Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s going to take a shot at him while he’s this close to the boss’s son. I could, Frank thinks. I could make the shot and never splash a drop of blood on the kid, but that’s me, that’s not them.

And they know it.

They also know that I could have killed the kid already, if that’s what I was about. And I would have been within my rights to do it, for setting me up. The fact that I brought him here, where it would be tantamount to suicide to pull the trigger, let’s them know I want to make peace.

He says, “Pete, you know your son could be dead already.”

“Take it easy, Frank.”

Frank hasn’t seen Mouse Senior in years. The boss still has that broad, flat, frying-pan face, but the lines in it are a lot deeper and his hair has gone completely white.

“I’m taking it easy,” Frank says. “You do the same and you just listen. We’ve apparently had some sort of bad misunderstanding, Pete, to lead you to think you had to have me clipped. If you think I’m going to flip on you for Herbie Goldstein, you’re wrong. I haven’t been arrested, indicted, or even questioned about it. And even if I had, I’m not a rat.”

“I never thought you were,” Mouse Senior says. “What thefuck are you talking about?”

“The little sit-down with Vince Vena on the boat?” Frank sees some movement from the corner of his eye. “Tell Joey to stop working his way around the other side of the car.”

“Joey, stand still,” Mouse Senior orders. “Frank, what the fuckare you talking about?”

“He doesn’t know?” Frank asks Junior.

Mouse Junior shakes his head.

“You’d better tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Mouse Senior glares at his son. “Tell mewhat, Junior? What did you fuck up now?”

“Dad…”

“Goddamn it, tell me!”

“Me and Travis were shooting some porn down in San Diego,” Mouse Junior says. “Internet porn, Webcam shit…streaming video…”

“You fucking little asshole,” Mouse Senior says. “You know that’s-”

“I was trying to make some money, Dad!” Mouse Junior says. “I was trying to earn!”

“Keep talking.”

“I was making so much fucking money, Dad,” Mouse Junior says. “Then the Detroit guys found out. They jammed me up, said they were going to take it to you unless-”

“What did youdo, Junior?”

“They just wanted me to set up a meeting,” Mouse Junior cries. “Get Frank to come, sit down with Vena. That’s all. I didn’t know they were going to kill him; I swear, I didn’t know. They just said tell him this story, get him to the meeting, I could keep my business down there.”

“Frank, I’m sorry,” Mouse Senior says. “I didn’t know.”

“Baloney,” Frank says. “Detroit would never come on your turf and clip one of your guys without you signing off on it. You’re the boss.”

“The boss?” Mouse Senior asks, his mouth twisting into a rueful sneer. “Boss ofwhat? I’m the boss ofshit. ”

It’s the stone-cold truth.

Most of Mouse’s guys are in the joint, what he’s got left are garbage, and he’s looking down the barrel of another indictment. Heis the boss of shit-Frank just didn’t realize that he knew it.

“So where are we now, Frankie?” Mouse Senior asks. He turns to his son. “You know the man is within his rights to kill you.”

“Dad-”

“Shut up, idiot,” Mouse Senior says. He turns to Frank. “You have a daughter, Frank. You know how it feels. You want me to give him a good beating, I will. But let him go, please. Father to father, I’m begging you. I’m humbling myself.”

“Who?” Frank asks Mouse Junior. “One chance to tell me the truth-who came to you?”

“John Heaney,” Mouse Junior says.

John Heaney, Frank thinks. No wonder he looked so edgy when I saw him-could it have been just last night?-outside Freddie’s. John, my old surfing buddy, my friend, the guy I helped get half a dozen jobs…

That’s this world we live in.

“Get out of the car,” Frank says.

Mouse Junior practically falls tumbling out of the Hummer. Frank climbs into the driver’s seat, slams the door shut, puts the vehicle into reverse, and roars out of the parking lot onto the street. From the rearview mirror, he can already see Joey winging shots at him, Rocco scrambling to a car, and Mouse Senior slapping Mouse Junior upside the head.

But taking a break long enough to yell-

“Kill that cocksucker!”

Yeah, well, wanting to kill that cocksucker and actuallykilling that cocksucker are two very different things, Frank thinks.

Hopefully.

The more serious issue is who would send John Heaney to set me up, and why?

Frank makes himself concentrate on more immediate concerns.

Like the fact that Joey Fiella and Rocco Meli are trying to chase him down.

Or not, as the case may be. Joey and Rocco are definitely chasing him, but the last thing they probably want is actually tocatch him. If they catch him, they’ll have to do something about it, which is probably get themselves killed, and they know it.

Still and all, Frank thinks, I can’t just let them follow me forever. A bright yellow Hummer stands out like a bright yellow Hummer, and if these bozos have any brains-and he concedes them a certain feral cunning-they’ll know he’d have left a work car somewhere near Mouse Junior’s girlfriend’s place.

So what he needs is a little space.

He puts his foot down on the pedal and guns it, racing toward the 101. It’s a lot faster than he usually likes to go, especially in an awkward car he’s not used to driving.

But he needs to create a little space.

He stomps on the gas.

Joey Fiella cranks the car onto the on-ramp of the 101 South and hopes his Mustang can handle the curve.

It does.

Junior’s Hummer didn’t.

Its left front fender is crumpled against a light pole and smoke is coming up from the engine.

“Junior’s going to be pissed,” Rocco says.

“Fuck him,” Joey says.

He pulls the car off on the shoulder behind the Hummer.

“This is a piece of luck,” Rocco says.

Yeah, but which kind? Joey thinks as he grabs his pistol and opens the door. Rocco does the same, and they approach the Hummer from both sides, guns pointed, like cops on a sketchy traffic stop.

Fuck Junior and his tinted windows, Joey thinks as he gets to the driver’s door, because he can’t see inside and can only hope that Frankie Machine is slumped against the steering wheel with his melon cracked in half.

He decides not to take any chances. Frankie could be playing possum in there, and besides, another car could be coming up the ramp any second. So Joey Fiella just starts shooting. Rocco catches the panic bug and does the same thing, and the two of them empty their guns into the front windows.

The window glass shatters.

Joey blinks.

Frankie ain’t in there.

And his own Mustang is pulling onto the highway, with Frankie behind the wheel.

This isn’t good, Joey thinks.

It isn’t going to be any fun explaining to Pete how he shot Junior’s Hummer to shit and got his own car stolen.

And let Frankie Machine get away.

Idiots, Frank thinks.

These are what pass for soldiers these days.

Mouse Senior was right: Heis the boss of shit, if these clowns are the best he can send out now. Back in the day, it would have been guys like Bap, Jimmy Forliano, Chris Panno, Mike Pella, and, well, me.

Now it’s Rocco and Joey.

Frank could have gunned them down where they stood, easily, but what would have been the point? You’re younger, maybe you kill them because your blood is up and you have this macho thing, but at his age, you know that the less killing, the better.