“Right,” Mick said, and nobody took it any further.
But as the meeting progressed, as they discussed the fallout from the Provensano hit, and how pleased they were that there was no notable fallout, Mick was humming again.
All of them looked at each other and frowned at Mick. “What?” Mick asked when he saw them staring disapprovingly at him.
“You’re humming,” DeLuca said.
“So?”
“So stop it,” Teddy said. “What do you think this is? The PTA? Cut it out!”
Carp smiled. “He thinks he’s in his sewing circle,” he said.
Teddy and DeLuca expected Mick to go off on Carp. Carp always took it too far. But Mick was in such a good mood, even Carp wasn’t going to rain on his parade.
“Just give me the threat assessment,” Mick said to Carp.
“There is no threat,” Carp said. “Not even chatter on the line. Nothing.”
“Provensano’s loyalty was only as deep as those men you took out,” Teddy said. “You were right, Mick. He was a powerful man who didn’t understand his power. His reach was only surface deep.”
“What about the families in business with him?” Mick asked this as his cell phone began ringing. “Do we have all of them onboard?” He pulled out his phone and looked at his Caller ID.
“We have them all,” Teddy said. “They prefer to be in league with us anyway. They know, with you in our corner, the sky’s the limit for them. Provensano gave them the sky to, but there were limits.”
The call was from Mick’s office. He ignored it. “They understand that I’m not taking them anywhere? Do they understand that you three are going to run the operation?”
The three Dons glanced at each other. “Yeah, sure,” DeLuca said, and Mick’s cell phone rang again. When he looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Deuce McCurry, he answered quickly. Deuce was Roz’s driver now.
“Hello, Deuce, what is it?”
“Miss Graham has told me to prepare the car, sir.”
Mick frowned. “So why are you telling me this? Do what she told you to do. Are you under some kind of misguided impression that she can’t tell you what to do?”
“Oh, no sir. Never that. But it’s where she wants to go, sir. And the fact that she’s packing her bags.”
Mick’s heart dropped. “Where does she want to go?”
“She wants me to drive her to New York, sir. She apparently is going back home.”
Mick felt as if he had been sucker punched. Just when he thought they were crossing over to that place of love he’d never been, she was leaving him? “Don’t take her anywhere,” Mick said, with bite in his voice. “I’m on my way.”
And despite the protestations of the three Dons, Mick got up and left.
DeLuca, especially, was beside himself with disbelief. “Over a dame?” he asked with incredulity in his voice. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“I wonder what he’s gon’ do to her?” asked the oldest maid.
“Beat her ass, what else?” said the younger one.
“Give her a black eye, you can count on it,” said the youngest. “Mr. Mick ain’t gon’ stand for this.”
They were in the parlor, scrubbing down the entire room, and the talk of the house was Mick and Roz.
“He tells his whole household staff that she’s moving to Philly,” the middle maid said, “and she ain’t here but a week before she’s looking to leave again. I know you’re right. He ain’t gonna stand for that.”
“Y’all don’t know nothing about nothing,” the oldest maid said as she wiped down the window sill. “So stop all that gossiping.”
“Who’s gossiping?” asked the youngest maid. “I was standing right by Deuce when he was talking to Mr. Mick. I heard Mr. Mick tell him that woman wasn’t going no-where and if she tried he was gonna kick her ass.”
“Quit lying,” the oldest maid said. “That don’t even sound like Mr. Mick. You need to quit.”
“That’s him now,” said the middle maid urgently and they all hurried to the front window of the parlor as Mick’s Lamborghini sped up to the big house and stopped near his limo. Mick hurried out, spoke to Deuce, who was standing by the limo, and then hurried inside.
“Button it all,” the oldest maid said, “and get to work!”
All three maids began working feverishly as Mick entered the house. But he didn’t give his parlor, or them, not even a glance. He hurried upstairs.
Roz was in his bedroom, putting the last of her clothes into her suitcase, when he walked in. Like the maids downstairs, she heard when he drove up too, so she wasn’t surprised by his presence. Nor his anger.
He tossed his keys on the dresser, opened his suit coat, and placed his hands on his hips. He looked like a man beside himself, not with anger, but with pain. “What’s going on here, Rosalind?” he asked her.
“I was going to call you,” she said.
“And tell me what?”