And Roz drove that limousine away from that airstrip as the getaway car began its pursuit. She pressed the Security button on the dashboard touch screen, and began yelling Mick’s name.
A voice suddenly came onto the intercom. “Miss Graham, is that you?” It was one of Mick’s men.
“Tell Mick I’m in trouble!” Roz yelled nervously. “Men with guns shot Deuce and they’re coming after me and Bess! Tell Mick I need him!”
“Where are you?” The voice was now hysterical.
“At the airstrip. I’m heading for his house right now.”
She heard him bark out orders to his men. “Where’s your security team?” Mick had an army protecting her, and his men knew it.
“I don’t know,” she said with anguish in her voice as she looked through her rearview again. The gunmen were in their car and they were coming after her. “I don’t see anybody but the people trying to kill us. I need help!” She looked at Deuce and fought back tears. “They shot Deuce. He needs a doctor. He may still be alive.”
She kept glancing through the rearview at the advancing getaway car. She kept glancing at Deuce bleeding to death before her very eyes. She kept listening to Betsy’s hysterical screams. And she felt as if the world was closing in on her. She was in trouble. “Lord, help me,” she started crying. “Lord, help me. Please help me!” Because she knew, when she looked through the rearview again and saw that getaway car gaining more and more ground on her big limousine, and saw their weapons appear out of their windows as if they were ready to launch another attack, that only the Lord could help her now.
Mick Sinatra was already in a foul mood. The three young lieutenants of the three crime organizations that depended on him for their survival requested an emergency meeting that couldn’t wait, and he granted it. But it meant he couldn’t meet Rosalind’s plane. Which made it bad enough. But as he leaned against the front of his desk, in his home library, and realized what this couldn’t wait meeting was really all about, his blood began to boil. He was inwardly enraged.
“It’s not just the three of us, boss,” Nat Bianchi said. He was Carp Bianchi’s kid. Bianchi was still alive, he was the only one of the three dons who didn’t bite the dust during that last insurrection, but it spooked him so much that he retired, and put his kid in charge. Now Mick had to deal with these sawed-off ass wipes. The remnants of three empires. Young men who hadn’t done shit to deserve to run shit, but still felt they deserved his time and attention.
“What are you trying to say, Nat?” Danny Padrone asked. Danny had been Mick’s body man for years, but after the insurrection, after his most trusted men turned on him, Mick elevated Danny. Now Danny was his number two and was standing by his side. “What do you mean it’s not just you three?”
“It’s not just the three of us making these demands,” Nat clarified. “We don’t just represent Vito DeLuca’s crew, and Teddy Stefani’s crew, and you know my old man turned his organization over to me. It’s not just us. It’s everybody in the sub-organizations too. They stand behind our demands too. And they all agree, like we agree, that we should have a fifty-fifty partnership with you. You get fifty all by yourself, and we split the remaining fifty. Right now you get the king’s ransom, eighty percent, and we have to scramble around and split twenty. That’s not right. A fifty-fifty split is right. That’s more than fair.”
Mick continued to sit there, and to listen. But Danny knew he was enraged. Because Danny couldn’t believe it himself. These fools had just walked into the lion’s den and didn’t even realize it.
“It’s our people who do all the leg work,” Nat continued. “It’s our people who take all the risks. All you do is sit up in your legit businesses, in your ivory tower, and dictate to us. But we have to give you a cut of everything we get. The biggest cut of all. That’s not right. Fifty percent is more than enough for you.”
Danny knew he had gone too far. He looked at Mick. Mick was staring at Nat. “More than enough?” he asked the little pipsqueak.
Nat swallowed hard. Mick had the most intimidating demeanor, and those intense green eyes. But Nat didn’t back off. “We’re being more than generous, yes, sir,” he said. “Considering the reality of what all our organizations have to do to keep the cash flow going, as opposed to the little you have to do, considering that reality, yes.”
Mick was ready to explode. “I’ll tell you reality,” he said, fighting to contain his outrage. “Reality is the fact that I built every one of your precious organizations with my bare hands. I built that! I made each and every one of your organizations what they are today, not you, and for damn sure not your daddies! They rode on my back! I busted the damn door down so they could walk through! If it wasn’t for me every one of them would still be hustling on corners and mixing drugs in basements! The reality is that you don’t own shit, and your daddies never did! I own it! I built it!” Then Mick calmed back down. But his intensity was still there. “And I’ll tear it down before I give an inch.”
All of the men looked at Nat now. This wasn’t going the way they had planned. They had tweaked this presentation so decisively that they were certain Mick Sinatra would see their side of things and cave. And Mick Sinatra, the legitimate businessman, might have. He didn’t need enemies. Mick the Tick didn’t give a fuck.
But they had a backup plan. They had a failsafe if Mick the Tick dominated and refused to listen to reason. “Like I said,” Nat decided to say, “it is not just us. We’re three dozen strong. That’s three dozen heads of three dozen organizations. And I’m here to tell you that if you don’t agree to our terms, then you can expect war. We will not be moved.”
