by Don Winslow
“Then pack.”
“Frank?”
“What?” he snaps. He doesn’t want to be on the phone too long, in case they have her line tapped.
“Take care of yourself, okay?” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
The next call is to Donna.
“Nonfat latte, two shots of espresso,” she says when she hears his voice. “Please.”
“Now listen,” Frank says, “and, just for once, do exactly what I tell you without argument or discussion. Close the shop, go home and pack, get on a plane to Hawaii. The Big Island, Kauai, doesn’t matter, just go. Today. Take your cell phone. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, and don’t come back until you’ve heard from me. Not a message from me, from me personally. Will you do that?”
There’s a silence as she takes all this in; then she simply says, “Yes.”
“Good. Thank you. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she says. “Will I see you again?”
“Absolutely.”
Now they’ve got me saying it, he thinks.
He calls Jill and gets her answering machine: Hi, I’m off skiing in Big Bear. Aren’t you jealous? Leave a message and I’ll call you back. He tries her cell and gets pretty much the same message. Oh well, he thinks, she’s safe in Big Bear—even if “they,” whoever they are, want to try to get her, they can’t track her down there.
So the people I love are safe.
Which is a good thing on its own, and also gives me freedom of movement.
And it’s time to move.
He packs the shotgun and some clothes into a gym bag, straps on a shoulder holster for the .38, then slips into a raincoat and heads out the door. He takes a taxi downtown, then goes to Hertz and uses his Sabellico identification to rent a nondescript Ford Taurus.
He heads north on the Pacific Coast Highway.
Toward L.A.
13
Dave Hansen walks out onto the beach.
The wet sand looks like dark, shiny marble and the cold rain pelts him in the face. Two thousand miles of coastline, he thinks, and the floater had to wash up on federal land, in weather like this. He’s at the edge of America, literally. Point Loma is the last stop in the continental USA, the end of the line.
The floater just made it.
A few feet the other way and the body would have been a Mexican problem.
A bunch of sailors from the Coast Guard station and a few San Diego cops are gathered around the body.
“We didn’t touch it,” the police sergeant tells Dave. “This is your jurisdiction.”
He sounds pleased as punch.
“Thanks,” Dave says.
Actually, the San Diego cops like Hansen. He has a light touch, for a fed. The sergeant says, “We haven’t had any missing persons report. Usually do in a drowning. I checked with Coast Guard, too. Nada.”
“He didn’t drown,” Dave says. “He’s not blue.”
The skin of drowning victims, even if they’ve been in the water for only a few minutes, turns a ghastly blue. No one who’s seen it ever forgets it. Dave squats down by the body. He opens up the guy’s jacket and sees the large entrance wound right where the guy’s heart used to be. He keeps looking and finds the other entrance wound in the stomach.
Whoever killed the John Doe shot him in the gut, then pressed the gun against his chest and finished him off. Even after an unknown number of hours in the water, the powder burns on his clothes are unmistakable.
“Probably a dope run gone wrong,” the sergeant said.
“Probably,” Dave says. He keeps looking through the guy’s clothes. The shooter also removed John Doe’s ID. No wallet, no watch, no ring, nothing. Dave looks closely at the victim’s face, or what’s left of it after the fish pecked at the eyes. He doesn’t recognize him, didn’t expect to, but there’s something vaguely familiar about him.
A faint memory, or an old dream, washed up onshore like a piece of driftwood.
It’s weird.
But it’s been a weird day, Dave thinks. Must be the weather; these high-pressure fronts seem to make everything and everybody a little crazy. People do odd things that they wouldn’t otherwise do.
Frank Machianno, for instance.
Frank’s at the bait shop every morning like clockwork for as long as Dave can remember, and then today he doesn’t show up. And Frank, who’s been a regular at the Gentlemen’s Hour for longer than Dave has, is a no-show for the best waves of the year.
Dave figured he was sick, and called the house to bust his chops about the great waves he missed, but no answer. Tried Frank on his cell, same thing. So he went back to the bait shop, only to find the kid Abe closing it up.
