Monk Paletti: Taming Ashley Sinatra

by Mallory Monroe

  Ashley didn’t know what to make of that. “They got stuck?”

  “That’s how she put it, yeah. They got stuck.”

  “But is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” Ashley asked.

  Monk thought about it. “I think it was a good thing. They were all like in their eighties or something, and they all had long, long marriages. So to me, it was a good thing.”

  “Okay,” Ashley said, sitting more erect. “Let me get this straight. You sent your plane all the way to Maine to pick me up and fly me all the way to New Jersey to be with you.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “And your idea of a fun Saturday night with your aforementioned guest is to watch a documentary about Holocaust survivors, all in their eighties mind you, bouncing around at a lodge in the Catskills?”

  “It’s not fun the way you describe it! And they aren’t bouncing around. What eighty year old is gonna be bouncing around? But it’s compelling to watch,” Monk said.

  “I’m sure it is,” said Ashley. And then she sought to reason with him. “But is it good Saturday night entertainment, Monk?” She said this and put the tip of her finger between her bright white teeth, as if she was hoping he’d see what she meant.

  Monk thought about what she said. “Well, maybe not I guess. But. . .” Then he looked at her. “You got something in mind?” he asked her.

  Ashley smiled. Now he was talking her language. “Always,” she said.

  “Like what? A movie? A card game uptown? What?”

  “A card game? A movie? Monk, you really ought to hang out with more than just old gangsters, you know?”

  “What you got in mind then?” Monk asked her.

  “Let’s go skating,” Ashley said.

  Monk frowned. “Skating? He laughed. Then he realized she wasn’t joking. “You’re serious?”

  “Of course I am! Get ready! I’m about to show you how to have some fun!”

  She moved to get off of him, but he made the mistake of looking at her breasts juggling as she moved. And he pulled her back. “But first,” he said, “I’m about to show you.” And he pulled her down, into his arms, and kissed her passionately.

  And before she could come back up for air, he re-sleeved and was doing her again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Not so fast, Ashley. You’re going too fast!”

  Ashley laughed as she kept her arm interlocked with Monk’s, helping him keep his balance, while they both were skating at the massive outdoor rink. Like most nights, it was crowded that night too.

  Ashley was skating gracefully, as if she had the wind at her back. She was happy just to be with Monk, and to be doing something fun.

  Monk was skating, too, but not as if he had the wind at his back like Ashley, but as if he had a headwind coming straight for him, and his body was flapping forward like a fish out of water, and then straight up, all in his feverish attempt to not fall on his ass. He was trying with all he had to maintain some consistent balance. He hadn’t skated since he was a kid, and it was showing big time. Had Ashley not stayed around to hold him up, he would have fallen long ago.

  But she stayed with him, holding him up, until, after nearly fifteen minutes, he got the hang of it again. And soon, he was actually able to move around the rink on his own.

  “I got this,” he said to Ashley when she kept hovering around him as if she was not a believer.

  “You sure?” she asked him, confirming her nonbelief.

  “I’m sure,” Monk reassured her again. “Whatta you keep asking me if I’m sure? I’m sure! You think you’re the only one can do this shit? In my day, I could outskate anybody in town! Whatta you talking? I’m no fucking novice here.”

  Ashley laughed and shook her head. Leave it to a guy who was moments before barely able to stand up in skates. But just because he was able to manage to stand upright without falling, he was suddenly the greatest skater there ever was. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll let you do your thing.”

  “Let me do my thing,” Monk insisted. “Whatta I look like? A baby? I’m no baby!”

  Ashley laughed. Monk couldn’t help but smile at his own self. And then Ashley, satisfied within herself that Monk wasn’t going to fall, skated on over to the other side of the rink, where the advanced skaters were.

  Monk, for the most part, skated slowly, on the edges, out of the way of the fast young people. But he mostly just watched Ashley. She was having a ball. She was skating backwards and sideways and stooping down and doing the split. But all the while looking over at Monk constantly and smiling and waving at him. He waved back. That was what he really liked about her. She never once forgot about him.

