The Winter of Frankie Machine

by Don Winslow

  God bless cell phones, Frank thinks, because now he can call Louis from the car and tell him to get some fresh tuna over to the Ocean Grill inside the next twenty minutes and make it good this time.

  “Why do you write it down if you make the call right away?” the kid Abe asks him.

  “Because the customer sees you write it down,” Frank tells him, “and he knows you take his business seriously.”

  By one o’clock, Frank has visited a dozen or so of the best restaurants in San Diego. Today, he works his way from south to north so he’ll end up in Encinitas to meet Jill for lunch.

  She’s a vegetarian, so they meet at the Lemongrass Café off the PCH, even though the restaurant isn’t one of Frank’s customers and he doesn’t get comped there.

  She’s already seated when he gets there.

  He stands in the foyer for a second, looking at her.

  For so long, he and Patty thought they couldn’t have a baby. They’d resigned themselves to the fact, then boom.

  Jill.

  My beautiful daughter.

  All grown up now.

  Tall, pretty, shoulder-length chestnut hair. Dark brown eyes and a Roman nose. Dressed casual but smart in blue jeans and a black sweater. She’s reading The New Yorker and sipping on a cup of what he knows is herbal tea. She looks up and smiles, and that smile is worth everything in the world to him.

  They were estranged for a long time after he and Patty split up, and he doesn’t blame her for being bitter. Those were tough times, Frank thinks. I put her and her mother through a lot. Through most of college, she barely spoke to him, even though he paid all the tuition and room and board. Then, at the end of her junior year, something just clicked in her. She called and invited him to lunch, and it was awkward and shy and totally terrific, and from there they slowly built their relationship back up.

  Not that it’s Father Knows Best yet. She still harbors some resentment, and can be a little sharp from time to time, but they have a steady Tuesday lunch date, and he won’t break it for anything, no matter how busy a day he’s having.

  “Daddy.”

  She sets the magazine down and stands up for her hug and kiss on the cheek.

  “Sweetie.”

  He sits down across from her. The place is your typical Southern California hippie-Buddhist-vegetarian joint, with natural-fiber everything on the tables and walls, and waiters who speak in whispers, as if they’re in a temple and not a restaurant.

  He looks at the menu.

  “Try the tofu burger,” she says.

  “No offense, sweetie, but I’d rather eat dirt.”

  He sees something that looks like it might be an eggplant sandwich with seven-grain bread and decides to go with that.

  She orders soup with tofu and lemongrass.

  “How’s the bait business?”

  “Steady,” he says.

  “Have you seen Mom lately?”

  “Sure.” Like every day, Frank thinks. If it’s not her checkbook, it’s the car needing maintenance, and there’s always something with the house. Plus, he pays the alimony every week, in cash. “You?”

  “We did the dinner and shopping thing last night,” Jill says. “Part of my continuing, albeit futile, campaign to get her to buy an article of clothing that’s not black.”

  He smiles and doesn’t mention her sweater.

  “She dresses like a nun since you left her,” Jill says.

  Well, at least we got the obligatory mention of that out of the way early, Frank thinks. And, just for the record, sweetie, I didn’t leave her—she kicked me out. Not that she didn’t have her reasons, or that I didn’t deserve it.

  Just for the record.

  He doesn’t say it, though.

  Jill reaches for something on the seat beside her, then hands him an envelope across the table. He looks at her curiously.

  “Open it,” she says. She’s beaming.

  He takes his reading glasses out and puts them on. Getting older is a bad idea, he thinks. I should give it up right away. The stationery is from UCLA. He takes out the enclosed letter and starts to read it. Can’t finish, though, because his eyes start to mist up. “Is this…”

  “I got accepted,” she says. “UCLA medical school.”

  “Sweetie,” Frank says. “That’s fantastic. I’m so proud…happy…”

  “Me, too,” she says, and he remembers that at her better moments she is totally without guile.

  “Wow,” he says. “My little girl is going to be a doctor.”

  “Oncology,” she says.

  Of course, he thinks. Jill never does anything by half. When she jumps in, it’s always at the deep end of the pool. So Jill isn’t just going to be a doctor; she’s going to cure cancer. Well, good for her, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she does.

  UCLA Medical School.

  “I don’t start until fall,” she’s saying, “so I thought I’d work a couple of jobs this summer, then get a part-time job during the school year. I think I can swing it.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Work the summer,” he said. “But you can’t go to med school and work at the same time, sweetie.”

  “Daddy, I—”

  He holds his hand up, palm out. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You work so hard, and—”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  This time, she gets just the hand, no words.

  But those are going to be some heavy bills, Frank thinks. That’s a lot of bait, linens, and fish. And rental properties—Frank spends his afternoons looking after his property-management business.

  I’m going to have to kick it all up a notch, he thinks. That’s okay. I can kick it up a notch. I handed you a lot of shit in your life; I can find a way to give you this. And to have a daughter named Dr. Machianno. What would my old man have thought of this?

  “This is such a happy thing,” he says. He stands up, leans over, and kisses her on the top of her head. “Congratulations.”

