“How are you feeling?” Mick asked as he ushered Roz inside. He was looking down at Joey’s small frame.
“I feel great. I don’t know why I have to still stay here, Dad, for real, though. Doc Blaxton said he don’t see any reason why I can’t resume my normal activities. He says I can go home now.”
“That’s not a call for him to make,” Mick responded. Then he ushered Roz toward the sofa. “Let’s sit down.”
Joey followed. Mick and Roz sat on the sofa. Joey sat in the chair.
“It’s good to see you again, Joey,” Roz said with a smile.
“What’s up?” was all Joey would say. He affect was so flat that it almost sounded distorted. But Joey couldn’t help it. The resentment he felt for her, because she waltzed into his father’s life only a year ago but was already closer to him than he could ever hope to be, didn’t go away with his injury. It was still there.
But for Roz’s part, she understood. She didn’t try to force anything with any of Mick’s children. She knew only time could change that level of hurt.
“I didn’t expect to see you,” Joey asked his father. “Something’s up?”
Mick didn’t hesitate. “What’s your relationship with Tex D’Amato?”
Joey was stunned. “How did you know . . . I mean---”
“What is your relationship with Tex D’Amato?” Mick asked again. “And if you lie to me I’ll break every bone in your body.”
Joey swallowed hard.
“Tell me.”
“I used to work for him.”
“Selling drugs?”
Joey didn’t respond.
“Selling drugs?” Mick yelled.
“Yes! He needed a kid who could access the private school pipeline. He picked me.”
Roz could tell Mick hated that his suspicion was confirmed.
Joey saw his father’s distress too. “It was no big deal,” he offered.
But Mick would have none of it. “Don’t fucking tell me that!” Mick pointed at Joey. “Don’t fucking tell me that! It is a big deal and your ass knows it!”
“I didn’t mention it because I knew you wouldn’t understand. I was just learning the business so I could do my own thing. You wouldn’t teach me anything,” Joey added, and Mick’s jaw tightened. “So D’Amato came around and I said why not. I wanted to learn from one of the best.”
“How long did you work for him?” Mick asked.
“I started when I was fifteen.”
“Good Lord,” Roz blurted out before she could stop herself. She looked at Mick. The anguish in his eyes told the story.
Then he looked at his son. “Fifteen,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Joey responded. “I was real good at it too. I was the go-to guy for all the rich kids in town. But when I graduated, I didn’t want to work for him anymore. I wanted to get my own supplier. Make my own connections. So I told D’Amato I wanted out. But I was his golden boy. He didn’t want me out. I got out any way. That’s when he got Tony LeKirk to try to take me out. He must have forgotten I belonged to you.”
Mick knew it was an easy reality to forget since he often behaved as if he had forgotten himself. He leaned forward, his hard green eyes riveted on his son. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth at the hospital?” he asked him. “Why did you give me that song and dance about some woman being involved?”
Joey hesitated.
“Tell me,” Mick ordered.
“Because you let me come and work for you. I didn’t want to blow it.”
“Telling me the truth would not have blown anything.”
“And,” Joey added, “I didn’t want you to think any less of me than you already do.”
Roz’s heart dropped. Mick felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. If his youngest was this emotionally messed up, what was going on with the rest of his children?
But he wasn’t going to find answers here. He had to protect his son right now. He stood up. Roz and Joey stood up too. “You’re going to stay with me until I can take care of D’Amato,” Mick said.
“Dad, don’t,” Joey begged. “That guy’s a killer. He was willing to kill me just because I wouldn’t sell drugs for him anymore.”
“It’s more to it than that, son,” Mick said as they began walking toward the front door. “I’m on his kill list too.”
Joey was confused. “For what? What did you do?”
“He looked out for you,” Roz made it clear.
Joey looked at Roz, and then looked at his father. “You’re the one who. . . You killed Tony LeKirk? That was you, Dad?”
