Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (11 page)

When he realized he was still pulling the trigger,
but no sound of a firing gun was heard at all, Adrian opened his eyes.
 
His father, who was standing there in what
even Adrian would call pure shock, pulled a pile of bullets from his coat
pocket.
 
It was only then did Adrian get
it.
 
It was only then did Adrian realize
his father had asked for water, to get him out of the room.
 
His father wanted to make sure the gun would
be empty.
 
On top of everything else, his
father, Adrian realized, snatched his hope again.

He looked at the gun, as if he was suddenly stunned
himself that he had fired it, and then he threw the gun down as if it were a
contaminant, and ran.
 
Not out of the
front door, but his back door.
  
He
jumped into his Camaro and took off.

Mick, still inside his apartment, still stunned
shitless that his own flesh and blood would have attempted to kill him so
easily if he had not made the split second decision to empty that gun, stumbled
back and nearly fell.

When Adrian drove through the entrance gates of the
trailer park and out into the street, Danny and his crew sat up.

“That’s him!” yelled one.

“Where the fuck is he going?”

Where the fuck is Boss?”

“Do we follow him?” one of the men asked Danny.

“What do we do, Danny?” asked another one.

But Danny was too busy calling their boss.
 
He was too busy trying to get Mick to answer
his phone.

But Mick didn’t answer.

“We need to go after him, Danny!” the third man
suggested.

But Danny was, instead, speeding into the trailer
park in search of Mick.
 
“Our first obligation
is to our boss.
 
We have to make sure
he’s okay first!”

“And if he isn’t?”

“We take care of him.”
 
Danny frowned.
  
“What the fuck are you asking me a question
like that for?”

It was tense enough, as they raced to Mick’s aid.

Roz arrived home later that night.
 
It had been an especially long day.
 
After dealing with Hamp, which was tough
enough, she received a call from a disgruntled director.
 
He was going to fire her client, he told her,
if she didn’t get her act together.
 
Roz
had to rush over to the set, a local production of
Beauty and the Beast
, and calm those waters.
 
Then she had another client who wanted to
rewrite the terms of his contract.
 
Now
that he was pulling in regular work, and had a local following, he thought her
fifteen percent was asking too much.
 
Too
much after all the work she did to get him those regular gigs and that local
following?
 
After cussing his ass out and
threatening legal action, he got the hint.
 
But not before making her feel like some ruthless bitch on two
legs.
 
It was business, but that didn’t
make it feel right.

She felt dirty when she made it home, and wanted to
bathe the day away.
 
She saw that Mick’s
car was there, which was shocking that he actually beat her home for a
change.
 
And oddly enough, she wasn’t
exactly thrilled he’d beat her home this time.
 
She would have preferred a little
me
time after a day like this.

But when she entered their bedroom, and saw that the
French doors that led to the balcony were opened, she relaxed.
 
Mick was undoubtedly out there, and she knew
he would be out there for hours.
 
That
balcony was his sanctuary.
 
It was where
he retreated whenever he needed some
me
time too.
 
So she gladly gave it to him.

But when she removed her clothes, soaked in the tub
for nearly an hour, and dried off, she wanted to see him.
 
She wanted to be with him.
 
Enough
me
time for now, she thought with a smile.
 
She walked into their room-sized closet, put on one of his dress shirts,
and then made her way onto the balcony too.

She glanced at Mick, who was seated on the lounger
on the far end of the room-sized space.
 
She saw that he already had a drink in his hand, so she went to the
full-sized bar on their balcony, poured herself a glass of wine, and then
walked over to him.

“Hey,” she said, as she leaned over the rail and
looked out across their beautiful backyard.
 
She knew her ass was probably showing, given the way she was leaned
over, but only Mick could see it.
 
But
when he didn’t respond to her salutation, which wasn’t like him, she glanced
back at him.
 
When she saw his face, she
turned around completely.
 
Her heart
hammered.
 
“Mick, what’s wrong?” she
asked.
 
She had never seen him look so
distressed.

Mick looked up at Roz.
 
It was almost as if he had been in a
trance.
 
Roz’s heart dropped.
 
He reached out his hand.
 
She walked over to him, and he pulled her
down onto his lap.

Roz was so afraid that she could hardly contain
herself.
 
He was holding her, tightly,
but he wasn’t speaking.
 
She knew, in
time, he would tell her.
 
