BIG DADDY SINATRA 2: IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, Book 2 (2 page)

Reuben
was so shaken that it was only after he saw the others running their way, did
he realize what Jenay was saying, and what she was attempting to do.
 
Her baby was in that wreckage.
 
He remembered that her baby was in that
car.
 
His heart dropped again.

But
because he was still the closest to her, he quickly got up, ran to Jenay, and
grabbed her just as she was dangerously close to tossing herself in those
flames.

She
fought to break free from him.
 
She
didn’t care about her own safety.
 
She
didn’t care about her own life.
 
Her
daughter was in that car!
 
“What are you
doing?” she asked him, she pleaded with him. “My child is in there.
 
My child!
 
My baby!
 
Let me go, Reub!
  
Let me
go
!”

But
there was no way he could let her go.
 
And the other men in town who came to help him, wouldn’t let her go
either.
 
Because they all knew it was
over.
 
They all knew it was a tragedy of
monumental proportions and there were no two ways about it.
 
Nobody could possibly get out of that kind of
fire alive.
 
Not Jenay, if they allowed
her to go into it.
 
Not the Nanny, who
probably didn’t know what had hit them the way that car exploded so
suddenly.
 
Not even Big Daddy Sinatra’s
bouncing baby girl.

It
would take a miracle.

CHAPTER ONE

One Month Earlier

Charles
Sinatra drove his big, shiny pickup truck along the long, dusty driveway that
led to the isolated two-story home.
 
It
wasn’t as if he had time for this.
 
He
didn’t.
 
There were at least a dozen other
matters he needed to address than to have to deal with yet another
refuse-to-vacate order.
 
The police
department was supposed to handle it, but those politically correct
yellowbellies rarely handled anything right.
 
They were too willing to bend and even break the law because everybody
in Jericho knew everybody else and it was as if they were passing judgment on
their own neighbors.
  
They could never
bring themselves to just throw the bums out the way the court order said they
were supposed to throw them out.
  
Not
these fine folks.
 
Not their own
neighbors.
 

The
cops, instead, would often phone Charles’s assistants, or even Charles himself
and try to get him to show some mercy and compromise.
 
His son, Charles Brenton “Brent” Sinatra,
Jr., a young man who had only become a cop a couple years earlier, had already
called him on this case.
 
He, too, wanted
Charles to show mercy and compromise.
 
But his call angered Charles even more than the fact that his oldest
child had decided to become a cop in the first place, rather than helping him
run his numerous businesses.

But
Brent kept trying anyway.
 
“If you’d only
give Mr. Puck thirty more days to vacate,” Brent had said on the phone to his
father, “then I’m sure we’ll be able to get him to leave on his own by then.”

But
Charles knew better than that.
 
Give a
Jericho moocher thirty days, he’d want thirty more.
 
And then thirty more after that.
 
He told Brent no.
 
“Either you and your police department move
that moocher out,” Charles had said to his son, “or I will.”
 

That
was four days ago.
 
Now today, Obadiah
Puck was still on his land, still talking noise with a rifle in his hand as if
he was the one in charge, and Charles was tired of the back and forth.
 
He knew then that he would have to come
himself, the way he was coming now, to shut the whole thing down.

Charles
stopped his truck behind the action, to assess the situation that he was about
to thrust himself upon.
 
He saw Brent
standing behind his patrol car, trying to reason with the man.
 
Along with his partner, Marty Martin, they
seemed to be asking, demanding, and even begging Obadiah Puck to put his rifle
down.

But
Puck wasn’t listening.
 
He was sitting in
his rocker on that porch, his rifle pointed at the cops, telling them that they
weren’t forcing him off his land.
 
His
land, Charles thought angrily, when
Puck didn’t own shit and hadn’t paid the rent on that land in months on
end.
 
Where do these people get the
nerve?
 

And
when Brent tried to come from behind the patrol car to show Puck the judge’s
order, Puck pointed his rifle and warned him not to take another step.
 
