Page 63 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
“Only if we have no further use for her,” Hammer said as he opened the door. “Which I doubt very seriously.”
“What if she clams up and claim she knows nothing?” asked Big Daddy.
Hammer stopped and looked at the man he respected more than anybody else in that guest house. He closed the door back. “She can’t claim that. We have too much evidence. And if she won’t talk, then she’ll be tortured. She’ll be either dead or on the verge of death if she doesn’t give up the intel we need. But either way, she’ll be of no use to you when we finish with her.” Then Hammer pointed at Amelia. “Behave your ass or else,” he said to her as he opened the door again.
“Ah fuck you, Hammer,” she said to him.
Hammer looked her up and down as if he wanted her to do just that. But he had bigger fish to fry: namely Ingrid Hawken. He left.
“We all wanna go find that prick Luddie, but we all can’t go,” said Reno. “Who’s going? I know I am.”
“I know I am too,” said Grace. “Those are my children they did this to. I wanna know why and I wanna know straight from the people involved.”
Reno and Sal were dead-set against it. Mick and Big Daddy too. But Tommy had the final say on what his wife could or couldn’t do. And he was staring at Grace.
But he always said no. Unlike the other wives, who got to be a part of the action when it was personal like that, Tommy always sheltered Grace. “Tommy please,” she pleaded.
But he couldn’t do it. Not his wife. He couldn’t risk his children losing both of their parents. No way. “You’re staying,” he said.
Grace had tears in her eyes. “Please Tommy. Everybody else in the family trusts their wives to handle it when it involves them. I can handle it too.”
“I know you can handle it, Grace,” Tommy said, grabbing both of her slender hands and looking into her beautiful, earnest eyes. “But I can’t,” he admitted with his heart in his voice. “I can’t. You stay here with the children. You take care of them. And I’ll be back before you know it.”
Grace stared at Tommy. She knew he was doing the right thing for the family. And she knew she wanted to go mainly to protect him. But he was right. The children came first.
She pulled him into her arms. “If he gets away, he gets away,” she whispered to him. “We rather have you back home with us, you hear me, Tommy? Come back home to us no matter what.”
Tommy squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t deserve this wonderful woman. He didn’t! “I will, Grace,” he said to her. Then he leaned back and looked her in her eyes. “I will.”
Then Grace gave a smile, not of joy, but of acceptance. And then Mick, Reno, Sal and Tommy, with Grace going to see them off, left the guest house.
Amelia took Big Daddy by the arm and they began leaving too. “Don’t you ever want to go where the action is too, Charles?” she asked him as they walked.
“Never,” said Big Daddy. He was the only family member that was never actively in the mob, and refused to let his four sons and three daughters be involved as well. Although one of his daughters, Ashley, married mob boss Monk Paletti, and his other daughter, Carly, married Hammer’s brother and government assassin Trevor Reese. But they were the outliers. “But I know you wanted to go,” he said. “Why didn’t you?”
Amelia shook her head. “I couldn’t bear to hear Hammer’s mouth again. Before we came to town, he stormed into my office like he was gonna beat my ass. He threatened to shut my entire business down just because some of my clients have mob affiliations. I’m have a private eye agency, Charlie. Most of my clients are lowlifes. I don’t have the luxury to pick and choose who my clients can be.” Then she shook her head. “I have to pick my battles with that man these days.”
“I told you that a long time ago,” said Big Daddy. “But do you listen? Never. But I love your stubborn ass anyway,” he added with a smile as his younger half-sister leaned against him, smiling too, and they made their way back to the main house.
But their smiles dissipated when they thought about their brother Mick and Amelia’s husband Hammer and all the others going into the fire once again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It was a quiet, modest neighborhood in West Seattle. A neighborhood of teachers and firefighters and even cops. “This is the kind of neighborhood,” Sal said, “that scum like Luddie Jelinski would buy into for cover. But guess what he does for a living to keep that cover going?”
“What?” asked Reno.
“He owns a bookstore. A bookstore, can you imagine? A guy who for years thought Seattle was a country owns a bookstore.”
Reno laughed. But then he was confused. “But whatta we doing here for?”
“That’s Luddie’s house,” said Sal as Robby Yale, driving Mick’s Escalade, drove past the house.
“Yeah I figured that much out, Einstein. But I thought Hammer said he was at some club. What we coming to his house for?”
“If he’s at the club,” said Sal, “then all his guys are at the club too. Uncle Mick thought it would be easier to wait for him at his house. Get him alone. He ain’t never married. He got no kids. It should be easier confronting him here. You used to run your old man’s operation, Reno. Don’t you know nothing anymore?”
“I know everything,” said the modest Reno. “I know to go that club, get his ass up out of there, and do what we got to do. Forget his guys. They can’t stand against us. I know that.”
