Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards (8 page)

But he could
tell Gemma wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
 
Was he missing something?
 
“Are you saying you need to do the talking
as my lawyer
?” he asked.

“Not as your
lawyer, no,” Gemma responded.
 
“As your
wife.”

“No,” Sal said,
shaking his head.
 
“No way, Gem.
 
I’m not putting you through that.
 
I don’t like the idea of my wife speaking for
me.
 
What’s wrong with my mouth?
 
I can speak for myself.”

But Gemma
was thinking a different way.
 
“We need
the optics, Sal,” she said.
 
“I hate to
say it, but we do. This isn’t about the press or what they think about your
manhood.
 
This is about the company.
 
I need to reassure investors that, as a black
woman, I have total confidence in you, since the allegations are along those
lines.
 
And I need to be clear.
 
It could be a bloodbath on Wall Street if I
don’t be clear.
 
Our stock could be in
freefall and never recover.”

But Sal was
still against it.
 
“I don’t want you in
the hot seat,” he said.
 
“I don’t even
want them to bring up your name in this mess.
 
I need to take care of this myself.
 
I have to find a way to handle this myself.
 
It’s not true, they’re lying, that’s what I
have to tell the public.”

“You’re the
accused, Sal,” Gemma explained.
 
“They
expect you to deny it.
 
Your denials
aren’t going to reassure anybody.”

“But you can
reassure them?”

“Yes,” Gemma
said firmly.
 
“People know me here in
Vegas.
 
They know my reputation.
 
They know I’m not going to stand by some
hateful racist, they know I’ll never do that.
 
I’m the only one who can reassure them that you’re not the man those
accusers are making you out to be.”
 
Then
Gemma played hardball.
 
“I have to do it,
Sal. You may not like it, but I have to go on record defending your character
as vigorously as I possibly can.
 
We have
no choice.”

Sal still
didn’t like it, but he was nobody’s fool.
 
Gemma was right.
 
It wasn’t just
about him anymore, but about the business.
 
A business, at least half of it, that she was going to inherit when his
ass was dead and gone.
 
He exhaled.
 
And warned her.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 
“But if you play softball, if you try to give
any credence whatsoever to those allegations, those press guys will eat you
alive.”

Gemma almost
smiled.
 
“I can handle myself,” she
said.
 
“Trust me on that.”

And she
did.
 
At first.
 
She and Sal stood at the podium in the press
room on the fourth floor of the Gabrini Corporation, and she handled it just
fine.
 
The goal was to be extremely
brief, so that the headline couldn’t be misconstrued.

“My husband
is not a racist,” she said.
 
She hated to
even have to say it, but she also knew that sometimes the obvious had to be
said.
 
“Anyone who alleges he made racist
remarks or allowed racist behavior to permeate his workforce is a liar.
 
He does not run a racist corporation.
 
He is not a racist man.
 
We deny each and every allegation against
him, and we deny it in no uncertain terms.
 
We will fight these charges in a court of law and we will fight them
stringently.
 
There will be no
settlement.
 
No one will defame the
Gabrini name and expect to be paid off.
  
That is not going to happen.
 
Thank you.”

But if Gemma
thought she would give a statement and they could turn and leave, she was
mistaken.
 
The press pounced.

“How many
minorities are in senior management positions in this building, Mr. Gabrini?”

“Don’t
answer that,” Gemma whispered to her husband as she took him by the arm.

“How many?”
another reporter yelled.
 
“That question
goes to the heart of their allegations, Mr. Gabrini.
 
Why can’t you answer us?”

“Are you
going to let your wife lead you by the nose?” said a third reporter.
 
“I thought the Gabrinis were supposed to be
tough.”

Gemma knew
Sal wasn’t going to let that comment stand.
 
And he didn’t.
 
He broke away from
her grasp and went back to the podium.
 
She followed him.

“Trying to
question another man’s toughness is beneath even you,” Sal responded to the
hostile press.
 
“My toughness has nothing
to do with their lawsuit.
 
It’s all just
a money grab and you know it.
 
My wife
made it clear.
 
I did not discriminate
against anyone.
 
I did not make racist
jokes or allow managers to hang nooses.
 
I didn’t do any of that shit they claimed.”

The
reporters snickered at his use of language.

“If that’s
the case, Mr. Gabrini,” the third reporter asked, “then it should be easy for
you to answer our question.
 
How many
African Americans do you have working in this building in senior management
positions? Or in any management positions at all?”

“The Gabrini
Corporation’s home office,” Sal said, “has plenty of managers of the black
persuasion.”

