Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry Read online

Tony stood erect. “Is Ma alright?” he asked.

  “She’s alright,” Ashley said. “And so am I, Tone, even though I know you aren’t going to ask.”

  “Gilda dragged Ma?” Donald asked, still astonished.

  “She tried to,” Ashley responded.

  Even Robert had stopped strolling for messages on his cell phone and was listening too. “What’s wrong with that lady?” he asked. “Wait till Dad hears about this. He won’t beat a girl, but he’s going to beat Gilda’s ass when he finds out she touched Ma.”

  “Dad was there,” Ashley said, and everybody looked at her. “He almost threw that woman off the porch getting her off of Ma. You should have seen him. He was red hot, you hear me? He told me to get my black ass back home, which I have done, and he’s personally driving Ma home as I speak.”

  Tony looked at Ashley doubtfully. “Dad, our father, told you to get your black ass back home?” Tony had suspicion in his eyes. “Somehow I rather doubt Dad used that terminology.”

  “He didn’t,” Robert said, as he returned his attention back to his cell phone messages. “Ash is just being the drama queen as usual.”

  “Okay,” Ashley admitted, “he didn’t say black. But so what? He told me to get my ass back home. What’s the difference?”

  “There is no difference,” Donald agreed. “But you see what I mean? They major in the minor things of life and still think they’re so smart.”

  “You really have a complex about our intellect, little brother,” Tony said. “You really ought to have that checked.”

  Robert grinned.

  “You really ought to go play with yourself, big brother,” Donald replied, and Ashley laughed.

  “But for real though,” Ashley then said to Donald. “Where were you?”

  “I was with Gilda,” Donald admitted. “At least I was until this morning when I was barely awake and she wanted some more. I couldn’t take it anymore. My johnson couldn’t take it anymore. That woman wears me out, I’m telling you!”

  Ashley laughed, and so did Tony and Robert.

  “I’m serious,” Donald said seriously. “At first it was exciting. I could play hooky from work for a few days and just hang out with this nympho. This world class nympho. But that gets stale real quick when it’s day in and day out all the time twenty-four-seven no time to breathe or shit or do anything else!”

  They all laughed.

  “I had to get my white ass away from there,” Donald added.

  Tony and Robert looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Now he’s channeling drama queen Ashley, of all people,” Robert said. “What is this world coming to?”

  Donald looked up when he heard a door slam outside and saw his father’s big truck through the bay window across the room. Charles had gotten out and was walking toward the passenger side. “Dad just drove up,” Donald said. Since he and Ashley were the only two standing on the opposite side of the island, she looked too. “With Mom,” Donald added when Charles opened the passenger door and Jenay stepped out.

  “Does he look angry?” Robert asked without bothering to look behind him.

  Donald looked at his brother. “When does Dad not look angry?” he asked.

  “When he’s with one of his three favorite children,” Tony said.

  “Three?” Ashley asked. “What three? I know Carly is his favorite, and little Bonita. But who’s number three?”

  Robert looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “Think, child. Think.”

  “Stop asking her to do something that is woefully unfamiliar to her,” Tony responded.

  “Ha ha, very funny,” Ashley said. Then she realized who Donald meant. “Oh, Brent!” she said. “Yeah, right. Him too.”

  The front door opened, and Charles and Jenay walked in. When Jenay saw Donald, she broke from Charles and headed toward him. “Well good afternoon, Mr. Sinatra,” she said to him.

  “I was going to call you, Ma,” Donald said, “but I forgot.”

  “You forgot that you’re being paid, quite handsomely by your father I might add, to do a job? To show up for work when you’re scheduled to be there?”

  “I know,” Donald said. “Sorry.”

  “Where were you?” Charles asked as he made his way to the kitchen area too.

  “With crazy lady,” Ashley said.

  But then a TV commercial came on that mentioned their name by name. All of them looked toward the television screen.