“Frank said to,” Abe told him. “Said take a few days off.”
“Frank said take a few days off.”
“What I thought,” Abe said. “Told me to go home for a while.”
“Where’s home?”
Abe pointed south. “TJ.”
Like, where else?
So Dave took a drive over to Frank’s house. His van and his Mercedes in the garage, the house all locked up, no Frank.
So it’s been a strange day.
A murdered body that by all the rules of normal tide and current should have drifted down the Baja coast manages instead to snag itself up on the last tip of America.
When Dave first heard they had a floater, he was afraid it was Tony Palumbo. The star witness in G-Sting has been undercover for years as a bouncer at Hunnybear’s, and he was supposed to meet with Dave earlier that morning.
He didn’t show up.
He wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and a four-hundred-pound man is hard to miss.
So Tony Palumbo is 441.
And Frank goes off the radar.
14
James “Jimmy the Kid” Giacamone walks into the bar of the Bloomfield Hills Country Club in suburban Detroit and looks for his father. He spots Vito William Giacamone, aka “Billy Jacks,” sitting at a banquette by the window, sadly contemplating the snow-covered eighteenth green.
Billy Jacks turns and looks at his son. The kid comes to the country club dressed in baggy pants and an old sweatshirt with the hood up. Like one of them rappers—what’s the white one’s name, the local kid?…Some kind of candy…M&M’s.
His son thinks he’s M&M’s.
Then again, Billy thinks, the kid just did a hard stint—five years for extortion. And the boy has done some other work that, thank Saint Anthony, the feds didn’t make him for. The boy may look like a clown, but he’s a good worker.
And he’s back with me, so let him look like what he wants. This life of ours, you never know how much time you have with your kids, so why bust balls?
Jimmy slips into the booth beside him and signals the bartender to bring him his usual.
“It’s gonna be months,” Billy says, “before we can get out there.”
Jimmy doesn’t care. Golf is for old guys.
A waiter sets a vodka and tonic in front of Jimmy and walks away.
“You heard from Vince?” Billy asks.
Jimmy shakes his head. “B Company ain’t comin’ back.”
Which is what happens, Jimmy thinks, when you send a guy like Vince against a legend like Frankie Machine.
Billy accepts the verdict. What choice does he have? If Vince was alive, he would have checked in. He hasn’t, and the silence can only mean one thing—Vince Vena better hope he was current with his Acts of Contrition.
Fuckin’ shame about Vince, though. After a life of service, the guy finally makes it to the ruling council of the Combination and then gets himself whacked just a few weeks later. Then again, it means there’s going to be a vacancy on the council.
Jimmy sits there listening to his father’s brain grinding away on overtime. He can see the old man working through the stages of grief. First there’s acceptance: Vince is dead. Then there’s anger: Fuck, Vince is dead! Then there’s ambition: Vince is de
ad and someone’s going to get his seat at the table.
They’re like hyenas, these old guys, thinks Jimmy, who watched a lot of shows on Animal Planet when he was in the joint. They run together, they hunt in packs, they share the kill, but one of them goes down, the rest will eat his bones and suck the marrow.
And Vince’s bones have some juicy marrow in them.
There’s only two street bosses, Jimmy thinks, my dad and old Tony Corrado, so one of them is going to move up. And if Dad can rescue this San Diego deal, it’s going to be him.
“They should have sent me,” Jimmy says.
“You asked,” Billy says.
Jimmy shrugs. It’s true, he made a big play with Jack Tominello, but the head of the council, the real boss, agreed that it should be Vince. After all, San Diego was going to be Vince’s territory, so he should take care of his own business.
Except he couldn’t.
“Now what?” Billy asks.
He’s come to that age when he’s asking advice from his own kid. But youth must be served, and Jimmy the Kid is an up-and-comer, at only twenty-seven years of age the Combination’s biggest earner, and there’s a seat practically reserved for him at the council table.
In his turn, in his time. And the first step would be I move up to the council; then Jimmy gets my street-boss slot.