  She squeezes his hand. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  The food arrives and Frank eats his sandwich with fake enthusiasm. But, he thinks, I wish they would let me go back in the kitchen and show them how to fix eggplant.

  They make small talk through the rest of lunch. He asks her about boyfriends.

  “Nobody special,” she says. “Besides, I’m not going to have time for med school and a love life.”

  Classic Jill, he thinks. The kid has always had a good head on her shoulders.

  “Dessert?” he asks when they finish the entrée.

  “I don’t want anything,” she says, looking fixedly at his belly. “And neither should you.”

  “It’s my age,” he tells her.

  “It’s your diet,” she says. “It’s all the cannoli.”

  “I’m in the restaurant business.”

  “What business aren’t you in?”

  “The tofu business,” he says, gesturing for the check. And you should be glad I’m in all those businesses. It’s all those businesses that paid for your college and are going to find a way to pay for your med school.

  I just have to figure out how.

  He walks her out to her little Toyota Camry. He bought it for her when she started college—safe, good mileage, reasonable insurance. It’s still in perfect shape because she maintains it. The future oncologist knows to how to check the oil and change spark plugs, and God help the mechanic who tries to pull a fast one on Jill Machianno.

  Now she’s looking at him real seriously. Those sharp brown eyes can be remarkably warm sometimes. Not often, but when they are…

  “What?” he asks.

  She hesitates, then says, “You’ve been a good father. And I’m sorry if I—”

  “Sorries are for yesterday,” Frank says. “All God gives us is today, sweetie. And you’re a wonderful daughter and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

  They hug tightly for a minute.

  The
n she’s in her car and gone.

  With her whole life in front of her, Frank thinks. What that kid is going to do….

  He’s barely back in the van when the cell phone rings. He glances at the screen. “Hello, Patty.”

  “The garbage disposal,” she says.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s not disposing garbage,” she says. “And the sink is all filled up with…garbage.”

  “Did you call a plumber?”

  “I called you.”

  “I’ll stop by this afternoon.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know, Patty,” he says. “I have things to do. I’ll get there when I get there.”

  “You have the key,” she says.

  I already know that, he thinks. Why does she have to remind me every time? “I have the key,” he says. “I just had lunch with Jill.”

  “It’s Tuesday,” she says.

  “Did she tell you?”

  “About medical school?” Patty asks. “She showed me the letter. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Absolutely wonderful.”

  “But how are we going to pay for it, Frank?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “But I don’t know—”

  “I’ll figure it out,” Frank says. “Patty, I’m going to lose you here….”

  He clicks off.

  Terrific, he thinks, now I have a clogged-up garbage disposal to add to my day. Ten to one, Patty was peeling potatoes in the sink and tried to wash them down the disposal. And even though I’ve got at least four plumbers on the arm that I could send over there, it has to be me, or Patty doesn’t believe it’s fixed. Unless she’s got me under the sink barking my knuckles on a wrench, she’s not happy.

  He pulls off at a strip mall in Solana Beach, goes into Starbucks and buys a single cappuccino with skimmed milk and a cherry but no whipped cream, puts a cover on it, hops back into the van, and drives over to Donna’s little boutique.

  She’s behind the counter.

  “Skimmed milk?” she asks.

  “Yeah, like every other day I bring you a skimmed milk,” Frank says, “but today I bring you a whole milk.”

  “You’re a darling.” She smiles at him, takes a sip, and says, “Thank you. I didn’t have time for lunch today.”

  Time for what? Frank thinks, because lunch for Donna is a raw carrot slice, a piece of lettuce, and maybe a beet or something. Then again, it’s why she’s pushing fifty and looks more like mid-thirties, and why she still has the Vegas showgirl body. Long, thin legs, no waist, and a balcony that, while big, isn’t in danger of collapsing. Combine all that with her flame red hair, green eyes, a face to die for, and a personality to match, and it’s little wonder he brings her a cappuccino every time he’s passing through.

  And flowers once a week.

  And something shiny on Christmas and birthdays.

  Donna is a high-maintenance broad, as she will readily admit.

  Frank understands this—high quality and high maintenance go together. Donna takes good care of Donna and she expects Frank to do the same. Not that Donna is a kept woman. Far from it. She put away most of her money from her showgirl days, moved to San Diego, and opened her pricey boutique. Not a lot of inventory, but what she has is top quality and very stylish, and attracts a loyal customer base, mostly from San Diego Ladies Who Lunch.

  “You should move the shop to La Jolla,” he told her.

  “You know the rents in La Jolla?” she replied.

  “But most of your customers are in La Jolla.”

  “They can drive ten minutes,” she said.

  She’s right, Frank thinks. And they do drive to her shop. Right now, there are two ladies inspecting the racks and another one in a changing room. And it doesn’t hurt that Donna wears her own merchandise and looks stunning.

  If the store was empty, Frank thinks, I’d like to take her into one of those fitting rooms and…

  She reads the glint in his eye.

  “You’re too busy and so am I,” she says.

  “I know.”

