Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life (22 page)

But Mick was
all man.
 
He didn’t need her to pay his
cell phone bill for him or to throw him a few to take care of his child support
payment or to give him something on his rent.
 
He didn’t need her to comfort him all the time and listen to his tales
of woe when she could have used some comfort and had tales to tell
herself.
 
And it wasn’t a race
thing.
 
Although Roz tended to favor black
and Puerto Rican men, and dated them primarily, she dated more than her share
of white guys too.
 
And they all came at
her the same way.
 
They were tough guys,
she gravitated toward the bad boys all her life, beginning with her father, but
they didn’t handle their business.
 
They
didn’t seem able to figure out how to be good in bed, and good in business too.

But Mick was
different.
 
These were early days still,
she had to keep reminding herself, but she was beginning to feel that he could
be the kind of man she’d been hoping to find all of her adult life.
 
Not that he was the perfect guy.
 
He wasn’t by a long shot.
 
He had his dark side: she’d already seen a
glance of that ticking time bomb temper of his.
 
But every man she’d ever dated had a dark side.
 
Carmelo, her last ex, was a lying, cheating,
sadistic son of a bitch who put nude photos of her all over the internet.
 
Mick was no boy scout, and probably had more
than just a bad temper working against him, but at least his upside dominated
his personality.
 
At least she didn’t
have to wear the pants and make all the decisions when she was with him.
 
At least there was nothing about the way Mick
treated her, or viewed her, that made her have second thoughts.

When he
finished with his car gadget demonstrations, he looked at her, his green eyes
piercingly intense.
 
“Got it?” he asked.

His lazy eye
was so sexy to Roz at that very moment that she wanted him to take her again
right then and there.
 
But Mick was not
that kind of compulsive man.
 
He knew how
to control himself.
 
Another sign of a
real man.
 
So she controlled herself as
well.
 
“Got it,” she said, and curbed her
outward display of happiness, although inwardly she was brimming over.
  

“Is that
her?”

Tamron
Dawson looked at the top-down convertible as it entered the big parking lot and
headed their way.
 
She and Zina Klein were
standing outside of the office building where they worked and were waiting for
Roz Graham to show up.
 
“In a car like
that?” Tamron asked.
 
“I don’t think so.”

But when the
beautiful white Bentley grew closer and they could see, because the convertible
top was down, that it was indeed Roz Graham behind the wheel, they could hardly
believe their eyes.

“Wow,” Zina
said with a smile.
 
“Looks like our girl
has hit the jackpot, Tam!”

“Look at
her,” Tamron said with a grin.
 
“All
stylin’!”

The car
stopped at the curb and Roz lifted her sunglasses and placed them on top of her
hair.
 
“Why are you two standing there
like palace guards?” she asked with a smile.
 
“Bring y’all asses on!”

Both ladies
laughed and hurried to the car.
 
Tamron
sat up front, she and Roz had been friends the longest, and Zina got in
back.
 
But Zina moved to the middle and
leaned toward the two front bucket seats, as soon as she sat back there.
 
“So this is yours?” she asked as she checked
out the leather seats, the elegant door handles, the thousand grids and
buttons.

“It’s not
mine,” Roz responded as she looked up at the office building. “So this is where
you two work?”

“It’s Mick’s
then?” Tamron asked, still too curious.
 
“It belongs to the guy you came to town to see?”

Roz
nodded.
 
“Yes, Tamron, it’s Mick’s.
 
Which floor are you on?”

“Thirteenth,”
Zina said.
 
“Which should be bad luck,
right?
 
But we’ve been doing okay for
ourselves.”

“Now that’s
good to hear because it’s still surprising to me.
 
I never would have thought you two would leave
Broadway, leave the place that you love, to become telemarketers.”

“Tele-associates,”
Tamron corrected her.
 
“And don’t knock
it, girl,” she added as Roz put the car in gear and drove off.
 
“I’m a supervisor and Zin’s on her way too.”

“It pays the
bills,” Zina said.
 
“It pays better than
you think.”

“Like what?”
Roz asked.

“Like
thirty-three dollars an hour,” Zina said.

