Tony Sinatra: If Loving You Is Wrong, page 12
“Embezzlement,” Tony answered for her.
“From whom? Her employer?”
“That’s what they claim, yes.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred thousand.”
Big Daddy was shocked. “Well damn!”
“But it’s not true,” Sam quickly said. She usually let people think whatever they wanted about her. But for some reason she felt a need to defend herself around Tony’s family. “I never stole any money from anybody in my life!”
“Yeah, sure. That’s what they all say,” Big Daddy said.
Tony was surprised. “Pop, that wasn’t necessary.”
“Well what do you want me to say? You bring this woman in my home that I don’t know. This felon you just met. This hooker! And you want what? You want me to welcome her with open arms?”
“I want you to treat her with respect!” Tony said forcefully. “That’s what I want.”
“Well I can’t respect somebody who doesn’t respect herself. All these jobs out here and she has to become a hooker?”
“She’s not a hooker!” Tony declared loudly. “Stop calling her that! She’s not a hooker. And even if she was that doesn’t mean you have a right to treat her any less than you treat anybody else.”
“I’ll treat her anyway I gotdamn well please,” Big Daddy said, his fiery temper coming out. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
Sam touched Tony’s arm. They were getting nowhere like this. “Let’s just go,” she said to him. “I need to get out of this man’s house.”
“Why did you come to my house in the first place?” Big Daddy asked.
“That’s enough, Charles,” Jenay said.
It was only when Jenay said something did it work to calm Big Daddy back down. “What do you want?” he asked his son.
“We need your help,” Tony said.
“What kind of help? Seems to me she needs a lawyer, not me.”
“It’s not about her case,” said Tony. “It’s about her son. When she got locked up, or just before she did, they took her son away from her.”
“Why?” Jenay asked, which surprised Sam. She looked at Jenay. Was she judging her too? But then she realized it wasn’t an off-the-wall question. They didn’t take a person’s kid for no reason.
“I was the bartender at Thatcher’s the night of the shooting,” Sam said.
This seemed to shock both Jenay and Big Daddy. “You were there?” Jenay asked her.
“Yes, ma’am. I was tending bar that night. My son saw it on the news, he saw what happened, and he left our apartment looking for me.”
“That’s no reason to remove a child from their mother,” said Big Daddy.
Sam knew she had to tell the whole story. “It was late at night and the police said he wasn’t supposed to be home alone because he was only eight years old.”
Big Daddy was surprised. “Eight?”
Sam saw that look on Big Daddy’s face. Him helping her was not going to happen. She saw that easily.
But Jenay was right there with her husband when it came to a child. “That was kind of young to leave him home alone,” she said to Sam.
“I know. But I’m a single parent and the only job I could get was bartending. Kenny, the owner, he kept giving me these crazy hours. When they hired me, they said they would let me open at twelve and leave by eight, so I could be home late at night with my son, but as soon as Kenny took over as bar owner, he didn’t keep that promise. And I’m not blaming him or anybody else. He has a right to make me work whatever hours he wants. I know that. I was trying to find something better.”
Big Daddy was shaking his head as if it was just getting worse and worse with her. “What do you want from me?” he asked his son.
“She wants to see her son,” Tony said. “They won’t let her see him. They said it would be too disruptive since she hasn’t seen him in over a month.”
“And they’re right,” said Big Daddy. “She has a trial coming up. What if she’s found guilty and gets ten years? Why would they want to disrupt his life like that?”
“Because I need to know he’s okay,” Sam said. “I need to see my son.”
“You should have thought about that when you were stealing those people’s money.”
“She didn’t steal anything!” Tony yelled.
“How the fuck do you know?” Big Daddy yelled back. “You’re a Sinatra, you aren’t some fucking moron! We’re hard people who never fall for the okey-doke. And your ass falling for it? You lost a good woman, now any woman will do?!”
“That’s enough Pop,” Tony said, fighting back his rage.