  “If you vote for me,” said Herb Cruikshank, a tall politician at a campaign rally, “I will put an end to Sinatra domination in Jericho County once and for all!”

  The rally crowd cheered vigorously.

  “I’ll kick that Brent Sinatra out of that same back door he walked in when he first became chief of police. He wasn’t next in line for that job. Nowhere near it. But Big Daddy got him that job.”

  Tony couldn’t believe it. “What a blatant lie,” he said.

  “And I won’t stop there,” Cruikshank continued. “I’ll get rid of Makayla Sinatra too. Elect me and she’ll be out as our District Attorney.” The audience applauded wildly.

  But Robert was confused. “He can’t do that,” he said. “Can he?”

  But those with the answers, Charles, Jenay, and Tony, were still staring at the television.

  “I’ll kick her right out,” Cruikshank continued. “Right along with her corrupt husband the chief. She’s not a Jerichodian anyway. She’s just some outsider nobody never heard of before she came to town. How did she get that job over all of those good men and women who’d spent years in the DA’s office? Big Daddy rigged the system, that’s how. He got her that job!”

  “Lie after lie,” Tony said. “Who would vote for such a person?”

  But Cruikshank was feeding off of his very supportive, very conservative crowd. “You know what else I’ll do when I’m elected?” Cruikshank asked. “I’ll end the stranglehold Big Daddy Sinatra has had on our community once and forever more. Vote for me,” Cruikshank said, “I’ll set you free! I’ll get rid of Big Daddy’s influence in the county once and for all!” The crowd went wild. Tony grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. “That kind of slander, my fellow Americans, is bad for your health.”

  “But he can’t kick Brent out of his job,” Ashley said. “Can he?”

  “If he wins the election, he can,” Tony said. “Brent was appointed chief by the mayor and serves at the pleasure of the mayor. If Cruikshank becomes mayor, he can fire Brent.”

  “But he can’t get rid of Makayla. She was elected DA. He can’t change that.”

  “They already have,” Tony said. “The city council voted last year to place the office of the DA under the mayor’s jurisdiction. No more elections for DA. The mayor gets to appoint that post now.”

  “They can’t legally do that,” Robert said, “but it’ll take a lawsuit to get them to back down.”

  “Dad, you hear that?” Donald asked. “Cruikshank wants to fire Brent and Makayla.”

  “Speaking of firing,” Jenay said to Donald. “Your lame excuse that you meant to call your job, is unacceptable. You’re fired.”

  Donald was shocked. “Fired? What did I do?”

  “You have not shown up for work for three straight days, Donald. You would not answer your cell phone, I had no clue where you were. And we had emergency after emergency at the Inn. I didn’t hire you as my GM for your health!”

  “And you even removed any ability we had to track you,” Ashley added. “That’s why I drove over to crazy lady house.”

  “But you’re firing me?” Donald asked his stepmother. He was still reeling.

  “Yes, I’m firing you,” Jenay said. “What did you think was going to happen? You wouldn’t pull that stunt on anybody else’s job, but you think you can pull it on me because your father owns the hotel? I have a zero tolerance policy at the Jericho Inn and you know it. We’re looking to expand. We’re looking to become, not just the best in Jericho, but the best in Maine. I need a reliable general manager.”

  “I am reliable! I work my butt off. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

  Charles reached over and slapped Donald hard across the face, causing Donald’s blond hair to sling from the right side of his face to the left side. “Say it again,” he prodded him.

  Donald grabbed the side of his face. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he insisted.

  “Then don’t say it like that,” Charles insisted. “Jenay is not only your stepmother, she’s your boss. And you will respect her in both roles. You understand?”

  Donald, growing red with anger, didn’t respond to his father. Charles began to move from beside Jenay and closer to Donald.

  Donald winced at the thought of another hit. “I understand,” he said quickly. He looked at Jenay. “Ma, I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have phoned.”

  “What you should have done was show up for work,” Jenay said.

  Robert grinned. “You wouldn’t believe what he was doing while he was away,” he said.

