Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life (27 page)

Roz was
shocked.
 
She had never heard that before
about Barry.

Mick
continued, undaunted by her shock.
 
“He
enjoyed the men as much as he enjoyed the ladies.
 
He enjoyed his wife as much as he wanted to
enjoy me.”

“He was
sexually interested in you,” Hammer said. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” Mick
said.
 
Barry was no more bisexual than
Mick was, but Mick would have claimed to have slept with Barry Acker if it
would set Rosalind free.
 
That was the
way he played ball.
 
He didn’t play it
soft and easy so that people could have a great opinion of him when all was
said and done.
 
He played hard.
 
To win.
 
To win Rosalind’s freedom.
 
“That’s what I mean,” he added.

And in the
end it ended up being enough.
 
The DA
announced to Chief Salinger that this was nothing more than a case of an
accidental fall by a disturbed man.
 
No
crime had been committed.
 
She could not
go along with the arrest warrant and Rosalind Graham, she announced, was free
to go.

The ride
back to Roz’s apartment was a slow one.
 
The traffic was thick, nerves were frayed, and Mick and Roz sat side by
side as if they had just endured a dangerous battle that could have taken them
out.
 
Mick had his arm around her waist,
and they sat close, but Roz felt as if they were miles apart.
 
Because Mick seemed more troubled than she
was.

When the
gulf became unbearable, Roz looked at him.
 
“I didn’t push him,” she said to him.

“I know
that,” Mick responded.
 
“That was never
at issue.”

“Then what’s
at issue?
 
I know you loved Barry.”

“I respected
Barry.
 
Love had nothing to do with
it.
 
I don’t blame you for what he did to
himself.
 
Given what he did, even if you
did push his ass, I still wouldn’t blame you.”

“I didn’t
push him,” Roz wanted to make that abundantly clear.
 
“But something’s still bothering you.
 
What is it?
 
What is the issue?”

Mick
exhaled.
 
“You’re the issue,” he said.

Roz’s heart
dropped.
 
“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“But you
said you believed me.”

“I do.
 
Of course I do!”

“Then why
would I be the issue?”

“When we get
to your apartment, you’re going to have to do something you do not want to
do.
 
You will pack your bags and move to
Philadelphia with me.
 
You don’t have to
live with me if you prefer not.
 
I’ll get
you your own place, your own car, your own anything you want.
 
But you’re leaving here.”

Mick looked
at her.
 
She could see the determination
in his eyes.
  
“I will not allow you to
live this far from me ever again.”

Roz actually
loved the sound of that.
 
“You make it
sound as if we’re worlds apart,” she said.
 
“You’re less than an hour away by plane.”

“That hour
felt like fifty years last night,” Mick confessed.
 
And he confessed it so heartfelt that Roz
felt it to the roots of her hair.
 
She knew
exactly what he meant.

She stared
into his hard eyes.
 
Publicly, there
wasn’t a soft side to this man.
 
But she
didn’t know him publicly.
 
She knew him
far deeper than that.
 
“Thank you for
handling things for me, Mick.
 
I don’t know
what I would have done if I didn’t have you out here working to get me out of
there.
 
Without you I could have rotted
in that place.
 
And I realized, as I sat
in that filthy cell, that life could turn in a flash so dramatically.
 
I realized what you meant about kill or be
killed.”

Mick studied
her as she spoke.

Roz
continued.
 
“I realized how people can
put you in a spot you never wanted to be in, but you either fight out of that
hole or get buried in it.
 
I’m glad you
did what you did.
 
I’m glad you convinced
Margaret Hammer to hear my side of the story.”
  

“I’ve known
her a long time,” Mick admitted.
 
“She’s
a politician through and through.
 
She’s
not the shrewdest DA I’ve ever known, but she has a sense of fairness about
her.”

“But what if
she wouldn’t have gone along with what you wanted?” Roz asked.
 
“What if she would have gone along with the
police and filed those charges against me?”

Mick hated
to be blunt, but he knew no other way.
 
“Then I would have given her an offer she wouldn’t be able to refuse,
Rosalind,” he said.

Roz stared
at him.

“I play
dirty,” he went on.
 
“When it comes to me
and mine, I do not play by the rules.”

Roz would
continue to play by those rules.
 
That
was who she was.
 
That was how she was
raised.
 
But she was glad she had
somebody like Mick, who wasn’t above skirting them, in her corner.
 