“Just go,” said Big Daddy. He was already in a bad mood. Tony’s nonsense just made it worse. “Get out of my house and get out now. And take that tramp with you!”
Tony’s rage exploded and he jumped from his chair, lunched over at his father, and grabbed him with both hands by his suit coat. Sam jumped up, too, stunned by Tony’s violent reaction and Jenay screamed out. “Tony no!” she screamed. Nobody jacked up Big Daddy that way and expected to live to tell about it. Tony had to know that!
But he couldn’t know it. He was too deep in his rage to know anything but anger as he grabbed his father and flung him up from his chair until his father’s back was against the wall. And Tony was in his father’s face. “Don’t you dare call her a tramp!” he yelled. “She’s not like that.” He pulled his father away from the wall and slammed him back against it. “She’s not like that!”
Big Daddy was stunned. He was looking deep into his son’s bright green eyes, and all he saw was pain. Deep, searing pain. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from. But he knew his son was in pain.
“All she wants is to see her child,” Tony said to his father. “That’s all she wants. She’s not asking for your money. She’s not even asking for your respect, although I am. And you will give it to her. She needs somebody who can get her in to see her son. So she can know he’s alright. So she can go on from there. That’s all she’s asking. And that’s not too much to ask!”
Jenay placed her hand on her heart. She could feel Tony’s compassion. Big Daddy could feel it too. He’d always been an oddball. Tony had never fit into any box anybody ever tried to put him in. But he was always a caring, compassionate, sincere man.
And Big Daddy realized a truth. Tony respected him enough that he would not have brought that woman to his father’s house unless he believed her. It might have been a misguided belief, Big Daddy knew. But Tony was a smart guy. He wasn’t usually misguided.
“Okay,” Big Daddy said. “Okay.” Then he looked at Tony. “Now will you let me go?”
Tony seemed to come back to himself, and was kind of shocked that he had jacked his father up in the first place. He released him and gave him some room.
But as soon as he did, Big Daddy punched him right on his jaw so hard that Tony stumbled back against the center island. He would have fallen had Sam not reached out and held him up.
“Come at me like that again,” Big Daddy said, pointing at his son, “and I’ll kick your ass through your guts. Do you get that?”
Tony knew he had better be glad that punch was all his father did to him. And he nodded. “I got it,” he said.
Then Big Daddy exhaled. It was too much emotion even for him. And he looked at Sam. “I apologize,” he said. “I should not have called you a tramp or any other derogatory name. Nobody deserves that. You don’t deserve it. Forgive me.”
Sam was still in shock that Tony would confront his father like that on her behalf. And then for his father to punch him like that was shocking too. But his father apologizing to her was the biggest shocker. “Thank you for apologizing,” she said.
“I apologize too,” said Jenay to Sam. “We should never have questioned you that way. People do what they have to do. Who are we to sit up in our ivory towers and judge? Sorry about that.”
Sam smiled. Maybe still an ally? “Thanks,” she said.
“I need to make a couple phone calls,” Big Daddy said. “And then we’ll see.”
And Big Daddy left the kitchen. Jenay went behind him. But before she walked out, she looked at Tony. “You jack my man up like that again,” she said, “and I’ll kick your ass too.” And then she left the kitchen behind Big Daddy.
What a family, Sam thought. They made the Sopranos look like the Brady Bunch. They were the roughest family she’d ever met. She looked at Tony. “Your father said ‘then we’ll see’. What does that mean?”
Tony exhaled and rubbed his sore jaw. “It means he’s going to help you,” he said.
Sam was shocked. Absolutely floored. That mean man help her? She didn’t believe it! “Are you sure?”
Tony nodded. “I’m sure.”
“But what makes you so sure?”
“I told you why. He loves me. He saw I was sincere and wasn’t just doing something to do something like the bleeding heart he takes me for. He’s doing it for me.”
Sam smiled. Now that made more sense to her. And she hugged Tony. “Thank God he loves you,” she said happily.