Danny was stunned. It had never happened before. A punk like this threatening to declare war on Mick Sinatra? What an insult! But Danny wasn’t the only one stunned. Mick found it disgusting. So much so that he pulled out his gun and shot Nat Bianchi through the forehead before Nat knew what hit him. He dropped hard, like a body off a balcony.
A stunned silence filled the room. Even Danny didn’t see that coming. That was Carp Bianchi’s kid Mick just iced. Bianchi wasn’t shit compared to Mick, but he was still considered a big time boss.
But Mick didn’t give a rat’s ass about Bianchi. If he allowed punk kids to start threatening him, with no retribution, he’d be dead before sundown. He had to send a clear message. He looked at the remaining two organization heads, both of whom had the look of terrified men that suddenly realized their misjudgment. They received that message. “That’s what I think about your fifty percent,” Mick said. “That’s what I think about your war.”
But before Mick could say more, and he had plenty more to say, the door to his study flung open and Archie Bloom, his front gate security chief, was hurrying in, with a shotgun at his side. “We got trouble boss,” he said in a voice so winded it sounded as if he was hyperventilating.
“Tell me,” Mick said.
Bloom finally exhaled. “They ambushed Miss Graham.”
Mick’s heart hammered against his chest. There could be no worse news. He stood erect. Danny quickly pulled his gun and held the two organization leaders at gunpoint. Were they involved in this?
But Mick didn’t care at this point. His entire being was worried about Roz. “They ambushed her?” he asked. “Did they harm her?”
“She’s okay,” Bloom said. “They shot Deuce and tried to hijack the limo, but Miss Graham managed to get behind the wheel and speed away.”
“That’s my girl,” Mick said aloud, unconcern with who heard him. “Where is she?”
“She’s on her way here now,” Bloom said.
Mick began hurrying toward the door. “Did you get a team out there to blanket her?”
“They’re driving like hell’s bats to get to her. They’ll bring her in, sir.”
“How the fuck could this happen, Arch? What about our people?”
“Don’t know,” Bloom responded. “All we’ve been getting is radio silence. We don’t hear shit from them. They wer
e apparently bought off, or just took off.”
Mick was furious as he hurried toward the door. Another group of his guys turning on him? What the fuck was going on?
Mick held up his hand as he headed out of his office and Bloom tossed him the pump action shotgun he held in his hand. “Keep their asses here,” Mick ordered, referencing the two organization leaders, as he put his own gun away and pumped the shot gun. And headed out.
But the two organization leaders already understood that they weren’t going anywhere. They already had their hands in the air.
But unlike the two young dons, the gunmen in the getaway car weren’t in retreat. They began firing at the limo as it headed down the long backroad that led to Mick’s home. Roz knew she had to drive even more recklessly than she already was, as she swerved mightily to avoid direct fire, as she was forced to hear Betsy’s screams with every sound of glass crashing from bullet holes, and every sound of bullets bouncing off or puncturing the steel body of the limo.
But then Mick’s men arrived like the Calvary, in four separate cars. Two cars of men sped past the limo and got into a shootout with the gunmen in the getaway car. The gunmen started driving in reverse, and attempted to course correct and turn around, but were so outmanned and outgunned, and was moving so fast, that the car flipped and rolled as if it was a toy. The two additional cars gave Roz security cover and escorted the limousine to Mick. Betsy still had her head down, and thought she was still screaming, but her voice was gone. Roz felt better, she felt for the first time that they just might get out of this alive. But she wasn’t going to feel safe until Deuce was getting help, and she was in Mick’s arms.
The gates to Mick’s massive estate opened, as the limousine and its escorts arrived. Guards inside the gate had their guns drawn and were waving the limo in, but were on the ready just in case there was any secondary attacks. Roz sped through the gate and drove wildly up the long, winding driveway that led to Mick’s big house. She sped like a woman on the verge of victory, but terrified that it could all be snatched away if she let up.
Mick was running out of his house, with the shotgun at his side, just as the limo sped toward his front steps. He ran down the steps as the limo came to a screeching halt and Roz jumped out. His security detail jumped out of the other two cars too, to provide even more cover.
By the time Betsy crawled out of the limo, Roz had already ran to Mick, and he was lifting her into his big arms.
“Mick!” Roz cried, her heart hammering. “Oh, Mick!”
“Darling, are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m okay. Thank God. I’m okay.”
He didn’t waste another second hugging her or checking her out or asking for any details. He wanted her inside and safe first. He began hurrying her toward the house. He was looking back, and was ordering his men to get a doctor for Deuce, and to shut up screaming Betsy and get her inside too. But mostly he still had his shotgun at the ready, and was guarding Roz.
But he kept looking back. He kept wondering what in the world was going on. Because he knew what this meant. A fucker crazy enough to ambush Mick Sinatra’s woman and shoot to kill Mick Sinatra’s most trusted driver, was a crazy fuck. And that was a problem. But he knew he was going to hunt that fool down like the mangy animal he was and take care of him.