  “Shut up,” Ashley said, defending Donald as she usually did. “You’re just trying to make it worse.”

  But Charles looked at Ashley. “You already attempted that,” he said to her.

  “I didn’t do anything to make that woman jump on Ma,” said Ashley. “I just asked her if Donnie was there. She was the one who assumed I was his girlfriend.”

  But Charles wasn’t buying it. “The next time you fix it in your brain to go to a place like that to look for somebody,” he said, “you take Tony or Robert or even Brent. But you do not take my wife. Do you understand me?”

  Ashley swallowed hard. She saw what Big Daddy did to Donald. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Your father is under a tremendous amount of stress with all of this talk of the city invoking eminent domain and taking over his properties,” Jenay said. “That’s what Cruikshank is talking about, and he and that crooked city council can conspire and do just what he’s saying. We all need to keep it together. He doesn’t need these side shows.”

  All four children looked at their father. They knew the campaign rhetoric was taking a toll on him. But they thought it was just talk. They never thought, not once, that it could actually become a reality.

  “The last thing he needs is for you guys to add to his stress,” Jenay added.

  Charles looked at Jenay as if he couldn’t believe her nerve. “And you think you haven’t added to my stress?” he asked her.

  “Me?” Jenay asked, surprised he would even suggest it.

  “Yes, you,” he said, surprised she wouldn’t understand it. And then took her hand and began leaving with her. “You come with me. We have unfinished business,” he added, as he escorted her up the side stairs.

  When they were out of earshot, Ashley looked angrily at Donald. “See what you’ve done?” she said. “Now Dad’s going to get on her case because of your stupidity.”

  “I said I was sorry!” Donald responded. “I’m not the one telling him to get on her case about it.”

  But Tony was shaking his head. “Dad is going to get on her alright,” he said. “But not like you mean.”

  Donald looked at him with a frown on his face. “Fucking at a time like this?” he asked.

  They all looked at Donald. “A time like what?” Ashley asked him.

  “People get tired of that,” Donald said.

  “If I had it twenty-four-seven like you were having it,” Robert said, “I’d be tired too. But the rest of us don’t live on planet Donald. We live on planet Earth. And on planet Earth, it is always a good time to fuck.”

  Even Tony, who eschewed vulgar language, smiled at that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Trevor Reese and Carly stood outside the press room as Trevor fielded a last minute phone call from one of his investigators. Carly stared at the man with the long, wavy hair and the gorgeous violet eyes. He had the kind of rock hard body most women would be glad to get to know. Including Carly. But that was strictly between her and her dreams.

  When he finally ended the call, she moved closer to the door. “Ready, sir?” she asked.

  They were already late for the press conference. Ethan Campbell was waiting in the press room, along with his dream team of lawyers. But Trevor was the spokesman. Trevor was the one they were waiting on. Yet he lingered in the hall. “What about you?” he responded. “Are you ready?”

  Carly always found him to be an odd man. He was flashy in the clothes he wore and the cars he drove. And his good looks made him a female magnet even in her office. But he never took the bait. She’d never seen him with a lady on his arms- nor a guy for that matter, and he never came on to her or anybody else in his vast organization. She knew this to be true because the ladies complained about it endlessly, as if a man who looked like him and dressed like him had to be a whore. Why wasn’t he whoring around on them? Even Carly had a secret crush on him when she first started working for him. But Trevor Reese kept it professional up and down the line. So professional that she began to feel guilty for even thinking such a thing. And she woke up from her dreams of being with a great guy like him, and kept it professional too. “I’m ready,” she said. “I’m ready to get it over with.”

  “Then we shall,” he responded, looking down her body and then back up to her face. But the way Trevor looked at her always seemed as if he was assessing, not her attractiveness as most men did, but her sense of style. As if he wanted to make sure her clothes were on point before they went into the room. He smiled when he looked back into her face, as if she passed the test. Then his smile quickly faded. “Let the disgust begin,” he said with a flash of sadness in his eyes, eyes that were so blue they were violet, and opened the press room doors.

