Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life Read online

  Leo escorted him and his men to a second bedroom. This room held three bodies: two ladies and one man. Relatives of Flo’s. All three shot in the head too. It was a bloody scene, with blood splatters on the walls, as if they all fought for their lives to the bitter end. But they were dealing with pros. They never stood a chance. Mick was out of that room even faster.

  The third room was next, but Leo stood in front of the door. “It’s bad, boss,” he said. “I don’t think you should go in there.”

  Mick looked at Leo as if he had lost his mind. Who did he think he was dealing with? A fucking flower girl? “Move,” he ordered.

  Leo moved.

  Mick and his men entered a room filled with young bodies. Five of them. Three children Flo had with other men, one child Mick didn’t recognize, and Shane. The reason Leo didn’t want him in there in the first place. Flo’s ten-year-old son Shane. The child Flo had with her deceased husband, a man who had been Mick’s friend and security chief. On his dying bed, Flo’s husband asked Mick, begged Mick, to take care of Shane as if he was his own.

  When Mick saw Shane, piled on the other young people as if he was discarded rubble, or, more likely, the cherry on top, his knees buckled. He nearly fell. But he didn’t fall. He, instead, lifted the young man and held him. He removed his blonde locks from his forehead and cradled him in his arms.

  He took it to the head too. But two shots, not one. He was the message. The kill shot. The understanding that everybody would get it one way, but this one, the great man’s son, would get more.

  Mick took the boy, laid him on the bed, and placed his arms folded across his stomach. And stared at him. He was not Mick’s biological son, but apparently the killer thought he was. Which got Mick thinking again. His eyes were so intense as he stood there, that his men looked at each other, fearful of what would happen next. But nothing happened. Mick just stood there, watching Flo’s child. He was not close to the boy. He saw him whenever he could, which was almost never, and provided financial support. But he was still a kid. Who would hate Mick so much that he would kill a kid? He stared at Shane, as he fought back tears.

  And just when his men were about to pronounce him superhuman for the way he was handling the boy’s death, just when they were about to add this scene to the Mick Sinatra mystique, Mick angrily grabbed the nightstand next to the bed and threw it full force out of the closed window, crashing the window and decimating the stand.

  Everybody were so shocked by his sudden rage that they backed up themselves, afraid they could be next. Leo ran to the window, leaned out, and waved off the guards who weren’t sure what had happened and were already advancing toward the house.

  Leo looked at Mick. “You okay, boss?”

  “A kid,” Mick said, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “They killed a kid?” Then his voice rose. “What fucker alive is bat shit crazy enough to do something like this? Who did this?”

  “One dead motherfucker, that’s who,” one of his men answered.

  All of the men froze. Then looked at him. Mick looked too. Only he wasn’t seeing what they were seeing. He wasn’t seeing a man cocky enough to even attempt to appease him. He saw what was bothering him about the scene to begin with. Too methodical. Too staged. Like a show rather than a shooting. And his instincts took over. He lifted his gun and pointed it straight at that cocky man’s head. “Drop the weapon,” he said.

  But the man lifted it instead, ready to take Mick out. Mick, however, shot him before he got the chance.

  All the other men backed away. They all looked at Mick. Terrified for their own lives. But Mick wasn’t thinking about them. “He’s wired,” he said. “My life I will bet on it.”

  Leo, unable to accept that one of his men could be stupid enough to rat on Mick, hurried to the dead man and tore open his shirt. And Mick was right. The guy was wired, not only for sound, but for video too.

  “Motherfucker!” Leo yelled, as he ripped it all out.

  And just as he did, just as those listening and watching realized the gig was up, they accelerated the game. The sound of gunfire was suddenly heard outside.

  Mick looked at Danny. “Stay with Shane and call for men to get my children to safe houses!”

  “Yes, sir!” Danny said, as he pulled out his cell phone.

  Mick, Leo, and their other men raced downstairs and out of the front door.

  But what they saw staggered them.

