“But she wants to see me. Don’t you understand that? If she dies---”
“It will have nothing to do with you. You have warned her about these bad men she chose to take up residence with for years. She has dismissed your warnings for years. The fact that it has all caught up with her is her problem.”
“It’ll only be for today. I’ll be back by nightfall.”
“No.”
“Mick!”
“I said no! Now if you want a report, fine. I’ll have one of my men go by and take a look at her.”
Roz was enraged. “One of your men? Are you serious? She wants to see me!”
Mick was equally angry. “I don’t give a fuck who she wants to see! My wife is not getting involved with her nonsense again!”
“But she’s dying, Mick!”
“Again, her problem.”
Roz shook her head. She knew she was fighting a losing battle. Mick’s mind was made up. He was not, under any circumstances, going to allow her to go anywhere near Betsy again. And especially not while she was in New York. “Okay,” she said.
Mick looked at her skeptically. “Okay what?”
“Okay, you win. Okay, I will not go to New York. Okay!”
Mick saw the grave disappointment in her pretty eyes. He was being a bastard to her right now, it was as clear as day. And he wanted to explain himself further. He didn’t think she understood how profoundly that last incident in New York affected him, and how much he could not tolerate some selfish bitch like Betsy trying to pull her back into harm’s way. He paid her ass off, and ordered her to leave Philly for good, after one of Betsy’s violent boyfriends jumped, not just Betsy, but Rosalind for being with Betsy. A bitch like that wasn’t worth the time of day, in Mick’s view. His wife deserved a better best friend than that.
He wanted to explain all of this to Roz, to make her fully appreciate why he was so hard on her when it came to that damn Betsy Gable. But he didn’t go there. When it came to her safety, she had to accept his authority. When it came to her safety, he didn’t give a shit about her hurt feelings. His word had to be law.
“I’ve got to get back to the office,” he said in a subdued tone, looking drained just by coming to see her, and he leaned in for a kiss.
But Roz wasn’t that easy. She moved her face out of range.
Mick’s heart sank at her rejection. But he never was a man to take a slight lying down. It wasn’t in his DNA. “Fuck it, then,” he said out of anger. He was hurt too whenever she rejected him, deeply wounded in a way no other human being was able to cause, but that vulnerability was for him to know and no one else. He left.
Roz closed her eyes when he closed her door. She knew he was looking out for her best interest, she knew it! But what about Betsy? What about the one woman who stood by her in New York when nobody else did? Betsy kept her from losing many gigs, and even kept her a couple of times from losing her Brooklyn brownstone. Now she was dying and Mick expected Roz to do what? Fuck her, as he would say? Forget about all that woman did for her, not to mention the humanity of it, and keep going her merry way?
Roz went over to her desk and pressed her intercom button. “Come here, Tee,” she said to her secretary.
Teegan, who had heard Mick and Roz’s raised and angry voices through the closed door, even if she couldn’t make out exactly what was being said, hurried into the office. Roz never confided in her about her personal business, but maybe this time, Teegan’s eager face seemed to suggest, would be different. “Yes, ma’am?” she asked her boss.
“I need you to find the O’Connor file for me. I’m going to have to leave for today.”
“Leave, ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m going to take a day trip to New York. If anybody phones tell them I’ll speak with them tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am. But I thought you needed to sign off on the O’Connor amendment today?”
“Once you find the file, call Jeffrey and tell him I can e-sign if he still must have it today. If not, tell him I’ll see him tomorrow morning also.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Teegan said, and went to the file to do as she was ordered. The boss didn’t exactly confide in her, but she was reasonably certain that the argument Roz had had with Mick wasn’t about her going to New York, but about him ordering her not to go. That was something worth telling over the water cooler, at least.
It would be another fifteen minutes before Roz left her office, however, as she became stuck fielding phone calls from nervous clients who were either turned down for a gig, or was on the verge of being fired from one. And then she left.
