And after all commands were given, and after Teddy was sufficiently chastened because of his poor execution in his leadership role, they made their way into the hospital. Roz, they learned, was in the private recovery room with Mick. The police had allowed Big Daddy Sinatra and Mick’s children to see him one at a time, and only for a few minutes each. They weren’t allowing anybody else clearance at all. Not even brother-in-arms Brent Sinatra, the police chief of Jericho County.
But when the Gabrinis arrived, and the police refused them entry, Tommy got on the phone, worked his contacts at the highest levels in the police hierarchy. One of those officials contacted the cops on duty and got the ball rolling. Within minutes, Tommy, Reno, and Sal were not only allowed into the recovery room, but were allowed to go in together and to stay in as long as they wanted to stay in. The cops guarding the room didn’t like it one bit, and displayed their displeasure, but it wasn’t as if the Gabrinis cared very much. In fact, they didn’t care at all. Their only focus was Mick, seeing Mick, and making sure Mick was going to be alright. They walked in.
Roz was sitting at Mick’s bedside, holding his hand, and apparently praying for him. So the Gabrinis walked in, but didn’t say a word. They gave her time to finish her prayers. They gave themselves time to digest what they were seeing.
Mick was hooked up to all kinds of machines and hoses and everything else a man in his condition, fighting for his life, would be hooked up to. And it affected each one of them. Not because they weren’t accustomed to seeing an injured man. Each one of them had been in that very spot themselves before.
But it was seeing Mick this way that took them by surprise. It was seeing the man they thought was immune from near-death experiences that took them for a loop. They just stood there, watching him have assisted breathing. Watching his big, powerful arms lay helpless at his side. Watching his hard face, though asleep, look so grim.
Roz stopped praying before their shock subsided, and she saw them before they realized she was looking. She hesitated too, because she saw that same look in Mick’s children eyes, and in her own eyes when she first saw the big man down.
“Thanks for coming,” she said to them, to break the ice.
Tommy was the first to let go, and he smiled a smile, Roz thought, that could melt a lady’s heart. He came toward her. “Thanks for calling us,” he said as he came. He kissed her on the cheek. Then he looked at Mick as Sal and Reno made their way to his bedside too.
Reno kissed and hugged Roz and got on one side of her, while Sal did the same and got on the other side of her. The two of them, even more so than Roz and Tommy, seemed particularly shaken.
“He’s a fighter,” she assured them. “He’s going to make it.”
“What are the doctors saying?” Tommy asked. He and Reno pulled up chairs. Sal continued to stand.
“They still say it’s touch and go,” Roz said. “But I’m not going by what the doctors are saying. I’m praying. I’m trusting the Lord on this.”
Tommy nodded, as they all looked at Mick. “We all better do the same,” he said. “If we want him out of this alive.”
“How are the kids?” Reno asked.
“Thank God Big Daddy is here,” Roz said, “or they would be in even worse shape. He’s concentrating on them and letting Teddy worry about catching the bad guys. And they need him. They’d never seen their father this vulnerable. It’s hurting them to their hearts.”
Reno placed his arm around her, to comfort her. “Like you said,” he said, “he’ll pull through.”
“Thanks to you,” Sal said. “Teddy told us how you refused to leave him to die. That was very brave of you, Roz.”
“Or foolish,” Roz said. “I had the twins in the car. I was risking their lives too.”
Sal ran his hand through his hair. He looked worse of all. “Thank God it worked out,” he said. “If anything would have happened to you or those twins, and if Mick had lived, he would have never forgiven himself.”
Roz nodded. “I know.”
“But the twins weren’t harmed at all?” Tommy asked.
“Not at all,” Roz said. Then she looked at Tommy. “How’s Grace and your kids?” she asked.
“They’re good,” Tommy said. “Under heavy security. Reno and Sal’s families are too.”
“They’re all under lockdown,” Reno said, “until we get some answers.”
“And you guys still don’t know anything?” Sal asked.
