Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

It would be relatively easy to hit him at home, Frank thought. Break in when he’s in the shower and pop him there. But that’s not how Chicago wants it. Or that little punk, Garth, who’s demanding that “a lesson be taught.”

It would have to be the parking lot.

But how?

You can’t just gun him down when he walks out of the casino-too many potential witnesses, and the risk of a gunfight breaking out is too heavy. Some civilian catching a stray bullet right on the Strip would be unacceptable.

It was one of Frank’s absolute rules: You don’t put civilians at risk. Guys in the game, they know the risks, and they take their chances, but some Joe Lunchbucket who saves up his money for a Vegas blowout doesn’t deserve to die because someone gets sloppy.

So it has to be inside the car.

But if you shim the door, the alarm will go off and that will be that. You could steal the keys and have them copied, get in and wait for Marty, but he checks the car out pretty good before he gets in, and he’d either run away or gun you down while you’re lying on the backseat.

So how are you going to get in the car?

Only one way.

Marty has to invite you in.

And how are you going to get him to do that?

Every man has a fatal flaw. Bap had taught Frank that. Not in those words exactly, but the point was that every man had a chink in his armor, and it was just a matter of finding it.

Bap had even listed them for him. “You got your lust, your greed,” Bap had said, “you got your ego, your pride, and then you got your wishful thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some people believe what they want to believe,” Bap had said, “they want it bad enough.”

Marty was bragging to anyone who would listen how he had that little shit Donnie Garth shaking in his Guccis, how Garth had better stay out of his way, how he might just put him in the dirt anyway. Frank actually heard him mouthing this crap, sitting at the bar after his shift.

And Marty needed money.

Frank did his homework. Marty had been hitting the sports book hard and it had been hitting him back harder. He had lost a bundle on college football, tried to get well on the Monday-night game, but had only got sicker. He owed a bundle to a nasty shy named Herbie Goldstein and was having trouble just coming up with the vig.

So when the call came from Donnie Garth, Martywanted to believe it. And Garth was a hell of an actor, a natural-born hustler who knew how to put up, well, afront. He also knew by then how to follow instructions, and he followed these to the letter.

Frank sat with him when he made the call.

“Marty? It’s Donnie.”

“You better have good news for me.”

“Marty, we’re friends,” Donnie said. “I’ve been thinking. I want to do the right thing. How about you take a hundred K, we put this to bed?”

“A hundred? Fuck you.”

Frank listened while they negotiated a settlement of $250,000. Bap was right, Frank thought. Biancofiore believed it because he wanted to believe it. It fed his ego and solved his financial problems. What was it Bap had said? “When you want to catch a fish, you gotta give it the bait it’shungry for.”

“Cash, Donnie,” Marty said.

Frank nodded and Donnie said, “But look, Marty, this has to stay between you and me. If word gets out that I can be…pressured, I’ll be shit in this town.”

“It’s nobody business but ours,” Marty said.

“That’s great, Marty, thanks,” Garth said. “Look, I’ll get the cash, then swing by your house.”

This was the critical moment. Frank held his breath for a second before he heard Marty say, “I think maybe someplace more public.”

“You don’t trust me, Marty?”

Biancofiore just laughed.

Garth said, “Marty, I can’t hand you a briefcase full of cash on the floor of Caesar’s Palace.”

Marty thought about it for a second. “The parking lot,” he said. “My car.”

“I’ll meet you after your shift.”

“Fuck that,” Marty said. “Noon.”

Because Marty knew what they all knew. No one, no one, was going to try to take him out in broad daylight right on the Strip.

Marty looked to Frank.

Frank thought about it for a second, then nodded.

“Okay,” Donnie said. “Noon it is. What are you driving these days? What’s your slot number?”

“Get out of town for a few days,” Frank told Garth. “Go back to your Norman mansion, throw a dinner party, create an alibi.” Sip some vintage wine with the beautiful people while I clean up your mess for you, he thought.

So it was Frank, not Donnie Garth, waiting in the parking lot when Marty drove in that day.

Marty didn’t like it at all.

He rolled down the window and asked, “Who the fuck are you? Where’s Garth?”

“He’s not coming.”

“What the fuck!”

But Frank saw him eyeball the attache case in his hand.

“I have the money,” Frank said. “Do you want it?”

“People don’t walk away from money,” Bap had lectured him. “They should, sometimes, but they don’t.” Marty didn’t. He thought about it-Frank could see him thinking-but he didn’t walk away. Instead, he got out of the car and carefully patted Frank down from his armpits to his ankles, front and back.

“I’m not wearing a wire,” Frank said.

“Fuck the wire,” Marty said. “I’m looking for a piece.”

He didn’t find one. He got back behind the driver’s seat, flipped the door locks open, and ordered, “Get in.”

Frank slid into the passenger seat.

Marty was holding a. 45 on his lap.

“Hey,” Frank said.

“I ain’t lived this long being careless,” Marty said. “You said you got the money?”

“It’s in the briefcase.”

That was the moment, Frank remembers now. You figured if Marty simply took the case, kicked you out, and drove away, you’d never get near him again. If he opened the briefcase right there, you were a dead man.

You were counting on his character, his caution. This was a man who checked his cars for bombs every night. He wasn’t going to take a briefcase away with him.

Anyway, you hoped he wouldn’t.

“Show me,” Marty said.

“You want me to open it right here?”

“The fuck did I say?”

Frank lifted the briefcase onto his own lap, slid the locks, and the lid flipped open with a metallic click. Frank grabbed the silenced . 25 inside and fired five times through the briefcase lid. Then he put the gun back in the case, got out of the car, and walked away.

Right down the Strip.

Frank went back to his hotel room, wiped the gun down with isopropyl alcohol, did the same with the briefcase. Chicago had offered a cleanup crew to dispose of the weapon, but Frank didn’t trust anyone else to clean up after him. He’d chosen a. 25 for a reason, knowing that the bullets, after piercing the cheap briefcase, would have the juice to enter Marty’s skull, but not enough to exit. A parking lot attendant found Marty about an hour later. He thought the guy slumped on the wheel had had a heart attack until he saw the five holes in his head.

Frank got into his car and drove the back route through the Mojave, found a decrepit mine, smashed the gun into pieces, and tossed it and the briefcase down the shaft.

Yeah, easy to get rid of the gun, harder to get rid of the memories.

They don’t stay down the mine shaft.

Actually, there had been instant fallout from the Biancofiore job. Fat Herbie Goldstein started screaming all over town that he was out the $75,000 that Marty was evenless likely to pay him now that he was dead, and thatsomeone owed him this money.

“Tell Garth to pay him,” Frank told Mike Pella.

“Are you fucking kidding?”