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

“Bess, help
me!
 
Come and help!”
 
Roz was yelling at her friend as she
continued to try and move Deuce, but Betsy was too hysterical.
 
All she knew to do was scream for help, not
be the help herself.

Roz knew it
was up to her.
 
“
Lord, help me
,” she cried, as she kept pushing Deuce.
 
It was a useless effort because she was too
small and he was far too big.
 
But when
she looked through the rearview and saw a group of men hurry out of the car
behind her, she knew time was up.
 
She
had to act and act now.

She sat on
top of Deuce and placed the limo in Drive just as they were drawing their
weapons.
 
The first gunman’s body was on
the ground just outside the driver’s side door, which meant she couldn’t close
the door until she sped off away from him.
 
She managed to press the gas petal and sped away from him.
 
Bullets were flying as she drove and was
finally able to close the door. But she floored that limo.
 
She drove as if her life depended on it,
because she knew it did.

The airstrip
was on the outskirts of Philadelphia and so was Mick’s home.
 
She was determined to make it to Mick’s
home.
 
She looked through the rearview
again.
 
The men in the getaway car had
turned around and were heading back to their car, to get in and chase the limo.
 
She also saw that Betsy was lifting her
confused blonde head up again, right in the line of fire.
 
“Get down!” she yelled at Betsy, who was
still just sitting there screaming.
 
But
Betsy was a survivor too.
 
She quickly
got down.

And Roz
drove that limousine away from that airstrip as the getaway car began its
pursuit.
 
She pressed the Security button
on the dashboard touch screen, and began yelling Mick’s name.

A voice
suddenly came onto the intercom.
 
“Miss
Graham, is that you?”
 
It was one of
Mick’s men.

“Tell Mick
I’m in trouble!” Roz yelled nervously.
 
“Men with guns shot Deuce and they’re coming after me and Bess!
 
Tell Mick I need him!”

“Where are
you?”
 
The voice was now hysterical.

“At the
airstrip.
 
I’m heading for his house
right now.”

She heard
him bark out orders to his men.
 
“Where’s
your security team?”
 
Mick had an army
protecting her, and his men knew it.

“I don’t
know,” she said with anguish in her voice as she looked through her rearview
again.
 
The gunmen were in their car and
they were coming after her.
 
“I don’t see
anybody but the people trying to kill us.
 
I need help!”
 
She looked at Deuce
and fought back tears.
 
“They shot
Deuce.
 
He needs a doctor.
 
He may still be alive.”

She kept
glancing through the rearview at the advancing getaway car.
 
She kept glancing at Deuce bleeding to death
before her very eyes. She kept listening to Betsy’s hysterical screams.
 
And she felt as if the world was closing in
on her.
 
She was in trouble.
 
“Lord, help me,” she started crying.
 
“Lord, help me.
 
Please
help
me
!”
 
Because she knew, when she
looked through the rearview again and saw that getaway car gaining more and
more ground on her big limousine, and saw their weapons appear out of their
windows as if they were ready to launch another attack, that only the Lord
could help her now.

Mick Sinatra
was already in a foul mood.
 
The three
young lieutenants of the three crime organizations that depended on him for
their survival requested an emergency meeting that couldn’t wait, and he
granted it.
 
But it meant he couldn’t
meet Rosalind’s plane.
 
Which made it bad
enough.
 
But as he leaned against the
front of his desk, in his home library, and realized what this
couldn’t wait
meeting was really all
about, his blood began to boil.
 
He was
inwardly enraged.

“It’s not
just the three of us, boss,” Nat Bianchi said.
 
He was Carp Bianchi’s kid.
 
Bianchi was still alive, he was the only one of the three dons who
didn’t bite the dust during that last insurrection, but it spooked him so much
that he retired, and put his kid in charge.
 
Now Mick had to deal with these sawed-off ass wipes.
 
The remnants of three empires.
 
Young men who hadn’t done shit to deserve to
run shit, but still felt they deserved his time and attention.

“What are
you trying to say, Nat?” Danny Padrone asked.
 
Danny had been Mick’s body man for years, but after the insurrection,
after his most trusted men turned on him, Mick elevated Danny.
 
Now Danny was his number two and was standing
by his side.
 
“What do you mean it’s not
just you three?”

“It’s not
just the three of us making these demands,” Nat clarified.
 
“We don’t just represent Vito DeLuca’s crew,
and Teddy Stefani’s crew, and you know my old man turned his organization over
to me.
 
It’s not just us.
 
It’s everybody in the sub-organizations
too.
 
They stand behind our demands
too.
 
And they all agree, like we agree,
that we should have a fifty-fifty partnership with you.
 
You get fifty all by yourself, and we split
the remaining fifty.
 
Right now you get
the king’s ransom, eighty percent, and we have to scramble around and split
twenty.
 
That’s not right.
 
A fifty-fifty split is right.
 
That’s more than fair.”

Mick
continued to sit there, and to listen. But Danny knew he was enraged.
 
Because Danny couldn’t believe it
himself.
 
These fools had just walked
into the lion’s den and didn’t even realize it.

“It’s our
people who do all the leg work,” Nat continued.
 
“It’s our people who take all the risks.
 
All you do is sit up in your legit businesses, in your ivory tower, and
dictate to us.
 
But we have to give you a
cut of everything we get.
 
