Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal (6 page)

  
Roz smiled
too.
 
Hamp really was one of the good
guys.
 
But why in the world was he in her
orbit?
 
“What are you doing here?” she
asked him, as he came upon her and gave her a friendly hug.

“I heard through the grapevine that you had yourself
a talent agency here in Philadelphia.”

“I do,” Roz said.
 
“As you can see.”

“Yes, I see,” Hamilton removed his shades and looked
up at the impressive building of granite and glass.
 
“You own it, lease it, what?”

“Own,” Roz said.

“Wow.” He looked at Roz.
 
“I’m impressed girl.
 
You did great for yourself.”

Coming from Hamp, it was a compliment.
 
“Thank you,” Roz said.

“Yeah, at least one of us did well.”

Roz stared at him.
 
What in the world was he talking about?
 
“So what are you doing here?” she asked again.

Hamilton exhaled.
 
“I need representation, Roz.
 
I
need a fighter like you.”

Roz was thrown.
 
“What are you talking about?
 
Aren’t you with the William Morris ---?”

“Everybody dumped me,” Hamilton quickly
interjected.
 
“I did one dumb thing, now
I can’t get a job as a dog catcher on Broadway.”
 
His look was sincere.
 
“I need your representation.”

It was a thorny problem for Roz.
 
She thought the world of Hamp.
 
She respected him as one of the greatest
actors of his generation.
 
But they had a
history.
 
A very brief history that he
told her going in was going nowhere, but that didn’t stop her from falling for
him.
 
That didn’t stop her from hurting
like hell when he kept his word.

“This is . . . very surprising that you would come
to me, Hamp,” she said.

“I know.
 
And
I’ve always been straight with you and I’ll be straight now.
 
I’m only here because I have nowhere else to
go.
 
No one else will touch me with a ten
foot pole.
 
I need your help, Roz.”

Roz could easily jump at the chance to represent a
name like Hamp Sturgess, despite their history.
 
But she never jumped into anything without first knowing everything she
could possibly know.
 
“What one dumb
thing did you do?” she asked him.

She could see a blush of embarrassment cross his face.
 
He exhaled.
 
“I slept with my director’s wife,” he said.

It had to be more to it than that.
 
Roz had been in the business long enough to
know that those guys on Broadway played musical beds with people’s wives as if
it were a sport.
 
Nobody was going to be
ruined that way.
 
Unless . . . “Which
director?” she asked.

Hamilton hesitated again.
 
“Tony Bellamy,” he said.

Roz immediately understood just how grievous a dumb
move that really was.
 
Tony Bellamy was a
legend on Broadway.
 
Nobody was
bigger.
 
He could break a career with one
phone call.
 
He apparently broke Hamp’s.

Then a strange, needy look crossed Hamilton’s
still-handsome face.
 
“Please don’t tell
me you’re going to turn me down too,” he said.
 
“Please don’t tell me that.”

Roz looked at him.
 
He slept around, that was what he always did.
 
But he was also a great actor.
 
And she ran a talent agency.
 
It would be hard to get him back on the
circuit with a blackball in force, but if anybody could get him back in, she
believed she could.
 
“If I take you on,”
she said to him, “it won’t be Broadway front door.”

Hamilton nodded.
 
“Understood.”

“You will have to star in smaller productions around
this town and other towns like it, get your name back out there, and then we’ll
have to backdoor your way back in.
 
But .
. .”

“But what?” Hamilton asked nervously.

“But if I decide to take you on as a client,” Roz
said, “I’m certain you’ll get back in.”

Hamilton smiled a smile that screamed of
gratitude.
 
“Thank you, Rosalind,” he
said.
 
“So does this mean it’s a yes?”

“No,” Rosalind said firmly.
 
“I’ll have to discuss this with my husband
first.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said, obviously disappointed.
 
“I didn’t know you were married.”

“Yes,” Roz said, holding up her gorgeous wedding
ring.
 
“Three weeks and counting.”

“Ah.
 
Brand
new.
 
That’s fab, Roz.
 
What’s his name?”

“Mick Sinatra.”

“I don’t know that name.
 
Is he in the business, or?”

“No.
 
He’s a
businessman, but he’s not in show business.
 
He runs an international corporation.”

“Whoa.
 
Sounds
like you married well.”

“Not like you mean,” Roz said and Hamilton
laughed.
 
“But yes, I married very well.”

“So what, this husband of yours, this Mick Sinatra,
he also runs the Graham Agency?”

“No.
 
It’s my
company.”
 
Mick put up every dime of the
capital for her company, Roz knew.
 
