Mick Sinatra 2: Love, Lies, and Jericho (7 page)

Roz
remembered how crazy that sounded to her at the time.
 
His conflict resolution skill was to beat the
crap out of her or leave?
 
Those were the
only two ways he learned to handle problems in his entire life?
 
But when Roz thought about it, and thought
about the kind of thug life Mick lived before he became a legitimate
businessman, and the kind of devastating childhood he was forced to endure, she
knew there was truth to what Deuce had said.
 
Mick learned conflict resolution on the gritty, unforgiving streets of
Philadelphia.
 
Kill or be killed was his
street creed.
 
Talking it out, and
settling the issue the way Roz was taught, was anathema to him.

But it was
nights like this, when he walked out on her emotionally to avoid hurting her
physically, that made her wonder if loving Mick Sinatra could turn out to be
the biggest mistake of her life.
 
And she
was already at the point of no return.
 
He already had her heart in his hands.

She was in
trouble.
  

Sinatra
Industries, known around the globe as SI, was an enormous building in downtown
Philadelphia that Mick ran with an iron fist.
 
He was so feared by his employees that whenever he took the rare
occasion, as he was doing this morning, to enter the building not through his
private entrance, but through the lobby doors, everybody scurried to stay out
of his way.
 
It was an undeserved
reaction, Mick thought, since he did nothing but pay his employees extremely
well and expect extremely good work in return, but his reputation preceded
him.
 
They knew his nickname was Mick the
Tick, as in ticking time bomb, as in terrifying temper.
 
They wanted no parts of that.
 
They refused to risk their families’
livelihood by getting on the wrong side of him.

Mick,
dressed in his usual designer suit, designer shoes, and an aniline leather
briefcase, entered the staff elevator and watched with inward amusement as
every one of the people onboard moved to the opposite side.
 
And they all looked up, at the passing
numbers, as if they did not want to so much as be noticed by him.
 
It was amusing, because it looked so damn
strange, but it was sad to Mick too.
 
They had him all wrong.
 
He wouldn’t
fire somebody just for looking at him.
 
He wasn’t
that
heartless.
 
But it wasn’t as if it mattered.
 
His mind wasn’t on any of those scary-ass
people anyway.
 
His mind was on Roz.

He left her
house last night after some incredible sex and an incredibly stupid
argument.
 
He didn’t call her and she
didn’t call him.
 
He needed a cooling off
period and he suspected she did too.
 
But
he barely slept a wink last night.
 
Because something had been gnawing at him ever since she told him that
she had found herself a house.
 
Something
was scaring the shit out of him.
 
It was
the cold, hard reality that he could lose her.
 
He could lose his baby.
 
He could lose the only human being that he
ever depended on.
 
Roz was that kind of
lady.
 
She was ride or die, he believed
that with all his heart, but he also believed she would leave in a heartbeat if
she felt he wasn’t treating her right.
 
And Mick wasn’t at all sure if he knew how to treat a woman exactly
right.
 
This love stuff was for the
birds, not a man like him.
 
Yet here he
was: Mick the Tick.
 
Lovesick.

He didn’t
realize everybody on the elevator had quickly gotten off on the earlier floors,
until he was getting off on the top floor.
 
It was as if they would rather get off on the wrong floor and then take
the stairs to the correct one, just to avoid being in his presence and risking
his displeasure.
 
It was such a foolish
supposition to Mick that he didn’t even want to entertain the absurdity of it.

He stepped
off of the elevator, spoke to the receptionist, and made his way to the end of
the hall where his name and title,
Mick
Sinatra CEO/CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
was written over the double doors.
 
It was his suite of offices.

He entered
the outer sanctum of the private office to find his executive assistant, along
with four other assistants, working fervently at their desks.
 
He also found his son Joey and his mailroom
supervisor, Clancy, seated in chairs along the wall.
 
Both Clancy and Joey stood up, when Mick
walked in.

“You need to
get your boy straight,” Joey said angrily to his father as if he was talking to
one of his thug friends.
  
Everybody in
the room looked at Joey.

But Joey,
being Joey, was undaunted.
 
“He’s got
some serious-ass issues if he thinks he’s gonna handle me.
 
Better get your boy, I’m telling you.”

Mick
continued to walk toward his son and Clancy, and every assistant in that outer
sanctum knew whoever that young hoodlum was-they didn’t realize he was Mick’s
son-he was going to end up with his eyes down his throat talking to Mr. Sinatra
that way.
  
But Mick simply murmured, “In
my office,” as he passed the two men.

Even Joey
knew, after seeing that chilling look in his father’s eyes, to hold his peace
until he got into the inner office.
 
Clancy already knew it.
 
That was
why he remained silent.
 
They both
followed Mick inside, with Clancy closing the door behind them.

But as soon
as Mick made it around his desk and sat his briefcase down, Joey had slouched
down in the chair in front of his desk, and was ready to bitch some more.
 
Mick looked at him as he complained endlessly
about Clancy.
 
He was dressed in a suit
alright, but he had more gold chains around his neck than Flavor Flav.
 
He looked ridiculous.
 
But Mick heard him out.

“When I went
down there,” Joey said, hitting his fist in his palm, “I thought it was to meet
the person who was going to show me the entire operation.
 
To ask me what I wanted to do.
 
But instead this punk right here start
telling me he’s my boss and I was going to do whatever he told me to do.”

“I am your
boss,” Clancy said, “and you will do whatever I tell you to do.”

“When I told
this character that I’m your son,” Joey continued, ignoring Clancy, “then he
jumps an even worst attitude.
 
