by Don Winslow
It’s like he’s just gone.
And Gruzsa, Gruzsa, man, he sees Don Huertero standing there between him and his money and he goes for his gun as Huertero’s man goes for his reload, and Huertero’s man is a beat faster.
Gruzsa goes down on that dock but is like too fucking mean to die before he puts two shots into Huertero’s man, who staggers off the dock into the water.
One Way hears all this and all he knows is he has Bobby’s son to protect, and he starts the engine. Comes up on deck and starts to pull the Nowhere out of that slip and head toward the open water, because Bobby is dead. One Way can see what’s left of his body on the dock and One Way knows he has to get that kid to safety somewhere, and safety for any son of Bobby Z’s is on the water.
So the boat starts pulling out, and the old Mexican in the suit starts to get on board, but Bobby’s woman has a blade that flashes like a sunbeam down his face from his forehead to his chin.
Huertero’s standing there looking at his own blood flowing into his hands when Elizabeth plunges the knife into his chest.
And she just stands there waiting for the cops, and she’s not going to have long to wait, because the sirens are already blaring.
It’s like fucking chaos in Dana Point Harbor.
Escobar’s crew is speeding out of town in the knowledge that they’ve avenged their carnal, and DFN Cruz is happy but a little weirded out because the target looked so much like that crazy fucker from the Gulf whose name he can’t remember.
And the Angels are roaring off that bridge. Just dumped their weapons in the harbor and now they’re riding like to San Berdoo or someplace to celebrate the death of Tim Kearney and the fact that their brothers can now party in hell.
And One Way, he’s tired of the chaos. He just wants to get out of fucking California, man, out of the trip, and he has a job to do. A lifelong job, which is to take care of Z’s kid.
And Z’s woman, so he jumps off the boat, grabs the woman and hauls her on board, and then steers the Nowhere out toward the open ocean while Bobby’s woman holds Bobby’s crying kid.
As the sirens wail and the cop cars skid into the harbor, One Way just calmly steers the Nowhere under the bridge and out to the open sea.
To like disappear with the legend of Bobby Z.
78.
Tim watches the boat go.
Stands there and watches the boat slip away and head for the open ocean.
Knows he’s lost again, because there’s like no way that boat can come back into the harbor to pick him up and they all get away. Cops like fucking everywhere because there are bodies all over the place, and dead bodies draw flies and cops.
So Tim is like stuck.
Of course, he thinks. Of fucking course.
But he’s seen Elizabeth and Kit get on the boat. And there’s lots of money on the boat and they’ll live happily ever after with One Way and the smart thing to do is to forget about them, and he’s thinking like go boat go. Get the hell out of here.
And besides, he thinks, I’m dead.
Whichever the fuck person I am, I’m dead.
Tim Kearney’s dead and Bobby Z is dead, and so it looks like I get a fresh start.
Head up to Oregon, get a new name and a new life.
Because the money and the woman and the kid would have been nice, would have been a dream, man, but losers don’t get dreams.
Losers have to settle for real life, and now at least I got one of those.
So he watches the boat sail away. Figures he’ll watch it until it disappears over the horizon. Then creep back into that jungle of a ravine and disappear.
That’d be the smart thing to do.
Then he figures like fuck that.
And starts to run.
Starts to jog toward the harbor and the stone jetty. No one’s gonna notice another jogger on the beach in California, man. The cops are too happy with the bodies and the ambulances and shit, and the crowd forming over there, and Tim just jogs right past it toward the jetty.
Gets on those rocks and starts hustling toward the ocean, toward the boat, and now he’s slipping and falling on those rocks and the waves are crashing and threatening to take him off, but he keeps going.
And no one looks up, not the cops or the ambulance attendants, or the joggers or even the surfers braving the big waves on the other side of the jetty.
79.
It’s Kit who sees him, of course.
Kit’s standing on the deck, sobbing into Elizabeth’s stomach, and he looks out and sees him running on the jetty. And Kit yells to One Way.
Who looks over, and this ain’t no trip, man, but Bobby Z’s risen from the dead.
Risen from the dead and running toward the open ocean, and One Way pulls on a couple of lines and tells Elizabeth to pull on a line, and she and the kid are tugging away and the sails come up and One Way has that boat turned around and he’s steering it to run parallel with the jetty.
Tim, he’s working his way down the rocks now, trying to find a place where he can jump into the water, and it’s a scary fucking jump from anywhere on these big sharp rocks into that surf, and Tim stands there trying to get the courage.
Because he can’t swim.
Lifelong loser, world-class fuck-up Tim Kearney has come this far, from the middle of the desert to the edge of the earth, and he can’t make the last hundred or so yards because it’s water. And the boat can’t come closer because it’ll crash onto the rocks.
Tim sees Kit on the deck of the boat, jumping up and down and waving his arms, and he thinks he can hear the boy yelling Come on! and he jumps.
Like just fucking flies over the rocks into the surf.
And starts to go down.
And he doesn’t know what the fuck is going to happen to him.
What happens is that lifelong loser, world-class fuck-up Tim Kearney gets lucky for once in his fucked-up life.
What happens is that there’s a goofy-footed surfer out there trying to catch the point break and he’s a cocky little bastard. Thinks he’s going to be the next Bobby Z, man, he thinks he’s that good. So sure of himself he doesn’t even have his leash on because this kid doesn’t think he can fall. So he’s sliding across the roof of this right-breaking wave, he’s on top of the world, he’s going to be the next Z. But then he wipes out big-time and his board … his board just goes flying. Shoots up into the blue sky like it’s a missile, man, and lands flat in the water in front of Tim Kearney.
Who’s just smart enough to climb on board.
How Tim gets to the boat is he climbs on that board and starts to paddle like hell.
Paddles like hell and holds on for life over the top of the swells. Just riding those waves, man, not in but out. And only lets go when Kit and Elizabeth grab him and haul him onto the deck of the Nowhere.
Three lifelong losers and a kid on that boat.
A life sentence, Tim thinks as he rolls around the deck with the kid in his arms and that treacherous, lovely woman looks on crying, and that wonderful goddamn lunatic smiles and steers the boat.
I’m doing life.
Later that day, miles away on the open ocean, the setting sun turned the boat and everything around it into the purest gold.
A blistering new novel about organized crime—of both the Mob and government kind—told through the story of one unlikely hitman.
DON WINSLOW
The Winter of Frankie Machine
Available September 2006, in hardcover from Knopf $24.00 (Canada: $32.00) • 978-1-4000-4498-6
PLEASE VISIT WWW.AAKNOPF.COM
lter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share