Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) (16 page)

Jimmy and Trina looked at Reno.
 
But Reno’s eyes didn’t leave Fred’s.
 
He didn’t like murkiness.
 
Fred was talking in blurred lines.
 
He needed more info.
 
“What kind of debts do you owe?”

“Debts.
 
Money.
 
What other kind is there?”

“Who are these guys?” Jimmy asked
Fred.
 
“Give us some names.”

But Reno had to know the extent of the debt
first, because that would tell him how far they were willing to go to get
repaid.
 
“You owe them money for what?”
Reno asked.

And that was the kicker.
 
Reno could see the anguish suddenly appear in
Fred’s eyes.
 

“What?” Reno asked again.

Fred exhaled and ran his hands across his
face.
 
But he still wouldn’t answer.

“What is it, Dad?
 
Is it gambling?”

But Fred didn’t respond to that
either.
 
And Reno knew why.
 

“Not gambling,” Reno said, staring at
Fred.
 
“It’s drugs.”

Jimmy couldn’t believe it.
 
Trina either.
 
She didn’t know a lot about Fred Ridgeway, but she knew he used to be a
cop.
 

“Drugs?” Jimmy asked.

Fred was resigned to the truth now.
 
“I needed the money,” he said.
 
“I married a woman with refined taste, and I
needed the cash.
 
Big cash.”

“So you became a dealer?” Reno asked.

“Are you hearing me?
 
I had no choice.”

Jimmy frowned.
 
“What do you mean you had no choice?
 
So you’re telling us that drug dealers took
Val?”
 
If that was true, it was worse
than Jimmy could have imagined.

Fred nodded, pain appearing in his
eyes.
 
“It wasn’t supposed to go down
like that.
 
I was just going to do it for
a year or so, to take care of my lady, but it all went sideways on me.”

“Yeah, real sideways,” Jimmy said.
 
“Why the fuck didn’t they take your
woman?
 
Why would they have to take
mine?”

“Because you have a father,” Trina said,
“who can pay what they’re asking.”

Jimmy looked at Fred.
 
“What are they asking?”

Fred exhaled.
 
“A million bucks.”

“A million dollars?”
 
Jimmy was floored.
 
“You owe them a million dollars?”

“Of course not,” Reno said, and then looked
at Fred.
 
“More like what?
 
Fifty K? Not even that much?”

“Not even,” Fred admitted.

“Then why would they want so much in
return,” Jimmy asked, “if you don’t owe that much?”

“Because they’re crooks, Jimmy,” Trina
answered him.
 
“They’re opportunistic
crooks.
 
They take whatever they can
get.
 
They see this as their big payday.”

Now Reno was ready to know.
 
“Who are they?”

“The guy I was working for was named
Crib.
 
He works out of Lincoln.”

“Nebraska?”

“Yeah,” Fred said.
 
“But he answers to a guy here in Vegas, named
Minnelli.
 
That’s who ordered me to come
here”

But Reno was already stunned.
 
“Minnelli?”

“Yeah,” Fred said.
 
“Nicky Minnelli.”

Reno’s heart slammed against his
chest.
 
And he immediately pulled out his
weapon, undercut Fred’s legs from beneath him, and dropped Fred to the floor.

Jimmy and Trina both were astounded.
 
“Pop, what are you doing?” Jimmy asked,
confused.

But Reno wasn’t listening.
 
He placed his gun to Fred’s temple.
 
“Don’t you dare lie to me,” he said.

“Why would I lie?” Fred asked.
 
“That’s his name.”

“Nicky Minnelli?”

“Nicky Minnelli!
 
That’s the guy’s name. I never seen him before
in my life.
 
It’s just a name.
 
Damn.”

“Dad, what is it?” Jimmy asked.
 
“What’s the matter?”

But Reno was still too stunned.
 
All sorts of possibilities were running
through his head, and none of them made sense.

But his lack of response only made Jimmy
more concerned.
 
