Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (2 page)

“Who would have thought Zo would two-time you like
that though?” another one of Mick’s men chimed in.
 
“He was close to you for real.
 
You told us he was hands off.”

“But it’s out there, boss,” his third man said.
 
“These idiots are getting bolder.
 
They think you’ve been on top too long.
 
They think it’s high time somebody knocked you
off.”

“What they think,” Danny said, “is that you’re
losing your grip.
 
But you’re about to
show all of their asses just how firm a grip you truly have.
 
Aren’t you, boss?
 
If any grip is going to be lost, it’s going
to be theirs.”

Mick exhaled.
 
He needed a war like he needed a hole in the head.
 
Rosalind didn’t need this!
 
But he never backed down before, and wasn’t
about to start now.
 
“Clean this shit
up,” he ordered his men.

Mick stared at the body now staring up at him.
 
It was a shame it had to come to this.
 
But what choice did Mick have?
 
He didn’t see where he had a choice.
 
He wouldn’t last an hour in this world if he
allowed anybody to two-time him and get away with it.
 
Especially his so-called friends.
 
And now Gabrini had to be dealt with
too.
 
Now Gabrini had to be roped
in.
 
Mick let out a harsh exhale.
 
It was a dog’s life.
 
But it was his life.

Two
Weeks Earlier

Mick
is going to kill me
,
Roz kept thinking anxiously as she pounded on the door of the rinky-dink motel
room and kept eyeing her surroundings.
 
It was eleven at night, and the motel was surrounded by woods, and she knew
Mick would not approve.
 
This time of
night, he expected her to be home.
 
He
was still running the streets, doing who knows what, but that didn’t mean he
wasn’t going to kick her ass if he ever found out she had ventured across town,
to a place like this, just because Betsy had phoned.
 
But Bess was her closest friend.
 
They used to look out for each other when
they were struggling actresses in New York.
 
Although Roz’s circumstances had changed considerably, their
relationship remained the same now that they both were in Philly.
 
One needed help, the other one didn’t judge,
but came.

Only Bess had been in need of an outsized amount of
help since she relocated to Philly.
 
She
came to Philly after one of her New York boyfriends tried to rearrange her face,
and was only supposed to stay for a few weeks.
 
Roz even gave her a job with her talent agency to tie her over.
 
But then she met one sugar daddy, and then
another one, and then another one, and Bess no longer needed employment.
 
Her Philadelphia sugar daddies were taking
care of her.
 
And treating her, although
she would never admit it to Roz, like the whore they took her for.

As Roz was about to bang again, the door was opened
so swiftly that Roz was left with her fist still in the air.
 
And Betsy Gable moved quickly.
 
She pulled Roz inside, looked around outside,
and closed and locked the door.

Roz couldn’t believe the state she was in.
 
“What is wrong with you?” she asked, her face
a mask of concern and anxiety.

“Thanks so much for coming, Roz.”

“What’s wrong?”

Betsy’s big eyes were already filled with unshed
tears, and her short blonde locks looked matted.
 
“It’s so hard,” she said.
 
“Why does it always have to be so hard?”

But Roz needed answers, not questions.
 
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” she
asked.

Betsy’s expression changed, and she covered her face
and began to sob.
 
And Roz couldn’t help
it.
 
Her heart went out to her
friend.
 
She opened her arms, and Betsy
fell into those arms.
 
And cried, not
like the thirty-year-old woman that she was, but like a baby.
 
And Roz held her.
 
Betsy was only four years younger than Roz,
but they were light years apart maturity-wise.

“Let’s sit down,” Roz said, as she helped her friend
to the dumpy-looking bed.
 
It squeaked
when they sat down.

“Now I need you to tell me what happened,” Roz
said.
 
“I can’t help you if I don’t know
what’s going on.”

Betsy already had a Kleenex and was blowing her
nose.
 
“Thanks for coming,” she said, and
then, glancing at Roz, smiled through her tears.
 