“We didn’t
ask about the corporate office.
 
We asked
about the Vegas office, where the accusers allege the discrimination took
place.
 
How many black people are in
management positions in this office?”

Sal
hesitated.
 
Gemma looked at him.
 
Why didn’t he just answer the question?
 
If he didn’t know, why didn’t he just say
so?
 
Unless
,
she thought with alarm.
 
Then she quickly
leaned into him.
 
“Say you don’t know,”
she whispered.

“I don’t
know those stats,” Sal responded.
 
“You’ll have to take that up with HR.
 
I’m trying to run a company here, not bean count.”

Then he took
Gemma by the hand, and they walked out.
 
But the questions continued to be hurled.

While the
media was still being held in the pressroom, Sal’s car had been moved to the
back of the building, and Sal and Gemma were able to leave undetected.
 
During the presser, Gemma’s car had already
been driven to their home.
 
Now they were
on the way home too.

But the
silence wasn’t golden.
 
It was
tense.
 
Sal was uneasy, and Gemma was
concerned.
 
It had not gone the way she
had hoped.

“Motherfucking
press,” Sal said with anger in his voice.
 
He was driving, but not in his usually fast way.
 
He was almost lumbering along.
 
“They’ll sell their soul for a story.
 
They’ll sell their soul to try and tear
somebody down.”

But Gemma
wasn’t thinking about the press.
 
She was
thinking about the man she had married.
  
The man she loved with all her heart.
 
She looked at him.
 
“How many,
Sal?” she asked.

He knew what
she meant, and he wasn’t going to insult her intelligence by pretending he
didn’t.
 
He looked at her.
 
“In the corporation worldwide?
 
Or in the Vegas office?”

Gemma didn’t
respond to that.
 
He knew she meant the
Vegas office.
 
He and he alone ran the
Vegas office.

Sal
continued to drive.
 
Then he looked at
her again.
 
“I have plenty of minority
employees.”

“How many
managers?”

Sal looked
away again.
 
Then he looked at her
again.
 
“None,” he said.

Gemma’s
heart dropped.
 
She was floored.
 
“None, Sal?
 
You don’t have a single minority in not one management position?”

“What do you
want me to say?
 
I wasn’t looking to hire
this color or that color. I was looking to hire people.”

“Blonde,
blue-eyed people who also happened to be beautiful women?
 
Are those the people you looked to hire?”

“Don’t
cheapen me like that,” Sal shot back.
 
“You know that’s not true!
 
I
hired people who I knew through the years could make the Vegas office soar.
 
It’s still a new office.
 
Some people didn’t expect me to pull it off,
but I did.
 
And all of my managers are
men and most of them are Italians.
 
Because they’re the people I know.
 
They’re the people I work with.
 
They had the experience this office needed.
 
I tried to find minorities with that same
level of experience.
 
I looked, Gem.
 
I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

“Then you
should have looked harder,” Gemma said.
 
“Or asked me.
 
I know plenty of
African Americans who could have filled that bill.
 
I’m sorry, Sal, but I can’t give you a pass
on this.
 
If people like us don’t give
minorities a shot, they won’t get a shot.”

Sal ran his
hand across his face.

“Am I
wrong?” Gemma asked, although she knew the answer.

“No,” Sal
said.
 
“You aren’t wrong.”

“Then why
didn’t you promote any of those minorities you yourself said were exemplary
workers?”

Sal didn’t
know why.
 
It never even occurred to him
that he needed to pay attention to that.
 
He never had before.
 
But Gemma
was right.
 
He should have.

They
continued to drive in silence, as he had no good explanation for her.

They all sat
around in the family room: Reno and Trina on one sofa.
 
Sal and Gemma on the other sofa.
 
Sal, it seemed to all of them, looked
spooked.
 
Those allegations, and the way the
media was playing it up, were already taking their toll.

“How are we
going to handle this going forward, guys?” Trina asked.

“It’s the
media,” Gemma said.
 
“The media is going
nuts.”

“Tell me
about it,” Reno said.
 
“They’ve been
hanging around the PaLargio up my ass too.
 
It’s crazy.”

Reno and
Trina were on the board of the Gabrini Corporation, just as Sal and Tommy were
on the board of Reno’s company.
  
They
had every right to ask questions.
 
But
they were mainly there because Sal was family.
 

“They had
the nerve to ask me how many African Americans were in senior management
positions within my company,” Reno continued.

“What did
you tell them?” Gemma asked.

“I said none
of your damn business, that’s what I told them.”

Sal looked
at Reno.
 
“How many?” he asked.

