Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now (19 page)

Mick looked
at her.
 
“Yes,” he said, and removed his
grasp from Bella.
 
“I’m going to check on
it.”

“I will go
too,” Bella said anxiously, and the mafia men laughed.

But it was
no laughing matter to Mick.
 
“You know
better than that,” he said to her sternly.

“So what am
I supposed to do?”

“Wait here,”
Mick said, “until I return.
 
Okay?”

Bella
attempted a soft smile that only highlighted her beauty.
 
“Because you are asking me to wait
patiently,” she said, “I’ll wait.”

Roz wanted
to throw up.
 
What an act!
 
Was Mick falling for this?

Apparently
he was, because he ordered Teddy to come with him, and the mafia men, without
being told, were ready to go their separate ways too.
 
Whatever the lead was, Roz knew it was
big.
 
The fact that mob bosses, rather
than their subordinates, gave him the
intel
directly,
automatically made it big.

But as the
others walked out of the door, with Mick showing them out, Bella and her
flunkies gave Roz a grin.
 
They had Mick
snowed and everybody else, and there wasn’t a damn thing Roz could do about it.

Until Mick
came back in, and walked up to the ladies.

“What is it,
Mick?” Bella asked, moving ahead of Roz as if she was the first lady in
charge.
 
“Have you thought of something
else?”

Mick walked
past Bella and her flunkies and up to his wife.
 
He placed his arm around Roz’s narrow waist and pulled her against
him.
 
He turned his full attention to
Bella.
 
“In case there is any
misunderstanding,” he said, “I want to clear it up.
 
This lady right here is Rosalind
Sinatra.
 
She is my wife.
 
She is the mother of my two youngest
children.
 
She is my life.
 
If you, or anybody else attempt to disrespect
her, or otherwise mistreat her, I will not be disappointed.
 
I will not even be upset.
 
I have to care too much for a person for them
to disappoint me.
 
I will beat the shit
out of you.
 
I will leave you lame or
blind or both if you think about disrespecting this woman right here.
 
You know me, Bella.
 
You know my capabilities.”

Bella’s
smile was gone.
 
Her softness, and
coquettishness, and innocence were gone too.
 
Even her flunkies were cowered.

“I know you
have to leave,” Roz said to Mick, “but just so we’re clear.”

Bella
swallowed hard.
 
She knew Roz didn’t have
the nerve to go there.
 
She just knew it!

But she knew
wrong.
 
“Bella told me,” Roz boldly said,
“that you and she are still an item.
 
She
told me that you and she, in fact, are still sleeping together.”
 
Roz looked at Mick.
 
“Is that true?”

Mick
frowned.
 
“Hell no!” he said, and looked
at Bella.
 
“Others may peddle those lies
about you and me.
 
Others may claim you
still hold some special place in my heart.
 
But you and I know each other.
 
We
know what bullshit that is.
 
Now you set
the record straight.”

Bella
immediately began to smile.
 
“I was just
playing with her,” she said nervously. “She knows I was just playing.”

“She doesn’t
know any such thing,” Mick said, “because she and I do not play that way.
 
You are my child’s mother, and for that I
will always respect you, take care of your financial needs, and treat you well.
 
But I will never do anything to disrespect my
own wife.
 
Understand that too.”

He kissed
Roz.
 
“Kick her ass out if she tells any
more jokes,” he warned.
 
And then he
reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a pistol.
 
Bella and her flunkies immediately moved back
against the wall, nearly falling back in shock.
 
“Use it,” Mick said seriously, “if you have to.”

Roz knew he
wasn’t serious like that, but she was enjoying it anyway.
 
“I will,” she said to him, he kissed her
again, and then he left.

Bella and
her flunkies stared at Roz.
 
They, like so
many others who dared to try to test the Mick and Roz union, had a newfound
respect for Rosalind Sinatra.

Teddy was
the first to eyeball Devin Terranz in the club, and he and Angelo began moving
in that direction.
  
Some of the females
who saw the two good looking strong men began elbowing each other.
 
Especially when they saw Teddy.

“Who is
that?” one even asked so loudly that Teddy heard her despite the deafening
music.
 
He smiled, but kept moving.

Devin was keeping
it moving too.
 
He was drinking and
having fun too.
 
The club was jumping, it
was well after midnight, but even through the thick crowd of people, through
the dancing bodies and those standing around and drinking and talking, Devin
could see Teddy’s advance.
 
And as soon
as he realized who it was making his way toward him, he dropped his drink and
took off.

“Tell Dad
he’s on the move!” Teddy ordered as he ran after Devin.
 
Angelo ran back out of the front entrance.

