Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now Read online

  “So, let me guess,” Tamron said. “Mick hired a nanny to help you with the little ones, didn’t he?”

  “A nanny? No. Four nannies? Yes.”

  Tamron’s small eyes stretched. “Four nannies?” When she realized others were looking over, she lowered her voice. “Are you out of your ever loving mind? Why would you ever need four nannies?”

  “It’s only for their first year,” Roz said. “And I know it’s excessive. I told him it was excessive. But Mick runs our household and if he says I’m getting four nannies, I get four nannies.”

  “But why so many?” Tamron wanted to know.

  “Two for the dayshift,” Roz informed her. “Two for the overnight shift. He doesn’t want anybody tired and overworked. He wants them to be alert and fresh at all times.”

  “Oh, okay,” Tamron said. “So there aren’t four different nannies running around in your household at one time?”

  “Oh, heaven’s no. Two at a time.”

  “But still,” Tamron said. “Why didn’t you just put your foot down and say one is enough?”

  “Because one isn’t enough,” Roz admitted. “I work fulltime plus. Mick works fulltime plus. We both have slowed down considerably, to be with the twins, but we still have to do what we have to do. Gloria, Teddy, and Joey help out too, but none of them have ever had children of their own, so they still need the nannies handy. But when the twins get a little older, like six months old, we’ll start taking them to work with us and hopefully know what we’re doing by then. But right now, Mick doesn’t want them out of the house.”

  “He is so domineering!” Tamron said. “That’s why I could never marry an Italian. I can barely handle a black man and his domineering ways. But Mick? He is too much! The twins can’t leave the house? Please. I’m surprised he let you out of the house.”

  “He didn’t want me out, believe that,” Roz admitted with a chuckle. “He gave it a good try. But he knew better than that. I have a company to run too, and you can only do just so much from home. Especially when I have actors and actresses and singers and comedians constantly in need of my intervention. I thank God for each and every one of those nannies. I’m grateful Mick loves my black ass enough, as you put it, to hire each and every one of them.” Roz finally saw the lingerie she was looking for. “And he’s really going to love it tonight when I put this on.”

  Tamron smiled. “That is lovely.”

  “Oh, yes.” It was red and white, lace and frills. “Beautiful.”

  Tamron, as if realizing an obvious truth, looked at her. “Wait a minute. Six weeks? You had those baby six weeks ago and now you’re buying fancy lingerie? Are you telling me, are you implying that Mick, of all people, hasn’t touched you during your postpartum period?”

  Roz found it remarkable too, given Mick’s appetite for sex. “That’s right,” she said. “My doctor advised against it, and he’s honoring that.”

  “But doctors advise against all kinds of ridiculous things! I’ve had three babies and I’ve never known a man who still didn’t get some however way they could. Even before the bleeding stopped!”

  But she didn’t know Mick, Roz thought. “I think I’m going to purchase this set,” she said.

  “Wow,” Tamron said, still amazed. “No sex in six weeks? In a month and a half? You’d better watch out tonight, girl. Mick the Tick, as in Mick the ticking time bomb, is going to break that thang.”

  “I hope so,” Roz said, and Tamron laughed. But Roz was serious. She was as horny as Mick had to be. “I sincerely hope so!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The nightclub was rocking and Teddy, Gloria, and Joey were sitting together at a VIP table. All three could have had dates, but they wanted it to be a siblings’ night out.

  “If the twins were here,” Gloria quipped, “this would be perfect!”

  Teddy laughed. “Dad won’t let Roz take them outside, and you want them here? I think their clubbing days are a long way from now.”

  “I think me and Baby Jackie are going to be close,” Joey said. “Every time I go to the house and sees her, she smiles at me. Nobody else. Just me.”

  “What about you and Mick, Junior?” Gloria asked.

  Joey shook his head. “Forget about it! Every time I glance at Junior he’s staring at me like I’m crazy or something. I said, yep. Another Dad on our hands.”

  Teddy and Gloria laughed.

  “I don’t know what you’re laughing at, Teddy,” Joey said. “Junior may act like Dad, but you look like him.”