“Good,” she said.

Mick looked
at her with a smile.
 
“Good?
 
Why you’re a regular little gangster lady,
aren’t you?”

“Not at
all,” Roz said, managing to smile too.
 
“But it doesn’t hurt to have a Ray-Ray and a Big Joe in your corner,
hear what I’m saying?”

Mick
laughed.
 
“I hear you,” he said.
 
And he did.
 
He heard loud and clear that this lady here was exactly the kind of lady
he needed.

Then Roz
thought again.
 
She looked at him.
 
“She was in your pocket all along.
 
Wasn’t she?”

Mick
wondered if that would change Rosalind’s perspective.
 
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said.

Roz shook
her head.
 
“And there she was acting as
if it was such a hard decision for her, when it was all a big act.”

“Margaret
Hammer is a public figure.
 
All of those
clowns are actors.”

“It was
Hammer-time,” Roz said with a grin, and Mick smiled.
 
“All she needed were some pirate-looking
Hammer pants, and all she needed to do was start sliding side to side, shaking
her hips, and we would have had a show for real.
 
A showstopper no less!”

Mick
laughed, and pulled her closer.
 
“You’re
crazy, you know that?”

“I
know.
 
But lovable, right?”

“Oh yeah,”
Mick said.
 
“Totally that.”
 
Then he stared at her.
 
“Are you really okay?”

“I will
be.
 
I just hate what happened to
Barry.
 
I wish none of it would have
happened.”

Mick kissed
the top of her head. “I know, babe.”

“He seemed
as if he was obsessed with you.
 
You
should have heard him.
 
Maybe that
bisexual thing isn’t far off.”

“Who knows
what was in his mind?
 
I just thank God
you’re safe and sound and back with me.
 
Which brings me to my issue again.
 
You still haven’t addressed my issue.”

Roz leaned
her head against his shoulder.
 
“Yes, I
have,” she said.
 
“You just weren’t
listening.”

Mick looked
at her.
  
“Meaning?”

Roz
exhaled.
 
Change always brought about an
upset for her.
 
“Looks like I will be
moving to the city of brotherly love.”

But Mick
didn’t jump for joy yet.
 
“Not by
choice?” he asked her.

Roz looked
at him.
 
“Yes,” she said with a
smile.
 
“I need you, Mick. Being with you
is where I want to be.”

Mick pulled
her into his arms.
 
And he frowned.
 
Because he knew he had to verbalize what he
had been feeling for some time now.
 
“I need
you too, Rosalind,” he admitted with what sounded like pain in his voice.
 
But it wasn’t pain.
 
It was emotion.
 
It was the first time Mick Sinatra had
admitted something that vulnerable, that exposing, in his entire life.

Roz
understood the significance.
 
That was
why she was wise enough to remain silent, to let his heartfelt words, to let
his monumental words, speak for themselves.

A week later
and the house hunt was on.
 
Mick had to
work, but he gave Roz the Bentley and told her she should take her two friends
along for company.
 
But Roz never took
friends along when she was handling her business.
 
She flew solo.

At least
that was how she thought she was flying.
 
But just as Mick had a detail of inconspicuous men on her while she was
in New York these last months, he had an every greater detail on her now that
she was in Philly.
 
Even Leo, his chief
of security, was surprised by the amount of coverage Mick wanted.

They were in
Mick’s library the night he and Roz returned from New York.
 
Mick was beyond exhausted, and Roz had gone
to bed.
 
He called Leo over, even though
it was in the middle of the night, because this matter, he felt, couldn’t wait.
 
Leo understood the urgency.
 
What he couldn’t understand was the number of
men Mick wanted deployed.

“But boss,”
he said, still trying to wrap his brain around such a number, “that’s more
security than we have on you.”

Mick was
shirtless and leaned against his desk, with his muscular arms folded and one
hand rubbing his chin.
 
He even had on
flip flops.
 
But his eyes belied the
casualness.
 
“Are you suggesting we don’t
have the manpower?” he asked his chief.

“Oh, no,”
Leo said.
 
“We have the manpower.
 
We always have that.
 
But . . .”

“But what,
Leo?
 
Speak your mind.”

“You won’t
mind?”

Mick always
wondered why even his closest men viewed him as some kind of dictator who would
dispose of them for speaking the truth.
 
He didn’t think he was that man.
 
