Venita exhaled. She was foolish at times, but she was nobody’s fool. “I want to stay and work,” she said, to Roz’s relief. “But if they’ll listen to my suggestions, Miss G, if they’ll only listen, it can be a better play.”
“They will listen,” Roz assured her, “if you listen to them. Respect goes both ways, my darling. You don’t get on set and start making demands. You get on set and work. You work hard. You prove that you can follow direction. Then make your suggestions. They’ll be more willing to listen then.”
Venita nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Roz stood up. Although Venita, at twenty-six, was only seven years younger than Roz, they were decades apart in terms of maturity. Roz sometimes felt as if she was Venita’s mother figure, rather than her peer. “Now get on that stage and do your job,” she ordered her.
Venita stood and they hugged. “I’m sorry you had to come over here for this. I know Mr. Mick wouldn’t like us bothering you like this.”
Roz felt odd when Venita mentioned Mick’s name. Venita had only met him once, at Roz’s office, but she didn’t seem to forget that meeting. She, like many women in this town, were always commenting on his good looks, or asking about his sexual prowess, as if she was going to tell them a thing that personal. Some of them claimed to already know. It used to bother Roz. Honestly, it still did. But she was getting used to it.
“My work here is done,” Roz said with a smile as she grabbed her violent-colored purse. Then she pointed at Venita. “Behave,” she added. “You haven’t earned that diva card yet.”
Venita actually laughed as if it was all a joke anyway, and she hadn’t just wasted everybody’s time.
But Roz felt reassured. And the director was satisfied. All was right in their world again.
The jet-black muscle car sped into the slanted parking space outside the seedy bar, and Joey Sinatra removed his keys from the ignition. His pal Wally was nervous as hell, but Joey was relaxed. It was just another day to deal, as far as he was concerned.
But Wally had a sinking feeling. “This is going to be our biggest buy yet,” he said.
“That’s right.” Joey grabbed the briefcase off of Wally’s lap. “We can make a name for ourselves with this buy. Those crackheads are gonna line up to get a piece of this pie.”
“But what if something goes down, Joey? We don’t have any backup. What if Crib try to fuck with us?”
“Fuck with Mick Sinatra’s son? Are you kidding me? Those fuckers know better than that!”
Wally couldn’t understand Joey. He seemed to hate his father and was always bitching about how he was never around, but then he was always bragging about his old man too. It made no sense. “So if something goes south you plan to stand on the fact that you’re Mick the Tick’s kid?”
“Hell yeah I’m gonna stand on it,” Joey said. “It’s true! For all they know I’m making this transaction for my dad.”
“Now you’re talking crazy,” Wally said. “Your dad don’t know shit about this.”
“But they don’t know that! What do they know? They don’t know shit about it either. So stop worrying like some bitch and let me handle this. I know what I’m doing.”
But as Joey began to get out of the car, Wally remained unconvinced. “Crib ain’t like those brothers we deal with on the Northside though,” he said as he got out too. “He’s gangster for real.”
“And I’m not?” Joey asked. Then he frowned. “Fuck Crib,” he said dismissively. “And fuck you too if you gonna keep giving me a hard time about it. We’re here now. There’s no turning back. Let’s get it over with.” Joey headed across the sidewalk, and walked into the bar.
Wally was still not feeling it, but he followed Joey anyway.
Joey was decked down in gold chains, Sean John shirt and jeans, and Air Jordans, with his briefcase at his side. He walked with swag, looking like some rapper, as he made his way across the crowded room to the bar counter near the back.
Wally was behind him, dressed equally streetwise, but when the bartender motioned for Joey to go on back, a beefy bouncer reached out his hand and stopped Wally. “Just him,” he said.
Wally was part upset and part relieved. He remained out front, but as close to the front door as he could get. He didn’t care what Joey thought. He didn’t trust these people.