Before Mick could answer, the sound of gunfire erupted at such an unrelenting frequency that even he was startled. He could tell it was a major gun battle between his men and well-armed intruders, no doubt D’Amato’s men. But before he could even pull out his own weapon, and grab Roz and Joey, the front door burst open and the guard who had been stationed at the door fell backwards into the foyer, riddled with bullet holes.
“Downstairs!” Mick yelled to Joey as he grabbed Roz, pulled out his gun, and they all ran toward the stairs near the back of the living room that led to the basement.
Every window in the house was shattered with hails and hails of bullets as they ducked and dodged and hurried through the stairwell door and down the stairs.
“Where are we going?” Joey wanted to know the plan as they jumped off the steps and ran across the damp, unfinished basement with his father holding onto him too and helping him along. Mick had his arms around Roz and his hands on Joey as his momentum spurred theirs along.
But Joey wanted answers. “There’s no way out here, Dad. We’ll be sitting ducks down here. Why are you bringing us down here?”
They could hear footsteps running upstairs; footsteps that were heading toward the basement stairwell too, and Mick knew he had to go in front, to get them out of here. So he did. He shoved past both of them and ran, seemingly twice as fast as they were running, to a switch behind a clock. He flipped the switch and the wall opened as if it were a door. A door to what appeared to be a garage Joey didn’t know was even down there. With a car in that garage.
The door to the stairwell burst open, and footsteps could be heard running down those stairs, running toward them. Joey was in near panic and so was Roz, and they both were looking to Mick. Mick grabbed a gun out of the small of his back and looked at his son. He was poised to hand it to him, but he had to make something perfectly clear.
He pulled Roz in front of him. “I’m depending on you to get this precious lady safely back to my house,” Mick said to his son. “I need you to be the man I know you can be, and handle your father’s business, you hear me, Joey? I love you, son, and I need you to take care of her for me.”
“I will, Dad,” Joey said with tears in his eyes. “I promise you I will.”
Mick knew it was like the blind leading the blind, but he had to depend on Joey. “If you ever wanted to show me just how tough you really are, this is the time.” He handed Joey the gun. “There’s keys in that car. You crank up and the back wall will open. You drive her to safety.”
“Yes, sir,” Joey said with all sincerity, as if he was on a mission. They could hear the men advancing. They knew it was a matter of seconds. But it wasn’t seconds. It was right now. Because the gunfire erupted again, barely missing Mick’s head.
“You come with us, Mick,” Roz begged, pulling on him, with tears in her eyes too. “Please come with us!”
“What did I tell you? You kill or you be killed. This bastard has to be stopped before he harms my family. Now go,” Mick ordered, as he pushed her into Joey’s arms through the opening in the wall. Mick flipped the switch to close the opening, and as soon as it did, he snatched the entire switch off of the wall, rendering it useless, and decimated his only means of escape. But he wanted those guns on him, not Roz, and Joey.
He dived beneath a table as bullets came closer, but he didn’t fire toward them. He fired at targets in the opposite direction of them, causi
ng the gunmen to constantly look and shoot in that direction, as if they had another shooter on their hands. Mick was able to move further away from the escape route Roz and Joey now occupied. He had to give them time to get away, before he revealed himself again. He crawled on his belly along the floor, feeling all kinds of vermin beneath him, and he suspected he might very well die in that filthy rat hole.
But he wasn’t going to lay down and die. He was going to die trying to live. And that was why, when it felt like sufficient time had passed for his loved ones had gotten away, and when it felt like his enemies had exhausted most of their supply of bullets, he made himself known.
He had already counted his attackers. Four men in all. And he stood up firing.
He knocked off one.
He knocked off two.
He got in a gun battle with the third, but knocked him off too.
But before he could get the fourth one, another man showed up, and started firing too. He was outgunned again. And he had to take cover again because this man, unlike his predecessors, knew what he was doing. He wasn’t firing in the dark. He was hitting targets.
The battle had moved to the opposite side of the basement, and Mick was now huddled behind an old dresser reloading his weapon. But his enemies were advancing. And when he reloaded and turned to aim and fire, he shot and killed the fourth gunman. But the expert marksman was still alive. He turned in the opposite direction, in search of that gunman, but as soon as he turned he found himself staring down the muzzle of a magnum 357.
