Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall Read online

  “And what, pray tell,” Teddy said, “makes you think he still isn’t?”

  Gloria laughed. Joey did too. “You’ve got a point there,” he said.

  And they continued to drink their drinks and laugh and talk as if their lives were ordinary too. Joey was especially having a blast. He truly loved Gloria and Teddy. He even loved the twins, although he wasn’t allowed around them after Mick put that beating on him. He had already decided to ask tonight if he could start hanging around them again. That, more than anything else, would prove to him if he was back on his father’s good side.

  Mick arrived nearly half an hour late. Joey elbowed Gloria when he saw their father enter the restaurant. All three children looked as he walked toward them. They stared at their father as if they were staring at something alien. He was a muscle-tight tall man, with a swag that had most women in the room taking modest, and not-so-modest peeps at him as he walked past. But he was such a contradiction to his children.

  Like tonight. As they sat there and stared at him, he didn’t look gangster at all. He looked like the very proper CEO of Sinatra Industries most people in Philly knew him as. He wore the kind of uber-expensive, dark gray pinstripe business suit that made him look so conservative, so mainstream respectable, that each one of his children wondered why he didn’t just go with that and leave the other business, the dangerous business, alone.

  But then, as he came closer and they saw that cold stare in his green eyes, and that up-close smoldering look that encapsulated him, they knew why the dangerous was necessary. He bought the danger to the dangerous. Not the other way around. He was smart enough to go legit too, but they knew, deep down, Mick Sinatra was as gangster as they came.

  But his children were walking contradictions too. Because, although they knew their father had that bad-boy-on-a-massive-scale side to him, they were unbelievably proud to be his children. He impressed them unlike any other human being could. They wanted his love and acceptance so badly that it pained them. They felt that he was their connection. They felt that they were special because they knew he was.

  “Dad, hey,” Teddy said as Mick arrived at their booth. Sitting on the outside end, he actually stood up and shook his father’s hand. They might have had a father-son relationship, but Teddy worked for Mick. He was one of Mick’s men. And Mick’s men stood whenever he entered a room. Joey’s heart was hammering so hard that he couldn’t stand even if he wanted to. Gloria smiled.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said.

  “Come and give me a hug,” Mick said before he realized he had said it, and all three of his children were surprised. But he couldn’t help it. Gloria had been in Paris with her mother the last couple days. He missed her.

  Gloria gladly slid across the booth seat, stood up, and hugged her father.

  “Welcome back,” Mick said as they stopped their embrace. “How’s your mother? Still upset with me?”

  “Always,” Gloria said with a smile.

  But before she could sit back in her seat, Mick, to everybody’s shock, got in the booth and slid over beside Joey, taking over where Gloria had originally sat. Gloria smiled at Teddy with that WTF look they often shared, but she sat down on the end where Teddy had been sitting. Teddy sat across from his siblings and father gladly. Because he knew how Mick’s mind worked. He knew Mick’s decision to sit in the middle had less to do with him and Gloria, and more to do with attempting to mend his fractured relationship with young Joey.

  If Joey’s heart was hammering before just because his father showed up, it was outright pounding now that his father was sitting beside him. He had such strong emotions when it came to his father!

  Like now, even Mick’s fresh, cologne scent, and the bigness of his body in the confined space against Joey’s slender frame, where their arms actually touched, was a heady feeling.

  And it made Joey think. Why should he want the love of this man more than the love of his own mother? His mother had always been there for him when his father didn’t give a damn about him. When he was a kid, he was always looking for Mick to show up when he almost never did. It was his mother who nursed his wounded pride and picked up the pieces of his broken heart. But yet it was Mick he wanted to please. It was Mick he loved with all his broken heart.

  Mick looked at his son. Although Joey was in his early twenties, he often behaved even younger than that, a fact that often infuriated Mick. But Roz told him to make an extra effort with Joey. He was the youngest of Mick’s grown children. He still felt the sting of Mick’s absence in his earlier life more that Teddy and Glo. “Hello, Joey,” he said to him.

