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Gabe didn't talk about his boss.
His buddies often laughed about it, said 'you're an obedient dog all the way', and they'd find it funny that he kept his mouth shut. A couple times, their hands got heavy while filling his glass with alcohol, they put a bit more pressure in their interrogation, eager to know what it was like, working for Penguin.
Gabe didn't talk. He snickered, he said 'alright guys, that's enough', he changed the subject. Sometimes, he just got up, walked out, hands in his pockets as his friends' protests followed him all the way to the door. After a few years, they learnt not to mention it too much.
After all, the way Penguin had become his boss hadn't been pretty. Since Maroni was gone, rumors said Penguin had killed one of his caporegimi, that he'd bought Gabe's loyalty, that Gabe was partially responsible for the fate of Frankie Carbone. Not something to discuss about over a baseball match and drinks.
Penguin didn't brag so often, didn't share information easily if there wasn't something to be gained from it. When with Gabe, he criticized, he pointed out, but he never fully trusted anyone, Gabe could tell. The furthest he went was to leave his mother in his protection: and that was already a whole lot. But it wasn't loyalty or trust that made Gabe shut his mouth.
See, Gabe was scared.
A tall, strong man like him, and he felt shivers down his spine when Penguin's grip on his cane tightened, when he clenched his jaw, when his smile became sweeter, a honey-flavored poison in its own. He was repulsed by him, he felt relief whenever the day was done and he came home. He was afraid, in a way he was too ashamed to imagine.
He used to work for Maroni. He knew about dirty work. At the beginning, when he was still in his twenties and the crime family was only now making its way to the top, they called him when they needed muscle: he kept people's head under water until they stopped making bubbles, he beat them up to a bloody pulp, if the boss asked. He made sure their bodies fit in a bodybag, however small the package might be.
It wasn't like that with Penguin.
He thought it'd be. Penguin didn't look strong. He used to take him for one of these shaky guys that talked silly words, never dared to dirty their hands: that wasn't Penguin.
Penguin liked it. He could see it. He got off from it. He'd seen it that day, after he came to find Gabe, said 'I have a deal for you, you'll like it, I promise', and Gabe watched him gut Frankie, that proper-gentleman composure he always had leaving place to an ugly face. Didn't matter that Penguin took deep breaths, regained his careful appearance: he took pleasure in that kinda stuff. Even when he let others do it, there was that perverse satisfaction on the edge of his smile, the way he enjoyed violence.
Well, that, Gabe didn't mind all that much. At first. Hell, he'd seen his fair share of people that enjoyed pain, that wasn't such a big deal.
But there was something about Penguin.
Inhuman, almost. Gabe wasn't much of a religious or superstitious man: he went to church with his old mother, and he still said his prayers when he remembered, but he hadn't believed in monsters until Penguin.
Couldn't explain it. It was only there. This dread. That feeling, when he woke up in the morning, and he had to drive him around town. Like acid poured down his throat, cement on the bottom of his stomach. He could tell. Oh, he could tell. When Penguin corrected him with a snicker, 'no, Gabriel, of course I'm not going to kill him, who do you think I am?', when he told Gabe to wait for him at the entrance of a building, when he counted the debt money from Maroni and Falcone's abandonned empires, when he threatened someone over the phone, when he complained about the weather, each time, Gabe looked at that man that payed his bills, that man that knew where his family lived and who wouldn't let him leave, and he could tell that he would be the last thing he'd ever see.
Didn't matter how.
Penguin would kill him, one day.
So, no. Gabe didn't talk about his boss.