Most men would throw up their hands and admit defeat. Mick, instead, shoved the muzzle away with the barrel of his own gun, rolled from around the dresser, and made a run for it. He was almost near the stairwell, but a bullet hit him in the leg. And he went down one way, and his gun, his only protection, went down another way. And then the man kicked his gun further away, and walked up to him. When Mick looked up, he realized it was Tex D’Amato.
“It’s over,” D’Amato said, his gun pointing directly at Mick’s face. “My ex son-in-law didn’t take your son out the way I instructed him to, and that was a pity. That was why I didn’t care that you took him out. It was reasonable to me. He was a failure anyway, he couldn’t even stay faithful to a wonderful woman like my daughter. He got what he deserved. It was reasonable to me. But it wasn’t reasonable to my grandchildren, whom I adore. They actually wanted to have their father around a little longer. So for their sake, I have to handle my business. I have to kill the man that killed their father.”
Then D’Amato smiled. “I’m going to enjoy this. You act like you’re king of the mountain around here anyway. Everybody treats you like you’re the king. But we both know who the king is now. The fact that I’m up here looking down at you, the great Mick Sinatra, should settle that question once and for all.”
Mick was ready to grab D’Amato’s legs from underneath him. He wasn’t going down without a fight. But D’Amato was no fool. As soon as Mick was about to reach, D’Amato beat him to the punch. He aimed his weapon, and Mick heard the gunshot.
Mick tried to roll away, but he couldn’t move. D’Amato, he realized, had fallen right on top of him.
The weight of the man took Mick’s breath away. He didn’t understand what happened. Why was he still alive and D’Amato was lying on top of him dead? Mick didn’t have a lot of strength, his leg was bleeding badly, but he had enough strength to knock D’Amato off of him. And when he did, he looked up at the top of the stairs. Joey was up there, and Roz was standing behind him, and his smoking gun was still smoking.
Roz began running down the stairs to aid Mick. Mick, so relieved he could hardly believe it, fell back onto his back.
“Are you okay?” Roz asked when she arrived, and then she saw the blood coming out of his leg. “God, no!” She quickly took off her jacket and began to apply solid pressure to his wound. Mick applied pressure too. “We already called Danny and Archie,” Joey said as he started hurrying down.
“And 911,” Roz added.
“I thought I told you two to get out of here,” Mick said. He was barely able to speak.
“We got out,” Joey said, as he knelt down beside his father and applied pressure too. “But Miss Roz had a better idea.”
Mick smiled. “Miss Roz?” he asked Joey. “A little more respect, is it?”
“Nall,” Joey said. “Not a little more. A lot more! She really loves you, Dad.”
Mick looked at Roz. With his free hand, he squeezed her arm.
“And you know what?” Joey asked.
“What?” Mick looked at his youngest child.
“I love you too, Dad,” Joey said for the very first time in his life.
Mick was not a sentimental man. He didn’t like this kind of talk not even with Roz. But he could have heard those words all day long. “I love you more,” he admitted to his son, for the first time too.
EPILOGUE
Mick stood inside the dressing room and stared back at the man in the mirror. His four children stood behind him, and his big brother stood beside him. But he was still a ball of nerves.
“It’s normal,” Charles assured him.
“The fuck you say,” Mick replied.
“I know what I’m talking about. I’ve done this twice, alright? You’re about to give up your freedom. That’s a scary thought.”
“You can always back out, Dad,” Adrian said with a grin.
“No, he can’t,” Joey shot back. “That wouldn’t be fair to Miss Roz.”
Everybody looked at him. “What are you looking at me for? It wouldn’t!”
“Since when did you care?” Teddy wanted to know.
“I didn’t say I cared. I was just stating a fact.”
They laughed. Gloria ruffled Joey’s thick, dark hair.
But when Charles looked at his brother, Mick still appeared to be unhinged. “Could you guys excuse us for a moment?” he asked his nephews.