Joey wasn’t going to the back of that bar based on trust. He was going based on mutual need. They needed the cash, and he needed the product. Because he knew, after he diluted the shit, that he was going to get ten times on the street what he was paying for it in this backroom. Joey smiled just thinking about it. He was young, he was only nineteen, but he had big dreams. He was going to be a kingpin someday.
As soon as he opened the door to the room in the back, a big black man they called Crib was sitting behind a small desk. His lieutenant was standing beside him.
“Well, well,” Crib said with a chuckle, “if it ain’t the great little man.”
“Very funny,” Joey said, not smiling at all.
Crib smiled. “Alright, hot shot, show me what you got.”
“Fuck you,” Joey said. “Show me what you got! I’m here to buy. You show me the product first.”
Crib gave Joey a hard look. “You’re a tough little man? You’re supposed to be tough?”
“Show me,” Joey said again. “Cut the crap and show me.”
Crib smiled again. “I would,” he said. “I really want to. But he wouldn’t like it.”
Joey frowned. “Who wouldn’t like it? Him?” He pointed at Crib’s lieutenant. “What, Crib, you let that retard dictate your purchases? What are you a pussy, Crib? Or a crib pussy?”
Crib wasn’t smiling this time. Any other kid and he would have iced him on the spot. But he wasn’t any other kid. He was Mick Sinatra’s kid. “He wouldn’t like it,” Crib said, and motioned toward the corner of the room.
When Joey bothered to look where Crib was motioning, he saw a man sitting in a corner. His legs were crossed, his tailored suit was pristine, his shoes sparkled against the drab light. Joey’s heart dropped through his own shoe. “Dad?” He couldn’t believe it.
Mick Sinatra didn’t look at his youngest son. He, instead, looked at Crib. And Crib and his lieutenant didn’t hesitate. Mick the Tick was a powerful ally to have. Crib stood up and they both left the room, closing the door behind them.
And when Mick stood up on his muscular frame, and began buttoning his suit coat, Joey’s chest squeezed in fear. He didn’t fear many men. Hardly any man alive. But he feared his father. His only recourse, he felt, was to play it off. “What are you doing here, Dad?” he asked him.
“You’re selling drugs,” Mick said as a statement, not a question, and began walking toward his son.
Joey wanted to run, but he knew his father’s reach went further than his arm length. “Drugs? Who’s selling drugs? I was just playing around,” he said.
“My son,” Mick said, his voice growing in anger as he advanced, “is a drug dealer. My flesh and blood is in this rat hole buying drugs to sell.”
Before Joey could respond with more lies, Mick grabbed him and threw him across the room. Joey’s body slammed against the side wall with a painful thump, and his briefcase flew out of his hand and landed broadside against a file cabinet. But before Joey could even stand back up and grab his switchblade, his gun, his something, his father had hurried across the room and was upon him again, picking him up and jacking him up against the wall, by the catch of his hip-hop shirt. His gold chains bounced against his chest, and caught around his neck.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Mick asked him angrily. “How could you fix it in your head to think that I’m going to allow you to swing drugs?”
Joey was fighting back tears now. He was as hurt as he was pissed. “You did it,” he forgot the lies and said to his father. “When you first started out you sold drugs! Everybody told me so. I’m gonna do it too, but do it better!”
Mick stared at his son.
Didn’t he realize it wasn’t about being a gangster back then? It was about surviving the only way he knew how. Joey was a rich kid. What the fuck he knew about survival?
But Mick also saw the pain in his son’s eyes. Because it was also about a father not being there for his son. And his son had to figure out manhood for himself, just as Mick had to do. What kind of choices did he expect the boy to make?
“I don’t give a fuck what I used to do,” Mick said. “I’m talking about what you will not do. You will not sell drugs. You will not use drugs. You will not have anything more to do with that poisonous shit!”
