“Prison release,” Uncle Mick says, helping me out. “They just got out of prison.” As usual, Uncle Mick knew more about it than even I knew.
“And what?” Pop asks. “You owed them money or something?”
I tell him I didn’t owe them shit.
“Then what was their problem with you?”
“He’s the one who got away,” Uncle Mick says.
Pop looks at him. “Thanks to you, no doubt.”
Uncle Mick don’t deny it. “But the question is about who else,” he says. “Was this an isolated event, or was Dance ordered to take you out.”
“You mean by Moby?” I ask.
“By anyone.”
“No. I didn’t get that. He was talking too much shit about why I didn’t use my connections to get him out of prison, like I helped him commit those murders. It was all bitterness and shit.”
Pop’s moving around. He doesn’t know how deeply involved I was during my brief time in Boston all those years ago. And because he doesn’t ask for details, he probably doesn’t want to know.
But he does want some answers.
“Who were these guys you iced anyway?” he asks me. He can be as gangster as my uncle, if you push him. “What were their names?”
“One was a guy we called Dance. I didn’t recognize the other guy.”
“Why do you call him Dance?” Pop asks. It’s the kind of question only he would ask. For me and Mick, who gives a shit? But my old man does.
“He was always dancing around an issue. Never gives you a straight answer. That’s why we called him Dance,” I say to him.
“Cops dropped the charges?” he asks.
“They never charged me,” I say. “Everything I told them was backed up by camera footage. They couldn’t help but let me go.”
Pop exhales. He’s relieved but still worried. Uncle Mick is just pissed. “Being mayor isn’t exciting enough for you?” He asks me that like he’s mad at me too. “You have to come to Boston and pull this Machine Gun Kelly shit? Why? To get your rocks off?”
“It wasn’t like that. They rolled up on me. I tried to get away, but they outgunned me. I had to outgun them back.”
I’m sitting beside my father and it’s upsetting him too. First, he places his hand on my neck, and then he pulls me against him, and then into his arms. I remember people used to always say that my older brothers Brent and Tony were Pop’s favs. And Carly after she was adopted. But I said and still say bullshit. My dad’s favorite child is all his children. He loves us all to death, and has high hopes for all of us.
Even me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, after trying not to think about what went down in Boston yesterday, I’m still antsy as hell. But I make my way into the lobby of City Hall. Getting back to work, I hope, will help me get that nightmare off my mind. I hadn’t had that close a call in a very long time. You get out of the game, you get rusty. But those fuckers had another thought coming if they thought I was going to be forced in and stay rusty. Because if they thought that, they realize now, to their own detriment, how wrong they were.
My three closest aides, Neil, Kathy, and Tanner, are waiting in front of the statute of Millard Lewis, the town’s first mayor, to greet me. Why they feel a need to do this every single morning lately, I don’t know. Gerard thinks it’s all about being close to power and wanting to flaunt it. They want people to see that they’re members of my inner circle. But I don’t see it that way. I think their asses are angling, individually and collectively, for Gerard’s job.
I keep walking. They have to hurry up to keep up with me.
“We got together last night and came up with a series of steps, sir,” Kathy says as we step onto the elevator, “that we might utilize to at least forestall the vote on your father’s hotel expansion.”
It’s my mother’s hotel expansion, I want to correct her, but I don’t bother. In Jericho, Big Daddy Charles Sinatra rules everything, including his family, including Jericho Inn. And they’re right: he owns it. He owned it long before he met Jenay. But Jenay made it what it is today. In my mind, and Pop’s mine, too, that’s her baby and hers alone. But I don’t get on that level with my staff. “It’s been handled,” I say to Kat.
She looks at me as if the very idea that a problem was solved without her means it can’t possibly be the right solution. She’s hardworking and talented, but she’s also arrogant that way. But while she’s standing there looking all confused, it’s Neil who asks the questions. “You’ve taken care of it, sir?” He’s confused too, but he knows how to rebound better than Kat does.
