CHAPTER NINE
“He’s been spotted, sir,” Danny Padrone said over the phone.
“Where?” Mick asked.
“A trailer park off of Lexington. It’s near the backrow. It’s a kind of rough area. But that’s one of his hangouts. One of his old ladies live there.”
“Is she there now?”
“Not as far as we could tell.”
“She left,” Mick heard another voice say.
“You sure?” Danny asked the voice.
“I saw her. I pretended to be looking for a different trailer. I saw her.”
“She left,” Danny said to Mick.
“Where are you now?” Mick asked. “He’s probably on the lookout.”
“That’s why we’re keeping out distance across the street from the trailer park altogether. It’ll be risky, but if you want we can try to snatch him.”
Mick thought about it. When the call came, he had been driving back to his office after every lead on his son’s whereabouts led nowhere. He was pleased to hear that they had eyeballed him. But he didn’t want a snatch and grab. Not yet. “No,” he said to Danny. “Give me the address. Let me handle it.”
“Want backup?”
“Stay where you are,” Mick ordered. “I’m going in alone. If I need you, I’ll let you know.” Adrian was a boil on Mick’s butt right now, but he was still his son. He didn’t want any extra guns to, accidentally or otherwise, do extra damage.
After getting the address, Mick made his way to the trailer park. He saw Danny’s Lexus across the street in the parking lot of a convenience store, with Danny and three of Mick’s other men inside, and Danny gave him a salute. But Mick’s Maserati kept going, through the entrance of the trailer park, but not straight toward the back. He went around all of the trailers and made his way, not to the front nor back of Adrian’s trailer, but to the side of his trailer, where there were no windows. He parked his car there, got out, and headed for the front door. And then he knocked. If the door wasn’t opened immediately, he would kick it down.
But Adrian had looked through the peephole, saw that it was his father, and let out an expletive-laden exhale. He should have known he would find him. He just never expected to be found this soon. But he knew he had no choice. They didn’t call his father Mick the Tick for nothing. He unlocked and opened the door.
Mick entered the home cautiously, looking directly at his son rather than his son’s surroundings. He saw the gun at Adrian’s side, and he smelled the fear. Adrian, he could tell, had been to the rodeo before. This was not his first time killing a man. But he had never been to one quite this big, and with stakes this high.
Adrian closed the door. “I did what I had to do,” he said quickly, in a voice that sounded petulant to Mick. “And I’m not sorry.”
Mick kept staring at him. He was a weak kid. Too weak to be a gangster. But here they were.
“He pulled his gun,” Adrian continued, “so I pulled mine. It’s not my fault I was quicker on the trigger. But I know you’ll blame me for everything. You always do. You’ll take Mo’s side no matter what happened.”
Mick didn’t respond to that either. He, instead, began looking around at Adrian’s place. “This yours?” he asked.
What difference did that make, Adrian wanted to ask. He was running for his life, and his father wanted to know about some damn trailer? “My old lady’s,” he responded. “So yeah.”
“Get that gun out of my face.”
Adrian had forgotten he was holding a gun, even though it was hardly in his father’s face. But he sat it on the table anyway.
Mick began to walk around, to look around. Adrian thought he was keeping his own council and generally wasting time the way he usually did. What he didn’t realize was that Mick was mentally checking exits and windows and back doors. He was surveying the entire spread.
“What you’ve got to understand,” Adrian said to him, “is that I didn’t mean to kill him. I thought we were cool. He gave me my product, and I paid him for it. But he was cheating me blind. I’m not going to pay for something I’m not getting.”
Adrian waited for his father to ask him what product he was talking about. The idea that a child of his would be a drug dealer, and a major one at that, was something he would hate with a passion. Especially since those goons he had following him were too stupid to see what he was up to, and he was shrewd enough to lose them every night. They never knew where he was at any given time. Every time they would sneak and put GPS on his car, he removed it. They would try to tap into his cell phone, he stopped carrying cell phones. He outsmarted them on every hand, and they never let his old man know a damn thing about it. Because his old man was too big to fail. When, Adrian thought with relish, he was failing all the time. And Adrian viewed himself as his father’s biggest failure.
But when that failing father of his did not respond to his product hint, he said it bluntly. “Mo was my supplier,” Adrian said. “I deal drugs. That’s what I do.”
Mick stopped walking and looked at him. “A glass of water, please,” Mick said.
Adrian stopped cold. What the fuck? “What?” There was puzzlement in his voice.
“Will you get me a glass of water, please?” Mick asked.
Adrian stared at his father. He would never understand that man if he lived to be a hundred years old. But he went into the kitchen, poured him a glass of water, and came back out.
When he got out, Mick was standing at the front window looking out. And that hate rose up within Adrian again. He remembered when he was a kid, standing at his mother’s front window, always looking for his father. But his father never came. He never promised to come, and never came. At least the other kids on his block, those whose fathers didn’t live with them, had hope. Their absent fathers would always promise to take them to the ballgame, or take them to get ice cream, or pick them up to spend the night. They never showed up either, but at least, for that brief time, those kids had hope. Mick, Adrian thought bitterly, never even gave him that. He didn’t even think enough of him to make a promise to break. He usually saw his father once a year, and it was never preplanned. And some years, he didn’t see him even that one time.
