Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now (18 page)

“That’s
nonsense, Rosalind, and you know it.”

Roz began to
feel emotional.
 
“I know,” she said.
 
“But somebody’s got to be the bad guy, and I
don’t want it to be your children, Mick.
 
I don’t want you estranged from your children again.
 
That’ll just kill me.
 
We were all trying to come together.
 
Now we’re all torn apart.”

Mick went to
Rosalind and pulled her into his arms.
 
The idea that anybody would think this good woman could have something
to do with Gloria’s disappearance was absurd to him.
 
He pulled her tighter.
 
He never knew love before Rosalind came
along.
 
She was his life.
 
Maybe that was backwards.
 
Maybe it was his children who were supposed
to be first.
 
He didn’t know.
 
His father didn’t give a damn about him, and
he never learned how to be a good father.
 
But he knew that Rosalind was first.
 
She was the one who showed him what love was.
 
His love for her was too deep for him to dig
out of it.

When they
stopped embracing, he lifted her chin.
 
“Not your fault,” he said.
 
“No
matter what.”

Roz smiled a
smile of appreciation.
 
But it was filled
with pain too.
 
“What’s next?” she asked.

“I’ve called
a meeting.”

Roz waited
for more.
 
When no more came, she knew
what he meant.
 
“Where?
 
For here?”

Mick nodded.
 
“This is where I need it to take place,
yes.”

“But is it
safe?
 
What if the FBI is monitoring some
of their activities?”

“They know
how to lose the Feds,” Mick made clear.
 
“Nobody’s stupid enough to bring company when they come to see me.
 
Don’t you worry about
that.
”

But Roz did
worry about that when the limousines started arriving at their compound.
 
And these men weren’t second-stringers
either, or Mick’s men would have directed them to one of the guest houses on
the property.
 
They were mob bosses of
the highest order, most of them much older than Mick himself, and they all
walked through Mick’s front door.
 
That
was unusual.
 
Mick almost always kept his
underworld life as separate from his home life as he could keep it.
 
But Roz also knew Mick was doing whatever he
had to do to find his daughter.
 
Protocol, and even the Feds, be damned right now.

Mick sat on
the edge of his desk inside his home office, with Teddy standing against the
wall as if he was not only his father’s enforcer, but his protector now.
 
And the bosses trickled in.
 
There was Demetrio Gastone, Harold Ziccardi,
and Alberto Pennisi.
 
All three ran
segments of the east coast.
 
All three
had to run money through Mick to stay in business.
 
All three owed him big time.
 
They knew the streets.
 
They knew what was going on in the
streets.
 
But none of them had any idea
where Gloria could be.

“None of our
people snatched her,” Demetrio said bluntly.
 
“None of our people are that stupid.”

Mick assumed
that would be their response.
 
But he had
to eyeball them.
 
He had to see for
himself if they were bullshitting him or not.
 
He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle.
 
“No chatter about me at all?” he asked.

“Why would
there be?” Pennesi asked.
 
He was the
oldest of the trio.
 
“With all due
respect, Micky, why would anybody be crazy enough to be talking about you at
all?
 
They heard what happened in New
York.
 
They heard what you did to that
‘Rican.
 
None of the people we run with
got anything to do with this.
 
They wouldn’t
dare!”

“Besides,”
Harold Ziccardi said, “everybody figured you didn’t give a damn about your
kids.”

Mick looked
at him.
 
Teddy did too.

“Meaning no
disrespect,” Ziccardi quickly added.
 
“I
mean, we didn’t even know you had all of these grown kids until here
recently.
 
They were hidden from
sight.
 
So people figured it was because
you didn’t care enough to publicly acknowledge any of them.
 
Like you didn’t give a shit.
 
That’s the truth of it, Mick.
 
Nobody’s snatching your daughter, at least
not people like us, because they figure why
should you
care who takes her?”

Teddy looked
at his father.
 
How long would he have to
carry that burden?
 
Teddy forgave
him.
 
To be a part of his father’s life,
he would have forgiven him anything.
 
