“Oh, shit,” Danny said with a grin.
“Let’s go,” Mick said, and was about to walk around to the passenger side of the SUV. But Brent grabbed him by the arm. “What’s about to happen, Uncle Mick?” Brent asked him.
Mick looked at his hand on his arm. Then he looked into Brent’s eyes. But Brent didn’t let go. He was a tough man too.
“I have some business I have to take care of,” Mick said.
“What business do you have with Duncan Sawyer?”
“That’s none of your business,” Mick said.
“I’m going with you.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Yes, I am. This is my county and I’m the police chief. .”
But Mick would have none of that territorial bullshit. “Jericho is your world,” he said to his nephew. “You run this place and you probably run it well. But we’re about to go into my world. A world that I run. And anybody who would have to think twice before killing a fucker who just tried to kill us, is not going into that world with me.”
Brent understood clearly what his uncle meant. But he was the chief law enforcement office in this county. He couldn’t turn a blind’s eye to his responsibilities. “I can’t allow that frontier justice here,” he said. “I’ll go with you and take him into custody, and let the judicial system take it from there.”
“You mean like the time your then-girlfriend, working for the judicial system, got my old man out of prison?” Mick asked. “That same judicial system that allowed a man who killed his wife, his wife’s lover, and who left his own children orphaned to go free? To walk out of prison a free man? That judicial system?”
“He served thirty-plus years for that crime, Uncle Mick. He paid for what he did.”
Mick was angry. “Life should mean life!” he yelled. “How many years did my mother serve? How many years did her lover serve? How many years are his children serving?”
Those words even hit Mick hard.
“And you want me to have faith in that judicial system?” Mick asked.
Brent had suspected all along that Mick was the one who gunned down his grandfather on the very day of his release. But it could never be proven. “Yes,” Brent said. “I want you to have faith in that judicial system.”
“And I say fuck the system,” Mick said. “I’m handling my business.”
Then Mick snatched away from Brent and continued his progression toward the passenger side of the SUV. And when Brent was about to follow him, two of Mick’s men aimed guns at either side of Brent’s head.
“Take it easy, Andy Taylor,” one of Mick’s men warned him. “This isn’t Opie you’re dealing with. This is Mick Sinatra. He’ll be out of your county as soon as he do what he do. You’ll be wise to stay the hell out of it.”
But Brent still wanted to object. He could have these men arrested in no time flat. But Charles took Brent’s arm and pulled his oldest child back. Brent looked at his father. He looked at the only man he’d ever looked up to.
“I don’t condone it either, son,” Charles said. “But Jenay and Bonita, and little Brent, Junior and Makayla, and your brothers? They all could have been killed tonight. If we would have still been eating dinner in that dining room, we would have all been dead. We don’t know how deep this runs. We can’t chance this, Brent, by arresting one man. We have to live here. Our children have to live here. We have to protect our family.”
Brent stared at his father. He was stunned. “So what are you saying, Dad? Let him go?”
Charles hated that it had to come to this, but he nodded his head. “Let him go.”
Brent never thought, not in a million years, that he would ever allow anybody to run roughshod in his town. But his father never gave him wrong advice. He trusted his father above any man alive.
He let him go.
The men stopped pointing their weapons at Brent and got in the other SUVs. Mick looked over at Roz as he sat in the lead truck. He looked at her as if he needed something from her, but he didn’t know what. Then she nodded. Just one nod of her head. And he realized it was not so much as her approval, but her understanding. She understood. Now he was ready.
“Go,” he ordered Deuce, and Deuce drove away as the lead vehicle, with the other two SUVs following.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“That’s the place?” Mick asked as the SUV parked at the end of a dirt road that led to a lone trailer in the woods.
“That’s the place,” Danny said. “His meth labs aren’t back there though. They say that’s why the cops haven’t been able to catch him in the act. He’s nobody’s fool.”
“Not even ours,” Mick said. “We can’t do a frontal assault.”
“Why not? He wouldn’t know what hit him. Out here in these fucking woods.”
