Page 17 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
“Just what I said. I give her some of that aforementioned rod, and she’s in.”
“She would sign that contract if you gave her some? You? The weasel?”
Reno gave him a hard him. “Call me that again and you’ll be weaseling my foot out of your ass.” Then he settled back down. “According to her, I’m legendary in the bedroom. She wanted a taste of that legend.”
Tommy smiled. “Yeah right.” But when he saw that there was real pain in Reno’s eyes, his chest squeezed. “Reno, you didn’t. What have you done, Reno?”
Reno frowned. “Why I had to have done something? Why everybody always gotta act like I’m the villain? I’m just trying to do business in this motherfucker. Is it my fault that I use every tool available to me to get the job done? You can smile and they give your ass whatever you want. Sal can muscle his way to get whatever he wants. But I have to plan and plot and scheme and connive to get what I want. Nobody complainswhen I get the job done. Oh no. They love my results. But they always complaining about my methods.”
Tommy was even more worried. “What happened after I left?”
“I told you what happened.”
“You told me she came onto you.”
A look of regret appeared in Reno’s eyes. “Yeah.” Then he looked at Tommy. “Big time. I’m talking down to the studs.”
“Naked?” Tommy was floored. “She gotnaked?”
Reno nodded. “She said I’m the boss in the bedroom, which I am.”
“And?”
“I already told you and. And she said if I give her what she wants, then she’ll sign the contract. Are you not listening to me?”
Now Tommy was scared. He knew Reno. Men might have been Ingrid Hawken’s weakness, but women were Reno’s. “And you caved? You gave her what she wanted?”
Reno tossed the folder containing the contract over to Tommy. Tommy slowly opened it. He just knew what he was going to see. He just knew it! And when it was confirmed, he looked at Reno. And he exhaled. Because he knew Reno would not have done that to Trina. “She didn’t sign it.”
“No, she didn’t sign it.”
“Why not?”
Reno frowned. “Whatta you mean why not? She didn’t sign it because I wouldn’t go along with her bullshit.”
“She’s gorgeous. She’s naked. I know your ass was tempted.”
“Hell yeah I was tempted!”
“But?”
“But I couldn’t do it. I kept seeing Trina cutting my balls off while she was shooting me in the head.”
Tommy burst into laughter.
Reno, smiling too, shook his head. “That shit looked good, but it ain’t worth that!”
But then the laughter died down and both men looked at each other. “Damn,” said Tommy.
“Damn is right,” said Reno.
“What are our options?”
“We ain’t got no options, unless you know another uber-rich European willing to put up a billion bucks.”
“She was our last hope,” said Tommy.
“Right,” said Reno, “and we both blew that. She hates our guts now.”
