The elevator door binged and then opened, and Gloria, still sipping her latte, made her way back to her desk outside her father’s office.  She was late, which she hated, and she knew Blair Conyers, her boss, would be unforgiving.  So she hurried.  But when she made it to the end of the hall and opened the door that led to the suite of offices known as the Office of the President, and saw Gio Savarino standing in front of Blair’s desk, she slowed her walk.   What was one of her father’s henchmen doing at S.I. again today?

“You’re late,” Blair said as Gloria made her way toward Gio.  He was always a respectful guy whenever he was around her, but he had too much of that cloak of danger, like her father, to ever make her think of him as anything but her father’s flunky.  She liked tough guys with brains, not brainless brawn.

And she ignored Blair this time. “What are you doing here?” she asked Gio.

“I’ve been assigned to you,” Gio said.

“Assigned to me?” Gloria asked.

“I just got the call from your father and came on over.  He wants me to blanket you.”

Blair glanced at Gio from over the computer screen she was reviewing.  Gloria could tell Blair had no clue what blanketing her meant.  But Gloria knew what it meant.  It meant her father wanted Gio to guard her and guard her closely because he feared something might be in the works.

But Gloria also knew Gio had this thing for her.  She didn’t share his attraction, but Teddy assured her it was real.  She therefore went to her desk, one of several behind Blair’s desk, sat down her latte, and pulled out her cell phone.  When her father answered, he got right to the point.

“He’s there under my orders,” Mick said over the phone.

Gloria knew she had to lower her voice.  Not just because Gio was present, but because Blair had on her listening ears, too.  “Why Gio?” she asked.

“He likes you,” Mick said.  “He’ll look out for you the way I need him to.”

“But guys in your organization who like me are usually the very guys you don’t want anywhere near me.”

“That’s still the case,” Mick said firmly.  “But it works to our favor in this case.”

Gloria looked at Gio, surprised that he of all people would have her father’s stamp of approval.

“Do whatever he says,” Mick added.  “You can trust him.”

Gloria continued to stare at Gio.  And then nodded.  Gio smiled and then took a seat in one of the chairs against the wall.  She’d had security before, but not quite this close.  “Should I be worried?” she asked her father.

“Always,” Mick said, and ended the call.

When Mick ended the call, he tossed his cell phone in the cubbyhole beside his gearshift, shifted his gear, and picked up even more speed.  He was driving to the southside of Philly, to a warehouse he owned, in his four-seater Ferrari.  Teddy was on the front passenger seat, and Joey sat in the back.

“So basically,” Joey said from the backseat, “we’re going to be your ghostbusters.  We’re going to be chasing a dead man.”

Mick glanced at him through his rearview mirror.  Joey’s improvement was impressive.  “That’s right,” he said. 

“You ordered a crew to blanket Roz too?” Teddy asked.

Mick glanced at Teddy.  His affection for Rosalind was pleasing to him, but a bit concerning too.  Teddy was closer in age to Roz than Mick was.  “They’re already there,” he responded.  “And I tightened security at the house with the twins.”

“Covering all bases,” Joey said.

“Damn right,” Teddy agreed. 

“Although I don’t understand why you’re being so cautious, Pop,” Teddy said.  “Not that you aren’t normally cautious.  You are.  But usually you have more to go on than this.”

“Somebody tells me a dead man wants me dead,” Mick said, “I get cautious.  Overly so.  Until I get to the bottom of it.”

“A dead man wants you dead,” Joey said with a grin.  “That sounds almost poetic, Pop.”  Mick smiled too.  “And the dead guy is the guy Teddy was named after?” Joey added.

Mick’s smile suddenly left, and his jaw tightened.  Teddy Stefani was as good a friend to Mick as he’d ever had.  But one of Mick’s men, a traitor, shot and killed Stefani.  It still hurt Mick to this day.  “That’s right,” he said.

There was a lull in their conversation after that, as Mick made his way to the warehouse where a meeting of all of his lieutenants were to take place.  But Joey still had something on his mind.

“Ma told you we called her?” he asked his father.

Teddy rolled his eyes.  Why Joey decided to bring up that sore subject was a mystery to him!  But Mick didn’t even glance through the rearview at his young son.  “Yes,” he said.

Joey stared at his father.  “And you don’t like it?” he asked him.

Mick shifted gears again in Joey’s favorite of his father’s sportscars.  “If there’s ever a choice between looking out for me and looking out for Rosalind,” he said to both of his sons, “you look out for Rosalind.”  Mick glanced at both of them.  “Without exception,” he added.