Yet everybody around him, except Rosalind, behaved as if he was.
 
“No,” he said.
  
“I won’t mind.
 
I want you to tell me.”

“You’ve been
with a lot of women in your life, sir,” Leo said.
 
“A lot of fine ladies.
 
The mothers of your children are all fine
ladies.”

“But?” Mick
asked.

“But you’ve
never dated any of them.
 
If I can be
blunt, and you said I could, you never gave a damn for any of them.
 
Never put one man on them, let alone an
entire detail, and they were the mothers of your children!
 
But this dame comes along, and excuse me for
calling her that. The lady comes along.
 
Rosalind Graham.
 
And now you seem
to be more concerned about her than you are about yourself!
 
What does this mean, boss?
 
I’m not used to this, and the men aren’t
going to be used to this.
 
They may not
be as all-in on this detail the way they would be if it was you.
 
They aren’t used to you caring about anybody
to this extent.”

It felt like
a stab through the heart.
 
Not
intentional.
 
Leo didn’t realize how his
honest words affected Mick.
 
But they did
affect him to his core.
 
“I understand
your confusion.
 
And how the men might be
confused too.
 
So let me clear it up.
Rosalind Graham is my lady.
 
There is
nobody else on the face of this earth who has ever held the position she now
holds in my life.”

Leo
nodded.
 
He was stunned by such a
revelation, given that it was Mick the Tick making it, but he nodded.
 
“Yes, sir.”

“And if my
men have any doubts about how seriously they should take their assignment, let
them know that when they guard Rosalind Graham, they guard me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let them
further know that if their lack of seriousness causes any harm to my lady,
then---”

“They
already know,” Leo said. “They will answer to you.”

“No,” Mick
said, shaking his head.
 
“If their lack
of seriousness causes anything at all to happen to my lady, there will be no answer
to give.
 
I will kill them.”

Leo saw that
undeniable look in Mick’s eyes.
 
He
understood the stakes.
 
“I’ll make that
clear to them, sir.”

Mick
nodded.
 
And stood erect.
 
“Now I’m going to bed,” he said.

“I take it
this will be a blind follow?” Leo asked.

“Goes
without saying,” Mick responded.
 
“She
can never know even one man is tailing her.
 
She wouldn’t like it.
 
She
wouldn’t feel it’s necessary.”

“And what if
they find out something disturbing?” Leo asked.
 
He was treading in sensitive territory again, but the question needed to
be asked.

“Disturbing
how?” Mick asked.

“What if
she’s screwing another man?
  
Shit like
that.
 
Do you want them to report that?”

Mick
frowned.
 
“Hell no,” he said.
 
“They don’t report on her.
 
They guard her.
 
They aren’t her spies, they’re her
protectors.
 
And they had better behave
that way.”

Leo
nodded.
 
That was what he loved about
Mick.
 
There was never any ambiguity with
him. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Now, one
week later, Roz was riding around Philly, going from open house to open house,
thinking she was flying solo, only to have a team of Mick’s men somewhere
around everywhere she went.
 
And Mick and
Leo assumed she was none the wiser.

But when she
met Mick at the restaurant for dinner later that evening, and she made her way
to his table, she decided to humor him.
 
She was learning a lot about his ways.
 
And she knew, if he had men following him around, he certainly had one
or two following her.
 
She wasn’t
bragging, but she honestly felt that Mick cared deeply for her.

“We made
it,” she said as he stood up and helped her to her seat.

Mick wasn’t
sure what she meant.
 
He looked at her as
he sat down too.
 
“Come again?” he
asked.
 
“Who’s
we
?”

“Me and Joe
and possibly Moe.”

Mick stared
at her.
 
Did those assholes blow their cover
already?

Then Roz
smiled.
 
“You have a guy on me.
 
Don’t you?”

Mick
hesitated.
 
“Why would you think so?”

“Because
it’s true.”

“You’ve seen
them?”

“No.
 
But I know you.
 
It’s true, isn’t it?”

Mick
smiled.
 
“Don’t you worry about that.”

“You’d
better be glad I’m a faithful person, or I wouldn’t like it one bit.”

Mick
laughed.
 
And then the waiter arrived,
and took their drink orders.

“How did it
go?” Mick asked, after the waiter left.

“Not
good.
 
I saw plenty places, but they were
all too something, or not enough of something else.”