“Pop?”

Reno released Fred and stood up.
 
Jimmy helped his stepfather to his feet.

Reno shook his head.
 
“It can’t be,” he was saying, but he was looking
otherworldly, as if he was alone in the room.

“What can’t be?” Trina asked him.
 
“Who’s Nicky Minnelli?”

Reno exhaled.
 
“He’s,” Reno started, but it was still too
shocking to him.
 
“He’s one of my
partners.”

Trina frowned.
 
“Your partner?
 
One of your business partners?”

“Yeah.
 
We own some properties together.”

Trina knew Reno had a lot of business
dealings that went far beyond the PaLargio, and she knew she wasn’t privy to a
lot of them.
 
She looked at Fred.
 
But Fred couldn’t back down.
 
“I’m sorry, but that’s the name I heard.
 
Nicky Minnelli.
 
He’s well known in drug circles
apparently.
 
He’s supposed to be the big
man behind the cash flow.
 
But who
knows?
 
Maybe it’s not the same guy.”

Trina frowned.
 
“With a name like that?”

Fred knew he was out in left field.
 
“I’m just trying to be helpful,” he said.

Then Jimmy’s cell phone began to ring.

“Put it on Speaker,” Trina said as Jimmy
immediately answered.

“Yes?”

“Jimmy Gabrini?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“I believe we have a lady you’re looking
for.”

Jimmy’s heart pounded.
 
Reno moved next to him.
 

“Where is she?” Jimmy asked.

“Downstairs,” the caller said.
 
“Waiting on you,” the caller added, and then
killed the call.

Reno immediately ran to his office.
 
Jimmy, Trina, and Fred ran behind him as he
pressed a button on his desk and the sidewall opened, revealing over fifty
closed-circuit video monitors, all displaying the lobby and casino
downstairs.
 
He immediately began
searching for any sign of Val.

“Why would they turn her over without
payment?” Fred was asking.
 
“This doesn’t
make sense, Reno.”

But Jimmy couldn’t wait.
 
“I’ve got to go and get her,” he said, and
moved to leave.

But Reno reached out and grabbed him,
stopping his getaway.
 
“It might be a
trap.
 
You aren’t going down there yet.”

But Jimmy broke free from his father and
took off anyway.
 
“
Got
dammit!” Reno yelled, although he knew he would have done the
same thing, and then he hurried after his son.
 
“Be careful, Reno!” Trina said, and Reno doubled back, hugged her
tightly, and then took off.
 
“Keep
looking, Tree!
 
Call me if you see her!”

When Reno stepped out of the door, hurrying
behind Jimmy, his men on guard immediately stood at attention.
 
Emmett, the station leader, stepped up.
 
“What’s wrong, boss?”

“They claim she’s downstairs,” Reno said,
and the men were about to follow him and Jimmy.
 
But Reno thought again and stopped them. “No,” he said.
 
“Remain right here.
 
Remain at your station.”

“Yes, sir,” Emmett said, and Reno and Jimmy
took off.

Inside the penthouse, Trina and Fred remained
at their stations too, staring at the monitors.
 
But Fred was puzzled.

“I still don’t get it,” he said as he
looked at the various monitors.
 
“Why
would they release her without getting paid first?
 
That’s what all this shit was supposed to be
about.
 
They threatened to kill me and my
whole family if I didn’t get that money.”
 
He started shaking his head.
 
“Something’s wrong, Mrs. Gabrini.
 
I used to be a cop, and this ain’t smelling right.
 
Something’s wrong.”

“Then don’t look for Val,” she said, “since
you probably don’t know what she looks like anyway.”

Fred looked at her.
 
“Then what am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Look for trouble,” Trina said.
 
“Let me know if you see any kind of trouble.”

Reno and Jimmy made it downstairs and found
themselves in the midst of a massive crush of people.
 
From the hotel lobby all the way inside the
casino, there were almost wall-to-wall people.
 