That was his
way.
 
But she couldn’t wait that
long.
 
“What happened?” she asked him.

Mick didn’t even know if he could utter the words.

“Mick, what?” Roz was getting more afraid with every
passing second.

“Adrian,” he said.

“What about Adrian?” she asked.

Mick shook his head.

“What about Adrian?” she asked again.

“He hates me,” Mick said.
 
“My oldest son has nothing inside of his soul
but hatred for me.”

Roz stared at him.
 
Mick, she knew, didn’t throw words like that around lightly.
 
“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“He killed Mo DeLuca.”

Roz was shocked.
 
“Vito DeLuca’s son?”

“Right.”

Roz’s heart dropped.
 
“Oh, Mick!
 
Why?
 
Could it have been avoided?
 
Surely he didn’t do something like that in
cold blood.”

“When I tracked him down,” Mick said, “he pulled a
gun on me.”

Roz knew this was more to the heart of the
matter.
 
“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything.
 
He fired ten or eleven times.
 
I’m not sure how many times.”

Roz couldn’t believe it.
  
She automatically looked down at him, as if
she believed he was strong enough to survive ten rounds of bullets.
 
When she saw that he was physically fine, she
didn’t understand.
 
“But . . . how could
that be?
 
He missed every shot?”

“No.
 
He was
accurate with every shot.
 
If I would not
have removed those bullets from that gun before he fired it, he would have
killed me.”
 
Mick looked at Roz when he
uttered those words.
 
Tears appeared in
Roz’s gorgeous eyes, and her hand moved to her mouth.
 
She could feel his pain.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he said to her.
 
“You know that.
 
It wasn’t about the dying that broke me.
 
It was the fact that my own son, my flesh and
blood, would hate me so much that he would . . . do what he did.
 
And even that wasn’t the worse of it.”

Roz stared at Mick.
 
What could possibly be worse than his own son trying to take him out,
she wondered.

“It’s the fact that I single handedly brought him to
that place.
 
The sins of the fathers are
visited upon the children.
 
My sins,
Rosalind, are being visited upon my children.
 
And I’m beginning to believe it’s too late for me to do a damn thing
about it.”

Roz pulled Mick into her arms.
 
Then she lifted his head and placed her hands
on either side of his handsome face.
 
He
was distraught, but he was still Mick.
 
“It’s never too late,” she said to him.
 
“You can’t ever let it be too late.”

Mick stared into her sincere eyes.
 
“It’s a mess, Mick,” she said.
 
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it.
 
It’s a mess!
 
You weren’t the father you should have been to them, and you know you
weren’t.
 
But you’re trying now.
 
You’re doing more now.
 
That has to account for something, or nothing
will count.
 
They will be ruined for
life.
 
And so will you.
 
I’m not going to let that happen to you.
 
You can’t let that happen to them.”

Mick understood what she meant.
 
But it was never because of a lack of
knowledge with him.
 
It was and had
always been because of a lack of action.
 
“I deserved it, Rosalind.
 
When I
got over the horror of it, and I saw that look of regret in Adrian’s eyes, I
knew just how deeply I deserved every bullet he had tried to pump into me.
 
Because he didn’t regret what he had
done.
 
He regretted failing at doing
it.
 
He failed again.
 
In his eyes, I won again.
 
How can he live with that?”

Suddenly, Roz had a terrible thought.
 
“Where is he now?” she asked.

Mick shook his head.
 
“I don’t know.”

Roz considered him.
 
“Do you care?” she asked.

Mick closed his eyes tightly.
 
Then opened them again.
 
“Yes,” he said, with anguish in his voice.

“Do you have men out searching for him?”

“I’ve got to bring him in, yes.
 
I have you to think about, and the rest of my
children.
 
I can’t let his hatred of me
transfer to you.”

Roz laid back against his chest.

Mick exhaled.
 
“Danny asked if I wanted to lift the stand-down order I gave to Mo’s
men.”

“Because he killed their boss?”

“Right.”

“But if you lift it,” Roz asked, “doesn’t that mean
Mo’s men will have a license to kill Adrian then?
 
They’ll have your blessing?”

Mick nodded.
 
“That’s exactly what it’ll mean.
 
But I didn’t lift it.
 
He’s on me
now.
 
I released that monster.
 
I’m the one that’s got to capture him.”