Tears were in Joey’s eyes, but Mick saw so much more. And his heart went out to his defiant son. He wanted to tell him he was sorry. He wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t want to do what he once did, because he did it all wrong. But Mick knew, like young Mick knew back in the day, that all of that talking wasn’t going to mean shit to a kid in love with the streets. A kid who knew his father was a bad man and wanted to be bad too. Mick’s father was an asshole that Mick hated with a passion, and ultimately killed one day. And he was visiting the same kind of hate upon his son.
When Mick got the call from Crib about Joey asking to buy a stash, he had every intention of coming to this backroom and beating that boy into submission. But now, as he looked into his son’s painful dark eyes, he knew a beating was the last thing Joey needed. He needed his father. Not his father’s wrath. And Mick, still holding his son by the catch of his shirt, still angry with him but understanding his part in that boy’s pain, pulled him into his big arms.
Joey was, at first, startled when his father embraced him. But when he felt his father squeeze him, as if he was sorry that it had come to this, Joey melted. He didn’t sob. He knew his father would hate him if he showed that kind of weakness. But he wanted to.
When they stopped embracing, Mick stood him up. They were toe to toe now. Man to man. Although all Mick saw was a scared child. “Where did you get the money?” he asked Joey.
“It’s mine,” Joey responded. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Where did you get the money?” Mick asked again.
Joey exhaled. “I borrowed it.”
“Give it back,” Mick ordered. “Every dime.”
Joey nodded. He knew better than to dispute his father at this point. “I will.”
Mick continued to study his son. He would have thought Adrian would be the first son he invited in. But oddly enough, it wasn’t his oldest, but his youngest. “You want to work for me?” he asked him.
Joey was floored. Work for Mick Sinatra? Was he kidding? “Yes, sir,” he said eagerly. He wasn’t trying to hide his excitement either. “Very much so, sir.”
“Give that money back. Every dollar. And come to my office in the morning.”
Joey smiled greatly. He wanted to hug his father, but he wasn’t sure if he would like it. “Yes, sir,” he said. “First thing.”
Mick continued to stare at his son. He loved that boy, he really did. But he was nowhere near ready to say so. “Get out of here,” he ordered, and Joey didn’t hesitate. He picked up his briefcase, and fled the room.
Mick left shortly after. But instead of feeling as if a load had been lifted, he felt burdened down.
CHAPTER TWO
“He’s not going to like it.”
Rosalind Graham grabbed the small box out of the trunk of the Bentley and headed toward the front door of her new home.
“You heard me?” Carolyn Brimmer grabbed a second box out of the trunk, and followed behind her. It was late in the evening. Roz had asked Carolyn to drop by when she knocked off from work. “Mr. Sinatra is not going to like this.”
“Since it’s my new home,” Roz said as she entered the home, “I think I’m the one who will need to like it. Did those movers bring the boxes I had in the garage?” She began to head upstairs.
“They were on the truck,” Carolyn said as she followed Roz upstairs. “I’m sure they’re here somewhere.” She looked around. “Are you going to keep all of this furniture?”
“For now, yeah,” Roz said. They walked across the landing and headed toward the master bedroom. “It’s a furnished rental with the option to buy. If I exercise my option, I’ll get my own furniture then.”
“What will determine if you exercise that option?” Carolyn knew she wasn’t going to get an answer, but it never hurt to try. They walked into the master bedroom.
Roz plopped the box down on the floor at the foot of the bed. “There they are,” Roz said with a smile when she saw the four boxes in the bedroom. They were stacked beside her lingerie chest of drawers. “They brought them.”
“I told you they did,” Carolyn said. “But what about this option again? What would make you decide to buy this place?”
That was none of Carolyn’s business, so Roz ignored her. She went over to her lingerie chest, pulled out a box cutter, and began slicing open each of the four boxes.
“I know I may be overstepping my bounds,” Carolyn said, “but you said I can be honest with you.”
“And you can,” Roz said as she glanced over at Carolyn. Surely her honesty wasn’t going to be about whether or not she would exercise the option to buy this house.
“You know Mick,” Carolyn continued, “but you don’t know him like that, if you get what I’m saying. You haven’t known him for a good year yet.”
