Nikki’s cell phone again.
But again, he got no answer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was late that afternoon when Nikki made it back to the Airbnb lakefront condo she was
renting. The police had detained her, asking her all kinds of questions about that drive-by, but
she knew she should have been grateful. The police had not only questioned her father at the
Spot, but they had also taken him downtown for further questioning!
But her gratitude wasn’t long-lasting. Because the detective now assigned to the case had
come over and was questioning her again too. And he was asking her the same questions the
cops on scene had asked her at the Spot. She answered them again, but her mind was on her
father. Somebody wanted him dead. He was not exaggerating about the danger he was up
against. And she had to help him. There was no doubt about that either.
But as she took off her heels and plopped down on the sofa, and continued to answer the
detective’s questions, she wondered how in the world would that help come?
The only person she knew with the kind of money her father needed was Teddy’s father.
Teddy had money, and plenty of it, but even he had to turn to his father when his own debt got
well into the millions. And the idea of her asking Mick Sinatra for millions of dollars was
ludicrous. She wouldn’t dare! But she couldn’t just wash her hands of what could become her
own father’s demise.
“Ma’am? I need you to answer the question,” the detective said. He was still standing in
the middle of the living room.
Nikki, who had briefly tuned him out, looked at him. “Sorry. What?”
“Why did you come to New Orleans?”
Nikki knew she was telling this man for the fourth or fifth time why, but she wasn’t going to
become combative. She wasn’t going to give him a reason to become combative himself. “To
see my father,” she said.
“What made you suddenly need to see him? By your own admission, you haven’t seen him
in years. What changed?”
“I did.”
“In what way?”
“I needed to see him.”
“But why, Miss Tarver?”
“I have no idea.”
The detective exhaled. “I know you’re tired of the questions. I know this has been a trying
day for you. But I need you to answer me with thoughtful answers. I’m not trying to--”
The condo’s intercom buzzed, which surprised Nikki. Nobody knew she was in town but her
father, and he was probably still at the precinct. And even if he was no longer being
interrogated, he didn’t know where she was staying.
“Expecting somebody?” the detective asked her.
She didn’t answer. She rose quickly and went to her front door, where the intercom button
sat. It was the button to press, according to the owner who rented her the place, whenever she
needed to release the outer door of the condo complex to let her visitors in.
But first Nikki pressed the audio button. She needed to know who it possibly could be.
“Who is this?” she asked.
There was a pause. Then the voice gave his name. “Ted Sinatra,” he said.
Nikki was floored. “Teddy?” she asked with amazement in her voice. Then she quickly
pressed the button to release the outer door, flung open the front door, and then ran, barefoot,
across the second-floor landing just as Teddy was pulling open the outer door downstairs.
When they saw each other, Nikki ran down, and Teddy ran up, and they met each other
midway.
Nikki’s heart had swelled with joy. She thought she was going to be in this alone! She knew
Teddy had a monster task on his hand back in Philly. But he came to see about her anyway. He
came!
And as soon as they met midway, Teddy not only had come, but he was pulling her into his
big, protective arms. He had never been happier to see another human being in his life!
“Teddy!” Nikki cried as he held her. All she could say was Teddy!
But then he quickly pulled her back. “Were you hit?” he asked her.
How did he know about it, she wondered? She purposely hadn’t phone him! “I’m good.
I’m alright. What about Gloria and the family? Everything’s okay?”
“We still don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but everybody’s okay. Gloria’s still shaken,
but she’s fine. She’s glad Dad supported her even though she didn’t come clean with us.”
“But we understood why she didn’t.”
“I think that’s why she’ll be okay. She knows we’re all behind her. But Roz has already
called Tony.” Tony Sinatra, a psychologist, was Big Daddy Sinatra’s son. “She said Glo is going
to get into therapy and stay in it this time.”
“She will,” Nikki said. “I think she knows there’s a lot she has to work out.” Then she smiled.
“She has daddy issues. Like me.”
“But tell me what happened,” Teddy said.
“How did you know something did happen?” Nikki asked. “I don’t understand how you
could have found out this fast when I hadn’t even called you yet.”
But before Teddy could answer his question, he looked up, beyond her, and saw the
detective standing at the top of the stairs. “Who the fuck is that?” he asked Nikki.
Nikki turned to see who he meant. When she saw the detective, she sucked her teeth. “A
cop, child,” she said. Then she took his hand. “Come on.”
They walked, hand in hand, upstairs.
“Is there anything else, Detective?” Nikki asked when they made it to the top stair.
“Are you going to introduce me?” the detective asked.
“No,” said Nikki. “Is there anything else?”
Teddy could tell the cop was pissed, but he knew not to push it. “Not right now,” he said,
flapping shut the writing pad he had in his hand. “I have your number. I’ll give you a call if we
have any further questions.”