He
thought Gloria had forgiven him too.
 
This wasn’t adding up!

Mick, with
his arms still folded, placed his hand on his chin.
 
His face was so intense even the dons felt
the gravity.
 
He was in deep
concentration now.

The dons
looked at each other, as if looking to see who would bring it up.
 
Alberto Pennisi, by his seniority alone, knew
he was the only one to do it.
 
“The thing
is, Micky,” he said, “everybody we talk to, and we’ve been talking to everybody,
says it’s an inside job.”

Mick looked
at his longtime associate.
 
“Yeah?”

“That’s what
they’re saying.
 
And before you take my
head off, I’m only telling you what they’re saying.
 
They say this kid of yours, this Gloria, has
it in for you.
 
They say she set this
whole thing up.”

“And how
would they know that?”

“They don’t
know.
 
But they’re speculating.”
     

“And what
the fuck am I supposed to do with their speculation?” Mick the ticking time
bomb was getting hot, the very thing the dons had hoped to avoid.
 
“How the fuck is that going to find my
daughter?
 
You think I’m going to throw
up my hands, declare she set this shit up herself, and forget about it?
 
If they’re speculating then they must have
tangible proof.
 
What is their tangible
proof?
 
If they have nothing but wild
guesses to tell me, then they’d better shut the fuck up.
 
I can guess and speculate.
 
I don’t need anybody to do that for me.”

Amen
, Teddy wanted to say, but just like
the dons was too afraid to speak.
 
The
room fell silent.

Until Harold
Ziccardi spoke up, and got Mick’s attention.

“There is
one person who knows more than rank speculation,” he said.

Mick and
Teddy and all of the other dons looked at him.

“Who?” Teddy
asked.

Ziccardi
looked at Mick.
 
“The brother of the ATF
agent your daughter killed last year,” he said courageously.

“Her limo
has arrived, ma’am,” Deuce McCurry said as he walked into the nursery inside
the compound’s safe house.

Roz was
holding the twins as they slept.
 
Joey
was seated on the sofa beside her, twirling a basketball.
 
He was clearly stir crazy, as his father
would not allow him to leave the house, and angry at the bruise he now
sported.
 
But Roz was just confused.
“Whose limo has arrived, Deuce?” she asked him.

“Bella
Caine, ma’am,” Deuce responded.
 
“Gloria’s mother.”

Joey stopped
twirling the ball and looked at Roz when Deuce made his pronouncement.
 
But Roz looked back at her twins.
 
Her heart was pounding.
 
She had never met the infamous fashion
designer, the one former lover Mick supposedly still loved, and she wasn’t
relishing the moment right now.
 
Especially not under these circumstances.
 
But Mick didn’t promise her a rose garden
when he married her.
 
In fact, she thought,
he didn’t promise her anything.
 
Except
his love.
 
She was relying on that love
today.

She handed
the babies back to the nannies on duty.
 
“Joey,” she said, “keep an eye on Jackie and Junior.”

Joey stopped
twirling his ball and looked at her.
 
“For real?” he asked.
 
“After what
I said upstairs, you aren’t worried I might hurt them?”

Roz
frowned.
 
“Of course not!” she said
honestly.
 
“They’re your flesh and
blood.
 
I know what that means to you.”

Joey
swallowed hard.
 
Because she was
right.
 
He looked out for his own.
 
She seemed to be the only person who truly
understood that.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” he
said.
 
“They’re my responsibility.”

Roz smiled
and headed upstairs.
 
But as she passed
Deuce, she gave him a look he was well familiar with.
  
And he stayed downstairs, just in case.
 
Roz believed Joey would never harm his
siblings.
 
She believed he truly loved
them.
 
But she also knew he harbored
hate.
 
And bitterness. And resentment
toward the mother of those babies.
 
If it
was just her involved, she would have no problem with trusting him one hundred
percent.
 
But two babies were
involved.
 
Her and Mick’s babies.
 
She wasn’t taking not even a one percent
chance for granted.
 
