Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) (14 page)

His parents, however, were a lot less
enthused.
 
Trina was driving, and yawning
as she drove, and Reno was slouched down in the passenger seat taking a
catnap.
 
Neither one of them had time to
be going to any bowling alley, but for Jimmy’s sake they agreed to go.
 

Once they arrived and picked their spot,
Reno and Trina sat side-by-side as they waited for Val to roll her ball.
 
Jimmy was seated beside Trina, waiting his
turn too, and the atmosphere in the bowling alley was a festive one.
 
The sounds of laughter, of balls knocking
down pins with ferocity, of fun and relaxation echoed into the rafters.
 
Reno looked particularly relaxed as he had
his hand behind Trina’s chair, his suit coat tossed across his own chair, and
one leg folded over the other one.
 
Trina, too, wearing rented bowling shoes with her dress, had her legs
folded also as she waited her turn.
 
It
was a good night, Reno was being surprisingly accommodating, and all was right
with the world.

“She’s so sweet, Jimmy,” Trina said, as
they watched Val.

“That she is,” Jimmy said.
 
“And smart.
 
Don’t forget her smarts.”

Reno clapped his hands, uncrossed his legs,
and leaned forward.
 
“Come on, Val,” he
shouted encouragement.
 
“You can do it!”

“You’ve got to give her time though,” Trina
said to Jimmy.

Jimmy looked at her.
 
“Time?”

“To get accustomed to people like us.
 
She’s lived a very sheltered life.
 
It’s going to take some time.”

Jimmy hesitated, but then asked it.
 
“Dad told you about the meeting with her
father?”

Trina looked at him as if she was surprised
he would ask such a thing.
 
“Of course he
told me.”

Val rolled the ball, but it veered
dramatically off course and landed in the gutter.
 

“Ah, man,” Reno said, leaning back. “That
was ugly.”

Val laughed.

“Did he tell you what he said?” Jimmy asked
Trina.

“He said he told the truth, and that you
couldn’t handle the truth.”

“I can handle it.”

“Good,” Trina said, “because lying to her
will only create problems for yourself later on.”
 
Then Trina looked at him.
 
“If you plan to have a
later on
with her.”

Jimmy looked at Val, who was preparing to
take her second turn since she knocked down zero pins her first turn.
 
“I’m not planning on it,” he said, “I’m
banking on it.”

 
Trina was pleased to hear Jimmy say that,
because she would love to have Val in the family, and then they both turned
their full attention back to Val.
 
She
tossed the ball, but once again it veered out of the lane and into the
gutter.
 
Zero pins knocked down.

“Okay, young lady,” Reno said, standing up
to give her some pointers.
 
“Something is
wrong here.
 
And it starts with your
form.
 
Nobody’s this bad.”

Jimmy stared at Reno as Reno took a ball
from the rack, stood behind Val, and placed the ball in Val’s hands.
 
“It’s all in your initial aim,” he said as he
demonstrated how she had to pick her target, but that her target should always
be the center pins.
 
But all Jimmy saw
was the closeness.
 
Reno looked as if he
was pressed against Val’s ass, and, lesson or no lesson, Jimmy didn’t like
it.
 
He glanced at Trina, who was sitting
there as if she didn’t give a flip, and Jimmy wondered how could she be so cool
about her husband’s behavior.
 
He looked
back at Reno just as Reno was assisting Val to toss the ball.
 
By necessity, he rammed into Val, causing Val
to laugh.
 
But it wasn’t funny to Jimmy,
even as the ball scored a Strike and knocked down every pin.

Reno and Val were celebrating and
high-fiving, Trina was smiling and standing to take a crack at it next, and
Jimmy was fuming.
 
As Reno began to head
back to his seat, he asked his father if he could see him outside.

“See me outside for what?” Reno asked.
 
Trina looked at her husband and stepson.

“We’ll talk about it outside,” Jimmy
replied.

Reno stared at him.
 
“If you have something to say to me you say
it right here and right now.”

It wasn’t Jimmy’s choice, but he wasn’t
backing down either.
 
“I don’t appreciate
you feeling up my girl.”

“Jimmy!”
 
Val was mortified.
 
She looked at
Reno.
 
This was going to set him off for
sure.

But Reno just stared at Jimmy.
 
They were standing toe to toe.
 
“Is that what I was doing?”

“That’s exactly what you were doing.
 
Ma may not mind your little stunts, but I
do.”

“My stunts?”

“Your stunts,” Jimmy said firmly.
 
