Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry (19 page)

Mick looked at Charles, stunned.
  
Charles looked at Mick.
 
“This is the guy we need to find.”

“Don’t worry,” Mick said.
 
“We’re find him.”

Sirens could be heard in the
distance.
 
Charles kept the photograph,
as he and Mick hurried away from the scene.

Over the next several weeks, life
settled back down and they all attempted to resume their normal lives.
 
Mick returned to Philadelphia and his massive
corporation.
 
Charles and Jenay returned
to Jericho and their business obligations.
 
And all the speculation that once swirled around the discovery of Ethan
Campbell’s body began to ebb even in Boston.
 
The police determined that his body had been moved from a different
location, an outdoors location, and planted at Carly’s former house.
 
They concluded he had not been killed in that
house, and the person who once lived there, Carly Sinatra, was not involved in
the crime.

Although Trevor went back to Boston
the same night he had dinner with Carly, to Carly’s pleasant surprise, he
stayed in touch with her.
 
He stayed in
touch practically every single night.
 
Their conversations began with him attempting to get her back on his
payroll, but over time devolved into more personal discussions.
 
They talked about their likes and
dislikes.
 
They talked about their
dreams.
 
They talked about irrelevant
things.
 
They enjoyed each other’s
conversation.

And despite her family’s doubts about
Trevor, and her father still had many, Carly quickly lost all doubt.
 
Mainly because she knew Trevor before that
night with Ethan, but also because, during all of their daily conversations,
Trevor never once mentioned anything about Ethan’s death or her involvement in
it.
 
Life was changing for Carly.
 
She felt as if she had passed some grand test
and was now on her way.
 
Life was good.

And then they found Gooch DeCarlo,
and everything changed again.

It was almost a month after Carly’s
arrest.
 
Charles and Jenay were sitting
out on the patio, seated side by side on the lounger, when the call came
in.
 
Charles was leaned back asleep, his
sunglasses covering his eyes, while Jenay was sitting up polishing her toenails.

Robert came out from inside the house
carrying an IPhone.
 
“Dad,” he said as he
entered talking, “you left this on the table.”
 
Then he saw the state of his father.
 
“He’s sleep?”

Jenay looked at Charles, and then at
Robert.
 
“Seems that way to me,” she
said, and then continued to do her toenails.

“What do I tell Uncle Mick?” Robert
asked.

Jenay looked up again.
 
“Mick is on the phone?”

“Yeah.
 
He wants to speak to Dad.”

Jenay reached for the phone.
 
Robert handed it over.
 
“Hello, Mick?”

“Jenay, hey.
 
Is Charles there?”

“Yes.
 
But he’s asleep.
 
Is it urgent?”

Mick didn’t mince words.
 
“Yes,” he said.

Jenay knew Mick was not a frivolous
man.
 
If he said it was urgent, then she
knew it was urgent.
 
She leaned back and
shook Charles.
 
“Babe,” she said.
 
“Babe!”

Charles opened his eyes quickly, let
her words digest, and then looked at her.
 

“Telephone,” she said.
 

Charles frowned.
 
She woke him up to take a phone call?

“It’s Mick,” she quickly added,
before he jumped on her case.

Charles, knowing Mick did not call to
chew the fat, accepted his cell phone from her.
 
“What’s up?” he asked.

“I have your agitator.”

“Where?
 
In Philly?”

“Boston.
 
He finally came out of his cave when he
thought the heat was off.
 
Want me to fly
up and get you?”

“That’ll be faster,” Charles said.

“I’m on my way,” Mick said, and they
ended the call.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Robert asked.

“Just a situation,” Charles said, and
looked at Jenay.

“You’ve got to go?” Jenay asked.

“Yup.”

“They found him?”

Charles nodded.
 
“Yup,” he said.
 
Then he leaned against Jenay, which she knew
meant he was still tired, and kissed her on the lips.
 
Then he got up.

“Can I go with you, Dad?” Robert
asked.
 
He was out of the loop, and badly
wanted in.

Charles looked at Robert.
 
He hated that his oldest boy Brent was
involved in this mess.
 
Not Bobby
too.
 
“No,” he said firmly, as he made
his way into the house.

Gooch DeCarlo sat in the chair
against the wall.
 
Three men guarded him,
and one stood at the window.
 
But all
were heavily armed.

“They’re here,” said one, as he left
the window and walked over to the door.
 
He waited to hear a knock, and then opened the door.

Mick and Charles walked in like two
well-dressed enforcers from way back.
 
Already Charles knew this wasn’t going to be as simple as interrogating
the guy and letting him go.
 
The guy,
this Gooch, had already been worked over royally.
 
He was so badly beaten that his forehead had
a tennis ball-size hickie on it, and his left eye was swollen shut.

Mick stood in front of Gooch, and
then knelt down.
 
Gooch leaned back reflexively
when he realized Mick the Tick was in front of him.
 
Charles stood behind his younger
brother.
  
This was not his element, he
was no gangster, but he had Mick’s back.

“My driver betrayed me,” Mick
said.
 
“My question is why?”

Gooch knew he was already dead.
 
Mick the Tick didn’t come to these hellholes
to show mercy.
 
Gooch wasn’t going to
feign ignorance the way he knew most men in a tough spot like his would do.
 
He was going to show something he knew Mick
hated: disrespect.
 
“Do I know you?” he asked
him.

“You stupid fuck!” one of Mick’s men
said to Gooch.

“Want me to show him how well he
knows you, boss?” another one of Mick’s men asked.

“Is that necessary, Gooch?” Mick
asked.
 
When Gooch didn’t respond, Mick
reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a hand-sized
grabber.
 