Deuce stayed as her
eyes and ears.
 
Deuce stayed just in
case.

Upstairs,
Bella Caine entered Mick’s home in a hurry.
 
Tall, elegant and black, she presented as a striking, domineering
figure.
 
She was much older than Roz,
closer to Mick’s age, but she was still beautiful on every level.
 
Her two assistants, both young and
African-American, stood just behind her, ready to be at her beck and call.
 
When she saw Roz, who had just entered the
living room area from downstairs, she, and her people, hurried to her.
 
“Any word?” she asked anxiously.

“No word,”
Roz said.

Bella
literally fell back on her heels.
 
She
had been so hopeful!
 
And that
domineering, well put together lady began to fall apart.
 
“This is insane!” she said.
 
“How could anybody bring harm to my little
girl?
 
She’s harmless!
 
I told Mick not to involve her in his business.
 
I told Mick it was not a good idea at
all.
 
But does he listen to me?
 
No.
 
Every time I see him it’s all about sex, nothing else, and then he
leaves.
 
He never has time to discuss our
daughter.
 
He never has time to do
anything at all.
 
And now look what’s
happened.
 
She’s gone.
 
Our baby is gone!
 
And right in the middle of fashion week!”

Roz was
stunned by her assertions on so many levels she didn’t know where to
begin.
 
She insinuated that she and Mick
had been talking, when Roz didn’t know of any such conversations.
 
And not only talking, but still sexually
involved with each other?
 
Was this woman
delusional, Roz wondered, or was she the deluded one?

“I want to
see that bastard,” Bella continued.
 
“Where is he? Where’s Mick?”

But one
thing was true to Roz.
 
This woman, this
Bella Caine, was unhinged.
 
“Why don’t
you have a seat,” Roz suggested.

“Why don’t
you shut the hell up,” Bella suggested, “and tell Mick I have arrived.
 
You are his
newbie,
are you not?
 
You are
his
Miss Right Now
, are you not?”

But if she
expected her tirade of insults to cower Roz, she was mistaken.
 
Her accusations didn’t.
 
Why should her putdowns?
 
“I’m his wife,” Roz shot back, “and Mick is
in a meeting.
 
When he concludes that
meeting, he will be available to talk with you.”

Bella,
removing her gloves, stopped and looked sidelong at Roz. “Are you serious?
 
Do you not know who I am?”

Roz didn’t
skip a beat.
 
“His
oldie
?” she asked.
 
“His
Miss No More
?
 
Yes, I know who you are.
 
And I know you are in a lot of pain.
 
But unless you have something to contribute
to finding your daughter, rather than criticizing her father, then you will
have to wait.
 
Her father is at this
moment attempting to find answers.”

“Don’t you
tell me anything about her father,” Bella said.
 
“You just hit the scene, what the hell do you know?
 
Cathleen told me all about you.”
 
Cathleen, Roz knew, was Joey’s mother.
 
Another one of Mick’s baby mamas.
 
“She told me how you think you run something
now.
 
But remember, darling, he didn’t
marry you because he didn’t want us.
 
He
married you because we were smart enough not to want to marry him.
 
We love his dick.
 
I’m not ever giving that up.
 
But that’s about it.”
 
The two flunkies behind her grinned.
 
They were enjoying the show.

But Roz
wasn’t.
 
She found this woman
disgusting.
 
“Your daughter is missing
and all you can do is drop bombs on me about some imaginary sexual relationship
you’re supposedly still having with my husband.
 
Well drop away.
 
But see if that
gets you any closer to seeing Mick.
 
See
if that gets you any closer to anything but a one-way ticket out of my front
door.”

Bella was
livid.
 
“
Your
front door?” she asked.
 
“This is Mick’s house.
 
This was
Mick’s house long before he knew you existed.
 
And now it’s yours?
 
You’d better
get out of my way,” Bella said, sweeping past Roz, with her entourage in tow.

But Roz
grabbed her by the arm and turned her around.
 
“I don’t like to insult my elders,” she said.
 
