CHAPTER TWO

There was only one tattoo parlor in Jericho, Maine and Charles, his sunglasses once again covering his eyes, drove his Cadillac into the slanted parking space. He and his sons hopped out.

“There’s Uncle Mick’s Maserati parked over there, Daddy,” Bobby said as he pointed to the blue car across the parking lot.

“I thought it was red,” Charles said as he glanced at the flashy car, thinking that it was so typical Micky.

“That’s a new one there,” Donald said. “He said his red one got shot-up so he bought a brand new one.”

Charles’s jaw tightened at the thought of his kid brother involved in a shooting and then telling his sons about it. They didn’t need to hear that shit.

“Uncle Mick’s rich,” Donald added happily as they headed toward the parlor’s entrance.

“Rich in all the wrong ways,” Charles murmured more to himself than to his sons.

Bobby and Donald had to hurry to keep up with Charles because of his long strides. Unlike their friends, who hated to be seen with their old-fashioned, out-of-touch parents, the Sinatra boys loved being seen with their father. He had swag, for one thing, and all the girls at school had crushes on their father, for another thing. Which gave them swag too. But the way he took care of them after their mother left them (and even before she left), made him special in their eyes. Like a superhero. Somebody they admired above anybody else. Somebody they loved unconditionally because he loved them unconditionally too.

When Bobby and Donald entered the tattoo parlor directly behind their father, they saw their oldest brother Brent and second-oldest brother Tony looking at tattoos with one of the artists. But their Uncle Mick was nowhere to be seen.

“Wait here,” Charles said to Bobby and Donald as he made his way down a hallway that led to an office. He knew the building well because he once owned it as rental property. But it was an ice cream parlor when he owned it.

When he walked down the hall, he heard voices coming from the office. When he heard his brother’s voice, he stopped just before the entrance and listened.

“I hear you the man,” he heard Mick say in that thuggish way that always riled Charles. “I hear you the man with the plan.”

“I’m the man with the switch.” It was a male’s voice Charles didn’t recognize. “You fuck with me and it’s lights out for you.”

Mick laughed. “Now that’s funny.” Then there was a pause. “How much?”

“For you? I’ll do you a favor. Fifty grand.”

“Shit!”

“I’m doing you a favor.”

“Don’t do me no favors. Fifty Gs? You must be out of your fucking mind. Gotta come down my man.”

“Who said this was a negotiation? I don’t negotiate.”

“That kind of cash right now? I’ll need a payment plan.”

Charles heard a woman’s voice laughing. Then the man spoke up again: “I don’t know you from Adam and you want a payment plan?”

“I was born and raised in this town. Ask anybody.”

“Well I wasn’t born and raised here. I don’t know your ass. No payment plans.”

“So what is it?” It was the woman’s voice speaking. “What did you do that was so fucked up that you need an arsenal?”

“I defended myself,” said Mick.

“Defended yourself where? Where you from? Other than here.

“Chicago,” Mick said. Charles knew that was a lie.

“How you hear about us?” the woman asked. “From Bobby?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he to you?”

“My nephew.”

Charles’s face betrayed his inner rage when his son was named. He knew Robert had those gangster tendencies like many men in the family, but Charles was going to fight tooth and nail to keep him out of that life.

“Can your nephew vouch for you?” the woman asked.

“He’s a kid,” Mick said. “Let’s keep him out of this. I can vouch for myself. I’m good for the money. I just don’t have access to it at the moment.”

“No dice,” said the man. “No deal. I ain’t got nothing to sell. And it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that I don’t trust you because I don’t know you. You’re an unknown as far as I’m concerned. You think I’m hanging out in this hick town for my health? I’m out in the cold too. And you don’t take chances in the cold.”

“Then why are you wasting my time?” Charles could hear Mick stand to his feet. And that was when Charles walked up to the doorway and made his presence known. He could tell Mick was surprised and a little embarrassed to see him there, and so was the man and woman in that room. Mick and Charles locked eyes. Both had large, green, steely eyes. Mick had a sleepy eye. Charles’s eyes were wide open. But it was Mick who blinked. Then Charles perused the man he had sold that building to, a straight up thug if you asked Charles, and then he made his way upfront.

“I can’t stand that asshole,” the man said.

“Watch your mouth,” said Mick.

The man took offense and hopped to his feet. “Says who?” he asked.

Mick hurried to the man, completely invading his personal space. “Says me. Motherfucker.”

The man saw an odd look in Mick’s eyes. He backed up.

When Charles made his way up front and took a seat against the back wall, he could see Bobby and Donald pointing out tattoos to their older brothers with no problem voicing their opinions.

“No, that one, Brent,” Donald insisted. “Get that one. It looks like a mermaid.”