Both sons looked at their father.  They were often astounded and unsettled by his undying love for Roz.  Especially when he never showed them anything near that kind of devotion.  But he was improving, they both knew that too.

Silence ensued again as Mick picked up more speed and got them to the warehouse with time to spare.  The men were already there, some thirty strong, and all of them stood outside of the locked warehouse waiting to go in.   Joey, Mick’s dock supervisor, would be the man to let them in, but he and Teddy never made a move without first making sure it was the move their father wanted them to make.

And when they all got out of the car, and Mick began looking around as if his hackles were up again, they knew they were right to wait.  Then Mick looked at Teddy.  “Oversee the gun check,” he said.  The gun check was the process whereby, at every leadership meeting, guns and any other weapons had to be checked at the door.  No entry allowed with firepower.

“Yes, sir,” Teddy said.

“Open up, Pop?” Joey asked.

Mick looked around again.  Then nodded at Joey.  “Open up,” he said.

But while his sons went to do as they were ordered, Mick got back into his car.  And after the warehouse door was unlocked by Joey, and after all of the men entered the foyer of the warehouse where Teddy did as he was told and oversaw the gun check, Mick drove his car around the side of the isolated warehouse and through an alleyway.  He then parked his car in that alley, pulled out not one, but two guns from his glove compartment, and screwed silencers on both.  When he got out of the car, he got out with both guns, pointed down, on either side of him.

He eased to the end of the alley, and then leaned his head out to see what he could see.  On the left side, he saw nothing but tall weeds and trash.  On the right side, he saw what he had been looking for.  Evidence of a planned ambush.  And that plan was in the form of a car, parked in the midst of the thick weeds, on the backside of the warehouse.  Mick counted the heads.  There were three men in the car.  Two upfront.  One in the back.

Mick waited, counted to three, and then walked over and stood in the back of the vehicle.  When the driver glanced through his rearview in his routine check-around, and saw Mick Sinatra standing there, his panic was obvious even from where Mick stood.  The popcorn he had been eating on suddenly flew in the air as he attempted to retrieve his own weapon, and the two other gunmen attempted to retrieve theirs too.

But it was too late.  Mick, using both of his guns, shot the driver and the front seat passenger simultaneously, and then ran over to the back-side window of the vehicle.  It was rolled down and the man on the backseat held his hands in the air.  He knew he didn’t stand a chance.

“Don’t shoot,” he said desperately.  “Don’t shoot!”

Mick pointed his gun at the guy’s head.  “Who do you work for?” he asked.

The guy didn’t skip a beat.  “Teddy Stefani,” he said.

“Fucking liar,” Mick said.  And then he pulled back the trigger, ready to fire.  “Who do you work for?” he asked again.

“Teddy Stefani, I swear!”  The man was shaking with fear.

“Teddy Stefani is dead.  I know: one of my men killed him.  Now tell me the truth!  Who do you work for, motherfucker?”

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” the gunman said.  “I was told I worked for Teddy Stefani.”

“Told by who?” Mick asked.

“The driver,” the guy said.  “He hired me for this job.  He said we work for Teddy Stefani and when the job is over we get x amount of dollars.  He never told me what my cut would be.”

“You ever met Stefani?”

The guy shook his head.  “No, sir.”

“What was the job supposed to be?” Mick asked.

The guy hesitated this time.

Mick pressed the gun harder against his skull.

“To kill you,” the guy said.  “We were paid to take you out.”

Mick was astounded.  He looked at the threesome again.  A pack of nobodies.  Who would send amateurs like them to take out Mick the Tick?  It was insulting in the extreme.  So insulting that it actually threw Mick.  Which, he suddenly realized, was exactly what the gunman in that back-passenger seat was hoping for.  Because, as soon as Mick looked away wondering who would have the balls to take him on so brazenly, the gunman reached for his gun to take him on right then and there.

But even a distracted Mick was superior to that gunman.  He saw the movement in his peripheral vision, and pulled the trigger before he could even turn his head.  The gunman was dead just before he was about to fire his own weapon.  It was that close.

Mick, stunned that he had let his guard down even for those few seconds, just stood there.  What the fuck was going on?  First, he was told a dead man wanted him dead.  Now he just found out that same dead man sent rank amateurs to take him out.  It was a slap in the face on top of a slap in the face.  Mick knew there were rumors that he might not be as potent as he used to be.  Was this hit supposed to prove that rumor?

But he had a meeting to attend.  And more to handle.  He headed back toward the alley and his car, watching his back with every sense he had within his being, as he did.