Last night, Teddy thought as he paced, with his expensive shoes clacking against the marbled floors as he moved. He was a proud man, who didn’t take shit from anybody, but he always felt insufficient around his father. He always felt as if he had something unprovable to prove. He always felt as if he wanted his father’s love so badly, and his respect even worse, until it made him feel desperate for that love and respect. He and Roz had a great relationship. And she’d been a great encouragement to him. But Teddy, in his early thirties, was just a few years younger than Roz was. She was more like a sister to him than a stepmother. All he needed from her was her understanding, and she gave that to him in spades. He needed so much more from his father, and he hated that he did.
The double doors of the suite opened, and his half-sister Gloria, with a stack of folders in her arms, walked in. She was on their father’s executive assistant staff, and was still learning the ropes. She was mainly the gofer right now, and hated it. But when she saw her half-brother standing there, she smiled grandly. “Hey, Teddy.”
Teddy smiled too when he saw his younger sister, and went to her. “Need some help?”
“No, I’ve got it,” she said, as Teddy gave her a hug. With her great looks, her sleek, statuesque body, many men kept their eyes on her. But with her magnificent personality, Teddy was proud to call her his sister. Even though, because she was biracial and looked black, and he was white, many people didn’t believe they were related at all. But he never gave a damn what some random people believed.
“What are you doing here?” Gloria asked him.
“I need to see Dad.”
Gloria glanced over at Blair Conyers, Mick’s chief assistant and the supervisor of all of Mick’s aides, including Gloria. Blair was on the phone in what appeared to be an intense conversation. Gloria looked back at Teddy. “Are you seeing him about last night?” she asked him.
Teddy was surprised she figured it out. “Maybe,” he said. “Why?”
“Good luck with that,” she said. “He’s in an awful mood.”
“You saw him?”
“This morning. Joey and I went by his house before we came to work. We called ourselves apologizing, but that only pissed him off even more.”
Teddy frowned. “You apologized? Why would you guys apologize? Bump that shit. What’s done is done.”
Gloria smiled. “You sound just like Dad. He told us the very same thing.”
Teddy smiled. He felt good anytime he and Mick were on the same page.
Blair Conyers finally hung up the phone. It was only then did she realize Gloria was in the office suite.
“Why don’t we get together again tonight?” Teddy asked Gloria. “Just me, you, and Joey? We can go to a better class of club this time.”
Gloria found her brother the oddest thing. He was gorgeous, and had women dying to want to be with him, but he always seemed to fly solo. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time than hang out with me and Joey?” she asked him.
“Better things to do like what?”
Gloria smiled. “Like taking a lady to a better class of club. Like going on a date, Teddy.”
Teddy kept that part of his life so private even his father didn’t know about it. Or, at least, he didn’t think his father knew. “Do you want to go out or don’t you?”
“Can’t,” Gloria said. “I, unlike you, have a date.”
This surprised Teddy. “Who with? I thought you and whatshisname broke up.”
“We did,” Gloria said. “But we’re back together.”
“Again, Gloria?”
“Again, Teddy. It happens, alright? Fonz isn’t as hopeless as you think.”
“Yeah, right. Better not let Dad know. I thought he ordered you to stay away from the guy.”
“He didn’t order me. He just doesn’t like the fact that we keep breaking up, that’s all. And don’t you tell him anything about who I’m dating. I don’t need the aggravation.”
“Miss Sinatra?” Blair asked.
Gloria, surprised that she was off of the phone, jumped. And looked at her. “Ma’am?”
“Do you have something for me? Or are you just here for your health?”
Gloria and Teddy shared a whatever glance as both of them were tired of Blair’s heavy-handedness. She was their father’s right hand woman who sometimes acted as if she was his woman outright! But Gloria knew Blair had the upper hand. She knew Mick didn’t believe in showing them any favoritism just because they were his children. And Blair seemed to relish in rubbing it in. “Talk to you later,” Gloria said to her brother. “The Blair Witch is calling,” she added in a lower voice, causing him to smile, and then made her way to Blair’s desk.
As she handed Blair the stack of files, and Blair signed for them, Mick walked in. He wasn’t surprised to see Gloria. She worked at Sinatra Industries now. But he hadn’t expected that Teddy would be there. He walked past Teddy, and then Gloria, just as he walked past everybody else, and entered his office. Teddy moved to follow him in, but the door was slammed in his face.
“What did I tell you?” Blair quickly said. “If you want to see your father you will have to wait. You have no appointment and he has things to take care of this morning.”
But Teddy wasn’t thinking about her. He was still reeling from the door slam. His father was such an asshole sometimes! But Gloria was right. The man was in a shitty mood.
But then again, Teddy thought, when was he not? And how was he ever going to win his father’s respect if he kept allowing him to treat him like some insignificant kid?
Teddy made up his mind. What was the worse he could do to him? He could knock him through a wall. He could paralyze him for life. But he still was determined. “Fuck this,” he said, opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.
Outside of that closed door, Blair stood to her feet. “What does he think he’s doing?”
“He’s going to see our father,” Gloria responded.