  He certainly couldn’t forget her. She wore a form-fitting t-shirt and a pair of Daisy Dukes that made her butt look as tight as he knew it was, and that made her look as if she had legs for days. Other men were noticing those legs, too, Monk noticed, and many of them kept trying to get next to the superfine black girl with the beautiful face.

  But what Monk also noticed was that Ashley was having none of it. As soon as one of those jokers got too close, and tried to skate alongside her, she put on the afterburners and skated away from them. Which caused Monk to laugh. She left every one of those jokers in the dust.

  “Need some help?”

  It was a woman coming up beside Monk.

  Monk looked at her. “Help? What kind of help?”

  “Do you need some help? It looked as though you were about to fall.”

  But Monk frowned. “Whatta you talking? I’m not about to fall,” he said, and then almost fell. He had to flap his arms like a big bird to stay upright.

  The woman laughed. Her point proven. And then she skated on about her business.

  Monk couldn’t help but smile too. And he realized, as he continued to skate around the edges of that rink, that he was actually enjoying himself. After he and Ashley made love again, and showered together, the idea of putting on a pair of jeans and a jersey and going skating was as foreign to him as having a woman in his bed. But when Ashley told him he looked sexy in those jeans, and she walked up to him and squeezed his balls, he got over himself. He wasn’t going skating because he wanted to skate. He was going skating because Ashley wanted to skate. He was doing it for her. He enjoyed doing things for her.

  But then he looked toward where he last saw her, and he realized she was no longer in that area. His eyes began looking all around the place, searching for her, and he felt a little sense of dread when he didn’t immediately see her. And then he saw her, further over on the other side of the rink from where he was, skating in her turns and twirls. He relaxed again.

  But then he remembered seeing something odd in his peripheral vision. And he looked away from Ashley once more, and looked instead where he saw that oddness. And he saw it again. It was a man, in a suit, heading in Ashley’s direction. But why would he have on a suit in a skating rink? Why didn’t he just take off the coat? And then Monk realized he didn’t have on skates either. And he suddenly realized why. All of it added up. He needed the coat to conceal a big gun, like a magnum, not the small, loaded pistol Monk had on his person. And the guy wasn’t wearing skates because he needed to make a fast getaway. Monk had seen that scene a hundred times. It was a hit. He knew a mob hit in progress when he saw one!

  But why would he be over there? Why was he heading in that direction, toward Ashley, and not toward Monk?

  And Monk’s heart dropped. Because Ashley, you idiot, was the target!

  Monk pulled out his weapon from the small of his back and tried to skate so fast toward the other side of the rink that he began losing his balance and his skates began losing traction rather than gaining ground. And just as Monk was losing the battle with his balance, the hitman from across the rink was pulling out his magnum. And as Monk was falling on his ass, the gunman was aiming his weapon, there was no doubt about it, straight at Ashley’s head.

  Monk had fallen on his ass, with his legs cocked up, but he still aimed
his weapon across that rink. There were so many people skating around, and he knew he could hit any one of them, but it was a risk he had to take. That gunman was going to take Ashley out. He knew that for certain. He’d wipe out a row of people, before he let that happen!

  And Monk didn’t hesitate. He took his aim and fired several rounds as soon as the man was about to pull the trigger on that magnum. The people were screaming and started skating wildly trying to get away from the gunfire, making it impossible for Monk to see if he hit his target.

  He tried to get up, but was knocked back down. He hurriedly took off those fucking skates and got up again, and this time he ran across that rink. He ran even as those skaters were running toward him, away from what they thought was the danger.

  And that was when Monk saw the hitman. He was down. Monk had got him. But then he heard somebody scream, “a lady’s been shot!” and his heart fell through his shoe again.

  He turned quickly, toward where Ashley had been, and he saw a lady down, the victim of a gunshot wound.

