CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They saw the Fangen City Limits sign as soon as they got off the exit, but they found themselves driving for nearly eight miles before they were actually in the town.
“Damn,” Duke said as they drove past dilapidated houses and old, broken-down barns and boarded-up businesses as if this rural town was in dire straits. “You ever been to this town before, Daddy?”
Mick was so focused on that town that he didn’t hear his son’s question.
Duke looked at him. Why was he so intense? It was just a nothing town! “Daddy?”
His persistence broke the spell and Mick’s intensity eased. “What?”
“You ever been here before?”
“No. Never.”
“Why would Ma be out this way anyways?”
Mick had a strong guess. “Essence,” he said.
Duke was shocked. “You gave her permission to go?”
“Hell no,” Mick said with a frown. “She gave her security detail the slip and went anyway. Probably drove out along the back passage to evade any security.”
“I thought she wasn’t supposed to know that they were following her.”
“Very little you can get past your mother.” Then he gripped his steering wheel. “Damn woman,” he added frustratingly.
Duke laughed. He had a clever mother. Who knew?
Then he turned his attention back to Fangen.
This is a rough-looking town. They’re probably arresting rich people like Ma and getting them to pay them to release them.
They probably looked at her two-hundred-thousand-dollar car and said yeah, there’s another sucker.
Pull her over. And she’s black too?” Duke shook his head.
“Ma didn’t stand a chance. These traffic stops are probably their only source of revenue. ”
Mick glanced at his biracial son. He was very race conscious and he appreciated that. Roz taught both of the twins to always be self-aware. Mick even called in some of his senior executives and they had a conversation with Duke about being a black man in America. But was it enough?
“And where’s everybody at anyway?” Duke asked. “I’m halfway expecting to see tumbleweed rolling across the street any minute now!”
But when he looked over at his father to see if he appreciated his joke, he could see that he was intense again. Which Duke couldn’t understand. “Why are you so worried? All you got to do is pay them people whatever they want and get Ma up out of here. It’s not that serious.”
Or was it, Duke thought, as he continued to look at his father. He couldn’t possibly admire anybody more than he admired his dad. How could he not be proud to be the son of a legend like Mick Sinatra?
But that didn’t mean he understood him. He didn’t understand him at all.
Every news article he ever read about his father, or every podcast that mentioned his father’s name, always used words like vicious and heartless and unforgiving to describe him.
And Duke knew him to be all those things and more.
He ruled their household, and everybody else, with an iron fist.
Except for his mother. The fact that she was stuck in this town was proof alone that she was the only human being that defied their father whenever it suited her. Which was dangerous for everybody else. Mick was not the one to try.
But his father could also be kind to them, and gentle, and although his words were never soft and caring, he showed them how much he loved them in his actions not in his words.
Like when he sat by Duke’s bedside all night long when Duke had been in a bad car accident and broke his arm.
Or when he stood at that door less than an hour ago and said that he was afraid of Roz leaving him ever since the day they met.
He could be all bad if you pushed him too far. But all good too.
His twin Jackie once said that Duke was just like their father.
But Duke thought she was just being messy because he was laughing at her when Dad wouldn’t let her go to Cabo with some friends for her high school graduation celebration.
But Duke knew long ago, if he were to be honest with himself, that he was a lot like his dad.
But when they came to a dead end and turned a corner, they could see the Fangen Police Department’s one-story building at the end of the street. “Finally!” Duke said.
But Mick wasn’t saying anything. Because something felt off about the whole place. But he couldn’t turn back now. He had to get Roz out of whatever kind of place this was.
When he stopped in the parking lot of the police station, he pressed a button and his glovebox unlocked. “Get the gun,” Mick ordered Duke.
Duke grabbed the gun and closed the glovebox back. But Mick waited until Duke stopped admiring the gun and looked at him again before he continued. “No matter what, don’t you get your ass out of this truck. It’s fortified. And bulletproof.”
“Including the windows?”
“Including the windows.”
Duke grinned. “Shit.”
“Keep your ass in this truck and keep it locked.”
“Yes sir. But why you so worried, Dad? What could happen in this nothing place?”
Mick stared at Duke. He hadn’t taught his bougie ass shit about the other side of life. Or what being the son of a man like him truly meant. And the dangers it fostered. “If something goes down,” Mick said, “you call your brother. You hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
“He’ll know what to do. But you take this truck and get the fuck out of here. Don’t you dare go in there to see what’s happening. You get out.”
Now Duke was concerned too. He’d never seen his father so worried about something that should be just fine. “But nothing’s gonna go down though, Daddy, right? With Ma inside of there?”
Mick’s heart sank for his son. Why did he allow him to come with him! He was not ready for the kind of contingencies Mick faced every day of the week. He regretted that he listened to Roz and didn’t prepare his son better. “If something does happen,” Mick started saying.
But Duke interrupted him. “I know already. Call Teddy.”
“You’d better. He’ll know what to do,” he said, got out of the truck, waited for Duke to lock it back, and then he went inside of the FPD.