Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho (16 page)

But before
Mick could think about going anywhere, he had to have a heart-to-heart with his
son.
 

Roz realized
it too.
 
“Hey, guys,” she said to the
others, “why don’t we go downstairs and get some breakfast?
 
Your dad needs to talk with Joey.”

“Sure,”
Teddy said, and Gloria was all for it too.
 
Adrian didn’t see the point.
 
Why
couldn’t he talk to Joey in front of them?
 
But he conceded the point and left too.

Now it was father
and son, and Mick could tell that son was uneasy.
 
“What you want to talk about?” Joey asked
him.

Mick didn’t
mince words.
 
“Who shot you?” he asked.

Joey
hesitated.
 
“I don’t know,” he said.
 
“Some guy.”

“Who shot
you?” Mick asked again.

“I told you
I don’t know!”

“That’s what
you told me.
 
Now tell me the truth.
 
Who shot you, Joey?
 
I’m not asking your ass again.”

Joey knew he
was cooked either way.
 
“This guy named
Tony LeKirk,” he said.
 
“A small time
drug dealer.
 
A nobody.”

“Why did he
shoot you?” Mick asked.

Joey
frowned.
 
“How should I know?
 
He didn’t like my attitude.
 
We got in an argument.
 
He shot me.
 
I would have killed his ass if I was packing.
 
I would have won that fight.
 
But I wasn’t packing.
 
I’m trying to go legit like you said I had
to.”

“Nobody else
was involved in this argument?” Mick asked.

“Nobody.
 
He said I was chatting up some girl he liked
in the club, so we took it outside.
 
Why
would anybody else be involved?”

Mick didn’t
respond to that.
 
He was relieved it
appeared to be an isolated incident.
 
He
would have his men continue to investigate, just in case.
 
But he was satisfied for now.

Joey looked
at his powerful father.
 
And it was a
look that said he had other things on his mind.
 
Personal matters.
 
Like Mick’s
trip to Jericho.
 
“You have a brother,
hun?”

Mick knew
his past life was as foreign to his children as his current involvement in
their lives.
 
“Yes,” he said. “I have an
older brother.”

“What’s his
name?”

“Charles.”

“When was
the last time you saw him?”

“Briefly,
not that long ago.
 
But in terms of
talking to him and being in his presence like that, not since I was younger
than you.”

“Wow.
 
That long ago?”

Mick nodded.
“That long ago.”

“Why are you
going to see him now after all these years?”

“I’m getting
married.
 
That’s the main reason.
 
I feel my wife deserves to know her in-laws.”

“But your
children don’t deserve to know their uncle?”

 
Mick knew he had it coming.
 
He was a lousy parent and nobody was going to
tell him differently.
 
His kids would
confirm it.
 
“That’ll come,” he
said.
 
“I haven’t gotten a foot in the
door yet myself.
 
He probably will not
want to have anything to do with me.
 
But
I’m going to go and see.”

“And if he
tells you to kiss his ass?”
 
Joey looked
at him.

“Then there
will be no reunion and I’ll just have to bring my wop-ass back here.”

Joey
laughed.
 
Then he began coughing.

“Take it
easy, son,” Mick said, as he placed his hand behind Joey’s neck and held a
straw inside a cup of water to his mouth.
 

Joey was a little
stunned by his father’s touch, but loved it.
 
And when he finished drinking the water, and his coughing had died down,
they both stared into each other’s eyes.
 
And Mick leaned down and pulled him into his arms.
 
He held him.
 
Joey was overwhelmed with emotion.
 
And when they stopped embracing, and he looked into his father’s eyes,
he could tell he was emotional too.
 
No
tears.
 
Neither one of them were about to
go there.
 
But Joey could see the
feelings behind those hard eyes.

“Are you
leaving today?”

The old Mick
would have said yes.
 
The kid looked
okay.
 
He was going to pull through.
 
Why not?
 
But the Mick who was trying to do better by his children was at work
now.
 
He shook his head.
 
“Not today,” he said.
 
“When you get out of this hospital, then I’ll
go.”

Joey
smiled.
 
“Really?”

Mick
nodded.
 
“Really,” he said.

Joey didn’t
know how to react.
 
His father had never
sacrificed anything for him before.
 
A
part of him was angry about that, but the other part of him was too happy to
deal in that dirt of their past.
 
He was
going to go with it for now.
 
Because if
his father ever found out the true extent of his dealings, and why Tony
LeKirk
 
really shot him, there was going
to be hell to pay.
 
He was going to need
his father’s love unlike he had ever needed it before.

Less than a
week later, Joey was released from the hospital.
 
Although he wanted to recuperate at his
mother’s home, Mick had him moved to a safe house just in case.
 
LeKirk was dead, but Mick wasn’t all that
certain he was buying Joey’s story.
 
He
kept Joey under heavy security.

It was only
after then, only after Mick was satisfied that Joey was going to be okay, he
told Roz to clear her schedule for the following week.
 
She did.
 
And early that Monday morning, without calling to let anybody know they
were coming, they were on their way to Jericho.

