Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall Read online

  “Hell no,” Mick said. “If it’s their aim to bring my kingdom down, they’ll be spying the docks. They’ll know.”

  And then he stood up. Everybody in the room stood up too. “Tell the front line to calm their asses down,” he said, putting on gloves. “They’ll have merchandise tomorrow. It won’t be our top grade, but it’ll be good enough for now. It’ll tie them over for now. Until I can get a bigger shipment in.”

  “But . . .” Danny and all of the underbosses were shocked. “How in the world can another shipment be coming in this quickly?”

  “I always have a backup supply nearby,” Mick said. “Just in case.”

  “But how?” Danny asked.

  “None of your fucking business,” Mick snapped. “Just be ready tomorrow.”

  And then Mick, sartorially dressed in a pinstripe suit, looking more like a businessman than the ruthless killer they all knew him to be, left the backroom.

  Danny was offended. He used to be Mick’s right hand man. He used to know the inner workings himself. Until Teddy’s sorry ass took his role.

  But then he, along with all of the underbosses, smiled and high-fived. They didn’t care how Mick got the merchandise in. They were just happy some was coming in.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tee Salley came into Roz’s office, closing the door behind her. “Guess who came to visit?” she asked.

  “Kinna Franks?” Roz did not look up from a contract she was editing. “I’m expecting her. Jerry Copeland gave the lead to the producer’s niece, when he promised to give it to her. She’s devastated. As you can imagine.”

  “It’s not Kinna,” Tee said. “I can deal with our clients all day long. An even bigger prick than Jerry Copeland is out there asking to see you.”

  Now Roz was intrigued. She looked up. “Who?”

  “Your friend. Miss Charity?”

  Roz thought about it. She had quite a few friends. But then she smiled. “Tamron?”

  “I can’t stand that woman, boss. She puts on a charity event and brags about it all year long. Who does that?”

  “I hear you, Tee. But at least she puts on an event and gives the money to the needy.”

  “She wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with those same needy people. But I guess you have a point. She just brags too much for my taste.”

  “Mine too,” Roz said. “But Tamron has her good side too. Is she arrogant? Check. Braggadocios? Double check. Helped me out when I could barely pay my rent in New York? Check. Gave me a shoulder to cry on when man after man broke my heart? Check.”

  Then Roz exhaled. “Tamron’s not perfect, Tee. She has some serious deficits. But what friend doesn’t?”

  “I know, I know,” Tee agreed. “But she’s just too much! Has all of those airs about her like she’s better than everybody else when you’re married to a millionaire and don’t even bring it up!”

  Roz allowed Tee some liberties because of her older age, and the fact that Roz knew she had her back. But at the end of the day Roz was still the boss. “Send her in,” she ordered.

  Tee might not have liked it, but she left and did what she was told. And Tamron Dawson-Blake walked in and headed straight for Roz’s desk. They met years ago in New York, when they were both struggling actresses. Tamron was a socialite now, married to NFL wide receiver Benny Blake, and was heralded more for her charity work than her acting chops. But she was still one of the best pure actresses Roz had ever known.

  “Hey, darling,” Tamron said as she plopped down on the seat in front of Roz’s desk. “You need to fire that bitch of a secretary. She knows how close we are. I don’t think I should have to be announced to see one of my best friends.”

  “Let me stop you right there,” Roz corrected her. “You have to be announced. You can’t just barge into my office. I may have a client. I may be in a confidential meeting. Tee knows what she’s doing.”

  “The bitch,” Tamron said.

  “And she loves you too,” Roz said with a smile. Then she tossed her marker aside and leaned back. “So what have you been up to this beautiful day? No, let me guess. You’ve been shopping.”

  “All day, girl,” Tamron responded with a smile of her own. “Up and down those aisles like a maniac. I bought more clothes than my car could carry. I had to call in a back-up car.”

  Roz shook her head. “You’re going to shop so much until you drop dead one of these days.”

  “I sure hope so,” Tamron said with a grin. “There’s no better way to go in my book! I’ll die happy. I sure hope so! But you’re right. I go overboard. Now I’m tired to the bone.”