  “But what are you doing later?”

  He feels a little twinge in his groin. Donna never fails to do that to him, and they’ve been together—what, eight years?

  “Did you have your lunch with Jill?” she asks.

  He tells her about Jill’s news.

  “That’s wonderful,” Donna says. “I’m so happy for her.”

  And she means it, Frank thinks, even though she and Jill have never as much as met. Frank has tried to bring the subject of Donna up to his daughter, but she’s cut him off every time and changed the subject. She’s loyal to her mother, Frank thinks, and he has to respect loyalty. Donna does, too.

  “Hey,” she said when all this came up, “if she were my kid, and my ex wanted her to meet his new squeeze, I’d want her to act the same way.”

  Maybe, Frank thought, although Donna is more sophisticated than Patty about matters romantic. But it was nice of her to say it anyway.

  “She’s a good kid,” Donna says now. “She’ll do well.”

  Yeah, she will, Frank thinks.

  “Gotta go,” he says.

  “Me, too,” Donna says, eyeing a customer coming out of the dressing room with an outfit that would be a disaster on her. He nods and heads out the door as he hears her say, “Honey, with your eyes, let me show you…”

  5

  Rental properties, Frank thinks, is a polite way of saying hemorrhoids.

  Because they are an itching, burning pain in the butt. The only difference is that rental properties make money and hemorrhoids don’t, unless you’re a proctologist, in which case they do.

  He thinks this as he drives around Ocean Beach checking on the half dozen condos, houses, and small apartment buildings he looks after as a silent partner in OB Property Management, a limited partnership, which is limited basically to Frank and Ozzie Ransom, whose name appears on all the paperwork and who takes care of the money. Except that after Ozzie counts the money, Frank counts it all over again to make sure that Ozzie isn’t robbing him like a bartender. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Ozzie; it’s just that he doesn’t want to put his “partner” in the way of temptation.

  Frank is similarly protective about the moral well-being of his “partners” in the linen business and the fish business. He checks their books on a regular basis and he also checks them on an “irregular” basis, as he calls it. They never know when Frank might drop in to check the accounts, the receipts, the inventory, or the order sheets. And every quarter, Frank has his accountant and attorney, Sherm “the Nickel” Simon (“A nickel here, a nickel there…”), go over all the books both to do his taxes and to make sure that even though the government is robbing him blind, his partners aren’t.

  Frank is a fanatic about paying his taxes.

  He calls it “the Capone factor.”

  “Al Capone,” Frank once said to Herbie Goldstein, “ran the biggest bootlegging operation in history, bribed cops, judges, and politicians, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered people in broad daylight on the streets of Chicago, and what did he go to jail for? Income tax evasion.”

  It’s as true now as it was then, Frank thinks—you can do about anything in this country as long as you kick up to the feds. Uncle wants his taste, and as long as he gets it, you can pretty much do what you want as long as you don’t rub it in Uncle’s nose.

  Frank is meticulous on both counts.

  He pays his taxes and does nothing to draw attention to himself. If The Nickel comes up with a deduction that’s even on the edge, Frank nixes it. The last thing in the world he wants is an audit. And Frank doesn’t even go near the businesses that attract the feds’ attention—garbage, construction, bars, porno. No, he’s just Frank the Bait Guy and his side endeavors are all totally legit. He works his linen supply, his fish, his rental properties.

  Renters are a pain, especially in a beach community where people tend to be somewhat transient, anyway
. People come to the beach thinking it’s paradise and that they’re going to spend all day beachcombing and all night partying, and they forget that somewhere in all that they still have to make a living.

  They always think they can make the rent, and then find that they can’t, so what they do is move in a roommate or five, very often people they met at a bar, who may or may not have the rent money on the first of the month.

  Not that Frank doesn’t counsel them—he does. When he’s taking their application, he goes over first month/last month/damage deposit. He gets a credit check, a bank statement, and references, and more than half the time tells them that they just can’t afford to live by the beach.

  But the young people didn’t come to California not to live by the beach, so they get some roommates and dive into an obligation they can’t handle. The result is that Frank has a lot of turnaround, and turnaround is the bane of rental-property management. It means cleaning costs, repairs, advertising, interviewing, credit checks, and running down references and employment. On the other hand, you do collect the last month’s rent and the damage deposit, because the kids always damage the place, usually as a result of a party.

  Frank has the whole enchilada on his plate this afternoon. He has to show an apartment and interview a couple of young ladies who will be either waitresses or strippers, or waitresses who will soon decide that there’s more money in stripping. Then there’s a kitchen upgrade he wants to check in on. Then he has to check on the cleaning of an apartment that’s in transition, and make sure that the carpet cleaners have steamed the vomit stains left by the previous tenants/party animals out of the carpet.

  He shows the two young ladies the apartment. They’re strippers all right, and a nice semi-married lesbian couple, so Frank doesn’t have to worry about their ability to pay the rent or about them having skanky guys from the strip clubs moving in. They want the place and he takes their deposit on the spot. The credit check will be a formality and he’ll give the club a quick call to confirm employment.