  “I’m saying,” Gloria said.

  “Our father is a very attractive, desirable man so I consider that a compliment,” Teddy responded, raised his glass in a one-man toast, and drank more champagne.

  Joey shook his head. “He doesn’t get it,” he said to Gloria.

  “I don’t get what?” Teddy asked.

  “That it’s not cool to look like Dad,” Joey reminded him. “What if you get mistaken for him? With all his enemies? It could be lights out, Irene, for your cocky ass.”

  Teddy chuckled. Joey, the youngest of the threesome, worked as a supervisor in the mailroom of Sinatra Industries. Gloria, in her early-twenties, was on their father’s executive assistant staff and worked just outside of his office. Teddy was working for him too, but they had no idea to what extent. They had no idea that he was now fully entrenched, not in Sinatra Industries, but in Mick the Tick’s Mafia activities. They had no clue that their big brother was now their father’s enforcer.

  “What would really set it off,” Gloria said, “is if Adrian could have been here.” Adrian was their deceased oldest brother.

  “Yeah,” Joey said. “I know he had problems, some serious issues, but he was alright with me. I miss the A-train.”

  “I don’t,” Teddy said bluntly. “He would have killed Dad if Dad wasn’t smarter than he was. He would have took Dad away from us. Forget that shit. I’m not missing him at all. He got what he deserved as far as I’m concerned.”

  Gloria and Joey looked at each other. It was unspoken among them, but they both knew a profound truth. Teddy didn’t just look like their father, he was becoming their father right before their very eyes. It had been less than two years since Mick let them into his world beyond just throwing money at them, and he was just beginning to let them dip their feet into his inner circle. But Teddy, to their surprise and sometimes envy, wasn’t just dipping his feet in, but had taken a seat right dab in the middle of that circle. He didn’t work at the company, but he was always at their father’s side. He and Dad were becoming very close. Gloria and Joey had grown closer to Mick too, but they knew they still had a long way to go before all of their past issues with Mick’s absence in their lives could be completely overcome. But Teddy seemed to already be at that place. They couldn’t understand why.

  And they didn’t question it. Mainly because they feared their father would knock them through a wall if they dared to question him. But also because they feared the answer. Teddy used to leave town on long so-called business trips that seemed shady to them even then. Was he already involved in the underworld back then? They sipped more champagne and left that subject alone.

  “But for real though,” Joey said, moving on from any discussion of their father or their deceased brother or even Teddy, to his appreciation of good, rap music. He began bouncing to the beat, with the gold chains he wore around his neck bouncing too. “At least the music is dope in here.”

  “You like rap music, don’t you?” Gloria asked him.

  “Love it,” Joey said. “The only truly authentic American music out there. And yeah, I like it. I like this place too. This place is tight.”

  Gloria agreed and started moving to the rhythm of the beat, and she and Joey started to get up and dance. Until one of her ex’s spied her, and decided to leave his table and walk over to hers.

  He was older than Gloria, as all of her former boyfriends were, and was a tall white guy, and slender. He was also very good looking, another one
of her must-haves. “What’s up?” he asked her.

  “What’s up with you?”

  “Chillin’.” He looked down, from Gloria’s gorgeous face to her gorgeous body. “I haven’t been seeing you around, though.”

  “I’ve been around,” Gloria said. “Just not around you.”

  The guy smiled, but Teddy could see something else at work.

  “I heard you were working at Sinatra Industries now. I heard you had moved on up in this world.”

  “Troy, what do you want?” Gloria was blunt. She wasn’t trying to pretend she held anything for him but contempt.

  But Teddy saw hope in Troy’s eyes. Troy wasn’t ready to concede that he blew it when he cheated on her. From what Teddy could tell, Troy wanted a second chance with Gloria. What Teddy knew for a fact, however, was that Gloria never gave cheaters a second chance.

  Troy, unwisely, Teddy thought, decided to push harder. He nodded toward Teddy and Joey. “Who are they?” Troy asked.

  At first, Gloria didn’t want to bother with a response. But if that would get rid of him faster? “My brothers,” she said.

