Sal Gabrini: His House of Cards (6 page)

Monday
morning was business as usual.
 
They both
got back to work.
 
Gemma went to court
first, and then to her law firm.
 
But
Sal, whose office building awaited his arrival, went to see Reno.
 
He hadn’t forgotten what Gemma told him
Friday night about that little spat she and Reno had.
 
He needed to set the record straight.

It looked
like a rally on Wall Street when he walked into Reno’s office.
 
Papers were everywhere, as if they’d been
tossed in the air for no other reason than to land on the floor.
 
Aides were everywhere.
  
On the phone.
 
On the computer.
 
Standing around Reno’s desk with even more
stacks of papers he had to sign.
 
It was
an orderly chaos, Sal realized.
 
But it
was still chaotic.

When Reno
looked up and saw that it was Sal who had entered unannounced, with that look
on his face, he knew what he wanted.
 
He
cleared the room.

“Everybody
out,” he said above the noise as Sal approached his desk.
 
“Give us a minute.”

His aides
knew what that meant.
 
Get lost
, in other words.
 
They grabbed their phones and stacks of
papers and headed out of the office.
 
All
of them spoke to Sal as they hurried past, and Sal grunted in their
direction.
 
But his entire focus was on
Reno.

Reno leaned
back.
 
“I hear you came back Friday
night.
 
I didn’t expect you back in town
so soon.”

Sal stood in
front of Reno’s desk, decked down in his double-breasted imported suit.
 
“I understand you had a problem with my
absence.”

“I
understand I owe you a note of gratitude.
 
Gemma told Trina you settled it on your own.
 
That’s a good thing.”

Sal
frowned.
 
“Why wouldn’t I settle it?
 
She was threatening to sue my wife.
 
Of course I settled it.”

Reno stared
at Sal.
 
He could have been implying that
Reno should have settled it, the strong arm way, for his wife too, but that
wasn’t the vibe he was getting from Sal.
 
His beef went deeper.
 
“What’s
wrong?” Reno asked him.

“You’ve had
the hots for Gemma a long time,” Sal responded bluntly.
 
“It ends today.”

To Reno’s
credit, Sal thought, he didn’t try to deny it.
 
He continued to stare at Sal and continued to lean back in his chair.

“She’s never
going to be your backup plan,” Sal warned him.

Reno frowned.
 
“My backup plan?
 
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“If Trina
wise up and leave your ass,” Sal said, “Gemma won’t be available.
 
She’s with me for life.
 
And when I’m gone, she’s still not going to
want you because she knows I’ll turn over in my grave.
 
So face it.”

“I don’t
want her either, so that’s good to know.
 
My backup plan?
 
Fuck you,
Sal!
 
Your ass is on a guilt trip because
you’re never around, and we both know what you’re up to while you’re gone.
 
You face that!”

Sal angrily
reached over and grabbed Reno by the catch of his suit coat, pulling Reno to
his feet.
 
Reno grabbed Sal by his own
suit coat and pulled him all the way across the desk.
 
Both men stood face to face, gripping each
other.
 
But neither took it to that next
level.

“I don’t
want your wife, man,” Reno made clear.
 
“Alright?
 
I don’t want her like
that.
 
Do I worry about her?
 
Hell yeah.
 
When you aren’t in town, I feel responsible for her.”

“But it’s
more than that, Reno.
 
You like her.
 
You find her attractive.”

“You like
Trina,” Reno shot back.
 
“You find Trina
attractive.”

“But I don’t
dream of fucking Trina.
 
That’s the
fucking difference!”

Reno pushed
Sal away from him.
 
“Get out of my face,”
he said.
 
“I don’t want her like that.”

“You don’t
want who like what?”

It was a
familiar voice.
 
Both men looked toward
the office door and saw Trina walking in.
 
She began walking toward the desk.
 
“Well?
 
Who are you talking
about?”

Reno shook
his head.
 
“This fool thinks I want to
fuck Gemma,” he said.

“I got your
fool right here, Reno,” Sal fired back.

“You’re the
one who came in here---”

“Enough
already,” Trina said.
 
“Enough.”

“Yeah,
enough of your shit, Sal,” Reno echoed.

“And enough
of yours too, Reno,” Trina said.
 
“It’s
no secret you like Gemma.
 
You find her
attractive.”

“Sal finds
you attractive.
 
What’s the big fucking
deal?”

“It’s not
the same thing,” Trina said, echoing Sal.

Reno looked
at Trina with hurt in his eyes.
 
“I don’t
want any woman, and I mean ANY woman, besides you, Trina.
 
What are you talking?”

“I didn’t
say you want her over me,” Trina said.

“You want
her as a backup to Tree,” Sal said.

Reno shook
his head.
 
“Come on.
 
Give me a break!
 
Trina is the only woman I want.
 
She’s the only woman I will ever want!”

Sal
exhaled.
 
He knew Reno was the least of
his worries whenever he was out of town. He knew Reno would never double cross
him like that.
 
He knew he was using Reno
as the scapegoat for his own failures.
 
He was out of town too much.
 
He
had too many balls in the air.
 
His
marriage was suffering because of his own damn issues.

“Maybe I’m
overreacting,” Sal admitted.