“Now what?” Jimmy asks. “I kill Frankie Machine, that’s what.”
Billy Jacks shakes his head.
“Dad,” Jimmy says, “we can’t let this guy kill a member of the ruling council and walk away. Besides, we promised certain people….”
“I know what we promised,” Billy says. He looks off again at the snow and then gets mad again about Vince.
“A bunch of California beach bums,” Jimmy says.
“Let me remind you,” Billy says, “one of those ‘beach bums’ killed Vince Vena.”
“You think I can’t handle the guy?”
Frank Machianno, Frankie fucking Machine, Jimmy thinks. The guy has to be on the wrong side of sixty. He might be a legend and all that, but a bunch of old war stories don’t make the man bulletproof.
Jimmy likes the fact that Frankie Machine is a legend.
Killing a legend makes you a legend.
You ain’t the man until you beat the man who was the man.
That’s what his uncle taught him.
Tony Jacks was a man. Uncle Tony made his bones the old way, chased the old Jewish Navy out of Detroit, then was a freaking warrior in the long war between the east and west sides that finally settled into the Combination. It was Tony Jacks who brought Hoffa into the fold, and Tony Jacks who finally, reluctantly, gave the word to have him clipped.
But now Uncle Tony is retired, ill, living out his last days in God’s Waiting Room in West Palm.
That’s the problem with this thing of ours these days, not enough men like Uncle Tony. Jimmy loves his father, but the old man is like most of the old men these days—worn out, tired, and reluctant to pull the trigger. It took generations to build this thing of ours, and now the old men are just giving it away to the moolies and the Jamaicans and the Russians.
Or beach bums out on the West Coast.
We’re just soft these days.
But Jimmy the Kid is a throwback. He’s old-school—he ain’t afraid to pull the trigger. He figures it’s time for the new generation to take over and restore their thing.
And the best way to move up and do that is to step up, Jimmy thinks.
Take out a legend like Frankie Machine.
Let them know there’s a new kid in town.
15
Dave Hansen walks into Callahan’s.
The popular bar is in the heart of the Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego. Once a rough neighborhood of SRO hotels, strip clubs, and porno shops, the area has become a tourist attraction of faux seediness.
Callahan’s has made a lot of money in the transition.
Dave Hansen is about as welcome at Callahan’s as a cold sore on a lip.
Two wise guys make him the second he walks in, and they shuffle quickly to the back room, where Teddy Migliore keeps his office. Young Teddy’s mob genealogy couldn’t be more solid—he’s old Joe Migliore’s son and Paul Moretti’s grandson. Teddy did a pop for loan-sharking a few years ago, but has kept his nose clean until recently.
Until Operation G-Sting started to bring up some troublesome connections. Like the fact that Teddy is the silent owner of Hunnybear’s and several other strip clubs in the area. Like the fact that John Heaney is a night manager at Hunnybear’s.
Teddy comes out of the office.
“My lawyer will be here in five minutes,” he says.
“I’ll be gone by then,” Dave tells him.
“Can you make it four?”
“Trust me,” Dave says. “I won’t spend a second longer in this rat hole than I have to.”
“Good,” Teddy says. “What do you want? I’m sick to death of this FBI harassment just because I have an Italian surname and I’m a Migliore.”
“Tony Palumbo is missing,” Dave says.
He watches for Teddy’s reaction.
Teddy smiles. “Follow a trail of Twinkie wrappers, you should find him.”
“Did you kill him?”
“You’re kind of jumping to conclusions there, aren’t you?” Teddy asks. “One, that he’s dead; two, that I’d want him dead; three, that even if I did want him dead, I would take matters into my own hands.”
Dave steps up to him.
Teddy’s two boys start to move in, until Dave says, “Yeah, why don’t you? I’m in an ugly mood and I haven’t gotten my exercise today.”
The FBI agent is six four and cut.
They back off.
Dave gets right in Teddy’s face.
