Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) (3 page)

“And
shower too,” she responded, running her hand through his thick hair.
 
“Both of us.”

“You
don’t mind that my horny ass made you late?”

She
smiled, looked at his face. “After what you just gave to me?
 
No way.”

“What
if this Matt Dellum wants you to kiss his ass for making him wait?”

“He
can kiss
my
ass,” Jenay said.
 
“If he wants to go there, he can certainly
kiss it.”

But
Charles was shaking his head.
 
“Nope,” he
said, getting up.
 
“Nobody’s kissing that
ass but me.”
 

Jenay
laughed.
 
And he lifted her into his
arms, and carried her to the shower.

After
showering together and dressing, they began walking downstairs.

“I
took Bonita to school this morning,” Jenay said.

“You
usually take her to school,” Charles replied.

“But
I wanted to meet with her teacher.
 
Every
time we scheduled, she canceled on us, remembered?
 
Something always came up.
 
So I wanted to meet without asking first.”

“How
did it go?” Charles asked as they walked.
 
Bonita was their eight-year-old.
 
She was in third grade at the most prestigious private school in
Jericho.

“It
was all kinds of crazy,” Jenay said.
 
“You know what her beef was with Nita?”

“What?”

“She
said Bonita Sinatra asks too many questions.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“Get out of here!”

“Yeah,
right?
 
I told that teacher asking
questions were a good thing.
 
Nita’s an
inquisitive girl.
 
She’s smart.
 
Of course she’s going to ask a lot of
questions.”

“That’s
all you told her?”

“Then
I went to the principal,” Jenay said.
 
“Even the principal realized that teacher was over her head.”

“Good,”
Charles said.

“She’s
been reassigned out of the gifted program.”

Charles
stopped walking and looked at his wife.
 
“They reassigned Bonita?
 
Are you
kidding me?”

“Not
Nita!
 
Her teacher.
 
Her teacher was reassigned.”

“Oh,”
Charles said, and they kept on walking.
 

Jenay
smiled.
 
“You never fly off the handle,”
she said, “unless your little girl is involved.”

Charles
smiled too.
 
“The first daughter I’ve
ever had,” he said.
 
“I aim to get it
right the first time.”

Jenay
loved his devotion to not only Bonita, the girl they had together, but to his
grown sons as well.
  
He was even devoted
to Carly and Ash, Jenay’s two stepdaughters from her first marriage whom she
and Charles adopted.
 
Right now, they
both were in college in Boston: Carly at Harvard, and Ash at a private liberal
arts school that catered to bright students with low GPAs, but had wealthy
parents.
 
Ash was almost as bright as her
younger sister Carly, but she was an unrepentant party girl.
 
When it came to selecting a college, she had
to take what she could get.

A
Jeep Wrangler drove up in the circular driveway just as Charles and Jenay
walked out of the family home and made their way to Jenay’s car.
 
Donald Sinatra, Charles’s youngest son, got
out.

“What
are you doing here?” Charles asked him.

“Why
aren’t you at the Inn?” Jenay asked him.
 

“I’m
off today, remember?” Donald was of average height and, unlike his brothers, he
was far more slender than muscular.
 
And
unlike his father’s dark hair and green eyes, Donald had blonde hair and blue
eyes that always reminded Charles of his ex-wife.
 
His ex-wife, Arianna Sinatra, was serving a
twenty-year stint in prison.

“Every
time I turn around you’re off,” Charles said.

Donald
grinned.
 
“Then you must not turn around
much.”

“So
what are you doing here?” Charles asked him.

“Brent
and I were supposed to go fishing today, he was off too, but something came up
and he got called into work.
 
So he
canceled on me.”

“So you
decided to come bug us instead?” Jenay asked and Charles laughed.

“Ha
ha, Ma,” Donald responded, smiling too.
 
“Very funny.”

“Anyway,
I’ve got to go,” Jenay said, kissed Charles on the lips, and air-kissed her
stepson.
 
“Be good, Donnie,” she said to
him.
 
“And don’t be late, Charles,” she
added, to her husband.

“I
won’t be late,” Charles said.
 
“I’m never
late.”

Jenay
gave her husband one of her
are you for
real
looks that made him laugh again, and then she got into her car, and
drove off.

Donald
watched her leave, shaking his head.
 
“Food for thought,” he said.

Charles
continued to watch his wife drive away.
 
He always felt a little twinge of dread whenever she left his side.
 
“What’s food for thought?” he asked his son.

“You
aren’t afraid she’s going to get tired of it?”

Charles
looked at Donald. “Tired of what?”

“Sex
with you all the time like that.
 
You
never give her a moment’s rest.”

Charles
wondered if his fly was open.
 
He
frowned.
 
