“You see,” Valtone said. “She’s the reason. She’s the cause of your sorrows. And today, even if it’s the last thing you’re going to do on the face of this earth, you’re going to get your revenge. Because if you don’t, I will get you.”
Johnny looked at Valtone. “Do I make myself clear, Mr. Choo?”
Johnny nodded. “You need not threaten me,” he said, and then looked at the Graham Agency once again. “It will be my pleasure to take down that bitch.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“This seat taken, Glo?”
Gloria Sinatra removed her shoulder bag out of the chair. “Have a seat. I was holding it for my father, but you know how that goes.”
With tray in hand, Venus Cooper, who had begun sitting down in the now empty seat at the restaurant’s table, began to stand back up.
“But he’s a no-show as usual,” Gloria continued, waving her back down. “Sit. Please.”
Venus laughed. “I love you, girl,” she said as she sat in the chair and placed her tray on the table, “but that father of yours? Mr. Sinatra? Not so much.”
Gloria smiled. “He’s not that bad, come on.”
“I’m not saying he’s bad. I don’t know him like that. But he’s mean. He’s intimidating. Every time I see him, I go in the opposite direction. We all do.”
Gloria didn’t respond to that. She knew her father was everything Venus said and more. He was also much more than just the negative stuff, but she gave up trying to convince her fellow employees long ago. They refused to believe it.
They were at the Tavern on the Mall, a buffet-styled restaurant inside the Sinatra Office Complex. It was a sports-like atmosphere, where the seven television sets above the huge bar had various sports channels showing, from football to hockey to tennis to golf. One TV showed MSNBC cable news channel. One TV showed a soap opera: The Young and the Restless. That section of the bar was filled with ladies eating their lunches and getting their soap fix on too. Gloria and Venus, who both liked the soaps themselves, were at a table in that section.
Gloria stuck her straw into the top of her oversized soda cup. “He’s a no-show you said?”
“As usual, yeah,” Gloria responded. “I’ll text him and ask if he wants to have lunch with me, he’ll text back okay, and then shows up maybe one in ten times. I’m used to it, don’t worry.”
“I was shocked he was your father. When I first met you, when we first showed up together in HR to complete our hiring packets, I thought I was in seventh heaven. I said great. Another black girl. Because, to be honest with you, all I was seeing were white faces up and down the line. It was good to see another sistah in the mix.”
Gloria smiled. She was already working on plans to address SI’s diversity problem.
“But when somebody said to watch myself because you were the Boss’s daughter,” Venus continued, “I was floored. First, I asked what boss, thinking maybe she meant our immediate supervisor. But when she said you were Mick Sinatra’s daughter; when she said you were the daughter of the Founder, the Chairman of the Board, the CEO of Sinatra Industries, I nearly peed in my pants.”
Gloria laughed.
“I couldn’t believe it!” Venus continued. “You looked so . . . black. And he’s so white. And I know you’re black and white. I know you’re biracial. But you know what I mean? We come in all shades all the time when we have two black parents! But what I love about you, Glo, is the way you keep it real. You’re up there, you’re the boss’s daughter and all of that, but you don’t treat us like we’re beneath you.”
“And what I’ve always liked about you,” Gloria said, “is the very same thing. You keep it real too. And you’re one of the best execs we have around here. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
Venus smiled. “Thanks. But it has to be good and it has to be bad having a daddy like him,” She sipped a heaping full of soda. “Good because he’s rich. But bad because he’s who he is.”
Gloria took another bite of her tuna sandwich. She always felt a sense of dread when going too deep in the weeds about her father. She was always afraid it might uncover his other, more dangerous side.
But Venus wasn’t interested in going in the weeds either. She even smiled as she recalled a certain story. “Me and about four other people had just gotten on the elevator one day,” she said. “And then lo and behold, a couple more people got on behind us. You know, the just-arrived folks even though we had been waiting forever for that elevator to come?”
“I know,” Gloria said with a playful eye roll. “The ones you have to hold the door open for, even though you’re ready to go.”
“But when we saw that one of those just-arrived folks were Mr. Sinatra himself? Girl, you should have seen how fast we got off of that thing. We weren’t about to ride on any elevator with him! One lady even broke her heel she was getting off so fast. It was so funny, and so terrifying, at the same time.”
But Gloria couldn’t understand that. “What could possibly be terrifying about an elevator ride with him, Vee? Come on now!”
“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say,” Venus said. “You’re his daughter. He won’t fire you on the spot. But that’s exactly what he could do to any of us, and has done to quite a few of us if the rumors are right.”
“They’re wrong,” Gloria said bluntly. “Real talk. They’re wrong. They are nothing more than made up lies by employees with nothing better to do than to perpetuate a legend that doesn’t exist.”
It exists alright, Venus thought. But she wasn’t about to get into it with the man’s own daughter. She smiled instead. “I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on your promotion, Miss Director of Marketing. Our new DM. Congrats, Glo.”
Gloria smiled. “Thanks.”
Venus thought about their friendship. They were both young ladies in their early twenties, even though Gloria always seemed older than her years. Especially now that she was no longer just another marketing executive like the rest of them. “Does that mean I can’t call you Glo anymore?”
