Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) (6 page)

“Mr.
Dellum,” Charles responded to Steve, although his eyes remained on Matt, “used
to be a very wealthy man.
 
Until the
stock market crashed in ‘07 and took a huge chunk of his change right along
with it.
 
He’s not on any critical lists,
granted, but he’s not on any Fortune 500 lists either.”

Although
Jenay continued to sit stoically, she was amazed.
 
When in the world did Charles have time to do
that level of research on Matt Dellum?
 
She had only just told him about the meeting last night.
 
She looked at her husband.

“So
let’s get down to it,” Charles said to Matt.
 
He even leaned forward in a kind of
in
your face, man to man
response.
 
“You
need deep pockets to make this resort a reality.
 
Very deep pockets.
 
Pockets so deep it’s almost obscene just how
deep those pockets will have to be.
 
So
you purchased that B & B for half a million as leverage, figuring we
wouldn’t like the competition and therefore would be more inclined to consider
such an offer.
 
And without a lot of
information, it would have been a good move on your part.
 
But you miscalculated in one very specific
way.”

Charles
may not have cared for Matt right off the bat, but the feeling was mutual.
 
“What was my miscalculation, as you call it,
Mr. Sinatra?” Matt asked him.

“You
assumed we were the kind of people who hated competition,” Charles
responded.
 
“It was an understandable
assumption.
 
Most people do hate it, so I
can understand that feeling.
 
But my wife
and I aren’t most people.
 
We thrive on
competition.
 
Because we know the trick.”

Matt
considered him.
 
He thought he would be
the chess player at this table.
 
He was
wrong.
 
“And what trick is that?” he
asked Charles.

“We
never compete with anybody but ourselves,” Charles said.
 
“That’s the trick.
 
We don’t give a flip nickel about what other people
are doing.
 
We just do our thing.
 
And we’ll continue to do our thing.”

Matt
frowned.
 
“You talk as if I’m trying to
swindle you!
 
I’m offering you a great
deal here.
 
Less than fifty-percent
outlay, more than fifty-percent return.
 
I’m offering you an excellent deal!”

“You’re
offering us an opportunity to buy into your vision and your dream.
 
No thanks.
 
That’s not our agenda and you will not make your agenda our agenda.
 
What you’re up to has nothing to do with us.”

Matt’s
suspicion about Charles being the boss of this outfit was well-founded.
 
But Charles’s love and respect for Jenay,
Matt felt, could be the wildcard.
 
He
therefore turned his attention to Jenay.
 
“What are your thoughts, Mrs. Sinatra?” he asked her.
 
He decided to play on what he perceived to be
her own need to be assertive and no Stepford wife clone of her husband’s.
 
“I’m sure you’re an independent thinker,” he
went on.
 
“Can you envision what I’m
trying to get your husband to see?
 
We
could create a resort that could make all of us billionaires.
 
What do you think?”

 
“I think you’re full of shit just like my
husband said,” Jenay said without hesitation.
 
Charles inwardly leaped with joy.
 
He knew she wouldn’t fall for Dellum’s divide and conquer nonsense.

“I
think the idea that my husband would sink his entire fortune into a maybe
proposition when he’s doing great without such a risk,” Jenay continued, “is a
nonstarter for us.”

“But
don’t you people get it?
 
You’ll never be
a billionaire thinking that way.
 
It
won’t happen.”

“So?”
Both Charles and Jenay asked in unison. “Who says we want to be billionaires?”
Charles added by himself.

 
But to Matt that was fool’s talk.
 
Because, in his mind, only a fool wouldn’t
want to be a billionaire.
 
After you
tasted millions, he felt it was your duty to strive for billions.
 
Such a way of thinking cost him his shirt in
’07, but he didn’t change his way of thinking.
 
He didn’t understand these people, he realized.
 
He didn’t understand their logic at all!

Charles
and Jenay both smiled at that puzzled look that now appeared on Matt’s
face.
  
He just couldn’t figure them out,
and they knew it.
 
And both of them
realized what a waste of time this meeting really was.
 

“Have
a nice day, gentleman,” Charles said as he rose to his feet.
 
He reached his hand out to his wife.
 
She slid across the seat, took his hand, and
rose too.
 
Charles looked at Matt.
 
“And just so you’ll know,” he added, “many of
the business leaders around here have been trying to turn this place into a
resort town for years.
 
And I mean
decades.
 
So good luck with that.”

Then
Charles and Jenay, with his arm in the small of her back, began walking out of
the restaurant.
 

Matt,
now able to show his anger, took his napkin and threw it on the table.
 
“
Got
dammit!”
he said.

Steve
exhaled.
 
Upset too.
 
“I sure hope you have a plan B, boss,” he
said, “because plan A failed miserably.”

But
Matt always had a plan B.
 
Always.
 
He just hated when he had to activate it.

Charles
drove up and stopped at the curb just as Robert Sinatra walked out of Charles’s
downtown storefront office.
 
