CHAPTER SIX
When the butler escorted Tommy and Reno to the back patio pool area and Tommy saw her for the first time in his life, she wasn’t at all what he expected.
She was tall and beautiful, statuesque even, and sitting on her lounger at her massive infinity pool like a woman with the world on a string.
Ingrid “The Hawk” Hawken was captivating.
“Welcome to Alberta, gentlemen,” she said as they began walking toward her.
Reno gave Tommy the elbow and muttered “wow” beneath his breath. Tommy was impressed too: she was a very beautiful woman.
When they sat down in an array of chairs in front of her lounger, they realized her eyes were staring at Tommy. But when she unbuttoned the one button on her long shirt to reveal the bikini she wore, both men got hard.
“This is my cousin and business partner I was telling you about,” Reno said to Ingrid.
“Ah yes. The infamous Tommy Gabrini. Dapper Tom when you’re good. Backdoor Tommy when you’re bad.” Then she laughed as she looked Tommy up and down. “Both suits you.”
“But which do you prefer?” Reno asked, playing on her attraction to Tommy. In his eyes he always played the hand he was dealt. She loved great-looking men. That was her weakness. He was not above playing to that weakness.
But Ingrid was nobody’s fool. She knew how to play too. “I would rather ask him what does he know about me?”
“Next to nothing,” Tommy said.
Reno inwardly rolled his eyes. Get the gotdamn contract signed, he was inwardly yelling, and then get real with her. But not yet!
“Surely you know my name.”
“I also know,” Tommy said, “that you will benefit greatly by this investment. Our European Industrial Complex will be the first of its kind, with every known industry under its wings. It will be so vast and so important that nobody will be able to replicate it for decades. And by then we will have such a foothold on commerce that they will always be fighting just to catch up.”
The woman listened intensely to Tommy’s take on their business venture, but Reno knew where her mind was. “How tall are you?” she asked him.
“Tall enough.”
“I’m five-nine. Does that intimidate you?”
“Not in the least.”
“How big are you?”
Tommy didn’t answer that. This was ridiculous! But by getting out of that car, he’d already agreed to play this ludicrous game with her for business sake. “Big enough,” he said.
“Oh you are being modest, Tommy Gabrini. I heard you are rather unusual in that department too. Unusual in the supersized sense,” she added with a laugh.
Reno laughed with her, although he found her disgusting too. “Now that you have his vitals,” he said, “and you obviously approve,” he added, “will you now sign this contract so we can get this show on the road?” Reno opened the portfolio he carried.
But she was still wholly focused on Tommy. “I knew one of your girlfriends a long time ago,” she said. “Liz I think her name was. She said you were a great guy. The kind of guy any woman would want. I said yes, but is he good where it counts. She said that too, and we laughed.”
She and Reno laughed at that. “Now about this contract,” Reno said.
“Are you married?” she asked Tommy.
Tommy looked at her. “I am, yes. Married with children.”
“He’s married, yes, but how could a face like that be tied down to one woman?” Reno asked. “He’s married to the world.”
Although Ingrid laughed, Tommy looked at Reno. “The world? Really Reno?” But his response made Ingrid laugh even harder.
“One thing for sure,” she said, “you’re a very alluring man. I would be lying if I said otherwise. Although . . .”
Reno was getting concerned. Was Tommy not going to be enough for her? “Although what?” asked Reno.
“You will require much work I see,” she said, “to get you on my side.”
“You sign this contract,” said Reno, “and he’ll be on your side and you’ll be on his side and we’ll all go home in limousines.”
“Paul Newman from The Color of Money right?” asked Ingrid.
Reno smiled, even though he had no clue where that line came from.
“But it doesn’t matter. We all go home in limousines already,” said Ingrid, “so who cares about limousines? What really matters,” she added, “is will you, Tommy Gabrini, at least every now and then, be willing to go home with me? Because you’re cute.
Anybody ever tell you how cute you are, Tommy Gabrini? Unlike weasel over there.”
Reno saw that she was motioning toward him. And he took offense. “Weasel? Who you calling a weasel? I got your weasel right here,” Reno said and squeezed his balls and lifted them toward her.
Ingrid laughed. Tommy shook his head. It was like a horror show to him.
And he’d had it. He stood on his feet. “I told you I was married and you dismissed it as if it was nothing.”
“That’s because I’ve seen photos of your wife. She’s hardly worthy of you.”
“You don’t know my wife so you would be wise to keep her out of this conversation.”
“Tom, come on,” said Reno. “She didn’t mean it like that.”
“And you don’t know what she’s worthy of,” Tommy added as he continued his takedown of The Hawk.
“But I know what she’s not worthy of, and that is for her husband to sit up here and play these weird seductive games just to get you to sign a contract that you would be a fool to pass up.
But if you think for a second, the way Reno wants you to think, that I come with the contract, then don’t sign it.
Because you will be stiffed. We would like you to be a business partner, and nothing more.
If that’s not enough for you, then have a nice day lady. I don’t have time for this bullshit.”
And Tommy left.
Reno stood up too. He knew they’d just blew the best chance they had to secure the deal, but he couldn’t disagree with a word Tommy had spoken.
Ingrid looked at him. “Your scheme backfired, didn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t have to have a scheme if your ass didn’t like playing these games with people.”
She looked Reno up and down. “You’re no Tommy Gabrini,” she said, “but you ain’t bad looking either.”
“I thought I was a weasel.”
She laughed. “I just want what I want and I don’t care who I run over to get it. You were a good contrast for me.”
“Oh nice. Very nice. You’re such a lady.”
“I heard you’re a lot of things too in the bedroom, and a gentleman wasn’t one of them. I also heard they vote you the most powerful man in Vegas every single year. Is that true?”
Reno frowned. What did that have to do with anything? “Yeah it’s true. So what?”
“If that’s true, maybe this is true too. Because I further heard that you were even bigger than Tommy in a certain department. And that you, in a way superior to every man alive, truly knows how to lay it down. I heard there’s nobody like you in that department.”
Reno was inwardly pleased to hear it. But he still didn’t like her. “I handle my business,” he admitted. “What’s that to you?”
“You handle your business with me right here and right now,” Ingrid said, undoing the string of her bikini, “and I’ll gladly become the missing link that is absolutely required for your business empire to ever become a business empire in Europe. I’ll sign your contract.”
Then she looked her soft eyes into his glassy eyes.
“It’s all up to you, Reno Gabrini. Do as I say and get my signature, or leave my presence with nothing but your high ethics to keep you warm.
High ethics that you don’t have anyway. But it’s all up to you.
” She smiled again. “What are you going to do?”