One of Bella’s flunkies laughed, and then,
terrified that she would be punished by her boss, coughed it off.

“Your
elders?” Bella asked.

“I do not
like to insult my elders,” Roz said again, “but I will more than insult you if
you don’t respect my home.
 
And my
position in this home.
 
I understand you
are having a crisis.
 
I understand how
you may feel.
 
But you can
either sit down and
wait for Mick to see you and tell you
what’s going on, or you can leave.
 
Those
are your choices.”
   

“I am not
leaving,” Bella said, “and I will not sit down.
 
What else you’ve got?”

Bella was
bolder than most, and it made Roz question if she wasn’t that far off in how
she described her relationship with Mick.
 
Was their relationship different than his other baby mamas, just as she
had heard?
 
Was he still in love with
this woman and this woman knew it?
 
Was
sex involved and Bella therefore wasn’t afraid of him because she knew she
could use it against him?
 

But before
Roz could regain her footing, before she could go over to the intercom and
order a guard to remove Bella from the home, Mick and Teddy, along with the
three mob bosses, came out of the study.

As soon as
Bella saw Mick, Roz saw a change in her.
 
Gone was the strong, independent, mouthy bitch on two legs.
 
She hurried to him, like an innocent dove.

“Oh, Mick,”
she said as she approached him.
 
“Where’s
our child?
 
Where is she?
 
What’s happened to her?
 
Oh, Mick, is she going to be alright?”

She fell
against Mick and Mick held her.
 
Her two
flunkies looked at Roz with that
oops,
you lose
look on their arrogant faces.
 
They brushed past her as they made their way toward their boss.
 
Roz made her way beside Mick.

Roz felt
strange seeing some other woman, other than herself, in Mick’s big arms.
 
She knew what it felt like being there.
 
She knew the almost insatiable lust his body
could produce in any woman, especially one who already had him like that.
 
But she had to bear it.
 
This woman shared a child with Mick, and their
child was missing.
 
Although Bella was
hardly the selfless, grieving parent she presented to Mick now, Roz knew she
was still grieving.
 
Gloria was still her
child.

When Mick
stopped hugging Bella, Roz could see the concern in his eyes.
 
He was worried unlike she had seen him worry
before.
 
He placed both hands on the side
of Bella’s thin arms.
 
“I’ll find her,
Belle,” he said.
 
“I promise you I will.”

When Bella
stopped crying, she looked at Mick.
 
“What happened to her, Micky?
 
Why
would somebody kidnap our baby?”

Mick began
to absently rub her arms.
 
“I don’t
know,” he said.

“What does
the police say?” Bella asked.

Mick looked
at her.
 
“The police are not involved.”

Bella was
floored.
 
“They are not . . . Why
not?
 
We need all the help we can get!”

“Not that
kind of help.
 
I have more men on this
case, men who know what they’re doing, than the FBI and police will ever be
able to match.”

“But they
can help too.”

“I do not
utilize the police,” Mick said. “You know that.”
 
Mick also knew, on top of his rule against
involving the police in any situation that he could handle
himself,
that
Bella didn’t know about Gloria’s accusation against Roz.
 
She didn’t know that if he were to use the
cops, they would try to implicate Roz first.
 
And slow down the process.
 
And
potentially put Roz at risk herself.

“Don’t
worry, Belle,” Alberto Pennisi said.
 
“Michello will find her.”

“He’ll not
fail in this task,” Demetrio Gastone echoed. “She is his daughter too.”

Harold
Ziccardi just squeezed her arm, showing affection even with no words.

Roz didn’t
know any of the mafia men in her home, not one of them, but Bella seemed to
know all of them.
 
And she seemed to take
comfort in their words.

“Thank you,
Don Ziccardi,” Bella said, placing a hand on his hand.
 
Then she looked at Mick.
 
“But what have you found out?” she asked
him.
 
“Do you guys know anything at all
yet?”

Mick
nodded.
 
“We’ve got a lead,” he said.

This
surprised Roz.
 
“A lead?” she asked.