Brent Sinatra: All of Me (15 page)

They watched Makayla as if they were watching an
opponent.
 
They were checking her out and
sizing her up.
 
Ira Stockton, the
District Attorney for Jericho County, was showing her around the office.
 
They started in what he called the Open Area,
the place where assistant D.A.s sat with their clerical staff and worked on
cases.
 
Now he was showing her the file
room, where all cases had to be stored.
 
But the assistant D.A.s were still smarting about her selection to begin
with.

“What makes her more qualified than any of us?” one attorney
asked.

“She sleeps with the chief of police,” another attorney
said.
 
“That’s what.”

“She’s Brent Sinatra’s girl,” said another one.

“That’s what I said.”

“And I agree with you.
 
That’s the only reason she’s the new deputy and we’re still the
help.
 
It’s because she’s Brent’s girl.”

“And he wants everybody to know it too.
 
She gets to start out on third base, when we
haven’t even made it up to bat.”

“But it’s not fair,” still another attorney said.
 
“Ira should have promoted one of us.
 
We work our asses off for this office, and
they bring some girl in from Augusta, some girl half our age, and promote her over
us?
 
It’s not fair.
 
In fact it’s wrong.”

“Now you’re talking,” said yet another attorney, the only
African-American on staff.
 
“Forget
fairness.
 
It’s just plain wrong.
 
And if Ira thinks I’m going to hold hands with
her and sing Kumbaya, he’s got another thought coming.
 
I’ll sing with her alright.
 
But the song won’t be Kumbaya.
 
It’ll be more like
Bye, Felicia
!” And they all laughed.

One of them whispered to another one.
 
“Who’s Felicia?” she asked.

And Makayla and her new boss heard it all.
 
Voices traveled through the vent in the file
room.
 
But they continued discussing case
filing.
 
It wasn’t until they had left
the room and began heading upstairs, did Ira broach the subject.
 
“Don’t let them get you down,” he said.

Makayla nodded.
 
“Don’t
worry.”

“I’m sure the Chief schooled you on what to expect.”

“He did.”

“I told him I would hire you, but I also told him it wasn’t
going to be a popular decision and he had to make you aware of that fact.
 
People feel entitled when they work at a
place for a long time.
 
Some of these
attorneys have been here longer than you’ve been born.
 
They feel they should get the prize every
time, not some outsider.
 
You understand
that, right?”

But Makayla was still trying to understand what he had just
said to her.
 
“What do you mean you told
the Chief you would hire me?” she asked.

Ira looked at her.
 
“He
didn’t tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me what?”

“Before you applied for Deputy D.A., he came to me.”

Makayla was stunned.
 
Before
she applied?
 
“And what did he say?” she asked.

“He asked me to hire you.
 
That’s the bottom line.
 
He wanted
you in Jericho, this position seemed tailor fit for you.
 
He wanted you hired.
 
No ands, ifs, or buts about it.”

Makayla couldn’t believe it.
 
Brent didn’t so much as hint at having any kind of conversation with Ira
Stockton or anybody else about the job.
 
He simply told her that a positon had opened up and he wanted her to
apply for it.
 
Since she was waiting for
the right job opportunity to move to Jericho, she gladly applied.
 
But he never mentioned, not once, that he had
rigged it in her favor.
 

Ira saw her anguish.
 
He smiled.
 
“Don’t look like
that,” he said.
 
“You haven’t done
anything wrong, forget those employees.
 
You deserved the job.
 
I knew your
work when you were here four years ago working on reforming the D.A.s
office.
 
I knew you were more than qualified
to do the job.
 
The Chief did too.
 
That wasn’t at issue.
 
But I had every intention of promoting from
within.
 
I needed a heavy duty incentive
to even consider promoting from outside.”

Makayla wasn’t even sure if she wanted to know this, but her
natural inquisitiveness caused her to ask anyway.
 
“What incentive did he give you?”

“He agreed to testify himself, rather than send one of his
men, whenever I requested it.”

That didn’t sound like much of an incentive to Makayla.
 
“And you consider that a big deal why?”

Ira smiled.
 
“Unlike
his father, Brent Sinatra is a very popular man in Jericho.
 
The ladies love him, and the men respect
him.
 
They know, if he gets on that
stand, he’s going to tell it to them straight.
 
No b.s. from him.
 
That’s a
powerful tool to have in our arsenal.
 
Especially during this election cycle.
 
I’ll win reelection.
 
My opponent
is lame.
 
But I still want to run on a
record of victories, not defeats.
 
Chief
Sinatra is an excellent ally to help me rack up those victories.
 
And hopefully, over time, you will be
too.
 
Now,” he said, “let me show you to
your office.”

Makayla followed him without comment, but she still felt some
kind of way about it all.
  
She knew she
was qualified for the job.
 
Overqualified
if you asked Neal or any of her former colleagues at Justice.
 
But she felt as if she had jumped the
line.
 
Now she really had to prove
herself.
 
Thanks to Brent’s interference,
especially if her new coworkers knew about that interference, she was going to
have to work, not doubly-hard as she had already planned, but triply-hard just
to earn respect.
 
