Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor (8 page)

As the pain began to throb again, she
pushed herself from the door and headed toward the powder room.
 
But the house intercom began to buzz.
 
She walked further into the living room, to
the outer reach of the foyer, and pressed the button on the wall.
 
“I’m okay, Will,” she said.
 
It was her front gate security guard.

“I just saw Dr. Jefferson speed out
of here so fast he nearly hit the guard booth.
 
I wanted to make sure.”

“Thank you.
 
I’m fine.
 
But if Dr. Jefferson returns, do not let him through.
 
He is no longer welcomed on this property.”

The guard’s voice changed.
 
He understood the gravity now.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded.
 

Grace arrived at Trammel Trucking
through the garage entrance, and took the elevator to the top floor.
 
Her chief accountant, Barry Nagarta, was in
the outer office waiting for her.
 
He
stood from his chair when she walked in.

 
“Waiting long?” Her secretary handed her a
pile of messages, and she headed for her office.

“Not at all,” Barry responded as he
grabbed a file he had sitting on a side table and followed her into her office.
 
“I’d wait forevermore for you, Grace.”

Grace glanced back at Barry as she
made her way behind her desk.
 
He was an
average height, bulky man of Nigerian descent who had such an arresting
personality that he always put everybody at ease.
 
She smiled.
 
She admired him.

And as he followed her into her
office, he admired her too.
 
Especially
her superfine body.
 
Grace was the girl
next door to him.
 
She might not have
been the most beautiful shell on the beach, she didn’t have that drop dead
gorgeous exotic look he preferred in a woman, but she was the shell any man
would be proud to bring home to mama.
 
She wore a soft blue pencil skirt with a thick gold-trimmed belt that
highlighted her narrow waist, a matching V-neck blouse that highlighted her
sizeable breasts, and black heels highlighting a hint of gold through the
center of the shoe.
 
Her long hair
dropped along her back in a bouncy wave of thickness that framed her face with
elegance and youth, and the earrings she wore were brilliant Tiffany diamonds
that looped just below her lobe.

She also wore, for the second day in
a row, an oddity even Barry could no longer ignore.
 
“You look scrumptious by the by,” he said, as
she made her way behind her desk.
 
“But
sunglasses again?
 
If I was the kind of
guy who didn’t know how to mind his own business, I would say madam is trying
to hide something.
 
But since I know how
to mind my own business, I’m not saying a word.”

Good
, Grace
thought, as she sat her briefcase and purse on her desk.
 
Barry was a sweetheart, the best accountant
she’d ever had, but he was Tommy’s inside man and she knew it.
 
Tommy recommended him for hire, knowing that
he had such superior credentials that she would have been a fool not to hire
him.
 
And she hired him.
 
But she was nobody’s fool.
 
Tommy had pulled that trick before.
 
Even when they were married he would always
have one of his guys in place at Trammel to make sure she was okay.
 
When she confronted Barry about it, he
admitted he knew Tommy, and that Tommy wanted him in place to look out for her.

But in typical Barry fashion, he went
further.
 
“Tommy recommended me because I
am an excellent accountant,” he said.
 
“That much is true.
 
But what is
also true is that he wanted an expert such as myself to keep an eye on the
books, just to make sure these wonderful folks here at Trammel treat you right
and do not exercise any record-finagling.
 
I must be honest with you, I have never met a man who thought so highly
of his ex-wife.
 
I have two ex-wives
myself and I do not give a flying flip for either one of them.
 
But Tommy thinks the world of you.”

Grace smiled at the time, insisted it
was all because she was the mother of his daughter, but it gave her great
comfort too.
 
And Barry became, not only
Tommy’s inside man, but hers as well.
 
“Do
you have the end-of-months?” she asked him.

“Every last one of them,” Barry
responded, handing the file to her.
 
“As
I do each month, I compared my records with the records of the board of
directors’ accountants, and the records within our own accounting
department.
 
Except for minor
discrepancies that were more along the lines of accounting errors rather than
any blatant misdeeds, all checked out okay.”

“Initial impressions?” Grace asked as
she thumbed through the file.

“We’ll meet payroll again,” Barry
said, “but the margins are getting thinner and thinner.
 
And more vendors are dropping out.”

Grace looked at him.
  
“How many more?”

“Eleven this reporting period.”

“My
word
,” Grace said with a frown on her face.
 
“What are we doing wrong?”

“That’s the question I’m asking
myself.
 
But I cannot seem to find any
answers on our end.”

But Grace had an additional
thought.
 
Maybe they were asking the
wrong question, and therefore getting the wrong answer.
 
Maybe it wasn’t what they were doing wrong,
but who was wronging them?
 
Was there a
whisper campaign going on?
 
Was there
something brewing behind the scenes that she wasn’t privy to?
 
She looked at Barry.
 
“Get me a list of all of the vendors who have
refused to re-up with us.”

“For this past month?” Barry asked.

“When did our slide first begin?”
Grace asked.

“I would say four months ago.
 
It was subtle then.
 
One the first month, one the second, three
the third.
 
This is the first month where
it became tsunami-size.”
   

“Get me their names and numbers,”
Grace ordered, “for all four months.
 
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“But I thought it was the job of the
board of directors to contact vendors whenever we get a defection,” Barry
said.
 
“I thought they were the ones who
were supposed to look into it.”

“They are,” Grace responded.
 
“That is a part of the bylaws.
 
But I’m looking into it now.
 
