Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

“Dorner?” Frank asked. “Yeah, he was in my car.”

“Dalitzand Dorner!”

“Yeah, they were going to play golf,” Frank said.

The Teamsters played a lot of golf at La Sur. They kept Frank and Mike very busy running them back and forth from the airport, or around town, or out at night. Frank figured that’s why he’d been bumped up to Town Cars-the bosses wanted a connected guy driving the car so that the Teamsters and the wise guys could talk without worrying about it.

“Just drive,” Bap had told him. “Keep your ears open and your mouth shut.”

It wasn’t just Dalitz and Dorner, either. It was also Frank Fitzsimmons, who had taken over as president of the Teamsters while Hoffa was serving his sentence. Fitzsimmons loved the Sur so much, he bought a condo there and started holding the union’s annual board meeting at the hotel.

Then there were the out-and-out wise guys, mostly East Coast higher-ups getting out of the snow for a while. There was Tony Provenzano, “Tony Pro,” who ran the New Jersey Teamsters, and Joey “the Clown” Lombardo, who was the liaison between Chicago and Allen Dorner.

And Detroit guys-Paul Moretti and Tony Jacks Giacamone, who ran Hoffa.

One day, Bap called Frank and Mike, told them to get their limos “spit and polished,” to look sharp themselves, and be over at the airport exactly at nine the following morning.

“What’s up?” Frank asked. He figured something big was going on, because the night before he’d made two trips to the airport to pick up Joey the Clown and Tony Pro, and they’d checked into suites at the Sur.

What was up was that Frank Fitzsimmons, president of the Teamsters, was going to hold a press conference at the Sur to announce that the union was going to endorse Nixon for reelection.

There’s a surprise, Frank thought. The whispers around the Sur were that the Teamsters had funneled millions of dollars of illegal funds into Nixon’s campaign fund. In fact, the spa had become the virtual West Coast headquarters for the Teamsters since Dorner had bought himself a condo overlooking the fourth green.

Frank smirked. “So this is why Nixon pardoned Hoffa?”

Bap smiled and said, “Hoffa is nothing but a cheap leg breaker, out of his league with the big money. Fitzsimmons and Dorner are raking in so much cash, most people don’t want Hoffa back in office. Hoffa wants them clipped, but the fact is they’re making everybody too much money. Listen and learn, Frankie. Making money for other people is what keeps you breathing. Never forget that.”

Frank didn’t.

“Anyway,” Bap said, “after the press conference, you’re driving the union guys to the Western White House. You might meet the president, Frankie.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

Bap smiled, but Frank could see there was hurt behind it.

“I’m not on the list,” Bap said. “None of the guys are.”

“That’s not right, Bap.”

“It’s all bullshit,” Bap said. “The fuck do I care?”

But Frank could see that he cared.

In the morning, with his car gleaming, and himself in a freshly pressed black suit, Frank drove to the private airstrip in Carlsbad to pick up Allen Dorner from his private jet. Word was that Dorner had laid out three million dollars to Frank Sinatra for the Gulfstream, and that the money had come from the Teamsters’ fund.

“Good morning, Frank,” Dorner said as he stepped off the plane onto the tarmac.

“Good morning, Mr. Dorner.”

“It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

“Always is in San Diego,” Frank replied, holding the back door of the car open for him.

It was a quick drive to the Sur.

Frank waited in the parking lot with the other drivers as Fitzsimmons made his endorsement speech and the sixteen other board members stood by, beaming. All the board members are here, Frank thought, but the wise guys are nowhere to be seen.

“Do you believe,” Mike said, looking very spiffy and a little nervous as he stood beside his immaculate car, “that we’re going to the fuckingpresident’s house?”

After his speech, Fitzsimmons and three other board members got into Frank’s car. The other cars followed them as Frank led them out onto the 5 and drove up to San Clemente, to the Western White House.

Frank had been there before.

Well, not exactly to the house, but right below it, under the red bluff. He and some surfing buddies had hiked up from Trestles and found this great right-hand break under the Western White House. For some reason or other, this spot had the name Cottons.

Maybe I should tell Nixon about it, Frank thought as he pulled up to the gate, where Secret Service agents in their dark suits, sunglasses, and earpieces stopped him and checked the car out. Then again, he thought, it’s a little hard to picture Richard Nixon on a board.

Waving thatV for victory thing he did while hanging ten in the soup.

Cowabunga, dude.

The Secret Service guys let the caravan through. Why not, Frank thought. Nixon couldn’t be safer in his mother’s arms than he was with this delegation, although none of them was strapped, having received strict orders to leave the hardware at home. After all, we’re his people. We’re all making money together.

Another Secret Service agent directed him where to park. He did, then got out to open the doors for Fitzsimmons and his boys and saw the president of the United States walking down to meet them.

Frank, even with the twenty-something cynicism that was part and parcel of the seventies, had to admit he felt a little awed, maybe even intimidated. This was thepresident of the United States, the commander in chief, and the former Marine in Frank made him straighten his posture a little bit, and he had to fight the impulse to salute.

He felt something else-this little stirring of pride at being in on this, even as a chauffeur. It was this feeling of being part of something…so powerful…it could bring them to the home of the president of the United States, and the man would personally walk down from his house to greet them.

Nixon opened his arms wide as he walked toward Fitzsimmons and said, “I hear you have good news for me, Frank!”

“Verygood news, Mr. President!”

It must have been, because Nixon was in a very good mood. He embraced Fitzsimmons and then went around and shook everybody’s hand, working the crowd like the career politician he was. He shook all the board members’ hands, then came around and even shook the drivers’ hands.

“Nice to meet you,” Nixon said to Frank. “Thanks for coming.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. He was afraid of saying something stupid, like what was in his head, which was, You have a great break here, Mr. President, but Nixon had already moved on well before Frank formed the words.

That’s the last Frank saw of him that day.

The Teamsters’ board went up to the house and the drivers waited by their cars. The house staff brought them barbecued chicken and ribs-the same meal the big shots were getting up on the lawn. Later on, some staffer came and gave them each a golf ball with the president’s signature on it.

“I’m going to keep this for fucking ever,” Mike said. Frank could swear he saw tears in his eyes. Frank wandered down to the edge of the bluff. He had lots of time because the Teamsters were scheduled to play a round on the president’s three-hole golf course, and that was going to take a while.

So Frank sat by the ocean and watched Cottons break below him. There were no surfers out there, never were when Nixon was in residence. I guess the Secret Service is afraid of some surfing assassin or something, Frank thought, although it would be one hell of a shot from the beach up to the lawn.

He looked south and, sure enough, could see the westernmost buildings of the Sur glistening white in the sun, and he wondered what Joey the Clown and Tony Pro were doing while everybody else was visiting the president’s house, wondered if they felt bad being left out.