Mick Sinatra: No Love. No Peace. (The Mick Sinatra Series Book 9) Read online

  When the two cops glanced at each other, and the older partner nodded at the younger partner as if it was a no-brainer, he knew he had them. “What about the body?” the officer in charge asked.

  “What body?” Mick responded.

  Both officers smiled. Their morals were putty just like Mick thought. Then the officer in charge got to the point. “Fifty thousand,” he said boldly. “If you give us fifty grand, we’ll call it in as an altercation that was resolved without any injuries. No arrest necessary.”

  Mick stared at the younger cop. Fifty grand meant twenty-five grand apiece. That would buy their silence for a little while, but not forever. Mick needed forever. “I’ll give you one hundred thousand a piece,” he said.

  Both cops were stunned. “A hundred grand apiece?” the younger cop asked, as if he knew he had misheard.

  “A hundred grand apiece,” Mick said. “All cash. No footprints.”

  Both cops looked at each other as if they had just won the lottery. But they both tried to keep their emotions in check. The cop in charge looked at Mick. “That sounds . . . that sounds wonderful, sir. I mean, you have a deal!” He extended his hand.

  Mick ignored the hand. “There was a fight,” Mick instructed them, “between my two sons: Ted Sinatra and Joey Sinatra. Nobody was hurt. No damage was done. No arrest was necessary. You submit that report; I have ways of knowing what you submit, so get it right. Then you will be paid. You’ll be notified when and where.”

  The cop nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “But if you make any attempt to cross me,” Mick warned, “then your family will be notified when and where of their execution.”

  Both officers stopped smiling. The shit just got real for them. They understood Mick Sinatra didn’t bluff. “Yes, sir,” the younger cop said sincerely.

  “Then I’ll execute you,” Mick added.

  “Yes, sir,” they both said in unison.

  “Uncuff my son,” Mick ordered, “and then get off of my property.”

  The older cop quickly uncuffed Joey. Joey, being Joey, wanted to yell that it was about time, but he glanced at his father. If he wanted to live, he knew he had better keep his trap shut.

  The two cops left the ship. They left so excited about their potential payday that they could hardly contain their glee.

  But Joey had a question for his father. “Why would you give them more money than they asked for, Dad? That don’t make no sense. Why would you do that?”

  But Teddy frowned. “Why do you think?” he asked his younger brother. “Haven’t you listened to anything Pop taught us? The more you give them, Joey Dumbass, the deeper in debt they are to you. The deeper in debt they are to you, the easier you can use them again. The easier you can use them again, and they can get paid again, the less likely they are to cross you.”

  Joey, who never wanted to be wrong, nodded his head. “I knew all of that already. And call me dumbass one more time!”

  “Who called the cops?” Mick asked, ignoring both of his handsome, and headstrong sons.

  Joey looked at his father. “Charley did.”

  Mick was surprised. “Your lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Teddy shook his head. “Your lieutenant called the cops?”

  “Yeah, so?” Joey asked. “What’s the big damn deal?” He didn’t seem to get it.

  “What did you do about it?” Mick asked.

  “Do about it?” Joey asked. “What do you mean?”

  Mick knew Joey was a work in progress. But damn if he was a slow piece of work. “Where is he?”

  “Who, Charley?”

  “No,” Teddy said. “Tom Cruise.”

  “Fuck you, Teddy!” Joey said.

  “Go get him,” Mick ordered Joey.

  Joey gave Teddy the side eye as he went to do as he was told. Teddy looked at his father when Joey left. “I don’t understand him, Pop. I know we have different mothers, but we both came from you. How is it that he can run these docks, and he does a good job running them, I’ll give him that. But his common sense is like non-existent. It ain’t there! What went wrong?”

  Mick didn’t respond at all. He, instead, walked over to the body and looked at the young man. “Who is he?” he asked.

  Teddy walked over to him. “His name is Ferris. He and Joey got into it over some girl. From what I understand, Ferris was giving Joey a lot of lip about it, saying the girl was his first or some such boasting. Joey wasn’t going for that, as you can imagine. He wants what he wants and civility be damned! And they commenced to duke it out. Ferris fell and hit his head. It was over almost before it began. It was an accident.”