“What are you talking about?”
he asked.
 
“What makes you so certain we
had sex?”

“Give
me a break!
 
Why else would Ma be here at
the house eleven o’ clock in the morning on her workday?
 
And you have that look on your face again.”

“What
look?”

That
I just got some
look,” Donald said.
 
“You can’t hide it.”

Charles
laughed.

“And,”
Donald added, “you didn’t have an erection around her.”

Charles’s
smile left.
 
Donald was always an
oddball, but this was going too far.
 
“I
didn’t
what
?”

“Whenever
you haven’t had any from Ma within, say, the last few hours, you always get an erection
as soon as she comes into a room. If she already gave you some, you don’t get
an erection when she walks in.
 
And it
happens every time.
 
Other pretty ladies
can come into a room and nothing happens with you.
 
But as soon as Ma shows up?
 
Wham.
 
I can bet a million dollars that if you hadn’t just finished banging
her, your pride and joy is going to be standing at attention.”

Charles
shook his head and began walking toward his own car.
 
He wanted to smile, but abstained.
 
“You’re paying far too much attention to my
love life,” he said as he walked.
 
“You
need to get your own.”

“I
have a life,” Donald said.
 
“A very nice
life right now, thank-you.
 
I just need
some gas money.”

“Gas
money?
 
You have a job.”

“I
know that.
 
But I’m between pay checks
right now.”

Charles
opened his car door.

“Come
on, Dad, please,” Donald said, grabbing hold of his father’s car door to keep
it open.
 
“I want to drive over to
Boston.”

“For
what?
 
Don’t go disturbing Carly.
 
She works too hard.”

“I’m
not going to see any Carly and her snobbish self.
 
Give me more credit than that!
 
It’s my day off and since Brent canceled on
me, Ash said she and I can do a few things.
 
So I’m going to go there and hang out with Ashley.”

“That’s
her problem,” Charles said.
 
“She hangs out
too much.
 
She has classes to attend and
tests to study for.
 
She’ll be graduating
after this term and I don’t want her mucking that up.”

“She
won’t,” Donald assured him.
 
“I mean,
she’ll need to study and all, but she doesn’t have any classes on Mondays this
term.
 
She’s thrilled I’m coming.
 
Besides, since you won’t buy either of them a
car until after they graduate, they’ll ride back with me tonight for the family
dinner.
 
They won’t have to take the
train.
 
So please.
 
It’s my day off.
 
I’ll pay you back.”

Charles
looked at Donald.
 
Although he was
improving, he still frustrated Charles with his slow rate of maturity.
 
But he was doing better.
 
Charles pulled out his wallet.

Donald
smiled.
 
“Thanks Dad!”

“Not
so fast.
 
I want you to go around back and
clean the pool before you leave.”

Donald
frowned.
 
“Clean the pool?
 
Ah, come on!”

“Okay,”
Charles said, and was about to place his wallet back into his back pocket.

“Okay,”
Donald said quickly.
 
“I’ll clean the
pool.
 
Although I don’t know why you haven’t
hired a pool boy yet.”

“With
four grown sons constantly asking for money or whatever else they need?
 
I have four pool boys.”
 
Charles then pulled out a hundred dollar
bill.

Donald
still was not satisfied.
 
“A
hundred?
 
But I need more than a
hundred.”

“That’ll
get you there and back,” Charles reminded him.

“But
what are we supposed to do when I get there?”

Charles
looked at his son.
 
“What?”

“I
mean, we want to go out and do things.
 
If all I have is gas money, what are we supposed to do when I get there?”

“Look
at each other,” Charles responded.
 
“Cook, clean.
 
Hell if I
know.
 
You need to learn to save your
money and stop spending every dime you make.”
 
Charles got into his month-old Jaguar.
 
“And you’d better be to work on time tomorrow.
 
Jenay gave you a second chance by giving you
that job at the Inn after I fired your ass. You’d better not blow it.”

“Do I
ever blow anything?” Donald asked.
 
When
Charles gave him that sidelong look, Donald smiled.
 
“Other than everything?” he asked instead.

Brent
Sinatra balanced a cup of McDonald’s steaming hot coffee as he entered the
Jericho County Police Department and grunted a general good morning to his
officers in the squad room.
 
He headed toward
the side stairwell that led to his third-floor office and pulled open the heavy
metal door.
 
It was Monday morning, it
was supposed to be his day off, but he was saddled with a staff that felt they
couldn’t shit without calling him first.

As he
headed up the stairwell, a bevy of police officers were heading down.
 
Like his father, he was not a morning person,
especially not today, but he managed to respond to the cheerful greetings of
his subordinate officers with grunts and nods and muted hellos.

One
of his officers, a two-year newbie, got bold.
 
