BIG DADDY SINATRA 2: IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, Book 2 Page 7

  “She hates me,” Donald said as he sat on the leather couch inside his father’s downtown office. His father, comfortably slouched down, was seated beside him.

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Charles responded. “She doesn’t like your attitude with her staff. She’s not crazy about your work ethic.”

  Donald’s round eyes looked puzzled. “That’s what I’m talking about. I work hard, Dad.”

  “When you bother to show up you work hard. You miss too many days. Keep it up and she’s going to kick you out on your ass.”

  “And you’ll let her, won’t you?”

  “I’ll let her, yes.”

  Donald sighed. “She can do no wrong in your eyes, even though she . . .”

  Charles looked at his son. “Even though she what?”

  “She flirts all the time, Dad, with every man around there. I mean all of them. Ask anybody. She’s taking you for a fool.”

  Charles didn’t say anything. He just continued to sit there, and to look at his son.

  “I’m only telling you what I know,” Donald said. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

  Charles only looked away from Donald when he heard his office door open. Jenay peered inside. “Are you decent?” she asked.

  “Barely,” Charles said, as he remained in his slouched position. “Come on in.”

  Donald’s body stiffened as Jenay opened the door further and walked on in. “Look who I picked up in the parking lot,” she said as she entered.

  Brent walked in with her. “Hey, Dad,” he said. Then he looked at his baby brother. “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “Good question,” Jenay asked.

  “Why is it your business?” Donald asked and Charles looked at him. “I’m talking to Brent,” he quickly corrected. “Not your wife.”

  Jenay ignored him anyway as she walked toward her husband. Charles held out his hand to her and pulled her down onto his lap.

  Donald looked at Brent. “For your information,” he said, “I left work because I needed to talk to Dad.”

  “Talk to him later,” Brent responded, motioning for Donald to get up. “I need to talk to him now.”

  Donald frowned. “Then wait until I finish. You don’t tell me what to do!”

  Brent looked at his youngest brother. “Don’t make me make you,” he warned.

  Donald didn’t like it, but he knew Brent. In some ways, he was as tough as their father. “I’ll talk to you later, Dad,” he said, as he stood up. “I’m going back to the Inn.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Charles responded.

  Jenay and Donald both looked at him.

  “I’m not?” Donald asked.

  “No. You’re not. You’re fired.”

  This surprised Jenay, who ran the Inn. “He is?”

  “He is,” Charles responded.

  “But why?” Donald wanted to know. His blue eyes were filled with puzzlement.

  “You lied on my wife. That’s why. I don’t want you around her.”

  “What did he lie about?” Jenay asked.

  “I was just kidding around,” Donald said.

  “What did he lie about?” Jenay asked Charles again.

  “He says you flirt with every man that dawns the doors of Jericho Inn. He claims the place is now a cesspool of your flirtatiousness. He all but implied that I shouldn’t trust you within a hundred yards of any nice looking man. He lied on you.”

  Jenay appreciated the fact that Charles didn’t dignify those lies by asking her to shoot them down, but she looked at Donald with very hurt eyes. She was the one who went to bat for him. She was the one who gave him a chance to prove his father wrong by hiring him in the first place. And this was how she got rewarded?

  “I was just playing,” Donald said in his lame attempt to deflect any blame. “I was just playing around, Jenay.”

  But Jenay was shaking her head. “Own your shit,” she said to her stepson. “You made those allegations behind my back. Be man enough to own those allegations to my face.”

  Donald began breathing heavily. A sure sign, Charles and Brent both knew, that he was mad as hell. But not at her, at his father. “You don’t see it, do you?” he asked Charles. “You don’t see what she’s doing to us. Ever since you married her you never have time for me. It’s all about her and the baby now. And even before you married her it was all about her. You let me rot in prison for a whole year because of her! If you wouldn’t have been with her you would have bailed me out and got me a good attorney and testified on my behalf. And I could have gotten probation instead of jail time. But you didn’t do any of those things for me. You let me rot in prison for a whole year!”