“Look at you.
 
Sitting in a room like this in your Versace suit.”

Roz looked down, at her pale blue pantsuit, and
smiled too.

“Mick would have a fit if he knew you were in a room
like this.”

“He’s very clean, now that’s a fact,” Roz said.
 
“And you’re probably right.
 
If he knew I was sitting my behind on a bed
like this he’d have this entire outfit fumigated for bed bugs as soon as I made
it home.
 
And then he’d personally
fumigate my own bare ass.”

Betsy laughed.
 
“Yep, that sounds like him.
 
He
can deal in all the dirt he wants to deal in, but he places all of these
restrictions on you.”

Roz looked at her.
  
Betsy had a masterful way of transferring her own problems onto somebody
else.
 
But Roz wasn’t about to let her
transport those problems onto Mick.
 
“All
of what restrictions?” she asked her.
 
“What are you talking about?”

“You know how he is,” Betsy responded.
 
“You can’t do this.
 
You can’t do that.
 
But he can do whatever the hell he wants to
do.
 
That’s why I’m sorry I ever allowed
myself to get hooked up with these white men in Philadelphia.
 
They’re so controlling!”

Roz didn’t respond to that.
 
She just let her friend talk.
 
Eventually, she knew, the real reason they
were sitting in this Bates motel would come out.

“They have to know everything you’re doing at all times,”
Betsy continued.
 
“Like when I wanted to
go to Paris with you.
 
I know it was your
honeymoon.
 
I know Mick wouldn’t like me
going.
 
But it wasn’t like I was going to
be hanging out with you two.
 
I was going
to have my own room and do my own thing.
 
I just wanted to see Paris, that’s all.
 
But he wouldn’t let you do that little favor
for your best friend.”

“Mick had nothing to do with that decision,” Roz
said.
 
“I never even mentioned that to
him.”

Betsy blew her nose again and looked at her friend.
 
“You never mentioned it?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not, Roz?
 
I asked if I could go!”

“I don’t care what you asked.
 
I wasn’t taking some woman with me and my man
on our honeymoon.
 
Get real.”

“I just wanted a ride!
 
It’s not like I was going to be
on
your honeymoon.”
 
Then Betsy waved her hand, as if dismissing
the entire conversation.
 
“But it doesn’t
matter.
 
Mick hates my guts.
 
He would have said no anyway.
  
Because that’s how he is.”

“Okay, stop,” Roz said.

“He thinks I’m not good enough to be your
friend.
 
He hates me.”

“Time out, Bess.”

“He wants to control your entire life.
 
And he does hate me.”

“Okay, now look,” Roz said in that trademark
get serious
tone she often utilized on
her clients.
 
“I know you have this thing
about my husband not treating you right and all of that, but you are not going
to sit up in here and make this all about Mick.
 
Mick has nothing to do with this.
 
You called me here.
 
You begged me
to come.
 
Why?
 
Why are we here, Bess?”

When Betsy realized Roz was not going for her bait
and switch, her expression changed.
 
She
frowned.
 
The pain of her own situation
began to appear on her face.
 
“Kyle found
out about Nave,” she said.

Roz didn’t involve herself with all of the different
men in Betsy’s life, so she didn’t know one from the other one.
 
But she knew Bess.
 
“You were cheating on this Kyle person with
Nave?
 
Is that what you’re saying?”

“I wasn’t cheating,” Betsy said in her own warped
sense of morality.
 
“I was only getting
what I needed to get by.
 
Kyle didn’t
have it like that.
 
Nave helped out.”

“In exchange for whatever you can help him out with,
right?”

Betsy hated to admit it, but she nodded.
 
“What’s a girl supposed to do?” she
asked.
 
“I can’t find work in the
industry.
 
It’s either sugar daddies or
skin flicks.”

“Or working for me the way you started when you
first came to town,” Roz said.
 
“You
could have made your own living.
 
Your
ass just didn’t want to.”