Jimmy wanted them to split up, with one walking through the lobby and
the other one handling the casino, but Reno refused to allow it.
 
Nobody was ambushing his son, not in this
crowd, not anywhere, and he stuck to Jimmy like white-on-rice.
 
His gun was inside his coat pocket, his hand
was resting on the trigger.
 
One false
move toward his son from any asshole alive, and he was firing.

And they walked.
 
But no Val.
 
They turned around and walked and walked.
 
But still no Val.
 
It made no sense to Reno anyway, that they
would release her without payment, but Jimmy was so consumed with desperate
hope that they continued walking around anyway.
 

Upstairs, Trina could see her husband and
stepson on the monitors.
 
Her job, she
felt, was to look beyond them and around them to make sure nobody was making
any false moves toward them.
 

Fred was looking too, seemingly as hard as
Trina was, but he was also looking at her.
 
When he was certain she was fully distracted, and fully focused on those
monitors, he reached toward the side of his pants and slyly pulled out the
small pistol that he, as a former cop, had hid so that it would go undetected
by any random frisk.
 
Trina was still
looking at the monitors as he hid the weapon at his side.
 
He was ready to do what he came here to do.
 
Finally he was ready to earn his pay.
 
He was ready to silence Katrina Gabrini, Reno
Gabrini’s heart and soul, forevermore.

ELEVEN

Downstairs, still in the lobby of the
PaLargio, completely oblivious to Trina’s fate, Reno and Jimmy felt as if they
were going in circles.
 
They didn’t see
Val anywhere, and they were looking everywhere.
 
But as soon as Reno was about to call it quits, everything changed.
 
Reno had placed his hand on his son’s waist,
and was about to tell him to head back upstairs, when Jimmy looked toward the
entrance and saw, to his amazement, Valerie Wellstone walking through the door.

Jimmy’s heart soared with relief and he
immediately broke away from his father and ran to her.
 

Reno was terrified that it was a setup, and
hurried behind his son, looking side to side, turning around to look behind
them, looking in front of them, as he ran.

As soon as Val saw Jimmy, she ran into his
arms.
  
She had a black eye, and looked
as if she’d been through hell and back again, but she was alive.

“I’m okay,” she was saying as Jimmy was
looking her over.
 
Reno had already run
outside, to see what he could see.
 
When
he ran back inside, Val and Jimmy were hugging again.

“How did you get here, Val?” Reno asked
her.

She and Jimmy stopped hugging.
 
“They dropped me off across the street and
told me to go inside.
 
Then they sped
off.”

“Who dropped you off?” Reno asked.

“Some men,” Val said.
 
“I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

“The same ones
 
who came to your house and forced you to go
with them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did they take you?”

“I don’t know.
 
They had me in the trunk of the car.
 
I never saw anything.
 
I never heard anything.”

Reno nodded to Jimmy and Jimmy began to
escort her toward the back elevators.
 
Reno kept looking around, kept making sure there was no set up, no
sudden moves, as he followed closely behind.

Upstairs was a different story.
 
Fred, with his gun carefully hid at his side,
was ready to make his own sudden move.
 
Trina was still staring at those monitors, when she saw Reno and Jimmy
hurry toward the lobby’s entrance.
 
Her
eyes immediately swung to the screen that monitored the entrance.
 
That was when she saw a female standing at
the entrance.
 
She looked closer.
 
“Is that her?
 
Oh, my goodness, that’s her!”

Now was the time, Fred felt.
 
Now Trina was completely distracted and
completely focused on her husband, her stepson, her stepson’s girlfriend.
 
She was focused on everything and
everybody.
 
Except Fred.
 
It was time.

Fred raised his hand from his side, the gun
ready to fire, and was just about to point it at Trina.
 
But there was always method to Reno’s madness.
 
When he had hugged his wife just before he
went downstairs, he had pressed a small gun into her hand and made eye contact
with her.
 
