Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

Frank skips over the article and finds Tom Gorton’s column. Gorton is the editor and an old-time newspaper guy, and a hell of a good writer. Frank reads his column every time he sees aSun somewhere. This time, Gorton’s writing about all the rain they’ve had this winter, and how it will bring a wonderful spring bloom.

I’d like to see that, Frank thinks.

It’s been years since there’s been a big desert bloom, the valley floor carpeted with a panoply (puzzle word) of wildflowers. Frank’s always found it moving, a miracle, when the sere desert becomes a sea of color and blooms with life. It’s anaffirmation of life, Frank thinks. It’s proof that redemption is possible, when flowers blossom from the desert.

I hope I get to see it.

I’ll bring Donna out here, maybe Jill, too. Maybe it’s a trip that the three of us can do together.

Yeah, right, he thinks. That’s going to happen, those two in the same car together.

“Bob.”

Frank lifts a finger, then walks over to the counter and gets his tray. The food smells great. He goes to another counter, picks two different salsas-averde and afresca -and some spiced carrots.

The food is as good as it smells, the enchiladas smothered in a rich mole sauce, and the rice and beans done perfectly. Frank notices that they have fish tacos on the menu and wonders who supplies their seafood. He thinks briefly about making a pitch, then does the math and decides that the drive out here and then having to deadhead back would more than eat up any profit.

He finishes his meal, tosses the plastic plate into the trash can, and walks outside. The rain is gentle, more of a mist, but the streets are quiet, as if the residents are hiding in their houses, waiting for the sun to come out again.

Frank goes into the bank, walks up to the nice lady teller, and asks for the manager, Mr. Osborne.

“May I say who’s calling?” the teller asks.

“Scott Davis,” Frank says with a smile.

“One moment, Mr. Davis.”

Osborne looks nervous when he comes out from the office. He has a big Adam’s apple, anyway, on a skinny neck, but it’s bobbing up and down a little more than Frank would like.

Don’t get hinky, Frank tells himself. This is just an otherwise-law-abiding citizen a little stressed about committing an illegal act.

Osborne sticks his hand out. His palm is moist, sweaty.

“Mr. Davis,” he says, loudly enough for the teller to hear. “Come into my office; let’s see if we can do some business about your loan.”

Frank follows him back into the office. Osborne opens a safe closet, then the safe, then takes out a canvas bank bag and hands it to Frank.

“Twenty thousand,” he says.

“Minus your three points,” Frank says. He puts the bag in his jacket.

“Aren’t you going to count it?” Osborne asks.

“Should I?”

“It’s all there.”

“I just assumed it would be,” Frank says.

Osborne is looking over Frank’s shoulder, out the window that faces onto the street. Frank pulls the. 38 and sticks it in the banker’s face. “Tell me.”

“These men,” Osborne says, his voice shaking, “they came to my house this morning. They said to give you the money. Please don’t kill me. I have a wife and two children. Becky is eight, and Maureen is-”

“Shut up,” Frank says. “Nobody’s killing anybody.”

Maybe.

Osborne starts to cry. “My career…my family…prison…”

“You’re not going to prison,” Frank says. “All you need to do is keep your mouth shut, capisce?”

“Keep my mouth shut,” Osborne repeats, like he’s trying to remember directions somebody’s giving him over the phone: Turn left on Jackson, second right on La Playa, keep my mouth shut.

“Is there a back door?” Frank asks.

Osborne looks at him. Frank repeats the question.

“You told me to keep my mouth shut,” Osborne says.

“Notnow, ” Frank says. “Is there a back way out?”

“I’ll have to unlock it.”

“What are you waiting for?”

The door is triple-locked and has a security bar across it. It takes a good minute for Osborne to get the door unlocked.

“Don’t open it,” Frank says.

What are you thinking? he asks himself. Any decent crew will have a guy or two out back. And they’ll have heard the door unlatching. You step out that door, you walk into a hail of bullets.

Then again, you walk out thefront door, you step into the same.

You’re trapped.

That’s certainly what Jimmy the Kid thinks.

Frankie M. is totally fucked.

Jimmy’s sitting in the car across the street. He’s in the passenger seat, rifle in his lap, waiting for the kill shot.

“You’re sure he went in?” Jimmy asks.

“I watched him,” Carlo says.

Carlo placed himself in the ice cream store across the road. He watched Frankie Machine drive by, then have lunch, then go into the bank. He could have taken the man out himself, except he had strict orders from Jimmy, who’d said, “You see him, you call me.” So Carlo called him, then got himself another ice cream-butter brickle this time.

Now Jimmy sits in the car, his foot tapping like a bass drummer in a heavy-metal band.

“Paulie, Jackie, and Joey are in back?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“You can call them, you want.”

Jimmy thinks about it, then decides against it. It would be just like Paulie to shout into the phone and tip off Frankie M. No, we want Frankie nice and confident. Let him come strolling through that door with his money in hand and happy thoughts in his head.

Thenblam.

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow…

“What’s taking so fucking long?” Jimmy asks.

Carlo doesn’t have time to answer, because, just then, sirens start wailing.

Police sirens.

Coming this way.

Carlo doesn’t wait for Jimmy to tell him to get in gear and get the fuck out of there.

It’s the obvious call.

Frank goes out the back as soon as he hears the sirens.

Osborne had hit the silent alarm, just like he’d told him to. Hopefully, the banker will follow the rest of his instructions.

“Tell the state troopers a man came in and tried to rob you, then got nervous and ran out. Give the cops the description of one of the guys who approached you this morning,” he’d told Osborne.

“Why don’t I tell them the robber got twenty grand?” Osborne asked.

“Are yousupposed to have an extra twenty K in the bank?” Frank said.

“No.”

“Well?”

“Oh, right.”

“Just hit the alarm, okay?”

Frank doesn’t run out the back alley, though. He finds the ladder that leads to the roof and climbs up. By the time he reaches the top, his heart is hammering and he’s gasping for breath.

Jill was right about the red meat and the desserts, he thinks. I have to cut down. He crawls along the rooftop on his stomach, then climbs down the ladder on the other side just as the troopers’ cars screech to the front of the bank. Frank walks back to his car, calmly backs out, drives across the street to a gas station, and starts to fill his tank.

“What’s going on?” he asks the attendant, who’s come out to see what all the excitement’s about.

“I don’t know,” the kid says. “Something with the bank.”

“Jeez, no kidding?” Frank says. “That’s wild.”

He watches as Osborne comes out of the bank with one of the troopers and a citizen runs across from the ice cream parlor and starts pointing west, with one of those emphatic “They went thataway” gesticulations.

One of the troopers rushes back to his car and races west.

Frank fills up his tank.