It was a
cool Monday morning, weather-wise, and they both wore their leather jackets and
jeans.
 
Roz wore a red sweater shirt, a
waist-high zipper jacket, and ankle buckled boots with her jeans.
 
Mick wore a black turtleneck, his brown
bomber jacket, and expensive Bruno Magli desert boots with his.
 
Roz was especially impressed with Mick’s look,
as his thick brown hair had been wind-blown into a heavy pile on top of his head,
and strands had escaped into a bang around his forehead.

It was for
that very reason, the strength of the wind, that Roz had thought about wearing
her hair in a ponytail.
 
But she was
about to meet Mick’s long-lost, almost mythical brother Charles for the very
first time.
 
She wasn’t about to go to
Maine looking ratchet.
  
She had her
stylist do her up.
 
Now her long hair
framed her narrow face in waves of big curls.
 
And she knew her stylist had hit it out of the ballpark when Mick, who
didn’t throw around accolades easily, complimented her on her hair as soon as
he laid eyes on it.

Mick, in
fact, was in great spirits as he drove them all the way from Philadelphia to
the outskirts of Maine.
 
He had decided
to drive his bright red Maserati, deciding that it was less ostentatious than
his black Lamborghini, but that was ridiculous to Roz.
 
They both were ostentatious!
 
But leave it to flashy Mick Sinatra to view a
red hot Maserati as a conservative car.
 
They laughed about it, they were in that kind of jovial mood, and Mick
even joked that she was just jealous that her big-ass Bentley wasn’t in the
same class as any of his sports cars.
 
Since it was Mick who had given Roz the Bentley, and he was the original
owner of it, she went along with the slight.
 
He was in a great mood, given the unsettling reunion that was ahead of
them, and she was more than happy to go with the flow.

But as they
drove out of New Hampshire and were entering the great state of Maine, Mick’s
entire demeanor changed.
 
Roz noticed it when
she realized he was driving slower than usual.
 
Mick loved fast cars for a reason.
 
He drove fast.
 
But he was barely
going the speed limit.

She looked
at him as he drove, but she didn’t say a word.
 
He was miles away from her, thinking about matters she couldn’t begin to
even guess about, so she left him to it.
 
He was born and raised in Maine and this state had to harbor some
heavy-duty feelings within him.
 
She gave
him room to experience those feelings.

And for miles
upon miles she allowed him to drive his slower speed, and have his inner
conversations.
 
It could have been a
stall tactic, this uncharacteristically slow driving he was doing, and she
suspected that was part of it.
 
But she
knew Mick.
 
He wasn’t afraid to face
tough situations, like reestablishing contact with a brother he had all but
deserted.
 
This went deeper for him than
just a stall.

And sure
enough, as soon as they passed the sign that said
Jericho County, 3 Miles
, Mick pulled over to the side of the
road.
 
It was just after noon.
 
They weren’t even in Jericho yet.
 
But he pulled over.

Now Roz was
worried.
 
Was he going to back out?
 
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

Mick was
staring ahead, as if he was still trying to work it out in his mind, but then
he looked at her too.
 
But it was a
piercing, devastating look.
 
“Marry me,”
he said.

Roz
continued to stare into his big, green eyes.
 
Her look was searching for answers too.
 
Only her look was more disconcerting.
 
She was worried about him.
 
“I
already said I would,” she said.

“Marry me
now.
 
Today.
 
Before we go to Jericho.”

Roz never
made monumental decisions based on facts that were not evident to her.
 
She studied Mick’s handsome, but distressed
face.
 
What was the urgency?
 
“Why?” she asked him.

“I don’t
want to introduce you as my girlfriend.
 
I want to introduce you as my wife.”

Roz
continued to study him.
 
She didn’t
respond because she felt he owed her a more complete explanation.

Mick gave
her one.
 
“I want my brother, I want the
entire town to understand what you mean to me,” he said.
 
“They can disrespect a girlfriend.
 
They can dismiss her as one of many.
 
But they will not disrespect my wife.”

Somehow Roz
knew this was not about her.
 
Not
exactly.
 
“I understand what you’re
saying,” she said, “but whether I’m your girlfriend or your wife, I don’t care
about how they perceive me.
 
You respect
me.
 
That’s what matters to me.
 
If you respect me in front of your brother
and this entire town then I cannot ask for more, Mick.”

“So the
answer is no?” Mick asked.

“I’m going
to be frank with you,” Roz said.
 
“I
don’t want to get married in front of some strangers in some musky justice of
the peace office.
 
I don’t want that.
 
I want a church wedding, Mick.
 
I want a minister to marry us, or a priest,
not some government official.”

Mick
understood.
 
He nodded his head.

“But,” Roz
continued, “if it means this much to you then, yes, I’ll marry you right
now.
 
It won’t be what I had in mind, but
I’ll do it.”
 
She smiled.
 
“I’ll gladly do it, Mick.”

Mick smiled
too. “Quit lying.
 
You won’t gladly do
shit.”
 
Roz laughed.
 
