Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again (14 page)

But
when she finished her chill session, flushed the remaining joint down the
toilet, and headed out of the bathroom, she was surprised to see her employer
sitting in the high-backed chair that lined the corridor.
 

“
Mr. Gabrini
,” she said in a shocked
voice even she couldn’t fake.
  
Did he
want some now?
 
Was he that kind of
man?
 
He played cool in front of people,
until he could get her alone.
 
She smiled
at the prospect!
 
“You came to make sure
I was okay?”

“I
came,” Tommy said, rising to his feet, placing his hands in his pockets, “to
fire you.”

Her
heart dropped.
  
She was expecting to be
fucked, not fired!
 
“Fire me?” she asked.

He
looked her dead in the eye.
 
“You’re
fired,” he said.
 
“A security officer is
waiting for you at the front door.
 
Leave
now.”

And
Tommy, a man of few words, left.
 

Rikki
just stood there.
 
Stunned.
 
She was so stunned, in fact, that she burst
into tears.
 
How could such an innocent
little prank go so wrong?
 
She didn’t
mean anything by it!
 
How could she have
misjudged him so completely?

But
when Tommy made it to the end of the corridor, he turned around.
 
Her tears didn’t faze him. “And Miss Lowe,”
he said.

She
looked at him.
 
“Sir?” she asked.
 
She was very contrite now.

“The Green
Bay Packers do not have official cheerleaders.
 
They’re one of the few NFL teams that do not.
 
You might have been cheering up a storm and
doing the football team, but it wasn’t that football team.”
 
His voice turned stern.
 
“Get out now, Miss Lowe,” he ordered her.

She
wanted to beg, but she knew that would be futile.
 
She hurried up the corridor, wiping her tears
away.

The
convoy of Humvees drove quietly along the winding, dusty roads.
 
Liz Logan rode shotgun in a bullet-proof vest
and helmet inside the third of the five military trucks.
 
The driver was a commander she didn’t know
personally, but she knew his boss, the general, very well.

They
were in Iraq, and she was the only print reporter imbedded with the military
advisers on patrol inside the Anbar Province.
 
The war was supposedly over.
 
The
American advisers were there merely to train the Iraqi military personnel to
stand up, rather than stand down the way they did when ISIS entered the Mosul
region and took over.
 
As the publisher
of an international affairs magazine, Liz always had to approve all reporter
assignments that involved going on any patrols with the military.
 
Her reporters’ firsthand accounts often
riveted their readers and always spiked sells, and she had to be convinced that
the reporters they were sending on such assignments were top rate.
 
But between the many wars and unrest all over
the Middle East, particularly the violent clashes in Syria and Libya and Egypt,
she had no reporters left to imbed.
 
And
whenever that happened, whenever her magazine was unable to supply the demand,
she would go herself.

“Is
it always this quiet?” she asked the commander as they rolled along the bumpy
road.
 
She spoke unnaturally loudly as
the sound of the truck’s engine and the toss and turn of the rugged terrain
made it impossible to be heard otherwise.
 

“It’s
been fairly quiet lately, yes,” the commander responded to her, equally.
 
He was a man in his twenties.
 
He was younger than Liz.

“ISIS
is in a battle with the Turks right now,” he continued.
 
“This gives us some breathing room for
training.
 
And the Iraqis need a lot of
training.”

Liz
was sitting beside him, and he was practically screaming as he spoke, but she
could still barely hear him.
 
She leaned
toward him.
 
“Some Republicans in Washington,
like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham,” she said, “have complained
vociferously that you guys really represent boots on the ground, even though
the president has promised the American people that there will be no boots on
the ground.
 
They say you guys are listed
as advisors to the Iraqi army only, but when the rubber meets the road you are
and will always be fighters first.
 
I.e.,
boots on the ground.
 
Is their summation
accurate, commander?”

The
commander gave her a knowing smile.
 
“We’re soldiers on military patrol,” he said.
 
“You have my permission to read into that
whatever you wish.
 