“Who wants a freaking mermaid on their arm?” asked Bobby. “Get the baller tattoo, Brent. You’ll have to beat the ladies off you if you get that one!”

When Donald saw their father sitting down, he dropped his brothers like a bad habit and hurried to his side. Bobby and Tony, seeing Charles as well, followed him.

“Where’s Uncle Mick?” Donald asked.

But Charles didn’t respond. He looked at Bobby instead. It would break his heart if he turned out like Mick. “What you know about that backroom?” he asked him.

“That backroom?” Bobby tried to play ignorant, but he wasn’t good at it. “What backroom?”

“You’re dumbass now? Don’t know what I’m talking about now?” Charles’s look turned hard as steel. “I see your ass anywhere near this place again, and I mean within an inch of it, and I’ll show you what backroom. We understand each other, Robert Sinatra?”

Bobby knew his father was not the man to play with. He was not the one. “Yes sir,” he said.

And then Mick came up front and a soon as Donald and Bobby saw him, they smiled. Although he was their father’s younger brother and they looked a lot alike, and although the boys really liked their uncle, he was nothing like their father. Whereas their father always wore off-the-rack suits from JC Penney and Sears, dress shoes from the same two places, and rarely ever wore a coat no matter how cold it was outside, Mick wore a colorful Versace shirt, a pair of designer jeans, a Gucci pure leather knee-length coat and a black Gucci skullcap. His desert boots were Bruno Magli boots the boys wouldn’t mind having for themselves, and he even wore a designer, leather, fingerless glove on one of his manicured hands. Their Uncle Mick had swag too, and the ladies seemed to love him as much as they loved their father, but he had that element of danger about him that was a little too unsettling for the sons of Charles Sinatra. Even Bobby found him too out there. They stayed close to their father.

But the way their father greeted his younger brother surprised the boys. Charles looked at their uncle like he was cancer personified. “Why are you here?”

Everybody in the parlor looked over at them because of Charles’s harsh tone. But it was the greeting Mick was accustomed to from his sanctimonious brother. “And hello to you, too, Charlie.”

“Answer my question,” Charles said as he made it up to his brother. “What are you doing going to my house and bringing my boys to this dump?”

“It was our idea, Pop,” said Brent Sinatra from over by the counter that contained the book of tattoo possibilities. “It was our idea!”

But before Charles could say another word, the man from the backroom, the one he sold that building to, walked up front. He and Mick exchanged looks, as if they had a secret, and then the man went and whispered something to one of his tattoo artists, who took off to the backroom. Then the man glanced at Charles again, smiled as if Charles was some chump, and then went behind the counter.

Mick looked at Charles. “This is a dump, I will agree,” he said, “but it’s the only tattoo shop in town. And they wanted tattoos.”

“Bullshit,” said Charles. “You put the idea in their heads that they wanted tattoos. Now I’m going to ask you again: Why are you here?”

Mick smiled. “I was in the neighborhood,” he started saying and his flippancy annoyed Charles to such an extent that he jumped up, grabbed Mick by his leather coat, and all but dragged him out of that parlor.

“Daddy, what are you doing?” Tony pleaded with his father as he and his younger siblings hurried out behind them.

“He didn’t do anything,” Brent was saying as he sat the tattoo book on the counter and hurried out too.

But Charles was singularly focus. He didn’t even hear his sons as he jacked Mick up against the wall on the side of the parlor’s exit doors.

“Dad!” Brent yelled. He was the oldest son, and the one Charles most relied on. “Uncle Mick didn’t do anything.”

“Get in the car!” Charles yelled to them. They were babes in the woods compared to him and his brother and he knew it.

“But it was our idea,” Brent insisted.

Charles gave Brent a look that made it clear it was not a suggestion. “Yes, sir,” Brent said as he ushered himself and his younger siblings away. They all piled into their father’s Cadillac.

“Why are you here?” Charles asked Mick as he continued to jack him up against that wall.

“They wanted to check out this tattoo parlor.”

Charles slammed him against the brick wall even harder.

“Knock that shit off, Charlie!” Mick barked out.

“Why are you here?” Charles yelled at him again.

“I can’t visit my nephews?”

“No!” He slammed him again. “Why are you here?”

Mick paused. There was no fooling his big brother and he knew it. “I need to lay low for a minute.”

“To lay low? Which means your ass in trouble. And you bring that shit to my house around my children?” He slammed him again.

“There’s nothing to bring. Nobody in Philly knows my background. Nobody knows where I come from, so settle your ass down. Geez!”

Charles did calm back down. And as he eased his grip, Mick snatched away from him. “What’s wrong with you?” Mick, now frowned too, asked him.

“Who are you running from?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody hun? So nobody got you on the run? Why did you come here?”

