70
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.
71
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.
72
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.
It’s all about Fortunate Son.
Frank looks at the clock. It’s 3:30 in the morning and there’s nothing he can do about it for a couple of hours at least.
The best thing he can do is get a little sleep.
But it’s too much effort to get out of the chair, and it hurts too bad to move, so he just leans back and shuts his eyes.
73
Troy drives carefully through the rain, even though there’s little traffic on the streets this time of night. But he can barely see in the slashing rain-his front and rear wipers are putting up a brave but losing fight against the buildup of water on the glass.
He drives down through the Lamp, gets out of his car near Island, puts his umbrella up, and walks into a phone booth.
An umbrella to walk three steps, Dave thinks, watching him from a car a block away. With a cell phone clipped to your belt.
Who are you calling, Dave wonders, you don’t want a record of?
He doesn’t pause to think about it, though. There’ll be time to grab the phone records in the morning. He has to get over there before the people on the other end of that phone, whoever they are.
74
Jimmy the Kid Giacamone sets the phone down.
“Let’s rock and roll,” he says.
Carlo’s beginning to think that Jimmy is a real asshole.
75
Jimmy knows he’s got to get in and out fast.
A quickie in the sticky.
Wham, bam, thank you, M.
He’s in a race with the feds to see who gets there first. No consolation prize for second place, no gift baskets or all-expense-paid weekends at a second-rate resort, thank you for playing, and we hope you had fun.
Winner take all.
Way it should be.
So Jimmy and the Wrecking Crew roll up at the address hard and fast and with bad intent. No more time for subtlety-just go through the door, shoot anything that moves, hope you get The Machine before The Machine gets you.
That’s good, Jimmy thinks as the car skids to a stop. I should go in the studio and cut that-“Get The Machine Before The Machine Gets You.” Next hip-hop hit out of Motor City.
“Eight Mile” my rosy ass.
He gets out of the car.
The address is a Jack in the Box.
Dave, parked across the street, can make out a crew when he sees one, even in the pouring rain.
Don Winslow
The Winter of Frankie Machine
76
Dave goes back to his house and works from his study.