Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again (26 page)

“Who
did?” Reno asked.

“I
didn’t.”

“Who
did, Rizz,” Reno asked.
 
“You don’t wanna
fuck with me!”

“Come
on, Marelli,” Sal said.
 
“This your
town.
 
You know when shit goes down.
 
Who put the hit on my brother?”

“I
told you---” Rizzo started saying, but then Reno cocked the hammer of his gun.

Rizzo
stiffened.

“Who?”
Reno asked.

“Fuck
it,” Rizzo said.
 
“I don’t owe that fool
shit!”

“Spit
it out then,” Reno said.

Rizzo
exhaled.
 
“Fontaine,” he said.
 
“The man you want is Carmine Fontaine.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“Who the fuck is that?”

“Fontaine?”
Sal asked.
 
He knew who it was.
 
“That small-time prick.
 
What would he know?”

“He
knows,” Rizzo said.
 
“It’s been in the
works for weeks.”

“The
hit on Tommy?”

“Yeah,”
Rizzo said.
 
“Fontaine planned it for
weeks.”

“And
you didn’t try to warn me?”
 
Sal asked.

“Warn
you?
 
Why should I warn you?”

“You
didn’t try to stop it,” Reno asked, “knowing you could be blamed?”

“I
didn’t stop it because it wasn’t my fight.
 
He tried to recruit my men, but I wouldn’t allow it.
 
It had nothing to do with us.”

“What
does it have to do with Fontaine?” Sal asked.
 
“What’s the connection?
 
Is he
related to the mayor or something?”

“I
don’t know about that.
 
All I know is he
was looking for muscle to take out Tommy Gabrini.
 
Anybody with a brain knew he was nuts.
 
But he was willing to pay to get it done.”

“Pay
big money?” Reno asked.

“Money,”
Rizzo responded.
 
“I don’t know how big
it was.”

Sal
and Reno looked at each other.
 
What the
hell was going on here?

They
drove and drove.
 
Rizzo kept telling them
to let him go, that it wasn’t him, but they weren’t convinced.
 
He could be lying.
 
He was caught red-handed and could have
created this entire story.
 
They didn’t
know.
 
But Reno had a way to find out.

He
shot Rizzo in the foot.
 

Rizzo
screamed out in pain and fell sideways holding onto his foot.
 
Reno got down on the floor next to him and
put the gun to his mouth.
 
“Tell me the
truth, or you’re dead right here in this funky ass van.
 
Who put the hit on my cousin?”

“You
shot me?” Rizzo asked, still stunned by Reno’s action.

“I’ll
kill you if you don’t tell me the truth!”

“I’m
telling you the truth!
 
It was
Fontaine.
 
I didn’t have shit to do with
it!
 
It was Fontaine!”

Reno
believed him.
 
Now he believed him.
 
He nodded to Sal.

Sal
knocked on the wall that separated the cab of the van from the cargo section
where they were housed.
 
The van
ultimately came to a stop.

“You
gonna let me go now?” Rizzo asked, still in pain.
 
“I told you the truth.
 
“Reno?
 
Sal?
  
I told you the truth.”

Reno
opened the back door and he and Sal jumped out of the van.

“Reno?
 
Reno?”

Reno
slammed the van’s door, closing Rizzo in.
 

Reno?
 
Sal?
 
Reno?
 
Reno?
 
Reno!”
 
Rizzo was in pain, but even he knew he was wasting his breath.
 
He was alone in the van.
  

The
van had stopped on a backwoods road that led to one of Sal’s safe houses
 
in town.
 
Another car had been following them: their getaway car.
 

Reno
looked at Sal.
  
“We’ve got to take him
out,” he said.

But
Sal wasn’t willing to go that far.
 
“No,
Reno.”

“What
do you mean no?”

“He
didn’t do it!”

“So?”

Sal looked
at his cousin.
 
“What do you mean
so?
 
I never killed a human being in my
entire life who didn’t have it coming to him.
 
And I’m not starting now!”

Reno
could understand that.
 
“Okay,” he
said.
 
“Then don’t stop
motherfucker.”
 
Reno opened the door of
the van again, pulled out his gun, and put a bullet in Rizzo’s head before Sal
could barely turn.
 
Reno then closed the
door back again.
 

Sal
couldn’t believe it.
 
He stared at his
cousin.

“If
we let that fucker live,” Reno explained, his blue eyes blazing, “then he would
have been the one putting a bullet through your head, my head, and Tommy’s too,
and he’d think nothing of it while he was doing it.
 
Not to mention what he would do to our loved
ones.”

But
Sal wasn’t convinced.
 
“You didn’t have
to kill him, Reno,” he said.
 
“You didn’t
have to kill him!”

“Yes,
I did have to kill him!
 
Yes, I did!
 
You may not mind sacrificing your family to
save that cocksucker’s life, and in your big heart you may think the risk is
worth it.
 
But I mind sacrificing my
family, and I’m not risking shit.
 
Not
for that asshole.
 
Not for a million like
him.
 
He might not have done this crime,
but he did plenty others.
 
Trust me.
 
And I don’t leave witnesses.
 
Now let’s go.”
 

He
pushed Sal along.