  “Try telling that to a judge,” Mick said. “Sinatras can’t be involved in accidents. He’s my son. They’ll throw the book at his ass. Fighting over some fucking girl. He should know that by now.”

  “I agree,” Teddy said.

  Mick exhaled. “Call in a cleaning crew,” he said, still looking at the body. He wished to God his children didn’t have to be involved in this part of his life. But they were. They wouldn’t stay away. Teddy was already involved in the illegal side of life, even while Mick was a nonfactor in his life, and Joey was itching to join him. Mick either brought them in, or left them to their own devices. He figured they would have far more protection and guidance under him, than on their own.

  But it was the order that Mick just gave that concerned Teddy. “A cleaning crew?” he asked. “I figured Joey would just get some of the guys on the dock to dispose of the body.”

  “No,” Mick said. “Keep them out of this. Bring in a separate crew.”

  Teddy didn’t understand why, but he knew his father did, and he respected his father above any human being alive. “Yes, sir,” he said. Then he thought about something else. “How’s Roz?”

  Roz was Mick’s wife, and Teddy’s stepmother, although Teddy and Roz were close in age. “She’s fine,” Mick said.

  “Still in New York?”

  Mick hesitated. He didn’t like talking about his personal life, not even to his children. “Yes.”

  Teddy stared at his father. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “She’s been gone for two days. She should be back by the end of the week.”

  Teddy couldn’t believe it. “Pop! You haven’t spoken to her since she left?”

  Mick looked at him with that don’t push it look Teddy knew so well. Anybody else would have backed down. But Teddy, even Mick knew, was made of tougher stuff.

  “I’m just sayin’!” Teddy continued. “If I had a wife like Roz? Shit, Pop. I’d be calling her ten times a day!” Then Teddy, who still hadn’t found a woman of his own, paused. “I just don’t want you to end up neglecting her the way you ended up neglecting my mom. Real talk,” he added. “Roz deserves better.”

  Mick didn’t want to hear that shit. His relationship with Roz couldn’t be compared to his relationship with any of his children’s mothers, or any other woman he’d had in his life. And it for damn sure wasn’t Teddy’s business. Although, Mick inwardly conceded, Teddy cared about his stepmother, and that was a good thing. “Deuce is with her,” he said. “She’s alright.”

  Which meant, Teddy knew, that Deuce was giving his father daily, if not hourly, reports.

  A few minutes later, and Joey returned with Charley behind him. Teddy could tell that Charley, being called into the principal’s office as it were, wanted to shit in his pants.

  “Here he is, Pop,” Joey said.

  “You called the police?” Mick asked Joey’s second-in-command.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mick waited for more.

  “They were going at it pretty bad,” Charley nervously continued. “They needed somebody to cool them off.”

  “You couldn’t cool them off? You’re my son’s number two.”

  “Yes, sir, I realize that.”

  “You needed cops to do your job?”

  “No, sir, it wasn’t like that. I just thought if
I called the police, they’d cut it out. I didn’t give any names when I called. I just told 911 that two guys were fighting at the docks and it was getting out of hand. I thought that was the best call I could make.”

  Mick couldn’t believe it. “You thought bringing the fucking police to one of my operation centers was a good call?”

  Charley was less sure now. “Yes, sir.”

  Mick leaned back and punched Charley so hard that he knocked him out cold. “Dumb, motherfucker!”

  Joey was often shocked by the pure power in his father’s punch.

  “Demote his ass,” Mick ordered.

  “Yes, sir,’ Joey said.

  “And get your shit together, Joey,” Mick warned. “I’m not telling you again. Get it together or you’re out. And this time for good.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mick stared at Joey. He was always quick to agree, and slow as hell to implement. He’d been that way since he was a kid. In a lot of ways, Mick knew, he still was.

  But Mick, who was a man even when he was a kid, didn’t understand man-babies. Which meant, he couldn’t figure out Joey if his life depended on it. He left.