  All of the new guards were already down, all with bullets through the brain, as if this shit had been orchestrated to the last man. And the car that penetrated their defenses, the car that had just moments before gunned-down those guards, was now racing toward the very steps where Mick Sinatra himself, the prize, stood at the top. They raced for a sidelong collision with Carissa and the parked limo. Carissa pressed on the gas and accelerated the limo out of harm’s way, and Mick’s men began firing at the car whose occupants were only just beginning to draw.

  But as Mick’s men were in a shootout with the men in the car, Mick drew out his big guns that he kept concealed in his coat. With one gun in either hand he began running fearlessly down the steps, thinking about Shane and the fact that these very men were probably the ones who killed him. He was firing nonstop, as the car raced wildly toward the very steps he was running down. But unlike his men, he was hitting every man he aimed for, including the driver.

  When the driver went down, the car lost control and careened into the bottom step in a hard crash. But the acceleration was too great to stop its’ momentum. The car flipped in the air as if it was riding a wave, and crashed back down, belly up, as if a monster truck had just crushed it. If Mick’s shots didn’t completely kill every one of those men inside, the horrific way their automobile landed did.

  And Mick stood there, at the top of a mangled empire, looking, not as a man under siege, but as a businessman assessing risk. He was less concerned about what his next move needed to be, and more concerned about his enemy’s next move. Their move would determine his move because it wasn’t clear to him why they would hit Flo. She no longer worked for him. And why would they mistake Shane for his son?

  But before he could fully incorporate it, another car drove onto Flo’s estate. Mick and Leo and his surviving men drew their weapons ready to fire again. Until the door opened and Barkley, one of Mick’s men, stumbled out. “They hit Silvio Fontaine,” he yelled, blood on his chest. “And Paul Ricci’s place too!”

  “Who fell?” Mick asked him.

  Barkley shook his head, as if he was reliving a horrific scene. “Who didn’t?” he asked. “At least twelve of our men went down. I counted at least twelve.”

  “It’s willy-nilly, boss,” Leo said to Mick. “It’s like they’re toying with you. Fontaine and Ricci are two of your operatives. They don’t know shit about your current activities. They’re ghostbusters. What the fuck do they have to do with anything? And what would Flo know? She doesn’t even work for you anymore. It’s willy fucking nilly! It’s like they’re trying to toy with you.”

  “Or distract me,” Mick said, his eyes still intense, his mind racing in too many different directions.

  Leo looked at Mick. “Distract you from what?”

  “They’re after something big,” Mick said.

  “But what?” Leo asked.

  “What is the biggest, most important---?”

  And as soon as Mick said those words, his heart nearly stopped. “Rosalind,” he said as if he could barely say it, and began running toward the limousine.

  “What is it, boss?” Leo asked anxiously, running with him.

  “Get every man I have in New York to Rosalind,” Mick said. “I want a fucking army on her!”

  And Leo was pulling out his cell phone, gathering that army, while Mick was pulling out his, attempting to phone his lady love, to warn her, as they raced to the limousine.

  Because Mick knew it even if they didn’t. Because Mick knew, if they harmed one hair on Rosalind’s head, he was going to live up to h
is name. Mick the Tick was going to drop the bomb.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Six Months Earlier

  Roz Graham walked around the windowless studio as her students rehearsed in groups of two. With her arms folded, her heels stepping high, and her short, trumpet skirt highlighting her shapely legs, she purposely presented the image of an unapologetic taskmaster rather than a mild-mannered acting coach. But she was their acting teacher, and had been teaching similar groups for years.

  “You have to own it,” she said to one of her shyest students when she saw her struggling in her twosome. “Don’t hold back, my darling. Own it. Express yourself.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the student said as she looked at her script, and read the dialogue again. “That’s why I’m crying,” she read.

  “But you aren’t crying,” Roz admonished her. “You have a frowned face, and your voice has gone to the next register, but I don’t see a single tear. You’ve got to work this scene, Jennifer. Not think about working it. Work it.”

