Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

Mouse Senior-Peter Martini-is boss of what’s left of the L.A. family, which also includes what’s left of the San Diego crew. Peter got the nickname “Mouse” after L.A. police chief Daryl Gates famously referred to the West Coast mob as “the Mickey Mouse Mafia,” and the name stuck. He became Mouse Senior after he had his son and named him Peter.

But the rules are the rules: You can’t lay hands on a boss’s kid.

And you can’t refuse him hospitality.

Frank doesn’t like it, though, as he leads them into his place. For one thing, he doesn’t like letting them get the lay of the land, in case they come back later to try something. Second, it’s not a good idea in case they ever flip and take the witness stand. It will be harder for him to deny that a meeting ever happened if they can accurately describe what the inside of his house looked like.

On the other hand, he knows his house isn’t wired.

He pats them both down the second they come in.

“No offense,” he says.

“Hey, these days…,” Mouse Junior says.

No kidding, these days, Frank thinks. This is probably what this little sit-down is about anyway-Mouse Senior sending Mouse Junior down to get reassurance that Frank is still on the reservation.

Because Mouse Senior hasn’t been named on the Goldstein hit, even though he was the one who ordered it done, and Frank knows it.

Like Mouse Senior is so careful, Frank thinks. For three years, three years, back in the late eighties, Bobby “the Beast” Zitello was wearing a wire, while Mouse Senior thought the sun shone out of his ass. Bobby’s “Greatest Hits” album went platinum and put half the family in the joint for fifteen years. Now Mouse Senior is out, and he doesn’t want to go back in.

But the Goldstein thing might put them all in the can for good. Poor Herbie got clipped back in ’97 and a couple of low-level mokes confessed to it. But there’s no statute of limitations on murder, and the Goldstein killing has come back like a ghost. The feds have been all over it lately, as part of Operation Button Down, their attempt to put the last nail in Mouse Senior’s coffin. What probably happened is the two mooks found out they didn’t like prison so much and decided to trade up. For all Frank knows, Mouse Senior might be under a sealed indictment and be looking to make some trades of his own.

So Frank pats Mouse Junior down pretty thoroughly.

He doesn’t find any wires or mikes.

Or guns.

That would be the other possibility-Mouse Senior wanting to make absolutelycertain that I don’t tell the feds who ordered up the Goldstein thing. But Mouse would have sent one of the few soldiers he has left. Even Mouse wouldn’t send his own kid on a mission to try to hit Frankie Machine.

You want your son to buryyou.

“You want coffee or beer?” Frank asks, taking off his raincoat. He keeps the pistol in his hand.

“Beer, if you got it,” Mouse Junior says.

“I have it,” Frank says. Good, he thinks, it saves me the trouble of brewing up a pot. He goes into the kitchen, grabs two Dos Equis, then changes his mind and takes two of the cheaper Coronas instead. He comes back out, hands them the beers, says, “Use coasters.”

The two kids sit on his sofa like bad students in the principal’s office. Frank sits down in his chair, with his pistol on his lap, and kicks off his wet shoes. That’s all I need, he thinks, a cold. They go through the preliminaries: “How’s your father? How’s your uncle? Give them my regards. What brings you boys to San Diego?”

“Dad suggested it,” Mouse Junior says. “He said I should come talk to you.”

“About what?”

“I got a problem,” Mouse Junior says.

You got more than one problem, Frank thinks. You’re stupid, you’re lazy, you’re uneducated, and you’re careless. What did the kid do, a year and a half of junior college before he dropped out to “help Dad with the business”?

“We-” Mouse Junior begins.

“Who’s ‘we’?” Frank asks.

“Me and Travis,” Mouse Junior explains. “We have a sweet little porno operation running. Golden Productions. We’re getting a piece of half the distribution that comes out of the Valley.”

Frank doubts it. You can read the papers and know the San Fernando Valley produces billions in porn every year, and these kids don’t look like billionaires. Maybe, maybe, they have the arm on a few operations, but that’s about it.

Still, it’s lucrative. How many times did Mike Pella try to get me to invest in the porn business? And how many times did I refuse? For one thing, it used to be all mobbed up, back when it was illegal. Two, as I told him, “I have adaughter, Mike.”

But since porn went mainstream, most of the money in it is strictly legit. You set up shop, or you invest, like you would with any other business. So what…

“Bootlegs,” Mouse Junior explains. “We invest in the studio so we can get a good master. We distribute a bunch of those on the legit market, but for every one we sell legally, we bootleg three.”

So they sell one of the company’s videos and three of their own, Frank thinks. Basically, they cheat their own partners.

“It’s even easier with DVDs,” Travis explains. “You can press them out like pancakes. The Asians can’t buy enough of blondes with big tits fucking and sucking.”

“Watch your mouth,” Frank says. “This is my home.”

Travis turns red. He forgot what J. had warned him, that Frankie Machine doesn’t like profanity. “Sorry.”

Frank talks to Mouse Junior. “So what’s your problem?”

“Detroit.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” Frank asks.

“Some guys from Detroit,” Mouse Junior says, “friends of ours, have done a little porn out here, and okay, maybe they introduced us to some people. Now they think they’re owed.”

“They are,” Frank says. He knows the rules.

Besides, Detroit-aka “the Combination”-has had a piece of San Diego forever, since back in the forties, when Paul Moretti and Sal Tomenelli came out and opened a bunch of bars, restaurants, and strip clubs downtown. Back in the sixties, Paul and Tony ran a lot of heroin through those joints, but after Tomenelli was murdered, they settled into loan-sharking, gambling, strip clubs, porn, and running whores.

Anyway, they carved out their piece.

Because of Moretti’s prestige, his son-in-law Joe Migliore got a pass in San Diego, never having to kick up or even answer to L.A. It was like Detroit had its own separate little colony in the Gaslamp District. They still do-Joe’s kid, Teddy, still has Callahan’s down in the Lamp, and runs his other businesses from the back room.

“If Detroit set you up with these connections,” Frank tells Mouse Junior, “youdo owe them.”

“Not sixty percent,” Mouse Junior whines. “We do all the work-make the videos, set up the warehouses, do the bootlegs, get to the Asian markets. Now this guy wants a majority share? I don’tthink so.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“Vince Vena,” Mouse Junior tells him.

“You’re sideways with Vince Vena?” Frank asks. “You do have a problem, kid.”

Vince Vena is a heavy guy.

Word is, he just made it on the ruling council of the Combination. No wonder Mouse Junior is scared. The L.A. family was never that strong-it used to bow to New York, then Chicago, and now there’s a power vacuum as the East Coast families are getting hammered by old age, attrition, and the RICO statutes. So now Detroit is positioning itself to move in on what’s left of the West Coast, and in one of the few profit centers left. And it makes sense to start with Mouse’s kid, because if you pull that off, you’re proving a point: Mouse Senior is so weakened by the Goldstein indictments, he doesn’t have the strength to protect his own son.