Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (10 page)

It wasn’t lost on Mick either.
 
But that only meant she was pissed with
him.
  
If it meant keeping creeps like
this Hamilton guy out of her life, she could be pissed with him all day
long.
 
He kissed her cheek anyway, stood
up, and began to walk away.
 
When he
glanced back, and saw Hamilton smiling such a delicious smirk at Roz, as if
they shared some inside secret, he doubled back.

“On second thought,” Mick said to Roz, “get your
things.
 
You’re coming with me.
 
This luncheon,” he said, looking directly at
Hamilton, “is officially over.”

Hamilton was scared now.
 
Did Roz allow this man to exert that kind of
control over her?
 
He couldn’t believe
it!

But it was true.
 
Roz stood up.
 
Hamilton stood
too.
 
“I don’t understand, Roz,” he said,
playing up innocence as hard as he could.
 
“What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Roz said.
 
“I’ll call you.”

“But he said you aren’t going to represent me.”

“I’ll call you,” Roz said again, and she and Mick
left the restaurant.

But outside, as they waited for the valets to bring
them their cars, was a different story.
 
She looked at Mick with pure anger in her eyes.
 
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked
him.
 
“You don’t decide who I
represent.
 
I make that decision.
 
That is my decision alone!”

“You aren’t representing him,” Mick said without
backing down.
 
“That’s my decision, and my
decision is final.”

“Like hell it is, Mick!” Roz spoke angrily enough
that the other valets waiting for work, who were too far away to hear the words
they were saying, did understand that a voice had been raised.
 
“You don’t run my business any more than I
run yours!”

“You are not representing that guy,” Mick said
again.

“And why not?” Roz asked, genuinely confused.

“Because he’s not interested in representation.
 
He’s not in search of an agent.
 
He’s in search of a sugar mama.
 
Which, I assure you, will not be you.”

Roz shook her head.
 
This was too crazy to her.
 
“His
career means everything to him, Mick.
 
You don’t understand the actor’s creed.
 
That man isn’t looking for somebody to take care of him.
 
He wants to take care of himself!
 
He wants, he needs to be on that stage.”

“He is on stage,” Mick said, “and he’s definitely
acting.
 
He’s in the play of his
life.
 
And it’s all about convincing you
to bankroll him.”

“And how does he intend to convince me, Mick?
 
Tell me that?”

“Sex,” Mick said irritably.
 
“What the fuck else?”

Roz stared at him.
 
How could he possibly have concluded all of that?
 
“What if your guess is wrong, Mick?
 
What if you’re falsely accusing Hamp of
something he’s not even considering?”

“I’m not guessing,” Mick said.
 
“I didn’t just hop in the car and ride over
here. I ran a background on Mr. Sturgess.
 
He didn’t just sleep with that director’s wife.
 
It was, in fact, the director’s ex-wife.
 
And it wasn’t just that he was sleeping with
the old hag.
 
He was accused of draining
her bank account to the tune of half a million dollars.
 
He was accused of living lavishly on that
lady.
 
And not just her.
 
But there were a string of women, all less
prominent than the director’s ex-wife, but he was taking them all to the
cleaners.
 
And his career wasn’t over
just recently.
 
He’s a doper, Rosalind.”

Roz was stunned.
 
“Drugs?”

“His addiction had him on the decline for
years.
 
Nobody would hire him, not
because he slept around, but because his ass was an unreliable thief.
 
His agent dumped him because he missed too
many performances.
 
When that old hag
killed herself because of all he took from her, it was the last straw for all
of Broadway.
 
He’s broke and disgusted
because of what he did, not because of what others did to him.
 
He needs a mark.
 
He’s not marking you.”

Mick’s Maserati arrived first.
 
Mick had to go.
 
He had a lot to do.
 
But he couldn’t just leave her this way.
 
She looked floored.
 
So despite the audience, he moved closer to
Roz, and pulled her into his arms.

Roz appreciated the hug.
 
Because she had no idea.
 
Because she, unlike Mick, had not done her
due diligence.
 
She had believed every
word Hamp had said!

“I’m okay,” she said to Mick when they stopped
embracing.

“You sure?” he asked.

“I’m positive,” she said, her hand resting on his
thick chest.
 
“You go and take care of
your business.
 
And be careful, Mick, I
mean it.
 
I’ll be okay.
 
Don’t worry.
 
I won’t be signing him.”

Mick loved her strength.
 
He also loved the fact that she listened to
what he had to say, and reached the same conclusion he had reached.
  
He kissed her again, this time on her
forehead, got in his car, and left.
 
The
valets seemed impressed at the sound of his revved up engine, as he sped off.

But before they could bring Roz’s car around, she
wasn’t quite done.
 
The idea that Hamp
would lie to her so easily didn’t sit right with her.
 
She headed back into the restaurant.

When Hamilton saw her coming, he inwardly
cheered.
 
Her hubby was apparently gone,
and she, as he knew she would, was doubling back.
 
Sinatra might have been giving it to her
good, but not nearly as good as he could put it on her.

He stood when she arrived.
 
“What a thug,” he said to her.
 
“I take it he’s gone?”