Roz was
amazed.
 
She looked at Zina through the
rearview.
 
“Thirty-three?
 
Are you serious?”

“As a heart
attack,” Tamron said.

“That’s
what?
 
Fifty-two hundred a month?
 
Dang.
 
I’m barely clearing thirty-two.”

“See,”
Tamron said with satisfaction.
 
“Don’t
knock it.
 
Some of these private
companies knows how to pay their employees.”

Roz shook
her head.
 
“I don’t knock it,” she
said.
 
“I can’t.
 
Are you kidding me?
 
I need to get a job here too.”

“I’ll hire
you,” Tamron said.
 
“Come on down!”

“You’ll be
bored to tears working here,” Zina said. “I know I am.
 
But it’s different for you anyway, Roz.
 
You can teach acting.
 
All we could do was act, but just couldn’t
get that break.
 
You had something to
fall back on to keep you around.
 
We had
nothing.
 
We had to change course.”

Roz glanced
at Zina through the rearview.
 
Of all the
people Roz had taught, Zina was one of the ones who showed the most
promise.
 
But she gave up too quickly.

“But money
should be the last thing on your mind right now anyway,” Tamron said.
 
“Your boyfriend drives a Bentley.
 
He can’t be no pauper.
 
You’re set for life!”

It was a
joke, and Roz knew it, but she also knew how blown away both of her friends
would be if they knew everything else Mick drove.
 
Or the full extent of his wealth.
 
But one word unsettled her.
 
“I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend just yet,”
she made clear.
 
“It’s not that
deep.
 
Not yet.”

“But it’s
going in that direction?” Zina asked.

Roz
smiled.
 
“It’s headed there, yeah,” she
said.
 
And now, she inwardly added.

And she kept
smiling as they directed her to their favorite eating spot.
 
Roz realized as she drove, and as she and her
old friends caught up on old times, that this was turning out to be the best
vacation of her life.
 
She was so glad
Mick had asked her to come.
 
She was so
glad she took the chance and came.

They didn’t
understand.
 
They were seeing a problem
when they should have seen an opportunity.
 
They were thinking immediate when they should have been thinking long
term.
 
But Mick didn’t argue with them.
He let them have the floor.
 
He sat at
the conference table in his huge office and listened to three of the most
powerful organized crime figures on the East Coast, three Dons who answered to
him, complain about what he saw as, and they should have seen as, a minor
setback.

“I say we
shut it down,” Vito DeLuca said.
 
“I say
we don’t let Provensano make fools out of us by sitting back and watching it
happen.
 
We wouldn’t be able to live it
down.
 
It’ll be like open season on
Poltergeist.
 
We’ll be the joke of the
town, Michello!”

“I agree
with Vito,” Carp Bianchi said.
 
Both men were
fat, but Carp took the cake.
 
“Stanislav
Provensano is a powerful man.
 
We four
together, you and the three of us, owns half of the coast.
 
But Provensano owns the other half.
 
If he starts muscling in on us, we’re
fucked.
 
You know it, Michello.
 
I know it.
 
We don’t want to go down that road.
 
We don’t want a war with a man like that!”

Mick stared
at Bianchi.
 
Like Vito, he was much older
than Mick.
 
But unlike Vito, he was
Mick’s least favorite Don.
 
“Why not?” he
asked him.

Bianchi
frowned.
 
“Why not what?”

“Why do we
not want war with Stanislav?”

Bianchi
smiled, but only because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
 
“We want to live to fuck another day,” he
responded. “That’s why!
 
What the fuck do
you mean why?
 
You know why!”

“You have
your legitimate empire, Michello,” Teddy Stefani finally spoke.
 
Of the three Dons, he was the calmest.
 
And the one Mick respected the most.
 
“You have Sinatra Industries and your
beautiful hotels around the world.
 
You’re even partnering up with Reno Gabrini out in Vegas.
 
You have taken the legit world by storm.
 
But we’re just gangsters.
 
We don’t have empires to protect us.
 
We don’t have Reno Gabrini in our
corner.
 
We don’t have legitimacy to
recommend us.
 
We have what we have.
 
All underground.
 
