TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART (24 page)

And
as soon as those words came out of Tommy’s mouth, his father grabbed him by the
catch of his collar and slung him all the way across the room until Tommy’s
back was against the wall.
 
Sal and Grace
hurried to Tommy’s aid, but he didn’t need the help.
 
He summoned every ounce of strength he had and
grabbed his father and slung him until it was his father’s back that was
against the wall.
 
And Tommy didn’t stop
there.
 
He pulled out his gun, and
pointed it at his father’s head.

“Oh,
Jesus,” Grace said nervously, her heart pounding a mile a minute.
 
But even she wasn’t nearly as distressed as
Sal.

“Tommy,
no,” he said as soon as he saw the gun.
 
“You can’t do this, Tommy, you can’t do this.”

“I’ve
got to kill this motherfucker!” Tommy yelled.
 
“I’ve got to blow this fucker’s brains out!”

“Tommy,
please!” Sal said, dropping to his knees.
 
“You can’t do it.
 
He’s our
father, Tommy!”

“No,
Sal.
 
Fathers don’t do what he did to
me.
 
Fathers love their sons and care for
their sons and teach them how to be men, not whores!
 
They teach them the right way. Not like
this.”

But
Sal couldn’t give up.
 
“He’ll win if you
do it, Tommy.
 
He’ll win and we’ll
lose!
 
Don’t do it.
 
Don’t take the blood off of his hands and put
it on yours!”

Tears
were in Tommy’s eyes.
  
He stared at the
man he used to love so completely, and then hated with a bitter hate.
 
He used to idolize this man.
 
He used to be so afraid of this man.
 
He used to throw up at the sight of this
man.
 
But now he didn’t see the
reverence.
 
He didn’t feel any fear.
 
Now this big man looked so small, and so old,
and so insignificant.
 
Sal was right. He
wasn’t worth it.
 

Tommy
was about to drop his gun to his side and end this craziness.
 
But his father had the nerve to smile.

“I
knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” Benny said.
 
And as soon as he said it, Tommy slung his gun back into Benny’s face
and was just about to pull the trigger once and for all.
 
But Grace nearly ran over Sal getting to
Tommy’s side.

“What
about me?” she asked him with pure desperation in her voice.
 
She knew she had to go there.
 
She knew she had to make him see that it
wasn’t hopeless, and that there was a life for him away from the hell his
father was trying to put him in.
 
“What
about me, Tommy?”

And
it was only then, when Tommy heard Grace’s voice, was
 
he able to see through the fire, and see his
heart.
 
He saw Grace.

“You
can’t do this thing,” she said to him.
 
“You can’t kill your father.
 
I’m
sorry, Tommy, but you can’t have that over your head.
 
I won’t let you.
 
Put it down, Tommy.
 
You’ve got to put it down.”

Tommy
stared at Grace, as tears poured from their eyes.

“He’s
an awful man, baby,” she said.
 
“And he
deserves to die.
 
But not by you.
 
He’s destroyed you enough, Tommy.
 
Staying away from him, letting him die a
bitter, lonely old man is the best thing you can do.
 
Let him live knowing that he didn’t break
you.
 
Let him live knowing that, despite
him, you’re the better man.
 
Put it down,
Tommy.
 
Put it down.”

Tommy
had the look that survivors of unspeakable horrors had.
 
His brilliant eyes were dull and drained of
all spark.
 
He looked ghostly.
 
Already just being in a room with his
so-called father, he realized, had sucked the life out of him.
 
He looked at Grace.
 
He looked at the love of his life.
 
And she couldn’t have been more right.
 
All of this hate did nothing to his father,
but it was already eating away at him.

He
removed his gun from his father’s head and pushed him away from him.
 
His father leaned over, with his hands on his
knees, as if he knew he had literally dodged a bullet.

Grace
ran to Tommy and fell in his arms.
 
She
knew there was pain in his past, but she never dreamed it would go this
deep.
  
She squeezed him as tight as she
could squeeze him, as she held him.

Sal felt
as if a load had been lifted, too, when Tommy removed that gun.
 
He placed his hands on top of his head and
exhaled, as he was able to breathe again.
 
He was still on his knees, he was still reeling from what he had heard
from his brother’s mouth, when he heard his father’s voice.
 
Only it sounded deeper than it had ever
sounded before, as if it was no longer pretending to be human.
 
It was no longer pretending.

“
I’M
SENDING YOU TO HELL, TOMMY
!” his father blared, and when Sal looked up he
saw that his father had both hands on the gun that, as a cop, he always had on
his person.
 

“Nooo!”
Sal screamed, just as Tommy and Grace were turning to the sound of Benny’s
voice.
 
And Sal pulled out his own weapon
that he, too, always had on his person, and fired.
 
He fired directly at his father just as his
father was firing at Tommy.
 

Benny’s
shot went array, because Sal’s shot was dead on.
 
He shot his father and caused him to
misfire.
 
He shot his father straight
through the heart.

Grace’s
own heart fell through her shoe when she realized what Sal had done.
 
At first she was relieved that he had done
it.
 
He had saved Tommy’s life.
 
But then she was pained that it had to be
Sal.
 
Always misunderstood, lovable
Sal.
 
He saved Tommy’s life, that was for
sure, but at what cost to his own?

Tommy
knew it too.
 
