Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man(79)

Reeva, who was standing guard over her items until she arrived, walked over to her as Abby stepped out of her BMW. She was stunned witless.

“What is this about?” she asked her assistant.

“Mr. Sinatra,” the attorney answered her, as he approached her, “has ordered you to vacate his property.”

“What are you talking about?” Abby responded. “I live here! He can’t just kick me out! He has to give me at least thirty days to get out.”

“Actually he doesn’t,” the attorney said. “You were not under any lease agreement. You were not paying him any rent. You were, essentially, a guest in his house. He now wants you out of his house. You are a guest no longer.”

Abby was stunned. She expected him to be angry. She expected him to be upset with her for days to come. But she never expected this!

“Is that all he said to you? To kick me out like this? To knock me out when I’m already down?”

“Yes. Oh, and he also told me to tell you . . .”

Abby looked at him. “To tell me what?”

“That payback is a bitch,” the attorney said.

Abby seethed with anger. “That asshole!” she yelled.

The attorney stared at her. “May I ask you a question, Miss Ridge?”

“What now?” Abby wanted to know. “Another cute little way to tell me off? Another way to put me down? What?” She was now displaying that hatefulness Reeva and everybody else who knew her personally was accustomed to.

“What?” Abby asked again. “Ask your question!”

“You apparently got on his wrong side.”

Abby sneered. “No shit?” she responded.

“Which isn’t unusual,” the attorney went on. “We are always getting on somebody’s wrong side every day of the week. But what I don’t understand is . . . Who did you think you were dealing with, ma’am?”

Reeva looked at Abby too. She had been thinking the exact same thing.



One month later, and the noise was still loud.

But they refused to let it out-sound them.

They were out on Charles’s boat, just he and Jenay, and the waters were a calming contrast to the craziness in Jericho. Charles had expected vicious phone calls from Abby, and he received them repeatedly after her ouster. Her voice mail messages were legendary in their vile. But he never returned not one of her calls.

Donald was calling him constantly too, to beg him to bribe the prosecutors or the judge or whomever he had to bribe to get him out of the fix he was in. But he didn’t answer his calls either.

The townspeople declared him an evil and hateful man for what he did to Abby, and what father would treat his son the way he treated poor Donnie, they surmised. But he didn’t give a damn.

Jenay heard the talk too. She heard the harsh words and the gossip that had no foundation in facts, and no one seemed interested in hearing the full story. Just Abby’s version, and Donald’s. She was surprised, shocked even, when Charles didn’t react.

But he didn’t. He held his head high and continued to do his work and get it done. He didn’t respond to their harshness, and didn’t correct their lies. He was Big Daddy Sinatra to them. He was the most ruthless, heartless man in Jericho to them. And he didn’t seem to care.

But his lack of concern began to concern Jenay. She accepted it, but she didn’t understand it. Until she looked over at him, as he sailed his boat, and she realized he was happy. Truly happy.

He was behind the wheel, and she was seated in the passenger seat, as he glided along the soft waves in a playful, relaxing fierceness. “Wanna take the wheel?” he asked her.

“Jesus will take that wheel,” Jenay responded, “before I do.”

Charles laughed vigorously.

But his joy wasn’t contagious. Jenay still wasn’t there yet. His beautiful black hair was blowing in the wind, and although his shades hid his gorgeous eyes, the tanning of his skin as the sun beat down against them highlighted the lines of age on the side of those eyes. He was not a kid anymore, but he was acting as if he had recaptured his youth. And she couldn’t figure out why. Especially after what Abby, and Donald, had put him through.

He continued to laugh, and enjoy himself, and then he glanced at Jenay. She was smiling, but not nearly as grand as he knew she could. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Except that it is. What is it?”

Jenay hesitated.

He considered her. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked.

Jenay lifted her own sunglasses onto her hair. “No,” she admitted. “You’re the most hated man in Jericho right now. Even more hated than you used to be.”