But
she also knew that wasn’t Hamp’s business.

But Hamilton looked puzzled.
 
“It’s your company.
 
Your husband doesn’t run it.
 
But you have to answer to him?
 
I don’t get it.
 
You’re telling me that you, Strong Roz, is
suddenly a Stepford Wife or something?”

Roz ignored his putdown.
 
“I’m telling you that I will have to discuss
the matter with my husband.”

“But why?” Hamilton asked with a frown on his face.

“Because we have a history, Hamp.”

“Oh, that?
 
Come on, Roz!
 
That was years
ago!”

“We have a history,” Roz made clear.
 
“If he doesn’t have a problem with me taking
you on, then I’ll take you on.”

“And if he does have a problem with it?” Hamilton
asked.

“I’m sure he won’t have a problem.”

“But if he does?” Hamilton asked again.

“Then I’m sorry,” Roz said, “I won’t be able to help
you.”

Hamilton smiled a smile that was bereft of any of
the charm and gratitude he had previously displayed.
 
“I guess that’s only fair,” he said, and
extended his hand.
 
“May I drop in
tomorrow?
 
See what the decision is?”

Roz could hear the harsh intonation he placed on the
word
decision
.
 
He was pissed that a man of his stature
should be subjected to this kind of treatment.
 
She understood his concern.
 
But
she and Mick promised each other that there would be no secrets in their
marriage, and she aimed to keep her word.
 
She remembered when she found out that Mick had one of his ex-lovers
working for him, and he had failed to tell her about it.
 
She knew how violated she felt.
 
She wasn’t about to do that to him.

“I’ll talk to him tonight,” she said to Hamilton, as
she shook his outstretched hand.
 
“I
should know something by tomorrow.”

Hamilton smiled that soulless smile again, said
goodbye, and made his way across her parking lot, to his car.
 
Roz noticed that he was driving a
Mercedes.
 
But it had to be ten years
old.
 
My, she thought, how the mighty had
fallen.
 
But he had no business sleeping
with Tony Bellamy’s wife.
 
He brought
that downfall on himself.
 
She went
inside her building.

Inside his car, Hamilton cranked up with a smile on
his face.
 
She thought he knew nothing
about her marriage, when he knew all about that marriage.
 
That was the only reason he had come.
 
But he never thought she would be so
solicitous to her new hubby.
 
He never
dreamed an independent woman like Roz would have to consult her husband on a
business deal that had nothing to do with her husband.
 
Which suggested to Hamilton that Roz not only
probably loved the guy, but might have been afraid of him too.
 
He’d read about the kind of past Mick Sinatra
was alleged to have had.
 
He hadn’t
counted on her loving a guy like that.

But that was okay too, he thought, as he drove
away.
 
He had to work harder.
 
He would just have to put on the charm unlike
he had ever put it on before.
 
Roz was in
love with him when he broke it off with her.
 
He was going to have to summon all of his acting talents to give her no
choice but to fall for him again.
 
Because she was his absolute last chance.
 
Not to get back on Broadway.
 
Fuck Broadway!
 
He was pushing forty now.
 
He was getting too old for the parts he would
want to play anyway.
 
So Broadway was
out.
 
Retirement was what he was after.
 
It was high time for him to kick back and
enjoy the sweeter things in life without lifting a finger for a change.
 
He was addicted to the sugar.
 
After all these years of living the good
life, he was a stone cold addict.
 
And
Rosalind Graham, now married to a very wealthy man, was soon going to be his
main supplier.
    

The backdoor of the dilapidated restaurant flew open
and Adrian Sinatra flew out along with a hail of gunfire that barely missed
him.
 
He ran down the back stairs so fast
that he jumped the last four and hit the ground running.
 
His car, a jet black Camaro 2SS, was parked
across the street, and he knew it was his only means of escape.
 
Because they were running down those stairs
too.
 
Men with machine guns.
 
Men with automatic rifles.
 
Men who couldn’t shoot straight if their life
depended on it, but could shoot a needle in a haystack just because of the
amount of rounds they were willing to unload.

He pressed his key fob to automatically crank his
car as he ran.
 
By the time he jumped in
and sped away, with those same men now standing in the middle of the street
firing on him in rapid succession, he felt as if he was having a heart
attack.
 
His chest was pounding!
 
But when he turned the corner, and then
another corner, and realized he was getting away, and realized those men had to
run back into their restaurant and bury those guns because sirens were already
being heard, he felt exhilarated.
 
He got
away!
 
Against all odds, he got away!

But then his exuberance turned into the sheer terror
it actually was.
 
He got away.
 