  “But yet you still managed enough energy to drop by here. Which means you came for a very specific reason.”

  “You know it’s for a reason,” Tamron said as she began removing her gloves. “I’m a very busy woman too you know. You aren’t the only somebody running something around here.”

  “You’re absolutely correct,” Roz agreed. “I run this talent agency, and you run your mouth.”

  Tamron laughed. “You’re wrong for that, Roz! I run Benny’s foundation, thank you very much.”

  “So what’s up? What did you have to say that a phone call couldn’t say?”

  “I wanted to know the answer.”

  Roz was puzzled. “What answer?”

  “Rosalind! The answer about the invitation to my masquerade ball!”

  Roz remembered. “Oh, right! I’ll be there, yeah.”

  Tamron looked sidelong at Roz. “Come on now, you know what I mean. Will Mick be there? That’s the question I need an answer to. I know you’ll support me. You always support me. But I need that hubby of yours to be there too.”

  “He can’t make it, sorry.”

  Tamron’s look changed from whimsical to disappointed. “You asked him, Roz?”

  “Of course I asked him! Why would you think I wouldn’t?”

  “Because I know how you protect his ass. But if you only knew!”

  Roz stared at Tamron. “If I only knew what?” she asked.

  But Tamron wasn’t going to go there. “What reason did he give this time?”

  “He doesn’t have to give me a reason, Tam. I asked if he would come with me to your annual charitable event, and he said no.”

  “And you just left it at that?”

  Roz frowned. “Yes, I left it at that. How did you expect me to leave it?”

  “When I truly want something from my husband,” Tamron said firmly, “I know how to get it. I’m just saying.”

  “Your husband isn’t Mick Sinatra,” Roz shot back. “I’m just saying.”

  Tamron leaned her head back. Like Roz, she was a petite African-American woman. But unlike Roz, her beauty was more in her style and self-confidence than in any actual attractiveness. “I was really counting on Mick showing up this time,” Tamron said. “I already told people he was going to be there. That’s why they RSVP’d. People want to rub elbows with a gorgeous bad boy CEO like him. He’s good for business. This was going to be my biggest fundraising event ever. I was counting on him, Roz!”

  “I don’t know why,” Roz said. “I told you I would ask him, but I also told you he was probably going to say no.”

  “Oh, come on Roz! He loves your black ass! If you would have bothered to work that magic right, he would have said yes.”

  Roz was dismissive. “I don’t know what magic you’re talking about.”

  “The magic that’s in that twinkle in your big eyes and in those dimples on your pretty face. And especially that magic in that golden retreat between your legs.”

  Roz laughed. “Girl bye! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I do know!” Tamron fired back. “I know Mick Sinatra did not put a ring on your finger, of all these attractive fingers around this town he could have put a ring on, just because he likes your brain power. He likes your fuck power. Don’t get it twisted now. A man like him has to have that, and you gave him that unlike any other woman was givin
g it to him. And what’s upsetting to me is that you could have used it to get his Italian ass to come to my ball. But you didn’t!”

  “Oh, please, Tam,” Roz said with a dismissive wave of her hand. It was always all about Tamron. “You’re full of shit.”

  “No, you’re full of shit!” Tamron fired back. “You know I’m telling the truth! Now will you at least ask him again, and this time in the bedroom?”

  “No.”

  “Please, Roz?”

  “No! Just because you’re saying I’ve got all this power over him doesn’t make it true. He’ll send a very generous check. I’ll see to that. And I’ll be there. But contrary to what you are so certain of, I cannot make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. And he doesn’t want to attend your masquerade ball or anybody else’s. Besides, what about all of those big names you dropped last week? Who were they again? The Bloombergs, the Kirklands, the Viettis, the Yannicks? Even the Kardashians, right? Aren’t they still coming?”

  “Very funny,” Tamron said. “You know I never mentioned any Kardashians!”

  “But everybody else is still coming, right?”