Gloria was offended. “That doesn’t mean any such thing! We started working here together. You can call me whatever you like. The only reason I rose up to middle management and you haven’t yet, is because my father took me under his wings. But don’t worry. Once I learn my stuff, and I’m learning it fast, I’ll take you under mine. I won’t forget you.”
Venus smiled sincerely. “I always viewed you as a kindred spirit who always kept her word. Thanks, Glo,” she said. And both of them took hearty bites out of their respective sandwiches. They spent the remainder of their time watching the soap, rather than running their mouths.
“Anyway,” Gloria said, after taking in the last of her sandwich and glancing at her wristwatch, “I’ve got to run. I’ve got a meeting in a few.” She placed her shoulder bag on her shoulder and stood up, grabbing up her tray. “Talk to you later.”
But by now Venus was engrossed in Victor Newman’s berating of some other character on the soap opera, and didn’t even hear her. Gloria smiled; she always loved Venus’s lack of pretense, and left.
But it wasn’t five minutes later when Mick Sinatra, the feared head of Sinatra Industries, walked into the restaurant looking for his daughter. He knew she would be in what they called the soap section, and he headed in that direction. When Venus saw him coming, she garbled up the last of her sandwich, grabbed up her tray, and took off in the opposite direction. Many other employees in the soap section were suddenly finished with their meals, and took off too.
Mick used to find it amusing when they scattered at his mere presence, but he could no longer dismiss it so easily. It was a problem. His employees were terrified of him. On a surface level, they had a right to be. He was a terrible man, and he knew it. But they were taking it too far. It was beginning to border on disrespect, as if he was such a brute that he would fire them if they looked at him wrong, or some other such nonsense. He would never fire somebody without cause, not ever, but his employees chose to believe
otherwise.
Gloria once tried to give him pointers on how to treat his employees, but he wouldn’t accept it. He didn’t create this problem; their foolish imaginations and that grapevine called gossip did. It was their problem, not his.
When he realized Gloria had probably already come and gone, he went to the buffet, prepared a plate of food, and began heading toward the windows for an empty table. But that was when he heard some of the ladies let out an angry shrill, and then he heard the words Breaking News coming from the television set they had been viewing.
Mick realized they were angry because their soap opera was being interrupted by some local news event that apparently couldn’t wait, and he turned toward the TV to see what it was. When he saw a reporter standing in front of the Graham Agency office building, he froze where he stood. When he heard the reporter say, “There is a hostage situation at the Graham Agency even as we speak,” his hands subconsciously let go of his tray and his food scattered all over the floor. The ladies who had been upset that their soap was being interrupted, looked at him as if they were realizing his presence for the first time. But he was already running out of the restaurant.
It wasn’t until one of the ladies reminded them that the Graham Agency was owned by his wife Rosalind Graham-Sinatra, did the others understand why. And they looked at the breaking newscast once more, but this time with rapt attention.
CHAPTER FIVE
Police cars on their way to the scene were flying past Mick’s Maserati as he drove to the scene. His heart was hammering. He had attempted to get Rosalind on the phone, but it went to Voice Mail every time. Was she caught up in this hostage situation? He could hardly think straight. And the one man he needed to put into action, his oldest son Teddy and the second-in-command of his crime syndicate, was out of the freaking country. He called Gloria instead.
“Get to the house,” he ordered her, “and make sure the twins are okay. I’ve notified Security already, and Carmine is on his way there too. But I want you to stay with the twins.”
“I’m on my way,” Gloria said. She was just about to go into her scheduled meeting, but, instead, headed back onto the elevator and pressed the Lobby button.
“And call Joey,” Mick continued. “Tell him to get to the house too, until I can figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Is Roz alright?” Rosalind was her stepmother, but they were extremely close.
“I don’t know,” Mick said. Then his look turned hard. “She’d better be,” he added, and ended the call.
Then he tried to phone the front office of her agency. But it was still busy. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel, put his own petal to the metal, and began flying past some police cars.
The “hostage situation” was in the acting studio inside the Graham Agency. The students were in groups, and Roz was observing them, when Johnny Choo walked in. When the students and teachers saw the gun, they began to scream and scatter. But when Johnny fired a warning shot into the air, everybody froze.
“Get over there,” he ordered as he waved his gun toward the side wall. “Everybody over here!”
Roz, with her students and staff, quickly complied, and they all huddled against the wall. She knew somebody upstairs would have heard the gunshot and alerted the police. She wasn’t worried about that. But she was very much worried about the man with the gun. Because she knew him.
“Okay, Johnny,” Roz said, staring into his wild eyes, “we’ll do everything you want us to do. But you don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Johnny yelled. “You’re the reason it turned out this way. You’re the reason!”
Roz only knew him as one of her former client’s boyfriend, so she had no clue why she would be the reason for anything going on with him. But she felt an outsized responsibility for the students in her class, and her staff, all of whom were in tears. “Let them go, Johnny. And keep me.”
“You’re the reason,” he said again. “If it wasn’t for you, Sue would still be with me. You’re the reason she’s gone!”
