He looked down at her beautiful body, and began fondling her nipple. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.
Roz was not the kind of woman who finessed truth. She just spoke it. “Did you ever have sex with Carolyn?” she asked him.
Mick was still coming down from his high. He had managed to regulate his breathing, but his penis, which laid slanted and wet across his thigh, was still throbbing. He knew something was on her mind, he just never would have guessed it was Carolyn. “Why would you ask me that?”
“That’s not an answer, Mick. Did you ever have sex with her?”
Mick continued to stare at Roz. He was a man who didn’t like to answer a question until he understood why it was being asked. He couldn’t figure out the why.
“When we first started dating,” Roz continued when he wouldn’t, “you told me you and Carolyn had a business relationship only.”
“We do,” Mick responded. “Our relationship is strictly business. That is correct.”
“Did you ever have sex with her?”
Another hesitation. Another need to know why. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because she told me you did. She said you two were together repeatedly. Many times right in one of your guest houses.”
There it was. That part of him that he knew had to change if he ever expected to have a successful relationship with a woman like Rosalind. It was the nature of his business to only reveal what needed to be revealed. He kept that philosophy when he answered Roz’s question when they first began dating. The fallacy of that nature was now upon him. “Years ago,” he said, “when Carolyn first started working for me as my house manager, we did have that kind of relationship.”
Roz hated to hear it, but she needed him to be clear. “A sexual relationship?” she asked.
Mick nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t care who I fucked. I just fucked. But that was years ago. It only lasted a few months. When I got tired of her sex I called it quits.”
“You told her it was over?”
“I didn’t have to tell her shit. I stopped touching her. She knew it was over. Hell, she got married and divorced and married again after I stopped being with her. It was no big deal, Rosalind. I don’t know what she told you, but it was no big deal.”
“You bought her a house?”
Roz could tell, by the look that appeared in Mick’s eyes, that he hadn’t expected that question. But she stared at him hard, daring him to lie to her. He didn’t. “Yes,” he admitted.
“But it was no big deal, right?”
“It was a wedding gift,” Mick said, “to her and her fiancé at the time. I don’t even remember his name. I asked what they wanted, they said a down payment on a house. She was an excellent worker, a hard worker even after I dumped her. She held no grudges. So I figured why the hell not? Instead of giving them the down payment and saddling them with some huge mortgage, I bought the house for them instead. She was a longtime employee. She deserved it.”
But he could tell Roz wasn’t feeling it. She still had that distressed look in her eyes.
“I’m not sleeping with Carolyn, Roz, if that’s what you think, and haven’t for years. Why are you still upset?”
“I’m upset because you didn’t tell me.”
“I just told you!”
“You didn’t tell me when I asked about your relationship with her! Don’t play with me. Now that bitch think she’s got something over on me. I don’t like that, Mick. I don’t like to be in that position. You could have told me.”
“I didn’t tell you, alright? I didn’t tell you. What difference would it have made if I did?”
“I would have known who I was dealing with,” Roz pointed out. “That’s the difference! I got on her case tonight because she didn’t have those guest rooms clean. She gets upset with me for daring to question her about it, so she decides to drop her little bombshell. And I had to ignore it like some gotdamn idiot because I was a gotdamn idiot. I felt blindsided!”
Mick stopped playing with her nipple and turned back onto his back. “That’s bullshit,” he said.
“It’s bullshit?”
“Yeah, it’s bullshit! That woman is so far in my past I can barely remember our encounters that way, and you’re acting as if I was married to her or something. It was nothing!”
“I’m not talking about the intensity of your relationship. It’s not about that.”
“Then what the fuck is it about?” Mick was flustered. “Do you want me to fire her? Is that what you want?”
“No, I don’t want you to fire her. It’s not about her! It’s about you and your decision to lie to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“You told me a half-truth. You told me you had a business relationship with her now, but failed to mention what you had with her in the past. That’s lying in my book. And I’m telling you right now Michello Sinatra, I’m not putting up with that.”
As quickly as she said those harsh words, Mick the lover left, and Mick the Tick took over. “Then don’t put up with it, gotdammit!” he said with equal venom. “You don’t talk to me like that. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
Roz didn’t hesitate. She didn’t kowtow to her previous boyfriends and she wasn’t going to kowtow to Mick. Especially when her heart was at stake. She quickly moved to get out of bed.
But he grabbed at her arm. He was regretting his tone already. “Rosalind,” he said, as she snatched away from him.
“Roz,” he said again, but she got up, went into her master bathroom, and slammed the door.
Mick laid back down and slammed his fist on the bed. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He had given her his heart, and she was already fucking around with it. That was why he protected himself all these years. That was why, as his anger began to grow, he got out of bed, put on his clothes, and left her and her house altogether. That house itself was a bone of contention with him anyway. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Roz heard him dressing erratically and slamming the bedroom door as he left. She was leaned against the sink, with her arms folded and her finger and thumb pinching the bridge of her nose, but she refused to cry. He didn’t come clean with her when she asked him about Carolyn. There was no way he could dress that up and call it anything other than a lie. And now he was angry and leaving in a huff? But she was used to it. It was the way he always handled conflict with her. He always got up and left. Deuce once told her that he left to avoid beating the shit out of her. He loved her, Deuce said, because he didn’t give any other human being that kind of consideration.