“Nobody’s taking responsibility for this,” Roz said, “if that’s what you mean. I doubt if they ever will. Besides,” she added, and then hesitated.
But the Gabrinis knew what that meant. She had something more to tell. “Besides what?” Sal asked.
Roz exhaled. Reno rubbed her back. She was a beautiful woman, she was Mick’s woman, after all, but the trauma and stress was taking its toll on her entire body. She looked exhausted. “Tell us what you were about to say, Roz,” Reno said. “We need to know everything.”
“When Mick realized we were being ambushed,” she said, “he had to leap over his SUV and knock me down.”
“That’s what he was supposed to do,” Sal said.
“I know,” Roz responded. “And believe me, I’m grateful he did because . . .”
“Because what?” Tommy asked. “Why is that concerning to you?”
“Because it seemed like I was their first target,” Roz said. “It seemed like they were going after me when we first got there.”
This was surprising to all three men. Even Reno stopped rubbing her back and leaned back. “You were the target?” he asked.
“At first, yeah,” Roz said. “It was like they were too afraid to go after Mick. They were going after me instead. But when he put his body over mine, they saw their chance to get him and took it. I don’t know, I might be wrong. But that’s how it seemed to me.”
“You as the target,” Sal said, his mind thinking hard. “I’ll be damn.” Then he looked at Reno, and he and Reno looked at Tommy.
Tommy was already thinking. And then he was nodding. “It’s possible,” he said. “But I think, more likely, they were going after both.”
Reno nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too. But if Roz was the target, then man . . .”
“That opens up a whole different can of worms,” Sal said. “But I’m with you guys. It doesn’t feel like that. It feels like Mick was the real target, and they were aiming at Roz to bait him out.”
Tommy nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too.”
“And that’s how we’ve got to play this until we know better,” Sal said. “When we know better, we’ll do better. Right now we don’t know shit. So as far as we’re concerned, Mick is still primary, but we keep Roz’s angle in mind.”
“Agreed,” Reno said.
“Which brings us to the security question, Roz,” Tommy said.
Roz looked at him. “What security question?”
“The lack of security around this bitch,” Sal said. “This isn’t going to work. We can’t keep Mick in this hospital. He’ll be too easy a target. We’ve got to get him to his compound where we can control all movement in and out and around. We can’t control shit here. We don’t trust the cops. We don’t trust the doctors. We don’t trust the nurses. This isn’t going to work.”
Roz was confused. “But what are you saying, Sal?”
“We’ve got to move him,” Reno said. “Point blank. Sal is right. This isn’t going to work.”
“But,” Roz responded, seeking rationality in this irrational conversation. “We can’t move him in his condition. If we move him, it could kill him.”
“Staying here could kill him too,” Tommy said.
“We don’t know who the enemy is,” Sal said. “But it’s for damn sure whoever pulled this trick has some balls. They have some nerve.”
“Which means they might just have the nerve to come up in here and try to finish the job,” Reno said. “We can’t let that happen.”
Roz covered her face, ran her hands over her hair, and then leaned back. Her blouse had been unbuttoned one button too many, probably during the action of the ambush, and revealed a sizeable amount of her cleavage. All three men saw it, felt guilty, and quickly looked away.
And Roz, just like that, crossed the Rubicon. She nodded her head. “The hospital isn’t going to like it, and neither are the police,” she said, “but who gives a shit? I would rather have him home too, with his own doctors and nursing staff to care for him, with his own security.”
She looked at Reno Gabrini, who owned one of the most successful hotel and casino chains in America. She knew if it was going to go down, he was going to be the one to organize it. “Set it up,” she said.