“That thug,” Roz said, “told me all about your sorry
ass.
 
That thug,” she continued, “read to
me chapter and verse about your drug habit, and
your
whoring, and the fact that you caused a lady to kill herself after ruining her
financially.
  
Not to mention
emotionally.”

Hamilton was caught.
 
He had not expected Roz or anybody else to know that much about
him.
 
He sat back down.

“Yeah, you sit down,” Roz said.
 
“Because that’s all you’ve been doing for
years.
 
You’ve been sitting down and
living off of silly women who were more than willing to feed you and your major
drug habit.
 
And it’s okay that you
decided I was in a position to feed it too.
 
It’s your thing if you’re the kind of man that wants a woman to take
care of him.
 
But what angers the shit
out of me is the fact that you thought I was dumb enough to be one of those
silly women.
 
That’s the part I can’t
abide.
 
But thanks to my husband, to that
thug
as you call him, I don’t have to
abide it.
 
I don’t have to see your
scheming ass again.”
 
She took what
remained of her drink and threw it in his face.
 
“Now get the fuck out of my town and stay the fuck out of it.”
 
She stared at him with nothing but rage in
her once soft eyes, sat the glass back on the table, and left.

Hamilton tried to smile it off as patrons looked his
way.
 
He took his napkin and tried to
wipe it off.
 
But there was no wiping
away the reality.
 
Roz, he now knew, was
not the one.

“He’s been spotted, sir,” Danny Padrone said over
the phone.

“Where?” Mick asked.

“A trailer park off of Lexington.
 
It’s near the backrow.
 
It’s a kind of rough area.
 
But that’s one of his hangouts.
 
One of his old ladies live there.”

“Is she there now?”

“Not as far as we could tell.”

“She left,” Mick heard another voice say.

“You sure?” Danny asked the voice.

“I saw her.
 
I
pretended to be looking for a different trailer.
  
I saw her.”

“She left,” Danny said to Mick.

“Where are you now?” Mick asked.
 
“He’s probably on the lookout.”

“That’s why we’re keeping out distance across the
street from the trailer park altogether.
 
It’ll be risky, but if you want we can try to snatch him.”

Mick thought about it.
 
When the call came, he had been driving back
to his office after every lead on his son’s whereabouts led nowhere.
 
He was pleased to hear that they had eyeballed
him.
 
But he didn’t want a snatch and
grab.
 
Not yet.
 
“No,” he said to Danny.
 
“Give me the address.
 
Let me handle it.”

“Want backup?”

“Stay where you are,” Mick ordered.
 
“I’m going in alone.
 
If I need you, I’ll let you know.”
 
Adrian was a boil on Mick’s butt right now,
but he was still his son.
 
He didn’t want
any extra guns to, accidentally or otherwise, do extra damage.

After getting the address, Mick made his way to the
trailer park.
 
He saw Danny’s Lexus
across the street in the parking lot of a convenience store, with Danny and
three of Mick’s other men inside, and Danny gave him a salute.
 
But Mick’s Maserati kept going, through the
entrance of the trailer park, but not straight toward the back.
 
He went around all of the trailers and made
his way, not to the front nor back of Adrian’s trailer, but to the side of his
trailer, where there were no windows.
 
He
parked his car there, got out, and headed for the front door.
 
And then he knocked.
 
If the door wasn’t opened immediately, he
would kick it down.

But Adrian had looked through the peephole, saw that
it was his father, and let out an expletive-laden exhale.
 
He should have known he would find him.
 
He just never expected to be found this
soon.
 
But he knew he had no choice.
 
They didn’t call his father Mick the Tick for
nothing.
 
He unlocked and opened the
door.

Mick entered the home cautiously, looking directly
at his son rather than his son’s surroundings.
 
He saw the gun at Adrian’s side, and he smelled the fear.
 
Adrian, he could tell, had been to the rodeo
before.
 
This was not his first time
killing a man.
 
But he had never been to
one quite this big, and with stakes this high.

Adrian closed the door.
 
“I did what I had to do,” he said quickly, in
a voice that sounded petulant to Mick.
 
“And
I’m not sorry.”

Mick kept staring at him.
 
He was a weak kid.
 
Too weak to be a gangster.
 
But here they were.

“He pulled his gun,” Adrian continued, “so I pulled
mine.
 
It’s not my fault I was quicker on
the trigger.
 
But I know you’ll blame me
for everything.
 
You always do.
 
You’ll take Mo’s side no matter what
happened.”

Mick didn’t respond to that either.
 
He, instead, began looking around at Adrian’s
place.
 
“This yours?” he asked.

What difference did that make, Adrian wanted to
ask.
 
He was running for his life, and
his father wanted to know about some damn trailer?
 
“My old lady’s,” he responded.
 
“So yeah.”

“Get that gun out of my face.”

Adrian had forgotten he was holding a gun, even
though it was hardly in his father’s face.
 
But he sat it on the table anyway.

Mick began to walk around, to look around.
 
Adrian thought he was keeping his own council
and generally wasting time the way he usually did.
 
What he didn’t realize was that Mick was
mentally checking exits and windows and back doors.
 