  But it wasn’t Ashley. She was on her knees beside the woman, trying to help her, and had removed her blouse to apply pressure to the lady’s wound. The hitman, Monk realized, was able to get off a round anyway. He had missed Ashley, but had hit the woman beside her.

  Monk hurried over beside Ashley. “Were you hit?” he asked her as he dropped to his knees beside her.

  Ashley was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “But somebody shot this lady. Somebody shot her, Monk. She was standing right beside me, and somebody shot her!”

  Monk removed his jersey and put it over Ashley’s head, covering up her bra. And then he began looking around in full protective mode, in case there was a secondary attack. That was when the two bodyguards he had ordered to be at the rink in case Sammy DeGarno wanted to try something, suddenly came running his way. Where the fuck had they been, he wondered.

  “You okay, Boss?” one of the guards asked anxiously. They, like Monk, weren’t skaters either, and had to remove their skates before they could get over there. “You okay?”

  But Monk wasn’t okay. That woman was standing right beside Ashley, and was taken out. Had Monk not fired on that hitman and caused the hitman’s aim to go slightly left, it would have been Ashley bleeding on that floor. “Make sure that fucker’s dead,” Monk said to one of the guards.

  “But you’re okay?” the guard asked him again.

  “No, I’m not okay!’ Monk fired back. “Quit asking me that! Just do what I told your ass to do!”

  One of the bodyguards hurried over to the hitman, while the other guard took over applying pressure on the woman’s wound, relieving Ashley.

  Monk placed his arm around Ashley, protectively holding her, and Ashley leaned exhaustively against him. She’d been close to danger before, but somehow that danger felt different. It felt too close. She was badly shaken.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The police wouldn’t leave them alone. Everybody was questioned, but because it was Monk who killed the shooter, and because the police knew Monk all too well, he and Ashley were questioned the longest. They were seated in the rink manager’s office, and Ashley was leaned against Monk. She just wanted to go home. Monk did too.

  “And you say you don’t know the guy?” one of the detectives asked him.

  “I don’t know him,” Monk said. “How many times I have to tell you that? Who is he?”

  “He’s in the DeGarno crime family. You’ve heard of Sammy the Ox DeGarno, haven’t you, Monk?”

  “I might have heard that name before, once or twice.”

  “Once or twice, hun?”

  “Look, I’m tired. My lady’s tired. What is it you want from us?”

  “From what I’ve been hearing, and from what the tape showed us, it looked as though your old lady was the target. But you knew that already. Didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know about any target or anything like that. I just saw a guy pulling a gun at a skating rink and I knew somebody had to do something.”

  “So you’re the hero now?”

  “Yes, he’s the hero!” Ashley said, angry that they didn’t understand that. “He shot that man before he pumped even more bullets into that woman. And that woman survived. They said she’s going to pull through. Monk saved her life. Why are you treating him like a criminal?”

  But Monk squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Ash,” he said.

  “No, it’s not okay! Thank God you were there to help that lady, or he would have killed her. He could have killed me!” Which still had Ashley shaken. “You are the hero,” she added.

  “And you?” said the detective. “You’re Ashley Sinatra, hun?”

  “That’s my name. I told you that already.”

  The detective smiled and leaned further back in his chair. “Got fire in ya’ just like him, too. Your uncle I mean. Your uncle is Mick Sinatra, is he not?”

  Monk frowned. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “Answer the question, Ashley,” the detective said to Ashley. “Is Mick Sinatra your uncle?”

  Ashley wanted to cuss that cop out. Even Monk could see that. But he squeezed her hand, reminding her that they didn’t want any trouble with the cops. And she did as she knew Monk wanted her to do. “Yes,” she said. “He’s my uncle.” Then she frowned. “So what if he is?”

  “Could be a connection,” the detective said. “Mick the Tick’s niece, and a hitman happen to fire a weapon right in that same area where his niece is hanging out. Could be a connection. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Don’t say it,” Monk said, “because it’s not true.”