  “I will. I got it, Miss G. I’ll cry.”

  “Then cry!”

  “I will,” Jennifer assured her. “I’ll cry when it matters, I promise you.”

  Roz looked at her as if she had just grown an extra eye. And now it was her time to frown. “When it matters?” she asked. “It always matters! When you’re blessed to act, when somebody gives you an opportunity to show your stuff, you had better bring it. I don’t care if you’re in a Tony award winning musical. I don’t care if you’re in somebody’s living room. It always matters.”

  The student exhaled and nodded her head. “You’re right,” she said. “I just have to sit myself down and figure this thing out. I’m going to cry.”

  “Then cry! Don’t just say it. Show it. Missouri may be the show me state, but Broadway is the show me capital of the world. You have to be able to express yourself on a dime, darling, or you’re in the wrong profession.”

  “Preach!” another one of Roz’s students yelled out, prompting other students to snigger.

  “Does it look like I need an amen corner, Terrell? Get back to work,” Roz warned him, and the sniggering ceased.

  And Roz kept moving. She had twelve students in her class, which was only half of what she had last year, and only a third of what she had the year before that. It was tough times all around and people couldn’t afford the luxury of acting classes the way they once could. But it was a brutal business too, and many of her previous students simply gave up.

  But Roz didn’t let any of that get her down. Her own toughness, her discipline, her refusal to accept mediocrity even in her most mediocre of students, made it imperative to her that she teach a class of twelve just as fervently as she taught a class of fifty. Almost all of her students were young, wide-eyed eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year-olds, but a couple were in their thirties. All of them needed to be ready. Roz had been in the business for a decade. She knew what was required.

  She stopped as another twosome, a couple of weaker actors who should never have been paired up in the first place, rehearsed their lines. They were male and female, probably had the hots for each other, Roz figured, and the male was reading his line.

  “I lost my shoes,” he read.

  “You lost your shoes?” the female responded in a bombastic voice, reading her line. “Oh, no! That’s terrible, Andre!”

  “And that’s too damn sympathetic, Karen,” Roz said, prompting “Andre” to laugh. “He didn’t say he lost his mama. He said he lost his shoes. Don’t oversell it now. Overacting is just as bad as underacting. Keep it reasonable.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the actress said.

  Just as she said it, the door to the small, upstairs rehearsal studio opened, and a young man, carrying a backpack and sashaying his hips more dramatically than Roz sashayed hers, hurriedly walked in.

  “You’re late, Jamal,” Roz said.

  “Don’t blame me. Blame the New York Transportation Authority.” Some in the room snickered. “They need to quit making people late like that.”

  “And you need to quit lying like that,” Roz responded.

  “I’m not lying, Miss Graham! It’s awful out there.”

  “Put up your gear and get in a group.”

  “As Lead?”

  “Hell no. As Understudy.”

  “Not again, Miss G!”

  “Yes, again, Miss Jamal! You should have had your ass here. Play Understudy in one of the twosomes and learn those lines as if they’re your own. You may end up getting more Understudy roles than regular roles. That’s how it works in this town. You need to know what it’s like to be as prepared as the Lead even though you may never get a chance to utter a single word on stage.”

  Jamal exhaled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with displeasure in his voice, as he headed for the back counters where everybody’s gear were stored. “I guess that’s what I get for being late.”

  “Exactly,” Roz said with a smile. She loved it when students took responsibilities for their actions.

  But then she realized her own error. She looked at the round, green clock on the dingy wall, saw that it was already half pass, and quickly made her way to the back counter herself. “Talk about late,” she said as she hurried. “I’m going to be late myself. Marge!”

  Marge was one of her students. One of the older ones. She hurried to her. “Yeah, ma’am?”

  “You’re in charge.” Roz placed her shoulder bag satchel over her small shoulder. “Let them finish their dramatizations and then walk them through the same Improv set from last week.”