And even Tony, despite his jaw pain, had to smile at that too.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tony’s classic Jag drove up behind his father’s modern Jag, parked beside it, and then he and Sam got out. His father was on his car phone, handling some business, so they waited by the driver side door. And although Sam was excited, she was worried, too, as she stared at the DCF building.
Tony saw her anxiety. He placed his arm around her waist. “Stop worrying,” he said. “You’ll see him.”
But Sam was still staring at that building. “I’ve been coming to this place every day they’ve been open since I got out on bail. I finally got a supervisor to see me, and she told me to take a hike.” She looked at Tony. “They think I’ll hurt him by seeing him. They think I’m being selfish by wanting to see him for myself and to make sure he’s okay.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Tony. “You aren’t being selfish. You’re a mother concerned about her child. They would be doing the same thing had they been in your shoes. That’s if they give a damn.”
Sam studied Tony. “If it was your son?”
“I’d be doing the same thing too,” Tony said.
Sam nodded. She knew if anybody would tell her the truth, it was more likely than not to be Tony.
But Big Daddy still intimidated her. It was all in his manner. He seemed so abrupt, like he didn’t have time for foolishness and didn’t suffer fools at all. And the way he looked at her with those fiery green eyes made her wonder if that was how he saw her too: as a fool. As somebody not even capable to keep herself out of jail and her kid by her side. The backstory didn’t seem to matter to him. When the backstory, to Sam, was everything.
Big Daddy finally ended his business call and got out of his car. She thought Tony had that air of authority about him when she first met him, but looking at his father, she could see where he got that from. Because his old man had more than just an air about him. He carried himself as if he were THE authority. As if he owned that town just like Wendy and her fellow prostitutes were complaining about. She completely understood why so many people despised the man.
Not that Sam despised him. She didn’t. She didn’t know him like that and Tony all but said to know him is to love him. She couldn’t see a day where she would love a mean man like him, but he was at DCF when it was obvious he had lots to do, and he was her best chance of seeing Myles again. He might have called her a tramp and might have looked at her like she was less than dirt, but she appreciated him. She was nothing but grateful to him.
But when he got out of his car, he looked even more gruffy than he seemed at his house, and he didn’t say a word to Tony or Sam. He just began walking in a fast gait toward the entrance doors as if he couldn’t wait to get this over with. Tony and Sam had to practically run to keep up with the very fit, older man.
Once inside of the building, Big Daddy, with Tony and Sam behind him, began hurrying toward the reception desk. But one of the social workers, who was standing across the waiting room, saw Sam and called her out. “Didn’t I tell you not to come here again?” She began hurrying toward her.
They all stopped in their tracks. “Who’s that?” Tony asked Sam.
“One of the social workers,” Sam said. “She got tired of me coming up here all the time bugging them about my son.”
And when the social worker walked up to Sam, she yelled at her again. “Didn’t I tell you to stop coming up in here? Didn’t I tell you that?”
But Big Daddy didn’t like her attitude for a public servant. “You don’t get to tell her shit,” he said with a big frown on his face. He hated bullies, although he was known, rightly or wrongly, as the king of bullies. “Who the fuck you think you are?”
It was only then did the social worker realize Sam wasn’t alone the way she always had been. It was only then did she realize Big Daddy Sinatra and Tony Sinatra were with her. “Mr. Sinatra,” she said with surprise in her voice.
“Do you go around talking to all your clients like that?” Tony asked her.
“No, sir,” the social worker said firmly. “Not at all.”
“Quit lying,” said one of the clients who was sitting in the waiting room. But the social worker didn’t give that client a second look. “Perhaps I can help you, sir?” the social worker asked the Sinatras.
“Is Milt in?” Big Daddy asked.
“Milt, sir?”
“Yes, Milt,” Big Daddy said impatiently. “Milton Singer. Your program administrator?”
“Oh! Yes, sir.”
“He’s in?”