He was surveying the entire spread.

“What you’ve got to understand,” Adrian said to him,
“is that I didn’t mean to kill him.
 
I
thought we were cool.
 
He gave me my
product, and I paid him for it.
 
But he
was cheating me blind.
 
I’m not going to
pay for something I’m not getting.”

Adrian waited for his father to ask him what product
he was talking about.
 
The idea that a
child of his would be a drug dealer, and a major one at that, was something he
would hate with a passion.
 
Especially
since those goons he had following him were too stupid to see what he was up
to, and he was shrewd enough to lose them every night.
 
They never knew where he was at any given
time.
 
Every time they would sneak and
put GPS on his car, he removed it.
 
They
would try to tap into his cell phone, he stopped carrying cell phones.
 
He outsmarted them on every hand, and they
never let his old man know a damn thing about it.
 
Because his old man was too big to fail.
 
When, Adrian thought with relish, he was
failing all the time.
 
And Adrian viewed
himself as his father’s biggest failure.

But when that failing father of his did not respond
to his product hint, he said it bluntly.
 
“Mo was my supplier,” Adrian said.
 
“I deal drugs.
 
That’s what I do.”

Mick stopped walking and looked at him.
 
“A glass of water, please,” Mick said.

Adrian stopped cold.
 
What the fuck?
 
“What?”
 
There was puzzlement in his voice.

“Will you get me a glass of water, please?” Mick
asked.

Adrian stared at his father.
 
He would never understand that man if he
lived to be a hundred years old.
 
But he
went into the kitchen, poured him a glass of water, and came back out.

When he got out, Mick was standing at the front
window looking out.
 
And that hate rose
up within Adrian again.
 
He remembered
when he was a kid, standing at his mother’s front window, always looking for
his father.
 
But his father never
came.
 
He never promised to come, and
never came.
 
At least the other kids on
his block, those whose fathers didn’t live with them, had hope.
 
Their absent fathers would always promise to
take them to the ballgame, or take them to get ice cream, or pick them up to
spend the night.
 
They never showed up
either, but at least, for that brief time, those kids had hope.
 
Mick, Adrian thought bitterly, never even
gave him that.
 
He didn’t even think
enough of him to make a promise to break.
 
He usually saw his father once a year, and it was never preplanned.
  
And some years, he didn’t see him even that
one time.

It wasn’t until Mick turned around did Adrian break
his stare and began walking toward him with the water.
  
Mick thanked him and actually drank it
all.
 
It was only then did Adrian realize
it was no power play or ploy, but an actual need that caused Mick to ask for
water in the first place.
 
And then Mick
finally looked at his son.
 
“What do you
think you’re doing?” he asked him.

Adrian thought he had already told him.
 
“It was an accident.
 
I told you I didn’t mean to shoot him.
 
Mo pulled his gun first.”

“How long have you been dealing?” Mick asked as if
his son’s confession meant nothing to him.

Adrian was offended by his refusal to acknowledge
what he had said.
 
But he answered his
question.
 
“Long enough.
 
Why?”

Mick stared at him.
 
“Just curious,” he said.

And that said it all for Adrian.
 
“You’re just like I thought you were.”

The bitterness in Adrian’s voice was more telling to
Mick than his angry words.
 
But he
listened to his son.

Adrian knew he wasn’t going to give him even the
satisfaction of a response, so he kept on talking.
 
“When you found out Joey was selling drugs,
and not even in any major way, you kicked his ass and made him come work for
you.
 
Because you actually cared about
his future, and about his wellbeing.
 
But
you find out I’m selling drugs, and that I, in fact, killed one of your
syndicate bosses, and you don’t give a fuck.
 
You never gave a damn about me.
 
Never!”

Mick studied him.
 
“Is that what this is about?” he asked him.

Adrian frowned.
 
“What?”

“Is that what all of this attention-seeking behavior
is about?
 
You wanted my attention?
 
Well now you have it.
 
But if you think this is the way to impress
me, you’re wrong.”

The rage that boiled up inside of Adrian was already
near its breaking point.
 
But when Mick
said those words; when Mick all but accused him of trying to impress a man he
hated with a bitter hate, it boiled over.
 
And in a motion so swift it startled even him, Adrian grabbed his gun
from the table and put it to his father’s forehead.
 
His hand was shaking, not out of fear, but
because of rage.

Mick stared at the son of his flesh with a look even
Adrian couldn’t decipher.
 
It wasn’t fear
as he had hoped it would be.
 
It wasn’t
even shock.
 
Then Adrian realized what it
was.
 
It was arrogance.
 
It was that quiet confidence his father
always displayed, as if he knew Adrian didn’t mean it.
 
As if he knew Adrian wasn’t man enough to
pull the trigger.
 
Mick the Tick would
pull it, Adrian thought, and go home and eat his supper.
 
But Mick the Tick’s stupid son?
 
Never in a million years!

But that million years happened.
 
Adrian not only pulled the trigger, but he
pulled it and pulled it and pulled it.
 
He closed his eyes and fired more bullets into his father’s body than he
thought was even in the gun.
 
He couldn’t
stop pulling that trigger.