  Joey attempted to smile. He wanted to reunite with his old man too. But he only managed a barely registered smirk. “Hey.”

  Mick glanced at his son’s small arm and could see the remaining scars of that beating he put on him. And he knew the emotional scars were even worst. But it was a necessary beating, one Mick would never take back.

  The waitress arrived at the table, took Mick’s drink order, and left.

  Mick looked at Teddy. “So where’s my wife? I thought I told you to pick her up.” Mick was concerned about Roz’s stress level earlier, and the fact that he was dealing with some unknown enemy that stole his shipment. Until he knew who the bad guys were, he was keeping a tighter rein on her.

  “I was going to pick her up,” Teddy said. “But she told me she had to deal with a distraught client or something and couldn’t leave the office right away. She said she’ll meet us here.”

  “And she’s not here?” Mick asked.

  Teddy realized Roz wasn’t known for her tardiness. “No, sir,” he said.

  Mick quickly reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and called her. Joey rolled his eyes. It was always about Roz all the time!

  “I hope she’s on her way,” Gloria said as Mick made his call. “I have a hot date tonight. You guys are cutting into my date time!”

  Teddy smiled. “And why is that, Glo? Because those men you date are so old they have to be in bed by eleven?”

  Joey laughed. Gloria threw her napkin at him.

  “Where are you?” Mick asked when Roz came on the line.

  “I’m just leaving the office, sorry,” Roz said over the phone. “I had to tell a client she didn’t get a certain role in a play and it didn’t go so well. But I’m on my way.”

  “Drive carefully,” Mick said, “but get here.”

  “I will,” she said. They ended the call, and Mick sat his phone on the table. “Who with?” he asked, and then looked at Gloria.

  “Yeah,” Teddy asked, smiling at his half-sister. It was no secret to anyone that he was impressed with Gloria. If he had to pick a woman, he would want his woman to be just like Glo. And he didn’t mean because of her physical beautiful either. But because of her heart and spirit and decency. “Who is this hot date?”

  “None of your business,” Gloria said to Teddy.

  “None of mine either?” Mick asked.

  Gloria’s heart began to beat faster. She knew, if she said the name, her father would run a background check on the guy, declare him unsuitable, and that would be the end of a budding romance. She felt she had no choice. “His name is Derby,” she said.

  Mick leaned back. He wasn’t even looking at Gloria, but Teddy, who knew his father’s moods better than any of them, knew that he was highly pissed with her.

  Teddy, fearing for his sister, decided to give her an out. “Now tell us his real name,” he said with a grin.

  When Gloria looked his way, he gave a slight head movement toward their father. It was only then did Gloria realize that Mick, and the spies he often had tailing his children, probably already knew chapter and verse about her new love interest. He probably knew more than she knew about the guy. And she had the nerve to lie to him? “I knew you were going to say that,” she said to her brother, thankful for his heads-up. “His real name is Deburt Morney. Alright?”

  “How old is he?” Teddy asked. “Let me guess. Dad’
s age, right?”

  “Very funny,” Gloria said, although Mick wasn’t laughing at all. He knew the fact that Gloria was always attracted to older men was because she had daddy issues. Because he wasn’t there for her when she needed him most. “No, he’s not Dad’s age,” she said to Teddy.

  “But older than you?” Teddy asked.

  Gloria didn’t respond and took a sip from her drink instead. When a lull in the conversation occurred, Gloria decided to go there. It was the only way, she felt, that her private life wouldn’t be the hot topic of conversation. “Dad,” she said, “may I ask you something?”

  Mick looked at her. She was the spitting image of her mother Bella Caine, which meant she was most attractive. But she also had her mother’s inquisitiveness that sometimes veered too far from her business into his. A trait that irritated him. “You may ask,” he said.

  “Why did you beat Joey the way you did?”

  Teddy and Joey both were stunned that Gloria had asked that question. They couldn’t believe she had gone there. But if anybody could get away with it with their father, they also knew, it was Glo.

  Mick could have been upset, but to Gloria’s relief, he wasn’t. “Did your brother not tell you why?” he asked her.