He looked from their
father’s lifeless body, to Sal.
 
All of
their lives Tommy had protected Sal.
 
He
made sure he was never alone with his father.
 
He made sure he was never mistreated by anyone.
 
All of their lives Tommy had come to Sal’s
rescue.
 
But now Sal, when he needed it
most, had come to his.

Grace
released him, and he walked over to his brother.

Sal
was still on his knees, his gun still smoking, as he watched the man who used
to be his father lay out as if he was merely asleep.
 
Sal used to dream about his father all the
time.
 
He used to dream about his father
smiling whenever he walked into a room, or telling him how much he loved him
just because he was Sal.
 
He used to hope
that one day it could still come true.
 
Even as a grown man, he used to hold out hope.
 
Now that was gone.
 

But
after what that man had done to Tommy, Sal knew it had to be.
 
His heart was heavy, and a part of him was
steeped in devastation, but a bigger part of him felt honored to know the
truth.
 
He felt honored to know that he
was hated and reviled by a man like him; by that monster that used to be his
father.

Tommy
knelt down to his baby brother, and pulled him into his arms.

EPILOGUE

“Ready?”
Reno asked Grace.

Grace
gave a big exhale, and then nodded her head.
 
“Ready,” she said.

Reno
then nodded to the wedding planner, who nodded to the organist, and the
procession began.

Dom, dom, da dom,
the music echoed in the beautiful
event hall inside the PaLargio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
 
Reno owned the place and was very proud of
his establishment.
 
But he could not have
been more prouder now, walking Grace McKinsey down the aisle, as they made
their way toward his cousin and best friend Tommy.

Tommy
looked at Grace as the audience looked at her, and she could not have looked
more radiant.
 
Her bridal gown, a
tailor-made, trumpet-styled dress imported from Paris, moved in sweeps of lace
as if it were a work of art in and of itself.
 
Sal stood beside Tommy, always his best man, as he admired, not just the
dress, but the woman who wore it.
 
It
felt like a crowning achievement to him.
 
It felt as if they were closing one chapter of their lives, where they
never quite got it right, and was opening a new chapter.

Sal
looked at his big brother.
 
Everybody
looked at Dapper Tom and always saw beauty.
 
But they never saw what that beauty had cost him.
 
They never saw his sleepless nights, or his
fears, or his pain.
 
He protected Sal
from abuse as if it was his life’s calling.
 
He kept him so close to him that it used to anger their father.
 
And they all thought it was Sal who had
suffered.
 
They all thought it was Sal
who had suffered the most at the hands of Benny Gabrini.
 
But he knew better.
 
That was why this day was so joyous to
Sal.
 
That was why he was grinning from
ear to ear even as he stood beside his brother.
 
This was their new start.
 
This
was when his brother was going to make a family for himself, against the
odds.
 
And since Sal was a betting man,
he thought happily, he was betting on Tommy.

Grace
was betting on Tommy too.
 
After that
night in Benny Gabrini’s living room, she wondered if they would make it.
 
There seemed to be so many forces against
them.
 
But they held on, and now they were
here.
 
At what Reno called a family
affair.
 
Reno’s wife, Trina, was
there.
 
As the Maid of Honor, she walked
in front of them.
 
Gemma Jones, the woman
Sal was dating, walked in front too, with the bridesmaids.
 
Tommy’s groomsmen included Grace’s close
friend Jamie, and Reno’s oldest son Jimmy Mack.
 
They were already on the stage.
 
Even Grace’s mother showed up, although their relationship was still a
work in progress, and her step siblings came too.
 
But when she looked around the room she
didn’t see the who’s who in the wedding party, or the audience, nor did she see
the opulence of the room itself.
 
She saw
Tommy.

He
stood on that stage in his sky-blue tux, looking so nervous, she thought with a
smile, that he looked constipated.
 
She
knew what this day meant to him.
 
It
broke her heart when he came to her dressing room before the ceremony, to make
sure, he said, that she hadn’t changed her mind and left him.
 
Left
him
?
 
It would be like leaving her
heart, if she left Tommy.

And
when Reno finally handed her to Tommy, and she was standing beside him, the
thought of not having him in her life was crystallized even more.
 
She loved Tommy Gabrini.
 
She thanked God for bringing a man like him
into her life.

Tommy
looked at her with tears of joy in his eyes.
 
And it had all crystallized for him too.
 
He knew why he chose Grace.
 
He
knew it as if he had known it all along.
 
It was a heart thing.
 
Their
hearts matched.
 

And
as the minister began the ceremony, and Tommy stood up there surrounded by
Reno, Trina, and Jimmy Mack, and Sal and Gemma Jones, he knew they all were
going to be just fine.
 
With love like
this, it would take a concerted effort, a monumental blunder, for them not to
be.

“I
do,” he finally said when the minister asked him if he would take Grace
McKinsey to be
 
his lawfully wedded
wife.
 

“I
do,” she said it too.
 

And
as the minister was still pronouncing them man and wife, Tommy was lifting
Grace high up in the air, as if she was this magnificent prize he had won, and
he was gloating like a kid.
 

Even
strong Reno clapped and laughed and wiped tears from his eyes.
 
He looked at Trina, who was laughing and
wiping too.
 

They’d
never seen Dapper Tom, not ever, look more dapper in all his life.