But as soon as she walked out of those lobby doors, still on the cell phone with yet another problem client, she was shocked to find that her husband was not as easily convinced as she had thought. Mick was leaned against the bright white Bentley he had given to her, with his arms folded and his face significantly softened from the rage he had shown earlier. He, in fact, seemed resigned.
She was stunned. “I’ll call you back,” she said to her client, who was still talking wildly into the phone. But Roz absently ended the call. And walked up to Mick. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.
“Waiting to drive you to the airport to fly you to New York,” he said.
It wasn’t as dramatic as Hoke had said when he was waiting to drive Miss Daisy to the “stow,” but it was close enough, in Roz’s view. Her heart leaped with joy. But unlike Miss Daisy, she didn’t get in the car and let him drive her, she ran into his arms and let him lift her.
Mick lifted her high into his arms. He shut his eyes tight as he placed his hand on the back of her head and held the most precious human being in this world to him. He braced himself for a trip he knew wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as Roz was making it out to be. But his love for her was overruling his sense. His love for her was making him minimize the feeling. But it was still there. It was still gnawing at him like a mosquito at a picnic. But he had no choice. He was not about to let Roz sneak out of town and handle it herself.
She leaned back and looked at him. “But what about Spain?” she asked.
“Spain will have to wait,” he said, as he looked from her eyes to her luscious mouth. “Everything after you.”
And this time, when he moved to kiss her, Roz not only kept her mouth in range, but placed her hands on the side of his face, and guided him to the spot.
They gave her staffers inside the lobby something to talk about, something they could witness for themselves and undercut Teegan’s soon-to-come version of trouble in paradise, because they kissed passionately, like two teenagers in heat, in that parking lot.
CHAPTER NINE
“What if it doesn’t work, Hamp?” Betsy Gable asked anxiously. “What if she sees right through this?”
“Why would she see through it?” Hamilton Sturgess responded. “She would have to believe J.J., whom she respects, is as crooked as you are. She wouldn’t think that. That’s why I used J. Roz doesn’t know what’s going on in her life. Roz will believe every word J.J. tells her.”
But Betsy flung her blond hair out of her face and continued to walk around that living room. She was not at all as convinced as he was. “But what if she told that husband of hers? You’ve had dealings with him before. He’s straight up crazy. He’ll kill a brother, Hamp. What about him?”
Hamilton met Mick Sinatra when he tried to worm his way into Roz’s heart almost a year ago. Mick set him straight then. He made clear that he was to stay clear of his wife, and Hamp kept that promise. Until now. “Let me worry about him,” he said. “We were paid to do a job, and we’re doing that job. If we fail, neither one of us will get paid. You want that?”
Both of them were the most desperate they had ever been in their lives, and looked it. Betsy, who used to believe her natural good looks would be her ticket to stardom, was broke, abused, and hooked on crack. Her beauty had faded into an ugly, pinched-face look, and her body, which was really her calling card, was now too thin, too punct
ured by too many needle pricks, and far too overused to ever be deemed attractive again. If this get-cash-quick scheme didn’t work, and they didn’t get paid soon, she was going to die. That was why she was willing to sacrifice her best friend. The need was on her too bad for her to turn this opportunity down. Besides, she knew they wouldn’t hurt Roz. She knew the people involved. They just wanted to teach her a lesson.
Hamp, like Betsy, was less concerned about Roz’s fate than he was about his own problems. It wasn’t drugs per se for him, although he was a user too, but he wanted the money to resume his high-flying lifestyle. He was the one who enlisted Betsy. He was the one who enlisted J.J. Crane. They were all struggling for dough, all three of them, and delivering Roz Sinatra into the hands of her enemy was the only way they were going to get it. But first they had to deliver her.
“You just do what you were told to do,” he said to Betsy. “You follow the script as if it was written for a show on Broadway. If you do that, and if I do my part, we can’t lose.”
“But he’s not gonna hurt her, right?” Betsy asked. “He’s just gonna teach her a lesson, right?”