  After he left, Teddy slapped Joey upside his head. “You heard, Pop,” he said. “Get your shit together, Joey! I’m your supervisor. You report to me. You’re making my ass look bad.”

  “Ah, fuck you,” Joey said half-heartedly, with a frown on his face.

  And then Teddy, who many of Mick’s men felt was obsessed with being just like his father, managed to smile as he left too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Cold as a motherfuck out here,” the young driver said as he walked over to Deuce McCurry, an older African-American driver.

  Deuce smiled. The young guy had a heavy Brooklyn accent, and seemed as if he’d rather be anywhere than where he found himself. But Deuce took another drag on his cigarette, and then tossed it to the ground, before he responded to him. “Suppose to rain,” he finally said as he smashed the cig underfoot, “but I haven’t seen a cloud in sight. I’ve been coming to this city for more years than I can count, and those weather boys never get it right.”

  “You aren’t from around here then?” The young driver blew warmth into his hands.

  “I’m from Philly,” Deuce said proudly. “Fuck New York.”

  The young driver laughed. “So who do you belong to? One of those big shots, too?”

  “I work for Mick Sinatra,” Deuce continued. “They don’t get any bigger than him. Right now, I’m driving for his wife. She’s the star of the show. Or at least one of the stars. They’re in rehearsal right now.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the younger driver said with a nod. “I drive for the executive producer, a regular bozo. Not very nice that guy, I’ll tell you that much. I’m outta here as soon as I get another gig. But he hasn’t come to any previous rehearsals, so this shit new to me. How long it usually takes?”

  “How long? Hours.”

  The young driver’s blue eyes stretched. He couldn’t believe it. “Hours? You shittin’ me?”

  “I shit you not,” Deuce responded. Then he smiled. “You might as well relax, boy. You’re in for a long, long wait.”

  The younger driver exhaled. “Great,” he said. “All I need. Damn! Damn! Damn! You got another cig?”

  Deuce laughed and pulled out his pack. They were outside the Grove theater on Broadway, where Town cars and limousines, all for the various big wigs in the rehearsal, lined the cordoned off area against the curb.

  “So, who is this actress you drive for?” the younger driver asked as he took a cigarette out of Deuce’s offered pack. “Anybody I should know? What’s her name?”

  “Her name is Rosalind Sinatra,” Deuce said proudly as he flicked open his lighter to light the young man’s cigarette, and then lit up another cigarette for himself. “Her name used to be Rosalind Graham before she married my boss.”

  The young driver lit up and took a long drag. “Rosalind Sinatra, hun?” He thought about that name. “I never heard of her. Rosalind Graham either. But so what, right? I never heard of most of these Broadway hot shots.” Then the young driver grinned. “I’m not exactly the let’s-go-to-the-theater type, know what I’m saying?”

  Deuce smiled. “I hear you.”

  Then the young driver nodded toward the exit. “Speaking of theater types,” he said. “That ain’t a bad looking one over there.”

  Deuce looked too. Rosalind “Roz” Graham-Sinatra, Mick Sinatra’s African-American wife, had exited from a side entrance and was coming their way. She was an elegant woman with long, extension-enhanced hair that rolled down her back in curls and bounciness, and was high-stepping in her heels, her flare-legged pants, and her half-length winter coat. A Prada handbag and her cellphone were in her right hand.

  At first, Deuce was relieved that she was coming out so quickly. Maybe they finished up her scenes much earlier than expected? But when he saw that she wore dark shades, he knew something was wrong. Rosalind Sinatra was a fashionista. Nobody would deny her that. But she was no diva. Shades at night, Deuce thought as he dropped his cig and squashed it beneath his dress shoe, was diva shit.

  He quickly opened the door of the limousine he stood beside. The younger driver looked at him. “What you doing?” he asked. “She yours?”

  Deuce nodded. “Yup.”

  “Damn, man. For real?” Then the younger driver smiled. “I know you be hittin’ that!”

  Deuce smiled outwardly, but inwardly he knew better. If he even thought about hitting that, Mick Sinatra would squash him the way Deuce just squashed his cigarette. But that wasn’t that boy’s business.

