But by the time they made it outside, Mick had already stopped firing. So his sons stopped too. Teddy looked at Mick. Mick nodded.
Teddy, his gun still drawn, walked all the way up to the SUV and flung open the back passenger door. Mick and Joey and the dons and Peshi’s underboss, all moved closer too. And Mick’s instincts proved spot on. There were four gunmen in the back seats of his SUV, as if they had been lying-in-wait, and all four were heavily armed as if they were ready to ambush Mick. But all four were dead. He had ambushed them.
Mick looked up front and saw his driver slumped down in the seat, a bullet in his head. His bodyguard was in the far back of the big SUV slumped down too. A bullet in his head as well.
Teddy and Joey looked at each other. How their father could react that decisively based solely on a gut feeling mystified them. But they were relieved he acted.
Aronzo reached into the SUV and turned over one of the gunmen. When he saw the face, he knew the face. “Russians,” he said, and then looked at Mick as if the ethnicity of that dead body proved to him that they weren’t bullshitting upstairs.
But Mick already knew they weren’t. Nobody called him to a meeting to bullshit.
Corello, who stood beside Mick, let out a worried exhale. “Looks like they’re skipping us, Micky,” he said, “and going straight to you.” Then he, too, looked at Mick as if he absolutely had to jump in the ring now. But Mick, as usual, kept his own counsel.
“Pop,” Joey said in a voice that made Mick look at his son. Then he looked where his son was looking: at a car that had just turned onto the far end of the street. Everybody positioned their weapons. But as quickly as they saw the car, somebody from inside of that car threw what looked like a body out onto the sidewalk, and then backed back up and sped away.
“What the fuck?” Teddy asked, moving in front of everybody to see if he could get a closer look. Then his heart dropped when he could make out the figure that was now lying lifeless across the street. “Oh no,” he said. “No!”
“What?” Mick asked anxiously, moving toward Teddy.
“It’s Gloria, Pop,” Teddy said, and he would know: he and Gloria were not just half-siblings, they were best friends. “It’s Gloria, Pop,” he said in a panic. “It’s Gloria!”
And Teddy took off running, with Joey running right behind him. Mick took off running as soon as he heard Teddy say Gloria’s name. And although he was the father, he outran both of his sons. That was his daughter they had thrown out of that car? It couldn’t be, he kept saying in his head. It couldn’t be!
But it was. When he made it across the street, he saw for himself that Teddy was right. It was Gloria Sinatra, the beautiful biracial daughter of Mick Sinatra and fashion designer Bella Caine. She had been badly beaten, but he could see she still had a pulse.
“Call 911,” he ordered a shell-shocked Teddy. “Call 911!”
And Mick fell to his knees and grabbed his daughter into his arms, cuddling her. “Call 911!” he kept yelling even as Teddy was already doing so.
Even Joey, who loved his sister, too, fell to his knees beside his father and was too stunned to even think about going after the car that had sped away. They were all too stunned.
And that was when the dons knew they had to act. Plan A had failed. Because of Mick’s instincts, their plan to have him ambushed as soon as he opened his Cadillac door had backfired. But Plan B, where the Sinatras were preoccupied and badly distracted with saving Gloria’s life, had to work. Gregor Govanoff, the Russian, had already warned them that it would be Sinatra’s head on a platter, or their own heads in the place of his, if they failed. Plan B, they knew to a don, had to work.
And they put it into action.
Aronzo gave the nod, and the other two dons, along with Peshi’s underboss, immediately pulled out their weapons and began running across the street too. They ran ready to knock out the Sinatras in one quick draw, and end their reign forevermore. They were ready to deliver to the Russians what the Russians required of them to survive.
But even though Mick was scared for his daughter’s life, and badly distracted by what they had done to her, he was still Mick the Tick. His instincts hadn’t left him. And his instincts told him that danger was approaching. He assumed it was in the form of that car returning to ambush them again. But when he glanced up, and saw the dons running toward him and his children with their guns already drawn and aimed, his heart dropped.