Sal, Tommy, and Reno were pleased. It was going to be a bear of a task, but they knew there was no other way. Mick Sinatra had fallen, which meant to some that the Sinatra crime family had fallen too. They had to remind everybody out there that it wasn’t the case. They had to remind every fucker who would think about trying something stupid to think again. Mick might have been down, but as long as the Gabrinis had breath in their bodies everybody needed to know that Mick could never be counted out. And this audacious move, from the hospital to the Sinatra compound, even as Mick was still fighting for his life, would prove it in spades.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Helicopters owned by Mick himself buzzed through the sky as a convoy of three private ambulances and seventeen SUVs made their way from the hospital to Mick’s estate. Big Daddy and Brent were riding in one of the ambulances, along with Roz, the twins, and Gloria, while Teddy and Joey each rode in the other two ambulances to keep an eye out on the one carrying their father.
Sal was riding shotgun in the front group of SUVs, Reno was riding shotgun in the back group of SUVs, and Tommy was riding in one of the helicopters. All three kept their big, hawk eyes on any attempts at an ambush. It was a media circus on purpose. The Gabrinis needed every wise guy who thought to take potshots during Mick’s low time, including the ones who pulled off the attack in the first place, to think again. They needed them to see the army, and the real balls, they would be up against.
The hospital took notice when the plan was first hatched. Doctors objected. They didn’t want their patient moved at all. The Chief of Surgery even filed a formal complaint. But they knew they couldn’t stop it. It was still a free country. Mick Sinatra broke no laws. They had to let him go.
The police department had never seen anything like it either. A Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey production had nothing on this. But the police were camera hogs themselves, and wanted to join the circus. They offered an escort and traffic control in the form of hotshot cops on motorcycles and horses, but Tommy Gabrini, in charge of convoy security, declined. They had their own hotshots on motorcycles. Only these hotshots were not police officers by any stretch of the imagination. They were Mick’s men. They were hoodlums to their core. It was a slap in the face to Tommy’s friend, the police commissioner. But Tommy didn’t care. Getting Mick home safe and sound was his only priority.
They got Mick home safe and sound and in an upstairs guestroom set up to accommodate Mick’s hospital bed, hospital equipment, and full staff of doctors and nurses.
After everything was set up, it was nearly nightfall. Roz, Big Daddy, Brent and the children stayed at Mick’s bedside. Although the doctors were monitoring Mick for any signs of distress, they were monitoring him too. Tommy, Reno, and Sal stayed downstairs, to talk strategy. To discuss if any of their men found out anything. To find out how in the world they were going to handle this.
“There’s nothing to handle,” Reno said as they sat at the full-sized bar counter sipping drinks. Sal was behind the counter and had just poured Reno a drink. Tommy was already drinking. “Mick’s entire army is out there. Our army is out there. Mobsters of good will are out there checking around too. But everybody’s firing blanks.”
“I still don’t like how it went down with Danny Padrone and Angelo Jovanni,” Sal said. “How the fuck they gonna let their boss rely on cops for his protection while they run the streets looking for answers?”
“That’s some shit, ain’t it?” Reno agreed. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. They know better than that. They know you secure the boss first. You secure the boss’s family first.”
“And I dare them to tell me Teddy made them do it,” Sal said. “They know Teddy’s just getting his feet wet. They’re the old pros at this shit. They know better.”
“Where are their asses anyway?” Reno asked. “Did anybody call them in yet?”
“I did,” Tommy said.
Reno and Sal looked at him. Tommy was good at behind-the-scenes details. “What did they say?” Sal asked.
“I didn’t give them a chance to say anything. I had my men escort them to one of Mick’s safe houses and for them to wait there until we got there.”
Reno smiled. “Backdoor Tommy. Always one step ahead!”
“So what are we waiting for?” Sal asked. “Let’s notify Big Daddy and Brent, and get the hell over there.”
“What about Teddy?” Tommy asked. “Taking him with us?”
“No,” Sal said. “He needs to supervise security. If he wants to be Mick’s underboss, he needs to start showing some signs.”
“Because he sure as hell didn’t at that hospital,” Reno said. “He’s got a ways to go. Like all of our sons,” he added.
“Except Dommi,” Sal said with a smile. “That little fucker is a boss already.”
Reno shook his head. “Don’t remind me,” he said.
