Page 20 of Teddy Sinatra: Go Your Own Way
But Roz cut him off this time. “And Mick made himself the undisputed boss of you. And of you too Nikki. So don’t even go there. What the fuck happened, Teddy? Cut the bullshit and just tell us, from the beginning like Charles said, what happened.”
Teddy knew it was bad if Roz was going for the jugular too. She was usually an ally. She was usually the one that tempered Pop’s anger against him.
But Nikki saw Roz’s aggression differently. She believed Roz, and Big Daddy too, to a certain extent, were going hard at Teddy to try and prevent Mick from going after him as hard as he might have gone. They were running interference that would redound to Ted’s benefit in the end.
But Nikki kept taking peeps at her father-in-law. And based on what she was seeing there was no way anybody was going to stop Mick’s temper tonight. His arms were folded and one of his thumbs was stroking that cleft in his chin, which was usually his calm before the storm. It was taking all he had not to beat the shit out of both of them in that moment, Nikki could see it in his darting eyes. He was already in fight mode.
Monk Paletti didn’t like being in this position, but he understood why Teddy wanted him to be there. He could feel his best friend’s anxiety rising. Who wouldn’t be terrified if Mick the Tick had their ass on the grill? He wanted to look at Teddy and encourage him to tell it all and hold nothing back, no matter how horrific, but he dared not interfere just yet. The only reason he was allowed to be in that room at all was because Mick, Big Daddy, and Roz all knew him to be a straight shooter. He called it like he saw it. He was there to support Teddy and Nikki, there was no doubt about that, but they knew he wasn’t going to support even their bullshit.
And from what Monk knew of how Teddy handled the matter, even he was concerned that some serious mistakes were made.
But with all of them unitedagainstTeddy, or at least that was how it felt, Teddy decided to tell the whole truth. Which was going to make it worse, not better. Which was going to make Pop angrier, not calmer. But he knew he had to do it.
“We were having issues even before Pop went on vacation.”
“What issues?” asked Roz. “I thought some cargo went missing, which isn’t unusual.”
“But they were brazen about it. They usually would hit us on foreign soil or even out of town soil. They were hitting us in our own backyard.”
“So that’s why Mick ordered you and Nikki to have some security guys with you,” Roz said.
Teddy nodded. “Right. But then we started getting these text messages. They started like three weeks ago, but they seemed to be the usual nonsense about burning it all down and ships are made for destruction and a bunch of random threats that we, and every major shipping outfit, get all the time.”
“But there was an escalation?” asked Big Daddy.
“In tone, no. It was the same shit day in and day out. But then . . .” A distressed look appeared in Teddy’s eyes.
“But then what?” Roz asked, and Teddy and Nikki both saw Mick look at Teddy too.
“But then the suicides happened.”
Mick, Roz, and Big Daddy stared at Teddy. “Suicides?” Mick frowned. “What suicides?”
“Three of our capos were found dead at different locations. The cops ruled all three deaths as suicides and unrelated, but we checked out all three scenes. All three were staged as suicides, but they had enough mob-markers to let us know that suicide was the last thing that went on at those scenes. The cops couldn’t see it, but we could.”
Even Monk was staring at Teddy. He couldn’t believe he would have withheld that kind of information from his father. Then he looked at Mick. He could see his jaw tightening. He was a man who could control himself better than any man Monk knew. Until he couldn’t control himself at all.
“Name them,” Mick said to Teddy.
Teddy named their three deceased lieutenants. All three were made guys. All three were at the top of the chain. Mick could hardly believe he wasn’t notified as soon as it happened.
Big Daddy couldn’t believe Teddy withheld that kind of major information from Mick too. “You think those deaths had something to do with the threats you were getting?”
“We didn’t know, but I decided to treat it as if there was a relationship. Whoever did it wanted us to know they did it. They left that particular calling card, but didn’t bother to leave their name.”
“Which family do you suspect it was?” Big Daddy asked. He was a businessman. He was no gangster. But he could be more ruthless than any gangster alive if you crossed him. “What syndicate did you figure was involved?”
“We weren’t sure,” Nikki answered for Teddy. “We were leaning toward Jace Denardo’s gang, since he was the last crew we beefed with, but we weren’t certain. We had no concrete evidence.”
“And then I have this meeting with Jerry Cartelli,” said Teddy.
“With Bugs?” asked Mick. “What the fuck he got to do with this?”
“Most times he have good intel, Pop. He said we had the wrong syndicate. According to him, it wasn’t Denardo’s outfit.”
“Then whose outfit was it?”
“According to Bugs, it was Potter Rarsi’s outfit.”
