“But we thought we had enough people!”
“You thought you had enough?” Mick’s voice rose with anger. “You were thinking you had enough while my enemies knew your ass didn’t!”
“But we had it covered, boss,” Criggs said. He knew his butt was on the grill. He knew he was going to be the one to get it if he didn’t come up with a better explanation fast. If he didn’t convince his long time boss that he knew what he was doing. “We covered that waterfront. I swear to you we had every single angle covered. I didn’t drop the ball. You know me, boss! I never drop the ball. What can you do to a guy like me who never, before this shit went down, did nothing but good work for you?”
But Mick frowned. “What can I do to you?” he asked. “What do you think I’m going to do to you? Thank you for a job well done? Reward you for your past service? This shit ain’t static, it’s fluid! I can’t keep men around who did a good job yesterday but fucked the hell up today! Who do you think I am? Unless you have fifty million dollars in your back pocket right now, you know what I’m going to do to you!”
“But how could we see something like that coming, boss?” Criggs said. “Please put yourself in our shoes. We didn’t see it coming!”
“So let me get this straight,” Mick said, his still-smoking gun waving in front of him. “I’m supposed to understand because you didn’t know an attack was going to be launched? I’m supposed to forget about the fifty million I paid for those guns, and the hundred million I stand to make on the resale of those guns because you didn’t see it coming?”
“Give us a chance to make it right,” Criggs begged. “That’s all I’m asking! We fucked up, okay? We admit we fucked up! But it won’t happen again.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Mick said.
“Boss, please!” Criggs pleaded.
Mick shook his head. “Get a load of this guy,” he said to Teddy. “He sounds real sincere. ‘It’ll never happen again,’ he says. ‘Trust me. It’ll never happen again.’” Then Mick’s smile was gone. “Enemies we can’t even name yet just drove off with my biggest shipment of the year. A shipment I entrusted in you four assholes. And I’m supposed to accept that and move on? I’m supposed to understand?”
Mick sat even more erect. “The problem is,” he said, “I do understand. I understand the streets better than all four of you fuckers combined. Because I put myself in my enemies’ shoes, not in the shoes of my friends. I think like my enemy thinks. Because if I was out there, and I heard that some ragtag motherfuckers were able to drive off with Mick Sinatra’s shit, I’d be planning an attack too. And by the time the next shipment comes into any harbor anywhere in this world, there won’t be one gang waiting. They’ll be hundreds of gangs waiting! They’ll have to battle for control of my shit! My shit! Because I’ll be a non-factor. A non-entity. The fucking fool who purchases what they can just drive up and take!”
Criggs knew they were in for it. He knew nothing he was going to say was going to change Mick the Tick’s mind. So he appealed to the man’s decency. To the man’s worldwide reputation. He flipped the script. “You’re a businessman, boss,” he said. “You own one of the most reputable corporations in this country. You don’t need to be gunrunning. You don’t need this shit! But you figure you can’t get out of it. You have too many underbosses you have to supply. You have too many men depending on this illegal trade for their livelihoods. To feed their families and to live a good life. They’re too stupid and illiterate to make it in the legit world. They rely on you.”
Criggs moved closer to the edge of his seat. Teddy saw his error right away. Because Mick was listening to him, he figured he was getting through.
“Think about this, boss,” Criggs said. “We need your money, your expertise, and your reach, yes, we do. And if you walk away, nothing will be the same for us. We’ll be local hoods just trying to make it, and that’s about it. But you can get out. You’ll have an excuse now. You can say you turned it over to your underbosses, to see what they could do, and they blew it. You knew you would never get out waiting for them to step up, so you got out now. The word will spread like wildfire. Mick the Tick retired. Everybody will believe that. You’ll get all of the credit for running a tight ship while you were in charge, and none of the blame for this fiasco and anything that goes down after this. You’ll be out of the Sinatra crime family for good. The only connection that you’ll have to the syndicate is the name. It’ll still bear your name.”
Mick was so astounded by Criggs analysis that he wondered how he ever hired him in the first place. “It’ll still bear my name?” Mick asked him.
“Like most major crime families. The guy who it was originally named for is either dead, in prison for life, or has nothing to do with it anymore. But they keep the name because the name is the brand.”
Even Teddy was floored. “And you think my father wants his brand associated with losers and punks who lay down and let the underworld walk over them? You think he can live with that?”
“But he’ll be out of the game,” Criggs said. He knew, ever since Mick brought Teddy into the business, Teddy could sometimes be as big an asshole as his old man. “His enemies will leave him alone. This is his opportunity to leave it up to us, and get the hell out.”
Teddy shook his head. “If you think his enemies are going to just let him walk away into the sunset as if he never did shit to anybody, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were, Criggs.”
Any other man would have been dead after speaking to Criggs that way. But Teddy wasn’t just any other man. He was Mick the Tick’s son. Criggs held his fire.
“I’m just trying to make this right, boss,” Criggs said, appealing to Mick again.
“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to turn lemons into lemonade. And sometimes you can. But most times, with me, their just lemons. Bitter, sour lemons that leaves a bitter, sour taste in your mouth.”
