“And this fellow here, the one you avoid at all costs, is Carp Bianchi.”
Bianchi was likewise unimpressed with his description. “Very funny,” he said, and shook Roz’s hand. “Good knowing you, ma’am.” Then Carp, being Carp, looked at Mick. “So this is the problem,” he said. “A dame. That’s why you don’t wanna postpone. That’s why you’re talking that nonsense today. Which head have you been thinking with, Michello?” he asked.
Mick’s anger flared at that very moment and he grabbed Carp and started slamming his head, over and over, into the conference table, slamming it until he was drawing blood. And then he grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and slammed his head into a file cabinet, causing him to fall down.
Both Teddy Stefani and Vito DeLuca did nothing but watched. Carp should have known better by now not to ever play like that with Mick the Tick.
Roz, however, was not nearly as circumspect as that. Because she’d never seen Mick fully unleashed before. She’d never seen Mick, with a man already down, kicking him in the face as if he were a dog.
“Which head am I thinking from?” Mick was angrily yelling at the downed man. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? You think I’m some fucking punk? With this head,” he said, kicking Carp in the head. “That’s which head. With the same one I’m bashing in now, you cock sucking motherfucker!”
“Okay, Mick, I’m sorry,” Carp Bianchi was crying. “I was out of line, I’m sorry!”
Roz wanted Mick to have mercy on the man. But Mick didn’t. He grabbed him up and slammed him against his office wall. Then he jacked up the bigger man with his bare hands. “Quit fucking with me,” he warned Carp. “You’ve been doing too much of that lately. Cut it out or I’m going to put an end to it myself. Once and for all. Clear?”
Carp Bianchi had pride, and considerable authority himself, but he knew who was running this show. “Clear,” he said.
And Mick finally, to Roz’s relief, let him go.
Then Mick stood there momentarily, his back to Roz as if he was gathering his nerve to face her again. But then he pulled a handkerchief from his suit coat, turned around, and faced them all. He did not look like an embarrassed man to her. He looked like a tired man. “Anything else, gentleman?” he asked. He wasn’t embarrassed, but he would have preferred not to lose his cool in front of her just yet.
“Maybe we can talk later,” Teddy Stefani said. “You and your lady go. We’ll take care of big mouth.”
Mick nodded at Teddy. He knew he could count on him. Then, without saying a word to Roz, he placed his hand on the small of her back and escorted her out the door. He knew what time it was. She was going to either tell him to take her to the airport now, or not leave him and deal with it. His entire soul was praying that she could deal with it.
It wasn’t until they got into his Bentley, drove all the way to his mansion, and had settled in the parlor, with her sitting on the couch and him sitting on the chair, before a word was uttered. It was times like these that Mick felt like a very foolish man. The idea that a woman like Rosalind could want him with all his warts was foolhardy to even entertain. Reno Gabrini found himself a woman who could handle it. But Reno wasn’t Mick. Mick was Mick. What woman would ever want to deal with him? He had hoped Rosalind was that woman. Now he felt as if he was hoping for too much.
He assumed he would have to be the one to bring it up, since it was his outburst that was at issue here. But he was wrong. Roz brought it up.
“Was it business?” she asked him.
Mick looked at her, his heart hammering. Was she toying with him? “Business?” he asked.
“When you roughed up that man,” she said. Her arms were folded, and her heart felt guarded too. “Are you in a line of work that requires you to flex your muscles as if you were some Iron Man? To prove that your cock is bigger than his cock? Is that it?”
Mick realized quickly that she wasn’t toying with anybody. She was dead serious.
“You’re going to have to explain this to me, Mick,” she continued. “You’re going to have to tell me something here. Because I didn’t see a businessman in there. I didn’t see the man I’ve been seeing over the last three weeks. I saw a straight-up gangster. A thug. Talk to me, Mick.”
Mick felt the intensity of her concern as if it was his intensity and concern. But the fact that she did not leave his office in tears, or run upstairs and pack her bags, was telling to him. But he couldn’t underestimate what she was getting herself into if she stayed. He had to keep it real.