He didn’t care what papers they presented, or
which judge signed them.
 
He wasn’t
leaving.
 
That was all there was to
it.
 
He sat on that porch like a man on a
mission.
 
He was a foot soldier in the
army of the constitution, he said, fighting the government against government
intrusion and any other cause he could think up.
 
Nobody was taking
his
land.

That
sanctimonious babble was enough for Charles.
 
He floored the gas and drove his truck until it stopped alongside the
patrol car.
 
Twenty-five year old Brent
Sinatra looked over when he saw his father arrive.
 
Brent was no little kid anymore.
 
He was, in fact, the newly promoted sergeant
with the Jericho Police Department.
 
But
he was relieved that his father had come.
 
It was his father’s property after all.
 
It was his father who had filed this force-removal request after all.
 

But
he also knew how his father could be.
 
But this was Jericho, not some big city metropolis where the cops gave
you five seconds to put your weapon down, and then shot you dead.
 
Nobody was getting shot over land.
 
Not even his own father’s land.
 
Brent was going to see to that.

But
when Charles got out of that truck with that stern, uncompromising look on his
face, even Brent knew it wasn’t up to him anymore.
 
His father didn’t take a backseat to anyone,
especially not his own son.
 
That was why
Brent wasn’t the least bit surprised when his father, without speaking niceties
to Brent or Marty, walked around to the back of his truck, pulled out a loaded
rifle of his own, and began to walk toward his contrary tenant.

But
Brent was an officer of the law now.
 
He
couldn’t allow his father to just dismiss their authority that easily.
 
They didn’t live in a society of
vigilantism.
 
They lived in a society of
laws.

“Not
necessary, Dad,” he said to his father as soon as he saw that rife.
 
“We’ve got this under control, and I want to
keep it that way.”

But
just like Obadiah Puck, his father wasn’t listening either.
 
He immediately headed straight for the porch.

“Dad!”
Brent yelled.
 
“
Dad
!”

But
Charles kept walking.
 
Puck, seeing his
advance, stood up from his rocking chair.
 
“Stop right there, Big Daddy,” Puck said as he cocked the hammer of his
rifle.
 
“Come one more step and I’ll blow
your
got
damn head off!”

“And
while you’re blowing mine off,” Charles said as he cocked his own rifle and
didn’t stop his advance one inch, “I’ll blow yours off.
  
We’ll be two headless motherfuckers on this
property today.”

“I’m
not playing now!” Obadiah said, flustered that he was still coming.

“I’m
not playing either,” Charles responded, still coming, still pointing his rifle
too.
 
“You’re getting off of my land,
Obadiah.
 
And you’re getting off right
now.”

Puck
looked over at Brent and Marty, as if he expected them to do something all of a
sudden, but they didn’t make a move.
 
It
was too late.
 
When he had his chance to
settle this peacefully, he refused outright.
 
Now, because of who Big Daddy Sinatra was, it was out of their hands.
 

Puck
looked back at Big Daddy.
 
“I said stop
now,” he said to Charles.
 
“I’ve got this
rifle and I tell you I’m going to use it!”

“Then
use it,” Charles said, his big green eyes now staring directly into Puck’s
small brown ones.
  
“You can use it.
 
Or you can put that rifle down and we can
talk like men.
 
And I’ll put mine down
too.
 
But at the end of that
conversation, you will be leaving this property.”

“And
go where?” Puck asked, with desperation, rather than defiance, now in his
voice.

“I
don’t know,” Charles replied honestly, as he made it to the steps of that
home.
 
“That’s not my problem.”

Puck
stared at Charles.
 
Everybody said he was
a cold sonafabitch.
 
But nobody could be
that cold.
 
“I don’t have anywhere to
go,” he said.
 
And just like that he
looked like a very broken man.
 