But what he had done was unforgiveable in the
world of those men.
 
They weren’t going
to let him get away forever.
 
Not even
for long.
 
They were going to come after
him with everything they had.
 
And only a
man like his father could protect him now.
 
The one human being on the face of this earth who could never know what he
was really up to, was the only human being who could make this right.

Adrian slowed his speed, drove normally, and left
the scene of his crime more soberly.

“We must maintain a united front,” Cathleen Thomas
said as she and the other two mothers stood around in her kitchen sipping wine
and generally getting in the way of the cook staff preparing the dinner.
  
Cathleen was Joey Sinatra’s mother, and the
ringleader if there was a leader.
 
“We
all know how Mick can be,” she continued.
 
“If we show the least amount of fracture, he’ll decimate us.”
 

“We’re united,” said Hillary Riverton.
 
She was the mother of Adrian Sinatra, Mick’s
oldest son.
 
“This is our future
too.
 
That bitch take over, and
eventually have kids by Mick too, where does that leave ours?
 
Where does that leave
us
?
 
Mick’s largess might
suddenly get smaller.
 
She might see to
that.”

“Nobody runs Mick that way,” Teddy Sinatra’s mother,
Ursula Mastriano, said.
 
“But I agree we
shouldn’t take any chances.
 
I agree we
should stick together.
 
And where’s
Adrian anyway?
 
Why isn’t he here?
 
He’s supposed to be here too.”

“You know my son,” Hillary said.
 
“He does his own thing, he goes his own
way.
 
And that’s fine by me.
 
Just as long as there’s no change in his
trust fund, or in the financial support Mick gives to me, that’s fine by me.”

They all laughed.

“Bella Caine phoned,” Cathleen said.
 
“She was invited of course, but she claims
she can’t possibly get away from some special, never before held New York
fashion week to spend a few hours with us.
 
Or something such fashion week.
 
But the bottom line is the same: she can’t make it.”

“Bella never makes it,” Hillary responded.
 
“She think she’s better than us because she
gave Mick a daughter.
 
She think she’s
better than us because she’s a fashion designer.
 
She think she’s better than us because she’s
black.”

“I hear she’s struggling,” Ursula said.
 
“Everybody can’t buy high fashion in this
economy.
 
Mick’s probably going to have
to bail her out again.”

“That’s exactly why we three need to stick together
and stake our claim now,” Cathleen made clear.
 
“Everybody wants some of Mick’s fortune, when it’s ours by rights.
 
We three gave him sons.
 
We three gave him heirs.
 
Our sons are his true legacy.”

“Although he doesn’t give a damn about them,” Hillary
said.
 
“Except for Joey,” she added.
 
“I heard he got a promotion.”

“It was no biggie,” Cathleen said.
 
“He went from working in the cafeteria to
working in the mailroom.”

The other mothers laughed.

“I’m serious,” Cathleen said.
 
“Mick is so hard that way.
 
Any other father who brings his son into his
business will give him a cushy job beside him.
 
But not Mick.
 
Joey has to prove
himself first.
 
He saved that bitch
that’s now Mick’s wife in that safe house that time, but that wasn’t enough for
him.
 
He’s so hard on his children!”

“Well at least your son got a job in his company,”
Hillary said to Cathleen.
 
“At least he
has the inside track.
 
Adrian wants in
too, but he refuses to start on the bottom the way Mick’s making Joey
start.
 
Adrian is Mick’s oldest son.
 
He feels he’s entitled to more than that.”

“He ain’t
entitled
to shit,” Ursula said, and Hillary gave her a harsh look.
 
“I’m just saying.
 
But I get your point.”

“Has anybody met this wife of Mick’s before?”
Hillary asked.

“I met her,” Cathleen said.
 
“She showed up at the hospital with Mick that
time Joey got shot.”

“Is she beautiful like us?” Hillary asked.

“She’s beautiful,” Cathleen admitted.
 
“But I wouldn’t put her on our level of
beauty, no.”

“I heard she’s young,” Ursula said.
 
“Years younger.”

“So what?” Hillary asked.
 
“That doesn’t make her better looking.”

“She’s black,” Ursula said and looked at Hillary
especially.
 
They all knew how she felt
about gorgeous women of color.

“All the more reason,” Hillary said, “that she
cannot possibly be in our league.”

“Mom,” a voice said just behind them and all three
women turned.
 
It was Joey, Cathleen’s
son.
 
“Dad’s here,” he informed them.

And as if fire had been placed under their feet,
they quickly smoothed down their outfits, spruced up their hair, and then
hurried into the living room.
 