“Down!” he yelled as he knocked Teddy to the ground and reached for Joey. But the bullets were already raining down on them, and he fell back, on top of Gloria, and began raining bullets right back at those same men who had just minutes before begged for his help. With both hands on his Magnum, he shot Peshi and his underboss, and then Teddy aimed and fired and shot Corello. Aronzo, realizing he had suddenly lost that element of surprise he was relying on, began to retreat for cover. He was running to hide. But there was no hiding place when Mick and Teddy were the ones he was running from.
They both put caps in his ass, his legs, and his back. They killed him repeatedly.
But just as quickly as the bullets stopped flying, their shock returned. Teddy couldn’t believe how close a call that had been. Mick couldn’t either. It was as if they both should have seen it coming long before it got to that, and neither one of them had.
As they could hear the sirens coming their way, Mick removed his protective shield of a body from Gloria’s, and returned his attention to her. Teddy was still making sure that there were no more surprises that night as he looked up and down the street.
But then Mick suddenly realized something. The son he always seemed to forget, had been forgotten again. And he said his name out loud. “Joey,” he said, and quickly turned toward the son that had been knelt down beside him. Teddy, hearing his father’s voice, looked too. And they both saw that Joey was no longer knelt down, but had fallen over. And his entire body was just lying there, still and lifeless.
Teddy dropped to his brother’s side in shock, and held him. He could see where Joey had been hit multiple times. He was bleeding profusely. He looked at his sister still clinging to life herself. And then he looked at his father with disbelief in his eyes. Was this happening to them? And Teddy, for the first time in his life, saw fear in his father’s eyes. He saw fear in the eyes of Mick the Tick.
The word would go out immediately about the ambush of Mick Sinatra that night, and what they did to his son and daughter. And everybody in the underworld, including mob boss Sal Gabrini, Mick’s nephew, would be ready and willing to take direction from Mick the Tick. And the family would gather together to plot their revenge.
Because the war the dons had tried unsuccessfully to entangle Mick Sinatra into, and then turned on him to save their own hides, had roped him in big time. Which meant the war had just gone nuclear. Which meant the sleeping giant those dons had been unable to awake, was woke.
And everybody in the underworld were asking the same two questions of the men who had orchestrated the takedown:
Were those bastards just plain crazy?
Or were they crazy like foxes?
CHAPTER ONE
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
“Alright, people, it’s a wrap,” David Sustren, the director, said. They had been in rehearsal at the Shubert Theater on Broadway all day long in preparation of opening night next week. “Call time at ten a.m. sharp tomorrow. And anybody forget their lines tomorrow will be terminated. That includes you, too, Gwen. You muffled too many lines today!”
“It won’t happen again, darling, I assure you,” Gwen said as they all began grabbing their gear and leaving the stage.
“It better not. I already told your understudy to be ready.”
Uri, the leading man, laughed.
“Uri, I don’t know what you’re laughing about,” the director said. “You weren’t exactly Larry Olivier up there either.”
“What on earth did I do wrong?” Uri asked.
“I need more animation from
you. You were stiff today, as if you were constipated or something.” Everybody laughed. “That will not do on opening night.”
“Understood,” Uri said, smiling that charming smile of his, as he hurried off stage too.
“And Roz,” the director said and everybody stopped and looked at him. Was he going to reprimand their star, a veteran actress like Rosalyn Graham-Sinatra?
The director, they realized, wasn’t that crazy. “Do you,” he said to Roz, and everybody laughed.
“I’ll try my best,” said Roz, smiling, too, as she left the stage. But as she made her way toward the exit, talking with one of the actresses, Uri ran up beside her.
“See you tomorrow, Roz,” the actress said when she saw Uri, and hurried in a different direction. Everybody knew that Uri had a monster crush on Roz. Everybody assumed they were going to eventually hook up.