Robert
removed his dark shades from the top of his head and placed them over his big
but sensitive blue eyes and smiled when he saw his father’s Jag.
 
He immediately began walking across the
sidewalk to greet him.
 

Robert
was more of the ladies’ man than any of his brothers, and in his sleek Tom Ford
suit, he didn’t disappoint any of those who were walking by and giving him that
assessing look.
  
But he was no soft
lover boy.
 
He was hard.
 
Maybe, after Brent, the hardest son he
had.
 
And although he looked more like
Donald with his blonde hair and blue eyes, as opposed to his father and
brothers more striking dark hair and green eyes, he was more like his father
than even he realized.
 
His father saw
it, but it was still so undeveloped that he barely recognized it now.
 

“Hey,
Dad,” Robert said as he opened his father’s car door.
 

“Don’t
tell me you’re off today too.”
 
Charles
got out of his car.

“Off?”
Robert asked.
 
“I wish.
 
I came by to pick up that inventory list I
asked Faye to prepare for me.”

“Didn’t
I tell you about using my staff to do your work?” Charles closed his car
door.
 
“Nester is your property
agent.
 
She can run inventories.”

“But every
time I ask her she says it’s not her job.”

Charles
looked at his son.
 
“And that settles
it?
 
She tells you, the boss, what is and
is not her job and you said what?”
 
Of
his four sons, Donald and Robert were the two he worried about the most.
 
Not just because they were his two youngest
boys, but because their level of immaturity astounded Charles.
 
They were both coming around, especially
Robert, but not nearly fast enough for Charles’s taste.
 
Charles was only seventeen when he became a
father for the first time with Brent, which he knew was too young even by
 
his standards, but by the time he was
Robert’s age he was a father of four and already owned several businesses.

“I
understand your point,” Robert said, “but I don’t think you understand my position,
Dad.
 
You hired me to be your property
manager, and I’m not even thirty yet.
 
Nester has been your property agent for years and years, and she’s
almost twice my age.
 
I feel like I’m
telling my mother what to do when I try to order her around.”

Charles
considered his son.
 
“When I was your
age,” he began saying.

Robert
rolled his eyes.
 
“Here we go,” he said.

“When
I was your age,” Charles said again, “I was telling people not just my mother’s
age, but my mother mother’s age what to do.
 
Did they like it?
 
No.
 
Did I give a fuck?
 
Hell no.
 
Because I couldn’t.
 
Because if I
wanted my businesses to succeed, they had to understand I meant business.
 
It starts at the top, Robert.
 
I put you in charge of my rental properties
because I believe in you and I believe you can do it, but I’ll take it from you
in a heartbeat if you can’t.”

Robert
nodded.
 
His face serious now.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Now
get to your office and get that woman to do her job.
 
Make it clear to her that her job is what you
say her job is.
 
If she doesn’t like it,
fire her ass and find somebody else who will.
 
Understand me?”

It
was not that easy for Robert.
 
He didn’t
find people as expendable as his father did.
 
But he also understood that a man didn’t build a business as vast as his
father’s without being merciless.
 
And
he, above all of his siblings, wanted to be just like his father.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said.
 

His
father gave him a hug and a kiss on the forehead, and they began going their
separate ways.
 
But then Robert turned
back.

“Oh,
Dad,” he said, and Charles glanced over as he approached his office door.
 
“You have visitors inside.”

“Yeah.
 
Who?”

“Your
old country club buddies.”

Charles
frowned. “What do they want?”

“To
get back in your good graces, what else?” Robert said with a smile.
 
“You took your country club away from
them.
 
They want it back.”

“When
hell freezes over,” Charles said.
 
Robert
laughed and kept on walking.
 
Until he
saw a beautiful blonde walk by.
 
He
turned around and watched her walk.
 
He
knew he had work to do, but she had that damn sexy walk. He hurried up beside
her.

Inside
the lobby of Charles’s small office building, three men, Aaron Gentry, Stoke
Ackerman, and Bill Baxter, all major businessmen in town, stood from the chairs
against the wall.
 
Charles entered,
looked over at Faye McKinley, his assistant, who was looking as if she was not
quite sure what she was supposed to do with the three powerful men.
  

“Hello,
Charles,” Aaron said grandly.
 
“It’s been
a while, hasn’t it?”

But Charles
couldn’t dismiss the past that easily.
 
He not only was the kind of man who took names and kicked ass, he also
vividly remembered the names he took and the asses he kicked.
 
“May I help you?” he asked.

“Oh,
don’t be like that, Charles, come on!”
 
Aaron
was smiling a smile so grand it looked pathological.
 
“We have some good news!”

They
waited for Charles to ask what the good news was, but Charles was not the
go-along-to-get-along type.
 
And they
knew it.

Aaron
glanced at Faye.
 
“Perhaps we can discuss
this privately?” he asked.

Charles
didn’t want to discuss anything with any of them at all, let alone in private,
but they were leaders in the community.
 
