he thrust his cock inside of her and fucked
her harder than he thought he had the energy to fuck.
 
He loved how Gemma felt.
 
He loved the way her pussy seemed to curl
around his rod and clamp down.
 
Moving
inside of her was like moving inside of a match box, and he loved every second
of her tightness.
 
No woman had ever
clamped down on him the way Gemma’s pussy did.
 
Women who made their living fucking had nothing on Gemma.
 
She would put every last one of those whores
to shame.
 
Gemma’s pussy was like the
gift that kept on giving for Sal.
 
It
always surprised him.

He was
overwhelmed with surprise tonight.
  
She
had clamped down on his cock and wouldn’t let it go.
 
Sal began to moan from the exhilaration of
the feeling.
 
She made him feel as if he
was cumming over and over and over, and he hadn’t even started yet.

He was
fucking hard just to move because of Gemma’s ability.
 
He knew it was fueled by love.
 
He’d never loved her more than he loved her
right now.
 
She could have left him.
 
She could have walked away from him so many
times that he could hardly believe she was still his woman.
 
And she was his.
 
Every inch of her belonged to him and him
alone.
 
And his heart could hardly
contain how wonderful that fact made him feel.

And he kept
fucking her hard.
 
So hard that when he
finally couldn’t hang a second longer and began to cum, it took his breath
away.
 
He was shuddering with delight as
he shot his wad into her.
 
He began to
have goosebumps it felt so good.

It felt so
good and was so exhilarating, that it drained every ounce of strength within
him.
 
He didn’t just lay beside her after
he had emptied himself into her.
 
He laid
down beside her and couldn’t move again.
 
And she laid there unmovable too.
 
Neither spoke.
 
They didn’t have
the juice.
 
It would be several minutes
before Sal could even pull her into his arms and hold her.
 
And he held her.
 
Until both had fallen asleep.

It would be
the middle of the night when Sal received a call from Reno.
 
The plane was ready, he said.
 
They found Fran.

When they
arrived in L.A., they only had an address.
 
But it was a long row of triple-deck apartments within the address.
 
Reno called his men, to find out which one it
was, but they were only given what he had: the address.

“It’s done
now,” Tommy said as he, Reno, and Sal got out of the rental car.
 
“I’ll take the bottom apartments.
 
You take the middle, and Sal you go
upstairs.
 
If she’s here we’ll find her,
or a neighbor will tell us which one.
 
But belly aching about it won’t solve anything.”

“Who’s belly
aching?” Reno asked.
 
“It’s just an
unwise way to find somebody. Somebody may call the cops.”

“And tell
them what?” Tommy asked.
 
“We’ll just
looking for her.”

Reno still
didn’t like it, but he knew they had no other choice.
 
So he took the middle apartments, Tommy took
the ground floor apartments, and Sal went upstairs.

They had no
luck.
 
It was early morning and nobody
was bothering to answer their doors, and when they did, they didn’t know who
they were talking about.
 
Fran who
, was the main refrain.

Until Sal
knocked on the ninth door on his row of apartments.
  
The door was quickly opened by Fran Gabrini,
as if she was expecting somebody, but as soon as she saw Sal, he knew he wasn’t
the one she was looking for.
 
She
immediately tried to close the door.

“I’ve got
her!” Sal yelled, but Reno nor Tommy heard him.

But he
didn’t have time to say more.
 
He was too
busy forcing the door open with his shoulder, causing the door to shove Fran
back into the apartment.
 
Fran ran out of
the living room toward the back room.
 
The bedroom.
 
Sal pulled out his
gun and ran behind her.
 
She tried to
close the door on him, but he pushed it open and pointed his gun to avoid
surprises.
 

He was
surprised.
 
Standing in that bedroom, as
if he had just been forced from bed, was a young man pointing his own gun
too.
 
He was pointing at Sal and Sal was
pointing at him.
 
But Sal was
stunned.
 
The young man was so familiar
that Sal immediately knew who he was.
 
He
was the spitting image of Sal’s deceased father.
 
A sadistic man if ever there was one.
 
But this young man was Sal’s.

Fran knew it
too.
 
She was on the floor from the force
of Sal’s entry, but she was full of venom.
 
“What are you going to do, Sal?
 
Shoot your own son?
 
That’s your
son.
 
You’re going to shoot him?”

She said it
as if she was telling Sal something he didn’t know.
 
She said it as if it was all a game and she
was enjoying playing it.
 
But Sal and the
young man in front of him failed to see the fun.
 
And they both continued to point.
 
Ready to kill each other.

“Tell him,
Junior,” Fran said to the boy.
 
“Tell him
that he’s your father.
 
Tell him that the
great Sal Gabrini is a deadbeat dad.
 
Tell him!”

But Sal knew
this was his son.
 
He knew this boy
standing in front of him was his flesh and blood, not only because of his
striking resemblance, but the feeling Sal suddenly had.
 
Nobody had to tell him shit.

In those few
seconds, as Sal stood there armed and ready, he knew he either had to kill this
kid, or let this kid kill him.
 
It was
kill or be killed.
 
He’d heard that motto
all his life.
 
But nobody ever told him
what to do when it was his son.