Don Winslow - The winter of Frankie Machine

The famous sunshine doesn’t start for a few hours and the real sunny, warm days don’t start for a couple of months.

But the storm is over now.

The big swell has blown itself out, and the waves fall gently on the shore.

Frank walks along the beach toward the base of the pier. His body hurts, his chest so tight with anxiety, he can barely breathe.

First he sees the lights of the pier, then the faint glow of a flashlight; then he sees someone walking through the mist toward him.

A young man.

“Frankie Machine?” the man asks.

Frank nods.

“Jimmy Giacamone,” the man says, as if he expects Frank to recognize him. Frank just looks at him, so the man adds, “Jimmy ‘the Kid’ Giacamone.”

Frank doesn’t respond to it.

Jimmy the Kid says, “I could have taken you, Frankie Machine, I’d a had the chance.”

“Where’s my daughter?”

“She’s coming, don’t worry,” Jimmy the Kid says. “I gotta pat you down first, Frankie.”

Frank raises his arms.

Jimmy pats him down quickly and efficiently and finds the little tape cassette in Frank’s jacket pocket. “This is it?”

Frank nods. “Where’s my daughter?”

“Just so you know,” Jimmy says. “I don’t approve of any of this. This thing with your daughter. I’m old-school.”

“Where’s my daughter?”

“Come on.”

Jimmy the Kid grabs him by the right elbow and leads him along the beach. When they get under the pier, he says, “I got it. I got him. He’s clean.”

A group of men come out of the mist like ghosts, their flashlights in one hand, their guns in another. There are five of them, the whole Wrecking Crew.

And Donnie Garth, except he doesn’t have a gun. He holds out his hand and Jimmy the Kid gives him the tape. He pops it into a Dictaphone, listens for a second, and nods.

“Bring her to me,” Frank says.

Garth swings his flashlight up and down. An endless minute later, Frank sees Jill walking toward him through the fog, with Donna at her side.

“Daddy.”

She looks like she’s been crying, but she looks strong.

“It’s going to be all right, baby.”

“Daddy-”

Frank reaches out and holds her tight. Whispers into her ear. “Go. Be a doctor. Make me proud.”

She sobs into his shoulder. “Daddy-”

“Shhhhh, it’s all right.” He looks up at Garth. “I made copies. They’re in safe-deposit boxes all over the world. If anything should happen to my daughter-a robber shoots her, she gets hit by a car, she falls off a horse-there are people who will distribute this tape to every major news network.”

Jimmy the Kid looks at Garth.

“Let her go,” Garth says.

“Listen-”

“Shut up,” Garth says. “I said, ‘Let her go.’”

Jimmy hesitates, then nods his head at Donna and says, “Get her the fuck out of here.”

Donna starts to take her, but Jill grabs Frank’s neck and won’t let go. “Daddy, they’re going to kill you.”

“They’re not going to kill me, baby,” he whispers. “I’m Frankie Machine.”

Donna slips the gun into his hands, then pushes Jill to the ground and falls on top of her. Frank shoots Jimmy the Kid between the eyes, then one of the Wrecking Crew, then another.

Carlo gets a shot away before a bullet blows the back of his head off. The shock knocks Frank to the ground, and he tries to aim at the fourth guy but sees he’s going to be too late.

Dave Hansen sees the same thing, haloed by the pier lights. It’s a tough shot from a boat, even with a rifle, but he makes it, and puts a round between the guy’s shoulder blades.

Frank rolls, swings his gun to the fifth man, and shoots him in the heart.

Garth is running.

Frank gets up to chase him.

They’re neither of them young, but Donnie Garth hasn’t been through what Frank’s been through the past few days, so he starts to pull away.

Frank sees that his legs aren’t fast enough, but he knows a bullet will be. He raises his gun to shoot; then a searing pain burns in his chest and his left arm is numb. At first, he thinks it’s the bullet, but then he feels his heart crack like a breaking wave and he can’t breathe and the pain is awful; he gets off one last shot and has the satisfaction of seeing Donnie Garth drop.

Then Frank stops, grabs his chest, and topples into the sand.

“Daddy!”

Jill’s voice is the last thing he hears.

Dave Hansen waits until the senator’s press conference is almost over.

The senator stands behind the podium, flashing his trademark smile to the reporters, and asks, “Are there any more questions?”

Dave raises his hand.

The senator smiles down at him and nods.

“Do you know your rights?” Dave asks.

The senator looks at quizzically.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Dave says, stepping up toward the platform. Two Secret Service guys get in his way, but Dave holds up his FBI badge and pushes through them.

“Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law,” Dave says as he twists the senator’s hands behind his back and cuffs him.

Cameras are going off, and the bright video lights are striking Dave full in the face. He doesn’t care. “You have the right to an attorney-”

“This is ridiculous,” the senator says. “This is just a political-”

“-and if you cannot afford one,” Dave says, smirking, “one will be appointed for you.”

“What am I being arrested for?”

“The murder of Summer Lorensen,” Dave says.

He starts walking the senator through the crowd, heading toward the waiting car. The media are closing in around them like a crosscurrent in the impact zone. Dave opens the door, pushes the senator’s head down, nudges him into the seat, and closes the door again.

He gets into the front passenger seat and tells the intimidated young agent to step on the gas.

Dave’s in a hurry.

He’s already missed the Gentlemen’s Hour.

And he doesn’t want to be late for Frank Machianno’s funeral.

The crowd is immense.

Frank the Bait Guy was loved in the community.

There are fishermen here, and surfers, and the Little League kids with their families, and students from the drama club, and soccer kids and soccer moms, and the teenagers who played hoops underneath the baskets that Frank paid for, and the local Vietnamese are out in force.

And men are telling their sons how they caught their first fish on the pier at Frank’s annual fishing contest, and old surfers are telling their wives what Frank used to be like back in the days of the long, endless summers. And one Vietnamese guy is telling his kids how Frank stood up for him just a few days ago.

Who isn’t here, Dave thinks as he takes a seat in the front row beside Patty and Jill, is the Mickey Mouse Club. The ones that he hasn’t already arrested are in the wind, but he’s going to pick them up soon, because they aren’t that good or that smart.

And Donna isn’t here. She’s already in protective custody, but Donna is too classy to have come anyway-she wouldn’t have wanted to cause any more pain to the grieving daughter and widow.

The flag is draped over Frank’s coffin. It was in his will that he wanted a closed casket, so his friends would remember him the way he was in life, not like some wax dummy the morticians made up.

Dave stands as the Marines fire their rifles into the air and the bugler plays taps.

It’s long and slow, beautiful and sad under the warm sun of the false early spring day.

That’s okay, though, Dave thinks.

Spring was always Frank’s season.

The Marines fold up the flag and hand it to Patty, who shakes her head.