Mick straightened his leather coat. “Why do you think? I had nowhere else to go.” Mick glanced at his brother when he said those words. He hated being vulnerable. He hated relying on somebody else.

But Charles wasn’t buying it. “All those big shots you hang with down in Philly and you had nowhere else to go? You expect me to believe that?”

But the look in Mick’s eyes made Charles realize he was not kidding. He literally had nowhere else to go! And Charles’s look did soften. Mick was a handful his whole life. Always ready to fight back. Always full of vengeance. And Charles hated, absolutely abhorred his lifestyle. But there was nothing Charles wouldn’t do for him, and Mick knew it. And Charles knew that was why Mick was there.

But he had to get one thing straight. “You listen to me and you listen good. I don’t want that shit anywhere near my children, you hear me?”

“Ah come on, Charles. What do you take me for?”

“A thug. A criminal. A drug dealer. That’s what!”

“No, bro, you got me confused with somebody else.”

“Yeh, sure I do.”

Then Charles exhaled, opened his suit coat, and placed his hands on his hips. Because their parents were so dysfunctional, Charles for all intents and purposes raised Mick more as his son than as his brother. And that parental instinct was coming out again. He couldn’t leave his brother twisting in the wind. “I can put you up in one of my vacant properties,” he said. Charles was the largest property owner in Maine. “But you can’t come to my house around my kids. I won’t allow that.”

Mick nodded. “That’s fair,” he said.

Charles stared at him again. He was always smart. Always knew the answers. He had so much potential. What went so horribly wrong? In many ways, Charles blamed himself, although he was a kid trying to raise a kid. “I’ll drive out there. It’s near the shoe factory. Follow me,” he said and began walking over to his car.

Mick walked over to his Maserati and was about to get inside when Charles noticed a car speeding their way. A sixth sense told him something was off about that car, something dangerous, and he acted before he could even react. He began running toward his brother on the other side of the parking lot. “Mick, get down! Mick!” he yelled as he dived across his brother’s car and knocked Mick to the ground. “Get down!”

As he dived, the speeding car began spraying Mick’s car with bullets that could be heard ricocheting off metal and crashing through glass as Charles and Mick lay on the ground hidden by the car. The speeding car then sped away.

And Mick nor Charles vacillated. Both men jumped up, with Charles hurrying to his car to make sure his children were okay, and Mick hurried to his own car.

“We’re fine, Daddy,” Brent said before his father could make it over there.

Charles tossed his keys to Brent. “Take your brothers home,” he said, “and all of you stay there until I get there.”

“Yes, sir,” Brent said as Charles then ran over to Mick’s Maserati, hopped in on the passenger seat, and Mick sped off behind the car that had just shot up his brand new car.

It took a minute before he finally spotted the white sedan and began following it.

They sped through the streets of Jericho as the getaway car was crashing into other cars in its mad dash to get away. But Mick stayed close by. So close that the getaway car kept running lights and running stop signs and crashing into this car and that car as if it was a bumper car. But it kept on speeding.

Until finally Mick got close enough that Charles was able to lean out of the window and, with one of Mick’s guns, shoot out one of the getaway car’s tires. The car lost control, began swerving so wildly that it began spinning around backwards and clipped Mick’s Maserati, causing Mick to swerve, too, just to avoid hitting somebody else.

But the getaway car hit a minivan with such force that the minivan ran off of the road and began turning up dirt as it jumped a curb and plowed into a massive oak tree. It erupted into fire as the getaway car got away.

Mick stopped his car on the side of the road and he and Charles didn’t hesitate. They hopped out and ran to the rescue of the people in that van. They had to grab bricks to break in the back window. And that was enough for them to reach in and get out of the van the mother, father, and baby girl. They hurried with them away from the van as the van, within seconds of the family getting out, exploded.

They, like other bystanders and drivers that stopped, stood there watching a van turn into a fireball.

Then Charles looked at Mick. “Nobody hun?” he said to his brother. “They could have gunned down my children.” His voice was cracking. “They could have killed my boys.” Then he frowned, his face racked with anguish and anger. “Get the fuck out of my town and stay the fuck out!”

Charles could tell that Mick knew it was too close a call even for him, and he was stunned by it. Had regret in his eyes too. But Charles did not compromise when it came to his children’s safety. Not even for Mick.

Mick gave his brother another look, the kind that showed his distress without saying it, and then he went to his bullet-ridden car and sped away.

Charles watched him leave. He regretted that he had to be so hard on his kid brother, but he wasn’t about to allow Mick to bring his dangerous lifestyle anywhere near his sons. No way. No how.

Just as Charles always put Mick and their baby sister Jacqueline first when they were kids, his children always came first now. It was a tiresome burden he never chose to bear. But it was his burden and he was not going to fumble it.

Children first.

Always.