  He was in tears now. “You’re her husband now, and I respect that. But you were my dad first!”

  Charles, however, was unmoved. “You aren’t a kid anymore, Donald,” he said sternly.

  “See?” Donald responded, nodding his head. “You never understand. You always dismiss everything I say as immaturity. I’m immature, that’s all you ever say. But I want my dad back! I want to be able to talk to you and you work it out like the old days. You used to take me hunting and laugh and talk with me, and hold me. Now you don’t do any of those things with me. And I want you back! Just because you’re looking out for her now doesn’t mean you have to stop looking out for me!”

  Brent and Jenay both felt the depths of Donald’s pain. Especially Jenay, who understood it completely.

  But if they were expecting similar understanding from Charles, they were grossly disappointed. “You aren’t a kid anymore,” Charles said again. “You’re a twenty-one year old man now. You’ve got to put away this childishness. I was a husband with four sons when I was your age.”

  “I’m not you!” Donald shot back.

  “I didn’t say you were me,” Charles responded. “But you’re a man, that’s a fact. And the fact that I don’t bail you out of your stupid shit anymore doesn’t negate the additional fact that you lied on my wife. You lied on her, Donald. You sat right here and tried to create a wedge between me and Jenay like I’m some gotdamn idiot who didn’t know what you were doing!”

  Charles’s heart was racing. He knew he had to calm himself back down. “And to blame Jenay for that year you spent in prison is rich. Really rich. You nearly beat your ex-wife to death. That’s why you spent that year in prison. That wasn’t my shit. That wasn’t Jenay’s shit. That was yours. But you want me to overlook all of your crap because we don’t go hunting anymore and I don’t have time to coddle you and baby you anymore? Get the fuck out of here! Get the fuck out of my face until you take responsibility for a change and come to me correct, and stop making all of these bullshit excuses for yourself!”

  It hurt Charles to his heart to be so blunt with his son, but he knew he had to do it. Donald was still trapped in his own self-centeredness. Everything revolved around him. If he allowed him to continue to get away with his lies and manipulation, there was no end to what he could try and pull to destroy Jenay in the eyes of the people in this town. And nobody was destroying Jenay.

  Donald knew it too. That was why he didn’t try to explain anymore. He just turned and left.

  But as soon as he stepped outside and got into his Mustang, he pulled out a piece of paper, and then his cell phone. He pressed in the number and allowed the phone to ring. When it was answered, he didn’t hesitate. “You’ve got to do it,” he said. “You’ve got to do it now!”

  Back inside the office, Jenay was still reeling. Just as Charles didn’t want his son to create a wedge in his marriage, Jenay didn’t want to create a wedge between father and son. She was going out of her way to make certain Charles maintained a strong relationship with all four of his sons. But Donald was always the toughest nut to crack. He and Jenay, in truth, had yet to really get along. She had hoped the fact that he was working at the Inn would change all of that. It hadn’t changed a thing.

  Charles could feel the tenseness in her body as he held her. He pulled her
closer against him. But it couldn’t be helped. Donald was hell bent on creating havoc in their marriage, and Charles was just as hell bent in preventing him. There was liable to be confusion. There just was.

  “Don’t let him worry you, Jenay,” he warned her as he patted her thigh. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Yeah,” Brent said, sitting down beside his father and Jenay. Although Jenay was only ten years older than Brent, he respected her immensely as his father’s wife. He was very supportive, in fact, of his father’s selection. “When Tony and I were born, Dad was hard as a rock with us. But when Bobby and Donnie came along, Dad and Mom were having so many problems that he decided to go all soft on them. Now he’s paying the price. Like with Bobby.”

  Charles looked at him. “What about Robert?”

  Brent leaned forward and let out a harsh exhale. “It’s bad, Dad.”

  Charles’s heart began to pound. “What is it?”

