“My daddy was a drunkard and a thief,” Charles said unapologetically. “All he left me was a bad name, loads of bad debt, and alone.”
The husband didn’t expect that response. He swallowed hard. “What about your grandpappy? What did he leave you?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Charles responded.
The husband glanced at his wife. This wasn’t going the way they had planned. They were supposed to appeal to his better angels. They were supposed to get him to reason with them. They were in the storefront office of the most powerful man in Jericho. And they didn’t come to say hello or to talk about the weather or even to kiss his ass. It went deeper than that. They came to beg.
Trish, the wife, moved in front of her husband. Russ, it seemed to Charles, seemed relieved. “We’ve got children, Big Daddy,” Trish said. “What about them? If we lose that land, it affects them too. It will affect them something awful. What if it were you and your children in this same situation?”
“My children wouldn’t be in this situation,” Charles said firmly.
Russ couldn’t believe it. “That’s presumptuous of you, sir,” he said. “But for the grace of God your children could very well be in this same situation. What on this green earth makes you so certain they couldn’t find themselves exactly where we find ourselves today?”
“Because my actions would never cause my children to be placed in a spot like this,” Charles responded. “Because instead of getting greedy and getting a second mortgage to begin with, I would have kept my granddaddy’s land free and clear the way he gave it to me.”
“I needed that money!” Russ shot back. “That’s why I got that loan. I needed it!”
“Instead of buying a brand new Cadillac,” Charles went on, “I would have paid that second mortgage.”
“I needed transportation,” the husband explained. “What are you talking about? I was tired of driving a truck everywhere I went. Is it wrong for a man to want a nice car?”
“Instead of going on riverboat cruises and gambling away that loan money you supposedly needed so desperately, I would have made sure my shit was tight and every bill I owed was paid. Then my children would not be in any precarious situations whatsoever, and my wife, if I had one, would not be dragged into somebody’s office to beg for mercy that should have never been required in the first place!”
Charles then stood up. He hated when people took him down these roads to perdition. He hated it when people tried to blame him for their own bad decisions and even worse behavior. “It’s quite late,” he said, “and I have an engagement. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Russ could not believe the coldness, the callousness of this man. He moved back in front of his wife, literally pushing her aside as he did. “You’re a mean, hateful man, Charles Sinatra,” he proclaimed. “We just handed you our hearts on a platter and you cut them up and ate them as if we were nothing more to you than a side of beef! Everybody told us what kind of man you were. Everybody told us to never deal with Big Daddy Sinatra. He wasn’t fair, they said. He is not a fair man!”
The husband calmed back down. “But against all of that advice,” he said, “I decided to come to your bank for that loan. I decided to try you out for myself. I figured how bad could you be? They call a young man like you, a man not even forty yet, Big Daddy. That’s a very affectionate term.”
Charles almost laughed out loud. Affectionate his ass! It was a mocking term the townspeople took to calling him as soon as they realized he was not falling for their con games and lame excuses; that he was not going along to get along; that he was not the man to trifle with.
“So I tried you on for size,” Russ continued. “I walked past two other banks, two other banks, and gave yours a chance.”
Charles knew better than that too. He knew the real story was that his bank gave Russ a chance when those two other banks he so dramatically walked past told him no. But these were supposedly salt of the earth people. These were supposedly real Americans. Simple folk, as Russ called himself. And Charles knew better than that too. He knew he was living around a bunch of salt-of-the-earth-real-American hypocrites. And because he lived among them, he was just as bad as they were. If not worse, he mused.
“Despite all of the warnings I had about you,” Russ continued, “I gave your establishment a chance. I ignored the naysayers, and gave you a chance. But guess what? Those naysayers were right. I am sad to say, those folks were right on!”
But Charles was not moved. He had to leave. “Say it sadly on the sidewalk outside, will you please?” he asked Russ.
Russ, again, was aghast by the coldness. “You are a heartless, merciless, awful man,” he said.
“And so much more,” Charles said, “I’m sure you will agree. But agree outside, if you will. Good day.”
Russ puffed up with even more umbrage. “Okay fine,” he said, nodding his head. “Don’t help us then. We don’t want help from your kind anyway!”
“Come on, Russell.” Trish tugged on his elbow. “We don’t want his help.”
“Kiss my ass!” Russ yelled at Charles. “That’s what you can do for me, Mister Arrogant Hot Shot. You can kiss my ever-loving ass!”
“I’m sure that is an activity your wife may enjoy,” Charles responded, “but I doubt if I would find it nearly as gratifying. No thank-you.”
Russ was dumbstruck. Charles wasn’t even taking his insults the right way. “Kiss my a-s-s ass!” Russ yelled again.
“I’ve smelled your farts,” Charles replied. “No thank-you.”
Russ was practically hyperventilating with anger and confusion, as he stared at this oddball man. But despite his emotions, he had enough sense to know he was wasting his time. Big Daddy Sinatra was everything and more everybody had ever told him. There was no help here.
So with his wife’s urgings, and with Charles’s refusal to so much as entertain the thought of rewarding Russ’s excesses by withdrawing that foreclosure petition, they left.