“And what’s going to happen when you do?” Roz asked.

Mick hesitated.
 
“That will be entirely up to him,” he responded.

Joey Sinatra sorted the mail, by department, in the
mailroom of Sinatra Industries.
 
Many of
the young workers still wouldn’t accept that he was Mick Sinatra’s son, and
every chance they got they found their way to his work station to question him
about it.
 
Like today.
 
Two workers came over and wouldn’t take yes
for an answer.

“You’re his for real son?” the younger of the two
asked.

Joey smiled.
 
“Yeah, man.”

“But I mean for real for real son?”

Joey laughed and continued to sort mail.
 
“I’m not playing with y’all.
 
He’s my father.
 
I’m his son.
 
So what?”

“So what?” asked the second
worker.
 
“Why are you down here with us if he’s your
father?”

Joey wished he knew.
 
“I’m learning the business,” he said.
 
“I’ll work my way up.”

“Dang.
 
Not
me.
 
If my daddy owned all this,
all this
, I would be king of the
hill.
 
Ain’t no way I’ll be in some dusty
mailroom.
 
I’d
be in the boardroom, jack, that’s where I’d be!”

Joey smiled, but kept doing his job.
 
They were just two poor stiffs running their
mouths, and he knew it.

“But you know what we’re saying, thought?” the first
guy asked.

“I know what you’re saying,” Joey said.
 
“But you don’t know my old man.
 
If you had a father like mine, it would be a
miracle he lets you work in the mailroom.
 
He’s hard like that.”

“Sounds mean to me.”

“He is mean,” the second guy said.
 
“That’s why I stay clear of him.”

“I don’t blame you,” Joey said as he continued to
slip envelopes through the various slots.

Then the door crept opened and, to the shock of the
two young guys, the CEO walked in.
 
They
quickly moved away from Joey and returned to their work stations.
 
Joey didn’t realize Mick had walked in until
he was walking towards him.

“Dad,” he said, surprised.
 
He’d never seen his father in the dungeon, as
the workers called the mailroom.
  
Neither
had anybody else.
 
“What are you doing
here?”

Then Joey looked down.
 
His father wore his usual expensive suit,
this one a light gray, but it seemed to hang on him wrong, as if it was
suddenly too big for him.

Mick looked around.
 
“Is there a place around here where we can talk?” he asked.

Joey nodded, although he was still confused.
 
“Sure.”
 
He sat the stack of envelopes down.
 
“Follow me.”

Joey escorted his father through the huge mailroom,
astounding all of the workers down there, as they made their way to the
breakroom.
 
It was small, considering the
amount of people it had to serve, but it was empty.

“Will this do?” Joey asked.

“It’ll do,” Mick said.

Joey sat up on the drain board near the sink as Mick
walked around the room.
 
This was a lot
of things to Joey, but mostly weird.

Mick continued to walk around a breakroom he owned,
but had never seen nor ventured into in his life.
 
He stopped walking in front of Joey, who sat
up on that drain board like a little kid, his red Air Jordans dangling, his
thick gold chain hanging down over an Eagles jersey.
 
His dark hair and dark eyes contrasted
dramatically to Adrian and Theodore, who both had Mick’s coloring, but he was
Mick’s son alright.
 
He was Mick’s
baby.
 
And not just because of the
DNA.
 
But also because he had the same
swag, those same mannerisms, that Mick had when he was young and full of shit
too.

“What’s this about, Dad?” Joey finally asked when
his father didn’t explain.

Mick folded his arms, and spread his legs.
 
It was now, with that pose, did Jody see his
father, not as the powerful businessman, but as the gangster.
 
He preferred this look.
 
“What is it, Dad?” he asked again.

“Adrian tried to kill me yesterday,” Mick said
bluntly.

Joey’s mouth flew open, and Mick was surprised to
see deep concern in his eyes.
 
“What?
 
Adrian
what
?”

“He tried to kill me.”

“How could you say something like that?
 
You’re our dad!
 
How could he try to kill you?
 
It has to be a mistake.
 
Maybe your men misunderstood what he was
doing.”

“I was there, Joey.
 
It was Adrian and me.
 
He put the
gun to my forehead and fired ten times, or more, I can’t be certain.
 
It would have been over had I not removed the
bullets from his gun before he fired.”

“But he knew you removed them, right?”

Mick shook his head.
 