“Deuce,” Mick said, “I want you and the others to pull up in front of the trailer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Danny and I will go around back. But wait until we get back there before you pull up. Then I want every man to get out as if they’re ready to shoot that motherfucking place down. If there’s an army inside, they will retaliate. And the leader will try to get away. Around back.”
“Right into your arms?”
“Right into my open arms,” Mick said.
Deuce and Danny smiled. “Yes, sir,” Deuce said.
Then Mick and Danny, fully armed and loaded, got out of the lead SUV and made their way around the back of the trailer, careful to avoid all windows. Deuce got on the phone with the backup men, and explained the plan.
And it went off just as Mick had predicted. He and Danny hid out back while Deuce and his men drove in front of the trailer and got out. Gunfire erupted. And within seconds, the back door flew open and a husky, bearded white man came running out, his own gun in hand. Only he ran right into the outstretched arms of another gun. Mick’s. He immediately dropped his and put up his hands.
“Duncan Sawyer?” Mick asked.
“Who are you?”
“Are you Duncan Sawyer?”
“Who wants to know?”
Mick shot at Duncan, to within an inch of his ear, causing Duncan to dodge the bullet and reveal in his eyes the terror that was now in his heart. “Yes,” he said quickly. “Don’t shoot. I’m Duncan!”
Mick handed his gun to Danny, who kept both his and Mick’s aimed at their perp. “You threw a smoke bomb into a residence tonight,” Mick said.
“What does that have to do with you?” Duncan asked. “I’ve never seen you before in my life!” He looked at Danny. “Him either!”
“Why did you do it?”
“Who says I did anything?”
“Before you get the impression that I’m fucking around with you,” Mick warned, “I need you to understand something. I missed killing your ass on purpose just now. I won’t miss killing your ass on purpose if you fuck around with me. Now answer my question. Why did you firebomb Charles Sinatra’s house tonight?”
Duncan realized that this was no fishing expedition. These guys had very specific information. “His boy owed me money,” he said.
Mick had already worked out, after Brent had said who this Duncan Sawyer really was and what line of work he was in, that the bombing had nothing to do with him. This was all about excising the cancer that threatened to derail his brother and his brother’s family. This wasn’t about clearing his conscience anymore. It was all about revenge. “Which boy owed you money?” Mick asked. “Robert?”
“Hell no. That idiot started working for his old man and turned straight on us. He’s as bad as his old man now.”
“Then who?” Mick asked. “Which Sinatra owes you money?”
“Donny Sinatra,” Duncan said. “Who else?”
Mick was surprised. “Donald?”
“Yeah, him. That cocksucker owed me big time. And I was going to fry his ass before I let him get away with disrespecting me.”
Mick exhaled. Charles wasn’t going to like to hear this. Especially if it was an
outrageously big sum. “How much does he owe you?” Mick asked. “Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand?”
“Hell no. Eight hundred,” Duncan said.
“Damn!” Danny was floored. “He owes you eight hundred thousand dollars? Nearly a million bucks?”
Duncan frowned. “What are you talking about? No! He owes me eight hundred dollars.”
Danny couldn’t believe it. Mick couldn’t either. He stared at the fool. “You firebombed a home,” Mick asked, “a home where you had to assume an entire family was inside, because Donald Sinatra owes you eight hundred dollars?”
“That may not be a lot of money to you,” Duncan declared, “but it’s real money to people like me. I don’t make that kind of bread in a week!”
“Eight hundred bucks?” Mick asked again.
“Yeah, eight hundred. What are you deaf? Eight hundred!”
Mick wasn’t deaf, but he was angry. He grabbed Duncan and body slammed his back onto the tip end of the steps. Duncan screamed out in pain. But Mick didn’t give a shit. He got on top of him, causing Duncan to scream louder.
“Eight hundred bucks?” Mick asked again in a voice that still reeked of incredulity. “You nearly killed my brother and his family, and my woman, over eight hundred dollars?”