Danny Padrone and Angelo Jovanni were fuming by the time the Gabrinis made it to the safe house. They were Mick’s top men. What was the meaning of this? And before the Gabrinis arrived, they had a lot to say about that meaning. And none of it was good. They felt disrespected and embarrassed. If word got out that Mick’s two top men were, in essence, being held captive by Mick’s big shot nephews, they would never live it down.
But when those nephews walked through that door, all of the big talk and complaints went by the wayside. Danny and Angelo put it on mute. They were angry as hell, but they weren’t fools.
The Gabrinis walked in, with Sal taking a seat in front of the two underbosses. All three Gabrinis had mob connections all their lives, especially Reno since his father was a major mob boss. And like Mick, all three men ran international corporations. But unlike Mick, Tommy and Reno’s primary responsibility was within their corporate interests. While Sal, on the other hand, was more like Mick. He was the only one of the three whose primary business was in the mob realm, not the corporate realm. He was the only one of the three who ran his own major crime syndicate, although he wouldn’t admit it. He took the lead.
“How are you, Danny?” Sal asked. “How are you, Ang?”
“What’s up, Sal?” Angelo asked.
“I should be asking you that. What’s up, Ang? What’s up with the fuck up?”
“We didn’t fuck up,” Danny responded. He couldn’t hold his peace. “We did what we were told to do.”
“You did what Teddy told you to do?” Sal asked.
“That’s right!” Danny responded.
“Get the fuck outta here!” Reno responded angrily. “Since when do seasoned veterans like you take your cues from a kid like Teddy?”
“Kid my ass!” Angelo said. “Mick put Teddy in charge.”
“Bullshit!” Sal yelled. “Mick wouldn’t have put a novice in charge of his organization! Not yet. Teddy’s not ready yet.”
“He’s Mick’s right hand man.”
“So what?” Tommy asked. “It’s your job, as vets, to steer him in times like these. His old man was nearly killed. He’s traumatized. Somebody should have stepped up, especially when he ordered everybody to get in the streets and nobody to get to the hospital. You had to know that was the wrong call.”
“Yeah, we knew it,” Danny said. “But you don’t know, Teddy. You can’t tell
him anything.”
“That’s bullshit too!” Sal fired back. “I know both your asses. You’re both mean as junkyard dogs. That’s why Mick hired you on. No kid was going to tell you how to run a crisis situation. Tell that bullshit to somebody else. No way would you let that happen.”
“But that’s not what this was about,” Tommy said to both men. “Is it?”
Both men began to hesitate. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Angelo asked.
“You know what it means,” Sal responded. “You either had something to do with that ambush--”
Danny Padrone nearly jumped out of his seat. “How could you say a thing like that!” he yelled. “I had something to do with offing my own boss? Fuck you, Sal Luca!”
Reno and Tommy, and even Angelo were shocked by Danny’s nerve. Sal, shocked too, pulled out his revolver and put it to Danny’s forehead. “Say it again, motherfucker. Say it again!”
“I apologize,” Danny quickly said, holding up his hands. “You know I didn’t mean any disrespect, Mr. Gabrini.”
Sal hated that he backed down so easily. “If Mick would have been here he would have killed you for apologizing,” he said. “If Mick would have been here he would have been proud of you for standing your ground.”
Sal considered his options. He could take him out right here and right now, and prove his point. But what good would that do? He was already in Mick’s doghouse for accusing him of having something to do with that stunt Joey pulled. Killing one of his men wouldn’t help. “But Mick’s not here,” Sal finally said, and withdrew his weapon out of Danny’s face. “Apology accepted.”
Danny let out such a relieved exhale that Reno chuckled. “Y’all some lucky bastards today,” he said. “Sal Luca is in a good mood. Who knew it was possible?” Then Reno frowned. “But keep fucking with us and your luck will run out. Now why the security lapse? What happened?”
“We were obeying Teddy’s commands,” Angelo said. “No lie. Y’all think of him as Mick’s kid. But he’s more than that. He’s tough.”
Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall Page 15