Charles sat back down behind his desk, and closed his eyes. Though no one would believe him, he had a burden for people, an ache in his heart. And he hated to always have to play the bad guy.
But he knew his fellowman too well. He knew that people almost never changed. Russ Ferraway was destined to lose his granddaddy’s land just as surely as he was destined to squeeze every dime he could out of that land. And just like everybody else in that forsaken town, they were going to blame the man they mockingly called Big Daddy Sinatra. It was always his fault.
Big Government and Big Daddy, he once overheard a woman tell a small child, are the enemy. Never forget it. Never.
Charles opened his big, green eyes. He remembered how emphatically she had said never. And she said it to someone so young. It broke his heart. And broke any delusions he might have ever had of being acceptable in the sight of the citizens of Jericho. He was their boogeyman. He was their scapegoat. He was, in their eyes and their children’s eyes, the enemy.
Then he dismissed such thoughts, stood up, grabbed his briefcase, and headed out of his storefront office, an office in the heart of downtown Jericho.
“Will you be back in later today, sir?” Mary Stalworth, his longtime secretary, yelled as he headed out.
“No,” he replied, and kept going.
Once outside, he walked across the sidewalk to his waiting black Jaguar. Paige Springer, one of the locals, was walking on the sidewalk in his direction. When Charles saw her, he wanted to turn back around and go inside. He wasn’t getting any breaks today.
“Hello, Charles.”
“Hello, Paige.”
“It’s going to be a very nice day today.” She looked him up and down approvingly. He was dressed magnificently as usual, in a dark blue suit. And he was a big man, not just in prominence, but in physical stature as well. From his muscular arms and biceps, to his thick thighs and firm chest, he struck a powerful pose. His bright green eyes and jet black hair, slicked back, blazed in the sunlight. If there w
as a better looking man in town, Paige never ran into him. And she was born and raised in Jericho. “I said it’s going to be a very nice day today.”
“I heard what you said.”
She was accustomed to his impertinence. “So the wedding’s today?”
“That’s what the invitation said.”
“I didn’t get one,” she responded. “So I wouldn’t know.”
Donald didn’t invite his own mother, Charles’s ex-wife, so he certainly wasn’t going to invite Charles’s bed warmer.
But Paige kept talking. “He’s entirely too young,” she said. “Getting married at that age. Entirely too young. Why don’t you put a stop to it? You know those boys of yours do everything you tell them to do. You say frog. They leap.”
“He’s a grown man. He knows what he wants.”
“But eighteen? Honestly, Charles! I simply would not allow it.”
Charles didn’t respond to that. She didn’t have a say either way. He moved slightly away from her and opened his back passenger door.
“I heard you invited Abigail Ridge along,” Paige said, which, he knew, was the main reason she decided to strike up this conversation to begin with.
He tossed his brief case in the backseat. He hadn’t invited anybody along, but that never stopped the gossip.
“Did you hear me, Charles?”
Charles closed his back door and looked at Paige. She was a very beautiful woman, no doubt about it. Nice height, nice size, sparkling blue eyes. But she would also lie, cheat and steal to get what she wanted, and would be about as trustworthy with his heart as a wino with a prized bottle of wine. She’d cherish it, alright, but she’d drink it dry. “I heard you,” he said.
“Well did you or did you not invite Meg along? Which is it?”
But Charles gave out that impatient sigh that she knew so well. “What it is, and this is the salient point,” he said, “is none of your business.”
Paige sneered at him. “You are such an asshole,” she said. “Just insufferable! Why do I put up with you?”
They both knew why. Paige, as if by reflex, even glanced down at his penis to confirm why. Then she became so angry with herself for having such a weakness for that man, that she shook her head and couldn’t say another word. She walked away.
Charles watched her as she stomped off. She was good in bed too, that was why he put up with her. But even that was getting old to him.
He got into his Jag, pulled away from the curb, and sped off.
CHAPTER TWO
He was standing against a sidewall observing the festive crowd. His son Robert, who idolized him, was standing beside him. Brent and Tony, his two oldest sons, also stood nearby. Charles Sinatra may have been the most hated man in Jericho, but his sons, who actually knew him on a personal level, adored him. He raised them alone when their mother left, and they felt he raised them right.
“I know I can run one of them, Dad,” Robert was saying as they all stood around their father and people-watched. Although Charles was dressed in a suit, all of his sons, who were groomsmen, wore tuxedos. “If you give me a chance, I know I can run it.”
“Which one?” Brent asked. “Do you realize how many businesses Dad owns?”
“Yes I know!” Robert shot back. He was nineteen years old, the second youngest of four sons, but he had an edginess about him that the others didn’t possess. Whereas Brent was the oldest and definitely the most serious, and Tony was the second oldest and definitely the least serious, Robert was the wildcard. They never knew what they were going to get with Robert.
And he looked different too. Brent and Tony took after their father in seemingly every way, but Robert had their mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes and general slenderness. He wasn’t skinny like their youngest brother Donald, but he wasn’t at all muscular like his older brothers and father. And while Brent and Tony were often described as handsome, gorgeous, attractive, Robert was described as feisty, tough, hardcore. Mainly because Robert’s ambitiousness, his need, his drive, were often in overdrive, and his looks seemed to take a complete backseat to his amped-up personality.
