CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Mick walked into the house on Bluebond Road suited up, not in his usual all-black attire, but in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt beneath his long white coat.
Teddy, who was playing cards with Monk, smiled. “You look half-dressed, Pop.”
But Mick was looking around. “Where’s Cleo?”
“She’s throwing up in the bathroom.”
“She’s what?”
“As soon as I said you were pulling up,” Teddy said, “she suddenly got all sick and had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. It’s all another one of her scams, Pop. She just wants your attention.”
Mick headed to the bathroom.
“Looks like she’s going to get it,” Monk said with raised eyebrows. He moved his hat further back on his head.
“And you’re right,” Teddy said. “I don’t know what he sees in that woman.”
But when Mick knocked on the bathroom door and then walked in, and he saw Cleo bent over the toilet seat, he just stood there. Because she was actually throwing up. “What’s wrong?”
“When Ricky beat me, he pounded on my stomach. Now it’s hurting so bad.” She threw up again. Then she wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet.
When she went over to the sink to wash her hands, she slid slightly as if she was going to pass out.
“Whoa,” Mick said as he hurried over to her and grabbed her. “Let’s get you to the bed.”
“I need to clean up around that toilet bowl,” Cleo said.
“I’ll clean it up. Let’s get you to bed.”
It was music to Cleo’s ears as Mick placed his arm around her waist and escorted her to the bed.
Teddy kicked Monk beneath the table, forcing Monk to look at him. Then Teddy motioned for Monk to look at them. They could see into the bedroom and bathroom from the living room, and they saw as Mick helped walk Cleo out of the bathroom and put her to bed.
“And he wonders why Ma kicked his butt out,” Teddy said.
“I’m a neat person, Mick,” Cleo was saying as he laid her in bed. “Tell them. Tell them I’m a neat person, Mick.”
The “them” she was referring to were the two capos stationed in her bedroom. They sat in chairs against the wall and were on their phones pretty much ignoring her.
But Cleo, being Cleo, wanted to impress them. “They say I’m a slob because I’m sick. I told them if their son would have beat the shit out of them, they’d be a slob too. But I’m not a slob. Am I, Mick?”
“You’re not a slob, Cleo,” Mick said as he headed back into the bathroom to clean up her mess.
“You know that, don’t you, Mick?” She was still going on and on as Mick remained in the bathroom cleaning the throw-up that escaped around the toilet bowl.
But he didn’t come to that house to do her dirty work. That was why, when he got out of that bathroom, he began his search.
Teddy and Monk could see him looking beneath tables and even the bed. “What are you looking for, Pop?”
But Mick said nothing. He went into the living room, looking in the various corners and in the middle of the room and beneath tables and the sofa too.
“What’s going on, Mick?” Monk asked him.
But Mick was singularly focused. But he didn’t find what he was looking for. He didn’t see it. And he was tired of trying.
But when he suddenly began hurrying into the bedroom, Teddy and Monk, seeing the change, got up and hurried in the room too.
And when Mick went straight up to that bed and didn’t hesitate to pull out his gun, cock it, and then put it inside of Cleo’s mouth, everybody gasped.
“What are you doing, Pop?” Teddy asked frantically.
“Where is he?” Mick asked Cleo. “I’m giving you one chance and one chance only to tell me where that fucker is. If you don’t tell me, I’ll pull this trigger so help me, Cleo. And you know I don’t fuck around.”
Cleo looked as if she was going to throw up again as Mick slowly pulled that gun out of her mouth. But he kept it aimed at her face. “Now where is he?” Mick asked in a hardened voice.
When Mick said he, everybody knew exactly to whom he was referring. Ricardo DeSouza, the perp they had every available man on the streets searching for, was right there in that house? They were astounded!
And Cleo looked defeated. Her voice was a whisper. “He’ll kill me if I tell.”
“And I’ll kill you more if you don’t,” Mick said. “Where is he?” he asked with clenched teeth.
Cleo began pointing toward the living room.
“In the living room. Beside that chair Monk Paletti was sitting in. Move that chair, and you’ll see where some of those floorboards don’t have nails in them.
That’s where he is. But he’s heavily armed, Mick.
And you promised me you wouldn’t kill our son, Mick. ” She was in tears.
But nobody gave a fuck. Mick, Teddy, Monk, and both capos were already running out of that room with all of their guns aimed and ready.
Teddy nodded his permission and the two capos moved the chair as Mick, Teddy, and Monk had their weapons ready.
And sure enough, they saw three slabs that weren’t nailed down. The capos were ready to open them up, but they looked at Mick. And Mick gave the nod.
As soon as they quickly pulled up the floorboards, the two capos stepped back. And that was when Mick, Teddy, and Monk leaned over, looked down into the hole, and saw Ricardo DeSouza balled up like an infant.
“Come out with your hands up!” Teddy yelled at him. “One false move and we’ll light your ass up! Come out and come out now!”
But they got no movement.
“Is he alive?” Monk asked.
Nobody knew. “Cover me,” Teddy said as he sat his gun down and prepared to go down in that hole. “If that fucker moves an inch, don’t hesitate.”
They all nodded and Teddy eased his way down into that hole. When he got down there, he kicked Ricardo. Ricardo didn’t move, but he groaned. “He’s still alive!” Teddy said. “But barely. Help me get him up.”
Monk quickly sat down his pistol, too, and jumped down in that hole with Teddy. And then he and Teddy hoisted Ricardo up and Mick and the two capos grabbed him. They threw him onto the floor as Teddy and Monk got back out of that hole.
Mick turned Ricardo over onto face him, and as soon as he did, his heart dropped.
He looked just like Teddy used to look. And when he opened his eyes, and those same Sinatra green eyes were staring up at him, it felt surreal.