  “He told us what he wanted us to know.”

  “Which was nonsensical even to our simple minds,” Teddy added.

  “None of your business,” Joey interjected to both of his siblings. “That’s what happened!”

  “Your brother,” Mick said, refusing to go along with Joey’s attempt to end the conversation, “participated in the kidnapping of Sal Gabrini’s son.”

  Both Teddy and Gloria looked at Joey with pure shock in their eyes. “He what?” they both asked in unison.

  “If I would have allowed Sal Gabrini to do to your brother what he wanted to do to him,” Mick continued, “he would not have been scarred by a chain beating by my hand. He would have been dead by a bullet from Sal’s hand.”

  “Damn right, Joey,” Teddy said with a frown on his face. “What the fuck were you thinking? You fucked with Sal Gabrini? Sal Gabrini? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Joey frowned. “It has nothing to do with you, aw’ight? Dad took care of it. I have the scars to prove it!” He held out his scarred arms. “So I don’t know why you’re tripping about it now. It’s over.”

  Gloria shook her head. “You need counseling, boy.”

  “Maybe I should give him an ass-whipping too,” Teddy said angrily. “For being stupid!”

  “Forget you!” Joey said with equal venom, and looked out of the window.

  Mick’s drink arrived just as his cell phone began to ring. When he looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Roz, he picked up immediately. “Are you outside?” he asked.

  “I’m on Tyler. Across from Glasco. I just rear-ended somebody, Mick. They just suddenly hit on brakes and I had no choice.”

  Mick’s heart pounded. He immediately smelled a rat. “Has the police arrived?” he asked as he motioned for Gloria to let him out.

  “No. It just happened. I haven’t even gotten out of the car yet.”

  “Don’t get out until I get there!” he ordered. “Are people around? Are other cars around?”

  “No, not really.”

  A terrified look appeared on Mick’s face. His children had never seen him so unhinged.

  “Drive away right now,” he ordered.

  “I tried already,” Roz said. “My car won’t crank. But I’ve got my gun out, it’s loaded, and I’m going to shoot the first motherfucker who tries anything stupid!”

  Thank goodness she had balls, Mick felt. “Good,” he said. “You fire on those fuckers first and ask questions later. I’m on my way!”

  “But Dad,” Joey said, astounded. “You’re going to just leave?”

  But Mick was doing just that. He was running out of that restaurant. He was pulling out his second cell phone, phoning his men to get to Tyler too, and running.

  Teddy, who knew the peril Roz could be in, tossed a hundred dollar bill on the table, jumped up, and was running behind him.

  “Let’s go too, Joey!” Gloria said urgently as she grabbed her purse and ran behind their father and brother.

  Joey was in a state of shock. He hadn’t had a chance to ask their father anything he wanted to ask him. He hadn’t had a chance to get back in his old man’s good graces the way his mother and Hillary wanted. Now they were off to the races over that damn Roz again. Roz again! But he didn’t hesitate. He was off to the races too.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They jumped into their father’s four-seater Maserati and had barely closed the door when Mick put pedal to the medal and sped off. The pure power sound of that revved up engine caused the valets to smile and shake their head as the car sped away from the restaurant. When it made it onto the street, it completed a fast U-turn, and then flew.

  Gloria and Joey sat in the backseat, while Teddy sat up front with their father, and all three held on for dear life. Their father might have been dressed conservatively in his expensive business suit, but he was changing gears like an all-pro racer. Zoom! the car went. Za-zoom! it went some more. And Mick was turning corners and going around curves as if he lived for this shit.

  And Joey, who wanted to live for this kind of adrenalin rush too, was elated. He loved it! He looked at his father, at his big biceps so muscle-tight even through that suit coat, at the way he maneuvered through traffic, and he loved him for being so big and strong and so fucking cool. He wanted to be just like him! He had to get back in his good graces. He had to do everything in his power to make this right. Because he loved this! He wanted this! He wanted to be just like Mick the Tick.