‘All the
more reason,’ he told me, ‘to get your ass in shape.’
 
I’m like, what the
fuck
?
 
What are you talking
about?
 
I can bench press your ass right
here and now!
 
Then he wants to tell me
I’m fired.
 
I told him my dad hired me,
only my dad can fire me.
 
Who the fuck
does he think he is?”

This was
child’s play to Mick, but he knew he had to be patient with Joey.
 
That boy had the same crazy arrogance Mick
used to have when he was that age.
 
The
exact same stupidity.
 
But unlike Mick,
whose father was rotting in some prison for killing his mother, Joey had a
father.
 
And his father was right in
front of him.
 
And Mick was going to get
that stupidity out of his son even if he had to beat it out.
 
“That’ll be all, Clancy,” he said to his
subordinate.

Clancy was
stunned.
 
“You don’t need to hear my side
of the story, sir?”

Mick looked
at him.
 
He wasn’t accustomed to his
employees giving him ANY backtalk.
 
“That’ll be all.”

Clancy stood
up.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said, disappointed
that he didn’t get to have his say.
 
But
he didn’t sweat it.
 
That punk kid wasn’t
worth losing his job over.
 
He left the
office, closing the door behind him.

Joey had a
smug look on his face after Clancy left, as if they had been at battle and Joey
had won.
 
Mick, however, picked up the
phone and pressed two buttons.

“You should
have seen how he treated me, Dad,” Joey continued talking.
 
“I wanted to beat his ass the way he treated
me.”

“Hello,
Benny,” Mick said over the phone.

“Mr.
Sinatra?
 
That you?”

“That’s
right.
 
I wonder if you have any openings
down there.”

Joey sat up
straight.
 
Now they were getting
somewhere, he thought.
 
No more mailrooms
as if he was some damn slave.
 
He wanted
to learn from the big boys.
 
He was going
to run this company someday, and he couldn’t wait to get started.

But when
Mick hung up, he quickly realized what he wanted and what his father wanted for
him were two different things.
 
“Go
downstairs to the cafeteria and ask for Benny Bronson,” Mick ordered.

Joey still
didn’t get it.
 
“Benny Bronson?”
 
He stood up.
 
“What is he?
 
Your Vice Prez or
something?”

“He runs the
cafeteria,” Mick informed him.
 
“You’re
his new busboy.”

Joey
couldn’t believe his ears.
 
“His new
what
?”
 
Then his face revealed the extent of his displeasure.
 
“What are you doing, Dad?
 
That’s worse than working in the mailroom!”

“Then
hopefully that’ll teach you to keep your trap shut and do what you’re told.”

Joey was
distressed.
 
“But I thought you said I
was going to work with you!”

“You will
work with me when you prove to me your willingness to actually work.
 
When you show that to me, then we’ll
talk.
 
Right now you haven’t shown me
anything
but
talk.
 
You go down there and fuck around with Benny
Bronson, he will kick your ass.
 
I have
given him permission to do so.
 
Do we
understand each other, Jonathan?”

Joey was
angry, but he knew he was skating on thin ice with his father.
 
He wanted to work by his side too badly to
mess this up.
 
Which made him only
angrier.
 
But now that he saw he wasn’t
going to let him start at the top, he had to be willing to prove himself at the
bottom.
 
And in Joey’s mind, it didn’t
get any lower than busboy.
 
“Yes, sir,”
he said.

“Then
go.
 
If you don’t know where the
cafeteria is, ask somebody.”

Joey
left.
 
But not before looking back at his
father to make sure he wasn’t playing with him.
 
But who was he kidding?
 
His
father never played.

Mick’s
Lamborghini came to a stop in back of a three-story building that looked as if
it had been abandoned decades ago.
 
But
he was accustomed to meetings in places like this.
 
Once, when he was a wanted man for some
chicken shit shooting on Somerset, he hid out for months in a place like
this.
 
Until a member of his crew that
was already in prison for life confessed to the crime, and the warrant was
dropped.

Mick got out
of his car and made his way up the side stairs, with his Prada leather ankle
boots stepping down hard as he made the climb.
 
He didn’t give a rat’s ass who heard him coming either.
 
This was his neck of the woods.
 
He knew of getaway passages the guy he was
coming to meet couldn’t even fathom.

The guy he
was coming to meet, Harper Curly, was standing at the big window of the big,
deserted room, when Mick walked in.
 
Like
most backroom thugs these days, he was dressed very conservatively in a
three-piece suit and tie.
 
He even drove
an unassuming Lexus.
 
The mayor was
cracking down hard on crime and crooks were running scared.
 
They didn’t want to bring any more attention
to themselves than their names already did.

But unlike
them, Mick had enough sense to cultivate big time politicians years ago.
 
He did them deadly favors when they couldn’t
take care of it themselves, favors that would destroy their lives and careers
if the truth came out, and he still had each one of those power hungry fuckers
as his insurance.
 
The current mayor was
one of those fuckers.
 
They were cracking
down on all levels of big time crime and big time crime bosses all over Philly,
but they all knew Mick the Tick was off limits.

Harper
didn’t turn around as Mick approached him, but Harper was always trusting like
that.
 
He was always looking at the
bright side.
 
But Mick didn’t trust any
of these punks, and the only bright side he looked at was the side where he got
out of every situation alive.
 
He would
never have made it on the streets if he walked them with some trust ethic.
 
His ethic was kill or be killed.
 
Trust was for the dead.

“If you look
far enough that way,” Harper said when Mick made it by his side, “then guess
what you can see?”

Mick didn’t
bother to look out of the window where Harper was pointing.
 
He looked at Harper instead.