This was his son? He wanted to kill Mick, and Mick wanted to kill him. What kind of twisted fate was this?
Or was it what it seemed? “Who did this to you?” he asked him.
“I did.”
It was a voice they all were familiar with. And as soon as they turned to look, Cleo shot both of the capos right through the heart, and both of them fell. “Don’t pick up those weapons, Teddy,” she yelled. “And you either, Frankie. And Mick drop yours right now!”
Mick dropped his weapon too. Teddy and Monk were angry that Mick hadn’t already took that bitch out.
And now she killed two of their guys? Why was he always accommodating her?
! Sal Gabrini said it was love, but Teddy didn’t know about that.
He felt the love coming from his father when his father was around Roz.
He didn’t feel the love when his father was around Cleo. He felt the guilt.
“So you’re the one behind that ambush?” Mick asked her.
“Of course I am,” Cleo said. “I was the one who hired Spanky to hire those guys to break into Bella Caine’s apartment, too, and leave you that note.
I was the one who hired Spanky to go to my hometown and pay off the police chief to take out you and your wife.
That was supposed to do it for me. But those fucking rednecks couldn’t even do that right. They blew that out of the water.”
“And you were the one who shot your own son and threw him in that hole,” said Mick as if it was a fact.
They all looked at Cleo.
“I don’t give a shit about him,” she said.
“He needs an ambulance,” Mick pleaded with her.
“Fuck him! Every time I looked at that fool I saw you. And you didn’t give a damn about me.
I loved you with all that’s within me and you didn’t even care about me.
You made me a whore. I was a good girl and you turned me into a whore.
You used me because you knew I loved you, and then you cast me aside. ”
“That’s when I knew you were behind all of this,” Mick said.
“How Pop?”
“Because I tried to get her out of that life, but she kept running back to it. And then it was something Rosalind said. She said since Ricardo was trafficking Cleo to all of those mega-rich third-world dictators, maybe he told us he was the money man because they were bankrolling him. But that’s when I realized they weren’t bankrolling DeSouza.
They were bankrolling Cleo! She wasn’t working for her son.
Her son was working for her. That was the only way it made sense. ”
“Clever Mick,” Cleo said with a smile. “But you couldn’t out-clever me, could you?” Then she pointed her gun at him. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
“What about your son? Are you going to just let him die?”
“I told you I don’t give a damn about him!
He’s you in my eyes just like Teddy is. And I despise Teddy even more.
I used our son until he was no use to me anymore.
I used him to pretend he was my abusive lover and all those times you sent your goons to beat him up, I loved it.
I thought that meant you loved me.” Then her look turned bitter.
“But I thought wrong. That’s why I got Ricky and his boys to pretend to kidnap me behind that abandoned factory.
I needed to go into hiding to plot my revenge.
I needed the money. And boy did those fat, stank dictators line my pockets.
They loved to pay for my services. Roz ain’t got nothing on me. But you still preferred her.”
Then she composed herself again. “But you know why it was so easy for me to pull this off? This is my biggest secret. You know why it was so easy?”
“This is your big reveal?” Teddy asked. “You always loved to tell the tea. So go on why don’t you? I’m sure you can’t wait to tell us.”
Cleo ignored Teddy. Her entire focus was on Mick.
“Your arrogance made it easy,” she said to him.
“You just knew it had to be some mighty mastermind pulling the strings. You just knew nobody would dare touch Mick the Tick unless he was the biggest of the big. The baddest of the bad.” She smiled. “When it was just little old me.”
“How did you get that gun?” Monk asked her. “Sal Gabrini’s guys searched you when they got to this house. And they searched this house.”
“But I always have secret compartments that his ass didn’t know about.
That’s why I was in that bathroom all the time.
I wasn’t sick. I knew how to make myself appear sick though.
And that’s what I did. That’s also why, when Ted told me his daddy had pulled up, I went in that bathroom again to make sure my gun was still in place.
I had it taped to the back of the toilet bowl ready for me to grab it and take Mick out once and for all. ”
Then she aimed that gun at Mick. “You rejected me all my adult life. Even when I told you I was carrying your child, you didn’t give a damn. You just wanted me to kill it. Well I took care of that for you already. I took care of your bastard. He’ll be dead soon too. Now I’m gonna take care of you!”
“Not so fast,” Mick said to her, and everybody looked at him.
“I didn’t go back in that bathroom just to clean up your shit.
I knew you were in there for a reason. I knew that throwing up was an act.
That’s why I came prepared. I replaced your gun with a tranquilizer gun that looked like the exact replica of most pistols. ”
Cleo looked at her gun in horror.
“What are you saying, Pop?” Teddy asked him.
“She didn’t just kill our guys,” Mick said to Teddy’s delight. “She just put them temporarily to sleep. They’ll wake up,” Mick said as he revealed a J-Frame pistol coming out of the sleeve of his coat.
“You hear that, Cleo? Your double homicide didn’t work. My guys will wake up soon. But you won’t,” Mick said as he shot Cleo with a hail of bullets. He shot her long after she was dead. He emptied every one of his rounds into her. He would have still been shooting if he had the smoke.
And Cleo was out. She was dead.
Then Mick dropped his gun to his side, and looked at Ricardo. At the young man he was certain every DNA test would prove was his son. “Call 911,” he said to whomever was listening.
Teddy wasn’t about to. Ricardo might be his half-brother, but so what? He helped her kill their capos at that cabin. What he looked like calling 911 for him? Let him rot in hell as far as Teddy was concerned.
But Monk wasn’t Teddy, and they didn’t call him Monk for no reason. He did as Mick ordered, and called for help.