The door to the
back entrance flew open and Devin ran out like as fast as he could.
 
He knew his life depended on his speed.
 
Nobody had to tell him that Teddy Sinatra,
Mick the Tick’s son, was running after him for the hell of it.
 
He wanted blood.
 
Devin’s blood. That was why Devin knew he was
running for his life.

Angelo, out
front, jumped in the backseat of the waiting SUV.
 
Mick, along with the driver, was upfront.

“He’s
running out back, boss,” Angelo said as he jumped in.

“Go!” Mick
ordered the driver, and the driver sped away from the front of the nightclub
and drove toward the back.

Outback,
Teddy was running so fast he was able to make up a half of Devin’s distance in
a matter of seconds.
 
Devin couldn’t
believe how fast Teddy was.
 
He jumped
one fence, and then another fence, and was about to jump a third one before
Teddy’s speed caught up with him.
 
He
felt a hand grab him by the seat of his pants.

Teddy threw
Devin to the ground, punched him twice, and shook him.
 
“Don’t fuck with me, boy!” he yelled.
 
“Or you’ll find out what it means to be
fucked!”

“What do you
want with me?” Devin was asking, playing dumb.
 
“What do you want with me?”

“I wanna
dance with somebody,” Teddy said, playing dumb too.
  
“You left before our dance.”
 
He stood him up.
 
“Come on, you cocksucker!”
 
He began walking with him back toward the
club.

They didn’t
have to walk far, just near the backside of the club, before Mick’s SUV sped up
and cut them off.
 
Angelo jumped out, and
he and Teddy tossed Devin into the backseat.
 
Teddy sat on one side of him.
 
Angelo sat on the other side.
 
The
driver began a slow drive away.

Devin,
already bruised from Teddy’s punches, looked at Mick.

“You know
me?” Mick asked him.

“You know I
do.
 
Everybody do.”

“Are you
Devin Terranz?”

Devin
wondered if there was a chance they didn’t know who he was.
 
But it was a fat chance.
 
“Yes,” he said.

“Are you
Marco Terranz’s brother?”

“You mean am
I the brother of the man your daughter killed?
 
Yes.”

Mick
hesitated. He was still reeling from the fact that word had reached the Dons
about Marco’s death.
 
He had covered it
up.
 
Nobody was supposed to know.
 
“Who would have told you a thing like that?”
he asked Terranz.

“Who do you
think?
 
That daughter of yours.
 
She’s been telling a lot.”

This
surprised Mick.
 
“Has she now?”

“That’s why
I started talking all that talk.
 
That’s
why I started claiming I was going to kill her ass.
 
It was just talk.
 
I’m a truck driver, I’m no killer.
 
But I didn’t like what I heard.”

Mick turned
toward him.
 
He looked into his
eyes.
 
“You’re lying,” he said.

Devin’s
confidence began to waver when he saw that cold look in Mick’s eyes.
 
But he stuck to his story.
 
“No, I’m not,” he said.
 
“I’m telling you the truth.
 
I was just talking.
 
I was just making noise.”

Mick
continued to stare at him in a way that unnerved him.
 
Even Teddy was terrified of his father’s
stare.
 
No man scared him.
 
No man.
 
But his father did.
 
“Find a
stopping spot,” Mick ordered his driver.

Both Teddy
and Angelo knew what that meant.
 
Angelo
even looked at Teddy.
 
But Teddy was
staring at his father.

Devin,
however, was pleading for understanding.
 
“I don’t know if she was telling the truth,” he said.
 
“All I know is my brother was fooling around
with her.
 
Yes, he was married and it was
wrong.
 
But she was wrong for fooling
around with him.”

“She didn’t
know he was married, you prick!” Teddy interjected.
 
“She doesn’t fool around with married
men.
 
So cut it out.”

“Okay,
okay.
 
But he was married, that’s a
fact.
 
And he was fooling around with
her.
 
That’s a fact.”

“She had
ended it when she found out he was married,” Teddy said.
 
“They weren’t together when he disappeared.”

“But he’s
gone!
 
My brother is gone.
 
And nobody knows a damn thing.”

The SUV
stopped in a wooded area off the beaten path.
 
Mick got out.
 
Teddy and Angelo
knew their job was to get Devin out.
 
And
they did.

As soon as
Devin got out, Mick pulled out a gun.
 
Devin held up his hands. “I’m not lying to you,” he pleaded.
 
“I was just talking.”

“Who were
you talking to?” Mick asked.

“Nobody! I
was just talking.”

Mick shot
him in the arm.

He cried
out, as he fell to his knees.
 
Angelo
began looking around for any witnesses.
 
Teddy was looking at his father.

“Who were
you talking to?
 