All of
the arrogance and pride and strong-arming he used on Brent and Marty, he didn’t
bother to try on Charles.

But
Charles, true to his reputation, showed no sympathy.
 
“You should have thought about that when you
decided not to pay rent for months on end,” he said.
 
“I’ve given you every chance you’re going to
get.
 
It’s done.
 
It’s over.
 
You’re getting off of my property today.”

Puck
frowned and started scratching his head.
 
It was as if he had forgotten all about the rifle he once brandished so
arrogantly.
 
Now it was at his side.
 
He wasn’t about to get in a gun battle with
Big Daddy Sinatra.
 
Not with a man that
mean.

Charles
saw Puck’s defeat, and glanced back at Brent and Marty.
 
It was only then did they seem to remember
that they were young cops, rather than young spectators, and sprang into
action.
 
They hurried to the porch with
their guns drawn, grabbing Puck’s rifle, kneeing him to the ground, and then
frisking and handcuffing him.
  

When
they finished, and stood him back up, Puck looked at Charles.
 
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he asked.

“No,”
Charles said.
 
Enjoyment was the last
thing this was giving him.

But
Puck didn’t believe him.
 
“Yes, you are,”
he said.
 
“You have to be.
 
Because you’re a dirty sonafabitch!”

Charles
didn’t wince.
 
It wasn’t a revelation to
him.
 
“You’re right about that,” he said.

“You’re
a man who’s going to beg for mercy one day, and nobody’s going to give it to
you!”

Charles
felt an ache deep within his soul.
 
“You’re right about that too.”

Puck
considered him.
 
“And you don’t care, do
you?”

Charles
looked at Puck.
 
He wasn’t about to get
sucked into some side issue.
 
“If you
would have paid your rent as you contractually agreed to pay it, we wouldn’t be
here.
 
You can twist it and turn it and
blame it on me until the cows come home.
 
But this is your doing.”

“I
said you didn’t care, so you’re giving me a lecture?”

“I
have no sympathy for a man who refuses to take responsibility for his own
doing,” Charles continued.
 
“So yeah,
you’re right.
 
I don’t care.
 
I don’t care one damn bit.”

Brent
glanced back at his father, and saw that hardness in his eyes, but he knew he
cared.
 
He knew he cared more than
most.
 

But
Charles wasn’t looking for his son’s understanding or anybody else’s.
 
He went back to his truck, tossed his rifle
inside the bed, and got in and took off.
 

Brent
exhaled.
 
He’d never met a man like his
father, a man who thought he knew himself so well, but didn’t know himself at
all.
 
But then Brent turned his attention
back to Puck, his prisoner, as he and Marty began walking him to their patrol
car.

“What
do you have to cuff me for?” Puck suddenly wanted to know.
 
“This is America!
 
I didn’t break any laws!”

“You
pointed a rifle at law enforcement officers,” Brent said.
 
“Even in America that’s against the law.”

“Your
pappy pointed his rifle at me!
 
Ain’t
that against the law too?
 
Why didn’t you
arrest him?”

“Because
I want to live,” Brent said, only half-jokingly.
 

Marty
laughed, knowing how Big Daddy Sinatra was too, as they pushed down Puck’s
head, and sat him inside the patrol car.

Mary
Stalworth got out of her car and hurried across the sidewalk to the entrance of
the storefront office.
 
Sinatra, Inc.
was written across the
plate-glass window.
 
Considering that
Sinatra, Incorporated owned nearly half of the entire town, it was an
unpretentious office to be sure.
 
Unpretentious office for an unpretentious man, Mary thought smartly as
she entered what was, not just any old office, but her job.
 
She was Charles Sinatra’s longtime secretary,
the backbone of his business she would say.
 
But even she knew not to cross the line with him.

Faye
McKinley, one of the three assistants in the office, was coming out of the file
room side door when a flustered-looking Mary entered the building.
 
Faye looked up, at the clock on the wall, and
then back at Mary.