It was better he knew what was going on with them than not.
 
He escorted the men into his office.

They
sat down, in front of his desk, and Charles sat down behind it.
 
Over six years ago, Charles reclaimed
property he had loaned to the town’s country club when these same gentlemen
attempted to restrict Jenay’s access to that club.
 
Not for any other reason than the color of
her skin.
 
They spoke boldly then about
not needing his property anyway and how they were going to start their own new
club.
 
But it never materialized.
 
Without that Sinatra kind of money in the
pot, they could never get their acts together.
 
And although they might have forgotten about it and moved on, Charles
held onto a grudge for dear life.
 
It was
his nature.
 
He was never going to forget
the level of disrespect they showed toward his wife.
 
He therefore sat there with nothing but
contempt in his heart for all three men.

“So
how have things been going for you, Charles?” Aaron asked.
 
He was always the ringleader, but especially
now.
 
The others looked as if they would
rather eat their firstborn than to have to ask Charles Sinatra for a
favor.
 
And Charles was already certain
this visit was about that very thing: they needed his help.

When
Charles didn’t respond even to his small talk, Aaron got down to business.
  
“We, the members of the Founders Day
committee, have selected your wife, Jenay Sinatra, to be our Founders Day
Queen.”

They
all looked at Charles as if he should have shouted for joy by now.
 
Charles didn’t so much as blink.

Aaron
held his smile, but his eyes showed his irritation.
 
“She’ll get to ride high on the float during
the parade and everything,” he went on.
 
“It’s the honor of the century really, when you consider what that
parade means to this town.”

Still
nothing from Charles.

“So
what do you think about that?” Aaron finally asked.
 

“Have
you informed my wife of this . . .
selection
?”
Charles asked.

“Not
yet, no.
 
We thought you would like to do
the honor,” Aaron said.

“You
thought wrong,” Charles responded.
 
“You
want her to be your queen, you’re going to have to ask her.”

“Ask her?”
Stoke Ackerman finally spoke up.
 
He and
Charles got into it over Jenay and cake once upon a time.
 
“Most people don’t have to be asked to accept
such an honor.
 
It’s an unparalleled
privilege.
 
The idea that we would have
to ask her to accept it astounds me.”

“Be
astounded,” Charles said, “but you will be asking her.”

Aaron
considered his foe.
 
And he was no
fool.
 
Charles Sinatra was his foe.
 
“What would you tell us if you were your
wife?”

“I’d
tell you to go jump in a lake,” Charles responded.
 
“But that’s me.”

Stoke
and Bill looked at Aaron with that
I told
you so
look on their faces.
 
“We’ll
ask her,” Aaron said.

Charles
waited for the next part of this equation.
 
This Founders Day queen crap was the warmup act.
 
He was waiting for the main event: the real
reason for their visit.

“By
the by,” Aaron said as if it was a sudden thought that popped in his head, “I
heard you were thinking about reopening the country club.
 
If it’s true, we would love to be investors.
 
We think we can bring everything you will
need, except the bulk of the capital of course, to the table.”

Charles
couldn’t believe the nerve of these men.
 
Even if it were true and he was thinking about reopening the country
club, why would he want to have anything to do with men who didn’t think his
wife was good enough when they thought they owned the shit?
  
Were they that foolish?
 
Or did they think he was?

“Well,”
Aaron asked, “what do you say to going into business with us again?”

“I
say go jump in a lake.
 
Again.
 
And take those two with you.”
 
Charles stood up, prompting them to stand
too.
 
“Good day, gentlemen.”

They
had never been so roundly disrespected.
 
But Aaron smiled anyway, this need for a country club membership
apparently ran deep with him and he was still holding out hope, and then they
left.
 
When Charles sat back down, he
wanted to holler.
 
So he did.
 
Faye ran in almost immediately.

“It’s
okay,” he said, politely waving her off.
 
“Just blowing off steam.
 
Get back
to work.”

The one
thing Charles loved about Monday night dinner was that all of his children were
required to be there.
 
And they all
were.
 
Ashley Sinatra and her kid sister
Carly, who came to live with Charles and Jenay six years ago and were
eventually adopted by them, turned out to be beautiful, popular young
ladies.
 
Carly, the youngest, was a
sophomore at Harvard and by far the more responsible of the two, but Ashley was
a sweet girl too in Charlie’s eyes.
 
Brent, Anthony, Robert and Donald, his four grown sons, were also
present, along with gorgeous Bonita, his eight-year-old and the only child he
had with Jenay.
 
Nita was already
spoiled, Charles thought as he looked over at her, and there was no way around
it.
 
She was his only biological
daughter, she was the youngest child, and Jenay was her mother.
 
Spoiled to the core.
 
No way around it.

They
were all in the dining hall of the beautiful home, all talking about their day,
all enjoying sitting at their father’s table in their father’s house with their
father’s full family.
 
It took Tony,
however, to point out the obvious.