All shady.
 
It is our life.
 
It is who we
are.
 
We can’t afford to let Provensano
take an inch of it away from us.”

“Or even try
to,” DeLuca added.

“What do you
suggest, Don Stefani?” Mick asked.

“Postpone
the shipment if we have to.
 
Call it back
to Rome.
 
Our buyers will wait.
 
If that won’t fly, then we need to at least
keep it in the harbor, but do not unload.”

“And risk
seizure by the authorities?” Mick asked.
 
“By those money grubbing pricks?
 
I would rather Stanislav have it.”

Then Mick
leaned forward.
 
He was on one side of
the table, the three Dons were on the other side.
 
“If a man cut and run from me, I will cut him
down.
 
That’s the law of the jungle,
gentlemen.
 
A jungle Stanislav Provensano
knows too well.
 
We are not cutting and
running from any man.
 
I already have my
men at that dock.
 
I already have them
working the area as if they had been there for years.
 
Provensano’s men haven’t even shown up yet,
and probably won’t until the shipment ports in three months.
 
The only way to kill a snake is to kill a
snake. Head and tail.
 
This is our
opportunity to trap and to kill that snake.
 
And then you, my three colleagues, will take over that territory that
the snake once commanded.
  
It will be
handed to you on a silver platter.”

But Teddy
stared at Mick. “And what’s in it for you?” he asked him.
 
“You are not the charitable type.
 
Something is always in it for you.”

Mick
smiled.
 
“Of course,” he said, and leaned
back.
 
“I will leave you to it,” he said.

“Leave us to
it?” DeLuca asked.
 
“What do you mean?
 
You’ll pull out?”

Mick
nodded.
 
“Yes.
 
All of my shares, all of my interests in that
area of my life will be your interest.
 
Provensano’s take will be your take alone.
 
I will take no parts of it.”

It was the
proverbial offer they knew they couldn’t refuse, but Mick ran their operations
too.
 
Mick was the brains, not just the
brawl behind it all.
 
They weren’t
business people.
 
They were just
thugs.
 
How were they going to make it,
and continue to make the kind of money they were making, without him?

But before
they could ask the question, the intercom buzzed.
 
Mick answered it.

“Miss
Rosalind Graham is here to see you, sir.”

Mick felt a
sense of relief that she had arrived safely.
 
He had been worried about her all morning.
 
“Send her in,” he said, stood up, and began
buttoning his suit coat.

The three
Dons stood up too, although they had no clue why Mick had.
 
“Who is this person that they can’t wait
until we finish our meeting?” Carp Bianchi asked.
 
“We’re still meeting here!”

Mick ignored
him and began walking toward his office door.

Carp looked
at Teddy.
 
“Who is she?”

Even Teddy
had to shrug his shoulder.
 
“Never heard
of her,” he said.

Mick opened
his office door just as Roz was reaching for the knob.
 
She smiled when she saw him, looking so
handsome in his double breasted suit.
 
And he smiled when he saw her, looking gorgeous even casually dressed as
she was.

He kissed
her on the lips and pulled her in.
 
“Didn’t get lost?” he asked as he closed the door.

“Not with
that GPS,” Roz said gaily.
 
“That chick’s
a pain in the ass, but she’s good.”

Mick
laughed.
 
“I call her Blanche.
 
Annoying enough, right?”

Roz smiled.
“Right,” she said.
 
Then she looked at
the three older men standing in his office.

Mick knew
this was a crucial moment in their budding affair.
 
He knew she either was going to look and
listen to these guys and get it, or she was going to look and listen to these
guys and ignore it.
 
If she ignored his
reality, they had a problem.

He placed
his hand in the small of her back and escorted her toward the three men.
 
“Rosalind, I would like you to meet three of
my business partners.
 
This lovable lug
here is Teddy Stefani.
 
One of my sons is
named after him.”

Teddy smiled
and nodded his head.
 
“Nice to meet you,
ma’am.”

“Nice to
meet you,” Roz responded.

“This guy
here,” Mick said, “is the guy you love to hate.
 
Vito DeLuca.”

Vito didn’t
like that description.
 
“Ma’am.”