“If I find out you did him,” Dave says, “I’ll be back. And I’ll make Ruby Ridge and Waco look like SpongeBob SquarePants.”
“Are you threatening me?” Teddy asks.
“Goddamn right.”
“I’ll sue your ass off.”
“Your estate will sue my ass off,” Dave says. He turns to walk out.
“You’re looking at the wrong people,” Teddy says to his back. “You might want to be looking for Frank Machianno.”
Dave turns around.
“Your surfing buddy,” Teddy adds.
Frankie Machine.
16
Jimmy the Kid rents a car at the airport and drives out to his uncle’s place in West Palm.
It’s nice to be in Florida. Nice to be cruising in a convertible, getting some sun. Jimmy runs a hand through his dyed-blond hair. He likes his new look—bright blond, almost a buzz cut.
Nice, too, to show off the tatts in short-sleeve weather.
Got him some of those Chinese symbols—“Strength,” “Courage,” “Loyalty.” Got him a big wrecking ball on his right forearm, about to swing down on some geek in an old Caddy.
“The Wrecking Crew.”
Nice.
Tony’s bungalow is sweltering. It’s a hot day anyway, and Jimmy swears the old man has the freaking heat turned on in the house. He glances at the thermostat and it reads 85.
And Uncle Tony has a sweater on.
It’s his circulation, Jimmy thinks. The blood just isn’t moving. And old men get cold.
Jimmy hugs his uncle and kisses him on both cheeks. The skin feels like parchment paper on his lips.
Tony Jacks is glad to see his nephew.
“Come, sit.”
They go into the living room. Jimmy sits down on the sofa and his legs stick to the plastic covering in the heat.
“You want something to drink?” Uncle Tony asks. “I’ll call the girl.”
“I’m good.”
They make the requisite small talk for a few minutes; then Tony Jacks gets to the point. “What brings you here, Jimmy?”
“This mess in San Diego.”
Tony Jacks shakes his head. “They’d asked me, I’d’ve told them Vince
couldn’t handle that job.”
“What I said.”
“I’ve known this Frankie since he was a kid,” Tony Jacks says. “He did some work for me, back in the day. A tough nut to crack.”
“I want the shot, Uncle Tony.”
Tony Jacks looks at him for a few seconds, then says, “That’s up to Jack Tominello, nephew. He’s the boss.”
“You should be boss,” Jimmy says. “Or my father. It should be the Giacamones, not the Tominellos. I figure I do this thing, I take over whatever Vince had going in San Diego.”
“What do you know about that?”
“Something about strip clubs.”
“It’s a lot more than a few strippers.”
“Why such a hard-on for Frankie Machine?” Jimmy asks. “Why did we even want him gone?”
Tony Jacks leans forward. It looks like it takes some effort. His voice drops into a hoarse whisper. “What I’m about to tell you, Jimmy, your father doesn’t know. Even Jack doesn’t know. And if I tell you, you can never tell another soul as long as you live.”
“I won’t.”
“Swear.”
“I swear to God,” Jimmy says.
Tony Jacks tells him a story. It goes way back and it takes a long time.
When Jimmy the Kid finally leaves his uncle’s house, he is blown freaking away.
Freaking away.
17
Tracking down Mouse Junior is a cinch.
Frank simply calls 411, gets the number for Golden Productions, and dials it.
“Hey,” he says to the receptionist, “I’m the caterer for the shoot today, and I can’t locate it. Can you tell me…”
It’s in the Valley, of course.
The San Fernando Valley is the porn capital of the world. You can’t bounce a tennis ball in the Valley without hitting a bare ass waiting to go on the set. An incorporated part of Los Angeles, it tried to secede a few years back, ostensibly, Frank thinks as he turns on the 101 and heads toward the Valley, to re-create itself as the Republic of Porn.
So you have Hollywood, and then, to the north, you have Holly-woody. Gay guys with Viagra-fueled erections banging drug-addicted girls on bare mattresses tossed on lawns in Encino.
About as erotic, Frank thinks, as an intestinal bug.