Page 3 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover

Teddy Sinatra drained down half of the beer in his mug and plopped it back down on the table.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and watched as Big Steve sat there eating dinner with his wife and kids.

Robbing Teddy blind and was sitting up there eating dinner like he hadn’t done shit.

Like Teddy wasn’t going to do shit to him.

Teddy was sitting at a table in the back left side of the crowded restaurant and Big Steve was clueless.

But Teddy couldn’t take his eyes off that Ivy League hotshot who worked in his accounting department.

He wasn’t Teddy’s lead accountant. He wasn’t even in the top three.

But it was his ass cooking the books. It was his ass with the paper trail.

Teddy had the receipts. It took all he had not to get up right then and there and kick Big Steve’s ass right in front of his own kids.

But Teddy had a kid of his own. A kid he knew no major mobster like him should have ever brought into this world. They were the true innocents. He had to deal with their father. Nobody stole from a Sinatra with no retribution. But never in front of the kids.

“Teddy T, how you be? I thought that was you!”

Hoke Bianca, the syndicate’s security chief and his wingman for the job they had in front of them, hopped up from the table just in front of Teddy’s table and placed his big hand on the stomach of a scantily clad woman, stopping her advancement.

“Not so fast lady,” Hoke said as Teddy looked beyond the woman to see if Big Steve heard her call out his name. But by the way he didn’t skip a beat stuffing his big face he hadn’t heard a thing. The restaurant was crowded and noisy and that helped. But Teddy kept his eyes on him just the same.

The woman tried to break free of Hoke’s grasp. “Let me go. I said let me go! Teddy knows me. Tell him, Teddy. Tell this miscreant that you know me!”

Teddy looked at her. Her name was Anita, although he never bothered to learn her last name.

He’d known her for years. He remembered when she was young and vibrant and stunningly gorgeous.

Every man wanted her, and had her too, including Teddy.

But now? Even back then she was too thin.

Now she looked skeletal. Why would he want to be bothered with that for?

But Teddy wasn’t the kind of man to turn his back on his old friends. Especially when they were down and out. And Anita had been down for a long time. He gave a let her through wave and Hoke allowed her to walk on up to his table and take a seat.

Teddy then looked at his capo again and gave the nod he had been waiting for. Hoke slowly made his way to Big Steve’s table.

Anita was smiling when she took a seat. Used to be a perfect smile with teeth almost as pearly white as Nikki’s.

Now half were missing and the other half were rotted out.

Her crystal blue eyes were bloodshot. “I knew that was you,” she said happily.

“I saw you from outside. I said, ‘That’s Teddy T up in there. That’s my old friend right there.

That’s the only man ever treated me right.

’ And I came in to say hello. How you been doing, Teddy? ”

Teddy was staring at her. She had gone down even further than he’d heard she had.

“Quit staring at me,” she said as sadness came in her eyes, as if she knew she was a horrid sight to behold. “How you doing, Teddy?” she asked him again.

Teddy realized he was being rude. “Living,” he said. “You?”

“Barely living,” she said and laughed.

That was Anita. Always good for a laugh. But everybody knew Teddy didn’t fuck around with people, friend or no friend. He didn’t lie to them either. “I see you’re still on the junk,” he said with disappointment in his voice.

Anita’s smile grew faint. “I been getting clean, Teddy.”

“ Getting clean? What that mean? You’re either clean or you’re aren’t.”

“I’m getting there. Honest, Teddy. I been trying to stay off, but it ain’t easy like that. And you dumped me.”

“I told your ass to stay away from that shit in the first place. But you wouldn’t listen. I told you I don’t fuck around with meth heads. But you wouldn’t listen.”

She started rubbing her matted blonde hair. “I’m gonna get clean real soon though. Be just like my old self again. I’m gonna check myself into one of them places. One of them rehabs. But they ain’t got no beds right now.”

“Sure about that?” Teddy looked past her as Big Steve nervously stood from his table and followed Hoke down a back hall. Steve was constantly looking back at his family as if he wasn’t at all sure he would ever see them again. “I hear your ass been selling your ass to stay high,” said Teddy.

Anita didn’t expect him to be that blunt. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Get the fuck out of my face then,” Teddy said.

“Okay, I been doing that, yes I have. How else I’m gonna get coins?

You dumped me. I ain’t got no benefactor.

My body all I got.” She looked Teddy up and down.

“Men love my body. Remember when you used to, Teddy? We can go in your car. Around the corner in the alley. In the bathroom if you want. You used to love my body.”

Teddy couldn’t imagine what he used to love about it even when she had more meat on those bones.

She was still boney even then. After he slept with Nikki for the first time, he wondered how on earth did he think those rail-thin women he favored had hotter bodies?

Once he slept with Nikki, he never looked back.

Not that he wasn’t attracted to other women.

He was. Before Nikki he had to have variety.

He still had that need. But now, every woman that caught his eye had Nikki’s body type more so than the body types of any of the women he used to sleep with.

They even favored Nikki more so than any of the others.

Anita was so far removed from what he now preferred that the idea that he used to love her type amazed him.

But he had work to do. He stood up from the table and tossed her his business card. “You ever want to get clean for real, call me. I’ll get you set up.”

“Thanks, Teddy, thanks. But. . .”

Teddy knew what that but was about. She was scratching her arm. She couldn’t wait to get her next fix. Which was a shame.

He pulled out a thick wad of cash, slid off five hundred, and then tossed it on the table in front of her.

“Oh thanks so much, Teddy,” she said as she stood up and hugged his neck. She smelled like onions and liquor to Teddy.

“Don’t lose that card,” Teddy said.

“Oh I won’t.” She put it down her cleavage. “Oh I won’t!”

Teddy tossed a couple twenties on the table to cover his drink, and then he walked away.

As soon as he did, Anita was about to head for the exit. But the waiter hurried over and stopped her. “Give it to me now,” he said to her in a low tone.

“Give you what?”

“Give me my tip,” he said as he tried to snatch the five hundred dollars from her hand.

“But that’s your tip,” she said, pointing to the forty on the table. “Teddy gave that money to me.”

“Liar,” the bullying waiter said and tussled with her for that money. The restaurant was so loud and crowded that nobody noticed the small infraction.

But Teddy noticed. He hadn’t walked past Big Steve’s table where his wife and kids were still eating dinner when he looked back and saw the waiter tussling with Anita. Then he saw the waiter snatch that money out of her hand. He frowned and hurried back to the table.

He got up so close to that waiter that their bodies were touching. Then he grabbed the waiter’s balls and began pinching into them and twisting them violently. “Scream and I’ll twist harder,” Teddy whispered in his ears.

The waiter’s eyeballs wanted to pop out of their sockets he was in so much pain, but he didn’t scream out.

“I gave that money to the lady,” Teddy said to him. “Not to your ass. To her. You got one second to give it back or I’ll twist these limp motherfuckers all the way off.”

“Yes sir,” the waiter said with terror in his voice as he quickly handed Anita her money. Sweat was already forming on his forehead.

But Teddy continued to hold on. “Try that shit again with anybody else and I’ll finish the job next time. Understand?”

“Yes sir. I understand, sir. I understand.”

Teddy gave it one more twist, let go and backed off. The waiter nearly doubled over in pain.

“Get out of here,” Teddy said to a relieved Anita and Anita hurried out of the restaurant.

Teddy grabbed his forty from off the table. When the waiter stood erect and saw that his tip was gone, Teddy was quick to respond. “I don’t like thieves. They always get what they deserve in the end.” And then he pocketed the forty, left the table, and headed toward that back hall.