Eye contact that made it clear
she was not to let her guard down.
 
And
Trina had obeyed.
 
That was why, as soon
as Fred was about to lift his gun to her, she beat him to the punch and lifted
her own gun to him.

“Go ahead,” she said, “make me shoot your
ass.”

Fred’s heart rammed against his chest.
 
He could not believe it.
 
“You didn’t have a weapon,” he said with more
anger than fear in his voice.
 
“How did
you get a gun?”

“The same way you got yours.
 
By being slicker than my opponent.
 
By distracting him.
 
By cheating, asshole.”
 
Then Trina pointed that gun as if she aimed
to shoot it.
 
“Now drop it,” she said,
“or your ass is grass, and I’m the lawn mower.”

Fred couldn’t believe it had gone so
wrong.
 
He was prepared.
 
He was ready.
 
He’d already been warned about Reno and how he treated his wife as if
she was his equal, and that she wasn’t the one to underestimate.
 
He thought he hadn’t, that was why he waited
until she was completely distracted.
 
Or
at least he thought she was distracted.
 

He dropped his weapon.

By the time Reno, Jimmy, and Val had made it
back to the penthouse, Trina had retrieved Fred’s gun and had Fred, at
gunpoint, back in the great room and seated on the sofa.
 
Trina was standing, however, and staring
unblinkingly at the former cop.
 
She
didn’t call for backup.
 
She just waited.

Jimmy was stunned when he saw the
scene.
 
The idea that Trina would have a
gun on his stepfather made no sense.
 
Reno’s heart was pounding too, mainly because he knew it could have gone
the other way.
 
He walked up to his
wife.
 
“You okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“What did he do?”

“Tried to pull this on me,” Trina said, and
handed Reno the gun Fred had tried to use.

Jimmy walked away from Val and over to his
stepfather.
 
“You pulled a gun on my
mother?”

But Fred was unrepentant.
 
“That bitch ain’t your mother,” he said hatefully.
 
But to his shock, Jimmy punched him so hard
that one of Fred’s teeth flew out.
 
Fred
looked at Jimmy, stunned.

Reno smiled.
 
“You didn’t see that one coming either, did
you?” Reno asked.
 
“We Gabrinis are just
full of surprises.” Then Reno frowned and hurried to Fred, grabbed him by the
neck, and shoved Fred’s own gun inside of his already bleeding mouth.

“Now you listen to me, asshole,” Reno
said.
 
“You tell me what’s going on and
you tell me right now.
 
I’m going to
remove this gun, but you’d better tell me who sent you and why, and you’d
better tell it right the first time.
 
There won’t be a second time.”

Jimmy knew his father, and he knew what he
was capable of.
 
He looked at Val.
 
She was so overwhelmed and concerned that she
no longer looked twenty-three, but twelve.

Trina looked at her and saw it too.
 
She’s been through an ordeal.
 
She couldn’t take much more.
 
“Come on, baby,” Trina said, put her arms around
Val, and was about to leave.
 
But she
turned and looked at her husband.
 
“Not
here, Reno,” she said to him and then walked with Val around corridors and
corridors inside the penthouse until they were in the Nursery, where the
nannies were and where both Dommi and Sophia were, asleep.

Back up front, Reno pulled the gun out of
Fred’s mouth.
 
He wanted to handle it
where they were, but Trina was right.
 
The living room of his family home was not the place.
 
He pulled out his cell phone, ordered his men
to come and take Fred downstairs, and then he and Jimmy quietly rode the
elevator down to the basement too.
 
But
just as they were about to get off, Reno stopped Jimmy.

“Maybe you should go back up with Tree and
Val.”
 
Reno didn’t mean it.
 
He knew Jimmy was at that age when trying to
hide the facts of the Gabrini life from him was no longer viable.
 
Besides, it was his girlfriend who had been
taken.
 
