“Cold as a motherfuck out here,” the young driver said as he walked over to Deuce McCurry, an older African-American driver.

Deuce smiled.  The young guy had a heavy Brooklyn accent, and seemed as if he’d rather be anywhere than where he found himself.  But Deuce took another drag on his cigarette, and then tossed it to the ground, before he responded to him.  “Suppose to rain,” he finally said as he smashed the cig underfoot, “but I haven’t seen a cloud in sight.  I’ve been coming to this city for more years than I can count, and those weather boys never get it right.”

“You aren’t from around here then?” The young driver blew warmth into his hands.

“I’m from Philly,” Deuce said proudly.  “Fuck New York.”

The young driver laughed.  “So who do you belong to?  One of those big shots, too?”

“I work for Mick Sinatra,” Deuce continued.  “They don’t get any bigger than him.  Right now, I’m driving for his wife.  She’s the star of the show.  Or at least one of the stars.  They’re in rehearsal right now.”

“Yeah, I know,” the younger driver said with a nod.  “I drive for the executive producer, a regular bozo.  Not very nice that guy, I’ll tell you that much.  I’m outta here as soon as I get another gig.  But he hasn’t come to any previous rehearsals, so this shit new to me.  How long it usually takes?”

“How long?  Hours.”

The young driver’s blue eyes stretched.  He couldn’t believe it.  “Hours?  You shittin’ me?”

“I shit you not,” Deuce responded.  Then he smiled.  “You might as well relax, boy.  You’re in for a long, long wait.”

The younger driver exhaled.  “Great,” he said.  “All I need.  Damn!  Damn!  Damn!  You got another cig?”

Deuce laughed and pulled out his pack.  They were outside the Grove theater on Broadway, where Town cars and limousines, all for the various big wigs in the rehearsal, lined the cordoned off area against the curb.

“So, who is this actress you drive for?” the younger driver asked as he took a cigarette out of Deuce’s offered pack.  “Anybody I should know?  What’s her name?”

“Her name is Rosalind Sinatra,” Deuce said proudly as he flicked open his lighter to light the young man’s cigarette, and then lit up another cigarette for himself.  “Her name used to be Rosalind Graham before she married my boss.”

The young driver lit up and took a long drag. “Rosalind Sinatra, hun?”  He thought about that name.  “I never heard of her.  Rosalind Graham either.  But so what, right?  I never heard of most of these Broadway hot shots.”  Then the young driver grinned.  “I’m not exactly the let’s-go-to-the-theater type, know what I’m saying?”

Deuce smiled.  “I hear you.”

Then the young driver nodded toward the exit.  “Speaking of theater types,” he said.  “That ain’t a bad looking one over there.”

Deuce looked too.  Rosalind “Roz” Graham-Sinatra, Mick Sinatra’s African-American wife, had exited from a side entrance and was coming their way.  She was an elegant woman with long, extension-enhanced hair that rolled down her back in curls and bounciness, and was high-stepping in her heels, her flare-legged pants, and her half-length winter coat.  A Prada handbag and her cellphone were in her right hand.

At first, Deuce was relieved that she was coming out so quickly.  Maybe they finished up her scenes much earlier than expected?  But when he saw that she wore dark shades, he knew something was wrong.  Rosalind Sinatra was a fashionista.  Nobody would deny her that.  But she was no diva.  Shades at night, Deuce thought as he dropped his cig and squashed it beneath his dress shoe, was diva shit.

He quickly opened the door of the limousine he stood beside.  The younger driver looked at him. “What you doing?” he asked.  “She yours?”

Deuce nodded.  “Yup.”

“Damn, man.  For real?”  Then the younger driver smiled.  “I know you be hittin’ that!”

Deuce smiled outwardly, but inwardly he knew better.  If he even thought about hitting that, Mick Sinatra would squash him the way Deuce just squashed his cigarette.  But that wasn’t that boy’s business.

Roz walked up to the car and got in without saying anything to anybody: another sign that something was wrong, and Deuce closed the door behind her.  The younger driver gave Deuce an uh-oh look, as if even he could tell his passenger was in a bad mood, but Deuce didn’t give that driver a second glance.  He was on the clock again, which meant he had work to do, and Deuce took his job seriously.  He hurried around, got behind the wheel, and drove away.

He glanced at Roz through the rearview mirror only after they had cleared the thickest traffic, and only after he felt it necessary to make sure.  “You’re okay, ma’am?” he asked her.

Roz still didn’t say anything, which wasn’t like her at all, and he was about to ask again.  He had been Mick’s driver long before Roz hit the scene, and he felt he could take liberties that way.  But when he glanced through the rearview again, ready to ask again, he saw her dab a tissue at what he assumed was a tear rolling down her face.  He was stunned.  It took a lot to bring tears to Rosalind Sinatra’s eyes.  And that was why he stopped with the questions, or even the peeps through the rearview, and drove her back to the hotel, a hotel her husband owned, in silence.