  She could tell he didn’t believe her. “Oh, yeah?” he asked. Then he looked at them. “Hey, brothers, why don’t you guys get lost for a few? I wanna talk to your sister.”

  “Man, please,” Gloria said with a frown, as she looked away from him at the dancers on the floor. “I don’t have anything to say to your cheatin’ ass.”

  The guy was immediately offended and Teddy could see it.

  “Oh, so you’re big and bad now? Around your so-called brothers? You’re having a field day now? You wasn’t so big and bad, wasn’t having such a field day, when you was sucking my dick.”

  Joey immediately jumped up, ready to beat that guy’s ass, but Teddy pulled him back down.

  Joey, and Gloria were astounded. Joey looked at Teddy. “So you’re gonna let this punk talk to our sister like that? You’re gonna let him get away with that, Teddy?”

  “Stay out of it,” Teddy said.

  “Stay out of it?” Joey asked, still astounded.

  Troy laughed. “Yeah, little man, stay out of it,” he said to Joey. Then he looked at Gloria, with nothing but pure hatred in his eyes. “We’ll meet again,” he said. “Bet that.” And then he left.

  Teddy, knowing danger when he sensed it, pulled a couple hundred out of his pocket, tossed them on the table, and began moving. “Let’s go,” he said to his younger siblings.

  “Go?” Joey asked. “Why do we have to go?”

  “Let’s go, Joey,” Teddy said. “You’ve got a problem with what I’m saying to you?”

  Joey had many problems with what he was saying, and so did Gloria. They didn’t see how some punk should run them out of the club. It made them look like punks. But their father had already made one thing perfectly clear to them: when he or Roz wasn’t around, Teddy was in charge. If he ever heard that they disobeyed a direct order from Teddy, they would have to answer to him.

  With that in mind, Joey and Gloria both did as they were ordered, and left the club.

  But they didn’t leave completely. They walked out, got into Teddy’s Land Rover, and then Teddy turned and looked at Gloria. “Would you know his car on sight?” he asked her.

  Gloria, sitting on the front seat beside him, was at first baffled. “Troy’s car?” She thought about it. “Yeah,” she said.

  “Let’s go find it then,” Teddy said, and smiled.

  Gloria turned around and glanced at Joey. Joey hunched his shoulders. Maybe Teddy was going to key the guy’s car or something. It was underhanded, and kind of punkish if you asked Joey, but Teddy was in charge.

  They drove around the parking lot of the nightclub until they found the car they were searching for: a Dodge Charger.

  “Are you sure this is his?” Teddy asked.

  “I’m positive,” Gloria responded. “Why? What are we going to do?”

  Teddy swung his SUV around, and then backed it in beside the Dodge. “We’re going to wait,” he said to his siblings.

  “Wait?” Joey asked. “Wait for what? I thought it was over.”

  Teddy looked at his kid brother through his rearview mirror. “Over? Are you out of your fucking mind? This shit is just beginning. You think we’re going to let some cocksucker talk to our sister that way and get away with it?”

  Joey was slow to understand, but when he did, he smiled. “No,” he said. “Not on your life.”

  And sure enough, when Troy finally made his way out of the club, with some random girl he undoubtedly just picked up on his arm, it all began.

  Teddy and Joey flung open the doors of the SUV, stepped out swiftly, and was upon Troy before he knew what hit him. Teddy mainly did the honors, beating the shit out of Troy as his girlfriend fell back and screamed. Gloria got out too. She wanted a lick or two in herself. Not just for disrespecting her tonight, but for disrespecting her by cheating on her to begin with.

  But before she could join the boys, Troy’s lady friend joined her, and began to beat her ass. Gloria fought back. She and the girl were first pulling each other’s hair, and then rolling on the ground fighting. But in the end it was no contest. Gloria was getting the better of that fight, just as Teddy and Joey were getting the best of theirs.

  It was so one-sided that Joey stopped. He wasn’t trying to kill the guy, after all. But Teddy was still at it. As if he was. He was stomping on the man like the man was beneath a dog. He was kicking him in the head, in the face, in the ribs. Blood was everywhere, a crowd had assembled outside, and sirens were being heard.

