Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor (12 page)

When she lifted the scarf and looked,
she found a picture alright.
 
But to her
shock, it was a picture of
her
.
 
Grace could hardly believe her eyes.
  
She picked it up, and stared at it.
 
It was taken during their marriage.
 
She was standing in the backyard of this very
house in a pair of overalls and a big straw hat. She had a trowel in her hand,
smiling and waving at the camera.
 
She
remembered the picture.
 
She remembered
that Tommy took that picture.
 
She had
been planting a small flower garden out back and he walked up, with camera in
hand, and snapped that photo.
 
It was the
least glamorous picture she’d ever taken.
 
No makeup.
 
No fancy clothes.
 
Her hair was in a ponytail.
 
But it was the picture he kept.

Grace covered her mouth as tears of
sadness, of joy, and also of deep regret, appeared in her big, brown eyes.

But downstairs in his office, while
Tommy was fielding various business calls, he had to deal with regret of a
different kind.
 
A call came in from
Brandon Nash.
 
They had him, he told
Tommy.

“At the cabin?” Tommy asked.

“At the cabin.
 
Under our control.”

“Keep him there until I get there,”
Tommy ordered.
 
“I’m on my way.”

Inside the cabin, Branson ended the
call and looked at the two men with him.
 
“Boss is on his way,” he said.

They looked at Ed as if unbridled
fear would suddenly appear on his face.
 
And Ed played the part.
 
He showed
his concern when, in truth, he wasn’t concerned at all.
 
He was elated.
 
He was inwardly smiling on word that Tommy
was on his way.
 
Ed wasn’t a neurosurgeon
by accident.
 
He had a brain.
 
And he had already put that brain in action
as soon as he left Grace’s house.
 
When
the great Tommy Gabrini showed up on his turf, in his woods, he could spring
the very trap he had been planning and plotting and had already been set.
 
Then he would win Grace back.
 
And then all of that Gabrini fortune, thanks
to the late Tommy Gabrini, would be under his total control.

Tommy thought he was coming to do Ed
in.
 
But Ed had a different thought.
 
Tommy Gabrini, he thought with inward
delight, was coming into those woods to do himself in!

He stood beside the fireplace inside
the rustic cabin, leaned against the wall, and waited for the big man to show
up.
 
He purchased the place years before
he ever met Grace, and he made certain she would never know the place existed.
 
His plan was to hide out there.
 
He knew Tommy would want to try and rough him
up when he saw that bruise on Grace, but he also knew that Tommy was a busy
man, with a gorgeous women all over the place.
 
His ire would last just so long.

So Ed’s plan was to wait it out.
 
Hide out in these woods, and wait it
out.
 
It was working like a charm.
 
It had been two days since his fight with
Grace, and until this intrusion by his men, he hadn’t heard a peep out of
Tommy.
 
No phone calls, no requests to
meet up.
 
Nothing.
 
He hadn’t heard a peep out of Grace either, but
that was expected.
 
It was the first time
he had hit her.
 
It was going to take her
longer than a couple days to get over that degree of violence.

Not that her ass didn’t deserve to be
hit, Ed thought.
 
She did.
 
He wanted to lay her out a long time ago.
 
She didn’t listen to him.
 
She did everything her way as if she didn’t
trust his judgment.
 
She was a pain in
the ass.
 
But what he most feared about
touching Grace came true: he was now on Tommy’s enemy list.
 
His plan to rid the world of Tommy Gabrini
had to happen sooner rather than later.
 
He had to accelerate every plan, or, if he wasn’t careful, his larger
plan would go up in smoke.
 

That was why he came to the
woods.
 
Because he was smart.
 
Because he knew Tommy’s men would eventually
find him here, and Tommy would be right in the trap he wanted him in.

And when the Land Rover drove up, and
Tommy and his driver got out and walked inside, Ed knew he had to get this
right.
 
One bite at this apple, or it
could be the last bite of his existence.
 
He had to get this right!

Tommy had three men in the cabin, and
all three were fully armed.
 
His driver
remained outside.
 
And when Tommy walked
in, Ed began the show.

“Tommy, finally,” Ed said.
 
“Will you tell these men who I am?
 
They refuse to let me leave.
 
They’re holding me prisoner in my own home.”

Tommy didn’t respond to Ed.
 
He walked over to the fireplace, and stood on
the other side.

“Grace and I got into it,” he
said.
 
“If that’s what this is
about.
 
And yes it was a terrible
mistake.
 
It was the first time I ever
raised my hand to her, and I promise you it’ll be the last time.
 
That’s not who I am.
 
I would never hit a woman.
 
It was a fluke thing.
 
I snapped.”

“You snapped?” Tommy asked.

“That’s my diagnosis, yes,” Ed
said.
 
He didn’t give a shit if Tommy
believed him or not.
 
He was just playing
for time.
 
He was just getting Tommy, and
his men, in the right position.
 
“I
believe, in that one moment, I snapped.”

“You know what I believe?” Tommy
asked.
 
“I believe you’re full of
shit.
 
I believe you wanted to slap her
around for a long time.
 
But the image of
me slapping you around kept dancing in your head.
 
And you think, by telling me you snapped,
that’s going to save you?”

“I snapped!
 
What’s the big damn deal?”

“Did you snap when you murdered Mike
Dodson and Narly Fann?”

Ed was stunned.
 
How in the world could he have known about
that?
 
Nobody knew about that!
 
Did that mean he knew about his plans?
 
Did that mean he knew what he was planning to
do to him?

“Did you snap when those little old
wealthy ladies were suddenly dying on your operating table?
 
Are you going to snap, when I snap your ass
in two?”

Ed panicked.
 
There was no other word for it.
 
He knew he had to act now or he was doomed
forever.
 
And he moved quickly.
 
