“Funny how I remember it perfectly,” Mick said firmly and waited for the owner to ask what the conversation entailed. He was betting he wouldn’t bother. He won that bet.
“Regardless of what happened back then,” the majority owner said, “we would be honored to partner with you now. Let’s not look back. Let’s move forward. We would be honored to partner with you going forward.”
“You would be honored to partner with a sleazy, lowlife gangster who wasn’t worthy to be in the same room as you? Because that’s what you said before. Now you’re honored to have me on your team?” Mick smiled. “That’s what I call progress.”
The three owners smiled too, hoping that Mick understood.
“It was business, that’s all,” the majority owner felt comfortable enough to point out. “When you’re doing well, you don’t see the big picture as much. You understand. You’re a successful businessman. You know how it is.”
“Get the fuck out of my office,” Mick said, his eyes cold again. “That’s how it is.”
The hearts of the three desperate businessmen sank. But Mick was heartless. “Nobody goes from sleazy to honorable in a span of a few years,” he said to them. “No man can be so despicable that you would refuse to have him in the same room with you, and then want to partner with that same man because it suits you now. You had it right the first time. I’m a sleazy bastard who doesn’t deserve to be in your presence. So get the fuck out of mine.”
The businessmen were livid. Each one of them wanted to tell that wop gangster what he could do with himself. Who did he think he was? Because he wore a suit, and had money, didn’t make him respectable like them! They wanted to tell Mick off.
But they didn’t say another word. They’d heard horror stories about Mick the Tick. If they weren’t so desperate, if everybody else hadn’t turned them down, they would have never went anywhere near him. But desperation was a pride breaker. And they came anyway. Now they regretted it. Now they were rising and actually thanking him for his time, to avoid any retribution.
After they left, Mick tossed the proposal they had placed in front of him into his trash bin. “Arrogant fuckers,” he said. “Treat me like a piece of shit, now they want my help.”
“That’s how they are,” Leo said. “Even in their heyday, when Sinatra Industries could swallow them up like a bear swallowing a fly, they still considered themselves better. That’s how they are. They think you need their respectability.”
“I need it,” Mick admitted. “It would have been a nice acquisition. But no man will piss on my head and expect me to call it rain. If I was a sleazy motherfucker three years ago, I’m a sleazy motherfucker today.”
“But nine will get you ten they still think they’re better.”
“They are better,” Mick said with a sad note of resignation in his voice. “They never had to do what I had to do in this life. They are better. But that’s not the point.”
A look of regret flashed in Mick’s eyes. He wished his life was unencumbered too. He wished to God he had no blood on his hands. “That’s not the point,” he said again.
Then his desk intercom buzzed. Leo pressed the button. “What is it, Nan?”
“Mr. Ricci and Mr. Fontaine wish to see the boss.”
Leo looked at Mick. “What the hell are both of them doing here?”
Mick was wondering the same thing. Paul Ricci and Silvio Fontaine were two of his operatives. Mick ran two empires. Sinatra Industries and all of its subsidiaries were completely legit. But his other enterprises: the gambling houses, the gun running, the nightclubs and bars, all had their dirty side. He was getting out of every one of his illegitimate businesses, but it wasn’t a simple proposition. Getting out was always harder than getting in. There were major gangsters who had a piece of his businesses and knew they would all collapse without him. It was a syndicate of them who relied heavily on Mick. They didn’t want him out. They were just thugs. They knew next to nothing about running businesses. They would run it in the ground without Mick. They were holding on to him as if he were their lifeline. And Mick was loyal to those men. They stood by him when he was scratching and clawing for crumbs. Just because he had his, just because he was a major player on the legitimate world stage, didn’t mean he could leave them in the dust. He was getting out, but it was going to be tricky.
And then there were the skeletons in his closet that could come alive at any moment and threaten to take the whole thing down. The hits he had to order back in the day. The system corruption he had to feed. The enemies who were afraid to take him out, but occasionally tried to anyway. Paul and Silvio, and all the men Mick had working with them, were responsible for keeping his past in his past. Paul and Silvio were Mick’s ghostbusters. Which meant, by the fact that they were there at all, that a ghost had escaped again. “Bring them in,” he ordered.
Leo pressed the button again. “Bring them in,” he said to Nan.