“I thought you were off today, Chief,” he said as he headed down the
stairwell Brent was walking up.

“I
thought so too,” Brent responded in a voice that was unable to shield his
irritation.

His
officer smiled.
 
“Since you decided to
come in, sir,” he said, “maybe I can take the day off?”

“And
you can take off every day after that.” Brent looked at him.
 
“How about that?”

The
officer’s heart dropped. “Just kidding, sir,” he quickly responded.

“Thought
so,” Brent said, and pulled open the heavy metal door that led to the top
floor.

His
office was at the end of the hall and his secretary, Belma Finch, was typing at
her desk just outside his office door.
 

“He
in there?” Brent asked without breaking his stride.

“He’s
in there,” Belma replied without breaking her keystrokes.

“His
wife?”

“She’s
in there too.
 
The bitch.”

Brent
stopped at his office door and looked at his older secretary.
 
“Didn’t I tell you I wanted you to comport
yourself with more professionalism if you expect to keep your job.”

“I am
professional,” Belma made clear.
 
“And I
have every intention of keeping my job.
 
I just call it as I see it.
 
Now
get in there and handle the bitch.”

Any
other person and they would have been fired on the spot.
 
Brent Sinatra did not tolerate
insubordination and every single soul in that department knew it.
 
But Belma was old enough to be his mother,
was one of his family’s oldest friends, and she knew he adored her.
 
She was not going anywhere.

But
he still had to keep her in check.
 
“Watch your mouth, Belle,” he ordered, and then entered his office.
 
Except he entered with the look of a man sick
and tired of foolishness.
 
Day in and day
out it was something else.
 
If it wasn’t
his officers, it was the criminals.
 
If it
wasn’t the criminals, it was the law-abiding citizens who felt his entire
purpose for being was to figure out ways to help them disobey the very law he
was appointed to uphold.
 
He had only
been chief of the Jericho Police Department two months and counting, but
already this job, a job he thought he would love, was becoming a pain in the
ass.
 

Now
he was being dragged into the office on a Monday morning, on a day that was
supposed to be his first day off in nearly a year, and it was not even ironic
to him anymore.
 
But things had gotten
heated.
 
There had been an
altercation.
 
His people felt they had no
choice but to call him in.

Detective
Clem Michaels and his wife Jo stood from their chairs when he walked into the
office.
 
“Eddie was out of line, Brent,”
Clem immediately said, “and I had a right to tell him so.”

“Good
morning to you too, Clem,” Brent said as he tossed his hat onto the hat rack
and walked behind his desk.

Clem
exhaled.
 
“Good morning.”

Brent
looked at the wife.
 
She was a nice
looking redhead who, just a week ago, was trying to get him in her bed.
 
She was a woman he wouldn’t trust as far as
he could spit.

“Hey,
Brent,” she said, rolling her hair with her finger and smiling a seductive
smile even with her husband by her side.

“And
don’t ask us to sit down either,” Clem said as if he was the man in charge.

Brent
gave him a look that could melt steel.
 
“And you run what again?” Brent asked him.

“What
I’m saying,” Clem said less confidently, “is that this don’t require a whole bunch
of words.
 
I’m thinking Eddie should
apologize to my wife, and because of his behavior, I’m thinking she should be
hired on the spot and he should be fired.”

“Yeah,
that’s not going to happen,” Brent said, as he sat his cup of coffee on his
desk, and then sat his body behind his desk.

“He
ought to be fired,” Jo said.
 
“Clem is
right.
 
That boy had no call treating me
the way he treated me!”

Brent
looked at her with nothing but contempt in his big, green eyes.
 
“Eddie Rivers, my second in command, is forty
years old.
 
What
boy
are you referring to?”

Jo
saw that look in Brent’s eyes and decided against a response.
 

Her
husband, however, was full of responses.
 
“He could have given her an interview,” Clem said.
 
“He wouldn’t give her an interview, Brent.
 
Not even an interview!
 
I’ve been with this department for damn near
a decade, and his ass just got here, but he couldn’t give my wife that little
consideration?”

“He
was following orders.”

Clem
frowned.
 
“Whose orders?”

“Mine,”
Brent said firmly.
 
“No nepotism.
 
No favoritism.
 
No good old boys looking out for good old
boys in this department.
 
That’s
over.
 
Those days are done.”

“But
it’s nothing like that!” Clem insisted.
 
“She deserves the job.
 
She can be
a great dispatcher.
 
She’s qualified to
do it.”

Brent
knew exactly what she was qualified to do.
 
“She’s not working here.”

“But
why the hell not?
 
Just because she’s my
wife?
 
That’s not fair, Brent!”

But
Brent was beyond that.
 
She was not going
to work there, and that, as far as he was concerned, was that.
 
