CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Roz was in the restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton eating dinner. The music that blared over the stereo was Carly Simon's You're So Vain and Roz felt the song amply fit the man sitting across from her as he talked on his phone. She would have gotten up and left had it been anyone else going on and on when he was supposed to be talking with her, but because she knew who was on the other end of that call, she stayed put.

Patrick had only been on the phone a good couple minutes before he was giving Roz the thumbs up. He talked several more minutes and then he ended the call. "That was Darryl Siskind."

"I figured as much. What did he say?"

"Sandra has an audition."

Roz smiled a big smile. "Oh thanks, Patrick. You will not regret it. Who's the casting director?"

"Malcolm, but I'll be there to make sure she gets a good hearing. But Darryl told me to tell you he's only doing it because it's your client, and he's making no promises."

"She doesn't need any. I'm telling you she's really good. She'll do her thing."

"If you come upstairs," Patrick said, "I can give you the script that outlines the audition scene beforehand so that she can be well-rehearsed and have a leg-up on her competitors."

"You're so vain.

You probably think this song is about you.

You're so vain.

I'll bet you think this song is about you.

Don't you?

Don't you?"

Roz was smiling because Carly Simon was singing what Roz was feeling in that moment. "You think very highly of yourself," she said. "Don't you?"

Patrick smiled too. "That may be what it looks like, but I'm for real, Roz. You came to have dinner with me, and I appreciate that. I'm only trying to help your client. Because I'm telling you right now, and Darryl just told me himself, that he's disinclined to give her that role. She doesn't have the gravitas for it, that's his thing. It'll take more than just talent for her to get this gig."

Roz knew it too. "Why don't you go upstairs and bring the script down here to me?"

But Patrick was already shaking his head. "No way Jose. I have no business with it to begin with and you expect me to bring it down here in a public space? No way. Now if you were to go up to my room and happen to take a picture of the few pages with your phone, well that's out of my hand. That has nothing to do with me."

Roz continued eating, but Patrick could tell the wheels of her considerable brain were turning.

"Come on, Roz! I'm doing you a solid by sticking my neck out for an actress I don't even have all that much confidence in. But because I love you, I'm willing to help her out. Don't treat me like this."

Roz smiled. "What your green ass know about solids?"

Patrick laughed. "More than you think. Believe that!"

"You walked into the party

like you were walking onto a yacht.

Your hat strategically dipped below one eye;

your scarf it was apricot.

You had one eye in the mirror as

you watched yourself gavotte.

And all the girls dreamed

that they'd be your partner.

They'd be your partner and -

You're so vain

You probably think this song is about you.

You're so vain.

I'll bet you think this song is about you.

Don't you?

Don't you?"

Roz couldn't take him seriously with that song in the background. She couldn't stop smiling. But Patrick was dead serious. He went back to begging. "Come on, Roz. You gotta help me out here. I'm trying to give you this gift for your client. A gift, I'm telling you, and you're acting as if I'm . . ." He realized her expression had changed. "What's wrong?"

He looked where Roz was suddenly looking and that was when he saw Mick Sinatra himself at the restaurant's entrance. Roz's heart dropped. So did Patrick's. But for very different reasons.

"What's he doing here?" Patrick asked her.

But Roz could never concentrate on anybody else when Mick entered a room. It had been that way the moment she met him, and it remained that way all those years later. She had butterflies still for him. She hadn't seen him in two days and she missed him terribly. And it angered her that she loved him so much. That he had that kind of hold over her.

But she knew that look on his face. To everybody else, it was a look that was cool as cool could be. But he was looking at Patrick. Roz knew there was nothing cool about it. He was walking, very slowly the way he always did when he was upset, over to the table.

"Want me to tell him to get lost?" Patrick asked her.

Roz looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. " What ? That's my husband, you idiot. You don't tell him anything."

"Well good grief, Roz, I was just joking around."

"And keep your ass out of our business. That's what you do."

"For sure!" Patrick was looking as if he had no clue, but he knew better. He was upset that Sinatra had showed up and, unbeknownst to Sinatra, had thwarted his plans.

But as Mick walked slowly toward their table, his entire focus was on the man eating dinner with Roz. He seemed cocky even from across the room. But determined to get what he wanted. Mick saw that too. An attractive man, but that didn't bother Mick either. He knew he had his share of attributes the ladies liked as well. But he was a young man filled with that youthful vivacity that Roz still had too. Something Mick never had even when he was young himself. That was what bothered Mick the most. How could he ever compete against that?

But he knew he had to keep it together or Roz would show her ass and expose his weakness. That was why, when he made it up to the table, he didn't lash out at her or at the young man, even though he wanted to lash out at both. He extended his huge hand. "Mick Sinatra," he said to Patrick.

Patrick was caught off guard by Mick's civility, given his nasty reputation, but he stood up, smiled, and extended his own huge hand as if two could play that game. "Patrick Donahue at your service. How are you, sir?"

He was a cocky bastard too, Mick thought, who just knew he was going to have his way with the wife of the boss of all bosses. Mick saw it all the time. Confident men who wanted to see what Mick saw in her. Who wanted to know what she had between those legs that all those other women Mick fooled with didn't have as if that was what it was all about for a vicious mobster like him. Some men only dreamed of finding out, but it showed all over their faces. This kid was no dreamer. He was a doer. This kid had balls. "What's this about?" Mick asked him.

Patrick feigned confusion. "Excuse me?"

"You're not excused. What's this about?"

"We're having dinner. A rather late dinner, I'll grant you that. But we're having dinner. You can't possibly have a problem with that. Or can you?"

Roz's eyebrows raised as she could not believe Patrick would think he could handle her husband. She quickly stood up before Mick knocked him down. "You know what," she said like she always said when her temper was about to unleash.