Roz remembered how crazy that sounded to her at the time. His conflict resolution skill was to beat the crap out of her or leave? Those were the only two ways he learned to handle problems in his entire life? But when Roz thought about it, and thought about the kind of thug life Mick lived before he became a legitimate businessman, and the kind of devastating childhood he was forced to endure, she knew there was truth to what Deuce had said. Mick learned conflict resolution on the gritty, unforgiving streets of Philadelphia. Kill or be killed was his street creed. Talking it out, and settling the issue the way Roz was taught, was anathema to him.
But it was nights like this, when he walked out on her emotionally to avoid hurting her physically, that made her wonder if loving Mick Sinatra could turn out to be the biggest mistake of her life. And she was already at the point of no return. He already had her heart in his hands.
She was in trouble.
CHAPTER THREE
Sinatra Industries, known around the globe as SI, was an enormous building in downtown Philadelphia that Mick ran with an iron fist. He was so feared by his employees that whenever he took the rare occasion, as he was doing this morning, to enter the building not through his private entrance, but through the lobby doors, everybody scurried to stay out of his way. It was an undeserved reaction, Mick thought, since he did nothing but pay his employees extremely well and expect extremely
good work in return, but his reputation preceded him. They knew his nickname was Mick the Tick, as in ticking time bomb, as in terrifying temper. They wanted no parts of that. They refused to risk their families’ livelihood by getting on the wrong side of him.
Mick, dressed in his usual designer suit, designer shoes, and an aniline leather briefcase, entered the staff elevator and watched with inward amusement as every one of the people onboard moved to the opposite side. And they all looked up, at the passing numbers, as if they did not want to so much as be noticed by him. It was amusing, because it looked so damn strange, but it was sad to Mick too. They had him all wrong. He wouldn’t fire somebody just for looking at him. He wasn’t that heartless. But it wasn’t as if it mattered. His mind wasn’t on any of those scary-ass people anyway. His mind was on Roz.
He left her house last night after some incredible sex and an incredibly stupid argument. He didn’t call her and she didn’t call him. He needed a cooling off period and he suspected she did too. But he barely slept a wink last night. Because something had been gnawing at him ever since she told him that she had found herself a house. Something was scaring the shit out of him. It was the cold, hard reality that he could lose her. He could lose his baby. He could lose the only human being that he ever depended on. Roz was that kind of lady. She was ride or die, he believed that with all his heart, but he also believed she would leave in a heartbeat if she felt he wasn’t treating her right. And Mick wasn’t at all sure if he knew how to treat a woman exactly right. This love stuff was for the birds, not a man like him. Yet here he was: Mick the Tick. Lovesick.
He didn’t realize everybody on the elevator had quickly gotten off on the earlier floors, until he was getting off on the top floor. It was as if they would rather get off on the wrong floor and then take the stairs to the correct one, just to avoid being in his presence and risking his displeasure. It was such a foolish supposition to Mick that he didn’t even want to entertain the absurdity of it.
He stepped off of the elevator, spoke to the receptionist, and made his way to the end of the hall where his name and title, Mick Sinatra CEO/CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD was written over the double doors. It was his suite of offices.
He entered the outer sanctum of the private office to find his executive assistant, along with four other assistants, working fervently at their desks. He also found his son Joey and his mailroom supervisor, Clancy, seated in chairs along the wall. Both Clancy and Joey stood up, when Mick walked in.
“You need to get your boy straight,” Joey said angrily to his father as if he was talking to one of his thug friends. Everybody in the room looked at Joey.
But Joey, being Joey, was undaunted. “He’s got some serious-ass issues if he thinks he’s gonna handle me. Better get your boy, I’m telling you.”
Mick continued to walk toward his son and Clancy, and every assistant in that outer sanctum knew whoever that young hoodlum was-they didn’t realize he was Mick’s son-he was going to end up with his eyes down his throat talking to Mr. Sinatra that way. But Mick simply murmured, “In my office,” as he passed the two men.
Even Joey knew, after seeing that chilling look in his father’s eyes, to hold his peace until he got into the inner office. Clancy already knew it. That was why he remained silent. They both followed Mick inside, with Clancy closing the door behind them.
But as soon as Mick made it around his desk and sat his briefcase down, Joey had slouched down in the chair in front of his desk, and was ready to bitch some more. Mick looked at him as he complained endlessly about Clancy. He was dressed in a suit alright, but he had more gold chains around his neck than Flavor Flav. He looked ridiculous. But Mick heard him out.
“When I went down there,” Joey said, hitting his fist in his palm, “I thought it was to meet the person who was going to show me the entire operation. To ask me what I wanted to do. But instead this punk right here start telling me he’s my boss and I was going to do whatever he told me to do.”