“Get
your fucking hands off of me!” Sal said.
 

“Let’s
go then!” Reno said.
 
“How many times I
have to tell you to stop crying for bugs.
 
They bite.”

Sal
looked at his cousin.
 
Then he looked
back at the truck that now housed the dead man.
 
Reno was right.
 
He knew he was.
 
But admitting it was like hell for Sal.

So he
didn’t admit it.
 
He headed for the
car.
 
Reno looked back at the truck too,
felt that twinge of regret he always felt when he had to go there, but he knew
he did what he had to do.
 

He
ordered the truck to take their cargo to a disposal point, then he got in the
getaway car too, and got away from there.

Carmine
Fontaine lived in a row house on Harmaton Avenue.
 
Reno and Sal knocked on the door, but after
several knocks and doorbell rings, there was no answer.
 

“Not
home,” Reno said. “Why am I not surprised?
 
If Rizz was telling the truth that prick could be anywhere for all we
know.”

But
Sal continued to knock. “Do you listen to yourself?
 
If
Rizz
was telling the truth you say.
 
But we’ll
never know now, will we?
 
You took that
option away from us.”

“Whatever,
Sal.
 
Since when have you been so
cautious?”

“Since
I’ve been seeing how reckless you can be.”

“Yeah,
right, that’s the reason.
 
Fucking liar!”

And
Sal continued to knock.

“What
are you doing?” Reno asked with a frown.
 
“He’s not home.”

Sal
knew it too.
 
But he needed answers.
 
He had a bloodlust too, but only for the
bastard that ordered the hit on his brother.
 
He wasn’t going to rest until he personally killed the motherfucker.

“Come
on, let’s regroup,” Reno said.

“We
should bust in,” Sal said. “He could be in there hiding.”

“We
aren’t busting in shit,” Reno said. “We’ll send some guys over here.
 
They’re bust the place up.
 
But not you and me.”

Sal
finally agreed with Reno for a change and stopped knocking.

“Let’s
go,” Reno said.
 

But
as they began walking back down the steps, Sal noticed a woman looking out of
her window.
 
It was Fontaine’s next door
neighbor.
 
A nosy neighbor, Sal noticed.
 
And nosy neighbors, it had been Sal’s
experience, made excellent snitches.
 
He
turned around and went and knocked on her door.
 

Now
Reno was really upset.
 
“What are you
doing?” he asked.
 
He was taking charge
because he knew how crazy and irrational Sal could get whenever something happened
to Tommy.
 
But he was getting tired of
Sal’s antics now.

But
when the lady answered the door Sal was now knocking on, and said she did
indeed know Carmine Fontaine, Reno headed back up the steps too.

“He’s
not home however,” the nosy neighbor said.

“Do
you know where he might be, ma’am?” Sal asked.

“No.
I mean not specifically at this very hour.
 
He went to Dubai is all I know.”

Reno
saw the change on Sal’s face.
 
This woman
had said something significant, although Reno was stumped to know what.
 

“Dubai?”
Sal asked her.
 
Then he frowned.
 
“He went to Dubai?”

“Yes,”
the old lady said.
 
“He went there to
visit his sister.”

“His
sister?” Sal asked.

“What
are you asking about his sister for?” Reno asked. “Who gives a . . .” He looked
at the old lady, and then respectfully tempered his speech.
 
“Who cares?”

“He
visits her periodically.
 
She lives in
Dubai now.”

“What’s
her name?” Sal asked.
 
“Do you know?”

“I
know her quite well,” the old lady said.
 
“Her name is Karen.
 
Karen
Johansson.
 
She used to live with him
years ago right in that house next door.”

Sal
was floored.
 
Reno looked at him.
 
“What is it?” he asked.

“Thank-you,”
Sal said and began hurrying down the steps.

“Yeah,
thanks,” Reno said to the neighbor and hurried behind Sal.

When
they made it on the bottom step, Reno turned Sal around. “What is it?” he asked
again.

“Karen
Johansson,” Sal said, “is Chelsey’s old lady.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“Chelsey Clinton?”

Sal
frowned.
 
“What?”

“Who
the fuck is Chelsey?”

“Chelsey
is Gemma’s sister,” Sal said.

As
soon as Sal explained the connection, Reno understood.
 
“Damn,” he said.
 
“And this Fontaine character is the brother?”

“He’s
the brother of Chelsey’s girlfriend, yes.”

“But
I still don’t get it,” Reno said.

“Gemma’s
sister, Chelsey,” Sal said, “works for Liz.
 
She’s her bureau chief in Dubai.”

Reno’s
eyes stretched.
 
“I’ll be damned!” he
said.
 
“Now that’s what I call a
connection.”

“Or a
hell of a coincidence,” Sal said.
 
“The
one guy Rizzo fingers as the guy who called the hit on Tommy happens to be Chelsey’s
old lady’s brother.
 
And he just so
happens to be away in Dubai when the hit went down.
 
In Dubai, where Chelsey and Karen live, and
where Liz has one of her bureaus.”

“Damn,”
Reno said again.

“And
get this,” Sal said.
 
“Gemma told me how
Chelsey is in love with Liz.”