“I’ve gotten enough council members who were on the fence to get off the fence and vote Present if the vote ever comes up, and therefore defeat the measure without having to own the defeat.”
Tanner smiles. He’s the only one who gets it. But Neil and Kathy, my two alpha-dogs, are deflated. They’re supposed to be my fixers. They’re supposed to be the ones to figure shit out for me. But I beat them to the punch? It’s a shock to their young systems.
But when the elevator doors open upstairs, it’s Gerard who’s standing in front of the elevator, looking handsome and serious in his double-breasted suit, waiting for me. And I’m more than amused now. I’m smiling now. Because that’s how you do that shit. That’s how you remind come-uppers just how early in the morning they’ve got to get up, to come up anywhere near where you already are.
“Good morning,” I say to Gerard. They know he’s not only my chief of staff, and their boss, but my best friend too. The mere fact that they think they can charm me enough that I’d give his position to them is head-scratching to me. But that’s the balls some of these young people have nowadays. They think they’re the shit, and everybody else is just messiness.
“Good morning, Boss,” Gerard says. “Good morning, staff. Good to see you take your jobs seriously and get here so early.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. Because I know his ass. He’s fucking them up the ass and they don’t even know it. But then his look turns serious again, and he’s looking at me. “A word,” he says.
I look at my aides. They know to scat, and they do, with each heading to their respective offices on the same floor. Unlike downstairs, where members of the public are waiting to get various services, it’s quiet up here. Most of the members of my administration hadn’t arrived yet.
“What’s up?” I ask Gerard.
“Matt Capecchi,” he says. “Seems he’s got a scheme in place already.”
“What kind of scheme?” Capecchi doesn’t scare me with his plots and plans. Until Gerard tells me more.
“A scheme to expose your past,” Gerard says. “Specifically, your past in Boston. Our past in Boston.”
Now I am concerned. Especially after what happened yesterday. I open my suit coat and place my hands on my hips, which I usually do whenever I feel fucked. “How does he plan to do that?” I ask Gerard. “We were never convicted of anything. Our names never came up, thanks to Uncle Mick.”
“But the inuendo. That’s how Capecchi operates. It’s never straight facts. It’s some facts and a lot of fiction. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s bullshit.”
“You think he knows about what happened yesterday?”
“I think so, yes.”
“But I was cleared. It was self-defense. There’ll be no charges.”
“But the footage from all those city cameras is damning, Bobby. And I’m thinking he might have gotten his slimy hands on some of that. Which means we’ve got to get ahead of that story ourselves.”
“How do you suggest we do that?”
“We get some of that footage ourselves. Bring in a local reporter and give him a sit-down interview with you. And let him run with the story. But provided he runs with the story that our mayor was almost the victim of a carjacking, but his expert marksmanship thwarted the attempt.”
I smile. “Turn it around on Capecchi.”
“Turn t
hat shit around. We’ll make a hero out of you. And Capecchi will crawl back into his hole with his tail between his legs.”
It’s still risky, though, because shit you think is going straight can go sideways. But I agree with Rod. We’ve got to get ahead of the story. “Okay, do it.”
“Great.”
“But how is he finding out all this shit so easily? We’ve got an informant in his camp?”
“You know we do.”
“Good.”
“But he’s nobody’s fool, Bobby. He’s more than likely got one in ours.”
“We have to assume he does,” I say to Gerard. “Keep everything between the two of us. I’ll rope my dad in if necessary, but just us two for now.”
Gerard gives me an odd look. “Big Daddy know the full extent of your past in Boston? I know your uncle knows. But does your old man know?”
“The full extent? No,” I say to him.
“Then we really can’t let that part of this shit get out. He’ll kill you if he knew the full extent.”
“You know you’re right,” I say, and we laugh.
But I’m getting worried as a motherfuck now. Not about my father, but about the campaign itself. Laura and her you’re the father accusation are going to be bad enough. Now Capecchi wants to throw in my past too? Not one of my previous opponents ever had the nerve to even go there. They know who my father is. They know who my uncle is. They know the Gabrinis, my cousins.
