Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

“I put two people in the dirt for you,” Frank says.

Garth nods again.

Frank smiles. “I’m not wearing a wire. You’re the rat, not me. You know, I always wondered how you got a pass on all that. You get a pass on everything, don’t you, Donnie?”

Garth doesn’t answer.

“Well,” Frank says, “you’re not getting a pass on this.”

“On what?” Garth asks. He looks small and old, sitting there in the towel, water dripping down his skinny legs into the thick carpet.

“Summer Lorensen,” Frank says.

He raises the gun and points it at Garth’s chest.

“It wasn’t me!”

“Then who was it?”

Garth balks, as if he’s trying to decide who he’s more afraid of.

“Whoever it is,” Frank says, “they’re not sitting here about to put one in you, Donnie, and I am. I saw you through the window that night, the little act between Alison and Summer. Then I walked away. What didn’t I see?”

“The senator,” Garth says, “couldn’t…perform. It was all set up-the Lorensen girl wasbegging for it, part of the act, but he couldn’t get it up. She did everything to him, believe me, but it was a no-go.”

“Then what happened?”

“She laughed.”

“What?”

“She laughed,” Garth says. “I don’t think she meant anything by it. I think it was just her, you know, but he got mad. He just went off.”

“Go on.”

“You were there! You know!”

Because you can’t tell one janitor from another, can you, Donnie? Me or Mike, cleaning up your messes for you, what’s the difference? Your shit gets cleaned up. You don’t have to look at it.

It’s clear to him now what happened. They carried her body out to the car and Mike drove her out on that lonely road and dumped her. Had the afterthought to “strangle” her and stuff the rocks in her mouth.

And Fortunate Son walks away clean.

It would have been manslaughter. He would have done what, two or three years, tops? Maybe nothing at all?

But his political career would have been ruined.

We couldn’t have that, could we?

Not over some whore.

No humans involved.

And everything stays quiet until Mike starts to take heat over the Goldstein murder, so he starts looking for something to trade. And he’s got a big one-except he’s not going to put himself in the bull’s-eye, so he puts me.

Thanks, Mike.

So Fortunate Son starts to clean up his past, and reaches out to Donnie, who reaches out to Detroit to do it for him.

Because these guys never do their own dirty work.

They have people likeme to do that.

What did Fortunate Son offer the Combination?

Hell, he’s going to be president-whatcouldn’t he offer them?

“Did he use you as a go-between?” Frank asks. “Tell me the truth, Donnie.”

Garth nods.

His eyes are wide with fear, he’s quivering and sweating, and Frank’s disgusted that he sees the front of the man’s towel stained yellow.

Frank pulls the hammer back.

Hears Garth whimper.

Frank eases the hammer down and lowers the gun.

“Look,” Frank says, “they’ve already tried to kill me and theydid kill Alison Demers. They’re going to clip anyone who knows anything about what happened that night, including you. Or do you still think you’re going to get a pass?”

Why shouldn’t you? Frank thinks. You always do.

“If I were you,” Frank says, “I’d run.”

But he knows he won’t. The Donnie Garths of the world don’t believe that people kill them; they believe that people killfor them.

Frank calls information and gets the number of the senator’s office.

“I’d like to speak to the senator, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Tell him it’s a buddy from his Solana Beach days.”

“I don’t think he’s going to be available, sir.”

“See, and I think he is,” Frank says. “Why don’t you tell him it’s about Summer, and we’ll see who’s right.”

A minute later, Fortunate Son gets on the phone.

“If you record your calls,” Frank says, “I suggest you shut the machine off.”

“Who is this?”

“You know who it is,” Frank says. “I’ll wait.”

Fortunate Son comes back on the line a few seconds later. “Okay. Speak.”

“You know who this is.”

“I have a pretty good guess.”

“You have the wrong guy,” Frank says. “The wrong chauffeur. I know it’s hard to tell the little people apart, but it was Mike Pella in the limo that night, not me. If it had been me, none of this would have happened, because I wouldn’t have let you beat a girl to death and get away with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Frank holds the little dictaphone up to the receiver and plays Donnie Garth’s narration.

“He’s lying,” Fortunate Son says.

“Yeah,” Frank says. “Look, I don’t care. Ishould care that you killed that girl and now you killed that other one, but the point is, I have a life I want to live and a family to take care of. So here’s the deal, Senator. I want a million dollars in cash, or I go public with this. I know I can’t go to the cops or the feds, because you own them, but I’ll go to the media, and then, at the very least, your career is over. Maybe we can’t make you for the girl’s murder, but we can put you at the scene, and that’s all it will take.”

“Perhaps we could take the position that-”

“A million dollars, Senator, in cash,” Frank repeats, “and I want you to deliver it personally.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Fortunate Son says.

“Which?” Frank asks. “The cash, or you?”

“Me,” Fortunate Son says.

“Then send your pimp, Garth,” Frank says, and tells him where and when.

A long silence, then: “How do I know I can trust you?”

“I’m a man of my word,” Frank says. “Are you?”

“I am.”

“Then we have a deal?”

“We do.”

Fortunate Son hangs up the phone.

Frank turns off the tape recorder.

He’s not a child-he knows they’re not coming with any million dollars.

They’re coming to kill him.

I could run, Frank thinks. And I could make a good run of it. I could stretch it out for years, maybe. But what kind of life is that? Watching myself slowly become poor Jay Voorhees, until I’m relieved when they finally catch up with me?

No kind of life at all.

So let them come.

Let’s get this thing done.

“It isn’t right!” Jimmy the Kid yells. “I’llgo. I can take him out.”

“He says, despite ample evidence to the contrary,” Garth says. “Look, this has been decided.”

“By who?”

Garth doesn’t say anything.

Which pisses Jimmy off. “Look, I know who we’re working for. I know the whole fucking thing, how your senator couldn’t get his macaroni al dente, how he killed the girl, how Frankie M. dumped her body…”

“It wasn’t Machianno,” Garth says. “It was the other one…”

“Pella?”

“Pella.”

“Then why the fuck were we trying to clip Frank?” Jimmy asks. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“He does now,” Garth says.

Yeah, Jimmy thinks, because you’re a limper dick than your politician buddy and you spilled it all to him. “I can take him.”

“It’s been decided.”

“Nothing has been decided until we talk to my uncle Tony,” Jimmy says.

“We’ve talked to your uncle Tony,” Garth says. “He gave the okay. He’s already put it into motion.”

Jimmy feels like his head is going to blow off. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. Uncle Tony, Tony freaking Jacks, signing on to a sleazy deal like this?