Mick stared at her. She was stubborn. And skeptical. That was a good thing. But his word was law in their family. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out an envelope, and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of them. Because it was not sealed, a group of photos slid out.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“He’s married,” Mick said. “Happily married. He has two small children. He’s playing you to get to me, Gloria.”
Gloria hesitated as she stared at the photos on the table. Then she picked up the envelope and began to sift through the stack. Marco, the man she had only recently met, was laughing with some woman and two cute kids. Their house looked suburban. They even had a minivan in the driveway. It was too typical.
She looked at her father. “So it’s true? Is that what you’re telling me? Adrian used to tell us all the time that you had us snowed, that you were no more a businessman than Al Capone was a salesman. You’re in the mob, he said. And not just in it, but you run the east coast mafia. That’s what he always used to tell us. Teddy and I used to think he was full of it. Are you now telling me he was telling the truth?”
Mick stood up too, buttoning his suit coat. She was upset with him, but that didn’t change the fact that his presence was still intimidating. But she would not be moved. “Well is it?” she asked.
“I’m the Chairman and CEO of Sinatra Industries, of S.I. I run my business.”
“And the mob?”
“I run my business,” Mick said. “Don’t you worry about the mob.”
That was the most non-answer Gloria knew he could have given her. Which would make it a yes.
“You are going to stay away from that cop,” Mick said in no uncertain terms. “Do I make myself clear?”
Gloria looked down at the pictures again. She actually thought she was going somewhere with the guy. But like all of her previous loves, he was a user too. And the fact that her father wouldn’t outright deny his involvement in mob activities gave her pause too. She was in over her head. “Yes,” she said with defeat in her voice. “You’ve made yourself clear.”
Mick could sense her defeat. He considered her. “You’re a beautiful woman,” he said. “Remarkably so. You can do better than conmen like Marco Terranz.”
“Yeah, sure,” Gloria said in a voice that was meant to sound dismissive, but sounded more like pain to Mick. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but they weren’t there yet. He began to walk away.
But then he realized this was his daughter. His only girl. And he was walking away from her yet again. He turned back around, and pulled her into his arms.
Gloria was at first shocked, and then relieved when Mick held her. She wasn’t going to sob in his arms. He hated weakness. Even she knew that! She stifled her cry, but she couldn’t suppress it. It wasn’t until they had stopped embracing, and he left, did she fall against the door and let it all out. She boohooed cried. She was so tired of these endless false starts, when she had been so hopeful.
Outside of her front door, Mick could hear her sobs. He stood on the opposite side of the door and listened to his daughter cry her eyes out. His heart melted as he heard her. He wanted to go back in, and hold her again, but he knew he was not the answer. He’d let her down too many times himself. What could he bring to the table?
But he couldn’t walk away.
He opened the door, forcing her to back away from it, and went back into her apartment. When he closed the door, she fell into his arms.
On her sofa, he held her. He held her until she had no more tears to cry. He held her until she was sound asleep.
Roz parked her Bentley in the space reserved for CEO, grabbed her briefcase and purse, and made her way toward her front entrance. She almost made it in. She was a mere few inches away, when somebody called her name.
“Rosalind Graham?”
A few weeks ago she became Rosalind Sinatra. But because her agency was the Graham Agency, she continued to use her maiden name as her professional name. She therefore assumed whoever was calling her wasn’t a friend, but a client.
When she turned and saw a gentleman walking her way, a tall, elegant African-American gentleman, she was as surprised as she was confused. It wasn’t just any man walking her way, but Broadway star Hamilton Sturgess. “Hamp?” she asked with a smile. “I don’t believe it!”
Hamilton smiled grandly as he made his way up to her. He was dressed in a suit and tie, looking far more formal than she remembered as his usual style. And he looked older too. But he still had that charm. “I’m not a ghost, don’t worry,” he said as he approached. “A blast from the past, maybe, but not a ghost.”
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.
CHAPTER SIX
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 s
he’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.
Mick Sinatra 3: His Lady, His Children, and Sal Page 5