The biggest
cut of all.
 
That’s not right.
 
Fifty percent is more than enough for you.”

Danny knew
he had gone too far.
 
He looked at
Mick.
 
Mick was staring at Nat.
 
“More than enough?” he asked the little
pipsqueak.

Nat
swallowed hard.
 
Mick had the most
intimidating demeanor, and those intense green eyes.
 
But Nat didn’t back off.
 
“We’re being more than generous, yes, sir,”
he said.
 
“Considering the reality of
what all our organizations have to do to keep the cash flow going, as opposed
to the little you have to do, considering that reality, yes.”

Mick was
ready to explode.
 
“I’ll tell you
reality,” he said, fighting to contain his outrage.
 
“Reality is the fact that I built every one
of your precious organizations with my bare hands.
 
I built that!
 
I made each and every one of your organizations what they are today, not
you, and for damn sure not your daddies!
 
They rode on my back!
 
I busted
the damn door down so they could walk through!
 
If it wasn’t for me every one of them would still be hustling on corners
and mixing drugs in basements!
 
The
reality is that you don’t own shit, and your daddies never did!
 
I own it!
 
I built it!”
 
Then Mick calmed
back down.
 
But his intensity was still
there.
 
“And I’ll tear it down before I
give an inch.”

All of the
men looked at Nat now.
 
This wasn’t going
the way they had planned.
 
They had
tweaked this presentation so decisively that they were certain Mick Sinatra
would see their side of things and cave.
 
And Mick Sinatra, the legitimate businessman, might have.
 
He didn’t need enemies.
 
Mick the Tick didn’t give a fuck.

But they had
a backup plan.
 
They had a failsafe if
Mick the Tick dominated and refused to listen to reason.
 
“Like I said,” Nat decided to say, “it is not
just us.
 
We’re three dozen strong.
 
That’s three dozen heads of three dozen
organizations.
 
And I’m here to tell you
that if you don’t agree to our terms, then you can expect war.
 
We will not be moved.”

Danny was
stunned.
 
It had never happened
before.
 
A punk like this threatening to
declare war on Mick Sinatra?
 
What an
insult!
 
But Danny wasn’t the only one
stunned. Mick found it disgusting.
 
So
much so that he pulled out his gun and shot Nat Bianchi through the forehead
before Nat knew what hit him.
 
He dropped
hard, like a body off a balcony.

A stunned
silence filled the room.
 
Even Danny
didn’t see that coming.
 
That was Carp
Bianchi’s kid Mick just iced.
 
Bianchi
wasn’t shit compared to Mick, but he was still considered a big time boss.

But Mick
didn’t give a rat’s ass about Bianchi.
 
If he allowed punk kids to start threatening him, with no retribution,
he’d be dead before sundown.
 
He had to
send a clear message.
 
He looked at the
remaining two organization heads, both of whom had the look of terrified men
that suddenly realized their misjudgment.
 
They received that message.
 
“That’s what I think about your fifty percent,” Mick said.
 
“That’s what I think about your war.”

But before
Mick could say more, and he had plenty more to say, the door to his study flung
open and Archie Bloom, his front gate security chief, was hurrying in, with a
shotgun at his side. “We got trouble boss,” he said in a voice so winded it
sounded as if he was hyperventilating.

“Tell me,”
Mick said.

Bloom finally
exhaled.
 
“They ambushed Miss Graham.”

Mick’s heart
hammered against his chest.
 
There could
be no worse news.
 
He stood erect.
 
Danny quickly pulled his gun and held the two
organization leaders at gunpoint.
 
Were
they involved in this?

But Mick
didn’t care at this point.
 
His entire
being was worried about Roz.
 
“They
ambushed her?” he asked.
 
“Did they harm
her?”

“She’s
okay,” Bloom said.
 
“They shot Deuce and
tried to hijack the limo, but Miss Graham managed to get behind the wheel and
speed away.”

“That’s my
girl,” Mick said aloud, unconcern with who heard him.
 
“Where is she?”

“She’s on
her way here now,” Bloom said.

Mick began
hurrying toward the door.
 
“Did you get a
team out there to blanket her?”

“They’re
driving like hell’s bats to get to her.
 
They’ll bring her in, sir.”

“How the
fuck could this happen, Arch?
 
What about
our people?”

“Don’t
know,” Bloom responded.
 
“All we’ve been
getting is radio silence.
 
We don’t hear
shit from them.
 
They were apparently
bought off, or just took off.”

Mick was
furious as he hurried toward the door.
 
Another group of his guys turning on him?
 
What the fuck was going on?

Mick held up
his hand as he headed out of his office and Bloom tossed him the pump action
shotgun he held in his hand.
 
“Keep their
asses here,” Mick ordered, referencing the two organization leaders, as he put
his own gun away and pumped the shot gun.
 
And headed out.

But the two
organization leaders already understood that they weren’t going anywhere.
 
They already had their hands in the air.

But unlike
the two young dons, the gunmen in the getaway car weren’t in retreat.
 
They began firing at the limo as it headed
down the long backroad that led to Mick’s home.
 
Roz knew she had to drive even more recklessly than she already was, as
she swerved mightily to avoid direct fire, as she was forced to hear Betsy’s
screams with every sound of glass crashing from bullet holes, and every sound
of bullets bouncing off or puncturing the steel body of the limo.