Then he turned serious again.
 
“But thank you for being willing to.”

“I mean
it.
 
We can do it right now.”
 

 
Mick shook his head.
 
“No,” he said, taking her hand.
 
“No, we aren’t going down that road.
 
Because you’re right.
 
I want to marry you in style too.
 
I want to give you the wedding of your dreams
and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
 
No settling for less.”
 
Then he
frowned.
 
“I don’t know what came over
me.”

Roz
suspected he knew exactly what, but he wasn’t ready to face it.
 
But if they were going to be in this
together, he had to.
 
And he had to face
it before they met his brother.
 
“What
compelled you to make the suggestion?” she asked him.
 
She hated taking him to that place.
 
But she knew she had to.

Mick felt
foolish.

“What?” Roz
asked.

Mick
hesitated again, and then responded.
 
“I
wanted my brother, I wanted Charles to see that I made it,” he said.

Roz’s heart
dropped.
 
A man with his level of
success.
 
A man with his power and
position.
 
But he was still that boy who
ran away from home.

“Oh, Mick,”
she said, squeezing his hand.

“He thinks
I’m just some thug who never did anything the right way.
 
And before I met you, he would have been
correct.
 
But I wanted him to understand
that I have you now.
 
Against all odds, I
won you.
 
I wanted him to know that I’m
not just a thug anymore.
 
I’m a winner
now.”

Roz could
feel tears brighten her eyes, but she held on.
 
Mick was not an overly sentimental man, but when he was vulnerable, when
he allowed himself to go there, he was something magnificent to behold.
 
She placed her second hand on his hand, and
smiled.
 
“When you singled me out, and
started showing interest in me, I felt like a winner too, Mick.
 
You chose me over all those women you could
have had.
 
I didn’t think I was good
enough to even be in the contest, but yet I won the grand prize.”

Mick
snorted.
 
“Some prize.”

“The grand
prize,” Roz said again.
 
“I’m not taking
it back!
 
But what I’m saying is that I
feel you.
 
I feel the same way you
do.
 
And if your brother and these people
in Jericho don’t think that the fact that we have each other is enough success
for them, then I say tough.”

Mick
laughed.

 
“I say tough tittie, baby!
 
It’s enough for us.”

Mick actually
said amen, which made Roz laugh, and then they were pulling back onto the road,
driving those three miles, and happy again.
 
And finally, after years and seemingly lifetimes later, they were
entering Jericho, Maine.

It wasn’t
much to see at first.
 
Just a lot of open
roads and houses on acres of land.
 
But
once they were in the heart of the small town, Roz felt on display.
 
She felt as if no circus freak alive had
anything on her.
 
Because they stared and
stared at her.
 
Some people even stopped
walking, and stared.
 
Mick drove slowly
through Main Street, remembering the drug store and the bar and the tool and
dye shop.
 
And every person in that town
stared as if they were staring at some alien arrival.
 
Some of it was the car.
 
Maseratis probably didn’t grow on trees in a
town this small.
 
But most of it was
undoubtedly the fact that some gorgeous white man was in town with some black
woman, in aforementioned Maserati, and the gossip mill was ready to churn.

It could not
have been more evident than when Mick pulled in front of a diner.
 
Since he refused to call his brother and give
him a beforehand warning of his arrival (he was afraid his brother might have
told him not to come), he had no clue where his brother lived.
 
He had no choice but to ask.

Roz felt so
out of sorts in such an unabashedly nosy town, that she decided to remain in
the car.
 
But Mick wouldn’t let her.
 
He noticed the stares too, and the unfriendly
looks, and his overprotectiveness took over.
 
Nobody was going to stare her down as if she was less-than them unless
they stared him down first.
 
“Get out,”
he said to her.
 
“You need to stretch
your legs too.”

Roz knew his
insistence had nothing to do with any leg stretching.
 
They had stopped for gas not all that long
ago.
 
But she didn’t question it and did
as he told her to do.
 
She waited for him
to open the passenger door, and she got out too.

Talk about
blatant.
 
As Mick took her hand and
walked her across the sidewalk into the diner, the townspeople who happened to
be walking by actually stopped walking and stared at them.
 
It was the weirdest sight in the world to
Roz.
 
That was why she could never dream
of living in a small town.
 
Too intimate
for her!

But when
they entered the diner, the staring went to another dimension.
 
The young lady behind the counter, and the
even younger lady behind the cash register, both stood there as if they were
looking at something most disagreeable.
 
But Mick needed information, and since he remembered this town as a
cold, unwelcoming place anyway, he endured it.
 
He took Roz’s hand and walked up to them, hoping that they would at
least answer his question, even though neither one of those women had the good
manners to relinquish their stares.

“Good
afternoon,” he said.

“What can I
do for you?” the older lady asked.

“I wonder if
either of you can tell me where I might be able to find Charles Sinatra.”

The lady
frowned.
 
“Charles Sinatra?”
 
She looked from him to Roz, as if it was some
kind of conspiracy, and then she looked back at Mick. “What you want with Big
Daddy?”