Hamilton wanted to slap her. Betsy was worse than he could ever be, in his opinion, because she was betraying her best friend but still wanted to pretend she had Roz’s best interest at heart. He had no such illusions about his true intentions. But to keep Betsy and her fantasy about being a good person onboard, he went along with her foolishness. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Just to teach her a lesson, that’s all. She’ll be fine, don’t you worry about Roz. Nobody’s going to harm Roz.”
“I know that’s right,” Gwen Sutton said. Hamilton and Betsy turned toward her. She was the actress whom J.J. told Roz that Betsy was staying with. They were in her house on Long Island. It was nothing fancy, very rustic and dilapidated, but it was secluded enough for them to do what they had to do. Because she, even more than Hamilton, was the driving force behind this scheme. She only had a passing knowledge of Roz when they both once worked in an off-Broadway play, both with minor roles. It wasn’t about money for her. It was about helping, loving, and obeying her old man. “You know Melo. He just wants to make her sweat a little.”
Hamilton smiled. Gwen was even more ruthless than he was. “Right,” he said. “Just make her sweat a little for what she did to him.”
Betsy still hoped it was true. She hoped it was going to be a slam dunk like Hamp was saying, and everybody would get out of this in one piece. But when the doorbell rang, and Hamilton was able to peep through the blinds without showing himself and saw that not only Roz, but her husband Mick, was on the house’s front porch, his heart sank. Mick was with her. J.J. was supposed to warn her not to even tell Mick, let alone bring him too!
“What is it?” Betsy asked, as she stood at the closed blinds too.
“She brought Mick along,” Hamilton said. “She brought Mick!”
“Oh, no!” Betsy said in anguish. “What are we going to do?”
Hamilton could hardly think straight. But Gwen could. She didn’t know Mick like that. He didn’t scare her. “You,” she said to Betsy,” get in the bedroom and prepare to play your role if necessary.”
Betsy hurried into the bedroom.
“You,” she said to Hamilton, “get ready for the grab.”
“But what about her husband?”
“I’ll handle him,” Gwen said the way a person who did not truly know Mick Sinatra would have said. “You and your guy just be ready.”
Hamilton hurried to get prepared as the doorbell rang again. They had to get this right!
Gwen exhaled, and answered the door.
Roz Graham looked even more graceful than she remembered her. Even when she was poor as dirt, just like the rest of them, she had an elegance about her. Now that she was married to this guy they called Mick, a very distinguished and elegant-looking man if Gwen had to say so herself, it only enhanced her beauty. But Gwen still wasn’t a fan. “Roz, what a surprise!” she said when she opened her front door. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“How are you?” Roz asked. She hadn’t seen Gwen Sutton in years. “It’s been so long.”
“Over a decade, I’d say. But you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Neither have you,” Roz said. All of this seemed almost out of place considering why she had come.
Gwen, however, was giving Hamilton time to prepare. She knew what she was doing. “Did you drive, or what?”
“I flew,” Roz said. “We flew.”
Gwen looked at Mick. “And you must be?” Gwen asked, extending her hand. Just to make certain.
“This is my husband,” Roz proudly said. “Mick Sinatra.”
“Oh, Mick,” Gwen said as they shook hands. “That’s what I was afraid of.” She looked at Roz. “Betsy is terrified of him. Did you know that?”
“Terrified is a strong word,” Roz responded, “but yes.”
“She’ll go nuts if she knows he’s anywhere near her. And she’s in bad shape.”
“Yeah, J.J. told me. She said the guy beat her pretty badly.”
“That’s an understatement, Roz. You’ll see.” She looked at Mick. “But I’m afraid, sir, that you’ll have to wait out here. I cannot risk her knowing that you’re anywhere near her. I will not risk it.”
The fear in Gwen’s eyes were extraordinary, Roz thought. What in the world had Bess told her? Roz looked at Mick. It was always unclear if he was convinced. But he didn’t fight her on it. “I’ll wait out here,” he said to her.