Mick angrily reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of big bills and began stuffing some of them into Duncan’s mouth, causing Duncan to gag. “Here’s your eight hundred fucking dollars you fucking prick!” Then Mick stood up.
“I can’t believe it,” Danny said. “I thought those fools in Philly did stupid shit, but this takes the cake! Eight hundred dollars? My shoes cost more than that chump change!”
Mick tossed more bills on a now crying Duncan. “He loves his money,” Mick said. “He does what he has to do for his reputation sake. And I do what I have to do for my rep too.”
Mick pulled out a book of matches, and struck one.
As soon as Duncan saw what Mick was about to do, he tried to move, to get away, but his back was broken. He couldn’t go anywhere. “No,” Duncan begged. “No, please, no, please, no, please!”
But Mick was beyond persuasion now. “You tried to light up my family,” Mick said, “now I’m going to light you up!”
And he dropped the match on top of a defenseless Duncan. The fire caught on the paper bills, and ignited. Mick and Danny stood back as Duncan screamed and wailed and tried to move his unmovable body away from the fire, but he couldn’t move. His hands tried to toss the fire away, but they only got burned too. He didn’t even think twice when he tossed that smoke bomb. He didn’t even care that children were in that house and could have been burned alive. But he understood now. He understood too late.
When Mick returned with word that Donald and his eight hundred dollar debt was the reason for the bombing, Brent tried to get to Donald, and Robert, but Charles beat them to it. And he beat him down, right there on that front porch. Roz hurried up to Mick, and Mick took her hand, while Charles’s sons stood back and let their father, the undisputed head of their household, handle his business too.
And Charles handled it. He handled it so well that Jenay came hurrying out of the house where she and Brent’s wife had put the children to bed, and were in the room with them. She didn’t understand why Charles was so enraged, but she was certain it was an explosive reason.
But it was more than that. Mick could tell Charles was stunned. He probably thought he had already crossed that threshold with his children, and they were all going to be alright. Now one was dealing in dirt again, and he had to clean it up.
When Charles finished beating the crap out of his youngest boy, he wanted to stomp on him where he laid on that porch. But Jenay pulled him back and stopped him. Whatever Donald did was undoubtedly bad, she knew, but he was still their child. He was not some dog.
Charles exhaled. “Get up,” he ordered Donald.
Donald slowly stood up. Every inch of his body ached. But he knew his father did not like weakness, and would not be moved by tears.
“So you’re on drugs now?” Charles asked. He had a look on his face that Mick saw as a cross between anxiety and anger. He was upset with his son. But he was more worried about his son. “You’re a drug addict now?” Charles continued. “You’re a junkie? A meth head?”
“No,” Donald said. He sat on the edge of a chair, holding his stomach. His face was bleeding; his eyes were puffing up; he had been beaten down. “I’m none of those things. I’m not on drugs.”
But Brent wasn’t convinced. “Then why did you owe Duncan Sawyer, a drug dealer, eight hundred dollars?”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Who was it then?” Brent asked.
“Savannah.”
Charles frowned. “Who the fuck is Savannah?”
“This girl I dated a couple months ago. That meth was for her. I never touched the stuff. Then she left town. She left me high and dry. So I didn’t worry about what I owed. I forgot about it.”
Charles and Brent shook their heads. “You forgot you owed a drug dealer?” Charles asked. “You put your entire family in jeopardy over some woman you just met, and then forgot to pay the debt?”
Donald looked up at his disappointed father. “Yeah,” he said, as if he still didn’t see the big deal.
Charles had had enough. “Get the fuck out of my face,” he said. “I don’t ever want to see your ass again!”
But Mick knew what that meant. He knew how wrong Charles was. “Charles, no,” he said, as he stepped forward. Roz was shocked. Jenay was too.
But it was personal for Mick. His youngest son was giving him fits too. Just as Mick, the youngest in the original Sinatras of Jericho County, gave Charles fits when he was younger. It was clear as day to him how vicious the cycle was becoming. And how he and Charles were the only two men who could stop it.
