Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full by Mallory Monroe Page B

it had come to this.  He was an enemy now.  There was no other way to view Jody Parks.  And Reno never underestimated his enemies.
    But that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful. 
    He withdrew the gun.  “Get the fuck out of my face,” he said, put his gun away, and then stood to let Jody out of the booth. 
    Jody didn’t hesitate.  He stood up, without attempting to explain a damn thing, and took off.  He nearly ran out of that restaurant.
    Once outside, he got in his car and took off.  He nervously scrambled for his cell phone, found the number he needed, and pressed Send.  He kept looking through his rearview mirror, to make sure none of Reno’s men were following him.  But even though he didn’t see a soul, he still felt antsy.
    “What?” the voice said on the other end of the line.
    “I told you that fucker was crazy!” Jody yelled.
    “Calm yourself down and tell me what happened.  He showed up?”
    “Hell yeah he showed up.  Put a gun to my balls, man,” Jody said, and the guy on the other end laughed.
    “That shit ain’t funny!” Jody screamed. “I almost pissed in my pants!  Reno is crazy like that, I’m telling you.  You’re messing with the wrong fucking one!”
    “You don’t tell me who I’m messing with!  I know his ass too.”  Then there was a pause.  “But I didn’t expect him to show up like that.”
    “I didn’t either!  I couldn’t believe it.  It was working.  I was doing just like you said.  Her business was failing and I was selling her the answer.  And she was buying it big time.  Then Reno shows up and she clams up like everybody in that family does whenever he comes around.  And it was over.  He warned me to stay away from her, and I’m not about to try that man again.  He’s crazy, I’m telling you. He’ll blow my balls off just like he threatened.  He’s nuts!”
    There was another pause.  “Okay,” the voice said. “We’ll have to come at it from a different angle.”
    “What angle?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “I figure my work is done,” Jody said.  “I talked to her.  I would have regained her confidence if Reno wouldn’t have shown up.  Now it’s impossible.  I figure I’m done.”
    “You figure wrong,” the voice said. “Your ass isn’t anywhere near done.  Nobody’s done until Reno falls.”
    “Then shoot the motherfucker and drop his ass!  What’s with all of this subterfuge and shit?”
    “What an idiot!  You think that’s all it takes?  A bullet?  I kill Reno, then what?  How is he going to suffer if he’s dead?  Knowing that joker I’ll probably be taking him out of his misery.  No.  We stick to the plan.”
    “But the plan failed!”
    “Plan B motherfucker!  Haven’t you ever heard of a plan B?”
    Jody closed his eyes.  He was in bed with the devil.  He knew it when they first came to him.  He should have said no and let them ruin him right then and there.  Because if they didn’t play this exactly right, and if this so-called plan B failed too, he was going to be the one suffering.  And Reno was going to be the administrator of that suffering.
     
    Within minutes of his departure, Trina returned to the table.  When she saw Jody was no longer sitting there, she hesitated.  Then sat down in the seat across from Reno.  She folded her arms.
    “What did you say to him?” she asked him.
    “What do you mean?”
    “What did you say to him, Reno, you know what I mean.”
    Reno leaned back.  “We talked, that’s all.”
    “About me?”
    “Yeah, about you.  So?  I talk about you all the time.”
    “Do you follow me all the time?”
    Reno hesitated.  “I told you I saw your car---”
    “That’s bull, Reno!  You have ninety-nine places you need to be, but coming across town to this nothing restaurant isn’t one of them.  You wouldn’t be passing by this place unless you came by for a very specific reason.  One of your goons saw me with Jody and ran and told it to you like