Although the cop gave Teddy a full perusal as he began to leave, he nonetheless left.
Nikki and Teddy went into the condo, and Teddy closed and locked the door. “What was
that about?”
“He was questioning me.”
“About the drive-by?” Teddy asked.
“Yes. But again, Teddy, how in the world did you find out about that this fast?”
But Teddy had a different question. “Why didn’t you call me, Nick?” he asked with eyes that
were searching hers, as if he was offended that she had not called and he couldn’t hide his
disappointment. “And why won’t you answer your phone?”
“The cops made me turn it off while they were questioning me at the scene,” she said. “I
forgot to turn it back on.”
“But why didn’t you call me?” he asked her again.
Nikki exhaled. She knew Teddy. She knew he wasn’t going to let that go until she gave him a
straight answer. “I didn’t want to worry you,” she said. “Okay? I just didn’t want to worry
you. You have so much on your plate right now. I didn’t want to pile on.”
Teddy grabbed her by both arms, and turned her to him. “When you need me, don’t you
ever use as an excuse that I have too much going on. I’m the underboss of the Sinatra
syndicate. I’m going to always have too much going on. But I’ll never have too much on my
plate that I can’t be there for you, Nikki!”
“I know, Ted, but--”
>
“But my ass!” Teddy shot back. “There’s no but in it. You can’t ever let my job be a reason
you don’t tell me what’s going on. You tell me I have to put you first. How can I put you first if I
don’t know shit about you? If you keep the big things from me?”
Nikki could see his distress. “You’re right,” she said. “I should have phoned you right away.
That won’t happen again,” she assured him.
Teddy was still distressed, and drained from all the pressures he was under, Nikki could see,
but he needed answers. “I wasn’t letting you come all the way to New Orleans, by yourself, and
I don’t have any way of checking on you. That’ll never happen.”
“What are you saying? You had people following me?”
“Absolutely! You’re under my protection. You better believe I have my guys following you!”
Nikki wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But the fact that Teddy had come trumped
everything else. She placed her arms around him again. “Thanks for coming,” she said to him.
“And I know, I know,” she said, as they stopped embracing. “You want to know what
happened.”
But when she started to tell it, that dread reemerged within her, and she suddenly felt
unsteady.
Teddy understood what was going on, and he placed his arm around her waist. “Let’s sit
down first,” he said. And they walked over to the sofa.
They sat side by side on the sofa, and both of them crossed their legs, and sat comfortably
slouched down as they sat. And Nikki finally told him what went down.
“It was a drive-by,” she said. “And I don’t mean a quick pop and run. They really shot up
the place.”
Teddy’s jaw tightened. “You came all this way to nearly die in a fucking drive-by? Is your
old man for real?”
“He didn’t plan it, Teddy.”
“Stop defending his ass! If he knew shit was going down, he should not have wanted his
daughter in harm’s way.”
Then he exhaled. He knew he wasn’t helping the situation. He knew he had to calm his ass
down or she wasn’t going to let him know when she was in distress ever again. Tosh Baker was
her father, and he wasn’t perfect. Mick Sinatra was his father. And Lord knows he wasn’t
perfect. Teddy knew he needed to chill. “How is he?”
“My father?” Nikki asked. “He wasn’t hit, if that’s what you mean.”
“But who did it? Who are the fuckers that pulled this shit? Do the cops know?”
“They don’t have a clue. They weren’t even trying to canvas the area or anything. They just
questioned me and Pop. They even took Pop downtown to question him some more. And you
saw the guy they sent over to question me again. It’s like they’re trying to blame the victims.
Not that either one of us are saintly. But we weren’t the ones doing the shooting.”
“What do you think? Your father knows who did it?”
Nikki nodded. “I think he does, yeah. He wouldn’t give me any specifics, but he all but said
outright he knew exactly who was pulling that stuff. And they rained down on us, Teddy. They
weren’t trying to send any messages like I thought when they first started shooting. They were
trying to kill my father.”
“But why would they want to?” Teddy asked. “And I know it’s not a coincidence that the
shooting started as soon as you hit town. That drive-by has something to do with why he asked
you to come in the first place.”
Nikki nodded. “I’m sure it does. He told the cops the most likely perp was one of his
competitors, although he couldn’t say which, but I wasn’t feeling that. That drive-by was about
much more than just some jealous competitor shooting up the place. Besides . . .”
Teddy waited for more. He looked at her when she didn’t give it to him. “Besides what?”
he asked her.
“The reason he needed me to come is because he needs money and he’s asking me to give
it to him.”
“You?”
“I know, right? The woman who couldn’t even afford gas in her car is supposed to come up
with millions.”