Blair began moving from behind her desk. “Not like that, he will not!”
“I would leave him alone,” Gloria warned, “if I were you. He may not be quite as lethal as Mick Sinatra. But he’s close. I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.” Then Gloria smiled. “But what do I know?” she asked, and left the outer office.
Inside the inner office, Mick’s office, were father and son. Mick had made his way around his desk and was standing behind the desk by the time Teddy barged in and headed toward him. He was surprised, but pleasantly so.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mick asked him.
“I need to see you,” Teddy said as he walked up to his desk. “Since I’m your son, I didn’t think I needed an appointment to see my own father.”
“Who gives a fuck what you think?” Mick asked. But when he saw that look of doubt come into Teddy’s big, green eyes, and that look of fear that all of his children showed towards him, he immediately regretted it. He had to remember to stop being so hard on them! He had to learn to show some gotdamn affection. He frowned. “What do you want?” he asked.
Teddy’s heart was pounding, as it usually did whenever he was in his father’s presence, but he was not about to back down. “You told me to meet with Mayor Wallace,” he said. “I met with Mayor Wallace.”
Mick stared at him. He hadn’t expected a result this soon. If there was a result. “What did you find out?”
“I found out he was a sleaze ball who had no qualms about killing a man to win an election.”
Mick studied him. Would this child, the one he needed to take over someday, be tough enough? “What else did you find out?”
“I found out that there’s an advantage in dealing with slime. The price to pay is lower than usual. The risks are lower too, given the nature of the client. And his power and position, which is the point for even agreeing to help.”
Good so far, Mick thought. “What did you get for us?”
“We get rid of his opponent in exchange for him allowing us, af
ter he wins reelection, to install one of our men as the new chief of police.”
Mick stared at him. “You would kill a man just to have a chief of police in your pocket?”
“I wouldn’t, no,” Teddy said. “But one of our men will.”
Teddy could tell he said something wrong. Mick sat down. “What?” Teddy asked him. “What did I say?”
“If you aren’t willing to do the dirty work yourself, you had better never make one of my men do it for you.” Mick’s anger was showing. “If it’s beneath you, it’s beneath them. That’s a leader! If it’s wrong for you, it’s wrong for them. My organization works from the top down, how many times do I have to tell you that, Teddy? They don’t run this shit, you run it! They follow your lead! But you’d better never lead any one of my men where you will not go.”
Mick leaned back in an attempt to control his sudden rage. “Why is it offensive to you to kill a man just to have the chief of police in your pocket?”
Teddy was already thrown by his father’s reaction. He had expected high praise. Not this. “Because I can’t just take a life like that,” Teddy responded. “It’s a life. Who am I to just take it? I mean, what did the mayor’s opponent ever do to me?”
“Right!” Mick said with emphasis. “You hit the nail on the head. When you take somebody out, it had better be personal. And you, not my men, but you had better take responsibility for that kill. If it’s not personal, if you aren’t willing to sign your name to that death warrant, you had better call the shit off. We are not savages, son. We are not kill for the fucking thrill. We do to them when they do it to us, or because they intend to do it to us.”
Teddy looked flustered. “So what was I supposed to ask for then?”
“You don’t ask for shit. The mayor isn’t running this, and he’s not going to be running you. You dictate the terms. Tell him we’ll ensure the lady and his opponent will not come forward before the election. We will, in fact, force his opponent to drop out of the race.”
“That’s a tall order, Pop,” Teddy said. “That will require a lot of forcing.”
Mick looked at Teddy. “You can do it,” he said with total confidence.
Teddy felt that confidence. It was contagious. “And all the mayor will have to do is install one of our guys in as chief?”
“As chief, and as commissioner. If you’re going to play in the market, you have to corner it. We need both, or no deal. The commissioner can overrule the chief. We have to have both.”
Teddy smiled. Ruthless didn’t begin to describe his father. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Mick’s cell phone began ringing.
“I’ll get right on it,” Teddy added.
“And Teddy,” Mick said, as he pulled his phone from out of his pocket and looked at the Caller ID.
“Yes, sir?”
“Barge in my office again and I’ll kick your ass.”
Teddy wasn’t sure if his father was serious or playing. But he felt playful. “Yes, sir,” he said, and left.
“Hey, babe,” Mick said as he answered the phone.
Roz was back at her agency sitting behind her desk. She turned toward her window that overlooked a series of construction sites in the desolate area where her office had been built. It was a call she was fretting, but a call she knew she had to make. “Hey,” she said into her own cell phone.
“What’s up?” Mick asked.
“I’m going to take a drive to New York.”
Mick hesitated. What the fuck? “Nope,” he said.
“I’ll fly then. Tell your pilot I want to leave this afternoon.”
“Why are you going to New York?”
Roz braced herself. “I need to visit a sick friend.”
“What friend?”
Roz exhaled. “Betsy,” she said.
“Forget it, Rosalind.”
“Mick, she’s in trouble. This is vital. She might not pull through.”