  “I got a tip on a new drug ring operating in town earlier this morning. We busted up the group, and even arrested a few, but most of them got away. When I was searching this storage unit onsite, I found one of the participants hiding inside. It was Bobby, Dad.”

  Charles frowned. “Robert?”

  “Are you sure?” Jenay asked.

  “I’m positive. It was him.”

  “Well what did he say?” Charles asked.

  “He didn’t say anything. He was crying and all scared. But he didn’t say anything.”

  Charles hesitated. “You turned him in?” he ultimately asked.

  Brent shook his head. “I should have. I was supposed to, you know I was. But I couldn’t. He’s my brother. He’s my flesh and blood. I couldn’t do it. But I knew I had to tell you. Somebody’s got to hold him to account. He’s no knucklehead like Donnie. I didn’t want to see him rot in jail.”

  Charles nodded. But he committed to nothing. Because it felt too uncharted. It felt as if the world as he knew it, was trying to fall apart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He saw Robert before Robert saw him. He was in a part of town they called the Brook, where single-wide trailers lined the dirt roads and stray dogs and little children ran up and down the lane as if it were a playground. Charles had to avoid a few kids as he drove his Jaguar toward the broken down truck in front of a broken down trailer.

  Robert was lying across the hood of the truck in his t-shirt and gold chain, and with a beer can in his hand. A group of guys were hanging around him, listening to Twisted Sister on their boom box and lounging around. Robert looked, not like the rich kid he was, but as if he fit right in. Charles didn’t quite know what to make of it. His son was immature, but he wasn’t reckless. This behavior, running around with drug dealers, hanging out in this trailer park, was beyond reckless.

  When Robert looked up and saw the Jaguar coming, he sat up on his elbows. When he realized, as it came closer, that the Jaguar was his father’s, he sat up completely.

  Charles parked the Jaguar in front of the truck and stepped out on the front driver side. “Let’s go,” he said to Robert.

  “Who is that?” one of Robert’s friends asked him.

  “That’s Big Daddy,” another one of Robert’s friends said. “That’s his old man.”

  “Let’s go,” Charles said to Robert again.

  Robert got off of the truck, went to the Jaguar and got in. He knew his father. He wasn’t about to try him.

  Charles backed up, swerved around, and drove the Jaguar out of the Brook. He was so beside himself with anger he didn’t know quite what to do. And when they were out of the park, he asked his son the question without hesitation. “Were you at that drug bust earlier today?” he asked.

  Robert knew Brent had already told him. He suspected Brent would anyway, but it still was upsetting to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  Charles looked at him. He expected more from his sons, but too often they fell short. “I’m not playing with you, Robert. Now you answer my question. Were you at that drug bust this afternoon?”

  Robert knew his goose was cooked, but he also knew it would be worse if he didn’t deny it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said again.

  Charles immediately swerved the Jaguar onto the side of the road, got out of his car, hurried around to the passenger side, and opened the door. “Get out,” he said to his son.

  As soon as Robert stepped out, Charles yanked him by the catch of his collar and flung him against the car. “I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you lie to me I declare I’ll beat the shit out of you. Were you at that drug bust today? Did Brent see you there?”

  Robert saw the chilling look in his father’s big green eyes. He knew he could no longer deny it. “Yes,” he said. “I was there.”

  “Why were you there?”

  Why do you think, Robert wanted to say. “I was there the same reason everybody else was there,” he said instead.

  “And what reason was that, smart aleck? What reason was that?”

  “Drugs,” Robert said.

  “Drugs? What do you mean drugs?”

  “We were selling drugs, Pop. We were selling drugs.”

  “Selling them?” Charles asked. “What kind of drugs? Weed?”

  “No, Dad. No weed. Meth, Heroin, crack, whatever.”

  Charles was beside himself. He really couldn’t believe it. His son was a drug dealer? He stared at Robert as if he was seeing him for the first time. “Are you telling me you’re in this community selling drugs? You’re a part of this drug problem?”