“And this
fellow here, the one you avoid at all costs, is Carp Bianchi.”

Bianchi was
likewise unimpressed with his description. “Very funny,” he said, and shook
Roz’s hand.
 
“Good knowing you,
ma’am.”
 
Then Carp, being Carp, looked at
Mick.
 
“So this is the problem,” he
said.
 
“A dame.
 
That’s why you don’t wanna postpone.
 
That’s why you’re talking that nonsense
today.
 
Which head have you been thinking
with, Michello?” he asked.

Mick’s anger
flared at that very moment and he grabbed Carp and started slamming his head,
over and over, into the conference table, slamming it until he was drawing
blood.
 
And then he grabbed him by the
scruff of his neck and slammed his head into a file cabinet, causing him to
fall down.

Both Teddy
Stefani and Vito DeLuca did nothing but watched.
 
Carp should have known better by now not to
ever play like that with Mick the Tick.

Roz,
however, was not nearly as circumspect as that.
 
Because she’d never seen Mick fully unleashed before.
 
She’d never seen Mick, with a man already
down, kicking him in the face as if he were a dog.

“Which head
am I thinking from?” Mick was angrily yelling at the downed man. “Who the fuck
do you think you’re talking to?
 
You
think I’m some fucking punk?
 
With this
head,” he said, kicking Carp in the head.
 
“That’s which head.
 
With the same
one I’m bashing in now, you cock sucking motherfucker!”

“Okay, Mick,
I’m sorry,” Carp Bianchi was crying.
 
“I
was out of line, I’m sorry!”

Roz wanted
Mick to have mercy on the man.
 
But Mick
didn’t.
 
He grabbed him up and slammed
him against his office wall.
 
Then he
jacked up the bigger man with his bare hands.
 
“Quit fucking with me,” he warned Carp.
 
“You’ve been doing too much of that lately.
 
Cut it out or I’m going to put an end to it
myself.
 
Once and for all.
 
Clear?”

Carp Bianchi
had pride, and considerable authority himself, but he knew who was running this
show.
 
“Clear,” he said.

And Mick
finally, to Roz’s relief, let him go.

Then Mick
stood there momentarily, his back to Roz as if he was gathering his nerve to
face her again.
 
But then he pulled a
handkerchief from his suit coat, turned around, and faced them all.
 
He did not look like an embarrassed man to
her.
 
He looked like a tired man.
 
“Anything else, gentleman?” he asked.
 
He wasn’t embarrassed, but he would have
preferred not to lose his cool in front of her just yet.

 
“Maybe we can talk later,” Teddy Stefani
said.
 
“You and your lady go.
 
We’ll take care of big mouth.”

Mick nodded
at Teddy.
 
He knew he could count on
him.
 
Then, without saying a word to Roz,
he placed his hand on the small of her back and escorted her out the door.
 
He knew what time it was.
 
She was going to either tell him to take her
to the airport now, or not leave him and deal with it.
 
His entire soul was praying that she could
deal with it.

It wasn’t
until they got into his Bentley, drove all the way to his mansion, and had
settled in the parlor, with her sitting on the couch and him sitting on the
chair, before a word was uttered.
 
It was
times like these that Mick felt like a very foolish man.
 
The idea that a woman like Rosalind could
want him with all his warts was foolhardy to even entertain.
 
Reno Gabrini found himself a woman who could
handle it.
 
But Reno wasn’t Mick.
 
Mick was Mick.
 
What woman would ever want to deal with
him?
 
He had hoped Rosalind was that
woman.
 
Now he felt as if he was hoping
for too much.

He assumed
he would have to be the one to bring it up, since it was his outburst that was
at issue here.
 
But he was wrong.
 
Roz brought it up.

“Was it
business?” she asked him.

Mick looked
at her, his heart hammering.
 
Was she
toying with him?
 
“Business?” he asked.

“When you
roughed up that man,” she said.
 
Her arms
were folded, and her heart felt guarded too.
 
“Are you in a line of work that requires you to flex your muscles as if
you were some Iron Man?
 
To prove that
your cock is bigger than his cock?
 
Is
that it?”