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

The two younger men wanted to roll their eyes.
 
Carp was the personification of the weakness
he claimed Sinatra despised.
  
But they
weren’t exactly bursting with courage either.
  
Not in front of a temperamental man like him.

Mick unfolded his legs, which caused all three men
to jump.
 
Mick never understood why they
would behave so fearful around him.
 
He
never harmed anybody who didn’t try to harm him first.
 
“You asked me here why?” he asked.

“We asked you here because we need your help,” Carp
said.

Mick didn’t respond to that.
 
It was obvious they needed something.

Yank Stefani took over.
 
“Who’s against us?” he asked.
 
“Is it a war or a lone wolf?
 
Somebody intercepted our New Mexico cargo,
then our Jersey cargo, and now Detroit.
 
When it was New Mexico we thought it was a fluke, a one-time thing.
 
When it was Jersey, we thought it was a
copycat.
 
Now it’s Detroit.
 
Now the shit is real to us.
 
Now this shit is serious.
 
If we don’t know who’s behind it, we don’t
know what we can do about it.”

“What did they snatch?” Mick asked.
 
He was too busy running his legit businesses
to get involved in their day-to-day.
 
“What was being shipped in?
 
Guns?”

“Guns, yes,” Stefani said.
 
“And other contraband.”

Mick moved around in his seat.
 
He showed his disgust. “Drugs,” he said.

“Don’t judge us, Mick,” Carp said.
 
“You managed to make it in the legit world, a
world that wouldn’t give us the time of day.
 
You have your corporation, we have our cargo.”

“It’s disrespectful,” Momar DeLuca said, ignoring
Carp.
 
“That’s what these intercepts are
about.
 
Their disrespecting us.
 
And you too, sir.
 
You get eighty percent of everything we make,
and we have to split the remaining twenty.”

Mick knew what they meant.
 
The last time Stefani and DeLuca, along with
Carp’s boy Nat came before him, they demanded a fifty-fifty split.
 
Mick had to remind them then that they didn’t
demand shit from him.
 
It was his
business savvy, his connections, his muscle and feared name that kept their
illegal trade on top.
 
And they wanted to
be equal to him?
 
A bunch of fucking
upstarts?

“Not that we’re complaining about the arrangement,”
Carp quickly interjected, as he could see the displeasure on Mick’s face.
 
“We understand why you’re getting the lion’s
share.
 
But what Mo is trying to say is
that all of these intercepts means that it’s not just us they’re
targeting.
 
It’s you too.
 
They’re disrespecting you too.
 
They’re disrespecting you most of all.
 
It has got to stop.”

Mick knew Carp spoke the truth.
 
“What have you heard?” he asked.

“That’s what’s driving us bananas,” Carp
responded.
 
“We haven’t heard
anything.
 
Not one word.
 
It’s like these people, whoever they are, come
like phantoms in the night and leave no trace of themselves.
 
We have nothing to go on.”

“When is your next cargo due in?” Danny asked.

None of the Dons liked Danny’s position in Mick’s
affairs.
 
Mainly because his loyalty to
Mick was unquestioned.
 
Mainly because he
was a man Mick had grown to trust and listen to, when they felt they should
have that pleasure.

“We have a few coming in next week,” Carp said.

“Suspend all shipments,” Mick said.

The Dons were astounded.
 
“Suspend?” Stefani asked.
 
“But sir---”

“Suspend all shipments,” Mick said again.
 
“Only a fool repeats what is not working.
 
Until we find out who is behind this, no more
shipments.
 
Keep everything overseas
until further notice.”

“But we can’t front our people as it is, sir,”
DeLuca said.
 
“We need those shipments
bad.”

“Contact my consigliere.
 
Set up a line of credit to meet payroll if
you have to.
 
But no shipments, I don’t
care what predicament you’re in.
 
No
shipments.”

Mick’s car phone buzzed.
 
When he pressed the button a TV monitor came
up out of its slot.
 
When he saw the
caller was the man in charge of his wife’s detail, he waved his hand.
 
“I’ll be in touch,” he said to his guests.

The two younger dons looked at Carp.
 
That wasn’t good enough for them.
 
But Carp knew better.
 
“Thank-you for all of your help, Mick,” he said,
and began climbing out.
 
The other two
wanted to object, or at least tell him just how devastating those intercepts
had been to their bottom lines, and how his declaration that they could receive
no shipments in the foreseeable future could decimate them, but they knew
better too.
 