“I am your boss,” Clancy said, “and you will do whatever I tell you to do.”
“When I told this character that I’m your son,” Joey continued, ignoring Clancy, “then he jumps an even worst attitude. ‘All the more reason,’ he told me, ‘to get your ass in shape.’ I’m like, what the fuck? What are you talking about? I can bench press your ass right here and now! Then he wants to tell me I’m fired. I told him my dad hired me, only my dad can fire me. Who the fuck does he think he is?”
This was child’s play to Mick, but he knew he had to be patient with Joey. That boy had the same crazy arrogance Mick used to have when he was that age. The exact same stupidity. But unlike Mick, whose father was rotting in some prison for killing his mother, Joey had a father. And his father was right in front of him. And Mick was going to get that stupidity out of his son even if he had to beat it out. “That’ll be all, Clancy,” he said to his subordinate.
Clancy was stunned. “You don’t need to hear my side of the story, sir?”
Mick looked at him. He wasn’t accustomed to his employees giving him ANY backtalk. “That’ll be all.”
Clancy stood up. “Yes, sir,” he said, disappointed that he didn’t get to have his say. But he didn’t sweat it. That punk kid wasn’t worth losing his job over. He left the office, closing the door behind him.
Joey had a smug look on his face after Clancy left, as if they had been at battle and Joey had won. Mick, however, picked up the phone and pressed two buttons.
“You should have seen how he treated me, Dad,” Joey continued talking. “I wanted to beat his ass the way he treated me.”
“Hello, Benny,” Mick said over the phone.
“Mr. Sinatra? That you?”
“That’s right. I wonder if you have any openings down there.”
Joey sat up straight. Now they were getting somewhere, he thought. No more mailrooms as if he was some damn slave. He wanted to learn from the big boys. He was going to run this company someday, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
But when Mick hung up, he quickly realized what he wanted and what his father wanted for him were two different things. “Go downstairs to the cafeteria and ask for Benny Bronson,” Mick ordered.
Joey still didn’t get it. “Benny Bronson?” He stood up. “What is he? Your Vice Prez or something?”
“He runs the cafeteria,” Mick informed him. “You’re his new busboy.”
Joey couldn’t believe his ears. “His new what?” Then his face revealed the extent of his displeasure. “What are you doing, Dad? That’s worse than working in the mailroom!”
“Then hopefully that’ll teach you to keep your trap shut and do what you’re told.”
Joey was distressed. “But I thought you said I was going to work with you!”
“You will work with me when you prove to me your willingness to actually work. When you show that to me, then we’ll talk. Right now you haven’t shown me anything but talk. You go down there and fuck around with Benny Bronson, he will kick your ass. I have given him permission to do so. Do we understand each other, Jonathan?”
Joey was angry, but he knew he was skating on thin ice with his father. He wanted to work by his side too badly to mess this up. Which made him only angrier. But now that he saw he wasn’t going to let him start at the top, he had to be willing to prove himself at the bottom. And in Joey’s mind, it didn’t get any lower than busboy. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Then go. If you don’t know where the cafeteria is, ask somebody.”
Joey left. But not before looking back at his father to make sure he wasn’t playing with him. But who was he kidding? His father never played.
Mick’s Lamborghini came to a stop in back of a three-story building that looked as if it had been abandoned decades ago. But he was accustomed to meetings in places like this. Once, when he was a wanted man for some chicken shit shooting on Somerset, he hid out for months in a place like this. Until a member of his crew that was already in prison for life confessed to th
e crime, and the warrant was dropped.
Mick got out of his car and made his way up the side stairs, with his Prada leather ankle boots stepping down hard as he made the climb. He didn’t give a rat’s ass who heard him coming either. This was his neck of the woods. He knew of getaway passages the guy he was coming to meet couldn’t even fathom.
The guy he was coming to meet, Harper Curly, was standing at the big window of the big, deserted room, when Mick walked in. Like most backroom thugs these days, he was dressed very conservatively in a three-piece suit and tie. He even drove an unassuming Lexus. The mayor was cracking down hard on crime and crooks were running scared. They didn’t want to bring any more attention to themselves than their names already did.
But unlike them, Mick had enough sense to cultivate big time politicians years ago. He did them deadly favors when they couldn’t take care of it themselves, favors that would destroy their lives and careers if the truth came out, and he still had each one of those power hungry fuckers as his insurance. The current mayor was one of those fuckers. They were cracking down on all levels of big time crime and big time crime bosses all over Philly, but they all knew Mick the Tick was off limits.
Harper didn’t turn around as Mick approached him, but Harper was always trusting like that. He was always looking at the bright side. But Mick didn’t trust any of these punks, and the only bright side he looked at was the side where he got out of every situation alive. He would never have made it on the streets if he walked them with some trust ethic. His ethic was kill or be killed. Trust was for the dead.
“If you look far enough that way,” Harper said when Mick made it by his side, “then guess what you can see?”
Mick didn’t bother to look out of the window where Harper was pointing. He looked at Harper instead.
Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho Page 5