Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

“Stay out of sight,” Frank says. “Don’t let anyone know you were talking with me.”

Corky stares at him. “You gonna take them on, Frank? Take my advice. Don’t do it. You don’t want to end up like me.”

“You’re okay, Corky.”

“I won’t see another summer, Frankie.”

And then he’s gone. Eyes sunk back in his head with the thousand-yard stare, and Frank realizes that Corky Corchoran is in a place where he lives alone-somewhere in the past, maybe, somewhere in the future, nowhere in the here and now.

And he’s right, Frank thinks-he won’t see summer.

And neither, probably, will I.

He pats Corky on the shoulder. “I’ll see you.”

“Not if I see you first.”

Frank turns to leave. He’s almost out the door when he hears Corky say, “Hey, Frank!”

Frank turns around.

“We had our day, didn’t we?” Corky’s smiling.

“Yes, we did.”

Corky nods. “Damn right. We had our fucking day.”

Frank walks back out into the foggy morning.

All right, think, think. Who else was there that night? Donnie Garth, for one, but that’s not going to get you anywhere. There was another girl, the redhead. What was her name?…

Alison.

But it was over twenty years ago.

Who would know where she is now?

He finds Karen Wilkenson on the polo grounds.

They sit in the valley where Rancho Santa Fe meets Del Mar, the grass unusually green and lush in this wet winter, beautiful now as the early morning mist rises off the flats.

She’s in the stables, inspecting her horses.

They’re actually ponies, Frank thinks, not horses.

The last time he saw her was in a Price Club parking lot, twenty-one years ago, when a bank vice president was handing her an envelope of cash to provide girls for the party. Karen eventually served two years in some Camp Fed, but she landed on her feet when she married a Rancho Santa Fe Realtor with old San Diego money.

Whores land on their backs when they fall, madams on their feet.

She’s still attractive in her late fifties. The face-lift was skillful-her skin looks young and taut, and her eyes still have a shine.

“Ms. Wilkenson?” Frank asks.

She’s standing outside a stall, stroking the pony’s nose, softly talking to the animal. She doesn’t turn around. “It’s Mrs. Foster now,” she says, “and I no longer do interviews. Good-bye.”

“I’m not looking for an interview,” Frank says.

“Then what are you looking for?” she asks. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I can’t provide it. Good-bye.”

“I’m looking for a woman I knew as ‘Alison’ twenty years ago,” Frank says.

“Nostalgia or obsession?” Karen Foster asks, and now she turns around to get a look at Frank.

“Neither,” Frank says. “I want to ask her about Summer Lorensen.”

Karen says, “You don’tlook like a police officer.”

“I’m not.”

“Then I don’t have to talk to you,” she says. “Good-bye.”

“Then you don’t care who murdered her?”

“I loved that girl like a daughter,” Karen says. “I wept for days. As I did for Alison.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you are looking for Alison Demers,” Karen says, “you will have to go to a cemetery in Virginia. Alison moved back east after Summer’s murder. She died in a horseback-riding accident.”

“When?”

“A month ago,” Karen says. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I want to find who killed Summer Lorensen.”

“The police said that they found that man,” she says.

“But we both know better, don’t we, Mrs. Foster?” Frank asks.

She glares at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?”

“No,” she says. “And if you persist in harassing me, I’ll call some men and have you tossed out of here.”

“Don’t bother,” Frank says. “I’m leaving. And Mrs. Foster?”

“What?”

“When you call Donnie,” Frank says, “tell him Frankie Machine says hello.”

“He’s in San Diego.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Tell that to Karen Foster. He was just there.”

“Where?”

“Rancho Santa Fe.”

“Shit.”

“It gets worse. He was asking about Summer Lorensen.”

Silence for a few seconds.

“This shit has to stop,” Garth says. “You don’t shut this down, our end of the deal is off.”

“You said you could shut down G-Sting…”

Dave sits in a van outside of Garth’s house, tapping into a conversation he’s having on the phone.

The other voice is unmistakable.

Teddy Migliore.

Dave goes back to the office. He feels sick to his stomach. Troy talks to Garth. Garth talks to Teddy. Teddy sends Detroit hitters out to whack Frank. Because of something Frank knows about a Summer Lorensen.

Summer Lorensen, Summer Lorensen…

There’s something there, lurking deep in the back of his head.

But it won’t come to him.

He gets on the computer. It only takes a few minutes to get a hit-Summer Lorensen was a prostitute murdered back in the summer of 1985. But what could that have to do with Donnie Garth? Or Frank Machianno, for that matter.

Dave goes back at it, searching for a nexus between Garth and the Lorensen woman.

Nothing comes up.

Then he searches for a connection between Garth and the date of Lorensen’s killing…

Bingo.

Hammond Savings and Loan. A boat party with prostitutes had ended up in the conviction of a savings and loan officer named John Saunders for misuse of bank funds. A madam named Karen Wilkenson got a couple of years for pandering. It was all part of the whole savings and loan scandal, and the party had occurred the night before the Lorensen murder.

He types in the name Karen Wilkenson and in a few seconds finds out that she married and is now Karen Foster.

Tell that to Karen Foster. He was just there.

Where?

Rancho Santa Fe.

Shit.

It gets worse. He was asking about Summer Lorensen.

Is it possible? Dave thinks. Donnie Garth killed this girl, somehow Frank knows about it, and then Garth goes to his old mob connections to kill Frank? Offering the shutdown of G-Sting in exchange?

But what makes Donnie Garth think he can shut down a federal operation?

Maybe the reason that a young FBI agent is feeding him information?

Dave looks over his shoulder and doesn’t see Troy. He walks down to the men’s room and spots the rookie’s pressed trousers underneath a stall. He waits until he hears a flush, then sees the trousers come up.

When Troy opens the stall door, Dave Hansen’s fist slams him back in. Blood from the kid’s broken nose sprays over his white shirt and his French cuffs. Dave grabs him by the throat, turns him over, and pushes his head into the toilet.

“Donnie Garth,” Dave says, jerking Troy’s head up.

“What-”

Dave forces his head back down and says, “Donnie Garth, you little shit. Is he paying you? How much?”

He lets Troy up again.

The young agent gasps for air.

Then he says, “I’m not working for Garth! I just report to him.”

“Who are you working for?” Dave asks.

Troy hesitates.

Dave starts to force his head back down.

Then Troy gives it up.

Donnie Garth has the shower blasting. He’s standing under the spray, looking out through the glass at the ocean, when suddenly Frankie Machine’s standing there with a pistol in his hand.

Garth shuts the water off.

Frank hands him a towel. “Remember me?”

Garth nods.

“Wrap yourself up,” Frank says.

Garth wraps the towel around his waist. Frank gestures for him to get out and sit down. Garth takes a chair by the window; Frank sits down across from him.