“Why did you wait until Monday morning for
all of this outrage?
  
She was denied an
interview on Friday.”

“My
uncle died,” Clem responded.
 
“I was in
Indiana all weekend.
 
When I returned
late last night, that’s when Jo decided to tell me what happened.”

“And
you decided to come down here to the police station this morning and get into
an altercation with your commanding officer?”

“It
was not any altercation,” Clem made clear.
 
“Eddie and I had a fight, that’s all.
 
And I won that fight!”

“Captain
Rivers is second in command in this department.
 
He is your supervisor’s supervisor.
 
You do not
fight
the number
two.
 
If you have a beef with anybody who
works here you either quit, or you come see me.”

“So
you can tell me the same thing?” Clem asked.
 
“You’re gonna back up that Negro no matter what I say!
 
He can do no wrong in your eyes.
 
But me, one of your own kind, a man you’ve
known since childhood, is treated like this?
 
You brought him here, promoted him over all the rest of us, and you
expect me to respect that . . .
token
?
 
And the way he treated my wife?
 
I’ll never respect that coon!”

“One
thing about that coon, as you call him,” Brent said, standing up, “he’s still
employed.
 
But you, the anti-coon, is
not.”

Clem
didn’t understand.
 
“What’s that supposed
to mean?”

“Hand
in your shield and your gun.
 
You’re
fired.”

Clem
couldn’t believe it.
 
“I’m
fired
?
 
You’re
firing
me?
 
Why?
 
Because I’m standing up for my wife against that. . .?
 
Because he wouldn’t give her an interview
when I know my wife is qualified and I’m man enough to stand up for her?”

“The
only thing your wife is qualified to do,” Brent shot back, “doesn’t require
qualifications.
 
Just a good, strong
back.”
 
Fighting words, and Brent knew
it.

Jo
knew it too.
 
“You asshole!” she yelled.

Clem
was stunned.
 
“Are you calling my wife a
whore?” he asked.

“To
her core,” Brent said.

Clem
angrily jumped across Brent’s desk, ready to fight his commander-in-chief.
 
But Clem was no match for his far more
muscular boss.
 
Brent grabbed Clem and pulled
him all the way across the desk, just missing his cup of coffee, as if he had
been hoping for this fight.
 
Clem was
able to stand, and both men were now face to face.
 
Brent was going to love kicking his ass, and
was about to commence the kicking.
 
But
Clem knew he was outmatched.
 
He quickly
lifted his hands in surrender.
 

“I
was just venting,” Clem suddenly declared.
 
“I was just venting!”

Jo
looked at her husband with anger in her eyes.
 
“You were venting?
 
What do you
mean you were
venting
?
 
He called me a whore, Clem!”

“Hand
in your gun and shield,” Brent said to Clem.

“He
called me a whore, Clem!”

“Shut
the fuck up!” Clem yelled at his wife, turning toward her.
 
It was stressful enough.

“Hand
them over,” Brent said again.

Clem
looked at him.
 
“Brent, look, I said some
things---”

“Your
gun and shield, Clem.”

Clem
couldn’t believe it had come to this. He stared at his old friend.
 
“I knew you when you were knee-high to a
grasshopper, when we were all friends together, and you’re firing me?
 
They make you the chief of police and now
you’re better than me?”
 

Brent
was accustomed to that line now.
 
Every
one of his previous good friends now felt they were entitled to special
treatment just because, before his promotion, he was one of them.
 
They could kiss his ass if they thought he
was going to skirt his responsibilities to stay in their good graces.
 
He had a job to do, and he was going to see
it through.

“Give
me your gun and shield,” Brent ordered for the final time.

 
And Clem saw his boss’s resolve.
 
He pulled his gun from his holster and sat it
on Brent’s desk.
 
Then he pulled his
wallet from his back pocket, tore out his badge, and threw it onto the desk.
 
“You can take that badge and shove it!” he
said.
 
“I didn’t appreciate working under
your kind anyway.”
 
He walked over to his
wife, placing his hand against her lower back.
 
Although he spoke triumphantly, it was fear, not triumph, Brent saw in
his eyes.
 

“Come
on, babe,” Clem said.
 
“Let’s get the
hell out of here.”

Although
Jo began to leave, Brent could tell she wasn’t all that enthused about the
prospect of suddenly being tied to an unemployed man.
 
He was not as appealing to her now.
 
She even looked back at Brent, as if he might
be interested in giving her a whirl.
 
He
looked away from her.

She
frowned, and followed her husband.

Outside
of the station, two uniformed officers were chatting it up at the flag pole
near the front entrance door.
 
When a new
model Acura drove up, and a curvaceous black woman stepped out, they elbowed
each other.