“Just like you wouldn’t allow me to be all up
in your wife’s ass, I’m not about to stand up here and allow you to be all up
in my girl’s ass.”
 
Then Jimmy gave his
father his harshest look.
 
“Do we
understand each other?”

Reno stared at his son an agonizingly long
few seconds.
 
Then he nodded.
 
“Good,” he said.
 
“It’s about time you showed some signs.”

Jimmy frowned.
 
“Signs?
 
Signs of what?”

“Life.
 
Of a pulse, for starters.”

Jimmy was puzzled.
 
So was Val.
 
But Trina was smiling.

“What are you talking about?” Jimmy asked
his father.

“I’m talking about you.
 
I was wondering when you’d get off your ass
and show me something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you ever let a man do to your woman
what I just did to yours.
 
I was all but
fucking her before your very eyes and you were sitting right up here letting
me.
 
What’s wrong with you?”

Val and Jimmy both were floored.
 
Especially Jimmy, who didn’t realize he was doing
anything wrong.
 
“But I wasn’t . . . You
didn’t. . . .”

 
Reno
pressed his finger against Jimmy’s chest. “If she needs to learn something, you
teach her.
 
If she needs to be shown
something, you show her.
 
If she needs to
dance, you dance with her.
 
That’s the
Gabrini way, you hear me, James?
 
You
don’t sit back and take it, I don’t care who’s dishing it out.
 
I was robbing you blind, and you were letting
me.
 
Don’t you ever do that again.
 
Not any son of mine.
 
Not ever! The next time a man is all up in
your woman’s face, don’t you politely wait to say something.
 
You kick that fucker’s ass before he even
think about going that far.
 
You hear
me?”

Jimmy was floored.
 
His father was always changing the
rules.
 
“You mean the way I handled the
guy in the bar?”

“I didn’t say a word about nearly killing
anybody.
 
I said set them straight.
 
There’s a lot to be done between setting
somebody straight and sending somebody to the hospital.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said, although it was still
all the same to him.
 
When he lost his
temper, by the very nature of losing it, he was already out of control.
 
But he wasn’t about to get into it with his
father any further.
 
He let it go.

“And the same goes for you too, Val,” Trina
said to Valerie.
 
“The next time a man
presses an advantage on you, even if that man is my husband, you set him
straight right then and right there.
 
Don’t wait for Jimmy to defend your honor.
 
You defend it yourself.
 
You feel me?”

Val didn’t know what to say.
 
She knew Reno was being overly-helpful but she,
in truth, was appreciating the help.
 
She
didn’t know it was anything more than that.
 
But, according to Trina, she should have known.
 
And Trina was probably right, she
decided.
 
“I feel you,” she said.

Then she and Jimmy looked at each
other.
 
And they laughed.
 
They were so young, and thought they had it
so together, but now they knew better.
 
They had so much to learn.
 
So
much to learn!

Reno looked at Trina with nothing but
affection in his heart.
 
She impressed
him.
 
Not just because of her toughness
alone, but because she was the only human being alive who understood him
without question, and always seemed to understood the method behind his
madness.
 
To the world he was just some
immoral gangster running around kicking ass and taking names, but she knew
better.
 
She knew him.
 
“Go on babe,” he said, motioning for her to
take her turn.
 
“Show’em how it’s done.”

Trina smiled, aimed that ball, and threw a
Strike.

Reno threw his hands in the air in an
overwhelming elation that made it all worth it.
 
Trina,
his
woman, never let
him down.
 
She made it all worth it.

NINE

As the days came and went, Jimmy decided
that the time had come.
 
No more
delays.
 
It had already been a
year-and-a-half.
 
If they didn’t know
each other by now, the good, the bad, and the ugly, they never would.

He showed and dressed walked out of his
apartment inside the PaLargio ready to take the leap.
 
He made his way toward the elevators in long,
steady strides.
 
He was so nervous and so
excited that he could hardly contain his dueling emotions.
 
But he was ready too.
 
It was, in his mind, long overdue.
 
Val was the woman he wanted to spend the rest
of his life with, and he was determined to make it so.
 
Tonight was the night.
 

He was smartly dressed, in a black Armani
suit, a white shirt, black-and-white tie, and some imported shoes, Italian
leather, that his father had given to him.
 
He also sported a ring, in his breast pocket, a pocket he tapped as he
pressed the elevator button.
 
If she said
no, he would be devastated.
 
He would
never admit it to anyone, but he wanted Val more than he’d ever wanted a woman
before in his life.

The elevator doors finally parted and just
as he was about to step on, his father stepped off.
 