“That’s why I’m telling you to give me a chance, Dad,” he continued pleading. “You own rent homes, a boat rental company, a car dealership and car rental company, a Bed and Breakfast hotel for crying out loud, and even a bank! All you have to do is pick one, and I can run it!”
But Charles wasn’t nearly as gun-ho as his son. “Get your degree first,” he said, “and then we’ll talk.”
“No fair!” Robert said. “Why do Brent and I have to go to college when you let Tony drop out?”
“I didn’t let Tony do anything,” Charles fired back. “He dropped out all on his own. And he will be dropping back in when the next term rolls around, I assure you.”
Tony frowned at his younger brother. “Why did you have to put me in your conversation anyway?”
“What about Donnie?” Robert continued to complain to his father. “Donnie was supposed to start college this semester, but you told him he didn’t have to go. And you made him the manager over all of your properties too!”
“Donald is not managing any of my properties,” Charles corrected his son. “He’s helping out at the dealership. That’s it.”
“But why aren’t you making him go to college too?” Robert asked. “Donnie gets away with murder! You didn’t even try to stop him from getting married.”
“There’s a big difference, Bobby, and you know it,” Tony said.
“There’s no difference! What’s the difference?” Robert wanted to know.
“He didn’t want to get married, for one thing,” Tony explained. “He had to get married. Susan’s in the family way, and you know it. He messed up, and he had to make it right. He has a family to support now.”
Robert looked at his father. “So if Brent and I knock up some female, we can drop out and go to work for you too?”
“Speak for yourself,” Brent said. “I graduate in a year. I’m not knocking up anybody and I’m not dropping out of shit.”
“But you know what I mean, Dad,” Robert said, ignoring his oldest brother. “If I knock up a girl and marry her, I don’t have to go to college either? Right?”
“Wrong,” Charles said. “You’re still going.”
Brent and Tony laughed.
“But why,” Robert asked sincerely, “if Donnie doesn’t have to go?”
“Because I said so,” Charles said. Then he gave his son that don’t play with me look. “Next question.”
Robert shook his head. “It’s not fair,” he continued to insist, but in a lowered tone because he knew he was wasting his time.
Donald Sinatra, the groom, the man of the hour, came dancing up to his family with a huge grin on his face. His tux jacket was off, and his long-sleeve dress shirt was half-hanging out of his pants. He had a drink in one hand, and, for some odd reason, a baton in the other hand. “I’m a married man now, Pop!” he said cheerfully as he lifted both his baton and his drink in time with the loud rock music. “Can you believe it brothers? I have myself a wife now!”
“You can also have yourself a hefty court fine for underage drinking. Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?” Brent asked him.
“No, tight-ass,” Donald responded, and his brothers laughed. “I do not think I’ve had too much to drink! In fact, I’m just getting started. This is a party, and I’m just getting started. How do you like that? This is my wedding day, big brother. My wedding day! I’m supposed to get plastered! Who could fault me?”
“Your wife,” Brent said, “the one you were just reminding us how thrilled you were to have, might find a little fault with that.”
“Especially tonight,” Tony added.
But Donald dismissed such caution. He tried to stand erect, but stumbled against his father.
Charles placed a hand around his son’s waist. “Settle down,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Donald said as he stood erect again. Unlike his two ol
der brothers, who took entirely after their father, he, like Robert, was the spitting image of his mother. Like Robert, he too had blonde hair and blue eyes and a look about him that bordered more on pretty than handsome. And he wasn’t just the youngest Sinatra, but was the smallest one too. He was skinny, without an ounce of muscle. The exact opposite, in every way, of his father.
“I’m settled now for sure,” he kept on talking. “I’m married. That automatically makes me settled. I know what I’m doing.”
“Sure you do,” Robert responded.
“Ah, who are you to talk? At least I have a woman! Who do you have, Bobby? Who do you have?”
“Several women,” Robert said with a smile. “Just like Pop. I learned from the best.”
Brent and Tony laughed. But Donald found it disgusting. “Well, you can learn to be a whore all you care to. You can have all the women you want. You can have tons and tons and tons. But I’m not living my life that way. I have one woman, one wife. A brand new wife I love. And I’m going to be an amazing husband to that one woman, and an amazing father to our child. I’m not going to be anything like Pop!”
Donald didn’t realize what he had said, until he said it. Robert, Tony, and Brent were mortified. They all looked at their father.
Charles was hurt, but he wasn’t about to reveal it to them.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Dad,” Donald started saying, but Charles dismissed any slight with the wave of his hand.
“Forget it,” Charles said.
“I’m drunk,” Donald said. “Brent’s right. I’ve had far too much to drink.”
Charles looked angrily at his youngest son. “Don’t you dare create an excuse,” he said. “You said it, you stand by it.”
Donald swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean---”
“The worse kind of man in this world,” Charles continued, “is a man who doesn’t say what he means, and means what he says.”
Donald nodded. “Yes, sir. But I didn’t mean to. . .” But his father continued to give him that hard, chilling gaze. He gave up trying to excuse himself. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) Page 2