He reached on the side of the fireplace where
he stood, as he was standing in that particular spot for a reason, and pressed
the button.
 
As soon as he did, the guns
appeared on the back side of the cabin ceiling and began, according to his booby-trap,
to fire at will.

Ed himself ducked down beside the
fireplace, as the incoming had been directed to hit every spot but that one,
and he had rigged them successfully.
 
The
bullets were sailing.
 
The guns were
firing on every cylinder.
 
And Tommy and his
men didn’t stand a chance.
 
They weren’t
able to fire a single shot his way, or save their own lives, because of all the
incoming.

And when the firing stopped; when the
rigged guns stopped blanketing that room with rounds and rounds of spent
shells, Ed finally looked up.
 
He could
hear a pin drop because he knew everybody had to be dead.
 
They had to be!
 
Nobody could survive that much incoming.

But to his shock, Tommy and his men
were still standing.
 
All of them were
staring at him.
 
Ed’s heart dropped
through his shoe.
 
He couldn’t believe
it!
 
What in the world went wrong?

“Stand your ass up,” Tommy ordered.

Ed nervously stood up.
 
He looked at the casings.
 
They littered the room.
 
But when he saw what they were, he was
dumbstruck.
 
What the hell?
 
“Pellets?” he asked.

Branson Nash grinned.
 
“Not even that.
 
Fake-ass bullets.”

But Ed was lost.
 
“But how could . . . why did you think to do
something like that?”

“Because we have a boss who will
never come at you the way you think he’ll come at you,” Branson said
proudly.
 
“Our boss told us to sweep this
place when you left to be the good little doctor at your cute little medical
practice.
 
We did what we were told.
 
And we found your little secret stash of
trigger-happy guns.
 
You rigged those
weapons to harm us.
 
We rigged them not
to.”
 
Then he frowned.
 
“Who the fuck did you think you were dealing
with?
 
That’s Tommy Gabrini over there,
you idiot.
 
Backdoor Tommy.
 
You aren’t going to outsmart a man like
that!”

Ed looked at Tommy.
 
He’d heard how he was supposedly smarter than
the average thug.
 
But Ed just saw him as
a thug.
 
Some pigs were smarter than
other pigs too.
 
But that didn’t make
them smart.

“What is the smallest room in this
cabin?” Tommy asked Ed.

“The what?”

“You heard him,” Branson said.
 
“What’s the smallest room?”

Ed was completely thrown.
 
“The bathroom,” he finally said, as confused
as he was puzzled.

“Where?” Tommy asked.

“Back there,” Ed said, pointing.

“Lead the way.”

Ed didn’t know why Tommy would want
him to lead the way into the bathroom, but he did as he was told.
 
He walked, with Tommy and Branson following
him, to the bathroom off from the living area.

Ed walked into the small bathroom,
and Tommy followed him in.
 
Branson was
about to come too, but Tommy stopped him.
 
“Just us two,” he said.

Branson understood immediately.
 
“Sure thing, boss,” he said, and Tommy closed
the door. Then Tommy turned around, facing Ed, and leaned against the door.

“Backdoor Tommy?” Ed asked.
 
“That’s what they call you?”

Tommy continued to stare at Ed.
 
The room was really a powder room, with a
small toilet and small sink.
 
Ed and
Tommy were within five feet of each other.

“Is that what they call you?” Ed
asked again.
 
He needed to keep
talking.
 
He needed Tommy to understand
his humanity.
 
“Is that goon out there
correct and they actually call you Backdoor Tommy?”

“Want to know what else they call
me?”

Ed didn’t want to know.
 
He was certain whatever it was wouldn’t bode
well for him.
 
But the longer he kept
these fools talking, he felt, the longer he could stay alive.
 
“Yeah, matter of fact,” he said.
 
“What else do they call you?”

“The widow maker,” Tommy said, and
knocked Ed so hard across his jaw that he fell backwards into the toilet.

Without saying a word, and while Ed
was screaming for help, Tommy grabbed Ed out of that toilet by the catch of his
suit coat, pulled him back up, and then rammed him into the wall.
 
“You gave Grace a pretty good workover,” he
said.
 
They were so close there was no
daylight between them.
 
“You roughed her
up pretty bad.
 
Right in the
bathroom.
 
But I want you to do something
for me,” Tommy added.
 
“I want you to
rough me up.
 
I want you to work me
over.
 
I want you to do to me what you
did to Grace.”

Tommy didn’t look the same up close,
Ed thought.
 
Where was his charm?
 
Where was his easy manner?
 
This guy looked fearless.
 
This guy looked dangerous.
 
“Please, Tommy,” was all Ed could think to
say.
 
The pain of that one hit was
debilitating enough.
 
Ed could barely
stand.
 
“I just want to be left alone,”
Ed cried.

“Left alone?” Tommy asked.
 
“You want to be left alone?
 
I’m sure Grace wanted to be left alone
too.
 
I’m sure Narly and Mike wanted to
be left alone. I’m sure my men would not have wanted to walk into this rat hole
cabin and end up dead by some jimmy-rigged assault rifles!
 
But you didn’t leave them alone.
 
Now you want me to leave you alone?
 
You want me to do to you what you didn’t do
to them?
 
I’ll leave you alone, alright.”

Tommy pulled Ed away from that wall
with one hand and beat him down with the other hand.
  
“Come on, now,” Tommy yelled as he beat
him.
 
“Hit me back, motherfucker.
 
Hit me back!
 
You knocked the shit out of Grace.
 
Knock the shit out of me!
 
You’re
the one who wants me dead.
 
You’re the
one just booby-trapped this contraption of a cabin to murder me and my
men.
 
What’s a fist fight to you?
 
Come on, Edwin.
 
What’s a fist fight to you?”