But instead of hitting the guy,
Mick took the grabber and latched it onto Gooch’s crotch.
 
He squeezed.
 
Gooch screamed.
 
“Is it necessary,
Gooch?” he asked again.

Even Mick’s men looked away when that
grabber latched onto the man’s balls.
 
Charles wanted to look away too, but he knew Mick was pumping the guy
for information, and he was doing it for Carly’s sake.
 
For Charles’s daughter’s sake.
 
He wasn’t about to look away.

Gooch didn’t look away either.
 
He was too busy screaming out in agony and
pain.

“You still haven’t answered my
questions, Gooch,” Mick said as he continued to squeeze.
 
“You still haven’t told me if I should put my
boys on you again.”
 
Mick squeezed
harder.
 
“You still haven’t told me why
my pea brain of a motherfucking driver thought it made sense to betray me.”

Gooch was still screaming and his
face was fire red as he lifted in his seat and tried with every muscle in his
body to break away from Mick’s grasp.
 
Mick’s men had to look then, when they saw Gooch’s attempts at
freedom.
 
But it was still painful to
see.

“Why, Gooch?” Mick asked again, as he
squeezed again and then twisted.

“Damn!” one of Mick’s men said and
completely backed up.
 
He touched his own
balls, as if by abstention Gooch’s troubles spelled trouble for him.

“Money,” Gooch finally said,
breathlessly, and Charles, pleased that he was now willing to talk, unfolded
his big arms.

Mick released the grabber.
 
“Money?” Mick asked him.

Gooch let out a sharp exhale when
Mick released him.
 
“Money.
 
He wanted money.”

“Why?”

Gooch knew he was a dead man talking,
but he couldn’t take the kind of torture Mick was putting him through.
 
And with the pain came a grappling at
straws.
 
He was irrational now.
 
He actually thought, by talking, he could
somehow prolong his life.
 
Or at least
give him time to come up with another implausible way out.
 
“I do jobs,” he said.
 
“That’s how I make my living.
 
No matter how big or small, I do jobs.
 
So I was asked to keep an eye on Carly
Sinatra.”

Charles’s jaw tightened. Mick’s did
too.
 
“Who asked you?” Mick asked.

“Don’t know.
 
It was a blind run.
 
All bank transactions.
 
They paid like they were supposed to pay, and
I did what I was supposed to do.
 
I kept
an eye on her.
 
When she went home for
the night, that was the end of my day.”

He paused, as the pain continued to
inflict him.
 
“Then Ethan Campbell went
missing.
 
Word around the Boston
underworld was that Mick the Tick had been in town the night Ethan disappeared.
 
But nobody knew anything conclusive.
 
I was paid to get one of your men to flip, to
give me intel on what you were up to that night.
 
But I got nothing.
 
I couldn’t even get those fuckers to confirm
if you were even in town.
 
I got no
takers.
 
So they sent me to Jericho, to
volunteer for the Cruikshank campaign.”

“Cruikshank’s involved?” Charles
asked.

“Hell no.
 
He was just a way in.
 
My job was to agitate, to incite the locals
to turn against you, same as Cruikshank was preaching in his campaign.
 
It was all about bringing you down,” Gooch
said, looking at Charles.
 
“It was all
about destroying you.”

He paused again, as the pain
continued to rip through his body.
 
“Then
I get this call from Anzino.
 
He says he
was your driver the night Ethan went missing.
 
He said he not only knew where the body was, but where they took the
body from.
 
I should have contacted my
employer.
 
They had a contact I was
supposed to check in with in Jericho, and I should have done so.
 
Their mission for being in Jericho was the
same as mine: to get intel that could destroy you too.
 
But I didn’t go that route.
 
I saw Anzino’s call as my chance.
 
He wanted five mill and a ticket out of the
country, so I would ask for ten mill.
 
Five apiece.
 
Only person I knew
could get that kind of money was you.”
 
He was nodding toward Mick.
 
“But
it wasn’t enough for me to just tell you I knew where the body was buried.
 
I needed a weapon against you.”

“What kind of weapon?” Mick asked.

“Carly,” Gooch said.
 
“So me and Anzino and a few good men I paid,
went and dug up that body and put it right back where Anzino said your men got
it from: Carly’s house.
 
We had already
found out the house was still empty.
 
We
already knew nobody, after Carly left those weeks earlier, had rented it out.”

“What was the plan?” Mick asked.

“The plan was to put the body there
and then call you and tell you, for ten mill, we wouldn’t go to the cops and
implicate your cute little black niece.
 
But as we were leaving Carly’s house that night, we weren’t a good four
blocks away, there was an ambush.
 
Every
last one of my men were killed.
 
I got
away.
 
That’s what I do.
 
Anzino did too.”

Gooch frowned.
 
“I had this safe house nobody knew about,
that I went too whenever I was in trouble and needed to hide out.
 
So I went there.
 
Me and Anzino.
 
We didn’t know what to do.
 
We couldn’t call you.
 
We didn’t know if you were the one who
ambushed us.
 
We wasn’t going to call the
cops.
 
What good would that do us?
 
But then the owner of Carly’s old rent house,
a house that hadn’t been rented out, went to the house that next day.
 
Found the body before anybody could do
anything about it.
 
And he called the
cops.
 
Then the next thing I know your
men are on my street scoping out my house.
 
I call for one of my men to meet me on the backstreet, I kill Anzino because
I couldn’t leave witnesses, and then I took off.
 
I was running out of the back door just as
you and your brother were breaking down my front door.
 
And I got away.
 
That’s what I do.
 
Until now.”