Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (9 page)

“I can suggest it, but you know how that crew can
be.”

“Tell them to stand down, or I’ll stand them
down.
 
Every one of those fuckers.
 
Make that clear.”

Carp nodded.
 
Even they knew Mick didn’t play.
 
He and Yank stood up.
 
“I’ll let
them know,” he said, shook Mick’s hand, and then he and Yank headed for the
exit.

“Sorry about all of this, Mick,” Carp added, as they
left.

When they left, Mick closed his eyes for a quick
moment, and then reopened them and pulled out his cell phone.

“Yeah, boss?” It was Danny Padrone on the other end.

“Who has Adrian’s detail?”

“Ah . . .” Danny apparently checked the
computer.
 
“That would be Jim and
Riley.
 
But he gave them the slip.
 
He always does.”

“Find Adrian and bring him to me,” Mick ordered.

“Only you?”

“Only me.
 
Mo
DeLuca was iced last night.
 
His men
seems to think Adrian was the shooter.”

Danny couldn’t believe it.
 
“Damn, boss.
  
He iced Mo?
 
What the fuck is
wrong with that boy?”

“Hell if I know.”

“They’re going after him, right?
 
Mo’s men?
 
They’ve got to go after him.”

“I told Carp to order them to stand down, but
there’s no guarantees.”

“No, there isn’t,” Danny said.
 
“I’ll put an army on this one,” he
added.
 
“I’ll get on this one.”

“With no newbies,” Mick ordered.
 
“Vets only.”

“For sure, boss.
 
That goes without saying.”

“Good.”

“What’s his cell number?
 
We’ll run a trace just in case.”

Mick closed his eyes again.
 
He never bothered to get his own child’s cell
phone number.
 
What kind of father was
he?
 
“I don’t know the number,” he
admitted.

“No problem,” Danny quickly responded.
 
He didn’t rise to be Mick’s second in command
by accident.
 
He knew how to handle the
boss.
 
“I’ll check with Teddy,” he
added.
 
“I’m sure he has it.”

“I’m sure he does,” Mick said.
 
Because Teddy was a responsible young
man.
 
He was Mick’s second oldest child,
but he was a natural leader.
 
Adrian
viewed himself as a leader too, Mick had concluded, but nobody followed his
lead.
 
“Keep me posted,” Mick added, and
then ended the call.

Mick stood up, walked to his office window, and
looked out over downtown Philadelphia.
 
Of all of his children, he was least involved with Adrian.
 
He wasn’t sure why.
 
Maybe it was the fact that Adrian was his
oldest, his first child, and therefore he harbored even more guilt for a longer
time.
 
Maybe it just seemed, after the
passage of so many years, that it was such a lost cause to Mick.
 
He couldn’t say.

He tried to reach out to Adrian once.
 
He even scheduled to meet him for lunch.
 
But Adrian didn’t bother to show up or even
call, leaving Mick waiting for him, as if he, Adrian, had the upper hand.
 
From that day to this day, Mick did to Adrian
what he did to everyone (except Rosalind) who didn’t live up to their end of
the bargain.
 
He cut him off.
 
Not consciously.
 
He would never consciously cut off any of his
children.
 
But his actions proved the
shift because he never reached out to Adrian again.
 
He left him to fend for himself.
 
Now he was in real trouble.
 
Now his life was on the line and no man could
save it but Mick.
 
Mo’s people were
talking a lot of noise, but they were ultimately under Mick’s control.

But the thought that some lone wolf could try to
take a shot at Adrian anyway, concerned Mick deeply.
 
And that was why he walked away from the
window, walked around his desk, and left his office.
 
He had to make sure Mo’s people understood
his directive.
 
He had to make sure they
fully appreciated that he might be the world’s worse father, but Adrian was
still his son.
 
And although Mick was not
the kind of man who felt he deserved to pray, not with all the blood on his
hands, he prayed for his son’s safe return all the same.
 

 
“I’ll be
back,” he said to his executive assistant as he made his way out of the outer
sanctum of his office, and toward the elevator.
  
He had his hands in his pants pockets and
looked as if he was going out for a stroll.
 
But his assistant knew better.
 
Carp Bianchi didn’t come to his office for small talk.
 
Something was happening.

Roz looked at the picture of the sweet little
fourteen year old and smiled.
 
“She is so
cute, Hamp,” she said.
 
“She must favor
her mother.”

Hamilton Sturgess laughed.
 
“Yes, she does.
 
She’s fortunate that way.
 
And she has the biggest heart in this world.”

Roz handed him back his picture.
 
They were seated across from each other in
The Bonfire, a restaurant near Roz’s office, waiting on Mick to arrive.
 
“Do you get to see her often?” Roz asked.

“Not nearly as often as I would like, no.
 
Her mother can be a real bitch
unfortunately.
 
If I don’t give her what
she wants, she uses our child as leverage.”

Hamilton was surprised when Roz didn’t respond to
that.
 