  Carly was taken aback by the way he phrased what they were about to do. But no truer words could have been spoken. They were public relations people whose job was to keep their client as innocent as possible in the public eye. No matter what evidence said otherwise. No matter how disgusting that client truly was. This was what they did.

  Trevor stepped aside and allowed Carly to walk in first, and they walked into the packed pressroom as if they were bearers of great news and the media was going to eat it up. Trevor walked up to the podium, while Carly took her place beside Ethan Campbell and his attorneys. They were all smiling because Carly, as PR point person, told them to smile. Smiling, she said, would minimize the seriousness of the allegations. As if they all had a secret, and that secret involved Ethan’s innocence. Ethan, especially, had the grandest smile of all.

  Trevor, however, wasn’t given to anybody telling him what to do. This was nasty business and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. He remained stoic as he stood there. He remained all-business as he presented the public case of Ethan Campbell.

  “My client did not, nor could he have raped that young lady. They went out partying. They went out drinking. And it was all good to Ethan because she was twenty-one years old. Her ID said she was twenty-one. Her appearance said she was twenty-one. He had no reason whatsoever to suspect otherwise.”

  Then Trevor nodded to his computer guy, a nod that alerted him to get ready. “The picture the family is circulating to the media is this photograph.”

  The screen in the room showed a big picture of an innocent-looking thirteen-year-old.

  “If that was the image that Amber Schwartz portrayed the night in question, then I, too, would be outraged. I, too, would recommend the harshest punishment for Ethan Campbell.”

  Ethan’s smile almost left his face, but Carly moved closer to him, reminding him by her presence alone to keep up appearances. He continued to smile.

  “But that wasn’t the image she portrayed that night,” Trevor continued.

  The screen showed a series of photographs, of a much older looking Amber Schwartz in very suggestive clothing. The media snapped pictures of the images vigorously.

  “This is the image Amber Schwartz portrayed the night Ethan met her,” Trevor said. ��And as you can see, she looks nothing like those photographs of an innocent thirteen-year-old the public has been inundated with. Amber Schwartz looks as if she is thirty, not thirteen.”

  Trevor began to describe the various photos. “There she is in yet another club,” he said as a picture of her dancing in a nightclub came on screen. “There she is drinking with much older women. And men, by the way. And here she is showing off an ID that puts her age at twenty-one. An ID that looks completely real, folks.”

  Then he stopped looking at the photographs and turned his full attention back to the assembled media. “What in the world, I ask you, was Ethan supposed to do? What more, I ask you, could Ethan have done? And as to her rape charge? Give me a break! You don’t party with a girl. Drink all night with a girl. And then, when the girl begs you to take her home with you, you take her home and rape her? She begged for it, and we have plenty of witnesses willing to make it clear that she begged for it. She begged for him to get it, but then he had to take it? Give me a break! He didn’t rape anybody. He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body. This woman, and I call her that because that is how she presented herself, is out for blood. Blood money. Pure and simple. Ethan Campbell is the real innocent in all of this.”

  Ethan’s smile went into overdrive. He looked at Carly, pleased with the strategy she came up with. Decimate the girl, Carly had suggested, and that was exactly what they were doing. Carly was smiling too, and even returned Ethan’s look with an even grander smile of her own. But it was all for the cameras. It was all for show. She was dying inside.

  The knocks on her door later that night didn’t make her feel any better. Especially when she opened the door quickly, certain it was her assistant Muriel. Muriel had just left her home a few minutes ago, and she thought she had forgotten something and had come back. She always forgot to mention something, or forgot something outright.

  “What is it this time?” Carly asked cheerfully when she opened the door. When she saw that it was Ethan Campbell, she was stunned. But not so thrown that she couldn’t move to quickly close the door she had just so casually opened. But his shoe blocked the way.

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