“Another stellar performance, Roz,” Uri said as Roz continued to make her way toward the exit. All she wanted to do was get in her car and make the two-hour drive back to her home in Philly. “You put on a masterclass in acting today.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere with me,” Roz said. “David was kind. I fluffed a lot of lines too.”
“We all have work to do,” Uri said.
Roz nodded, agreeing with him. “Yes.”
“How about we give each other some advice over drinks?” Uri suggested.
Roz smiled. He really was harmless, but his pick-up lines were getting old fast. “No, thanks,” she said as they exited out of the theater. “I’m heading home.”
“Come on, Roz! You always go straight home. I’ll make you laugh. I hear your husband doesn’t have a funny bone in his body.”
Roz knew it was true, but she wasn’t about to discuss her husband with some man she knew just wanted to get in her panties. “Make the audience laugh opening night,” she said to him. “That’ll make me laugh.” And she headed across the sidewalk to her husband’s chauffeur-driven Cadillac Escalade. She would have preferred to drive herself back and forward from Philly to New York for her daily rehearsals, but Mick wouldn’t allow it. Her longtime driver and his longtime employee and good friend, Deuce McCurry, was waiting to open the SUV’s backdoor.
The director, David Sustren, came out of the theater, saw Uri staring at Roz’s ass as she made her way toward her vehicle, and stood beside him. “It’s tight, I’ll give her that,” Sustren said.
“What’s tight?” Uri asked.
“Her ass.” Then Sustren looked at Uri. “But guess who else knows about that tight ass?”
“Her husband,” Uri said. “I know already. Her driver told me. Everybody reminds me. She’s married.”
“But do you know that her husband will kill you if you so much as touch his wife?”
Uri smiled. “That’s what they all say.”
“That’s what I know,” said Sustren. “There’s plenty of fish in the sea. My advice? Leave that one alone.”
Uri laughed. “But I can’t, you see. I love a challenge!”
“Mick Sinatra is not a challenge,” Sustren said. “He’s a life-threatening event. Leave her alone, Uri,” he warned again. “But whatever you do, just don’t bring that drama to my stage,” he added as he threw his scarf around his neck. And then he left.
Uri was still watching Roz even though she was already seated in the back of the Cadillac and her driver was already behind the wheel pulling off. He waved as they left, but the bitch was already looking down at the notes she wrote on her script. As if she was too good to give him a second thought.
As if she was too good to even consider fucking him.
When, for him, it was the other way around.
And that was why, when her SUV left, so did his smile.
CHAPTER TWO
“Beer or coke?”
“Aren’t you going to wait for Daddy?”
“He’ll get what he wants when he gets here. You know how he is. He may want vodka or something. Beer or coke?”
“Coke, boy. And don’t you sip on it either!”
Joey smiled and maneuvered his way in the crowded bar. Gloria, his sister, remained at the table checking her text messages. Although she and Joey had different mothers and were not raised in the same household, they were steadily getting closer.
“A Budweiser and a coke,” Joey said when he finally made it to the bar counter. It was crowded there too. As the bartender poured up the drinks, he pulled out his wallet.
“She yours?”
Joey heard the voice but had to turn all the way around to see the face. A stranger. Male. Hispanic. “Say again?”
“The black chick at your table. She yours, or just a friend?”
Joey gave him a look-over. “Neither,” he decided to say. “She’s my sister.”
The guy smiled. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m not bullshittin’. That’s my sister.”
“Eight-fifty,” the bartender said as he placed the drinks on the counter.
“Same mama?” the stranger asked.
“Daddy,” said Joey as he handed the bartender a ten.
“I don’t see the family resemblance.”
Now the guy was getting on Joey’s nerve. “And that’s supposed to matter to me?”
“I was just saying. I don’t see it.”
“Then don’t see it, damn. What the fuck I care what you see?” The bartender was handing Joey his change. “Keep it,” Joey said, and grabbed his drinks.
