CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ninety minutes outside of Philadelphia, as Roz was driving through a small town she’d never even heard of before, she was being pulled over by the local police.
Not that they didn’t have a reason. She was speeding.
They had a reason. With her car’s convertible top down and her macchiato-beige bucket seats with the matching steering wheel and gear shift sparkling in the Pennsylvania sun, with her sunglasses over her eyes to shield that sun, she was on her own time and was taking it fast or slow, however she felt.
But damn. She didn’t see any cops until they were right behind her with their sirens blaring.
Where did they come from? But she pulled her Maybach over to the side of the road all the same.
Two white, youngish-looking cops got out.
What was strange to Roz was that they both walked over to her driver side door.
Usually one was on the passenger side as a just in case.
But not with these hicks. Did they know what they were doing?
She only hoped they would give her a warning to slow her ass down, and let her go.
But she quickly realized how wishful she was thinking. “Please step out ma’am,” the taller officer said.
Now Roz was immediately suspicious. “For a speeding ticket? Why would I have to step out of my car? Just give me the ticket.”
The shorter one grabbed her doorknob, but it was locked. “We said step out!” he demanded and tried to reach into her car to find the lock to pull it up.
But it didn’t have those kinds of locks. And Roz was too stunned. “What am I supposed to have done, Officers?”
“Ma’am, if you don’t get out of this car I’m going to drag you out.”
Now Roz was frowned too. “But what did I do? At least tell me that.”
“This car is stolen,” the shorter cop said.
Roz looked at him. He had to know that was a lie. But was that their game? “A black woman in an expensive car had to have stolen it? Really? Is that what we’re doing?”
But they were adamant. She was getting out of that car. And that was why she decided to name-drop. Which she hated. But even those hicks would have heard of Mick. “My name is Rosalind Sinatra,” she decided to say. “My husband is Mick Sinatra.”
The shorter one grinned. “Yeah right!”
They didn’t believe her? “I’m not lying to you. Why would I lie?”
“You ain’t bit more no Mick Sinatra’s wife than I am,” the shorter one said.
“I am his wife!”
“And John Gotti was my brudder,” the shorter one said with a fake New Jersey accent, and then he laughed.
“I am the wife of Mick Sinatra,” Roz said again.
“And I’m the wife of Snoop Doggy Dog, or whatever his name is,” the taller cop said. “Get your butt out of this car and get out now.”
“Okay. Don’t believe me. You’ll regret that,” Roz said.
But the taller officer was already over it. “Deploy your tranquilizer gun now!” he angrily ordered the shorter cop. “How’s that for Mick Sinatra’s wife?”
“A tranquilizer gun?” Roz was floored. Even she knew that couldn’t possibly be standard-police-issued equipment. Was this an arrest, she began to wonder, or was this an abduction?
And suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. And she did what Mick told her to do from day one: “Follow your gut. No matter what,” he said, “follow your gut. And her gut was telling her to make a run for it!
She was about to sling her gearshift into Drive and floor that gas pedal, but the taller cop grabbed both of her arms and slung her against the back of her seat, rendering her unable to touch her gearshift. She screamed and fought him, biting him as she tried to break free, but it was too late.
The smaller cop deployed his tranquilizer gun with perfect aim and within seconds of that deployment, she was fast asleep.
They finally found the unlock button on the door handle, pulled her out of her car, and then dragged her to their car and threw her onto the backseat. Then they got onto their front seat.
But the shorter cop was looking at his taller senior officer. “What?” the taller cop asked when he saw a quizzical look on his face.
“What if she ain’t lying?”
“Of course she’s lying. That black chick ain’t no Mick Sinatra wife. Come on now!”
“Then why else would the chief order us to bring her in when she was barely speeding at all compared to everybody else out here? And he told us this hours ago. He ordered us to get to Philly and lie in wait for her. Why?”
“I have no idea why. But I guarantee you it ain’t because he believes she’s Mick Sinatra’s wife. I guarantee you that.”
But the shorter cop wasn’t as easily convinced. Because that car alone said she was somebody big. Maybe not Mick Sinatra big. But somebody.
“You take her on downtown,” the taller cop said as he looked on the backseat to confirm she was still asleep. “I’ll drive her car there.”
The shorter cop grinned. “I figured you’d say that,” he said as the senior officer got out and headed to the Maybach.
But inside that patrol car, the shorter cop had a sinking feeling.