Roz sliced open yet another box top and looked at Carolyn. She was getting at something, Roz sensed, and she also sensed that what she was getting at had nothing to do with what she was talking about.
“I’ve known Mick for many years,” Carolyn continued. “I’m talking many, many years. And I’m telling you he is not going to like the fact that you’re renting this average, cookie-cutter home in this average suburbs. He’s not going to like it.”
Roz opened the box top flaps and began unpacking her extra lingerie, putting each article of clothing in the various drawers.
Carolyn felt as if she wasn’t making herself clear enough, or Roz would have asked more questions. She was anxious for her to know. She’d been hoping to tell it from the first moment she met Roz’s uppity ass. But the opportunity never came up. It wasn’t until this evening, when Roz phoned and asked her to stop by when she got off work, did she feel as if that lost opportunity was staring her in the face. But Roz still wasn’t curious enough to ask questions! It was frustrating the hell out of Carolyn.
“I mean, think about it,” Carolyn said. “Why would he want you to live in a house like this? What kind of sense would that make? His baby mamas, and he never claimed any of them as his woman, lives in homes better than this. And he paid for each one of those houses, and they’re all better than this house.” And then she dropped the gem: “Hell, the house Mick bought for me is better than this house!”
Carolyn inwardly smiled. There. She said it. Let the fireworks begin!
They began without Roz, however, because Roz didn’t hesitate in her unpacking. But she heard her.
Carolyn was shocked by Roz’s lack of reaction. What woman would just be told that their man bought another woman, another beautiful woman, a house of her own and would turn around and say nothing? Carolyn was stumped.
She decided to drop more bombs. “He always want the best for his women,” she said, not sure where she was going with it. “Look at his baby mamas. He’s got four of them, right? And all four of them live in fabulous houses. I’m talking big, gorgeous homes. You think he’s going to let his girlfriend live in this?”
Roz stopped unpacking and looked at Carolyn. Finally the bitch got it, Carolyn thought. “Who’s responsible for cleaning the guest houses?” Roz asked.
Carolyn was thrown again. Guest houses? What was with this chick? “Excuse me?”
“That’s why I asked you to drop by,” Roz said. “I need to know which maids are responsible for cleaning the guest houses on Mick’s property.”
Carolyn frowned. “Well, eh, it’s not exactly one
particular maid. They all have the responsibility. I don’t get your point.”
“You’re Mick’s house manager. He expects you to manage his house. That includes making sure his entire household staff are doing what they are supposed to do.”
Carolyn was offended. Who was she to tell her what her job duties were? “And that’s exactly what I do on a daily basis.”
“Mick had a businessman and his wife stay in one of the guest houses last night.”
Carolyn nodded. “I know that. John Rawsoner. He’s spent the night before.”
“Mick and I walked John and his wife to the guest house after dinner last night, and while they were talking, I looked around the place. And what I saw astonished me.”
This intrigued Carolyn. “What could possibly astonish you about a guest house?”
Roz batted her eyes. This woman. “I was astonished,” Roz said, “by the lack of cleanliness in that house. Spots on the sofa. Spots on the bedspread. Dirty dishes were in the sink.”
“Oh that!” Carolyn was dismissive. “It was probably because they showed up late at night and the maid crew were already gone. I was already gone. It’s not our fault. Nobody told us guests were going to stay overnight.”
Roz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What difference does it make when they plan to stay? Those guest houses are supposed to be cleaned no matter what. Every day they are supposed to be cleaned.”
“I’m sure John and his wife had no complaints,” Carolyn said, not at all getting why such a minor matter would be such a big deal.
But it was a big deal to Roz. She was very protective of Mick. He had a thousand concerns on his plate every single day. She knew because she could see it in his eyes every night. Worrying about his household staff and whether those heifers were doing their jobs were off the table now, as far as Roz was concerned. “John and his wife didn’t complain,” she said, “because I insisted they stay at the main house.”
Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho Page 3