“No,” he responded.

Tears appeared in Joey’s big eyes.
 
“But why?
 
I don’t . . . Why would you remove his bullets?
 
I don’t understand, Dad.”

“I thought I had to take him by force, to protect
him from a certain crew and from himself.
 
I didn’t want him to try to get away.
 
But I never would have thought . . .” Mick’s voice cracked and trailed
off.
 
The pain was still there.

Joey saw the pain on his father’s strong face.
 
Only he didn’t look so strong all of a
sudden.
 
He looked broken.
 
And Joey couldn’t help it.
 
His heart ached for his father for the first
time in his life.
 
And he opened his
arms, and pulled his father into them.

To say that Mick was thrown by Joey’s reaction would
be an incredible understatement.
 
He was
flabbergasted.
 
He never thought in a
million years that his son would hold nothing but contempt for him.
 
But there they were, in that breakroom,
holding onto each other like father and son.

And when they stopped embracing, it was Joey who
still had tears in his eyes.
 
Mick did something
he had never done before to any of his children: he wiped his tears away.
 
He thought it would feel so awkward to be
this close.
 
But it didn’t feel awkward
at all.

“What are we going to do?” Joey looked up at his
father, and asked him.

“Find him,” Mick said.

“And then what?” Joey asked.

Mick let out a harsh exhale.
 
“That depends on him, son.”

Joey stared at Mick.
 
And then he nodded his head, as if he was giving his approval.

Mick considered him.
 
He was a man after all, he thought, and a good one.
 
“If your brother phones you, or if you see
him, you call me.
 
You understand?
 
Don’t approach him.
 
Call me.”

“I will,” Joey said.
 
“I can’t go along with what he did.
 
He tried to kill you?”
 
Joey shook
his head again. “No.
 
That ain’t
right.
 
I would have killed that fucker
myself if he would have killed you.”

At first Joey was stunned he had said those
words.
 
But not as stunned as his
father.
 
“Don’t you dare do any such
thing,” Mick ordered.
 
But then he
nodded.
 
“But thanks,” he said.

Joey smiled weakly.
 
They seemed to understand each other now.

Mick even ruffled Joey’s hair as he began to
leave.
 
“I’ve got to get upstairs.
 
I’ll be in touch,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Joey responded.

And for some strange reason, his response caused
Mick to think of something else.
 
He
returned to his son.
 
“I almost forgot,”
he said, as he walked back up to him.
 
He
reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope.
 
He handed it to Joey.

Joey began to open it.
 
“What’s this?”

“The deed to the house your mother resides in.”

Joey looked up at him.

“It’s yours.
 
My lawyers are going to put it in your name. You can sign it over to
your mother if you wish, that’s your choice.
 
But it’s yours.”

Joey smiled grandly and immediately threw his arms
around his father again.
 
Then he caught
himself, and removed his embrace.
  
He
remembered how Mick planned to kick Cathleen out to begin with.
 
“It wasn’t right to try to kick her out
anyway,” he said, still standing up for his mother. Mick stared at him.
 
He liked that.
 
“She had nowhere else to go.
 
You giving me this,” Joey added, holding up
the deed.
 
“Thank you.
 
But it was still wrong.
 
What do you want from me?
 
Love or something?”

Mick was already shaking his head. “No, son,” he
said.
 
“I don’t want love from you.
 
That’s a lot to ask, I know it.”
 
Then Mick frowned.
 
“I just don’t want you to hate me,” he added,
in a strained voice.

Joey stared at him.
 
He must feel like the lowest thing moving after what his own son, his
oldest child, tried to do to him.
 
And
Joey’s heart went out to his father.
 
“It’s not too much to ask,” he said, speaking that truth for the first
time in his life.

Mick’s jaw tightened.
 
And he actually managed to smile.
 
Then he ruffled Joey’s hair again, and left.

When he had gone, Joey grinned, quickly pulled out
his cell phone, and called Cathleen. “Mom, mom, you won’t believe this!
 
Daddy gave me the house!
 
Your house!
 
Yes.
 
He gave me the house!
 
I’m not lying though.
 
He gave me the house.
 
And you know what that means?
 
You don’t have to move!
 
You don’t have to move!
 
You don’t have to move!”

Cathleen could be heard rejoicing through the
phone.
 
But not nearly as boisterously as
her son.