“Millions?” Teddy asked. “Who the fuck he owes?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He just says he has to have it.”
“What is it? Gambling debts, loan-sharking debts, what?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“I’ll bet he told you how much he needed.”
“He says two million will give him a little time.”
“Damn! Two million dollars? Who would he owe that kind of cash to? And how in hell he
thinks you could come up with that kind of dough?”
“That’s what I told him,” Nikki said.
“What did he say?”
“He says it’s a matter of life and death. That’s why he believes I’ll come up with it.”
“Why the fuck would he figure that?”
Nikki hesitated. “Because he knows, despite everything we’ve been through, that I still love
him.”
Teddy stared at her. He understood it clearly now. Her old man was desperate and she was
his last lifeline. He wasn’t her lifeline. He told her to go to hell when she needed him. But he
knew she’d still be his lifeline. Because he knew, like Teddy knew, that she was that kind of
woman. Neither one of their dumb asses deserved her!
He took her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. “Pop just bailed me out,” he said.
“I doubt if he’ll have any appetite for bailing your old man out too.”
“Oh, I already know that. Especially for that kind of money!”
“Unless you ask him personally,” Teddy said.
Nikki was shocked for him to say such a thing. She looked at him. “Unless I ask him? It
wouldn’t make any difference if I ask him! Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth,” Teddy said. “Pop has a thing for you. And I don’t mean sexually.
At least I hope that’s not what it is. That better not be it!”
“Teddy, please! You know your father doesn’t have any hots for me. Just tell me what you
mean.”
“He favors you, Nikki. Any blind man can see that. If you ask him to help your father --”
“He’ll tell me to go fuck myself!”
Teddy laughed. “Only if he can watch, darling,” he said.
“Oh, gross!” Nikki said, and then playfully hit Teddy.
Then both of them heard what sounded like a loud, hard thump coming from the condo’s
balcony. “What was that?” Nikki asked.
Teddy didn’t know either. That was why he got up and went to the sliding glass door.
When he opened the curtains, he was astounded. They had a delivery. Somebody had thrown
it up onto the balcony. And it was an IED, an improvised explosive device. Teddy could see
immediately that it was one that was built to explode remotely. With the push of the button as
soon as the killer saw his target. They were in trouble.
Teddy turned away from that sliding glass door and ran for Nikki. Nikki saw him running
toward her with a look of horror on his face that she knew she would never forget. She stood
to her feet as soon as she saw him run, but he didn’t give her a chance to react. As soon as she
had risen to her feet, he was jumping on top of her and knocking her back down. Then both of
them, with the entire sofa going with them, flipped over.
They fell over just as the bomb on the balcony detonated, and i
ts tiny shards of metal ripped
through that sliding glass door, shattering it, and the walls on either side, like a freight train
ripping through paper.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tosh Baker was in the middle of his four-poster bed, in his quiet, isolated home, fucking a
woman as if he didn’t give shit about her. On her knees, with her ass up in the air, he was
brutal. He was going to cum, he was certain, if it was the last thing he did.
But then his doorbell rang.
“Damn, damn. Got damn!”
“Just ignore it,” the woman said to him. “Keep going and ignore that shit!”
But she was just a random. Who the fuck was she to tell him what to ignore?
He got off of her, got out of bed, and put on his bathrobe. It could be his daughter coming
with some good news. He made his way out of his bedroom.
He lived in a sprawling, range-style home that looked like the Golden Girls house from TV, a
reference he found offensive. “I ain’t that old!” he’d tell anybody who suggested it. “And my
house damn-sure ain’t either!”
But he was nobody’s fool. He grabbed his loaded gun, a gun in his home office instead of
the one he kept in his bedroom. He never let his company know, especially some random he
didn’t give shit about, where he kept his firepower.
With his gun at his side, locked and loaded, he made it to his front door. When he looked
through the peephole and saw that it was his daughter, his heart at least stopped racing. He
opened the door, ready to let her in.
But as soon as he opened the door, Teddy, who had been purposely standing out of
peephole view, rushed his way inside, past Nikki, and grabbed Tosh by the catch of his
bathrobe.
“What the fuck!” Tosh yelled. He had a gun, but Teddy had overpowered him so
unexpectedly that he couldn’t pull it up to defend himself.
“Give me the gun, Dad!” Nikki insisted, hurrying toward them. “Give me the gun!”
“Okay, okay,” her father was saying. “Here. Get it. Damn!”
Tosh relinquished the gun easily, and Nikki, terrified that it would go off and injure Teddy,
quickly took it from him. And Teddy shoved until Tosh was sitting on his own sofa. Teddy and
Nikki stood in front of him.
“What’s with all of this Mob Squad shit?” Tosh asked. “All y’all had to do was ask!”
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