Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho (3 page)

But then
Mick’s men arrived like the Calvary, in four separate cars.
 
Two cars of men sped past the limo and got
into a shootout with the gunmen in the getaway car.
 
The gunmen started driving in reverse, and
attempted to course correct and turn around, but were so outmanned and
outgunned, and was moving so fast, that the car flipped and rolled as if it was
a toy.
 
The two additional cars gave Roz
security cover and escorted the limousine to Mick.
 
Betsy still had her head down, and thought
she was still screaming, but her voice was gone.
 
Roz felt better, she felt for the first time
that they just might get out of this alive.
 
But she wasn’t going to feel safe until Deuce was getting help, and she
was in Mick’s arms.

The gates to
Mick’s massive estate opened, as the limousine and its escorts arrived.
 
Guards inside the gate had their guns drawn
and were waving the limo in, but were on the ready just in case there was any
secondary attacks.
 
Roz sped through the
gate and drove wildly up the long, winding driveway that led to Mick’s big
house.
 
She sped like a woman on the
verge of victory, but terrified that it could all be snatched away if she let
up.

Mick was
running out of his house, with the shotgun at his side, just as the limo sped
toward his front steps.
 
He ran down the
steps as the limo came to a screeching halt and Roz jumped out.
 
His security detail jumped out of the other
two cars too, to provide even more cover.

By the time
Betsy crawled out of the limo, Roz had already ran to Mick, and he was lifting
her into his big arms.

“Mick!” Roz cried,
her heart hammering.
 
“Oh, Mick!”

“Darling,
are you okay?”

She
nodded.
 
“I’m okay.
 
Thank God.
 
I’m okay.”

He didn’t
waste another second hugging her or checking her out or asking for any
details.
 
He wanted her inside and safe
first.
 
He began hurrying her toward the
house.
 
He was looking back, and was
ordering his men to get a doctor for Deuce, and to shut up screaming Betsy and
get her inside too.
 
But mostly he still
had his shotgun at the ready, and was guarding Roz.

But he kept
looking back.
 
He kept wondering what in
the world was going on.
 
Because he knew
what this meant.
 
A fucker crazy enough
to ambush Mick Sinatra’s woman and shoot to kill Mick Sinatra’s most trusted
driver, was a crazy fuck.
 
And that was a
problem.
 
But he knew he was going to
hunt that fool down like the mangy animal he was and take care of him.

But the
security force he had in place to protect Roz from times like these had stood
down.
 
And were nowhere to be found.
 
That was the real problem.
 
He thought the insurrection was over.
 
He thought the war was won in that safe house
in New York.
 
But now he saw his
miscalculation.
 
He had built back up his
army, only to have it turn on him again.
 
Mick held Rosalind tightly as he hurried her into the house.
 
Somebody was playing him for a fool.
 
It might be those men in his house right now,
the heads of the Stefani and DeLuca organizations, but somehow he doubted
it.
 
Because they were merely threatening
to go to war with him if he didn’t bow to their absurd demands.
 
But to ambush Roz meant that this was already
war.
 
That the declaration had already
been given.
 
And the weasels didn’t
bother to notify him.

Three Weeks Earlier

The pearl-white
Bentley stopped at the side entrance of the Hummingbird Theater, a successful
community theater in Philadelphia’s business district.
 
When the director saw the car, he tossed his
cigarette to the ground and squished it with his shoe.
 
It was so cold outside that his breath poured
out of his mouth like smoke, as if his cigarette was still lit.
 
But at least she had arrived.
 
At least they were getting somewhere.

He watched
as Roz Graham, the girlfriend of the CEO of Sinatra Industries, stepped out in
her ankle length fur coat and stiletto boots and made her way toward him.
 
She seemed flustered too.
 
That, to the director, was a good thing.

“I hate that
you had to come over here on a day like this,” he said as she approached.
 
“But I ran out of options.”

“Where is
she?”

“In her
dressing room.
 
She won’t even rehearse
unless we meet her demands.
 
We have a
show tonight, Roz.
 
I don’t know what
she’s thinking!”

“I don’t
either,” Roz said, as she opened the side door.
 
“But I will be finding out.”

Roz entered
the theater and headed along the narrow corridor to the dressing rooms in the
back.
 
The director was following behind
her, expressing all kinds of dismay, but Roz heard him bitch and moan over the
phone.
 
She’d heard enough from him.
 
She needed to hear what her client had to
say.