What was remarkable about his father’s
appearance wasn’t the fact that his suit looked pristine for a change and
wasn’t wrinkled from overwork, but that
he
looked pristine.
 
He looked refreshed
as if he’d just awaken and showered.
 
It
was times like these, when Reno wasn’t so drained-looking, that Jimmy realized
just how handsome his father really was.

“Just the man I want to see,” Reno said as
he stepped off of the elevator.
 
When
that happened, Jimmy allowed the doors to close and the elevator to leave
without him.

“Where have you been all day?” Jimmy asked,
staring at his father.

“I’ve been asleep.
 
My wife made me stay in bed.
 
She forced me to get some rest.
 
Can you believe it?”

“I can’t, but I’m glad she made you do
it.
 
You look great.”

“I feel great.
 
Better than I have in years.”

Jimmy smiled.
 
“You look better too.”

“Oh, yeah?
 
You don’t look so bad yourself,” Reno said, looking down at his son’s
attire.
 
“Very well put together.
 
You’re definitely ready for your big night.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe even a proposal?”

Jimmy looked mortified.
 
“I didn’t say anything about any proposal!”

Reno laughed.
 
“You didn’t have to, you twit!
 
You told Trina you were hoping to have the
night of your life.”

“So?”

“So what else could it be?”

Jimmy realized how transparent he always
was to his folks.
 
He could never get
anything over on them, especially when he could never seem to keep anything
from his stepmother, who told her husband EVERYTHING.
 
“Anyway,” he said, moving by his father and
pressing the elevator button again, “I’d better get going.”

“Here,” Reno said, tossing a pair of keys
to him.
 
“Take the Porsche.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened.
 
He couldn’t believe it.
 
He looked at the keys, and then his
father.
 
“You mean it?”

“Hell yeah I mean it!
 
If you’re going to do it, do it right.
 
Do it with style.”

Jimmy laughed and gave Reno a big,
enthusiastic hug.
 
So enthusiastic that
Reno nearly fell back when he hugged him.

“Thanks so much, Dad,” Jimmy said as he
stopped embracing him.
 
The elevator
doors began opening too.

“And Jim,” Reno said, just as Jimmy was stepping
on.

Jimmy placed his hands between the doors,
to stop them from closing.
 
“Yes, sir?”

“You put one scratch on that car, and your
ass is mine.”

Jimmy laughed.
 
“It already is, Dad,” he said, and allowed
the doors to close.

The doorbell started ringing once again by
the time Val made it downstairs.
 
“Coming!
 
I’m coming!”
 

She hurried into the foyer and swung open
her front door.
 
“You are so early,” she
said to whom she thought would be Jimmy.
 

But just as she said it, she realized that
there were two men standing on the other side of her front door, and neither
one of them was Jimmy.
 
And she also
realized, by the look in their menacing eyes, that she’d better close that door
right back.
 

She hurried to do just that, determined to
lock them out, but they just as quickly forced it back opened, knocking her
down by their brute force alone, and entered her home.
 
They slammed the door shut.

Val didn’t waste time.
 
It was a matter of life or death, she knew it
instinctively.
 
These men didn’t come for
anything less.
 
She jumped up and began
running, heading for the back door, fighting to get away from them.
 
But she was no match for either man.
 
They tackled her, knocking her, a vase, and a
chair to the floor.
 
She kept clawing,
trying to get away, but they grabbed her by the legs and pulled her back.
 
The last thing she saw, as one of the men
then straddled her, was a fist, a big, white fist, coming straight toward her
terror-stricken eyes.

Reno, in his vast casino, sat on a stool at
one of the dollar slot machines.
 
He was
leaned back, his arms folded, his body turned away from the machine.
 
He was, instead, laughing and talking with
two of his customers- an older couple from Maine, and a younger couple from
Hawaii.

“But she was right,” the older male
stated.
 
“It’s time to live a little.”

“Damn straight,” Reno echoed.
 
“You paid your dues.”

“We’re retired now.
 
We paid our dues, that’s right.
 
It’s high time we get out and see the
world.
 
So that’s why we came to Vegas.”

“Are you glad you did?” Reno asked him.

The man was thoughtful.
 
“It’s a very fast place,” he said.
 
“I’ll be honest with you.
 
A lot of chicanery going on around here.”
Reno laughed.
 
“So this may not be the
best spot for us overall.
 
But I’m glad
we got to try it out; to see what the fuss was all about.”

Reno looked at the younger couple.
 
The female, dressed in a halter top to
accentuate her massive boobs, couldn’t stop smiling, while her young man looked
more uptight than happy.
 