But the security force he had in place to protect Roz from times like these had stood down. And were nowhere to be found. That was the real problem. He thought the insurrection was over. He thought the war was won in that safe house in New York. But now he saw his miscalculation. He had built back up his army, only to have it turn on him again. Mick held Rosalind tightly as he hurried her into the house. Somebody was playing him for a fool. It might be those men in his house right now, the heads of the Stefani and DeLuca organizations, but somehow he doubted it. Because they were merely threatening to go to war with him if he didn’t bow to their absurd demands. But to ambush Roz meant that this was already war. That the declaration had already been given. And the weasels didn’t bother to notify him.
CHAPTER ONE
Three Weeks Earlier
The pearl-white Bentley stopped at the side entrance of the Hummingbird Theater, a successful community theater in Philadelphia’s business district. When the director saw the car, he tossed his cigarette to the ground and squished it with his shoe. It was so cold outside that his breath poured out of his mouth like smoke, as if his cigarette was still lit. But at least she had arrived. At least they were getting somewhere.
He watched as Roz Graham, the girlfriend of the CEO of Sinatra Industries, stepped out in her ankle length fur coat and stiletto boots and made her way toward him. She seemed flustered too. That, to the director, was a good thing.
“I hate that you had to come over here on a day like this,” he said as she approached. “But I ran out of options.”
“Where is she?”
“In her dressing room. She won’t even rehearse unless we meet her demands. We have a show tonight, Roz. I don’t know what she’s thinking!”
“I don’t either,” Roz said, as she opened the side door. “But I will be finding out.”
Roz entered the theater and headed along the narrow corridor to the dressing rooms in the back. The director was following behind her, expressing all kinds of dismay, but Roz heard him bitch and moan over the phone. She’d heard enough from him. She needed to hear what her client had to say.
That was why, when she made it up to Venita Blake’s dressing room, she knocked once, opened the door, and entered alone. The director seemed poised to follow her in, but she closed the door behind her. And walked up to her young starlet who sat at the mirror, sipping wine, and talking on her cell phone.
“I’ll call you back,” Venita said when she saw Roz enter the room.
Roz walked up to her. She sat her Hermes bag on the tabletop, her butt on the edge of the table, and folded her arms. “Talk to me. What’s going on, Neet?”
“I don’t know why they called you. They didn’t have to call you for this.”
“What’s going on?” Roz asked again.
“These people are driving me crazy, Miss G. That’s what’s going on. You know what they want? They want my character to be some slut. They want her to be some pole climbing, beer guzzling whore.”
Roz was mystified. Was she serious? Was this some joke? She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“My character in the play,” Venita explained. “They aren’t treating her right!”
“They aren’t treating her right? Really? That’s what this is about? You don’t think the people who hired you to act in their play know what they’re doing? The people with twenty years of experience versus your twenty days of experience? Is that what you’re telling me, Venita?”
“I just think they need to stop trying to turn her into a slut.”
“What difference does that make what they turn her into? You’re here to act. You’re here to do your job. Why are you worrying about something that you can’t control?”
“But I should be able to control it,” Venita insisted. “I’m the talent. I’m the person who’s going to make it great. I have to play that character on stage.”
“You have to play that character on stage for pay,” Roz pointed out. “This is not volunteer work. You are being paid to play that character on stage.”
“Yeah, I’m being paid, but---”
“But nothing, Venita! That’s everything right there. You are being paid to read the lines they tell you to read. So why should you care how they portray the character? You’re being paid! It’s your job to portray your character in whatever light these people want you to portray her in.”
“But that’s all they think of us black women,” Venita said. “Why we always got to be sluts and whores? I don’t think that should be this woman’s character.”
“The woman you are portraying is a prostitute, Venita. A hooker! You knew that when my agency negotiated this contract for you. She’s a hook
er! And guess what? A hooker, generally speaking of course, is what many people would consider a whore! You knew that going in. You accepted those terms going in. Now I’ve got the director calling me as if he’s ready to kill your ass if you don’t pull it together.”
“But I have a right to voice my opinion,” Venita insisted. “Yeah, my character sells her body for money, yeah, she does. But she’s not selling it for fun. She’s selling it to pay her bills. That doesn’t make her a slut in my book. That makes her smart. I feel they should realize her worth and give her more positive things to say and do.”
Roz was beyond upset. She leaned toward Venita, lowering her voice. “Look little girl,” she said harshly, “you need to cut this shit out. You hear me? You want to be an actress. You came to my agency begging us to find you roles, any roles you said, so that you could act. We not only find you a job, but we get you the starring role in a play that may someday make it to New York and ultimately to Broadway! And your ass is complaining because they don’t make some hooker virtuous enough? Last month you couldn’t pay your rent, and now you’re Viola fucking Davis? Are you kidding me? You’d better come back down to earth and do whatever these people tell you to do. If they want you to stand on one leg and bark like a dog, you stand and bark and collect your pay. You’re just getting started and you want to be the diva? Really?”
Roz sat back up. “You’d better get it together, Nita, now I mean it. Or they will drop you and my agency will too. Then we’ll see how virtuous you are then, with your broke ass. So instead of worrying about the character’s character, you better start worrying about your own character by fulfilling the terms of this contract. If you aren’t willing to do that, if you can’t work under the conditions they set, then say so now. They can elevate the Understudy, and you can go home. But you’ve got to make a decision.”
Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho Page 2