“Run?” Dave Hansen asks.
He’s sitting across the desk from Sherm Simon.
“Japanese movie,” Simon answers. “Kurosawa. If you haven’t seen it, you should.”
“That wasRan. ”
“Ran, Run, what’s the difference?”
“A big difference,” Dave says, “if that was Frank Machianno on the phone.”
“Frank who?”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I don’t play games,” Sherm says. “Do you have a warrant, Agent Hansen? Because if you don’t…” He gestures to the door.
“Frank may be in trouble,” Dave says.
No shit, Frank may be in trouble, Sherm thinks. I may be in trouble. Weall may be in trouble. There’s trouble that you’ve had, trouble that you presently have, and trouble you’re going to have-that’s the world.
“You hold Frank’s mad money,” Dave says. It’s a statement, not a question.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m trying to help him,” Dave says.
“I seriously doubt that.”
Dave gets up and leans over the desk. “Well, don’t seriously doubtthis: The Patriot Act gives me carte blanche when it comes to money laundering, Mr. Simon. I can open you up like a kid’s juice carton and spill you out all over the place.”
“You know goddamn well,” Sherm says, “that Frank Machianno-and I’m not implying any relationship here-has nothing to do with terrorism. The notion is ridiculous.”
“That’s not what I’ll tell the judge.”
“No, I’ll bet it isn’t.”
“If you see him,” Dave says, “if he contacts you, you let me know right away.”
Sherm doesn’t make any promises.
29
Troy Vaughan leaves the Federal Building to go grab some lunch. They have a good cafeteria in the building, but Troy feels like getting some air. He tucks theUnion-Tribune under his arm and leaves his office.
“It’s raining,” the receptionist tells him.
Troy holds up his umbrella.
There are maybe three people in San Diego who own an umbrella.
Anyway, it’s not raining hard, and the umbrella stands up to the wind. Troy walks three blocks down to a little lunch place on Broadway, at the edge of the Gaslamp District. He finds a stool at the counter and sits down.
“What’s the soup of the day?” he asks the guy behind the counter.
“Vegetable bean.”
Troy orders the soup and half-sandwich special and unfolds his newspaper. He removes the sports section, sets it down on the stool beside him, and starts to read the main section.
A minute later, the guy two stools over gets up, slides his check off the counter, picks up the sports section, and goes up to the register. The man pays his check and walks out into the rain.
Troy cautions himself to ignore the man walking out. He makes himself sit and finish his sandwich and his cup of vegetable bean soup.
Which, he thinks, is not exactly haute cuisine, but good on a cold, rainy day.
30
The fishermen were trying to bag a four-hundred-pound marlin, but they hooked a four-hundred-pound bouncer instead.
Grisly catch.
Dave Hansen gets the call that morning and goes down to the docks to meet the boat. He isn’t very worried about the forensics getting screwed up on a body that’s been in the water for two days.
Still and all, it isn’t hard to ID Tony Palumbo.
A few hours later, Dave gets confirmation that Palumbo was shot with the same gun that killed Vince Vena.
Hypothesis: Vena had come out from Detroit to get rid of Tony Palumbo, and someone had killed them both.
So someone was trying to clean up G-Sting from the top down. And to do it, they contracted with the most efficient hit man in California.
Dave puts a warrant out for Frank Machianno.
31
Frank takes a left on Nautilus Street and pulls off the road at Windansea.
Sherm’s single word, Run, let him know that The Nickel is hot.
On a normal day, he’d relish the chance to come to Windansea, the legendary surf spot. Especially on a day when the break is going off and some of the world’s best surfers will be out. But this isn’t a normal day. This is a day when somebody is waiting to kill him.
Let them wait, Frank thinks.
He flirts briefly with the idea of driving into La Jolla anyway and just letting the chips fall.
They don’t know what car you’re driving, and, better, they don’t know that you know that they’re there. On the downside, you don’t know who they are, or how many, or where they are. All you know is that they-whoever “they” are-will be hanging close to Sherm’s office. And besides, what do you gain even if you “win” a shoot-out in the crowded shopping district on La Jolla Boulevard?
Life without parole.
So don’t be stupid, he tells himself.
He pulls out of the parking lot and heads east on Nautilus, then south on La Jolla Scenic Drive, then east on Soledad Mountain Road out to the 5. Then he drives north to the 78 and heads east.
32
Jimmy the Kid Giacamone sits in a car and thinks about balls.
Balls is what Frankie Machine’s got. Big, clanging brass clappers.
First he snatches Mouse Junior and rides him right into his daddy’s place of business, next he pulls John Heaney into a Dumpster, and then he strolls into Migliore’s bar, beats half the guys senseless, and roughs up Teddy himself.
The guy’s got balls.
Good, Jimmy thinks, because that’s the kind of trophy you want hanging on your wall. Not his balls, of course, not literally-but any hunter worth his salt wants the big old bull elephant, the one that, you fuck up, is going to kill you.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
Jimmy’s in California with his whole crew.
“The Wrecking Crew,” they’re glossed, because they work out of a car-salvage place out in Deerborn. Jimmy likes the tag-the Wrecking Crew-it says it all.
They didn’t come in together, of course. That would’ve been stupid. They came in on separate flights, and none of them into San Diego, either. Jimmy came into Orange County, Paulie and Joey into L.A., Carlo into Burbank, Tony into Palm Springs, Jackie into Long Beach.
Mouse’s guys met them and hooked them up with hardware.
That’s all Jimmy asked from those West Coast mooks. “Get us some hardware, clean, untraceable. You guys think you can handle that?”
Maybe yes, maybe no. Frankie M. had come right into their driveway, for Chrissakes, and they let him skate. Way he heard it, Frankie had shot up the kid’s Hummer and stolen Joey Fiella’s car in the process.
Too fucking funny.
But the Mouseketeers had come through with the arsenal he’d requested, so his crew was strapped and ready to rock and roll, Motor City-style.
Eight Mile-style.
Jimmy starts to sing:
“You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo…”
No shit, you ain’t gonna blow this opportunity. Take care of business here, go back and jump the old man for the spot on the council. Like, king me, Dad. First step in taking the family back from the Tominellos and getting it home where it belongs, to the Giacamones.
Something Dad never had the stones to do.
But I do, Jimmy thinks.
Me and Frankie M., we got balls.
I just gotta blow Frankie’s off.
So he sits in the car and waits.
Frankie Machine is going to show up sooner or later.
33
Two hours later, Frank’s in the desert.
It’s raining there.
Raining in the damn desert, Frank thinks. It just figures. It goes with all the other weird stuff that’s going down.