  “I still need Mick though,” Tamron tried to impress upon her friend. “I promised them Mick!”

  “Then that’s a promise you can’t keep,” Roz said bluntly. She knew her husband. Tam was wasting her time. “Sorry,” Roz added.

  Tamron didn’t respond, as if she was moving on too, but she knew better. Because she had a trump card. She had the kind of goods on Mick Sinatra that would change his mind in a heartbeat. She valued Roz’s friendship. But she knew, if what she had to do got back to Roz, it could fracture that friendship irreparably. But Tamron was the queen of the ball in Philly, and she had promised too many people that Mick Sinatra would be at her biggest ball yet. She didn’t give a damn what Roz said. He was going to be there.

  “Anyway,” she said, “what have you been up to today? No, let me guess this time: trying to get jobs for those sorry-ass clients of yours.”

  “They aren’t sorry, and yes, I’m trying to get them jobs. That’s my job.”

  But Tamron, who knew Roz well, saw something more. “So what’s going on? And don’t tell me nothing because I see it in your eyes. It’s not the twins, is it?”

  “The twins? No, they’re great.”

  “I was gonna say,” Tamron said. “Mick has four nannies helping you? You should never have a complaint about your children ever.” But she continued to stare at Roz. “So what is it?” she asked again.

  Roz needed to get it off her chest, and Tamron knew the history. There would be no need for explanations. “I saw Chad today,” she said.

  Tamron was floored. “Chad Dawkins? Get out! When, girl? Where?”

  “Today at lunch,” Roz said. “At Akon’s.”

  “But I don’t get it. What is he doing in Philly?”

  “On business I guess,” Roz responded. “How should I know? It’s not exactly a small town.”

  “You’re right about that.” Then Tamron shook her head. “But dang. That had to feel strange seeing his butt again.”

  “Strange wasn’t the word. It was beyond strange. And to make it worse, Joey’s mother was at Akon’s too, and she saw my reaction. She ran and told Mick.”

  “She told him? But how would she know the history?”

  “She doesn’t know the details,” Roz said. “She apparently saw how freaked out I was when I saw him, and she told Mick about my response. I don’t know. Whatever she told him it concerned him enough that he dropped everything and came and saw me.”

  “And you better not have told him anything about that crazy-ass Chad.”

  “I didn’t,” Roz said. “At least I didn’t tell him the full story.” A sorrowful look appeared in Roz’s eyes. “But I should have.”

  Tamron nearly jumped out of her skin. “Are you kidding me? Why would you?”

  “What do you mean why? He’s my husband and I don’t like lying to him.”

  “Who’s lying?” Tamron asked. “You just aren’t telling him the whole story.”

  “I lied, in other words.”

  “Don’t tell him, Roz,” Tamron insisted. “He won’t look at you the same if you tell him the truth.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Roz said.

  “Mick Sinatra is the first relationship you’ve ever had that didn’t end badly,” Tamron also reminded her. “If you go down that Chad road with him, you just might end up with another heartbreak on your hands. Don’t tell him, girl. I beg of you. Don’t tell him!”

  Roz heard her friend. But she hated the times when she caught Mick in half-truths. She hated when he didn’t tell her the whole story and she had to find out the hard way. Despite Tamron’s advice, she knew she had to tell.

  She believed Mick loved her, and she had to depend on that love. Because she knew Tamron was probably right. It was going to change how she looked in his eyes. That innocence he seemed to bestow on her would be shattered forever. But she also knew she had to be woman enough to accept a past he had a right to know about. She had to be woman enough to accept a past she could not change.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mick Sinatra had five living children from four different women. Three of those children, Joey, Gloria, and Teddy, were grown. The other two, Michello Sinatra, Jr., named after Mick himself, and Jacqueline Sinatra, named after Mick’s deceased sister, were twin babies Mick and Rosalind had together. Although all of his grown children harbored resentment over the fact that he was not there for them emotionally when they were growing up, only financially, Gloria and Teddy had long since moved on. They doubted if Joey, the youngest of the three in his early twenties, ever would.