“You don’t’
have to find anything.
 
You know that.”

“You’ve made
that clear.
 
But I need my own.
 
I don’t want---”

“You don’t
want to be considered my whore.”

Roz
smiled.
 
“Not just that.
 
It’s just that I can’t rely on another person
so totally like that.
 
I want to find a
place with a reasonable rent.”

“A
reasonable rent?”

“Something I
can afford.
 
My savings can only carry me
just so far.
 
Because if I don’t find a
job soon, I may have to accept my brother’s offer and high tail it to Belt
Buckle, Tennessee.”

Roz realized
Mick looked perturbed.
 
“What’s wrong?”
she asked.
 
“What did I say?”

“What didn’t
you say?
 
You said you were looking for a
cheap place to live.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You said you
were relying on your savings to get you by.”

“So?”

“And when
your money runs out, you threaten to pack up and leave to become a waitress in
some backwater town.”

Roz still
didn’t get it.
 
“I still don’t see what I
said wrong.”

Mick studied
her eyes.
 
“You do understand that you’re
my lady?
 
You do understand that, right?”

Roz
smiled.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“Yes.”

Mick didn’t
like revealing so much of himself to anybody, including her, but he was getting
upset.
 
“Finding a cheap place to stay is
a negative,” he said.

Roz was
puzzled.
 
“A negative?”

“Relying on
your savings to get by?
 
Double
negative.”

Roz smiled.

“Moving to
Bible Belt, Tennessee---”

“Belt
Buckle, Mick!”

“Whatever.
 
Moving there, leaving me and moving there, is
out of the question.”

Roz stared at
him.
 
She knew, when she agreed to move
to Philly, that it would come to this.
 
“What are you saying?” she asked him.

“You’re my
lady.
 
You’re Mick Sinatra’s lady.
 
That has to mean something to you.”

Roz
frowned.
  
“It does!”

“Then act
like it does.
 
Because Mick Sinatra’s
lady doesn’t look for the cheap place.
 
She thinks bigger than that.
 
Mick
Sinatra’s lady doesn’t rely on her savings to get by because he takes care of
her.
 
He buys her a house.
 
He buys her a car.
 
He takes care of whatever she needs taken
care of.
 
Nothing but the best,
Rosalind.
 
Understand?”

Roz exhaled,
and then she nodded.
 
She
understood.
 
But first that tragic
situation with Barry, and then this decision to pack up and move to Philly.
 
It was a lot to deal with at one time.
 
“It takes some getting used to, Mick,” she
admitted.
 
“I’ve never been in a
relationship like this in my life.
 
I’ve
always had to take care of everything.
 
I’ve always made all of the decisions for myself.
 
The idea that somebody else will have a say
in that process isn’t something that I can just sign off on and wash my hands
of.
 
It’s going to take time.”

Mick reached
out and took her hand.
 
“I like your
toughness, Rosalind.
 
I do not care for
weak women and there is nothing weak about you.
 
I like your integrity, I like your moral authority, I love your ability
to be true to yourself.
 
But you’re not
in this life alone anymore.”
 
Mick
swallowed hard, as an even deeper realization struck him.
 
“
I’m
not in this life alone anymore,” he added, with even more feeling.
 
“We both will need to remember that.”

Roz placed
her second hand on top of their clasped hands.
 
“I’ll do my level best,” she said with a smile.
 
Then she thought about something she had
meant to bring up long ago.
 
“And thank
you,” she said to him.
 
“I think now is
the perfect time to thank you.”

Mick had no
clue what she was thanking him for.
 
“For
what?” he asked.

“For
handling my ex.
 
For giving Carmelo a
taste of his own medicine.”

Mick didn’t
expect her to know anything about that.
 
He would tell her in time.
 
But
not until their own relationship was sealed and he was certain that his
“antics” would not run her away.
 
“How
did you find out about that?” he asked her.

“Betsy saw
him.
 
She said his beautiful face was all
bruised and cut and he was walking with a limp.
 
He wouldn’t tell her why.
 
He, in
fact, avoided her at all costs.
 
So she
asked around.
 
His friends said he told
them that he had accidentally shot himself and fell through glass, but they
didn’t believe it.
 
His friends believe
some angry husband got a hold of him for disrespecting his wife.
 
But when I heard about it, I figured it
wasn’t an angry husband, but an angry boyfriend more like.”