In fact, I encourage
it.”

Liz
looked at him.
 
She wondered if the
president knew that his commanders in the field were winking and nodding at the
press, showing a level of disrespect for him as commander in chief that she’d
never seen previously.
 
It was as if this
guy agreed wholeheartedly with Senators McCain and Graham, and wanted her to
know.
 
She wrote it down exactly as he
had said it.

 
Boom
!

The
sound was so loud that it shook their Humvee and tore through Liz’s
eardrums.
 

Another
Boom
!

She
saw the Humvee in front of them lift up, as if it had just been hit by a
rocket-propelled missile, and before the second Humvee could react, it was
flying up too.
 
The commander inside her
Humvee was screaming to side-wind, to retreat, to path-off, as he swerved away
from the impending doom.
 
He was also
telling Liz to get down, but he didn’t have to tell her that.
 
She was already down.

And
he drove for their lives.
 
He swerved
violently off the projected path and onto even rougher terrain.
 
But his deft moves made the fourth Humvee a
direct target, and it, like the first two, went up with a boom too.
 
The fifth Humvee was able to also swerve off
road as the truck carrying Liz bounced along the new terrain as if it was
within seconds of losing all control.
 
They were uncomfortable as hell, and terrified, but at least they
weren’t in the path of those guided missiles.

But
they were apparently in the path of buried road mines.
 
And just when they thought the danger was
over, they, too, felt the impact of a blast.
 
The commander felt it first, as the front end lifted up.
 
But then Liz felt it as well as she, and the
entire truck, went up with a boom too.
 

When
they landed, with the hardest thump, they were upside down.

Sal
Gabrini stood just inside the open door of his brother’s office, and
hesitated.
 
Tommy was standing at his
floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the Seattle skyline, with his hands in
the pockets of yet another one of those designer suits he favored.
 
Sal smiled.
 
It had been a couple weeks.
 
He
hadn’t seen him since the Joneses anniversary party.
 
It felt good to see him in the flesh again.

He
walked on in and up beside his brother.
 
He walked gingerly, like the thief in the
night he sometimes had to be, and Tommy was none the wiser until Sal was
actually upon him.
 

“Better
be glad I wasn’t an ax murderer,” Sal said.

“I
heard your ass,” Tommy said without turning toward him.
 
“You walk like a damn army of people.”

Sal
genuinely was disappointed in his skills.
 
“Really?” he asked.

Tommy
looked at him and smiled.
 
“Just
kidding.
 
You’re good. I didn’t hear a
thing.”

Sal
smiled and he and his brother hugged.
 

When they
stopped hugging, Tommy looked at him.
 
He
was in his usual double-breasted suit, looking sharp, but his eyes looked
tired.
 
“I thought you were going to meet
with Larrabee in Scranton?” Tommy asked.

“I
was.
 
I am.
 
I needed to come to town and check on my
staff before I went anywhere else.
 
They
aren’t as disciplined as your staff.
 
When I’m away they think it’s party time.”

“That’s
because I have an older, mature staff.
 
You hire too many young, pretty blondes instead of the best
qualified.
 
You and Reno both.”

“Reno?”
Sal asked.
 
Reno Gabrini, the owner of
the PaLargio Hotel and Casino in Vegas, was their first cousin and Tommy’s best
friend.
 
He was also a thorn in Sal’s
side.
 
“What are you bringing up Reno
for?” he asked.
 
“Don’t you dare compare
me to that bozo.
 
I don’t know how Trina
puts up with his arrogant ass anyway.”

“The
same way Gemma puts up with yours,” Tommy said.
 
“You’re two of a kind.”

“In
your dreams, lover boy. In your dreams!”

But
just the thought of Sal and Reno’s women got Tommy thinking, once again, about
Liz.
 
Chicago
,
as he called her once.
 
It had been three
weeks since she slept in his arms on his private plane.
 
It had been three weeks since she sat in that
limo and with those big brown eyes implied that she would be interested in
seeing if they could have a go.
 