“You are,”
both Reno and Trina said in unison.

“I’m
nobody’s fool, Sal,” Trina added.
 
“But I
know my husband is not that kind of man.”

“I might
like to look at ass,” Reno admitted, “but Trina’s ass is the only one I’m
interested in fucking.”

Sal
nodded.
 
“I understand that.
 
But I still want you to be careful.
 
I don’t take shit from anybody, including
you, Reno, when it comes to Gem.”

“Just get
the fuck out of my office.”

“Just watch yourself,
Reno,” Sal said firmly.
 
Then he kissed
and hugged Trina, and left.

Reno
exhaled.
 
“He’s got some nerve.
 
He didn’t have to go there.”

“Yes, he
did,” Trina said, and then looked at her husband.
 
“You are a flirt, Reno.
 
You deserved every word.”

Reno
frowned.
 
“Me?
 
A flirt?
 
What are you saying?
 
I only have
eyes for you, babe.”

“Then you
must have ten eyes,” Trina said, “because you have eyes for every hot woman you
see.
 
You come home to me.
 
You don’t give it up to anybody but me.
 
But you only have eyes for me?
 
Please.
 
You need to quit lying!”

Reno
laughed.
 
She knew him too well.
 
“Come here, you,” he said, but Trina smiled
and tried to run away from him.
 
He
caught her and pulled her into his arms.
 
They both were laughing, but then he turned serious.
 
“I only have heart for you,” Reno said.
 
“That better?”

Trina smiled
and touched his face.
 
“Much,” she
said.
 
“In fact all.”

And they
kissed.
 
Reno squeezed his eyes shut and
held her tightly.

“That gold chain,”
Gemma said as she leaned against the front of her desk and folded her
arms.
 
She was reviewing her opening
statement with her paralegal.
 
The trial
was to start in a few days, but she still didn’t have her defense nailed
down.
 
“How do I explain away that gold
chain?”

“I don’t see
how you can,” Barbara Jiles said as she sat in the chair in front of Gemma’s
desk.
 
“He claim he never met the woman,
never even been in the same room with the woman, yet the police found his
broken chain in the victim’s closed hand.
 
She fought for her life and snatched it off of his neck in the
fight.
 
He didn’t even realize it was
missing until it was too late.
 
That’s a
powerful piece of evidence, boss.”

“But I’ve
got to have a plausible counter to that argument or he’s going down.
 
And I’m talking Life without the possibility
of parole.”

“Why
wouldn’t he take a plea deal?”

“He wouldn’t
even consider it,” Gemma responded.
 
“Like most of my clients, he thinks he can beat the rap.”

Barbara was
a busty black woman who was more than just Gemma’s paralegal.
 
She ran the entire office for her.
 
And she always helped to put it all in
perspective.
 
“Don’t you just hate murder
cases?” she asked.

Gemma
smiled.
 
“With a passion,” she said.
 
“I lost one last week, and this one isn’t looking
promising either.”

“But that’s
not your fault, boss,” Barbara made clear.
 
“You’ve been forced to defend a bunch of clients guilty as sin.
 
You have no choice but to have a losing
record.
 
And considering some of those
characters, I’m glad you do.”

Gemma smiled
as the door to her office opened and Curtis Kane, her secretary,
unceremoniously barged in.

“Did you see
it?” he asked Gemma in a voice almost out of breath, as he hurried toward her
with his phone in hand.
 
“It’s just
breaking.”

Barbara frowned.
 
“Why didn’t you knock first, Curtis?
 
I told you about that.”

“Did I see
what?” Gemma asked him.

“About Mr.
Gabrini,” Curtis said.
 
“It’s just
breaking.”

Gemma’s
heartbeat began to quicken.
 
She was
always alarmed when Sal’s name was connected to breaking news.
 
“What about him?” she asked.

“I just got
an alert from Yahoo News,” Curtis said, “about this big racial discrimination
lawsuit.”

Gemma
frowned.
 
“Racial discrimination?”

“It’s a big
lawsuit employees of the Gabrini Corporation plan to file.”

Gemma was
puzzled.
 
“Involving Sal?”

“They named
him by name, boss,” Curtis said.
 
“They
claim he never promoted any blacks or Hispanics to any management positions in
his Vegas office, even though they were far more qualified than the whites he
promoted over them.
 
And I mean far more
qualified, from what I’ve read.”

Gemma’s
heart began to pound.
 
“May I see it?”
she asked, and Curtis handed over his IPhone.

The headline
was crystal clear:
The Gabrini
Corporation Charged with Rampant Racial Discrimination in its Vegas Corporate
office
.
 
Which meant the office run
by Sal.
 
Sal’s brother Tommy ran the home
office in Seattle.

But Curtis
kept talking even as Gemma continued to read.
 
“They further allege,” he said, “that Mr. Gabrini would constantly tell
demeaning jokes about blacks around the office, and would never discipline
their white counterparts for using the n-word or leaving nooses at their desks
or for calling Mexican-Americans illegals and ranting about how they want to
take over and turn America into a third world country.
 
They also said he would promote pretty blonde
women over them if they gave him sexual favors.
   
Oh, it’s bad, boss.
 
The media is going to have a field day with
this story!”