That was
why, when she made it up to Venita Blake’s dressing room, she knocked once,
opened the door, and entered alone.
 
The
director seemed poised to follow her in, but she closed the door behind her.
 
And walked up to her young starlet who sat at
the mirror, sipping wine, and talking on her cell phone.

“I’ll call
you back,” Venita said when she saw Roz enter the room.

Roz walked
up to her.
 
She sat her Hermes bag on the
tabletop, her butt on the edge of the table, and folded her arms.
 
“Talk to me.
 
What’s going on, Neet?”

“I don’t
know why they called you.
 
They didn’t
have to call you for this.”

“What’s
going on?” Roz asked again.

“These
people are driving me crazy, Miss G.
 
That’s what’s going on.
 
You know
what they want?
 
They want my character
to be some slut.
 
They want her to be
some pole climbing, beer guzzling whore.”

Roz was
mystified.
 
Was she serious?
 
Was this some joke?
 
She frowned.
 
“What are you talking about?”

“My
character in the play,” Venita explained.
 
“They aren’t treating her right!”

“They aren’t
treating her right?
 
Really?
 
That’s what this is about?
 
You don’t think the people who hired you to
act in
their
play know what they’re
doing?
 
The people with twenty years of
experience versus your twenty days of experience?
 
Is that what you’re telling me, Venita?”

“I just
think they need to stop trying to turn her into a slut.”

“What
difference does that make what they turn her into?
 
You’re here to act.
 
You’re here to do your job.
 
Why are you worrying about something that you
can’t control?”

“But I
should be able to control it,” Venita insisted.
 
“I’m the talent.
 
I’m the person
who’s going to make it great.
 
I have to
play that character on stage.”

“You have to
play that character on stage
for pay
,”
Roz pointed out.
 
“This is not volunteer
work.
 
You are being paid to play that
character on stage.”

“Yeah, I’m
being paid, but---”

“But
nothing, Venita!
 
That’s everything right
there.
 
You are being paid to read the
lines they tell you to read.
 
So why
should you care how they portray the character?
 
You’re being paid!
 
It’s your job
to portray your character in whatever light these people want you to portray
her in.”

“But that’s
all they think of us black women,” Venita said.
 
“Why we always got to be sluts and whores?
 
I don’t think that should be this woman’s
character.”

“The woman
you are portraying is a prostitute, Venita.
 
A hooker!
 
You knew that when my
agency negotiated this contract for you.
  
She’s a hooker!
 
And guess
what?
 
A hooker, generally speaking of
course, is what many people would consider a whore!
 
You knew that going in.
 
You accepted those terms going in.
 
Now I’ve got the director calling me as if
he’s ready to kill your ass if you don’t pull it together.”

“But I have
a right to voice my opinion,” Venita insisted.
 
“Yeah, my character sells her body for money, yeah, she does.
 
But she’s not selling it for fun.
 
She’s selling it to pay her bills.
 
That doesn’t make her a slut in my book.
 
That makes her smart.
 
I feel they should realize her worth and give
her more positive things to say and do.”

Roz was
beyond upset.
 
She leaned toward Venita,
lowering her voice.
 
“Look little girl,”
she said harshly, “you need to cut this shit out.
 
You hear me?
 
You want to be an actress.
 
You came
to my agency begging us to find you roles, any roles you said, so that you
could act.
 
We not only find you a job,
but we get you the starring role in a play that may someday make it to New York
and ultimately to Broadway!
 
And your ass
is complaining because they don’t make some hooker virtuous enough?
 
Last month you couldn’t pay your rent, and
now you’re Viola fucking Davis?
 
Are you
kidding me?
 
You’d better come back down
to earth and do whatever these people tell you to do.
 
If they want you to stand on one leg and bark
like a dog, you stand and bark and collect your pay.
 
You’re just getting started and you want to
be the diva?
 
Really?”

Roz sat back
up.
 
“You’d better get it together, Nita,
now I mean it.
 
Or they will drop you and
my agency will too.
 
Then we’ll see how
virtuous you are then, with your broke ass.
 
So instead of worrying about the character’s character, you better start
worrying about your own character by fulfilling the terms of this
contract.
 
If you aren’t willing to do
that, if you can’t work under the conditions they set, then say so now.
 
They can elevate the Understudy, and you can
go home.
 
But you’ve got to make a
decision.”

Venita
exhaled.
 
She was foolish at times, but
she was nobody’s fool.
 