  Robert looked down. He was ashamed of himself.

  But Charles slung his head back up and took his fist and rammed it against his son’s face. He hit him again and he hit him again. Body blows, and more hits to the face. He could not believe for the life of him that a son of his would do something like this. He kept hitting him and punching him across the face. And when he knew he had to stop before he really hurt this boy, he flung him away from him. Robert lost his balance and fell onto the ground.

  Charles stood there, looking at his son, and then he slammed the passenger side door. He walked to the driver side door, got in, and sped off.

  But he didn’t stay long. He made a U-turn further down the street, drove back, and U-turned his car until he was once again on the side of the road with his son. He rolled down the passenger window. “Get in,” he ordered.

  Robert didn’t hesitate. He knew his father meant business. He got into the Jaguar.

  Brent looked up from his desk when his brother and his father entered the police station. Brent was surprised. He didn’t expect his father to turn Robert in, not Robert, but that was exactly what it appeared to have been happening. And from the look of the bruises on Robert’s face, his father had made sure he already paid part of the price.

  Robert looked at his older brother, not with anger in his eyes, but fear. He was sore afraid, Brent could tell. But Charles asked the secretary to see the chief, and was then, shortly thereafter, led into the chief’s office.

  Chief Joffee stood to his feet when Charles and Robert entered in.

  “Mr. Sinatra, good to see you again,” Joffee said gaily.

  But Charles was not in a backslapping mood. He was still stunned by this turn of events. He walked up to Joffee’s desk, with Robert by his side, and then he looked at Robert. “Tell him,” he said.

  “Tell me what?” Joffee asked.

  “Tell him,” Charles said again.

  Robert was super-reluctant, but he knew he had to do it. “Malcolm Brighton,” Robert said.

  “And who’s Malcolm Brighton?” Chief Joffee asked.

  “The supplier. The boss. The leader of the drug ring,” Robert said.

  “Oh, you mean the drug bust today?” Joffee asked.

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “And how would you know about that?” Joffee asked.

  Robert rolled his eyes. He knew he was putting himself in a spot. “I was there,�
�� Robert said.

  Joffee looked from Robert to Charles, and then back to Robert. “Are you telling me that you were a part of that drug ring?” Joffee asked.

  Robert hesitated again. But then he nodded his head. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Joffee exhaled. “And what’s this about? You want immunity for giving us this information?”

  Robert nodded his head. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  But Joffee knew Big Daddy. He knew how displeased he had to be. “It’s not up to me, but what if the DA decides against it and don’t grant you any immunity? Will you still tell us what we need to know?”

  Robert looked at his father. Charles looked at Joffee. “He’ll tell you,” he said. “Immunity or not, he’ll tell you.”

  Joffee liked that. “Well then,” he said cheerfully. “Sit down and tell us.”

  Robert and Charles sat down, as Robert told his side of the story.

  Later that evening, Charles parked his Jaguar in front of his office, walked across the sidewalk, and then walked in. He was surprised to see a group of men sitting in his waiting room. He knew every one of them. From Matt to Joe to Billy to Aaron. They were all members of the Jericho Yacht and Country Club’s governing board. They were all supposed to be his friends.

  But when he saw them sitting there, looking so smug that it was bordered on indecency, he knew it was going to be bullshit. Had they heard about Robert’s involvement with some drug dealer and wanted to voice their displeasure? Or was it more base than that? He looked at his secretary. Mary, already looking flustered, shook her head.

  Charles exhaled. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said.

  They all rose to their feet. Aaron, the chairman of the governing board, walked up to him. “We need to talk, Charles,” he said.

  Without another word, Charles escorted the gentlemen into his office. He walked behind his desk and asked each of them to have a seat. When they all sat down, he unbuttoned his suit coat, sat down too, and leaned back. And braced himself. “What is this about?” he asked them.