“Yes, sir. He’s in his office.”
“Top floor, right?” said Big Daddy.
“That’s correct.”
“Tell him I’m coming up,” Big Daddy said as he, Tony, and Sam began heading for the elevators.
“But you need clearance first, sir,” the social worker said as they walked away. But not one of them turned around.
The social worker hurried over to the reception desk. “Get Mr. Singer on the phone,” she said anxiously.
And when Big Daddy, Tony, and Sam stepped off of the elevator on the top floor, Mr. Singer’s executive assistant was waiting to greet them. “Mr. Sinatra,” she said to Big Daddy. “Dr. Sinatra,” she said to Tony. “Good morning. You may come with me.”
But Tony was offended. Once again they were treating Sam as if she was invisible. As if her feelings didn’t matter. “This is Samantha Carmichael,” Tony said to the assistant, who could have at least said good morning to her.
The assistant seemed embarrassed, not by her disrespect of Sam, but by the fact that she’d been called out on it. “Nice to meet you, Miss Carmichael.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. Tony was beginning to notice that Sam was always respectful to everybody, despite how they treated her.
“Right this way, gentlemen.” Then the assistant caught herself. “And Miss Carmichael,” she added. And they all walked to Milt Singer’s office.
Milt jumped up from his desk with his hand outreached as soon as they walked into his office. “Charles! Tony! Didn’t expect to see either of you this morning.”
“Hello, Milt,” Big Daddy said, shaking his hand.
“I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays,” Milt said. “How the heck are you, Charles?”
“I would be better if we can reunite this lady with her son,” said Big Daddy.
Sam loved that he got right down to business.
“Yes, one of the social workers told me you and Tony were with her. I thought I already told you our answer, Tony. Have a seat.”
“No thanks,” said Tony. “We need to get this resolved. She’s not asking you to break any laws or to do anything injurious to the child. She just wants to see her son.”
“And she’s going to see him,” Big Daddy said to Milt.
“Charles, you don’t understand. This woman you want to help is no saint.”
“Neither are you, me, or anybody else walking this earth,” Tony said.
Milt looked at Big Daddy, as if he would be more likely to see his point than bleeding heart Tony. “She’s out on bail as we speak,” Milt said, “for stealing four hundred thousand dollars from her employer. Can you imagine if one of your employees did that to you? You’d want her under the jail!”
“Yes, I would,” said Big Daddy. “If it were true. Next?”
Milt was surprised by Big Daddy’s certainty of her innocence. So were Sam and Tony.
“She was also seen hanging on a street corner where women sell their bodies for money, if you get my drift.”
“It’s not a crime to stand on a street corner,” said Big Daddy. “Next?”
Milt was taken aback. “Well I’m a bit shocked, Charles. You’ve never been a man to let somebody get over on you. Because that’s what she’s doing. She’s no angel.”
“You ain’t no angel, either,” said Big Daddy, “and you know what I mean by that.” Big Daddy and Milt exchanged a knowing glance.
“I can’t let her see that boy,” said Milt. “It’ll be too disruptive for him.”
“Bullshit!” said Big Daddy. “Not being able to see his mother for a month is what’s disruptive. Don’t talk to me about a disruption. That child wants to know that his mother is okay just as much as she wants to know her son is okay. And I mean that. Let a motherfucker take one of my children away from me and see what I’d do. You too, Milt. You’d be all over their asses if it were your kid. So cut the crap about disruption and let her see her son.”
“I don’t understand this,” said Milt. “What’s in it for you? Or even you, Tony? Why are you putting your stellar reputations on the line for a woman like her, and at a time like this?”
Big Daddy knew what he meant, but he wanted to hear him speak it. “A time like what?” asked Big Daddy.
“Whether you want to admit it or not, but that recall petition is gaining a lot of steam. The smart money says they’ll easily get enough signatures to force the city council to call for a new election. Bobby and Brent both could be out on their ears sooner than you think.”
