Don Winslow: The winter of Frankie Machine

What’s out here where people are going to stop?

Then it hits him.

“Shit,” Jimmy says. “Turn around. Hurry.”

“What’s up?”

“We’re going parking.”

Danny Carver is about to get bare tit.

Finally.

What he gets for dating a Mormon girl. Other chicks are passing out blow jobs like Skittles, but Shelly will not give it upat all. Danny’s been at it for three months-taking her to the movies, to the mall, going bowling, playing freakingminiature golf -and the most he can get is a quick kiss, no tongue.

He would have dropped her on, like, date two if she weren’t so goddamn hot. Blond hair, big blue eyes, and thatrack…

It took two months just to get her to go parking with him at all, come out here to the roadside parking lot where, in the daytime, the tree-huggers park their cars to go hiking down in the canyon.

But at night, the place is like health class. You got droves of teenagers out here studying sex ed like it’s going to be on the SATs, and tonight Shelly isinto it. Her hand doesn’t even come down on his like a castle gate when he starts to unbutton her blouse.

I am in, Danny thinks.

Thank you, God.

I amin.

“Oh myGod, ” Shelly says.

Oh yeah. You theman.

“Oh-my-God.”

Her body stiffens and she’s looking over his shoulder.

It’s her father, Danny thinks.

Six-foot-six Mormon who shoes horses for a living.

Danny’s body stiffens.

He looks back over his shoulder.

Bigfoot is in the window.

It’s like one of those stories you used to tell on camping trips, about the guy with the hook. Except this guy doesn’t have a hook-he has a gun. And he gestures for Danny to roll down the window.

Danny does.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the guy says to Danny, yanking him out of the car. “I just need your vehicle.”

All Danny can do is nod as the guy slips past him into the driver’s seat.

Frank looks at the girl.

“You can get out now,” he says. “And button your blouse, huh?”

Shelly does both.

Frank puts it in reverse and takes off.

Jimmy the Kid sees the two teenagers standing out in the parking lot. The boy has a cell phone in his hand.

“We’re too late,” Jimmy says. “We’re too fucking late.”

He rolls down the window. “What kind of car?”

“Are you the triple A guys?” Danny asks.

“What kind of car?”

“A ’96 Celica,” Danny says. “Silver.”

Jimmy the Kid roars off.

“We’re going to have to call my dad,” Shelly says.

Frank dumps the Celica off in Point Loma and walks back to Ocean Beach.

If you can call it walking. More like limping, hobbling.

Like some old B-movie monster, Frank thinks, emerging from the swamp. It’s a good thing it’s pouring like hell and the rain-phobic San Diegans are off the streets, so they can’t see this messed-up, bleeding freak lurching along the sidewalks.

They’d call the cops.

And that would be that.

Frank doesn’t want to go back to his safe house. It’s risky goingback to anywhere, but he has no place else to go. And he has to go someplace-get out of the elements, clean his wounds, get some rest, figure out his next move.

He unlocks the door of his Narragansett Street pad, not knowing what might be waiting for him in there. The cops? The feds? The Wrecking Crew?

But nobody’s in the apartment.

Frank gets out of his wet, bloody clothes and gets into the shower, both to get warm and wash his wounds. The spray stings like needles. He gets out, gently daubs himself dry, and looks at the blood left on the towel. Then he finds the hydrogen peroxide in the medicine cabinet, sits down on the edge of the bathtub, and looks at the deep scrapes on his legs. He takes a deep breath, then pours the peroxide on the wounds. Sings “Che gelida manina” to distract his mind from the pain. It doesn’t really work. He examines the wounds, then pours more peroxide into them until he sees the chemical bubble up.

Then he repeats the process on his arms and chest.

He gets up slowly, finds gauze pads and medical tape, and dresses the wounds. It takes him a long time. Hurts to move his right arm anyway, and he’s tired-bone-tired. Part of him just wants to lie down and give up. Just lie there until they come and put two in the back of his head.

But you can’t do that, he tells himself as he applies the gauze and wraps the tape around it to hold it in place.

You have a daughter who needs you.

So keep your head in the game.

He makes himself a pot of strong black coffee and sits down to think it over.

What the hell was Mike trying to tell you?

That he was working for the feds.

That the feds forced him to set you up.

But why?

Why would they want me dead?

Doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe it was just more Mike Pella bull. Like him going to the refrigerator to get the gun, knowing he was about to make his curtain call, and going out singing some old song they used to like back in the day.

Back in the summer of ’72.

Some folks are born to wave the flag,

Ooh, they’re red, white and blue.

And when the band plays “Hail to the Chief,”

Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord…

Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord, Frank thinks. Keep going, finish it. There’s something there.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son, son.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one, no…

No, Frank thinks.

Not fortunate one.

FortunateSon.

And not the summer of ’72.

The summer of ’85.

Summer 1985.

Dave Hansen is concerned-on multiple levels.

First, Frank promised he wouldn’t kill Mike Pella, and then he did. Frank Machianno is a lot of things, and one of them is a man of his word. So it’s troublesome.

Second, barely twelve miles away from Pella’s body, a car goes over the edge of the canyon, crashes and burns, and yet no victim is found. The driver is traced back to a rental-car company, except no one named Jerry Sabellico holds an Arizona driver’s license. There was a Jerry Sabellico, but he died in 1987.

So it has all the markings of a professional cover.

A pro crashes a car twelve miles from a murder site where Frank Machianno is the main “person of interest.” You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes, Larry Holmes, or even John Holmes to put that one together.

Third, the crash was no accident. No professional ever speeds away from a hit, ever. And besides, Frank, in particular, does fifty-five miles per hour in order to get the best gas mileage, and drives slower than that in wet conditions.

Four, Frank went to pick up his mad money at a bank in Borrego. Who knew about the bank? Sherm Simon, and, through him, me. Then Frank goes to see Mike Pella. Who knew about Mike Pella?

Me.

Well, not meexclusively.

Us.

So Dave has some mixed feelings when he gets on the buzzer and calls young Troy into his office. They’re all working 24/7 on the Machianno file now, and Troy has been at it diligently, helping Dave check DBAs and shell companies to see if they can find any properties Frank might own where he could be hiding.

“What’s up?” Troy asks, adjusting his cuff links.

“I have a lead,” Dave says. “On Machianno’s location.”

“Really? Where?”

Dave gives him an address.

Summer Lorensen, Frank thinks.

Nineteen eighty-five-the party on Donnie Garth’s boat, then the scene at his house. That’s what Mike was trying to tell me.