Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho (24 page)

“You mean
like the time your then-girlfriend, working for the judicial system, got my old
man out of prison?” Mick asked.
 
“That
same judicial system that allowed a man who killed his wife, his wife’s lover,
and who left his own children orphaned to go free?
 
To walk out of prison a free man?
 
That judicial system?”

“He served
thirty-plus years for that crime, Uncle Mick.
 
He paid for what he did.”

Mick was
angry.
 
“Life should mean life!” he
yelled.
 
“How many years did my mother
serve?
 
How many years did her lover
serve?
 
How many years are his children
serving?”

Those words
even hit Mick hard.

“And you
want me to have faith in
that
judicial
system?” Mick asked.

Brent had
suspected all along that Mick was the one who gunned down his grandfather on
the very day of his release.
 
But it
could never be proven.
 
“Yes,” Brent
said.
 
“I want you to have faith in that
judicial system.”

“And I say
fuck the system,” Mick said.
 
“I’m
handling my business.”

Then Mick
snatched away from Brent and continued his progression toward the passenger
side of the SUV.
 
And when Brent was
about to follow him, two of Mick’s men aimed guns at either side of Brent’s
head.

“Take it
easy, Andy Taylor,” one of Mick’s men warned him.
 
“This isn’t Opie you’re dealing with.
 
This is Mick Sinatra.
 
He’ll be out of your county as soon as he do
what he do.
 
You’ll be wise to stay the
hell out of it.”

But Brent
still wanted to object.
 
He could have
these men arrested in no time flat.
 
But
Charles took Brent’s arm and pulled his oldest child back.
  
Brent looked at his father.
 
He looked at the only man he’d ever looked up
to.

“I don’t
condone it either, son,” Charles said.
 
“But Jenay and Bonita, and little Brent, Junior and Makayla, and your
brothers?
 
They all could have been
killed tonight.
 
If we would have still
been eating dinner in that dining room, we would have all been dead.
 
We don’t know how deep this runs.
 
We can’t chance this, Brent, by arresting one
man.
 
We have to live here.
 
Our children have to live here.
 
We have to protect our family.”

Brent stared
at his father.
 
He was stunned.
 
“So what are you saying, Dad? Let him go?”

Charles
hated that it had to come to this, but he nodded his head.
 
“Let him go.”

Brent never
thought, not in a million years, that he would ever allow anybody to run
roughshod in his town.
 
But his father
never gave him wrong advice.
 
He trusted
his father above any man alive.
 

He let him
go.

The men
stopped pointing their weapons at Brent and got in the other SUVs.
 
Mick looked over at Roz as he sat in the lead
truck.
 
He looked at her as if he needed
something from her, but he didn’t know what.
 
Then she nodded.
 
Just one nod of
her head.
 
And he realized it was not so
much as her approval, but her understanding.
 
She understood.
 
Now he was ready.

“Go,” he
ordered Deuce, and Deuce drove away as the lead vehicle, with the other two
SUVs following.

“That’s the
place?” Mick asked as the SUV parked at the end of a dirt road that led to a
lone trailer in the woods.

“That’s the
place,” Danny said.
 
“His meth labs
aren’t back there though.
 
They say
that’s why the cops haven’t been able to catch him in the act.
 
He’s nobody’s fool.”

“Not even
ours,” Mick said.
 
“We can’t do a frontal
assault.”

“Why
not?
 
He wouldn’t know what hit him.
 
Out here in these fucking woods.”

“Deuce,”
Mick said, “I want you and the others to pull up in front of the trailer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Danny and I
will go around back.
 
But wait until we
get back there before you pull up.
 
Then
I want every man to get out as if they’re ready to shoot that motherfucking
place down.
 
If there’s an army inside,
they will retaliate.
 
And the leader will
try to get away.
 
Around back.”

“Right into
your arms?”

“Right into
my open arms,” Mick said.

Deuce and
Danny smiled.
 
“Yes, sir,” Deuce said.

Then Mick
and Danny, fully armed and loaded, got out of the lead SUV and made their way
around the back of the trailer, careful to avoid all windows.
 
Deuce got on the phone with the backup men,
and explained the plan.

And it went
off just as Mick had predicted.
 
He and
Danny hid out back while Deuce and his men drove in front of the trailer and
got out.
 
Gunfire erupted.
 
And within seconds, the back door flew open
and a husky, bearded white man came running out, his own gun in hand.
 
Only he ran right into the outstretched arms
of another gun. Mick’s.
 
He immediately
dropped his and put up his hands.