Get me those names.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barry said.
 
Grace was not only an excellent CEO to him,
but she was an excellent African-American female CEO to him.
 
Nobody was going to do her in.
 
He was going to work overtime to help a woman
he considered to be his fellow traveler remain successful.
 
That, he felt, was the very reason Tommy
wanted him there in the first place.
 
He
hurried out of her office to get those names for her.

The plane touched down in Seattle by
midmorning, and Tommy Gabrini walked down the steps like a man contented.
 
Branson Nash, his security chief, was waiting
beside the limousine and was surprised that no hot supermodel was with his
boss.
 
Everybody knew, and Branson
especially knew, that Tommy Gabrini had a weakness for beautiful black
gals.
 
But he was alone this time.

Branson waved off the chauffeur when
he got out of the limo, and opened the back door himself.
 
Whereas Tommy’s hair was a light
blondish-brown, Branson’s hair was dark brown.
 
Whereas Tommy’s eyes had a greenish-blue hue, Branson’s eyes were all
blue.
 
But he and Tommy had a few traits
in common: they were both tall, muscular, and sexy.
 
At least in Branson’s humble opinion.

“Glad to be back, boss?” Branson
asked as Tommy approached.

“Depends on what you got for me,”
Tommy said.
 
He ducked down and got into
the limo.

“I’ve got plenty,” Branson said.
 
He closed the door, walked around to the
other side of the limo, and sat on the backseat beside Tommy.

Tommy, leaned and slouched in his
seat, looked at him.
 
“What did you find
out?”

“You were right,” Branson said.
 
“Dr. Edwin Jefferson is an asshole
extraordinaire.
 
We missed it the first
time, because he was especially careful then, but he’s getting desperate
now.
 
He’s clumsy now.”

“How so?”

“Buckle your seat, boss.
 
You aren’t gonna believe this.”

“Tell me,” Tommy said.

“I just found out today that Dr.
Jefferson hired two men to assassinate you,” Branson said, “but he ended up assassinating
them.”

Tommy was stunned.
 
But he didn’t sit up in his seat as most men
would have done, he just stared unblinkingly at Branson.
 
“He
what
?”

“At least that’s our conclusion.
 
Both men are missing now.”

“He hired them---”

“To take you out, yes, sir,” Branson
said.

Tommy was still reeling.
 
“Who were they?
 
Were they major players?”

“Hell no.
 
Crackerjack players.
 
Small time all the way.
 
They probably found out who the target was
and tried to back out.
 
No low liner is
going to try to take out Tommy Gabrini, come on.
 
At least not any that doesn’t have a death
wish.
 
And get this, boss: the good
doctor was going all over town trying to hire hitmen.
 
But he was out of his depth.
 
He kept going to conmen rather than hitmen and
they took him for a lot of dough.
 
Then
two bozos decided they would do it, and now they’re missing.
 
And now, ironically, so is Ed.
 
But we have teams of men out looking for the
sucker.”

Tommy pressed the intercom
button.
 
“Get me to Marimount,” he ordered
his driver.

“Right away, sir,” the driver
responded, and then began to drive away.

Tommy picked up his car phone and
phoned his daughter’s school.
 
“Did you
beef up?” he asked Branson as he did.

“As soon as the report came in
earlier today, I did.
 
We have extra
security at Destiny’s school, front and back, as we speak.”

“What about my wife?” Tommy asked,
and then quickly corrected himself.
 
“My
ex-wife?”

That slip wasn’t lost on
Branson.
 
“We have extra security at her
house and at Trammel too.”

Tommy nodded, as the secretary of the
private school came onto the line.
 
“Marimount Academy,” she said.
 
“May I help you?”

“Principal Blake, please,” Tommy
said.

“I’m afraid the principal is in a
meeting at the moment.
 
But I’ll be glad
to take a message.
 
May I ask who’s
calling?”

“Tommy Gabrini.”

“Oh.
 
Sir.
 
Yes, sir, Mr. Gabrini.
 
Ah, I think he may be . . . Just a moment,
sir, I’ll get the principal.”

Tommy was placed on Hold.
 
He looked at Branson.
 
“Is that all you came up with?”

“As if that’s not earth shattering in
and of itself, right?”
 
Branson
asked.
 
“But yeah, there’s more.
 
Is there.
 
Seems good old Eddie used to work out of hospitals in Detroit.
 
We checked it with our first background, but
everything checked out.
 
Glowing reviews
in his files from his supervising physicians. No known complaints.
 
Everything checked out.
 
Besides, the guy’s a surgeon.
 
Who would think to suspect anything less than
a stellar record, right?
 
Only it wasn’t
so stellar.
 
His family has clout in
Detroit, so it was all undercover, but our good doctor had patients dying left
and right on him.”

“Incompetency?”

“Hell no,” Branson said.
 
“We think murder.
 
We think good old Eddie has a bloodlust.
 
But not just anybody’s.
 
Wealthy women.
 
Three to be precise.
 
All patients of his.
 
Their families said he made attempts to get
them to be his women, or to give him power of attorney over their affairs.
 
When they refused, they suddenly ended up
dead on the operating table, or dead after some procedure the family didn’t
know they were having.
 
It was a really
clever cover up.
 
Nothing was said in the
papers.
 
The hospitals paid the victim’s
families hush money, they took the money, and Edwin Jefferson was led quietly
out of the backdoor to go do his dirt elsewhere.
 
Like here, in Seattle.”