Capecchi’s got nerves, I’ll give him that. He’ll try shit that nobody else has tried. He’s got nerves. But I’ve got them too. “Make sure our people are digging up his shit,” I say to Gerard. “He wants to play hardball, let’s get the balls ready. He exposes something about us, we expose something about him. And I mean in real time.”
“So we’ll playing tit-for-tat now,” Gerard says.
“Tit for motherfucking tat,” I say. “That’s right.”
“He’ll have to have enough in his past, the kind of scary shit we’ve got in ours, for that game to work.”
Why is Gerard always so reasonable? “What else we got?” I ask him.
He smiles. “I’ll get the investigators on it,” he says, realizing, at this point, that we’ve got nothing else.
I head to my office. I’m talking tough; talking all about hardballs and tit for tat and shit, but I don’t feel so tough. A lot could go wrong this time around. This job I actually love, and that has become as much a part of my life as air, could be lost to me if I’m not careful. Which means I’ve got to be careful. Which means I’ve got to take control of some of these fires before they can’t be controlled. Like Laura, for instance.
I call her on my cell phone as I make my way toward my office. Maybe she’s an early bird too. But it rings and rings and her Voice Mail picks up. I feel like a prick doing so, but I leave a message again. Just a give me a call message. That’s all. Nothing she can hold against me later. But it’s not looking good. It’s looking more likely than not that Gerard’s theory is right, and she just might be working for Capecchi. But I text her, too, in case she’s not.
“You have a visitor, sir,” Jolien, my executive assistant, says as soon as I make it up to her desk, which sits outside of my office. She’s my gatekeeper. She’s the person they all have to go through first, to get to me. She’s also handing me a stack of mail.
I glance at my watch. It’s barely seven. I flip through my mail.
“Sir?”
Why she’s bothering me about some visitor kind of bugs me. She knows the drill. The answer is a standing no this time of morning. Unless it’s somebody I have no business saying no to, like from the Governor’s office. I look up from the mail I’m thumbing through. “Is it somebody from Augusta?” I ask her. Augusta is the capital of Maine, and our state’s seat of power.
“No, sir.”
I’m frowning because she knows better than to bug me like this. “Who is it then?”
She looks down at her notes. “A woman by the name of Rain Hopson, sir,” she says, and looks back up at me like she just said Meryl Streep is downstairs.
Now I’m frowning for real. “Why would I want to see this Rain Hopson? Who is she? I don’t know any---”
And then I stop myself. It’s the Hopson that I remember. And I remember her name is Renita, the woman who got me so hot that I tented my pants twice. The one who all but told me to take a hike. And now she’s here? What happened? She changed her mind about me? I doubt it, but you never really know people. Especially people you really don’t know. But could she be this Rain Hopson?
“Where is she?”
“Downstairs, in the lobby.”
“Put her on the monitor.”
As soon as Jolien shows the lobby monitor that sits on her desk, my heart actually leaps with joy. It’s her. It’s Renita.
“She just walked in, asking to see the mayor,” Jolien’s saying. “Marge called and asked if she has an appointment. She doesn’t, sir.”
The rational part of me isn’t sure if I want to meet with her at all. But the irrational part of me very much wants to meet with her. To see her again. To make sure she’s alright.
To make sure she’s alright, I’m thinking as I walk away from Jolien’s desk and head for my office. Why should I care if she’s alright? She’s already cost me plenty. What am I doing?
But before I enter my office, I stop at the door. My happy heart won’t let me ignore her. And without turning around, I say to Jolien: “Tell Marge to send her up,” I say. “And then send her on in.” And then I enter my office without looking to see if she finds it odd or not, and close the door.