It wasn’t until Mick turned around did Adrian break his stare and began walking toward him with the water. Mick thanked him and actually drank it all. It was only then did Adrian realize it was no power play or ploy, but an actual need that caused Mick to ask for water in the first place. And then Mick finally looked at his son. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked him.
Adrian thought he had already told him. “It was an accident. I told you I didn’t mean to shoot him. Mo pulled his gun first.”
“How long have you been dealing?” Mick asked as if his son’s confession meant nothing to him.
Adrian was offended by his refusal to acknowledge what he had said. But he answered his question. “Long enough. Why?”
Mick stared at him. “Just curious,” he said.
And that said it all for Adrian. “You’re just like I thought you were.”
The bitterness in Adrian’s voice was more telling to Mick than his angry words. But he listened to his son.
Adrian knew he wasn’t going to give him even the satisfaction of a response, so he kept on talking. “When you found out Joey was selling drugs, and not even in any major way, you kicked his ass and made him come work for you. Because you actually cared about his future, and about his wellbeing. But you find out I’m selling drugs, and that I, in fact, killed one of your syndicate bosses, and you don’t give a fuck. You never gave a damn about me. Never!”
Mick studied him. “Is that what this is about?” he asked him.
Adrian frowned. “What?”
“Is that what all of this attention-seeking behavior is about? You wanted my attention? Well now you have it. But if you think this is the way to impress me, you’re wrong.”
The rage that boiled up inside of Adrian was already near its breaking point. But
when Mick said those words; when Mick all but accused him of trying to impress a man he hated with a bitter hate, it boiled over. And in a motion so swift it startled even him, Adrian grabbed his gun from the table and put it to his father’s forehead. His hand was shaking, not out of fear, but because of rage.
Mick stared at the son of his flesh with a look even Adrian couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t fear as he had hoped it would be. It wasn’t even shock. Then Adrian realized what it was. It was arrogance. It was that quiet confidence his father always displayed, as if he knew Adrian didn’t mean it. As if he knew Adrian wasn’t man enough to pull the trigger. Mick the Tick would pull it, Adrian thought, and go home and eat his supper. But Mick the Tick’s stupid son? Never in a million years!
But that million years happened. Adrian not only pulled the trigger, but he pulled it and pulled it and pulled it. He closed his eyes and fired more bullets into his father’s body than he thought was even in the gun. He couldn’t stop pulling that trigger.
CHAPTER TEN
When he realized he was still pulling the trigger, but no sound of a firing gun was heard at all, Adrian opened his eyes. His father, who was standing there in what even Adrian would call pure shock, pulled a pile of bullets from his coat pocket. It was only then did Adrian get it. It was only then did Adrian realize his father had asked for water, to get him out of the room. His father wanted to make sure the gun would be empty. On top of everything else, his father, Adrian realized, snatched his hope again.
He looked at the gun, as if he was suddenly stunned himself that he had fired it, and then he threw the gun down as if it were a contaminant, and ran. Not out of the front door, but his back door. He jumped into his Camaro and took off.
Mick, still inside his apartment, still stunned shitless that his own flesh and blood would have attempted to kill him so easily if he had not made the split second decision to empty that gun, stumbled back and nearly fell.
When Adrian drove through the entrance gates of the trailer park and out into the street, Danny and his crew sat up.
“That’s him!” yelled one.
“Where the fuck is he going?”
Where the fuck is Boss?”
“Do we follow him?” one of the men asked Danny.
“What do we do, Danny?” asked another one.
But Danny was too busy calling their boss. He was too busy trying to get Mick to answer his phone.
But Mick didn’t answer.
“We need to go after him, Danny!” the third man suggested.
But Danny was, instead, speeding into the trailer park in search of Mick. “Our first obligation is to our boss. We have to make sure he’s okay first!”
“And if he isn’t?”
“We take care of him.” Danny frowned. “What the fuck are you asking me a question like that for?”
It was tense enough, as they raced to Mick’s aid.
Roz arrived home later that night. It had been an especially long day. After dealing with Hamp, which was tough enough, she received a call from a disgruntled director. He was going to fire her client, he told her, if she didn’t get her act together. Roz had to rush over to the set, a local production of Beauty and the Beast, and calm those waters. Then she had another client who wanted to rewrite the terms of his contract. Now that he was pulling in regular work, and had a local following, he thought her fifteen percent was asking too much. Too much after all the work she did to get him those regular gigs and that local following? After cussing his ass out and threatening legal action, he got the hint. But not before making her feel like some ruthless bitch on two legs. It was business, but that didn’t make it feel right.
She felt dirty when she made it home, and wanted to bathe the day away. She saw that Mick’s car was there, which was shocking that he actually beat her home for a change. And oddly enough, she wasn’t exactly thrilled he’d beat her home this time. She would have preferred a little me time after a day like this.