Charles looked at him. “What do you mean no?”
“Don’t shut him out too,” Mick said to his big brother. “It’ll only get worse. I made that mistake with my kids. You made that mistake with me. It’s got to stop. We, you and me, have got to stop it. While you still have influence over your son, while you still have his respect, you cannot shut him out too.”
Charles stared at Mick. He stared at a boy that he just knew could have been a king if he would have only known how to raise a king. But he didn’t even know how to raise himself. Then he looked at Donald. Another man-child under his tutelage whose promise didn’t materialize. He was still working under Jenay at the B & B. Still depending on Charles for his living. His brothers still called him Daddy’s boy even though he was a full grown man. And now this.
But Mick was right. He couldn’t let him go, or he might not ever make it back. Charles moved up to his son, pulled him into his arms, and held him up. Donald squeezed his eyes shut, and held on too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One week later, after Mick and Roz were back in Philadelphia living their own lives and running their own companies, Roz received a phone call from Betsy Gable, her best friend who still lived in New York. Betsy’s boyfriend had beaten her up. Again. But it was the last straw for her this time, she declared. Could Roz come?
Roz not only flew to New York to check on her friend, but she brought her friend back, on Mick’s private plane, to Philly with her. It would only be for a week or two, to get Betsy away for a little while, and it was a huge favor Betsy really appreciated.
But that was before they were ambushed at the airstrip. That was before their beloved limo driver, Deuce McCurry, was gunned down like a dog and Roz had to gun down his attacker and then commandeer the limo herself. Roz drove that limo, under heavy fire from additional gunmen, to Mick’s estate. Mick’s men took care of the gunmen who were chasing the limo, but they suffered casualties too. And the team of men Mick had assigned to guard Roz were nowhere to be found. Mick was furious. It was a terrible night.
But now it was nearly five hours later, after midnight, and the earlier pandemonium had given way t
o a needful, if not unsteady, calm. Mick was inside the main house, in his office, strategizing with his top lieutenants. He feared war, but he didn’t know who had declared it. Roz had showered upstairs, had put on a big white bathrobe, and was now checking on her friend. Betsy was staying in one of the guest houses on the enormous property, and although she wasn’t screaming the way she had been as those bullets sailed around them and as Roz drove understandably recklessly to get to Mick, she was still a nervous wreck.
Both women were holding hands. Roz could still feel the tremble in Betsy’s hand.
“Thanks for checking on me,” Betsy said to Roz in a voice still hoarse from all of her earlier screaming. “But I’m okay now. It’s very comfortable in here. This is a beautiful estate.” She tried to smile. “Even this guest house is the most beautiful home I’ve ever been in. Forget the main house.”
Roz knew Mick’s house was the last thing on Betsy’s mind. But she also knew that sometimes small talk was a powerful distraction.
“You live here with him?” Betsy asked.
“I did until a few weeks ago,” Roz said. “I have my own place now.”
“Well why didn’t we go there?” Betsy wanted to know. “I would feel safer if we got away from him.”
“No, you won’t,” Roz said. “Trust me on that. We’re right where we need to be.”
“I don’t like him, Roz. I’m sorry, but I don’t. Why don’t you leave him and get you a regular guy?”
“You mean like the regular guy who beat your ass?”
Betsy hadn’t expected that comeback. “You know what I mean,” she said. “He’s bad news. Just leave him.”
“You want me to leave him because you don’t like him.”
“Right!”
“How many times have you dated guys I didn’t like, Bess?”
“Plenty of times,” Betsy responded with a smile.
“And how many of those guys did you leave because I didn’t like them?”
Betsy didn’t expect that question either. She decided to answer her own version. “I just think you need a regular guy. And yeah, they might beat your ass and all of that. But Mick is gonna beat your ass too. Marry him. You’ll see. But at least that’s all you’ll have to worry about. An ass beating every now and then. Not all of this gangster stuff.”
Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho Page 18