They got out, and closed the
door behind them.

“What do you make of that?” Danny asked.

Since Mick didn’t know, he didn’t respond.
 
He pressed his car phone’s intercom
button.
 
“Speak,” he said.

“I hate to disturb you, boss,” Archie Bloom, his
front gate security chief, said over the phone, “but Mrs. Sinatra has slipped
security.”

Mick looked at his Rolex.
 
It was after eleven at night.
 
“When?”

“The backup tracking system kicked in the way it was
supposed to, but we missed it.
 
The men
on duty didn’t discover the breach until she was already on the move.”

“Where?”

“She’s at a motel, sir.
 
The Harper Inn on Cumberland.
 
9056.”

Mick looked at Danny.
 
“A hellhole,” Danny said.
 
“Not a nice place.”

Mick muted the phone intercom and pressed his limo
driver’s intercom.
 
“Get me over to
Cumberland Avenue,” he ordered.
 
“9056
.
 
Fast
.”

“Right away, sir,” his driver responded, and they
were off.

Mick pressed the phone’s intercom button again.
 
“I want to know who fucked up tonight, and I
want them fired tonight.”

“Yes, sir, I’m already on it,” Archie said.
 
“I’m preparing to send a crew over there
now.”

“Make sure they stand down until I get there.”

“Yes, sir.
 
They told me it’s a delicate thing, sir.
 
So they understand.”

Mick frowned.
 
“What’s delicate?”

“You told us not to spy on her, but simply to follow
her clandestinely.
 
In a case like this,
the men said they weren’t sure how to respond.”

“A case like what?” Mick asked.
 
Archie was a man strong enough to be honest
with Mick, and Mick appreciated it.

“A case where your wife is tracked, at eleven at
night, to a motel, sir.”

Mick understood his implication.
 
“Just tell my men to do their jobs.
 
They’re to follow her for safety reasons
only.
 
Not to spy on her.
 
And if they still have trouble understanding
that, then fire their asses.
 
That’s your
job.”

“Yes, sir,” Archie said.

Mick ended the call and the monitor disappeared into
the console.
 

Danny looked at his boss.
 
“What could she be doing over on Cumberland?”
he asked.

Mick could have lashed out at Danny too.
 
But he didn’t.
 
Because it was a question he was inwardly
asking too.

Roz and Betsy walked out of the motel room after
Betsy double-and-tripled checked that Kyle wasn’t lying in wait outside for
her.
 
She had a carrying case, filled
with only the clothes she could grab as she fled his house, and now she was
relying on Roz to get her to safety.
 
Her
car was out front, and she would follow Roz’s car, but both ladies had a
feeling that this wasn’t going to solve anything.

“What’s going to happen after he cools down?” Roz
asked as they walked along the outdoor corridor toward the outdoor stairs.

“Then he won’t be so belligerent,” Betsy said.
 
“He’ll come to his senses and realize he’s
the one I want.”

Roz looked at her.
 
“Is he?”

Betsy shook her head.
 
“I don’t want any of them.
 
I’m still in love with Jace.”
 
Jason was her boyfriend in New York.
 
The one that beat her senseless, forcing her
to relocate to Philly in the first place, when he found out she was cheating on
him too.

“You really need to change your ways, Bess,” Roz
warned.
 
“You’re a grown woman, and I
know I can’t tell you what to do, but this is getting crazy.
 
These men aren’t going to keep putting up
with your bullshit.
 
I’m telling you this
because I care about you, and I don’t want to see you in over your head.”

Betsy wrapped her arm in Roz’s arm.
 
“And I thank you for your concern.
 
But I’m not doing anything they aren’t
doing.
 
That’s why I’m so hard on you
about Mick.
 
You let him get away with
murder.
 
He doesn’t let you get away with
shit.”

“Maybe because I don’t be doing no shit to get away
with,” Roz said as they walked down the side stairs.
 
“Secrets and lies ruin relationships.
 
I don’t care whose relationship it is.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been hearing a lot about Mick around
town.
 
They say he’s not the angel you
think he is.”

Roz almost laughed.
 
The idea that anybody would think she thought of Mick that way was not
living in reality.
 
Mick was no
angel.
 
But she wasn’t going to explain
any of that to Betsy.
 
“People talk,
Bess,” she said.
 
“That’s what they do.”

“But what if he is cheating?” Betsy asked as they
stepped down the stairs and made their way around the side corner.
 