“You weren’t paying the kind of money I needed,”
Betsy said.

“Well apparently your sugar daddies weren’t
either.
 
Or you wouldn’t be in this
palace.
 
Now would you?”

“Kyle is upset, Roz.
 
I mean really upset.
 
And Nave is
out of town on business, so I can’t go to him.
 
Can I stay with you for a few days?
 
At least until Kyle calms back down?
 
Mick’s house is like Ft. Knox.
 
Nobody will be able to get to me there.”

Roz couldn’t believe it.
 
Betsy was a piece of work.
 
Mick was this terrible ogre in her eyes.
 
He could do nothing right.
 
But whenever she was in trouble, she always
wanted what amounted to Mick’s protection.
 
She always wanted to run to Mick.
 
But Roz wasn’t about to fall for that either.
 
“You can’t stay at Mick’s estate,” she said.

Betsy frowned.
 
“Why not, Roz?”

“Because I’m not putting him in this.
 
I’m not allowing anybody around my husband who
doesn’t like my husband.
 
But I’ll put
you up in a better class of hotel.
 
I can
do that, at least for a few days.
 
You’ll
be safe there.”

Betsy would have preferred to be under Mick’s guard,
but she knew she was on the critical list.
 
Beggars couldn’t be choosy.
 
“Okay,” she said.

“But you have got to make some decisions, Bess,” Roz
admonished her.
 
“You can’t keep playing
games with these men’s hearts.
 
You’re
asking for trouble if you keep traveling down that road.”

And the thought of that very road Betsy was
traveling, where she was a thirty-year-old woman with nothing to call her own,
caused her to break down again.

Carp Bianchi and the two young Dons stood in front
of a nightclub owned by the syndicate, as the limousine drove up.
 
Carp hated depending on a fucker like Mick
Sinatra for anything, especially something like this.
 
Especially after Mick iced Carp’s son.
 
And even though Carp knew his boy had no
right challenging Mick’s authority, and was asking for trouble, that didn’t
mean Carp had forgiven Mick.
 
That didn’t
mean his hatred of Mick didn’t run deep.
 
It did.
 
But he was no fool.
 
Mick the Tick wasn’t the kind of enemy who
gave you chances.
 
He was the kind of
enemy who gave you death.
 
Carp didn’t
care what kind of sucker labels they put on him because, for now, Mick was the
only game in town.
 
For now, Carp Bianchi
was with Mick.
 
But one of these days,
when all of the families had enough courage to get together and dethrone his
ass, Carp would get his revenge then.

“No begging,” he warned the two younger men as they
watched the limo approach.
 
“He’ll eat
you for lunch if he senses any weakness.”

Momar DeLuca, deceased mob boss Vito DeLuca’s son
and heir, and Yank Stefani, deceased mob boss Teddy Stefani’s son and heir,
looked at Carp.
 
Their fathers worked
alongside Carp for twenty years, and all three had reported to Mick.
 
Now the sons were reporting to Mick.
 
The young Dons didn’t like it, but they were
there when Mick iced Carp’s son for insubordination.
 
They, like Carp, weren’t fools.
 
They, like Carp, feared him too.

“You don’t have to school us on Mick the Ticking
Time Bomb,” Stefani said.
 
“We saw that
joker in action.
 
We know what he thinks
of beggars.”

“And weakness,” Carp said.
 
“Don’t forget weakness.
 
He hates weakness even more.”

“We need him to bail us out again,” DeLuca
said.
 
“That means we’re already weak.”

“No begging,” Carp warned again, despite Deluca’s
comment, as the backdoor of the limousine seemed to open automatically before
them.
 
They all snuggled their coats against
the chill of the night air, and got in.
 
They sat across from Mick, who sat with his legs crossed beside Danny
Padrone, his right hand man.

“How you doing, Mick?” Carp asked cheerfully after
they settled in.
 
“We appreciate you
giving us this time.
 
We know you’re a
very busy man.”