Teddy saw his father’s uneasiness too. “Sure, Uncle Charlie,” Teddy said, and ushered himself, and his siblings, out of the room.
“The one name you never liked us to call you,” Mick said, “is the very name my kids immediately took to calling you. Charlie.”
“Uncle Charlie at that,” Charles said with a smile. “But no fear. My wife slips and call me that name too.”
“Your wife calls you uncle?” Mick asked half-jokingly.
“Only in bed, hotshot,” Charles shot back.
Mick laughed. “You would say that,” he said.
“But you have wonderful children, Michello,” Charles said. “You should be proud.”
“No thanks to me,” Mick said. “And I am proud.”
“Especially with the change in your youngest. He came through for you in that safe house.”
“Yeah, he did,” Mick agreed. “He’s growing up, and I still can influence him. And I intend to.” He looked at Charles. “What about your youngest boy? What’s up with Donald? He still buying crystal meth on credit for his girlfriends?”
“He’d better not,” Charles responded. “But Donald’s Donald. He hits sometimes. He misses sometimes. But he’ll be okay. He’s still my baby.”
“Not your youngest, but your baby?”
Charles laughed. “Right. But yeah, we have good children, Mick. We’re very blessed men.”
Mick exhaled. “I’m just sorry Sprig couldn’t . . . didn’t make it out too.”
“Yeah,” Charles said, understanding what he meant. “Me too.”
Then Mick exhaled as he checked his tie in the mirror one last time, and then turned to his brother. He was relying on a cane after the gunshot wound he suffered, and was now standing with a hand-carved one by his side. But he was otherwise in excellent shape. “I guess it’s about time to get out there,” he said, and then he stood tall. “How do I look?”
Charles paused at the magnificent picture in front of him. Mick was always a handsome man. But now he was elegant too. “You look like a good man, Mick,” he said. “You lo
ok like the embodiment of a second chance.”
Mick knew exactly what Charles meant. “I used to think happiness was a mirage,” he said, “and joy to me was great sex or closing some major deal or making big money. Then Rosalind caught my eye. I’ve never seen a lovelier sight.”
“It’s all about second chances,” Charles said. “It’s all about God’s grace. The opportunity to make things right. With your God. With your woman. With your children. And especially with yourself. That’s the real gift you’ve been given. How you handle it is up to you.”
“Your advice?”
“Don’t blow it,” Charles said. “You won’t get another shot like this again.”
Mick looked at his brother in all sincerity. He clasped his arm and squeezed. “I’m going to make the most of it,” he promised. “I won’t blow it.”
Charles smiled. “And if you do,” he added, “I’ll still love you anyway.”
Mick nodded his head. They were middle-aged men now, not kids anymore. But this gift, this second chance, could not have come at a better time.
The music started and the church went quiet. Mick stood up front waiting, with so much joy in his heart that he could barely contain it. But he did. With the help of Charles, his best man. His groomsmen were his four sons and four nephews, and they were a source of support too. He looked out, into the audience, on his side of the church. Brent’s wife Makayla was sitting there, and Jenay, Charles’s beloved wife, was there too. On one side of her was their little girl Bonita, leaned against her, and their grandson, Brent, Junior, leaned and bored too. Their two gorgeous daughters, Ashley and Carly, were also in attendance.
Mick was filled with emotion. It was a family he was only just beginning to know, and they all came. He even felt the presence of his long-time driver Deuce McCurry. He couldn’t make it. He was still recovering from his own gunshot wound. But they had a vacant seat, with his name on it, in his honor. But just knowing he had support now, he had people now, made a beautiful day all the more enchanting.
Mick looked over at the bride’s side of the church too. Rosalind didn’t have much family, but she had tons of friends. Her side was practically filled as well. Her handsome brother Tyson was there, along with her friends, but her mother, true to her word, was an empty seat. Mick felt it was a shame. Life was too short for grudges. But she was standing on principle. She didn’t want her daughter to marry beneath herself. Rosalind could do better than Mick, she said, and Mick would never dispute that. But she stood on principle at the expense of her daughter’s happiness. Mick would never go along with that.
Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho Page 20