“He’s not,” Roz said.

“How can you be so sure?
 
And please don’t tell me it’s because he
loves you.
 
Because if that’s the case,
you’re more naïve than Kyle.”

Roz looked at Betsy.
 
“So Kyle believes you love him?
 
That’s why he was so hurt about your cheating?”

“He cheats too,” Betsy said.
 
“He wants me to be all pure, but he can be as
polluted as a river. Yeah, right.
 
But
that’s a man for you.
 
Including your
hubby, although you don’t want to admit it.
 
But it’s true, Roz.
 
I’m sorry,
but it’s true.”

Roz wasn’t about to let Betsy make this all about
Mick.
  
That was why she ignored her
comments as they made their way to Roz’s Bentley.
 
“Just get in your car and follow me,” Roz
said.
 
“We’ll get you to a safer
environment.”

Betsy hugged Roz again and made her way to her own
ride: a mustang.

But as soon as Roz pressed her key fob and was about
to open her car door, she heard a cry from Betsy that chilled her bones.

“Bess!” she cried, and ran toward her friend.
 
Betsy was three cars away.
 
By the time Roz arrived to the mustang, a man
she assumed to be Kyle knocked Betsy to the ground with a roundhouse right.

Mick’s limousine was driving up just as Roz jumped
onto the back of the disgruntled boyfriend.
 
When Mick saw the boyfriend throw Roz off of his back and then punch
her
with his fist, his heart dropped through his stomach and
he jumped from the limo even as it was still rolling.
 
Danny jumped out too as the two big men ran
toward the melee.
 
Only Mick ran toward
Roz.
 
But Roz told him she was okay.
 
“Help Bess,” she said.

“Get my wife in the car,” Mick ordered Danny, as he
turned his attention toward Kyle.

Kyle was on his knees beating the shit out of
Betsy.
 
Mick grabbed him off of her.
 
Not because of her, Mick didn’t give a damn
about her, but because of what he had done to Rosalind.
 
And it was his time to do the beat down.
 
He beat Kyle mercilessly.
 
He beat him until blood poured from his
face.
 
He knocked him down and kicked him
like the dog he took him for.
 
Roz pulled
away from Danny and hurried to help Betsy to her feet.
 
Then she held onto Betsy as Danny hurried
both of them to the waiting limousine.

Roz and Betsy could see Mick still wailing on Kyle
from the comfort of the limousine, even as the cars blocked their view of the
downed Kyle himself.

As Danny got them in the car and was about to hurry
back toward the melee, Betsy grabbed his arm.
 
“Don’t let Mick hurt Kyle,” she said.

Danny looked at her and was unable to hide his
contempt.
 
He jerked away from her and
ran back to the scene.

Roz was looking at her too.
 
And she was as floored as Danny.
 
“You done lost your damn mind!” she said to
her friend in a vernacular she knew wasn’t correct.
 
But that was how she felt.
 
“That man would have killed you if Mick
hadn’t shown up, and you’re worried about
him
?
Seriously, Bess?”

“I just don’t want him to hurt him.”

“Too bad.
 
He
wasn’t thinking about hurting you.
 
Nor
me.
 
Mick isn’t going to let him throw me
to the ground and punch me like I’m some dude, and get away with it!”

“I know that.
 
But . . .” Betsy couldn’t find the words either.
 
She choked up on her own cry.

Roz wasn’t feeling her tears right now.
 
She was too worried about Mick.
 
She looked out of the window again as another
car drove up.
 
A group of men, Mick’s men
no doubt, got out, grabbed the bloodied and battered Kyle, who looked
unconscious, and put him in their car.
 
Danny got in with them and they drove off. Mick walked back to the
limousine, looking almost menacing even to Roz, and got in the backseat across
from the two ladies.
 
He was mad as hell,
Roz could tell.

She knew she had to make this right.
 
She knew she had to explain her side of the
story.
 
She leaned forward.
 
“We didn’t think he knew where she was,” she
said.

But Mick gave her a look she was well familiar
with.
 
He was pissed, and it wasn’t just
at Kyle and Betsy.
 
“Don’t speak,” he
ordered her in a voice that brook no dissent.
 
And then the limousine drove away.

Betsy wanted to ask where they were taking Kyle, and
she almost attempted to, but Roz pressed her elbow before she could.
 
Betsy looked at Roz.
 