But she was too late. Mick had already stepped so far into Patrick's private space that they were close enough to kiss. And his voice was measured and low, but undeniably hard. "You're questioning me, motherfucker? You're questioning me ?"

Roz quickly moved between the two men. "Let's go, Mick," she said as she grabbed her jacket and pushed Mick back.

But Mick was still staring into Patrick's face. Patrick's outward smile was gone. But Mick could sense his inward smirk. That bastard was enjoying this.

But Roz wasn't about to let it happen. "Let's go," she said to Mick again. As she looked into Mick's eyes, she felt more sad than mad. Like Patrick didn't even exist. It was all about her and Mick. And why he kept doing everything in his power to ruin their marriage.

But Patrick, being the showoff that he was, couldn't let it go. "You don't have to leave, Roz," he said to her.

Roz couldn't believe it. She turned around and faced Patrick as if he was the problem now, not Mick's appearance. "Didn't I tell you to keep your ass out of my business? Didn't I tell you that?"

Patrick held up his hands and backed slightly up. Then he smiled. "Didn't mean no harm," he said.

Roz realized he was just being Patrick. "I'll call you," she said as she turned to leave. But Mick was still staring at the younger man.

"Mick, let's go," Roz said, as she put on her jacket and began straightening her jacket collar. When she finished, Mick was still staring at Patrick as if he wasn't going to let it go either. But Roz wasn't about to let Mick beat down a good-natured, albeit foolish man like Pat in front of all these white folks. She frowned and pushed Mick. "Let's go!"

Mick gave Patrick one more of his I see you looks, and then he stepped aside to let Roz walk by. And they left.

When they got outside, Big Ed sped Mick's Cadillac Escalade up to the front of the valet station and Vincent got out and opened the back passenger door for the boss and his wife.

But Roz ordered the valet to bring around her Mercedes. Mick looked at her. "One of my men will drive your car home."

"No hell he won't. I'm driving my own car home."

Vincent looked at Mrs. Sinatra when she spoke that defiantly to Boss. He looked at Boss. He'd heard how he let her get away with shit no other human being would ever get away with, but this was his first time witnessing it.

But as soon as that Mercedes drove up to the valet station, Mick's patience was over and he grabbed Roz by the arm and all but threw her into the backseat of his SUV. He pointed his finger so close to her face that it touched her nose. "Don't try me," he warned her.

Roz knew Mick's looks. She knew when she still had rope to pull. She knew when that rope she was pulling could hang her. This was his hanging look. She slid on over, and he got in. Then he ordered Vincent to tell a member of Roz's security detail, the car that had pulled up just behind the Escalade, to drive her vehicle home.

Vincent, pleased that the Boss didn't let that dame get away with her disobedience, inwardly smiled as he closed the door and went to the detail car. After ordering one of the capos to drive Roz's car back to the Sinatra compound, he got into the front passenger seat of the Escalade and Big Ed took off.

For several miles not a word was spoken. Roz had slid all the way over to the other side of the SUV and was looking out of that side window. It was late at night: there was nothing to see. But she was looking anyway. Anything, Big Ed figured, to not look at Mick.

Mick, on the passenger side of the SUV, wasn't looking out of any side window, but was looking out of the front windshield. But Big Ed noticed through the rearview mirror that Boss was also taking peeps at his wife. Deuce McCurry, Mick's retired driver and the closest friend Mick ever had, once told Big Ed that Mick really loved his wife. "Love? Mick the Tick? Sure he does!" But Deuce was serious. It was no joke to him. Big Ed still wasn't as convinced as Deuce was, but Mick did seem to capitulate to her the way he did to his big brother Charles "Big Daddy" Sinatra. And that, in and of itself, said a lot.

And it was Mick, not his wife, Big Ed noticed, who broke the ice. "Who is he?" Mick asked her.

"None of your business," Roz said.

Vincent glanced at Big Ed with that no that bitch didn't look on his face. But Big Ed knew better than to show any expression around the boss.

And for good reason. Mick gave Roz a chilling look. "I said," he said with clenched teeth, "who is he?"

Roz had to compose herself. Even she knew not to go too far with Mick. "He's a director. A Broadway director. I'm trying to get this major role for a client from my talent agency and he and I were meeting to discuss it."

"It's well past eleven at night."

"So what? It was a long day."

"It's not day, it's night. Late at night. Why did you have to come all this way, at a got damn hotel, to have dinner this late? What the fuck is up with that?"

Roz couldn't believe his nerve. She looked at him angrily. "Why did you have to go all the way to Paris to be with Bella Caine? What the fuck is up with that ?"

Mick stared at her with that look that said he wanted to slap the shit out of her, but he didn't go there. He said nothing. And began looking out of the windshield in front of them once again.

"Yeah I thought so," Roz said, still angry.

But it wouldn't be until they arrived at the security gate at their home and Big Ed and Vincent were waving at the capos on duty at the booth, before another word would come out of either one of their mouths.

Roz gave Mick a hard, painful look. "You do you, Mick, alright? Do you. I'm going to do me."

Mick looked at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means what I said."

"What does it mean, Roz?"

"You do whatever the hell you want. Knock yourself out. And I'm going to do the same." Then her look turned sad but determined. "And I dare you to question it," she said so firmly that even Mick believed her.

And it spooked him. He was accustomed to Roz's fury. But he wasn't accustomed to her pulling some tit for tat.

And when they rode through the gate up to the main house and Roz was opening the door before Big Ed could come to a complete stop, Mick grabbed her by the arm as if he was going to force her to tell him more.

She looked at him with such a sad but hurtful but angry look that he knew force was not going to force her to do a damn thing. He knew her too well. He released her.

Roz got out of that SUV and went inside, slamming the door behind her.