  “Straight sets?”

  “Yes. They were awful last week. Straight sets until they get it right.” Then Roz addressed the entire class. “No nonsense just because I won’t be here,” she warned as she was leaving. “This is not a game. This is your career we’re talking about!”

  And Roz hurried out of the rented space, down the three flights of stairs, and out into the busy, overcast New York evening as she hurried, practically ran the entire way, to the Subway station.

  As soon as she got onto the train and sat down, she flipped the escaping strands from her ponytail out of her face, leaned her head back, and exhaled. She’d already text her friend Betsy and told her to wait at the gate, which was their term when they needed someone to stand guard at the entrance door to let her into the theater if she arrived too late.

  Although teaching acting paid her bills far more often than her actual acting, it wasn’t always that way. Roz used to make a living as an actress, a decent living, although all of her major roles were off Broadway. But then, two years ago when she turned thirty, even those roles began to dry up. Nowadays everybody wanted younger actresses to play even the older parts, because one young actress, with the proper makeup, could play two or three roles of various ages and save productions tons of cash. That was why, once Roz turned thirty and still wasn’t established, it became an uphill climb. Now even auditions were few and far between.

  But Roz was a professional. She didn’t allow the dire side of her circumstances to get her down. She closed her eyes from the bump and grind and noises around her and focused on the positive. She rehearsed in her head each and every dance move of her upcoming routine.

  When the train stopped at the station, and she was off again, she ran the four blocks to the backstreet, off-Broadway theater where auditions were being held for an upcoming on-Broadway production. Although she had a few minor roles in Broadway plays in her decade-long career, she had yet to make so much as a dent on the Great White Way. But this play, like all the other plays she auditioned for, could give her that chance.

  She looked at the time on her cell phone as she made her way toward the back entrance. Although she was only a couple minutes late, she knew if Betsy didn’t come through for her she would not be allowed in. But her pal Betsy Gable was waiting at the door, holding it open, and she made it in.

  “This is different,” Betsy said as Roz hurried in. “I’m usually the one who’s la
te. You’re usually the one holding the door for me. I like the change.”

  “First Call made yet?” Roz asked, and Betsy was about to tell her. But Greg, the stagehand and door guard, entered the back hall shaking his head.

  “You’re late, Roz,” he said. “No admittance if you’re late. You know that.”

  “But I’m in now,” Roz said.

  “Barry says no admittance if you’re late. You know the rules.”

  “But she’s in now,” Betsy said.

  “Then she needs to get back out. Barry says---”

  “Ah, for crying out loud, Greg,” Roz said, employing a tactic she would never teach her students. “It’s not as if I didn’t make it at all. I’m only a couple minutes late.”

  “That’s still late.”

  “Give it a rest, Greg,” Betsy said. “She’s in now. What difference does it make now?”

  He didn’t like it, but he waved them on. And Betsy and Roz, two pros on the circuit, didn’t delay. They hurried along the narrow corridor that led to the dressing rooms, knowing they had just dodged a bullet.

  “I can’t believe I let time get away from me like this,” Roz said as they hurried.

  “It happens to the best of us, girl, don’t worry about it.”

  But that was unacceptable to Roz. It had been years since she was late for an audition, and if it wasn’t for Betsy waiting at the gate, she would not have been allowed in the door. Since auditions nowadays were few and far between, she knew she had no room for error. She had to be on point. She had to do better than this.

  For years Roz had been doing all she could to break into the big time. Now she was soon to turn thirty-three and this so-called career of hers was still looking drab. She had some major moments, like when she won that plum role in the off-Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun, where she played Ruth Younger, Walter Lee’s wife. Or when she played second-lead in the off-Broadway production of Marcus Got His Gun. But both of those roles were nearly five years ago. The work remained steady after that, but nothing like it had been. Then the roles became more and more infrequent. Roles that barely registered. An extra, the no-name lady with a line or two, a member of the chorus. Sometimes she was even the understudy, who never got the call.