Roz loved him even more for his understanding as Mick removed his hand from the small of her back. Gwen opened the door wider, Mick looked inside, as Roz entered the house.
But as soon as the door was closed and locked, and Gwen began escorting Roz toward the bedroom, Hamilton and a small time crook they called Face came up behind Roz. Roz had only just saw Betsy lying on a bed when Face quickly covered her mouth with duct tape, and he and Hamilton slammed her backwards onto the floor.
Roz could feel her heart shake with terror as the two men taped her mouth so completely that she could barely breathe through her nose.
“Go right now,” she heard Gwen say with panic in her voice, “before he has a chance to even think about coming in here!”
And they were off. Hamilton and Face lifted Roz by the catch of her arms and began running her toward the back door of the home. She was trying to flail out of their grasp with everything she had, as the terror continued to grip her, but they were far too strong. She was wasting her energy and realized it almost immediately. She decided to preserve her fight for one she had a chance of winning. She moved to their pull.
What particularly upset Roz was seeing that Gwen was involved, and Hamilton. She knew them both, and once respected them both. And Betsy? Her best friend? And what about J.J.? Was she involved in this too? Or had they just used her name as a ruse?
But none of that mattered now. Roz had to survive. Mick was out front, thinking she was in some bedroom comforting her old friend, and she couldn’t make a sound. Tears tried to come to her eyes as the two men hurried her through the kitchen and then through the backdoor. Mick, she inwardly cried. Mick, help me! You were right. I should have listened to you!
But it was too late now. She didn’t listen, she wouldn’t listen, and now she was on her way to something horrific. Maybe even, she thought shockingly, her own death.
But as soon as Hamilton opened that back door and thrust her through it, her thought changed. Her beloved Mick wasn’t out front as she had thought, but was standing on the back porch waiting for those thought-they-were-being-slick fools to arrive. And the seclusion of that house that made it perfect for what they wanted to do to Roz, was suddenly perfect for what Mick was about to do to them.
Mick raised a gun and shot Face between the eyeballs, causing him to drop dead. Hamilton, now the one terrified, pushed Roz onto Mick and ran back into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Mick grabbed his terrified wi
fe, pulled her into his arms relieved that she was safe, but he knew he had to act fast. They weren’t getting out of this alive. He removed the tape from her mouth, it was painful but necessary, and handed her his backup gun. “Shoot anything that moves,” he ordered her.
“I will,” she assured him.
He held onto the banister, leaned back, and kicked the backdoor in with his five thousand dollar shoes. And with gun at the ready, he ran inside.
He was met with gunfire. Not from Hamilton, he realized as he took cover, but from Gwen. She was walking toward him firing shot after shot, firing wildly inaccurately, as if she was some action figure in a movie and aim didn’t matter. But this was no movie, and aim was everything. Mick took her out with a single shot.
Then Hamilton started firing. He was no shooter either, but he was a better aim than Gwen. Mick had to hide behind the kitchen counter to avoid getting hit. He needed Hamp to give him intel so he shot him, but only in the foot. But instead of stopping and giving up, Hamp became enraged.
“You shot me?” Hamp asked, looking down at his bloody foot. “You shot me?” He looked where Mick was taking cover. “You dago wop. You shot me!”
And he too, like Gwen before him, began walking toward Mick firing as he came. He thought it was a movie too. It was now a matter of life and death for Mick. He needed the intel from Hamilton Sturgess, but he had no choice. He rose up and took Hamp out too. A single shot through the head did the trick. Hamilton dropped like a pile of old rugs, kicking up dust as he did.
When the shooting stopped, Roz ran inside. “Mick, are you okay? Are you okay? Mick!”
“I’m okay,” Mick reassured her. Terror was in her voice. She was still asking if he was okay even as she ran in and saw that he was. Even as he told her that he was.
“Anybody else in here?” he whispered to her.
“I saw Betsy,” Roz said.
“Where?”
“Bedroom over there.” Roz pointed. “She’s in that bedroom.”
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