Who hired you to kidnap
my daughter?”

Devin was
shaking his head.
 
“You’ve got it all
wrong,” he said.
 
“I was, I
wasn’t .
 
. .”

Mick shot
him in the other arm.

“Okay!” he
cried, the pain unbearable.
 
“Okay!”

“Tell him
the truth,” Teddy ordered.
 
He didn’t
want to see another man dead over this.
 
“Just tell us what you know.
 
Did
you kidnap his daughter?”

Tears
appeared in Devin’s eyes.
 
And he nodded
his head.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“But it was supposed to be a joke.
 
It was supposed to be my chance to scare her
into telling what happened to my brother.
 
That’s the way it was presented to me.”

“By whom?”
Mick asked.

“Some lady.”

Mick was
surprised.
 
A lady again?
 
“A lady?”

“Some lady,
yeah,” Devin said. “I didn’t know her.
 
She left the money at a drop off and I had to wait for further
instructions.
 
I did.
 
I was told to go to this backroad. I don’t
even remember where it was, but I went there.
 
And there she was, waiting in her car.
 
She got out, asked if I was looking for her.
 
I said I was.”

“What did
you do to her?” Teddy asked anxiously.

“Nothing.”

“You’re
lying!” Teddy yelled.

“I thought I
was going to drive her to another location where they were going to get the
information out of her.
 
That’s what I
was told.
 
I was going to finally find
out what happened to my brother.
 
They
didn’t want me to do anything there.”

Teddy and
Angelo looked at Mick.
 
“Where did you
drive her?” Mick asked.

“Nowhere,”
Devin said, fighting the pain.
 
“Somebody
else drove up, some guy I never met before.
 
And then I was knocked out.
 
When
I came to, they were gone.”

Mick lifted
Devin up and flung him against the SUV.
 
He put the gun to his head.
 
“I do
not believe you,” he said.
 
“What did you
do to my daughter?”

Devin was in
pain, but he knew he was not going to live if he didn’t come clean.
 
Although his chances were already slim to
none.
 
“I roughed her up,” he
admitted.
 
“The lady said I could.
 
She said she heard I’d been accusing Gloria
Sinatra of killing my brother, and she wanted to make it right.
 
She said my brother was an ATF agent.
 
He served his country well, she said.
 
And she wanted to make it right.
 
So she told me where to find your daughter,
and there she was.”

Mick’s jaws
tightened.
 
Teddy wanted to kick Devin’s
ass right then and there, but he knew they needed more
intel
.

“Are you’re
telling me she was waiting for you?” Mick asked him.

“She
was!
 
I’m not lying about that!
 
She was expecting me like somebody had told
her that I just wanted to talk to her or something.”

“What did
you do to her?” Teddy asked.

“I roughed
her up, I told you.
 
But I wasn’t allowed
to use any weapons.
 
I wasn’t allowed to
kill her.”

“Then this
guy did come up, and stopped me.”

“Describe
the guy.”

“Some
guy.
 
Some black guy.
 
I can’t tell you how he look. They all look
alike to me.”

“Just keep
talking,” Teddy said.

“The guy put
her in the car, and took off.
 
That was
the last I saw of her or heard from that lady.
 
I never saw her again.
 
That’s the
truth.”

“Describe
the lady,” Mick said.

“Who?” Devin
asked as if he was playing for time.
 
“Your daughter?”

“Not his
daughter,” Teddy said.
 
“The lady, you
idiot!
 
The one that got in touch with
you.”

“She was
tall.
 
Attractive lady.
 
Black.
 
Said her name was Beverly, or something like that.
 
Bev or something.
 
I don’t remember!
 
I only saw her once.”

“What about
my sister?” Teddy asked.
 
“She was
unconscious when you finished roughing her up?”

Devin hated
to admit it.
 
“Yeah,” he said.
 
And quickly added, “But she wasn’t dead,” as
if that was going to lessen his punishment.

It
didn’t.
  
Mick killed him on the
spot.
 
And then began hurrying into the
SUV, phoning Roz as he went.

Teddy and
Angelo were surprised. “What is it,
Pop
?” Teddy asked.

“Get in,”
Mick said.
 
“Clean up the mess,” he said
to Angelo.

“Will do,”
Angelo said.

Teddy got
in.
 
“Get me home,” Mick said to the
driver, and the SUV took off.

“Answer the
phone,” Mick was saying.
 
“Answer the
phone,
got
dammit!”

“Pop, what
is it?” Teddy asked again.

Mick pressed
Deuce McCurry’s number.
 
“The
description,” he said.

“Of the
lady?” Teddy asked.
 
“What about it?
 
Is it somebody you know?”