“Boss, please!” Criggs begged, the same way many men had begged him when they knew their lives were on the line.
But begging only made it worst. Mick shot him through the forehead. And then he shot the third man, who was just recoiling from Criggs. That left only one. The proverbial messenger.
“I know,” the spared man said. “I’m to go back and bear witness. I’m to go back and tell everybody on these mean streets that Mick the Tick don’t play.”
“Unfortunately for you,” Teddy said, “they already know that.” And Teddy, with a gun the man didn’t even see he held, shot him through the forehead too.
Mick looked at Teddy. Who the fuck told you to do that, his look seemed to say.
But Teddy, as usual, had a ready answer. “Keeping messengers alive to spread the word is old school, Pop. That shit don’t work. I say kill’em all. That’ll spread the word faster than any scared also-ran could ever do.”
Mick’s heart sank a little every time Teddy had to go down that road, but he knew he couldn’t flinch. Teddy had already started down that road on his own, getting into all kinds of illegal trade on a smaller scale, making enemies left and right but without the force and backing of his old man. He would have gotten his small time ass killed out there if Mick hadn’t pulled him in. That made it easier on Teddy, but harder on Mick. He didn’t want any of his children to walk his walk. But at least the underworld knew he was now Mick the Tick’s right hand man. At least now he had protection.
Mick continued to stare at his son. Everybody said he had Mick’s hard handsome looks and unflinching killer instinct. But when Mick looked at him, he thought he saw a flicker of regret in those big eyes of Teddy’s. But it was only a flicker, and it flicked away. “Get them to a cleanup crew,” Mick ordered. “No shortcuts.”
Teddy smiled. “I didn’t leave a witness,” he said in that charming way the ladies loved. “You think I’m going to leave a body?”
Mick knew why his son was going for levity. It was like cops telling jokes at horrific crime scenes. They had to minimize the
horror to be able to live with their shitty jobs. But Mick wasn’t built that way. He did what he had to do, but he never wallowed in it or pretended it wasn’t hellish. It was. He couldn’t smile at a time like this.
He got out of the limo as the driver in the SUV opened the passenger side door. Mick got inside the SUV. As soon as he sat down, the pain of what he had to do settled around him. And the fact that his son had taken it upon himself to kill the messenger didn’t sit well with him either. He didn’t have permission to go that far, but he went that far. Mick wasn’t sure if he liked his initiative, or was repulsed by it. Then he decided it didn’t matter because Teddy Sinatra was a mean bastard just like his daddy. And nobody could tell his daddy a gotdamn thing either.
As his driver made his way back around the SUV to get back behind the wheel, Mick’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out, and looked at the Caller ID. It was his son Joey’s mother. He didn’t want to talk to her, but it could be about his son. He answered the call.
“What is it, Cat?” he asked.
He knew that Cathleen Thomas, the person on the other end, never liked when he answered her calls that way. He didn’t give a fuck, especially since their recent conversations had all devolved into anger and recriminations over a chain-wielding beating Mick had to put on Joey’s ass, but he had to hear her out.
But he also knew Cathleen was a tough ass if she was anything. His tough ass didn’t scare her. “What’s wrong with your wife?” she asked.
Mick hadn’t expected her to mention Rosalind. “What are you talking about?”
“She ran out of Akon’s early today like a crazy woman. She looked at some guy and just took off like she saw a ghost. What was that about?”
Mick was concerned, but that wasn’t Cat’s business. “I’m sure I don’t know,” he said as nonchalantly as he knew how.
“Well you need to find out because it was a bizarre sight to behold. One minute she’s fine, then the next minute she’s running out of the restaurant like somebody had a gun to her head. And I don’t have to tell you how dramatic and over-the-top black women can be to begin with. You know how emotional they are. You know how,” she continued to say, but suddenly realized that Mick had already ended the call.
“Bastard!” she yelled into her phone, and then hung up too.
CHAPTER TWO
Roz was still reeling. Sitting behind her desk at the Graham Agency, with tons of work still left undone, she couldn’t even think straight. She couldn’t believe it. What was he doing in Philly? She knew it was a big town and not that unusual to eyeball ghosts of the past, but why him? And why was her reaction to him so strong? Why did his presence feel so devastating? Then she exhaled. She knew why. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“Jerry Copeland on line 6,” her secretary said.
Roz, halfway relieved to be forced not to think about it, grabbed her desk telephone, pressed button 6, and answered quickly. “Jerry, hey,” she said into the phone.
“Don’t bite my head off, Roz.”
“So it’s true?”
Jerry sighed. “It’s true.”
“But how could you go back on your word like that? We had a verbal contract.”
“Which is as good as the paper it’s printed on,” Jerry responded, “and you know that.” Then he sighed again, a tribute to the ulcers he already had. “I had no choice, Roz.”
Roz shook her head. “Let me guess? The producers?”
“I thought I covered my bases,” Jerry said. “I cast one of their nieces in a secondary, yes, but a meaty role. But even that wasn’t good enough for them. They threatened to pull funding if I didn’t give her ass the lead.”
“That’s fucking illegal,” Roz said. “The unions cracked down on that!”