“I want to stay
and work,” she said, to Roz’s relief.
 
“But if they’ll listen to my suggestions, Miss G, if they’ll only
listen, it can be a better play.”

“They will
listen,” Roz assured her, “if you listen to them.
 
Respect goes both ways, my darling.
 
You don’t get on set and start making
demands.
 
You get on set and work.
 
You work hard.
 
You prove that you can follow direction.
 
Then make your suggestions.
 
They’ll be more willing to listen then.”

Venita
nodded.
 
“Yes, ma’am.”

Roz stood
up.
 
Although Venita, at twenty-six, was
only seven years younger than Roz, they were decades apart in terms of
maturity.
 
Roz sometimes felt as if she
was Venita’s mother figure, rather than her peer.
 
“Now get on that stage and do your job,” she
ordered her.

Venita stood
and they hugged.
 
“I’m sorry you had to
come over here for this.
 
I know Mr. Mick
wouldn’t like us bothering you like this.”

Roz felt odd
when Venita mentioned Mick’s name.
 
Venita had only met him once, at Roz’s office, but she didn’t seem to
forget that meeting.
 
She, like many women
in this town, were always commenting on his good looks, or asking about his
sexual prowess, as if she was going to tell them a thing that personal.
 
Some of them claimed to already know.
 
It used to bother Roz.
 
Honestly, it still did.
 
But she was getting used to it.

“My work
here is done,” Roz said with a smile as she grabbed her violent-colored
purse.
 
Then she pointed at Venita.
 
“Behave,” she added.
 
“You haven’t earned that diva card yet.”

Venita
actually laughed as if it was all a joke anyway, and she hadn’t just wasted
everybody’s time.

But Roz felt
reassured.
 
And the director was
satisfied.
 
All was right in their world
again.

The
jet-black muscle car sped into the slanted parking space outside the seedy bar,
and Joey Sinatra removed his keys from the ignition.
 
His pal Wally was nervous as hell, but Joey
was relaxed.
 
It was just another day to
deal, as far as he was concerned.

But Wally
had a sinking feeling.
 
“This is going to
be our biggest buy yet,” he said.

“That’s
right.”
 
Joey grabbed the briefcase off
of Wally’s lap.
 
“We can make a name for
ourselves with this buy.
 
Those
crackheads are gonna line up to get a piece of this pie.”

“But what if
something goes down, Joey?
  
We don’t
have any backup.
 
What if Crib try to
fuck with us?”

“Fuck with
Mick Sinatra’s son?
 
Are you kidding
me?
 
Those fuckers know better than
that!”

Wally
couldn’t understand Joey.
 
He seemed to
hate his father and was always bitching about how he was never around, but then
he was always bragging about his old man too.
 
It made no sense.
 
“So if
something goes south you plan to stand on the fact that you’re Mick the Tick’s
kid?”

“Hell yeah
I’m gonna stand on it,” Joey said.
 
“It’s
true!
 
For all they know I’m making this
transaction for my dad.”

“Now you’re
talking crazy,” Wally said. “Your dad don’t know shit about this.”

“But they
don’t know that!
 
What do they know?
 
They don’t know shit about it either.
 
So stop worrying like some bitch and let me
handle this.
 
I know what I’m doing.”

But as Joey
began to get out of the car, Wally remained unconvinced.
 
“Crib ain’t like those brothers we deal with
on the Northside though,” he said as he got out too.
 
“He’s gangster for real.”

“And I’m
not?” Joey asked.
 
Then he frowned.
 
“Fuck Crib,” he said dismissively.
 
“And fuck you too if you gonna keep giving me
a hard time about it.
 
We’re here
now.
 
There’s no turning back.
 
Let’s get it over with.”
 
Joey headed across the sidewalk, and walked
into the bar.

Wally was
still not feeling it, but he followed Joey anyway.

Joey was
decked down in gold chains, Sean John shirt and jeans, and Air Jordans, with
his briefcase at his side.
 
He walked
with swag, looking like some rapper, as he made his way across the crowded room
to the bar counter near the back.

Wally was
behind him, dressed equally streetwise, but when the bartender motioned for
Joey to go on back, a beefy bouncer reached out his hand and stopped
Wally.
 
“Just him,” he said.

Wally was
part upset and part relieved.
 
He
remained out front, but as close to the front door as he could get.
 
He didn’t care what Joey thought.
 
He didn’t trust these people.