But when she entered their bedroom, and saw that the French doors that led to the balcony were opened, she relaxed. Mick was undoubtedly out there, and she knew he would be out there for hours. That balcony was his sanctuary. It was where he retreated whenever he needed some me time too. So she gladly gave it to him.
But when she removed her clothes, soaked in the tub for nearly an hour, and dried off, she wanted to see him. She wanted to be with him. Enough me time for now, she thought with a smile. She walked into their room-sized closet, put on one of his dress shirts, and then made her way onto the balcony too.
She glanced at Mick, who was seated on the lounger on the far end of the room-sized space. She saw that he already had a drink in his hand, so she went to the full-sized bar on their balcony, poured herself a glass of wine, and then walked over to him.
“Hey,” she said, as she leaned over the rail and looked out across their beautiful backyard. She knew her ass was probably showing, given the way she was leaned over, but only Mick could see it. But when he didn’t respond to her salutation, which wasn’t like him, she glanced back at him. When she saw his face, she turned around completely. Her heart hammered. “Mick, what’s wrong?” she asked. She had never seen him look so distressed.
Mick looked up at Roz. It was almost as if he had been in a trance. Roz’s heart dropped. He reached out his hand. She walked over to him, and he pulled her down onto his lap.
Roz was so afraid that she could hardly contain herself. He was holding her, tightly, but he wasn’t speaking. She knew, in time, he would tell her. That was his way. But she couldn’t wait that long. “What happened?” she asked him.
Mick didn’t even know if he could utter the words.
“Mick, what?” Roz was getting more afraid with every passing second.
“Adrian,” he said.
“What about Adrian?” she asked.
Mick shook his head.
“What about Adrian?” she asked again.
“He hates me,” Mick said. “My oldest son has nothing inside of his soul but hatred for me.”
Roz stared at him. Mick, she knew, didn’t throw words like that around lightly. “Why do you say that?” she asked.
“He killed Mo DeLuca.”
Roz was shocked. “Vito DeLuca’s son?”
“Right.”
Roz’s heart dropped. “Oh, Mick! Why? Could it have been avoided? Surely he didn’t do something like that in cold blood.”
“When I tracked him down,” Mick said, “he pulled a gun on me.”
Roz knew this was more to the heart of the matter. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He fired ten or eleven times. I’m not sure how many times.”
Roz couldn’t believe it. She automatically looked down at him, as if she believed he was strong enough to survive ten rounds of bullets. When she saw that he was physically fine, she didn’t understand. “But . . . how could that be? He missed every shot?”
“No. He was accurate with every shot. If I would not have removed those bullets from that gun before he fired it, he would have killed me.” Mick looked at Roz when he uttered those words. Tears appeared in Roz’s gorgeous eyes, and her hand moved to her mouth. She could feel his pain.
“I’m not afraid of dying,” he said to her. “You know that. It wasn’t about the dying that broke me. It was the fact that my own son, my flesh and blood, would hate me so much that he would . . . do what he did. And even that wasn’t the worse of it.”
Roz stared at Mick. What could possibly be worse than his own son trying to take him out, she wondered.
“It’s the fact that I single handedly brought him to that place. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. My sins, Rosalind, are being visited upon my children. And I’m beginning to believe it’s too late for me to do a damn thing about it.”
Roz pulled Mick into her arms. Then she lifted his head and placed her hands on either side of his handsome face. He was distraught, but he was still Mick. “It’s never too late,�
� she said to him. “You can’t ever let it be too late.”
Mick stared into her sincere eyes. “It’s a mess, Mick,” she said. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s a mess! You weren’t the father you should have been to them, and you know you weren’t. But you’re trying now. You’re doing more now. That has to account for something, or nothing will count. They will be ruined for life. And so will you. I’m not going to let that happen to you. You can’t let that happen to them.”
Mick understood what she meant. But it was never because of a lack of knowledge with him. It was and had always been because of a lack of action. “I deserved it, Rosalind. When I got over the horror of it, and I saw that look of regret in Adrian’s eyes, I knew just how deeply I deserved every bullet he had tried to pump into me. Because he didn’t regret what he had done. He regretted failing at doing it. He failed again. In his eyes, I won again. How can he live with that?”
Suddenly, Roz had a terrible thought. “Where is he now?” she asked.
Mick shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Roz considered him. “Do you care?” she asked.
Mick closed his eyes tightly. Then opened them again. “Yes,” he said, with anguish in his voice.
“Do you have men out searching for him?”
“I’ve got to bring him in, yes. I have you to think about, and the rest of my children. I can’t let his hatred of me transfer to you.”
Roz laid back against his chest.
Mick exhaled. “Danny asked if I wanted to lift the stand-down order I gave to Mo’s men.”
“Because he killed their boss?”
“Right.”
“But if you lift it,” Roz asked, “doesn’t that mean Mo’s men will have a license to kill Adrian then? They’ll have your blessing?”
Mick nodded. “That’s exactly what it’ll mean. But I didn’t lift it. He’s on me now. I released that monster. I’m the one that’s got to capture him.”
Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal Page 9