  The detective looked at Monk. “What makes you so certain about that?”

  Monk realized he had said too much. He quickly stood to his feet. “Okay, that’s it,” he said, helping Ashley up too. “I know my rights. If I’m under arrest, then arrest me motherfucker. Otherwise, shove the rest of your questions up my ass and take up the rest of this shit with my attorney. We’re out of here.” Monk, with Ashley, began heading toward the exit.

  “We’ll let you know if we have any further questions,” the detective said.

  But Monk didn’t even look back. He and Ashley left.

  But if they thought that was the end of the interrogation, they were wrong.

  When Monk drove them back to his house, they saw a Lincoln Town Car sitting in the driveway.

  “Shit,” Monk said in an exhausted voice.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” asked Ashley. She’d had more than enough drama for one night. “Who is it?”

  Monk stopped his Mercedes alongside the Town Car. “It’s my old man,” he said. Then he thought about the fact that it was his old man’s bad decision to snatch Sammy’s daughter that started that shit in the first place. “Gotdammit!” he added, unbuckled his seatbelt, and got out of the car.

  Ashley didn’t wait for him to walk around to her side to open the door for her, although he walked around there anyway. But she had unbuckled her seatbelt and was already getting out.

  He placed her hand in his. “If he tries to give you the business,” Monk said to her, “ignore his ass. Just ignore him. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Ashley said as the driver of the Town Car got out, walked around to the back passenger side, and opened the back passenger door. But what she didn’t understand was why would Monk’s father try to give her the business in the first place, whatever that meant? What kind of guy was she about to meet?

  When an older gentleman Ashley could only assume was Monk’s father stepped out of the Town Car, she immediately saw the resemblance. That’s how Monk is going to look when he’s old and gray, she said to herself. And she inwardly smiled. Monk’s father was old as fire, but he still looked good.

  “Whatta you doing here, Pop?” Monk asked his father. Even his father knew he did not like company.

  But Raymond was too busy looking at Ashley. “I could ask her that question. I guess you ain’t no monk after al
l.”

  Monk was already irritated. He wasn’t about to explain shit to him about his private life. “What do you want, Pop?”

  “You aren’t gonna introduce us?”

  “No. Whatta you want, Pop?”

  Raymond exhaled. He and Monk had to work together because he knew he needed his oldest son. But damn if he wasn’t making it harder and harder with each passing day. “Can she excuse us?” Raymond asked.

  “No. You can say anything you need to say in front of her.”

  “Oh, really now? You trust this girl like that?”

  Monk couldn’t believe he was saying it, but it was how he felt. “Yes,” he said. “Now whatta you want?”

  “What happened?” Raymond asked him. “I hear they’re shootin’ up the place over at the skating rink, and one of my boys involved in that shit. I’m immediately thinking it’s Mikey. It’s always Mikey. But they say no, Boss. It’s Frankie. I say what! My Frankie? What the hell happened?”

  Monk still hated thinking about it. “Sammy sent his boy my way,” Monk said.

  “To take you out?”

  “They didn’t go for me. They know better than that.”

  “Then who did they go for?”

  Monk hesitated. “They tried to go for my lady,” he said.

  “Your lady?” Raymond asked, and looked at Ashley again. “I never seen her before in my life. Since when she’s your lady?”

  “Since none of your business, Pop. That’s all you wanted? To know what happened?”

  “But it ain’t making no sense, Frankie. You,” he started to say killed, but he glanced at Ashley. “You handled their underboss,” he said instead. “Why would they come at your old lady instead of at you after what you did?”

  “You think I know that already? I don’t know that yet. Maybe they don’t know Tally’s dead. Maybe they don’t know everything we think they know. I’m still finding shit out myself. When I find out what I need to know, I’ll let you in on it. But right now, I ain’t got shit to say.”