Page 17 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
“Then do it yourself, Nikki. Oh. Wait a minute. I forgot! You don’t want Mick the Tick and Teddy T to know about it. That’s it, ain’t it? When all I gots to do is tell’em myself.”
Before Juda knew what was happening, Nikki had lifted up, reached over that table, grabbed him by his shirt, and pulled him all the way over that table until they were face to face. “If you breathe a solitary word about this to anybody, even the guy you hire, you will be torn limb by limb.” Then Nikki frowned. “You think Mick Sinatra made me Teddy’s underboss because I’m easy and nice and sweet? I can be all those things. Yes I can. Until you fuck with me.” Her look turned hard. “Don’t fuck withme, Juda. For real. Remember how it worked out for you the last time you tried that shit?” And then she released him with a push-away. And she sat back down.
Juda remembered that last time well. He was on the run, didn’t have a pot to piss in, but called on Nikki and she helped him out. She was living in L.A. back then. She sent him money and even got him a job at the bar where she was working. Until he heard all those guys talking all that shit about how they wanted to bust Nikki’s fat ass and see how it pounded and he got in on the disrespect. He meant nothing by it. He was just trying to fit in. But Nikki kicked him to the curb. They lost contact for years. Until he moved to Philly and saw her one day. And she helped him out again. Nikki was solid gold. She was all he had. And he knew it.
When Juda sat back down at the table, he wasn’t as cocky anymore. Because he did remember what happened to him the last time he disrespected her. And because he heard horror stories about Mick the Ticking Time Bomb and what he was capable of, he knew as soon as he snitched on Nikki the weight of that entire SinatraandGabrini family would come down on him like a ton of bricks. Not just Nikki. They might be angry with her if they found out what was really going on and kick her ass every way to Monday, but they’d kill his ass. “How much?” he asked her.
“One hundred grand. Ten now.”
“Ten,Nikki?”
“Ten now. Ninety grand when the job is done. Half is too much of an incentive for them to forget doing the job and take off. Ten is all they get up front. Take it or leave it.”
Juda knew that wasn’t the going rate for what she was asking of him, because he could get exposed too, but he also knew it was as good as he was going to get from Nikki. She was never a pushover. She was always a badass and always would be.
Besides, he’d get a decent cut either way. He would pay out five now, and twenty when the job was done. And pocket the rest. It was still a win-win for him. “I’ll take it,” he said.
But Nikki already had no doubt that he would.
“You won’t get a dime of that ninety,” she made clear, “until the job is done. Hear me well. I’ve got to have confirmation.”
Juda smiled and shook his head. “Same old Nikki. Don’t you think I want that bastard gone too? What happened to his family was awful, but what is he coming for us for? I didn’t do that shit to them.”
“But I his eyes I did that shit to him and he knew we were allies. You left town just after I left. He figured you was on the run with me.”
“We didn’t meet up until years later, and that was only by chance.”
“I know that and you know that. But does Mill know that?”
“He wouldn’t believe it even if he knew the truth.”
Nikki nodded. “True that,” she said.
Then Juda shook his head. “Just give me the upfront and I’ll get on it,” he said.
Nikki had been prepared to go as high as forty upfront, but Juda didn’t know that. She had four envelopes of ten thousand cash in each. She pulled out one and slid it over to him. “Only get in touch with me when the job is done. Text me your address and I’ll head over to give you the final payment.”
But Nikki watched Juda put the envelope into his inside coat pocket. “Aren’t you going to make sure it’s all there?”
Juda smiled, reached over, and placed his hand on top of her hand. “You know I trust your ass, Nikki,” he said. “You ain’t never been no crook in my eyes. I trust you. I always have.”
He was getting a little too close for comfort for Nikki. She removed her hand from beneath his hand.
But just as she did, she noticed movement in her peripheral vision. When she looked over at the bar area, she was shocked to see that Mick Sinatra, of all people, was heading her way.
Mick in a place like that? What were the odds? Her heart dropped. “Oh. My. Lord,” she said out loud.
And Juda, unaccustomed to Nikki talking with such a robotic cadence, as if she’d been spooked, looked too.
CHAPTER NINE
Mick only entered the small, storefront restaurant when he saw Teddy’s Corvette pull into its pothole-laden parking lot and Nikki, not Teddy, stepped out. He was back in town after a meeting at his hotel in Manhattan and was taking the backroads in. When he saw Nikki step out of Teddy’s car at a place like that, he was curious on two levels. Why wasn’t she driving her own car, number one. And why was she at a place like that, number two. Was she meeting a new informant he didn’t know about? His instincts told him that wasn’t it. And that was why he swung his big, white Cadillac Escalade into that parking lot, got out, and went inside. He sat at the bar and looked around.
In seconds he saw Nikki seated at a table with a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. They were talking, seemingly intensely. But when he placed his hand on top of Nikki’s hand, Mick hopped up from that bar stool and made his way over to their table.
Juda saw him coming their way, but he had no idea who he was. He was rich, he knew that, by the cut of that tailored suit he wore. And he carried with him a look so intense, even down to the droop of one of his eyes and that cleft in his chin, that he could see why Nikki seemed unnerved just from the sight of him. He’d heard of Mick the Tick, but he’d never met the man nor had he ever seen a photo of him. But he wondered if that man, coming their way, was the legend.
But he concluded it couldn’t be. Because it wouldn’t make sense. Why would the great Mick Sinatra be caught dead in some hole-in-the-wall, rathole place like where they decidedto meet up? They didn’t want to be seen, that was why they were there. What would be his excuse?