  “They’re late,” Joey said. He and his siblings were seated in a large booth at a family restaurant waiting for Mick and Roz to arrive. All three were seated on one side of the booth, with Gloria in the middle. Joey looked at his watch. “They’re never on time for these so-called family dinners.”

  “Dad and Roz are very busy people,” Teddy said. “Sometimes busy people run late.”

  “That’s right, Teddy,” Joey said. “Keep making excuses for Dad. When he chain-whips your ass one of these days, I’ll bet you won’t be excusing him then.”

  Although Teddy dismissed Joey’s slight with a charming smile and a wave of the hand, Gloria looked at her younger brother. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why?”

  Joey looked at her. Like Teddy, Joey was white. But like Mick’s twins, Gloria was biracial black and white. And Mick’s oldest daughter. She and Mick seemed to have a growing bond Joey envied. “What do you mean why?” he asked her.

  “Why did Daddy chain-whip you like that? He didn’t just do it for the hell of it.”

  “Oh, and you know him like that, do you, Glo?” Joey asked. “Well let me tell you something, Miss Blind, you don’t know shit about Mick Sinatra! He wasn’t a father to any of us until here recently, so you don’t know him, alright?”

  “But I know his ass,” Teddy said.

  “Yeah, right,” Joey said doubtfully.

  “I know him better than you!” Teddy shot back. “I’ve seen how sadistic he can be. I’m the only one who truly knows him in this bitch, so watch yourself, little brother. Which means Gloria’s right. Dad did not beat your ass for the hell of it. You can pretend he did. You can pretend all this anger and resentment you please. But I know better. I know Dad. I work with Dad. He’d just as soon kill you rather than waste his time beating you for nothing. He didn’t beat your ass for nothing.”

  “Yeah, well,” Joey said, still angry, “Dad’s the one who better watch out. That’s all I know. I know I’m going to beat his ass if he tries to chain-whip mine again.”

  Teddy laughed. “You ain’t gonna do shit,” he said with another dismissive wave of his hand, “so cut the bull. Dad will have you sleeping in your grave you come at him like that.” Then Teddy exhaled, staring at the chain marks on his brother’s arms. “But that ain’t right.”


  “I still want to know why,” Gloria said. She looked at her kid brother. “What did you do that made Dad put a chain to you?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Joey insisted. “Why do you keep asking me that? He hates me, that’s why he did it, okay? He hates my guts.” Then a sad look appeared in his eyes. “Because he hates my mother, he hates me.”

  A sad look came over Gloria and Teddy too. “It’s not just you,” Gloria admitted.

  Joey looked at her. She was really very beautiful even to him. “What do you mean?”

  “None of us are where we want to be with Dad.”

  “None of us,” Teddy agreed.

  Joey was surprised to hear it. “But you two have a great relationship with Dad. He promoted you to an executive in his corporation, Glo, and you’re his right hand man Teddy in his other business. You’re almost like one of his underbosses for crying out loud. What do you mean none of us are where we want to be with Dad? How can you put yourselves in my category?”

  “Because we’re all in this boat together, Joey,” Gloria tried to explain. “And it’s a leaky-ass boat because it’s Dad. If you do everything he wants you to do, it’s great. But if you don’t . . .” Gloria looked at Teddy.

  “If you don’t,” Teddy finished for her, “then it’s hell to pay. He’s merciless.”

  Joey decided to test it. “Even with Roz?” he asked.

  Teddy frowned. “Hell yeah.”

  “I heard he beats her ass when she messes up,” Joey said. “That true?”

  “I’ve never seen him lay a hand on her,” Gloria said. “No, it’s not true.”

  Teddy, however, remained silent. Gloria, surprised, looked at him. “Right, Teddy?”

  “Let’s just put it this way,” he said to his younger siblings. “He don’t put up with our bullshit, and he don’t put up with hers either.”

  Joey smiled. He knew his mother and Hillary would love to hear that. “Mick the Tick. Mick the ticking time bomb. What a nickname. I heard Dad was a ruthless sonafabitch when he was young!”