Not as Brent’s
girl.
 
But as her own woman.

Brent’s truck stopped in the parking spot next to the flag
pole just as a beat-up old 1970s Cadillac convertible, with its top down, drove
up.
 
Brent got out of his truck and shook
his head, as his brother Tony stepped out of the Caddie.
 
“Where do you find these old cars?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” Tony asked, looking at his
car.
 
“This baby’s a classic.
 
This is an Eldorado, man.
 
They don’t even make’em anymore.”

“I see why,” Brent said, as he began heading toward the
station entrance.

“I got it for a steal in my opinion,” Tony said as he
followed Brent.
 
“I only paid four
hundred for it.”

“I see why,” Brent said again.

“Oh, what do you know?
 
You drive a big, shiny truck and a fast sports car.
 
But you know what they say about guys who
have to have it big and fast?
 
They say
those guys are overcompensating.
 
They
say those guys have what you might call
small
plumbing.”
 
  

Brent laughed.
 
Especially since Tony, as his brother, knew darn well that small was the
last thing his plumbing was.
 
“Say
whatever you want,” he said, “but one thing’s for sure: whenever I fix a drain,
they never get clogged again.”

Tony laughed.
 
And they
both walked into the station.

They headed for the interrogation room in the back of the
squad room, but the desk sergeant stopped them.

“They’re upstairs, sir,” he said.

That surprised Brent.
 
He understood the kid was a kid, but he was also a suspect.
 
He should have been placed in
Interrogation.
 
“Thanks,” Brent said, and
he and Tony reversed course and headed upstairs.

Eddie was sitting in front of Belma Finch’s desk when they
arrived upstairs.
 
He stood up.

“Hey, Belma-Bam,” Tony said with a smile.
 
“Long time, no see.”

“No thanks to you,” Belma replied.
 
“You used to call and check on me.
 
Now you don’t bother.”

“He’s too busy with his beautiful new car,” Brent said.
 
“It’s old and rusty and beat up as hell, but
it’s beautiful to Tony.”

“Just like his women,” Eddie said, and Brent laughed.

“Very funny,” Tony responded.
 
“At least the women I date have integrity.
 
At least they have a moral core.
 
Your women are just core,” he said to
Eddie.
 
“Hardcore.”
 

“Brother got jokes,” Eddie said.
 
“I hear you.”

But Brent was already getting down to business.
 
“Why isn’t the kid in Interrogation?” he
asked Eddie.

Eddie glanced at Belma.

“Tell him,” she said. “Don’t wait until he sees him.”

Now Brent and Tony both were intrigued.
 
“Tell me what?” Brent asked his
second-in-command.

Eddie exhaled, and then let it out.
 
“There’s a complication, Chief,” he said.

“Tell me,” Brent responded.

“When we found the kid at Super Fin, we found a slip of paper
in his pocket.
 
He had no ID on him, but
he had this.”
 
Eddie handed the slip of
paper, which was now encased in a plastic bag, to Brent.

“What is it?” Tony asked, looking over his big brother’s
shoulder.

Brent looked at the three words on the paper.
 
When he saw his name, and
Junior
written next to it, his heart
hammered against his chest.

“Shut
up
,” Tony
said, when he saw those words too.

Brent looked at Eddie.
 
“What the hell?”

“My reaction too, Chief.
 
But that’s what he had on him.
 
A
slip of paper with
Brent Sinatra, Jr.
written on it.”

“He claims that’s his name?” Brent asked.

“He’s not claiming anything.
 
Like I said, the kid won’t talk.
 
Not even a little bit.
 
Whatever
happened in that motel room that led him to take a knife to that man has
traumatized the shit out of him.”

Brent exhaled.
  
Tony
looked at him.
 
“Is it possible, Brent?”
he asked him.

Belma Finch, who was a family friend since Brent and Tony
were children, looked too, with concern in her eyes.
 
“Could that child be yours?”

Brent shook his head.
 
“I don’t have any children,” he said.
 
“There’s no chance.”

“Well now to be truthful about it, there’s always a chance,”
Tony said.
 
“You weren’t exactly Mister
Responsible in bed when you were younger.
 
And not just you.
 
None of us
were.
 
Rubbers were nice, but they
weren’t always employed.”
 
Brent looked
at him.
 
“I’m just stating facts.”

“And here’s another fact,” Eddie said.
 
“The kid?
 
He’s biracial.”

“Half what?” Tony asked.
 
“Black?”

“Why does he have to be half-black?” Belma asked.
 
“Brent has dated Asian girls and Hispanic
girls and Puerto Rican girls too.”

Tony smiled.
 
Leave it
to Belma to not realize that Puerto Ricans were “Hispanic” too.
 
To Belma, they were a race onto
themselves.
 
“Yes, he’s dated all those
groups you named,” Tony said.
 
“But it’s
all about predilection, my dear.
 
And
Brent here has a predilection for girls of the African-American persuasion.”

Belma looked confused.

“He prefers black girls,” Tony said bluntly.
 
“And because of that preference, he’s had a
lot of them.
 
The fact that the kid’s
biracial, then, may not narrow it down all that much.”