The cook
staff, all of whom were people of color, shook their heads.

“She’s not in their league,” one of them
mocked.
 
“They’re in league with the
devil.
 
Who wants to be in their league?”

The cook staff laughed, and continued to do their
jobs.

Outside of the beautiful home, a home bought and
paid for by Mick, was Mick’s Maserati grinding to a halt.
 
The valet opened his car door for him, and he
stepped out, but he was certain his facial expression reflected his mood.
 
He cared about his children. He loved
them.
 
But being in the same room with
them and their mothers unnerved him.
 
Just seeing all of them together crystallized his failure in such a way
that it almost made him feel debilitated.
 
He had been an awful father, in a lot of ways as bad as his father had
been to him.
 
And even though, at this
late date, he was trying to make it right, he still didn’t really know what he
was doing.
 
And, he felt, as he headed
toward the entrance, it showed.

The door was opened by Cathleen’s butler, and Mick
walked into the foyer.
 
As soon as he was
escorted into the living room, and he saw three of his children, minus Adrian,
and three of his baby mamas, minus Gloria’s mother, he felt that twinge of
guilt hit him like a sledgehammer.
 
Especially after this morning.
 
Especially after seeing the pain in Gloria’s eyes when she realized
another man had let her down.
 
Because he
knew it all started with him.
 
He knew
every guy his daughter ever dated were all closer to his age than hers.
 
She had a father complex that he
created.
 
He was protecting her now from
creeps like him, but that still didn’t erase his part in her pain.

“Welcome to my home, Mick,” Cathleen boldly
proclaimed, as if her hard work and tenacity made it possible for her to secure
such a home when she and Mick both knew it was the work she did on her back for
him that secured it.
 
He was young and
dumb and so thuggish back then that he didn’t bother to wear condoms.
 
Now he was the proud father of four children
from four different women.
 
It took him
long enough, but when he finally learned his lesson, he learned it well.

“How’s everybody?” Mick said as he made his way
toward the group.
 
Each one of his
children gave him robust hugs, as if seeing him was the best thing in the world
to them, and he loved the fact that they felt that way about him.
 
He felt the same about them.
 
But he would never be so naïve as to think
they didn’t harbor other, less charitable feelings toward him too.
  
And rightly so.

With his ex-lovers, however, he was far less
demonstrative.
 
He spoke to them
cordially and respectfully, asked how each of them were doing, but there were
no outward displays of an affection they did not share.
 
They were the mothers of his children.
 
That was their elevation in his eyes.
 
He was their financier.
 
That was his in theirs.

They all sat down in the living room.
 
Joey and Gloria, his two youngest, managed to
sit on either side of their father on one sofa, while the mothers sat together
on what felt, at least to Mick, to be the opposing sofa.
 
Teddy, his most independent child and the one
who favored Mick the most, sat in one of the two archtop chairs.
 
Mick leaned back.
 
So did Gloria and Joey.

“We’re happy you could make it,” Cathleen said as
they all settled down.
 
“But we’re a
little surprised.
 
We thought your bride
would come too.”

Mick hated discussing Rosalind in front of any one
of his ex-lovers, let alone three of them.
 
But he agreed to this meet and greet.
 
It couldn’t be helped.
 
“She had
to handle some business at her office,” he said.
 
“She’s on her way.”

“Good,” Cathleen said with an over exaggerated
smile.
 
Cathleen was the youngest of the
three mothers, and her son, Joey, was Mick’s youngest.
 
Of all the mothers, she was also his least
favorite.
  
Too many airs for Mick, when
her ass was a stripper when he first met her.

“Bella gives her apologies,” Hillary said.
 
“She can’t make it.
 
Again.”

Everybody, except Mick, looked at Bella’s daughter
Gloria.
 
Mick continued to stare at Hillary.
 
She was another one he didn’t care for, even
thought she was the polar opposite of Cathleen.
 
Hailed from a prominent Pennsylvania family.
 
College educated businesswoman.
 
Drop dead gorgeous.
 
Smart.
 
But after she became pregnant, she and her family insisted he marry
her.
 
She even tried to stalk him for a
minute.
 
Until he told her, in no
uncertain terms, that he would just as soon kill her than pay child support.
 
She didn’t believe he had that in him, but
she left him alone all the same.

“It is a shame,” Cathleen said to Gloria, “that we
have to meet without your mother once again.”

But Gloria wasn’t going along with the bashing.
 
“
It’s
fashion week,”
she said, in defense of her mother.
 
“She
couldn’t get away.”

“We have busy lives too,” Hillary said.
 
“We got away.”