Page 47 of Teddy Sinatra: Go Your Own Way
But then Teddy stepped in when Vivian, now in a fetal position on the floor, started coughing up blood. “Don’t kill him,” he said and pulled his son up and away from him. “We may need him later.”
Then Teddy looked at Mick. “What you think, Pop?”
“Stonegate,” Mick said. Stonegate was one of Mick’s most isolated safe houses.
“But Rarsi’s over there. You want him in the same house as Potts?”
Mick looked at Teddy with his infamousI said what I saidlook.
It was an odd decision to Teddy, but he didn’t argue with it. His judgement all week so far was shot. He had to rely on his old man’s. Teddy nodded to the two capos in the room and they stood up Vivian and dragged him out of the guest house.
But Mick looked at Teddy and Nikki. “Which one of you made Renardo supervisor?”
“I did.” Teddy knew the fallout. He spoke up before Nikki could.
But Nikki wasn’t about to let him take the fall for her. “I did,” she said.
“You again,” said Reno. “If it’s not you screwing up, it’s Teddy. What’s the matter with the two of you all of a sudden? Better get your acts together. That’s what you better do.”
“For real,” Sal agreed.
“You work people to exhaustion,” said Tommy, “and that’s what happens. They screw up.”
Dapper Tom was right, and everybody in that room knew it, but Teddy and Nikki were accustomed to the Gabrinis being tough on them even when they didn’t screw up. The Gabrinis were just old-school that way. But they did screw up. They took the criticisms because they had it coming to them.
“Why didn’t you send Renardo’s name over to Tech-quarters to run a background, Nikki?” Mick asked her. “They cross-check for connections, that’s the point of a background. Because Vivian is affiliated with Marco, Marco’s name would have come up. And we would have had Vivian’s ass dead to rights before he pulled this shit.”
“When I promoted him, he was already working at the docks,” Nikki said. “He already had background completed.”
Mick frowned. “You always run a new one before promotions. You know that, Nikki!”
“I didn’t know it,” Nikki said defensively, “or I would have done it.”
“You did know it.”
“I didn’t.”
Mick was incense. “If your ass didn’t know to run a new background on a promoted dock hand, then what are you doing as my underboss?”
“I’m not your underboss, I’m Teddy’s,” Nikki fired back.
But that only added fuel to Mick’s fire. “What the fuck that’s supposed to mean? What syndicate Teddy owns? Which one? Where is it? Answer that, motherfucker!”
“Okay, Pop, that’s enough!” Teddy stepped in before it got violent. “What’s done, is done. It’s done now.”
Mick was floored by that too. “What the fuck you mean it’s done now? My children could have been killed!”
“I know that. You think Nikki doesn’t know that too? But you will not put all that at Nikki’s feet. This shit ain’t Nikki’s fault.”
“Then whose fault is it?” Sal asked.
“It’s mine!” Teddy yelled so loud that it felt like pure pain. Nikki placed her arm around his waist.
“But Nikki should have done a deep background before she promoted the guy,” said Marco. “That’s just the truth.”
Teddy looked at him angrily. “What do you mean she should have done a deep background when your ass didn’t do it before you brought Vivian around our family!”
“How was I to know he would do something like that? I’ve known him for years.”