He
thought about her often.
 
A few times he
even thought about phoning her.
 
But he
never did.
 
Good sense always ruled out
and he heeded his own warning.
 
They quit
while they were ahead.
 
They had a nice
memory.
 
That was all that was going to
come out of that particular ride.
 

“How’s
Gemma anyway?” he asked his brother.

Sal
nodded.
 
“She’s good.”

“She
didn’t come to Seattle with you?”

“Nall,
nall, she’s in the middle of a trial.
 
She’s a very in-demand lawyer nowadays.
 
I want her to forget trying criminal cases personally, but she won’t do
it.
 
Incarcerated black men don’t get a
fair shake, she feels, and they need her.
 
All she’s been doing lately are criminal cases.”

Tommy
nodded.
 
“Good for her.”
 
Then he hesitated.
 
“So, what about Chelsey?”

“What
about her?”

“Have
you guys heard from her, or Liz? Since the party?”

“Hell
no,” Sal said.
 
“Liz?
 
Who would wanna hear from her nosy ass?
 
As for Chelsey, Gemma calls her every now and
then, but she won’t answer her phone.
 
She’s a train wreck is what she is.
 
You saw how she treated Rodney that night.”

Tommy
was surprised that Sal would blame Chelsey.
 
“I saw how Rodney treated her,” he said.

“How
he treated her?”

“He
called his own daughter a bitch, Sal,” Tommy reminded Sal.
 
“He said she was better off dead, or however
he put it.
 
That’s a problem.”

“Okay,
I hear you.
 
He was out of line.
 
I told him man to man he was out of
line.
 
But Chelse was wrong too.
 
She should have never stayed away that
long.
 
But anyway,” Sal said, “let me get
to my office.
 
I just wanted to drop by
and let you know I’ll be here.”

“All
day?”

“Until
late afternoon, yeah.
 
Then I’m going to
go see your daughter, my beautiful niece, and then scram to Scranton.”

Tommy
smiled.
 
“Desi will be happy to see
you.
 
She asks about you and Gemma all
the time.
 
Mainly Gemma.”

“Very
funny,” Sal said, and Tommy laughed.
 
Then Sal left.

But
after he left, and Tommy returned his attention to the world outside of his
high-rise office window, he couldn’t stop thinking about Liz.
 
Nobody seemed to want to give her the benefit
of the doubt.
 
She was no angel, by any
means, but he saw her humanity.
 
He saw a
wonderful woman inside of that tough exterior.
 
Or, he thought again, he saw her great ass and was projecting great
things on her as a result of that fine ass. But either way: he couldn’t stop
thinking about her.

Even
after he sat behind his desk and got back to work, she stayed on his mind.
 
He didn’t know why she was strong on his mind
today, but she was.
 
Stronger than
usual.
 
And suddenly he felt an urge to
want to know that she was okay.
 
He
should have phoned her a day or two after their night together, that would have
made more sense, but he didn’t trust himself then.
 
If she was still interested, he was afraid
he’d set up another get together that could lead to too many more get-togethers
that could lead, as it always inevitably did for him, to love and then
disaster.
 
He wasn’t going down that road
with any other woman, he didn’t care who she was.
 
But he couldn’t stop thinking about Liz.
 

The
only way he was going to shake it, he realized, was to do something about
it.
 
He picked up his phone.
 
But it wasn’t as easy as giving her a call.
 
He didn’t have her cell number, her office
number, nothing.
 
Gemma or Sal were out
of the question, he didn’t want them to know his personal business that way,
and his secretary was too.
 
He was tired
of his staff gossiping about his various female friends as if they had that right.
 
Nobody was going to be gossiping about
Liz.
 
So he did the research
himself.
 
He didn’t find her personal
phone number, but he did find the number to Kutana’s corporate office in
Chicago.
 
He phoned her office.

Her
executive assistant, some guy named Jerome, finally came on the line to tell
him what one of the front line staff could have told him.
 
