CHAPTER SEVEN
At the bar in the back of the living room, Reno slid a glass of liquor over to his son.
“No thanks, Pop,” said Jimmy as he attempted to slide it back toward his father.
But Reno slid it right back to him. “Drink it,” he ordered. “You need it.”
It was two hours later. Sal was in the streets finding out all he could, Trina had managed to fall asleep, and Jimmy and Dom sat at the bar while their father stood behind it. Jimmy’s phone rang. When he saw that it was his boss and uncle, Tommy Gabrini, he got up and walked away to take the call.
Dom looked at Reno. “What was the other situation Uncle Mick was working on, Pop?” he asked as he swallowed down his own glass of liquor.
“Two of his capos got iced. He was hunting down their killers.”
Now Dom was worried. “And he dropped that to come here?”
Reno nodded.“Yup.”
“Damn, Pop. What he know that we don’t know? I mean, I know it’s bad. But somebody take out two of Uncle Mick’s lieutenants would be considered worse. I mean, we aren’t at war yet. This shit just popping off. Maybe he knows something we don’t know.”
“That’s not the issue. He knows B.B. Bernardi. That’s the issue.”
“You act like B.B.’s on par with us.”
“He ain’t bad as us and never will be,” said Reno. “But that’s not the issue either. His heir is dead. By one of us. That makes him dangerous. That’s why you and Jimmy will remain at my hotel in my penthouse until we stomp that motherfucker in the ground.” Then Reno exhaled. “Before he even tries to stomp us.”
“Right,” said Dom.
Jimmy ended the call and went back and sat at the bar. “That was Uncle Tommy,” he said. “He says he’s got guys on the street looking for B.B. too.”
“I hope you told him to stay in Seattle and protect his family until we get a better read on what might happen,” Reno said.
“I didn’t have to tell him that. He told me. Family is always first with Uncle Tommy. And specifically his family. He’s not leaving them anywhere.”
“He takes that family first shit too far, if you ask me,” said Dom.
“Yeah right,” said Jimmy, who worked for Tommy Gabrini and was closest to him than most in the family. “Spoken like a man whose relationship is on the rocks.”
“Oh I know you didn’t come at me like that,” said Dom. “Your girlfriend left your ass! I got issues with my old lady, that’s true, but at least we’re still on speaking terms. We’re still trying to work it out. You wouldn’t even communicate with Oprah. She tried and tried to get you to talk about the issues, but you were too busy to talk. But as soon as she left, you were begging her to come back. I don’t blame her for saying no. I hear she’s got her a new man already anyway. So don’t even go there, James. You need to worry about yourself. You need to get your ass ready for war.”
“Jimmy’s not fighting anybody,” Reno said. “He’s staying out of this. And guess what? You are too.”
“ Me ?” Dom was livid. “I know how to handle myself on the battlefield.”
“Your battlefield days are over,” said Reno. “I shouldn’t have ever let you go down that road to begin with. All that shit we had to deal with because of your warrior ass. That’s over. And I mean it, Dominic. None of my children will ever again shed any more blood.”
“Carmine’s already a gangster. You gonna stop him too, Pop? I don’t think so.”
“Who gives a fuck what you think?” Reno frowned. “It’s what I’m saying that’s the law, and your ass will abide by it.”
Jimmy exhaled. “I don’t want all this blood shed on my account. I hate that shit.”
“What do you think we like it?” asked Reno. “We hate that shit too. But it is what it is. They start it. We can’t stop until we finish it. That’s just the way it works.”
Then Reno took a long gulp of his liquor. “You know why we call him B.B.?”
“Duh, Pop,” said Dom. “It’s because of his initials. Brocco Bernardi. B.B. Duh.”
“Wrong,” said Reno. “It has nothing to do with his initials. We call him B.B. because, when we were young, he used to run around with a big bb gun shooting at old ladies.”
“Old ladies?” asked Jimmy.
“That’s how he got his jollies. Shooting old ladies. And even when he took an eye out on one lady, that didn’t stop him. He kept on doing it. Call me B.B. , he said, like he was proud. And you know what he said when I asked him why he did stupid shit like that?”
“What he said, Pop?”
“He said he likes to see their faces when they think it’s a real bullet. Oh he’s a sick motherfucker alright. Always has been. He’s a threat you take seriously.”
Jimmy covered his face with his hands. Then he thought about something and looked at his father. “What if we go to the cops? What if I turn myself in?”
Dommi laughed. Reno looked at Jimmy as if he was insane. “Have you lost your marbles, boy? You’ve never been about that life, not like we have, but you been around that life long enough to know good n’ well that if a Gabrini showed up to a police station confessing to a self-defense situation, they’d put you in jail on the spot.”
“Under the jail,” said Dom.
“And throw away the key,” said Reno.
As soon as Reno said those words, an explosion so loud that it rocked the entire penthouse could be heard. Reno fell backwards. Jimmy and Dom fell off of their stools. And all three men jumped to their feet.
“What the fuck?” said a stunned Reno as gunfire suddenly erupted in the corridor outside.
Reno and Dom began pulling out their guns and running for the exit. “Go upstairs, Jimmy, and put everybody in one room!” Reno yelled as they ran.
Jimmy hurried toward the staircase as his father and half-brother ran around to a side exit out of the penthouse since the gunfire was near the front entrance.
When both men ran out into the corridor, with Dom moving over to the opposite side of the hall, their guns ready to fire, they hurried up to the end of the hall. Reno motioned for Dom to stay back as he alone took a peep around the corridor. There was a gun battle in full force, with many of his bodyguards down already from the explosive that was used to penetrate what was thought to have been an impenetrable penthouse floor. But there was still a couple men trying to fend off the attackers.
Reno and Dom got out into the open and began firing at the attackers in a sneak attack that immediately took out four of what appeared to be nine gunmen. But the five left were fierce and they continued shooting so many rounds that Reno and Dom had to retreat back against the wall just as their two remaining bodyguards had to do. They were outgunned.
Dom, realizing it too, ran back around to the side entrance, entered the house, ran as fast as he could to his father’s gun cabinet and pulled out two always loaded AK-47s and ran back out into the corridor. But this time he flew open the entrance door and began firing with a rifle in each hand. The gunmen, who had been aiming down the hall where the gun battle was joined, was caught off guard and by the time they turned to fire back, Dom had taken out three of the five gunmen and Reno and his bodyguards were able to take out the other two.
While Dom and the bodyguards checked the now-deceased nine gunmen to see if they recognized any of them, and as seemingly the entire contingent of hotel and casino security made their way onto the penthouse floor, Reno hurried to see where that explosion came from. And when he saw a gaping hole in the entire back wall of the corridor, and ropes that had hoisted the men up, he was shocked.
“It’s Brocco’s men,” Dom yelled out when the identities were confirmed. But when he hurried over to his father and saw that gaping hole, too, he staggered backwards he was so amazed. “Damn, Pop,” he said. “How in the world did they do that?”
But Reno was too distraught to respond. He was too busy realizing that what he thought was airtight security for his family was nothing more than air, as he continued to stare out at the sky outside, even the clouds, that the hole had exposed.