“Thanks a lot,” said the bartender. “Now I can retire in Florida.”
Joey stopped his movement and gave the bartender a harsh look. Would have been a time when he would have thrown one of those drinks at his ass just for having a smart mouth. But that was the old Joey. Irene, Joey’s old lady, was taming him. He headed back to his booth, taking a sip of his sister’s coke before he did.
He plopped down the drinks and sat down too.
“Thanks,” Gloria said as she took a quick sip of her coke.
“Eight-fifty for a beer and a soda,” Joey said. “They should have their asses whipped for ripping people off like this.”
“No,” said Gloria, “we should have our asses whipped for letting them rip us off like this.”
Joey smiled, raised his glass in a toast, and took a sip of his beer.
Gloria looked at him. “So how’s Ol’ Girl?”
Joey looked at his sister. “I know that’s what you guys call her, but don’t call her that,” Joey said.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Joey. But she is old and she is a girl.”
“She’s not old.”
“Joey, please. She’s Daddy’s age. No, I take that back. Daddy’s in his late forties. At least I think he is. Are is he in his fifties too? Do you realize we don’t even know for sure how old our own father is? But she’s in her fifties, I know that. And compared to you, Old Girl is old. I’m sorry.”
Joey laughed. “She’s fine,” he said. “Fine as good wine.”
Gloria stared at him. “So you really love her, hun?”
Joey hesitated. Then he shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I don’t know about all of that love stuff. But I care for her, that’s for sure.” Then he looked at Glo. “It’s about time you start caring about somebody too.”
“Been there, done that,” Gloria said. “I’m not getting my heart broken ever again.”
Joey looked at his sister. She was beautiful, just like her mother, but she was vulnerable too. She had daddy issues like all of them had; issues that dated back to their individual childhoods with their individual mothers and their very absent father. But at least she understood she had problems. It took Joey a long time to even get to that point.
“Wonder why Daddy wanted to meet with me and you,” Gloria said, “and not Teddy too?”
“Beats me,” Joey said. “It’s strange, though.”
“Yeah, it is. Teddy’s his golden boy.”
“So what?” Joey asked. “You’re his golden girl. Or, I forgot,” he said w
ith a smile. “Nikki’s taken that role now.” Nikki was their brother’s girlfriend. She, like Gloria, now worked for their father at his one-hundred percent legit corporation. And she was in a higher position than Gloria.
But Gloria wasn’t ceding any ground to anybody when it came to her father. “She hasn’t taken my role,” she said. “I’m his daughter. She’s just Teddy’s for-right-now piece.”
Joey laughed with a belly laugh. “His right-now piece. That’s good. Cause if you ask me, Pop’s fucking her too.”
Gloria had been smiling. But her smile left immediately. “That’s a lie and you know it. Daddy would never do that to Roz.”
“He did it to my mom,” Joey said. “And to your mom. And to Teddy’s mom. Why wouldn’t he do it to Roz?”
“Because he’s in love with Roz,” Gloria said. “He was just in lust with our mothers.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Joey said. “I’ll bet you any amount of money Roz don’t even know he’s back in town.”
“She probably doesn’t,” Gloria agreed.
“But who does that?” Joey asked. “What man is out of town all week and doesn’t bother to tell his own wife when he gets back in town?”
“Our father, that’s what man,” Gloria said. “And why you acting like that’s so new? He’s always been that way. Roz doesn’t complain about it. She knows, at the end of the day, he’s coming home to her and getting into her bed. He doesn’t go home to any of those hoes out there, but he gets into her bed. She’s a smart lady.”
“And he’s a rich, sexy man,” Joey said. “Women be wanting that, I’m telling you. Women who are way younger than Roz and are willing to do a whole lot more than Roz might be willing to do be telling me that shit. I know because many of those same girls have been begging me to introduce them to him.”
Mick Sinatra: Ice Cold Love Page 2