Reno
frowned.
 
“How many what?”

“How many
blacks do you have in management?”

Reno didn’t
have to think about it.
 
“Dozens,” he
said.
 
“I can’t give you a number off the
top of my head.
 
But plenty.
 
Why?”

“Sal doesn’t
have any,” Trina said.

Sal, feeling
betrayed, looked at Gemma.

“I didn’t
tell her anything,” Gemma declared.

“Nobody had
to tell me,” Trina said.
 
“Your press
conference told me.
 
Your refusal to
answer the question told me.”

“None?” Reno
asked.
 
He was surprised.
 
“Damn, Sal.”

But Sal was
still riding the guilt.
 
“I didn’t think
about it, okay?”

“But that’s
the problem,” Reno said.
 
“Nobody thinks
about it.
 
Nobody wants to accept that
you have to give everybody a fair shot.
 
That’s why this whole fucking country is out of whack.”

Reno’s cell
phone rang.
 
“If we don’t pay attention,”
he added as he pulled out his phone and looked at his Caller ID, “who will?”

Gemma and
Sal looked at each other and smiled.
 
Reno was saying exactly what she had told him.

Reno
answered his phone.
 
“Yeah, Jim, what is
it?
 
Dominic misbehaving again?”
 
Reno’s oldest child, Jimmy, was babysitting
his kid brother and sister.

Gemma
interlocked her arm with Sal’s.
 
“You
okay?”

“I’m mad as
hell, but I’m good.”
 
He looked at
her.
 
“What about you?”

Gemma
nodded.

“What about
your managers, Sal?” Trina asked.
 
“Maybe
some of them were discriminating.”

“I’m
investigating it now,” Sal said.
 
“But so
far, nothing.
 
We haven’t turned up
anything.
 
Because it’s a con.
 
It’s a money grab just like I said.
 
They already lied when they injected my name
into it.
 
None of that shit about me is
true.
 
Tell racist jokes.
 
Giving promotions in exchange for sexual favors.
 
All lies.
 
So I know they’re liars.”

Trina
studied him.
 
“So you don’t cheat on
Gemma then?” she asked him.

Sal looked
at her.
 
He was stunned that she would
ask such a thing.
 
“No,” he said
defensively.
 
“Hell no!
 
I don’t cheat on my wife.”

But Gemma
could tell Trina, like almost all of their friends, had her doubts.
 
Mainly because Sal was out of town so much and
never discussed that part of his life.
 
But Gemma didn’t care what Trina or anybody else thought about Sal.
 
She believed him.

Reno ended
the call with his son.

“What did he
want?” Trina asked.
  
“Dommi’s acting up
again?”

“He said
there’s a video circulating on YouTube.”

Gemma and
Sal looked at each other, and then at Reno.
 
“Showing what?” Gemma asked.

“Showing
Sal, when he was a cop, telling some racist joke.”

Sal’s heart
fell through his shoe.
 
There was a time
in his past when he was that guy.
 
But he
was nothing like that anymore.

“What kind
of racist joke?” Trina asked.

Reno looked
at Sal.
 
“Want me to pull it up?” he
asked.

“No,” Gemma
said.
 
She already knew about his
past.
 
He confessed it to her.
 
She didn’t need to see any evidence of it.
 
“I’m sure it plays right into the hands of
his accusers.”

“Pull it
up,” Sal said.
 
He didn’t want Gemma to
see him at his worse, but if it was out there she needed to know what she was
up against.

Reno
followed the instructions Jimmy had given him and went to the YouTube video in
question.
 
Then he handed his phone to
Sal.

Trina went
and sat on the opposite side of Sal and the three of them watched the
video.
 
Reno didn’t bother to watch
it.
 
He grew up with Sal.
 
He knew how terrible he used to be.
 
But Gemma and Trina only heard the
stories.
 
Now they were about to witness
one.
 
They watched the video attentively.

Sal was in
what appeared to be a squad room, and was dressed in a policeman’s
uniform.
 
He was so young that it stunned
Gemma.
 
He looked to be in his early
twenties.
 
He was handsome even
then.
 
But the words coming out of his
mouth weren’t.

“Fucking
animal,” he said to his laughing colleagues.
 
“Wearing his pants all the way down his ass like some stupid idiot.
 
I wanted to pull them all the way down and
give him a swift kick.
 
So guess
what?
 
I did.”

His
colleagues laughed harder.

“He said he
was going to tell on me,” Sal continued.
 
“Said he was going to report me to IA.
 
I told him oh yeah?
 
You’re going
to tell?
 