“Not if it’s in the contract,” Jerry said. “They can pull their money any time before we go to production. That’s in the contract. And they don’t have to give a reason to walk.”
Roz frowned. “Why would you sign a contract like that, Jerl? You’re no novice. You’ll a major director!”
“A major director without a certified hit in over ten years. You know how this game is played. It’s not about what you did yesterday. I couldn’t get any of my old money people to put up a single dime. I had to rely on Texas oil men with plenty of money and zero taste. They think the Great White Way was named, not because of the lights of Broadway, but as a tribute to white people.”
Roz managed to laugh. “In a way it is,” she said, “given the racial makeup of most Broadway shows.”
“But you see what I’m dealing with here?”
Roz understood. But that didn’t help her client. “Okay, you gave the niece the lead. But why not give Kinna something? Why leave her off altogether? She needs to eat too!”
“I would have given her second star. You know I would have. She’s a phenomenal talent. But that was another condition of their backing,” Jerry said. “The niece felt Kinna Franks would be lurking in the wings attempting to steal her part back, and she, this no-talent niece, couldn’t work under such supposedly harsh conditions.”
“Yeah, right,” Roz said. “More like her ass knows Kinna can act rings around her and she doesn’t want the competition.”
“You know it,” Jerry agreed. “But what am I supposed to do? Let them pull their financing on the principle of the thing? That’ll not only put me out of work, but the crew and actors too. I can’t let that happen, Roz. I gave my word to them too.”
Roz closed her eyes. Show business was the worst cut-throat business there was. Sometimes she hated that she bore its taint. “Okay, Jerl,” she said.
“You understand, don’t you, Roz? It’s always the lesser of two evils.”
“And it’ll always be that way until somebody stands up.”
“Agreed,” Jerry said. “But it won’t be me. Not this time.”
Or any other time, Roz thought.
“But I’m glad you understand,” Jerry said.
“Kinna won’t,” Roz said, “and I don’t blame her. We’re failing the young people coming up after us. If we don’t stand up, they’re going to have to take this shit lying down too.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” Jerry asked again. “I can either produce a play and employ a full cast and crew. Or I can stand up and cost an entire cast and crew their livelihoods. Which road would you take?”
Roz hated to admit it, but there was no way around it. “The one you’re taking,” she said. But she wasn’t going to wallow in it. “Bye, Jerl.” And she hung up the phone quickly.
Then a knock was heard on her office door. Usually it was her secretary giving a warning knock before barging on in, or her husband, the only person who could enter unannounced.
But when she saw Mick walk through her office door, an odd sensation washed over her. It was as if seeing his face again reminded her that the past wasn’t king, but her new life was. And she needed to embrace it again.
That was why, surprising even herself, she jumped up from her desk, ran across the room, and threw herself into Mick’s arms.
Mick grabbed her and held her. He even lifted her into his arms and she wrapped her legs around him. But what should have elated him, worried him. Was Cathleen right? Had something, or somebody spooked Roz and she needed him to protect her? He was late for a meeting already, but he was glad he came. He had to make sure she was okay first.
He leaned back. He needed to see her eyes. By her little display alone, his own eyes were now fraught with concern. “What is wrong?” he asked her.
“I miss you,” Roz told him. “That’s all.”
But her big, beautiful eyes were telling him a different story. Mick didn’t take shit from Roz either when she didn’t shoot straight with him. He’d kick her ass, and she knew it. “What is wrong?” he asked her again.
Roz could feel his strong arms tighten around her waist. It was almost an unconscious move by Mick, a move she wondered if he even realized he was making, but she knew where it
often led. She moved to get out of his grasp, to test him. When he wouldn’t let her, but tightened his grip even more, she knew her instinct was right. She was bullshitting him, and he knew it.
She gave in. “I’m just . . . It’s been a rough day,” she admitted.
Now they were getting somewhere, Mick thought. He put her back on her own two feet. “Tell me how,” he said.
Roz began moving back behind her desk. Mick watched her tight ass move beneath her tight skirt as she walked. But when she got behind her desk, and saw the strain on Mick’s own face, she exhaled. “I should be the one worried about you,” she said. “How are you?”
Mick knew what she meant. “I’m okay.”
“Is the dinner date with the kids still on?”
“It’s still on,” Mick said.
“Joey still invited?”
Mick hesitated. “Yes,” he said.
“Please don’t change that, Mick. What he did was reprehensible, but he’s still your child.”
“The only reason he’s still alive,” Mick admitted.
Roz stared at him. “What about the Gabrinis? Have you spoken to them since it happened?”
“No,” Mick said. “They reached out. But I’m not there yet.”
“You have to put yourself in their shoes, Mick,” Roz started.
“I don’t have to put myself in any fucker’s shoes!” Mick fired back. “Nobody questions my integrity. For them to think I would be a part of something like that, the kidnapping of Sal’s child, should be unforgivable.” Then Mick exhaled. “And if they weren’t my family, it would be.”
Roz was sorry to hear it. Mick had only just recently rediscovered the Gabrini side of his family. She would hate for him to lose them again. They truly loved him. But one thing she knew about her husband: he didn’t make a move until he, and he alone, was ready to make that move.
Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall Page 2