“Duncan
Sawyer?” Mick asked.

“Who are
you?”

“Are you Duncan
Sawyer?”

“Who wants
to know?”

Mick shot at
Duncan, to within an inch of his ear, causing Duncan to dodge the bullet and
reveal in his eyes the terror that was now in his heart.
  
“Yes,” he said quickly.
 
“Don’t shoot.
 
I’m Duncan!”

Mick handed
his gun to Danny, who kept both his and Mick’s aimed at their perp.
 
“You threw a smoke bomb into a residence
tonight,” Mick said.

“What does
that have to do with you?” Duncan asked. “I’ve never seen you before in my
life!”
 
He looked at Danny.
 
“Him either!”

“Why did you
do it?”

“Who says I
did anything?”

“Before you
get the impression that I’m fucking around with you,” Mick warned, “I need you
to understand something.
 
I missed
killing your ass on purpose just now.
 
I
won’t miss killing your ass on purpose if you fuck around with me.
 
Now answer my question.
 
Why did you firebomb Charles Sinatra’s house
tonight?”

Duncan
realized that this was no fishing expedition.
 
These guys had very specific information.
 
“His boy owed me money,” he said.

Mick had
already worked out, after Brent had said who this Duncan Sawyer really was and
what line of work he was in, that the bombing had nothing to do with him.
 
This was all about excising the cancer that
threatened to derail his brother and his brother’s family.
 
This wasn’t about clearing his conscience
anymore.
 
It was all about revenge.
 
“Which boy owed you money?” Mick asked.
 
“Robert?”

“Hell
no.
 
That idiot started working for his
old man and turned straight on us.
 
He’s
as bad as his old man now.”

“Then who?”
Mick asked.
 
“Which Sinatra owes you
money?”

“Donny
Sinatra,” Duncan said.
 
“Who else?”

Mick was
surprised.
 
“Donald?”

“Yeah,
him.
 
That cocksucker owed me big
time.
 
And I was going to fry his ass
before I let him get away with disrespecting me.”

Mick
exhaled.
 
Charles wasn’t going to like to
hear this.
 
Especially if it was an
outrageously big sum.
 
“How much does he
owe you?” Mick asked.
 
“Fifty thousand?
 
A hundred thousand?”

“Hell
no.
 
Eight hundred,” Duncan said.

“Damn!”
Danny was floored.
 
“He owes you eight
hundred thousand dollars?
 
Nearly a
million bucks?”

Duncan
frowned.
 
“What are you talking
about?
 
No!
 
He owes me eight hundred dollars.”

Danny
couldn’t believe it.
 
Mick couldn’t
either.
 
He stared at the fool.
  
“You firebombed a home,” Mick asked, “a home
where you had to assume an entire family was inside, because Donald Sinatra
owes you eight hundred dollars?”

“That may
not be a lot of money to you,” Duncan declared, “but it’s real money to people
like me.
 
I don’t make that kind of bread
in a week!”

“Eight
hundred bucks?” Mick asked again.

“Yeah, eight
hundred.
 
What are you deaf?
 
Eight hundred!”

Mick wasn’t
deaf, but he was angry.
 
He grabbed
Duncan and body slammed his back onto the tip end of the steps.
 
Duncan screamed out in pain.
 
But Mick didn’t give a shit.
 
He got on top of him, causing Duncan to
scream louder.

“Eight
hundred bucks?” Mick asked again in a voice that still reeked of
incredulity.
 
“You nearly killed my
brother and his family, and my woman, over eight hundred dollars?”

Mick angrily
reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of big bills and began stuffing some
of them into Duncan’s mouth, causing Duncan to gag.
 
“Here’s your eight hundred fucking dollars
you fucking prick!” Then Mick stood up.

“I can’t
believe it,” Danny said. “I thought those fools in Philly did stupid shit, but
this takes the cake!
 
Eight hundred
dollars?
 
My shoes cost more than that
chump change!”

Mick tossed
more bills on a now crying Duncan.
 
“He
loves his money,” Mick said.
 
“He does
what he has to do for his reputation sake.
 
And I do what I have to do for my rep too.”

Mick pulled
out a book of matches, and struck one.

As soon as
Duncan saw what Mick was about to do, he tried to move, to get away, but his
back was broken.
 
He couldn’t go
anywhere.
 
“No,” Duncan begged.
 
“No, please, no, please, no, please!”

But Mick was
beyond persuasion now.
 
“You tried to
light up my family,” Mick said, “now I’m going to light you up!”

