Page 54 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

Gemma eventually composed herself again, and was wiping her eyes with the handkerchief Reno had given to her, but she was still reeling.

Reno stared at Sal. He was reeling too. “Your ass look like you need a doctor yourself,” Reno said as he looked at Sal’s tattered suit and the patch work of burns on Sal’s arms. But Sal looked back out of the window. He wasn’t about to let some doctor fix him up and make him all better when his son was in another room fighting for his life. They could forget that.

Trina looked at Gemma. “They’re saying Sal pulled you out first, before he pulled out Lucky, and that he wouldn’t let you save Lucky. Is that true?”

Gemma was too distraught to admit it, and Sal started pacing and rubbing his hair, which Trina and Reno both knew meant it was true.

Trina looked at Sal. “How could you, Sal?” she asked him.

“That’s what I wanna know,” said Reno.

“Cool it, Father,” said Carmine, moving toward his dad. He knew how brutal Reno could get. “It’s tough enough.”

But Reno was upset. So was Trina. “Children first,” Trina said.

“Damn right,” said Reno, echoing his wife. “Your child in danger, you never put anybody ahead of your child. I don’t care who it is. You know that, Sal.”

“You’re one to talk,” Sal said beneath his breath. He could be brutal too.

“What’s that?” asked Reno. “What the fuck you just said?”

“I said your ass one to talk,” Sal said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sal stopped pacing and looked at Reno. “Did Jimmy come first?” he asked him.

“Boss,” warned Robby, knowing where Sal was going with that.

But Sal had to lash out at somebody, and Reno walked right into his buzzsaw. “Remember what happened with Jimmy, Reno?” Sal asked him. “Remember when they held you and your family at gunpoint and forced you to choose which one died? Your ass didn’t pick Trina. You picked Jimmy to die. You chose your child to die. And he nearly did. Remember that, Reno? Remember that?!” Sal screamed. “Who the fuck are you to talk?!”

Reno was shaken to his core. “I wanted to die!” Reno yelled back, beating his hand on his chest. “What are you talking? I begged them to take me and spare my family. But they wouldn’t and you know it!”

But Sal was shaken too. And he was yelling too. “I was not about to let my wife risk her life to save our son when I was right there! That was my job. That was my duty. I saved my wife and I saved our son!”

“Maybe,” responded Reno, lashing back, knowing that Lucky was no way out of the woods yet.

But that response enraged Sal even more. “Why you motherfucker!” he yelled and hurried to Reno. And even as Robby tried to hold his boss back, it was too late. Sal was in Reno’s face, and Reno wouldn’t back down, and the fight was joined. Two titans started fighting like kids on a playground. Robby and Carmine were trying to break it up. Even Gemma, Marie, and Trina were jumped up trying to stop it too.

But it was no use. They had to back off as the two heavyweights fell on top of the wooden table in the room and broke it in half. Then them bumped into a stand and shattered a glass vase. Then they bumped into the wall and put a hole in the wall the size of a human body fighting each other. They weren’t landing any blows because they were too evenly matched. But they were wrestling like pros, as each one kept trying to get in position to take the other one down. It was a wrestling match trying to break into a brawl.

Until a voice broke through the chaos.

“Stop!” it yelled. “Or I’ll kill both you motherfuckers!”

When Reno and Sal heard that towering voice, it was all it took. Because they knew whose voice it was. And they knew he was the kind of man who meant every word he said.

They disentangled themselves from each other. Both were breathing heavily. Both were feeling ridiculous for fighting in the first place. And then both went to the opposite sides of the room. Sal went back over to the window: his safe place. Reno took his ass back to Trina.

As soon as Carmine realized who it was behind that booming voice, he moved over by his mother too. Something about Uncle Mick always unnerved him. His reputation was a part of it. Carmine talked the talk but Uncle Mick walked it. But the way he was always staring at Carmine, as if Carmine was a unicorn or something, was the real reason for his uneasiness.

“I thought you were on your way to Europe,” Sal said to Mick.

Mick Sinatra closed the waiting room door behind him. “I turned around,” he said. Then he exhaled. “How is he?”

“Still in surgery,” Gemma said.

Mick hated to hear that. He opened his suit coat and rested his hands on his hips.

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