Roz couldn’t believe it. This fool was holding them at gunpoint because his girlfriend left him? But she knew she couldn’t let her irritation show. “I’m so sorry to hear that, John. I’m sorry you guys broke up. But it’s not my fault.”
He looked at her as if she was out of her mind. “Broke up?” he asked. “Broke up?” Tears were now in his eyes. “We didn’t break up! We loved each other. But when she left your agency and you refused to take her back, she couldn’t find a job as an actress anywhere. You blackballed her.”
“That’s not true,” Roz said.
“It is true! You blackballed her and nobody would hire her. She wasn’t the only one who walked out. A lot of people walked out. But she’s the one who suffered the most. And she couldn’t take it. She blamed you because you are to blame! I found her body last night.”
Roz’s heart sank. She remembered Sue Herbert well. She was one of her clients who decided to leave her agency when they heard that her husband was alleged to have mob ties. Sue was the most vocal, in fact. They wanted nothing to do with the mob and thought it would look bad on their resumes if they held any association with a Sinatra. Her agency was the Graham Agency, named after Roz’s maiden name, but they didn’t give a shit. They wanted out. Roz let them out of their contracts, all right, but made herself plain: there would be no coming back. Sue, like many others who realized it was cold in show business without good representation, tried to come back. But Roz kept her word.
She also kept her cool. “Then let them go,” she said to Johnny, refusing to let her emotions get away from her. “If it’s about me, let them go. And we can talk.”
“I don’t wanna talk to you,” Johnny shot back. “Why should I talk to you? You’re the reason it happened. You’re the reason she’s gone!”
“But if you let them go, innocent people won’t get hurt. You won’t make a horrible situation worse.”
Roz could tell, for the first time, that he was showing some room for flexibility. And she pounced. “Let’em go, Johnny. They don’t even know you. Don’t make it worse. You’ll have me. You’ll have the person you came for. But you need to let them go. Please.”
Johnny looked at the others. He looked at the students, all of whom appeared to be in their twenties, as they cried and huddled against the wall. He hated the very ground Rosalind Graham walked on, but she was right about them. They had nothing to do with this.
He was about to give in. He was about to let the others go. Until one of them, a girl, decided to make a run for it herself.
“No!” he screamed and shot the girl. He wasn’t a great aim, but managed to shoot her in the leg. She still got away. With determination, she forced her way out of the side door. But her exit, Roz knew, as Johnny turned his wrath onto them, only assured that nobody else was going anywhere.
Mick had already arrived, and had hurried over to Roz’s staff. The building had been evacuated, and her entire staff of agents, their assistants, and her secretary were in the parking lot behind the police tape. Most were on their cellphones, telling their family members that they were the lucky ones. Mick saw everybody who should have been out there. Except Rosalind.
“Where is she?” he asked whomever on her staff who knew.
“In the studio.” It was Teegan Salley, her secretary. “Some mad man took her and her students hostage.”
Mick hurried away from the staff and lifted the police tape. When an officer saw that he had penetrated their boundaries, he ordered him out.
“That’s okay, Sergeant,” the police chief said as he moved toward Mick. “Hello, Mr. Sinatra.” The chief wasn’t on Mick’s payroll. He wasn’t crooked. But he knew Mick to be a powerful member of the Philly community, and somebody whose shit list he did not care to end up on.
“Is it one gunman?” Mick asked.
“We aren’t sure. We’ve evacuated the building. Except for the studio in the basement. Where, unfortunately,
your wife is among the hostages.”
Mick’s jaw tightened at the thought of his wife in that kind of situation, and this police chief mentioning such a monumental thing so casually. “What do you intend to do about it?” he asked him.
“Continue to set up a perimeter, and establish contact,” he said.
“That’s not a plan,” Mick said bluntly. “What are you going to do to get my wife out of there?”
The police chief wanted to lash out. Who the fuck did he think he was? But the chief knew who he was. “We will get your wife out of there, Mr. Sinatra. But it’s going to take some time.”
“I’ve never known a gunman who has time. They are out of time. That’s why they’re here.”
Some of the cops looked at each other, amazed that their irascible chief would put up with that shit. But the chief liked his job. He knew men like Mick Sinatra could make one phone call to those uppity mucks who got him his position in the first place, and have him removed. “We have the hostage negotiation team on their way, a SWAT team is on the way, and sharp shooters. We’ll be prepared, sir.”
“Prepared for what?” Mick asked. “To take the gunman out after he takes out those hostages?”
“Now you hold on,” the chief said, unable to bear it any longer. “I’m the chief in this town. I know what I’m doing. You just need to step back and let us do our jobs. So step back, please.”
Mick stood there. Daring him to force the issue. He lived his entire life reading people, learning people. And he knew this chief, who loved position and feared power, would back down. He knew it.
The chief exhaled, and backed down. “We need to get the blueprints of this place,” the chief said, and Mick almost jumped out of his skin with outrage. Didn’t he realize what limited time he had? Didn’t he realize this was no marathon, but a sprint, and either he had to bring it now, or take his fat ass home?
Mick Sinatra: Breaking My Heart Page 4