  Roz walked up to the car and got in without saying anything to anybody: another sign that something was wrong, and Deuce closed the door behind her. The younger driver gave Deuce an uh-oh look, as if even he could tell his passenger was in a bad mood, but Deuce didn’t give that driver a second glance. He was on the clock again, which meant he had work to do, and Deuce took his job seriously. He hurried around, got behind the wheel, and drove away.

  He glanced at Roz through the rearview mirror only after they had cleared the thickest traffic, and only after he felt it necessary to make sure. “You’re okay, ma’am?” he asked her.

  Roz still didn’t say anything, which wasn’t like her at all, and he was about to ask again. He had been Mick’s driver long before Roz hit the scene, and he felt he could take liberties that way. But when he glanced through the rearview again, ready to ask again, he saw her dab a tissue at what he assumed was a tear rolling down her face. He was stunned. It took a lot to bring tears to Rosalind Sinatra’s eyes. And that was why he stopped with the questions, or even the peeps through the rearview, and drove her back to the hotel, a hotel her husband owned, in silence.

  When Roz got out of the limo, and made her way inside Mick’s famed New York hotel, she was inundated with the usual Hello Mrs. Sinatra, Welcome back, Mrs. Sinatra, Is there anything we can do for you, Mrs. Sinatra greetings by the various hotel employees who aimed to get a good report back to Mick. Roz was courteous to them, speaking and telling them that she was fine, but she was also careful to avoid any eye contact or conversations. She couldn’t bear to be seen in this state.

  That was why, when she finally entered the suite, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She was relieved to finally be out of the public eye. But as the reality set in, and the pain and bitter disappointment returned, the tears she had been battling all the way back returned too. And that sinking feeling reemerged. Only this time it returned with a vengeance.

  Roz ran to the bathroom, lifted up the gold-encrusted toilet seat, and fell to her knees vomiting.

  Mick Sinatra was behaving out of character that night also. At least to those who didn’t know him very well. But there he was, lying on his back on a bed in the nursery, stretched out asleep with twin toddlers in his arms. Michello “Duke” Sinatra, Junior, his son, was fast asleep on top of his left side, while Jacqueline “Ja
ckie” Sinatra, his daughter, was fast asleep on top of his right side. Mick was still fully dressed in his business suit and shoes, because he had just come home from the docks and was unaccustomed to being in bed this early, but whenever his wife was out of town he tried his best to pull up the slack and be there for their twins.

  But none of the men in his syndicate, nor any of his employees at S.I., would ever believe this scene. Not in a million years. Even the two nannies in the nursery, who’d been working for the Sinatras for a decent length of time, could barely believe it themselves. Not because they’d never seen their boss behave so fatherly toward his children before: they saw it often. But because of his stern, no-nonsense, they would even say harsh and uncompromising personality, it still struck them as beautifully odd whenever they did see it.

  But when his cell phone began ringing, one of the two nannies, the youngest one, forgot the oddity of having their boss in the nursery with them, and looked at her elder, wondering if they should answer it. But the head nanny and a longtime Sinatra employee didn’t give such a notion a second thought. Mr. Sinatra would fire them on the spot, she believed, if they ever thought about touching any cell phone of his.

  It never became a serious issue, however, because Mick eventually opened his eyes. And although he was still sleep-woozy because his body was tired from a long day of work, he had the wherewithal to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone.

  When he looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Deuce McCurry, he answered quickly. Or, at least, as quickly as his sleepiness would allow. “Hey,” he said into the phone.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir,” Deuce responded over the phone.

  “It’s alright. What’s up?” He wanted to ask outright if his wife was okay, but he didn’t want to wake the twins, and he didn’t want to give those two nannies any gossip fodder.

  But when Deuce said, “it’s about your wife, sir,” Mick’s caution broke, and he didn’t hesitate to ask outright. “What about my wife?” he asked. “Is she okay?” Even the two nannies, who loved Mrs. Sinatra, glanced at him.