Then I slammed his fucking head
into the fucking concrete.”

They laughed
even harder.

“‘Run and
tell that, motherfucker,’ I said.
 
He
shut his black ass up then.”
 

Then the
recording went dead.
 

For a
moment, everybody just sat there.
 
Reno
patted the top of his head, Trina leaned back, and Sal and Gemma didn’t do
anything.
 
They just sat there.
 
Until Reno’s cell phone rang again.
 
Sal handed it to Reno.
 
Reno looked at the Caller ID.

“Jimmy
again,” he said, and answered.

Sal looked
at Gemma.
 
He could see the pain in her
eyes.

Reno hung
up.

“What now?”
Trina asked him.

“Jimmy says
the video is on the news.
 
Local and
national.
 
Even CNN is showing it.
 
All a part of their racist cop theme.
 
Sal, they say, is a shining example of why
minorities have such negative views of cops.”

“That makes
no sense,” Trina said. “He’s not even a cop anymore.
 
He’s not like that anymore.”

“We know
that,” Reno said.
 
“But the world don’t
give a fuck.”

Then Reno
shook his head.
 
“The Gabrini stock is
going to be in freefall, folks,” he added.
 
“We might as well prepare for a bumpy ride.”

And just as
he made that proclamation, his phone, as well as Sal and Trina’s phones, began
ringing.
 
Nervous board members and
jittery investors no doubt.

Reno and
Trina stood up and answered their calls.
 
But Sal was looking at Gemma.
 
She
was the only one he was concerned about.
 
“I’m so sorry, babe,” he said with anguish in his eyes.
 
“I was the asshole of assholes.
 
Racist to the core.
 
I’m sorry I was that man back then, and I’m
sorry you had to see it.”

“It was a
jolting thing to see,” Gemma admitted.
 
“I don’t recognize that person.”

“But it was
me,” Sal said.
 
“I was that person.
 
I hate to admit it.
 
I would rather die than admit it.
 
But that prick you just saw was exactly who I
was.”

“And
somebody’s trying to take advantage of who you used to be,” Gemma said.
 
Then she thought about it.
 
“Maybe it was somebody in that squad room,”
she suggested.
 
“Who else would have this
recording?
 
And why was it being recorded
to begin with?”

Sal had no
answers to give her.
 
It was hard enough
just knowing she had to witness him at his lowest.
 
But she needed to see it.
 
She needed to know how the public would
perceive it because he knew it wasn’t going to be perceived as anything but
what it was: a racist cop on a racist rant about how he brutalized a minority
suspect.
 
Pure and simple.
 

But when
Gemma took his hand anyway, and whispered that she loved him despite his past,
he knew he was going to weather this storm too.

The next
evening and Blanche Delilah wrapped her shawl tighter around her slender frame
as she and Victor Grotski waited in a beat up sedan. “How much longer, Victor?”
she asked.
 
“This shit is boring.
 
I don’t want to spend my entire evening
sitting in this smelly car.
 
How much
longer?”

The car was
sitting idle in the parking lot across the street.
 
Victor had binoculars.
 
“As long as it takes,” he said, staring out
of those binoculars.
 
“That’s how much
longer.”

“That’s not
an answer.”

“Then shut
the hell up,” he said, and looked at her.
 
“You think I’m doing this for my health?
 
They tell me what to do.
 
I tell
you what to do.
 
That’s how it works.”

But Blanche
wasn’t interested in how it worked.
 
They
were across the street from Gemma Jones-Gabrini’s law firm, and had been
sitting for nearly three hours in that beat-up sedan.
 
Many people had come and gone, but their
target hadn’t even arrived.
 
The idea
that this would be as easy as Victor was making it out to be didn’t ring true
to her.
 
“If I’m going to do this,” she
said, “I want to be paid up front.”

“You get
paid when the job is done,” Victor declared.
 
“Who do you think you are?
 
These
people aren’t playing, Blanche.
 
They
expect results.
 
They expect you to get
this right.
 
They have this planned to
the last detail.”

Blanche
looked at Victor.
 
Her eyes were wide
with curiosity.
 
“Who are
they
?” she asked.
 
“And why can’t I meet them if I’m going to
put myself out like this?”

“You just do
your job.
 
Let me worry about the rest.”

“But you
know how Sal is, Victor.
 
He’ll kill me
if this doesn’t work.”

“Why
wouldn’t it work?
 
It’s the truth!
 
You were his kept woman and his wife didn’t
know.
 
It’s high time she found out.”

“But what if
she already knows and this is a waste of time?
 
What if Sal told her?”