In the past when he would bring it
up, the woman he was with would be appalled and agree that his ex was a bitch
without question.
 
And they would take
pity on him.
 
They would give him a
little extra in bed too, just to show him how much more of a woman they were
than his ex could ever be.
 
But Roz
remained silent.

Roz remained silent, not because she didn’t agree that
Hamilton’s ex had issues, but because she had no idea if Hamilton was telling
the truth, the whole truth, or just his side of the truth.
 
If the man in question wasn’t Mick Sinatra,
and the woman wasn’t Roz Sinatra, she tended to stay out of it.

Hamilton leaned forward.
 
He brazenly placed Roz’s hand in his.
 
“I just want to let you know,” he said, “how
much I appreciate your consideration.
 
You have always been a fighter, and that’s who I need in my corner.
 
I need to get back to work.
 
Acting is my life.
 
Tony Bellamy took away my livelihood.
 
I’m depending on you, Roz, to help me get it
back.”

Hamilton turned on that acting talent, as tears
appeared in his eyes.
 
“You don’t know
what it’s been like,” he continued.
 
“One
day I was the toast of Broadway.
 
Everybody knew my name.
 
The next
day, after Tony found out, I was toast.
 
Nobody would return my phone calls.
 
Nobody would hire me.
 
It’s been
nothing short of a nightmare, Roz.”

“But if I take you on, Hamp,” Roz said, “it isn’t
going to be a straight shot to Broadway either.
 
I need to make that perfectly clear.”

“You already did,” Hamilton said.
 
“I understand.”

“I have many clients,” Roz continued.
 
“But Vernita Blake, who has her debut on
Broadway next week, will be my first client to make it that far.
 
You can get there.
 
I’m certain I can get you there.
 
But it’s going to mean a lot of swallowed
pride and a lot ego-checking.
 
You aren’t
starting off-Broadway.
 
You’re starting
off-off-off Broadway, Hamp.”

“I fully understand, Roz.
 
I get it, I really do.
 
I’m pushing forty, but I’m going to basically
be starting over.”

“That’s right,” Roz said.
 
“But you’ll be starting over with great name
recognition.
 
That will eventually be
your propeller, I promise you.
 
But it
won’t happen overnight.”

Hamilton squeezed the hand Roz had forgotten he
held.
 
“That’s what I have always loved
about you, Roz,” he said.
 
“You tell it
straight, and you keep it one hundred.
 
I
think we’ll make a wonderful team.”

Roz smiled, and lifted her drink.
 
“I’ll drink to that,” she said.

“I forgot you had dimples,” Hamilton said with a
smile of his own.
 
“Look at you!”

Mick had already entered the restaurant, and was
waiting behind a couple the Maître d was speaking with, and he was looking at
both of them.
 
He saw his wife, and he
saw the man with his wife.
 
Tall,
handsome, and very slender.
 
Like a track
man, if he was an athlete at all.
 
But
that was Roz’s type, Mick thought.
 
From
what he could gather, he would undoubtedly rank as the biggest man she’d ever
dated.
 
His muscular arms alone were as
big as that guy’s slender thighs.

But it wasn’t until the Maître d ended his
conversation with the couple in front of Mick, and then began escorting him to
Roz’s table, did he realize his wife and that man were doing more than just
talking.
 
The man had her hand, his
wife’s hand, in his.

What Mick didn’t know was that Hamilton saw him when
he first entered the restaurant.
 
He’d
done his homework.
 
He knew what Mick
Sinatra looked like.
 
That was why he had
grasped Roz’s hand in the first place.

“I think your husband has arrived,” he finally said
to Roz as Mick approached.
 
Roz turned
around in her seat, effectively removing her hand from Hamp’s.

Mick wore his standard issue tailored suit and tie,
and his thick brown hair could use a cut, but there was always something about
him that made Roz’s heart soar whenever she saw him.
 
And when she thought about this morning, and
how she woke up to that wonderful feel of his penis already inside of her, her
entire body felt the elation.
 
And even
as women were giving him that special look as he passed their tables, and some
men too, Roz couldn’t care less.
 
Because
Mick was her man.
 
That was her man right
there!

She’d had so many creeps for boyfriends that she
used to believe the term
faithful man
was an oxymoron.
 
And it still could be
with Mick.
 
She couldn’t guarantee that
he was faithful to her. In fact, of all the men she’d ever been with, he was
the one she was convinced would be most likely to cheat.
 
He had the looks, the body,
the
power.
 
Women
would be crazy not to go hard to get next to him, and Roz knew it.
 
But of all the men she ever dated, he was the
only one that didn’t give her a reason to be suspicious.
 
He was the only one who treated her better
than she ever treated herself.
 
She was
counting her blessings.
 
She felt blessed
to have him.

“You made it,” she said with a smile as he arrived
at the table.
 
Hamilton stood up.

Mick’s heart soared too when she turned around and
he laid eyes on that irresistible face again.
 
Never a man given to public affection,
he didn’t
care when it came to Roz.
 