And he
dropped the match on top of a defenseless Duncan.
 
The fire caught on the paper bills, and
ignited.
 
Mick and Danny stood back as
Duncan screamed and wailed and tried to move his unmovable body away from the
fire, but he couldn’t move.
 
His hands
tried to toss the fire away, but they only got burned too.
 
He didn’t even think twice when he tossed
that smoke bomb.
 
He didn’t even care
that children were in that house and could have been burned alive.
 
But he understood now.
 
He understood too late.

When Mick
returned with word that Donald and his eight hundred dollar debt was the reason
for the bombing, Brent tried to get to Donald, and Robert, but Charles beat
them to it.
 
And he beat him down, right
there on that front porch.
 
Roz hurried
up to Mick, and Mick took her hand, while Charles’s sons stood back and let
their father, the undisputed head of their household, handle his business too.

And Charles
handled it.
 
He handled it so well that
Jenay came hurrying out of the house where she and Brent’s wife had put the
children to bed, and were in the room with them.
 
She didn’t understand why Charles was so
enraged, but she was certain it was an explosive reason.

But it was
more than that.
 
Mick could tell Charles
was stunned.
 
He probably thought he had
already crossed that threshold with his children, and they were all going to be
alright.
 
Now one was dealing in dirt
again, and he had to clean it up.

When Charles
finished beating the crap out of his youngest boy, he wanted to stomp on him
where he laid on that porch.
 
But Jenay
pulled him back and stopped him.
 
Whatever Donald did was undoubtedly bad, she knew, but he was still
their child.
 
He was not some dog.

Charles
exhaled.
 
“Get up,” he ordered Donald.

Donald
slowly stood up.
 
Every inch of his body
ached.
 
But he knew his father did not
like weakness, and would not be moved by tears.

“So you’re
on drugs now?” Charles asked.
 
He had a
look on his face that Mick saw as a cross between anxiety and anger.
 
He was upset with his son.
 
But he was more worried about his son.
 
“You’re a drug addict now?” Charles
continued.
 
“You’re a junkie?
 
A meth head?”

“No,” Donald
said.
 
He sat on the edge of a chair,
holding his stomach.
 
His face was
bleeding; his eyes were puffing up; he had been beaten down.
 
“I’m none of those things.
 
I’m not on drugs.”

But Brent
wasn’t convinced.
 
“Then why did you owe
Duncan Sawyer, a drug dealer, eight hundred dollars?”

“It wasn’t
me.”

“Who was it
then?” Brent asked.

“Savannah.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“Who the fuck is Savannah?”

“This girl I
dated a couple months ago.
 
That meth was
for her.
  
I never touched the
stuff.
 
Then she left town.
 
She left me high and dry.
 
So I didn’t worry about what I owed.
 
I forgot about it.”

Charles and
Brent shook their heads.
 
“You forgot you
owed a drug dealer?” Charles asked.
 
“You
put your entire family in jeopardy over some woman you just met, and then
forgot to pay the debt?”

Donald
looked up at his disappointed father.
 
“Yeah,” he said, as if he still didn’t see the big deal.

Charles had
had enough.
 
“Get the fuck out of my face,”
he said.
 
“I don’t ever want to see your
ass again!”

But Mick
knew what that meant.
 
He knew how wrong
Charles was.
 
“Charles, no,” he said, as
he stepped forward.
 
Roz was shocked.
 
Jenay was too.

But it was
personal for Mick.
 
His youngest son was
giving him fits too.
 
Just as Mick, the
youngest in the original Sinatras of Jericho County, gave Charles fits when he
was younger.
 
It was clear as day to him
how vicious the cycle was becoming.
 
And
how he and Charles were the only two men who could stop it.

Charles
looked at him.
 
“What do you mean no?”

“Don’t shut
him out too,” Mick said to his big brother.
 
“It’ll only get worse.
 
I made
that mistake with my kids.
 
You made that
mistake with me.
 
It’s got to stop.
 
We, you and me, have got to stop it. While
you still have influence over your son, while you still have his respect, you
cannot shut him out too.”

Charles
stared at Mick.
 
He stared at a boy that
he just knew could have been a king if he would have only known how to raise a
king.
 
But he didn’t even know how to
raise himself.
 
Then he looked at
Donald.
 
Another man-child under his
tutelage whose promise didn’t materialize.
 
He was still working under Jenay at the B & B.
 
Still depending on Charles for his
living.
 
His brothers still called him Daddy’s
boy even though he was a full grown man.
 
And now this.