Jimmy had skin in the game.

“I’m staying with you,” Jimmy said.

Reno stared at him.
 
“Sure?”

Jimmy nodded.
 
“I’m sure.”

And Reno, satisfied, walked along the dark
corridor that led into what his men called the dungeon: a soundproof room
beneath the casino.

Fred was already sitting down, unbound, in
a chair.
 
One of Reno’s men had picked up
where Reno had left off and had a gun down Fred’s throat.
 
Reno walked up to him and sat down in front
of him.
 
Jimmy stood beside Reno.

“I can read bullshit a mile away,” Reno
said.
 
“So don’t bullshit me.
 
You tell me the truth.
 
You will not get a second chance to tell the truth.”

Fred nodded nervously.
 
Reno nodded at his man, and the man removed
the gun from out of Fred’s mouth.

Fred grabbed his neck as soon as the barrel
of that gun left his throat.
 
He knew
what Reno was capable of also, and his heart was hammering because he
knew.
 

“Leave us alone,” Reno said to his men, and
they left out of the dungeon.

Reno, however, pulled out his own gun and
pointed it at Fred.

Fred’s entire countenance grew weary.
 
“What do you want me from me?”

“You can begin by telling the truth.
 
No more of that bull shit story you told
us.
 
Why was my son’s girlfriend
snatched?”

Fred shook his head.
 
“She was nothing,” he said.
 
Jimmy couldn’t believe he’d say that.
 
But Fred not only said it, he kept saying it.
 
“She was a misdirection.
 
A pawn.
 
Nobody cared about her.
 
If she
died, she died.
 
She was just my ticket
into the door.
 
It’s you they’re after.”

Reno could feel Jimmy’s anger.
 
But he was wasting his energy.
 
Val was safe.
 
This wasn’t about her anymore.
 
They had to get to the meat of this matter.
 
They had to find out what exactly this was
about.
 
“They’re after me?” Reno asked.

“It’s you they want.”

“Yeah, and who’s they?” Reno asked.
 
“Who sent you?”

Fred hesitated.
 
“You don’t understand.
 
I had to do it.
 
I owe money, you see.
 
Big money.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you
owe!
 
Who sent your ass here?”

Fred exhaled.
 
“I told you who.”

Reno stared at him.
 
“Why would my business partner have anything
to do with the likes of you?”

Fred found such a statement
incredulous.
 
“The likes of me?”
 
Fred shook his head.
 
“You don’t have a clue, do you?
 
He knows how to do it.
 
With you, he has these legit-looking business
interests, and that’s good enough for you.
 
You had no idea he was selling drugs right under your nose.
 
I mean one of the biggest dealers this side
of living.
 
And you had no idea.”

Reno studied Fred.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Fred
said.
 
“For some reason he hates
you.
 
He hates you.
 
That’s why he paid me to get rid of your
wife.
 
He wants you to suffer.
 
I owe him, but he paid me to do this job,
that’s how bad he wanted it done.
 
He
knew I used to be a cop and could handle myself.
 
He knew I was no longer a cop because of my
need for cash.
 
I was the perfect man for
the job.”
 
Fred smiled.
 
“So you can rough me up all you want.
 
Help yourself.
 
But he’ll still be out there, gunning for
you.
 
So rough me up all you care to.”

He frowned.
 
“Rough you up?
 
What’s that
supposed to mean?
 
Is that all you think
I’m going to do to you?”

Fred’s heart began to pound.
 
“Right,” he said.

“Wrong,” Reno said.
 
“Dead wrong.
 
What are you, an idiot?
 
And you’re
talking about I don’t have a clue?
 
You
think I’m going to let you walk into my home, threaten my wife while my two
young children are asleep in their beds, and there be no retribution?
 
You think all I’m going to do to your stupid
ass is rough you up?
 
That’s what you
think?
 
After what you tried to do to my
wife, to my family?
 
Get the fuck outta
here!”