With a dame
that looked like her, Reno understood why.
 
“What about you guys?
 
Glad you
came too?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” the girl eagerly
responded.
 
“We love everything about it
here.”

“Well good.
 
Glad to hear that.”
 
Reno saw
Jimmy enter the casino out of the corner of his eye.
 
Jimmy looked around, saw his father, and
hurried in that direction.
 
“We try our
best to give all our patrons the time of their lives.
 
We have it all here, you know.
 
Not just the gambling.”

“Oh, we know.
 
We went to one of the shows last night.”

“Oh, yeah?
 
Which show?”

“The fire eating show,” the girl said and
giggled.
 
“It was scary.”

“Dad,” Jimmy said as soon as he arrived.

Reno could see the anxiety in his son’s
eyes.
 
He looked at his guests.
 
“Don’t let me keep you.
 
Continue to enjoy yourselves.
 
Anybody gives you any problems, come find
me.”

“Thanks so much, Mr. Gabrini,” the girl
said, and the couples said their goodbyes and left.
 

Reno looked back at Jimmy.
 
“What’s the matter?”

“It’s Val.”

“Yeah?”

“I went to her house because this was going
to be our big night.”

“Right.”

“But she wasn’t there.
 
She never answered her door.”

“Maybe she went off someplace.”

“But her car was in her driveway, and she
wouldn’t answer her cell phone either.”

“Did you call her old man?”

“I called him, I called Ezra and Brandy and
all of her friends, I called everybody.
 
But nobody’s seen or heard from her.”

Now Reno was concerned too.
 
“What about inside the house?
 
Saw anything out of the ordinary?”

“I didn’t go inside.
 
I don’t have a key.”

Reno frowned.
 
“Who’s talking about a key?
 
You didn’t figure out a way to get your ass
inside that house and see what was going on?”

Jimmy felt flustered and inadequate.
 
“No,” he admitted.
 
“I thought that maybe she knew what was
coming tonight, the proposal I mean, and didn’t want to deal with it.
 
She didn’t want to tell me no to my
face.
 
So I left.
 
But after I started calling around looking
for her, and nobody heard from her, I got more concerned.
 
And came here.
 
To you.”

Reno nodded.
 
Jimmy was still so young.
 
“You did right, son,” he reassured him as he
stood up.
 
Then he began heading for the
exit.
 
Jimmy didn’t know where he was
going, or what the plan was, but he followed him anyway.

 
The
Porsche drove onto the driveway of Val’s home and Reno, on the passenger side,
and Jimmy, the driver, got out and headed for the front door.
 
Jimmy had been calling the house phone and
Val’s cell phone the entire drive over, but with no response.
 
And now Reno was pulling out some crowbar
looking pop-a-lock gizmo that caused Jimmy to feel like the lookout.
 
They knew her, and she was his lady, but that
didn’t change the fact that they were breaking into her home.
 
A major felony in every jurisdiction.
 
But Jimmy was so concerned about Val that, at
this point, he didn’t even care about the risk.

After a lot of finagling, the door finally
popped open.
 
And Reno and Jimmy went
into.

As soon as Reno saw the state of the house,
he pulled out his gun.

“What is it?” Jimmy asked, moving around
his father to see for himself.
 
That was when
he saw the disarray.
 
His heart
dropped.
 
Something had happened
here.
 
Something horrific.

“Val?” Jimmy yelled, panic already in his
voice.
 
“Val!”

Reno pulled out a second firearm, and
handed it to Jimmy.
 
He motioned for
Jimmy to search the dining room and kitchen areas while Reno searched the
downstairs bedroom.
 
Neither found
anything.

So they went upstairs.

Jimmy led the way, as he hurried into her
bedroom and Reno checked the other bedroom.
 
Nothing.
 
No sign of any
struggle.
 
No sign of anything out of
order.
 
Reno then joined Jimmy in her
bedroom, where Jimmy was checking her closet.
 

“She’s not here,” Reno said, looking out of
the window, “but something definitely happened to her.”

“But what?” Jimmy asked, stumped.

“Hell if I know,” Reno said.
 
“There appears to be,” he said, but then he
frowned.
 
Then he moved away from the
window.

“What?” Jimmy asked.

Reno began hurrying out of the bedroom.

“What is it?” Jimmy asked, hurrying behind
him.

When they made it downstairs, Reno turned
to Jimmy.
 
“Give me a couple minutes,
then I want you to go out of the front door, leave the front door open, and
turn back toward the house as if you’re talking to me.”