Mick closed his eyes. He was sorry to hear that, he really was. But his wife wasn’t going anywhere near that craziness. “You can’t go. You can pray for her, you can wish her well, you can even speak to her over the phone. But you are not going anywhere near her.”
“But I have to go!”
This angered Mick. “You don’t have to do shit but what I tell you to do! And you are not going anywhere near that female and her dangerous lifestyle.”
“Dangerous? Mick, that’s ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous? Why is she sick, Rosalind? Why is she fighting for her life?”
Roz didn’t answer.
“You tell me why,” Mick demanded.
“Because a guy beat her up.”
“Dangerous. Just as I said.”
“But that’s beside the point! I’m not going to let her die alone. I’m all she has.”
“She wasn’t worried about you when she was putting you in constant danger. You was all she had then and she didn’t give a fuck. So fuck her.”
Roz was angry now. “Don’t you speak about her like that! She’s still my best friend. Was she a perfect friend? No. Was I a perfect friend to her? Hell no! But I still love and care about her, Mick. And I will not let her die alone. I’m going to New York. I’ll drive if I have to, I’ll catch a gotdamn bus if I have to. But I’m going. I should be back before you leave for Spain tonight. You just take care of our children until I get back. Because I will be going, whether you like it or not!”
And on that note, Roz slammed down the phone.
She almost picked it back up, because she knew Mick was going to kill her for talking to him that way. But she didn’t. Betsy was her friend. Betsy was in dire straits. She was going to see about her.
That confidence, however, became gravely tested when an enraged Mick Sinatra, not half an hour later, walked through the doors of her bustling agency.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The lobby guard saw him first, and then told the downstairs receptionist. The downstairs receptionist phoned the upstairs receptionist. The upstairs receptionist motioned to Roz’s secretary, and then whispered in her ear. And Teegan Salley, Roz’s secretary, went into Roz’s office to tell the news that had traveled all the way upstairs before Mick could get on the elevator.
Roz was at her file cabinet, searching for one particular file, when Teegan walked in. “Mr. Sinatra is in the building, ma’am,” she said to her.
Roz was surprised to hear it. He came all this way? But if she was surprised, her staff would never know it. “And you thought it was necessary to tell me this why?”
Teegan’s high-yellow face turned red. She knew how much Roz hated gossip. “I wasn’t sure, but I thought you would want to know, ma’am. I wasn’t sure if you were expecting him.”
Roz glanced at her over the round reading glasses she wore. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Oh. No ma’am. Nothing else.”
“You can get back to work.”
When Teegan left, Roz rolled her eyes. What did she expect her to do? She had apparently overheard Roz’s angry phone conversation with Mick and had ran and told the news. First to the receptionist upstairs, who probably told her buddy the receptionist downstairs, who undoubtedly spread the news too while shooting the breeze with the lobby guard. Mick showed up after such a heated phone conversation, and now they’re all waiting for the fireworks. Please. She was going to giving them fireworks alright. She was going to fire some of their asses if they kept that up. But right now she was too concern with the fact that Mick had come, than about that gossiping staff of hers.
She pulled out a file, realized it was the wrong one, and stuffed it back into the overstuffed drawer. She continued her file search when Mick walked into her office. She already knew he was upset so she didn’t bother to look up. The fact that he had left his office when she knew he had a ton of things to do before he left town tonight, and drove all the way across town to her office, proved just how angry he was with her. Her hope was that he would calm his ass down if she was patient enough to not
take the bait, and match his rage.
It didn’t work. He started to pace inside her office, to wait until she concluded her file search, but he was too upset with her to pretend otherwise. So he walked over to her, and stood beside her at the file cabinet. But the fact that she continued to pull out a file, realized it was not the particular one she needed, and put it back in without so much as acknowledging his presence, only angered Mick more. He was cool with his anger. Very few people outside of his wife and children could even spot the extent of his rage.
But when she pulled one file too many, as if she could somehow wait him out, Mick had had enough. He grabbed the file she had in her hand, shoved it back into that file cabinet, and then slammed the drawer so violently that the entire cabinet nearly tilted over. Roz winced at the violence of it, remembered as if she had momentarily forgot that Mick had that side to him, and finally gave him her full attention.
“What did you say to me?” he asked her.
Roz folded her arms, but held her ground. “I said I’m going to New York to see about Betsy.”
“I said you are not going to New York to see about Betsy or anybody else. Guess which one of us are accurate?”
“Mick, why can’t you see what I’m saying? Bess is in bad shape! She asked to see me. I can’t just ignore that. I have a contract I have to amend before I go, and then I’m out of here.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you, Mrs. Sinatra.”
Roz could see the coldness in Mick’s eyes. She knew exactly where it was coming from. “This won’t be like the last time,” she said.
The last time was their code for that one painful time Mick went against his instinctive judgment and allowed Roz to go to New York to handle some business. She was viciously attacked during that trip and was nearly killed. His heart still squeezed in agony just thinking about how close she came to certain death. His number one job was to protect her. But by allowing her to have her own way caused him to fail miserably in that responsibility. Never again had been his vow.
“You don’t know what it won’t be like,” he said to her. “And you will not be finding out.”
Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now Page 6