Roz shook her head, as if to say: speak at
your own risk.

Betsy didn’t say a word.

Nobody said a word during the entire ride back to
Mick’s compound, a beautiful lake estate that was now Roz’s home too since
their three-week-old marriage.
 
Mick stared
at Roz the entire time.
 
He did not take
his eyes off of her.
 
Betsy wondered if
he was having second thoughts about marrying Roz, as if even he could finally
see himself how bad a match it was.
 
In
Betsy’s eyes, Roz was a good person, a person who helped people and looked out
for her fellow man.
 
Mick was a predator,
a snake in the grass, a dirty dog who would just as soon kill you than deal
with you.
 
Roz, Betsy felt, deserved
better.
 
It would be a great day to Betsy
if Roz could take him for everything he was worth and then the two friends went
off to live together.
 
Neither would be
relying on any man forevermore.
 
Both
would have their pick of the litter.

Archie Bloom, Mick’s front gate security chief, was
at the gate as the limo drove up and stopped, on Archie’s signal, at the
booth.
 
The driver pressed down the back
window.
 
Archie leaned in.
 
“Everything alright, boss?” he asked Mick.

“Did you find out who blew the detail?” Mick asked
him.

“Yes, sir.
 
McBatten.
 
He’s been fired.”

Mick nodded.

“The men called,” Archie said.
 
“The package has been disposed of.”
 
Then Archie glanced at Betsy, and saw her
swollen eye.
 
“Does anybody need medical
assistance, sir?
 
Do I need to call
Blax?” Mark Blaxton was Mick’s, and now Roz’s, personal physician.

Betsy knew she could use some medical attention, but
Mick wasn’t in that kind of mood.
 
“No
need to call anybody,” he said to his man.

“Good enough,” Archie said as he backed up, and then
motioned for the driver to move on.

The limo proceeded to travel up the long, winding
driveway that led to the front door.
 
When the limo stopped in front the steps that led to the entrance, Betsy
had worked herself up into a panic.
 
She
knew she was treading on fire, but she couldn’t hold it in another second.

“What does that mean, Mick?” Betsy asked.

Mick, seemingly for the first time since getting in
the limo, actually looked at Betsy.

Betsy could feel her heartbeat quicken just from the
look in his harsh eyes, but she did not back down.
 
“What does it mean that the package has been
disposed of?
 
What does that mean?”

Roz wanted to kick Betsy’s ass for questioning Mick,
and Mick let out a harsh exhale that startled Betsy.
 
Then Mick looked at Roz.
 
“Go inside,” he said to her.

Any other night and Roz would have argued with him.
 
She never liked to be dismissed as if she was
some child, and normally she wouldn’t have it.
 
But she couldn’t get Betsy to see reason.
 
She couldn’t get a woman who was more
concerned about her abuser than herself to understand the craziness of her ways.
 
But she sensed Mick could.
 
She hated to put Betsy in this position, but
Betsy, she felt, put herself there.

Roz got out of the limousine.

Betsy wanted to follow her, and almost did, but the
driver who held the door open for Roz closed it when Roz stepped out.
 
The House Manager was waiting at the bottom
step, and assisted Roz into the house.
 
The driver walked around and got back behind the wheel of the limo.
 
By virtue of the fact that his boss was still
sitting in the limo, he knew his mission for the night was not complete.

Mick stared at Betsy during the entire
interchange.
 
He, in fact, did not utter
a word until his wife was safely inside their home.
 
Then he uttered quite a few.

“I don’t like you,” he said to Betsy.
 
“You’re an obnoxious, self-centered user who
has been using my wife.”

“She’s my friend,” Betsy spat out.
 
“I don’t use her!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Mick blared, and Roz nearly
jumped out of her skin.
 
For a moment she
forgot whom she was dealing with.

Mick calmed back down.
 
“Despite my protestations,” he said,
“Rosalind cares for you.
 
She views you
as her closest friend.
 
And normally she
is a woman of great judgment, a woman whose judgment on which I can rely.
 
Except when it comes to you.”

Betsy knew all along he hated her.
 
She was just waiting for the
leave Roz alone
hammer to drop.

“My wife, in contrast to me, likes you very
much.
 
She remembers when the two of you
were struggling together on Broadway and you looked out for each other.
 
That I understand.
 
But she grew from those days, and you did
not.
 
Now you want to stunt her growth
too.
 
She gives and she gives, and you
take and you take.
 
But no more.”