  When Mick finally arrived at the scene, he saw Roz still sitting in the bright red Rolls Royce he purchased for her, as he had instructed her. An older white couple, presumably the owners of the severely wrecked minivan, was standing beside her car. They looked innocent enough to Mick, like two middle America people who actually didn’t have a clue, but he still wasn’t taking any chances. He pulled his gun from his glove compartment. “Wait here,” he ordered Gloria and Joey. “Back me up,” he ordered Teddy.

  Teddy pulled out his gun and stayed at the ready as Mick got out of the car with his own gun concealed at his side.

  When Roz saw Mick approaching through her rearview mirror, she got out of her car. She would have sooner, because she was pretty certain the old couple had no hidden agenda, but she obeyed Mick and waited. Now she was relieved to see him. “You got here super-fast,” she said as he approached her.

  “Everybody okay?” Mick asked, although his entire focus was on Roz.

  “We’re fine,” the woman said.

  “Just sorry it all happened,” said the man.

  Mick moved to the front to see the extent of the damage to the Rolls. It was extensive. Total loss extensive, in his view. “Police called yet?” he asked.

  “Well, no, sir,” the old man said. “We didn’t see any need for that. Given how it was just a simple accident. I hit on brakes because I was about to miss my turn, and the young lady here simply couldn’t stop in time. It’s my fault entirely.”

  When Mick heard those words, he stared into that man’s eyes. He wasn’t buying what he was selling. In Mick’s world, only a fool would admit guilt when he was the one rear-ended. This man didn’t look like a fool to Mick.

  He moved up to the man, placed his gun in the man’s gut, and placed his hand around the man’s neck. Roz was stunned.

  “Who paid you?” Mick asked the man.

  “What are you doing?” the man’s wife asked, astounded too. But even Roz could see a change in her look too.

  Teddy, behind them, got out of the Mick’s car and began looking around for any ambush activity. But he wasn’t needed. Mick’s men, who had been ordered to the scene, arrived in an SUV. They arrived five men deep, led by Mick’s best enforcers: Danny Padrone and Angelo Jovanni. All five got out.

  “
Frisk him,” Mick said to Angelo.

  Angelo patted the driver down. “He’s clean, boss,” he said.

  “Tell me who paid you,” Mick said, “or I will splatter your brains right on this thoroughfare, and pile your wife’s on top of it. Who paid you to force this accident?”

  Roz was astounded by Mick’s perception of these people. How could he think they were being paid at all? What did he see that she didn’t see?

  “Nobody’s paying us,” the driver said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

  “So you expect me to believe that your sudden brake slam was innocent?” Mick asked.

  The driver knew he couldn’t insult the man’s intelligence. He obviously knew better. “No, sir,” he said. “I’m not saying that. But nobody paid us to do it, honest. We do it by ourselves.”

  Roz frowned. “You do what by yourselves?”

  “Insurance fraud,” the woman said. “We don’t know what this is about,” she added nervously, “but we didn’t think she was anybody special. I mean, we didn’t know she belonged to somebody like you or we wouldn’t have done it.”

  Roz was amazed. “So you caused this accident on purpose?” she asked.

  The woman nodded. The man spoke. “This is what we do. We go from town to town doing it. Most people just give us some money at the scene, and sometimes we file a claim. But nobody’s putting us up to it. It’s just how we supplement our income.”

  Roz smiled and shook her head. “I’ll be damn,” she said. “I never would have guessed it in a million years. I’m thinking I’m dealing with Ma and Pa Kettle when I’m really dealing with Bonnie and Clyde!”

  Mick’s men laughed. Even Bonnie and Clyde relaxed.

  But Mick didn’t. Because he wasn’t buying their oh golly gee act. He wasn’t buying it at all. “Ted!” he yelled.

  Teddy hurried to his father’s side. Joey and Gloria, still inside the Maserati, leaned forward to see what was about to go down.

  “Yes, sir?” Teddy asked as he hurried up to Mick.

  “Take them to McCormick.” McCormick was the name of one of Mick’s safe houses on McCormick Blvd. “They’re bullshitting me now. Taking me for a fool. Get the real story. Stay there until their asses tell you who’s the brains behind the act.”