“She’s not here,” he said.

“Perhaps
you can tell me where I can reach her?” Tommy asked.

“And
you are?”

What
was he?
 
He wasn’t exactly a friend of
hers.
 
He made love to her once, but he
wasn’t exactly her lover.
 
“An associate
of hers,” was the best he could describe it.
 
“From Seattle.”

“Seattle?
 
Oh!
 
You aren’t . . . Are you Tommy Gabrini?” Jerome asked him.

Tommy
was surprised, if not stunned that her assistant would know his name.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
Liz had mentioned him?

Apparently
she had because suddenly the assistant was more than willing to tell him all he
wanted to know.
 
“I don’t know how much
you know,” Jerome said, “but she was injured in Iraq.”

Tommy’s
stomach clenched.
 
“Injured?” he
asked.
 
“She’s been injured?”

“I’m
afraid so.”

Lord,
no, Tommy thought.
 
“And it happened in
Iraq?”

“Yes,
sir.”

What
was she doing in Iraq, Tommy wanted to ask, and it angered him, but he was too
concerned with her wellbeing to be concerned with the why.
 
“Where is she now?” he asked.
 
“Is she alright?
 
She’s in Iraq you said?”
In that hellhole
, he thought with alarm.

“She’s
not in Iraq anymore,” Jerome seemed compelled to say to reassure what sounded
like a very concerned man. “She’s back here now, in Chicago.
 
We were able to get her out of there, to the
US Air Force base in Bagram, and then she was airlifted home.”

Tommy
could hardly contain his anxiety.
 
He
didn’t think he could have been more anxious had that man told him Sal had been
injured in Iraq.
 
“But is she
alright?
 
How is she now?”

“She’s
out of danger, thank God.
 
Although Liz
being Liz will declare she was never in any danger to begin with.
 
But it was a terrible accident.
 
From what I understand, rocket-propelled
grenades or something hit their convoy of trucks and many American soldiers,
or, excuse me, military advisers, lost their lives that day.”

“Jesus,”
Tommy said.
 
“It was that bad?”

“It
was bad,” Jerome said.
 
“Yes, sir.
 
It was bad.”

But
when Tommy hung up from Jerome, he couldn’t concentrate on how bad it had
been.
 
His entire concentration was all
about getting to Liz.
 

He
called his pilot, and ordered him to ready his plane.

Except
for her heels, which sat beside her chair, she was fully dressed.
 
Even nicely dressed in a bright-white Oscar
de la Renta pantsuit with a tucked-in purple blouse.
 
She sat in one of two chairs inside her
hospital room.
 
All she needed was the
release papers and she was out of there.
 

She
remained slouched in her chair, too drained to even put on her shoes.
 
She looked around the now quiet room.
 
Flowers everywhere.
 
You’d think she was Miss Popularity by the
number of flowers alone.
 
But she knew
better.
 
They all sent flowers.
 
Even her worse employees sent flowers.
 
And some even dropped by.
 
But none of them stayed.
 

She
attempted to reach down and put on her shoes again, but again her energy just
wasn’t there.
 
So many days in these
hospitals, from the one in Iraq, to the one on the U.S. Air Force base in
Afghanistan, to the hospital here in Chicago, had slowed her considerably.
 
She kept telling them that she had only bumps
and bruises and all of their test-taking was unnecessary, but she was forced to
endure it anyway.
 
It was U.S. protocol
for journalists who were under the auspices of the military when the accident
occurred.
 
And the prodding and poking
and laying around and waiting for days on end, sapped her strength.
 
And her joy.
 
It had been a tough week.

 
Then knocks were heard on her hospital
door.
 
Assuming it was the nurse with her
walking papers, she said
come in
as
loud as she could, and dropped her shoe again.
 
But when the door opened and the nurse didn’t immediately start running
her mouth the way she usually did, Liz looked up.
 
When she saw Tommy Gabrini standing there,
she could hardly believe her eyes.
 

“Tommy?”
she asked.