When Roz got out of the limo, and made her way inside Mick’s famed New York hotel, she was inundated with the usual Hello Mrs. Sinatra, Welcome back, Mrs. Sinatra, Is there anything we can do for you, Mrs. Sinatra greetings by the various hotel employees who aimed to get a good report back to Mick.  Roz was courteous to them, speaking and telling them that she was fine, but she was also careful to avoid any eye contact or conversations.  She couldn’t bear to be seen in this state.

That was why, when she finally entered the suite, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it.  She was relieved to finally be out of the public eye.  But as the reality set in, and the pain and bitter disappointment returned, the tears she had been battling all the way back returned too.  And that sinking feeling reemerged.  Only this time it returned with a vengeance.

Roz ran to the bathroom, lifted up the gold-encrusted toilet seat, and fell to her knees vomiting.

 

Mick Sinatra was behaving out of character that night also.  At least to those who didn’t know him very well.  But there he was, lying on his back on a bed in the nursery, stretched out asleep with twin toddlers in his arms.  Michello “Duke” Sinatra, Junior, his son, was fast asleep on top of his left side, while Jacqueline “Jackie” Sinatra, his daughter, was fast asleep on top of his right side.  Mick was still fully dressed in his business suit and shoes, because he had just come home from the docks and was unaccustomed to being in bed this early, but whenever his wife was out of town he tried his best to pull up the slack and be there for their twins.

But none of the men in his syndicate, nor any of his employees at S.I., would ever believe this scene.  Not in a million years.  Even the two nannies in the nursery, who’d been working for the Sinatras for a decent length of time, could barely believe it themselves.  Not because they’d never seen their boss behave so fatherly toward his children before: they saw it often.  But because of his stern, no-nonsense, they would even say harsh and uncompromising personality, it still struck them as beautifully odd whenever they did see it.

But when his cell phone began ringing, one of the two nannies, the youngest one, forgot the oddity of having their boss in the nursery with them, and looked at her elder, wondering if they should answer it.  But the head nanny and a longtime Sinatra employee didn’t give such a notion a second thought.  Mr. Sinatra would fire them on the spot, she believed, if they ever thought about touching any cell phone of his.

It never became a serious issue, however, because Mick eventually opened his eyes.  And although he was still sleep-woozy because his body was tired from a long day of work, he had the wherewithal to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone.

When he looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Deuce McCurry, he answered quickly.  Or, at least, as quickly as his sleepiness would allow.  “Hey,” he said into the phone.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir,” Deuce responded over the phone.

“It’s alright.  What’s up?”  He wanted to ask outright if his wife was okay, but he didn’t want to wake the twins, and he didn’t want to give those two nannies any gossip fodder.

But when Deuce said, “it’s about your wife, sir,” Mick’s caution broke, and he didn’t hesitate to ask outright.  “What about my wife?” he asked.  “Is she okay?”  Even the two nannies, who loved Mrs. Sinatra, glanced at him.

“She’s not in danger or anything like that, sir,” Deuce said quickly.  “It’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?”

Deuce hesitated.  “Well, sir, I just dropped her off at her suite,” he said.  “She was in rehearsal, which usually lasts hours, especially leading up to opening night.  But for some reason, she came out tonight after only half an hour.”

That didn’t sound like anything to talk about, it seemed to Mick.  But Mick also knew Deuce McCurry, and he knew Deuce wasn’t some employee trying to score points.  There was more to talk about.  “Go on,” he said.

“When she came out, she was in a pretty bad mood, sir, and she wore shades.”

“At night?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mick’s heart began to pound.  “Okay,” he said.  “Go on.”

“While I was driving her to the hotel, I noticed that she was, or that she had been, crying, sir,” Deuce said.

When he said that word; when he said that Rosalind had been crying, Mick’s heart sank.  Rosalind crying?  His wife crying?  It took a lot to bring her tears, and Mick knew it.  What had those fuckers done to her this time?

“She may have already phoned you, sir,” Deuce continued, “but I wasn’t sure.”

Mick knew Deuce knew Rosalind well enough to know that she wasn’t the type to come crying to him.  But he would never admit that to any one of his employees.  “You did the right thing,” was all he’d say about it, told Deuce to have a good night, and ended the call.

As soon as he ended the call, he realized he could feel his children’s heartbeats against his chest.  And suddenly his own heart felt empty, because he couldn’t feel Rosalind’s heartbeat.  If Deuce was right, she was in considerable pain.  And he had to get to her.

He eased the children onto the bed, and got up.  And although the nannies were there, he phoned Gloria, his oldest daughter, and told her to come and stay with his children.  Just in case.