  By the time Joey grabbed Gloria off of the girlfriend, and they began to hurry to the SUV to get away from there before the cops showed up, Teddy was still beating Troy’s ass. It was as if he had blacked out from reality and had no clue about anything or anybody else. Joey, astonished that his big brother didn’t seem to hear, or care about the fast approaching sirens, hurried back out of the SUV to grab Teddy.

  “Come on, man!” he said, pulling him away.

  But Teddy snatched away from him and continued to beat on Troy. “I want this motherfucker to eat his words. He haven’t eaten them yet. He hasn’t proven to me that he understands what line he crossed. That’s right, asshole, beg. Beg, motherfucker, beg!”

  But Troy wasn’t begging. He was in too much pain and distress to utter a word. And then the sirens had arrived, and the police were upon them. Joey and Gloria both shook their heads. Crazy-ass Teddy just got all of them in serious trouble! The kind of trouble their father was going to kick their asses over because they didn’t outsmart their opponent. They just beat them down. And got caught doing so.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Who does he think he is?” Granville Wallace and his campaign manager stood outside the boardroom of Sinatra Industries and waited to be seen. “I’m mayor of this fucking city! And I have to wait?”

  “Do you want to win reelection, or don’t you?” Joe Strasberg, his campaign manager, asked. “Because if you do, we’ve got to get this done. Lubinski has the goods on us. We lose if that crap comes out, there are no two ways about it. This is do or die for us. If you want to win.”

  But Granville’s pride, more than anything else, was wounded. “But to be treated like this,” he said.

  “Like what?” Strasberg wanted to know. “The man is in a meeting, Gran. We didn’t have an appointment. We can’t just barge in because you’re the mayor. This man is a corporate giant, a titan in the industry, and you and I both know what else he is too.”

  Granville knew all too well. He used Mick’s “services” in the past.

  “Mayors come and go, as far as he’s concerned,” Strasberg continued. “We’d better be glad he agreed to see us at all. He could have told us to take a hike. Then where would we be?”

  Granville let out a long exhale and ran his hands down his fat face. He just found out what Lubinski had on him. He just found out that Lubinski had called a news conference for tomorrow afternoon. �
�You’re right,” he admitted. “I need help.”

  “His kind of help,” Strasberg reminded him.

  Granville nodded. “His kind of help,” he agreed.

  It would be several more minutes of impatient waiting, but then the doors to the boardroom opened. The mayor moved over to the window and turned his back as senior executives walked out. None of them appeared to realize that the mayor of their great city was waiting in the wings, and he wanted to keep it that way. They talked amongst themselves, got on the elevator, and left. Then Blair Conyers, Mick’s executive assistant, walked over to the mayor.

  “Mr. Sinatra will see you now, sir,” she said.

  The mayor smoothed down his wrinkled suitcoat, exhaled, and began to head toward the boardroom. Strasberg began to follow him. But Blair stopped the manager. “Just him, sir,” she said.

  Granville looked back at his campaign manager with fear in his eyes. He was unaccustomed to handling a mess like this alone. But he also knew who he was dealing with. It was either Sinatra’s way or the highway. The highway, at this late hour, was no longer an option. He went into the boardroom.

  Mick Sinatra sat at the head of the massive table, leaned back, his legs crossed. He was looking over a document. Another one of his assistants was at his side.

  Granville walked in quietly. He would have preferred for the assistant to not be there, but it couldn’t be helped. This wasn’t his show to run. He had to take what he could get. But he was still the mayor. Sinatra wasn’t going to just ignore him as if he was one of his flunkies too. He walked over to Mick and extended his hand.

  “Mick, hello,” he said jovially.

  “Run the totals again,” Mick said to his assistant. He handed her back the document. “I want a full study.”

  “With how many controls, sir?” the assistant asked.

  “Line it up with three more,” Mick said, rising to his feet. “If there are any discrepancies, pull the plug.”

  “They won’t like it.”