Far more powerful people than Renita Hopson have tried to see me this early in the morning, showing up without appointments, and I’ve turned them all down flat. I’m barely awake at seven am. I need coffee. I need Red Bull. I need time. That’s why I come early. Not to be bombarded with guests. But to prepare myself for what I know will be yet another grueling, event-filled, wonderful day.
Now I’ve told my executive assistant to forget all of that, and bring Miss Hopson right on in! At least I think she’s a Miss. I didn’t see a ring on her finger, and didn’t even look, to tell the truth. I just leaped to a conclusion based on what I saw. Now I’m hoping I didn’t leap to the wrong conclusion. She may be a lesbian, and not even want to be with a man, for all I know!
I plop down behind my desk and lean my head back. Jolien already made me some coffee, and it’s sitting hot in the pot in my office ready for me, but I don’t bother to drink any. Because I’m trying to understand this. I’m trying to figure out why I’m so accommodating to this particular person. I don’t know her like that. I don’t know her at all! But yet I’m sitting here, waiting for her, unable to even fix myself a cup of coffee because I’m excited. I’m actually excited to see her again. To see for myself how she’s doing. To find out what in the world brought her to my side of town, this time of morning.
And when she walks into my office, looking scared but still graceful in her knee-high dress and heels, and her big hair so bouncy and curly, my excitement doesn’t lessen at all. I’m happy to see her again. That I know for sure.
I also stand to my feet when she walks in, something I’ve never been known for doing. But it somehow seems appropriate in this case. “Good morning, Miss Hopson,” I say to her. If she’s a Mrs., she may correct me.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she says as she’s walking up to my desk, “but I have to take care of this.”
I don’t know what this is, but if I had judged her character right, I would say it has something to do with the money I forked over to repair that car. “Have a seat,” I say to her, holding out my hand toward the chair in front of my desk.
“I can’t,” she says. “I have my son in the car. I’ve got to take him to school.”
“School? You enrolled him in school here in town. Does that mean you got the job?” I ask her.
She smiles a smile that changes her face. She was alrea
dy pretty, but that smile makes her seem unburdened for the first time. Like she can actually cut loose and have some fun if things improve for her.
And that intrigues me. I saw her serious side the other day at the Inn. I even saw some quiet desperation too. But there’s another, fun side to her? A side that is as sexy as that slammin’ body of hers?
“I did get the job, yes,” she answers my question. “Thank you so much for putting in a word for me.”
Donald must have told her. Or maybe Jenay? “No problem,” I say to her, and mean it. It was no problem at all. “So, how’s it going? How are you this fine morning?”
“I’m okay, thank you. But what about you?” she asks me. “Are you okay? After what happened, I mean.”
Did I miss something? “Excuse me, what?”
“Oh. I didn’t mean to be all up in your business. I was there when somebody called and told Mrs. Sinatra. She said you were in a drive-by shooting.”
Damn. I’d better let Gerard know the word might already be out. I haven’t been approached about it yet from anybody in the local media, but the day is young. We’ll need to get a move on to stay ahead of the story. “Yeah, it was a tough situation,” I say to Renita. “But I’m fine.”
“Thank God. It could have been so much worse. Did they catch the person who did it?”
No way was I giving her the details. The horrid, terrible details. I doubt if the people who heard about it know that much this fast. “They didn’t make it, so yes,” is all I’ll say about it.
And it’s all she’s asking me to say about it. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, and I can tell she means it. “This world needs nice guys like you.”
I’m staring at her now. She says those kind words to me, and I’m staring at her. Me? A nice guy? Most people in this town would scoff at that. But she seems to believe it. “Thank you,” is all I can say to that.
“But why I’m here, sir,” she says, getting down to business, “is that I need to make arrangements to pay you back for that car repair bill.”
And I’m still smiling because I’m relieved. She does have integrity. She doesn’t want a free ride, unlike every woman I’d ever been involved with. Especially when they find out my last name. I judged her right. “You truly don’t have to do that,” I say to her.
Bobby Sinatra: In All the Wrong Places (The Rags to Romance Series Book 1) Page 9