He leaned down
and kissed her on her lips.
 
The touch of
her lips, the smell of her body,
the
softness of her
skin against his skin made his dick throb.

Hamilton saw their reaction to one another.
 
He saw how Mick squeezed her arm as he kissed
her, as if he wanted to remind the world that she belonged to him.
 
He saw Roz close her eyes as he kissed her,
as if, in Hamilton’s mind, Sinatra not only had wealth and power to recommend
him, but he knew how to put it on her in bed.
 
Which made Hamilton realize just how tough a sales job he had in front
of him.
 
Becoming Roz’s boy toy, and Roz
ultimately becoming his benefactor, wasn’t going to be as easy as he had hoped.

When she and Mick stopped kissing, Roz introduced
the two men.
 
They shook hands cordially,
and both sat down.
 
Mick placed his arm
across the back of Roz’s seat, and kept his eyes on Hamp.

“It’s just so wonderful that Roz and I were able to
reconnect,” Hamilton said.
 
“We used to be
old pals on Broadway.”

“More like off-Broadway,” Roz said.
 
“And hardly pals. More like lovers,” she
added.

Mick could tell Hamilton hadn’t expected Roz to be
so honest around her husband.
 
But he
managed to smile it off.
 
“Oh, yeah, I
forgot,” he said with a shake of his shoulder, and what he hoped was a charming
grin.

Mick wasn’t charmed at all.
 
He had too much on his plate to be so easily
persuaded.
 
From calming the nerves of Mo
DeLuca’s revenge-minded men, to searching for that dumb-ass son of his himself,
he didn’t really have time for this meeting.
 
He had contemplated phoning Roz and canceling it.
 
But he thought about her former lover putting
on the charm, trying to seduce her, trying to get some again.
 
It wasn’t happening.
 
Roz was not that kind of lady.
 
But he wasn’t going to take any chances with
the man.
 
This was a meeting he had to
make.

“The point I was making,” Hamilton said, “is that I
greatly appreciate the fact that Roz is giving me this opportunity.
 
She’s always been a fighter.
 
And, as I told her before you arrived, that’s
exactly what I need.”

“You do not currently have an agent?” Mick
asked.
 

“No, I don’t,” Hamilton said.

Mick stared at him, waiting for an explanation.
 
But Hamilton redirected the subject.
 
“I’m just happy to be working with Roz.
 
She’ll deliver for me.”

But Mick wasn’t so easily misdirected.
 
“Why not?” he asked.

“Why not what?” Hamilton asked with a smile.

Bad move, Roz thought, as she looked at
Hamilton.
 
With Mick, it was always
better to just answer the question.

Hamilton did.
 
“My agent decided that he wanted to take his agency in a different
direction.
 
He therefore didn’t feel an
association with me was what his agency, given that new direction, needed.”

“Why not?” Mick asked him.

Roz wanted to step in.
 
She wanted to steer Hamp toward the truth
before it bit him in the butt.
 
But she
knew Mick.
 
She stayed out of it.

“I just told you why,” Hamilton said, giving Mick
his best charming smile.

Mick stared at Hamilton.
 
He was an actor doing what he did: acting.
Mick took a sip of Roz’s wine.
 
He didn’t
have time for this.
 
“I’ve got to go,” he
said to her as he sipped.

Roz looked at him.
 
“Now?
 
But Mick, you haven’t had
anything to eat.”

“I’ll get something later.”

Something was up, Roz could tell.
 
And if her instincts were right, whatever it
was had nothing to do with Sinatra Industries.
 
Which meant, she knew, it was not only bad but was probably dangerous.
 
“I understand,” she said.
 
“Just take care of yourself.”

Hamilton felt triumphant.
 
He apparently didn’t find anything to really
object to.
 
“Well, I’m certainly sorry we
couldn’t talk more,” he said.

“Nothing to talk about,” Mick said, placing Roz’s
drink back in front of her.
 
“My wife
will not be representing you.”

Both Hamilton and Roz looked at Mick.
 
Roz was floored.
 
“What are you talking about?” she asked him.

“I thought it was a done deal,” Hamilton said.

“It wasn’t a done deal,” Roz corrected him, and then
looked at Mick again.
 
“That’s my
decision to make, Mick.”

“I made it for you,” Mick said firmly.
 
“You will not be representing him.”
 
Mick looked at her as if he was daring her to
dispute his authority.

Roz wanted to lash out.
 
She couldn’t believe Mick’s nerve.
 
She knew she was taking a risk by inviting
him to have an opinion about one of her clients to begin with.
 
And had it not been for the fact that she and
Hamilton had that history, she would have never considered such a thing.
 
But he promised to give his opinion, not make
the decision for her!
 
She was livid.

But she was also his wife.
 
She would fight him vigorously on this.
 
But not in this public place.
 
Mick leaned over to kiss her goodbye.
 
Hamilton thought it instructive that she
offered her cheek, not her mouth.