The winter of Frankie Machine

12

Frank turns from the window, gets on the phone, and calls the bait shop.

The kid Abe answers on the first ring.

“Frank, you okay? I came in and the shop was closed.”

“You know what, Abe?” Frank says. “Let’s shut it down for a few days.”

There’s an incredulous silence, then: “Shut it down?”

“Yeah, with the storm, we’re not going to do much business anyway,” Frank says. “Let’s take a few days off. I’ll call you when I want to reopen. Why don’t you go down to Tijuana, see your mom and dad or something.”

Abe doesn’t need to be asked twice.

Patty’s going to be a tougher nut.

“Patty, it’s Frank.”

“I recognized the voice.”

“Patty, I was thinking, you haven’t been to see your sister in a while, have you?” Patty’s sister Celia and her husband moved up to Seattle ten years ago, following the aerospace industry. They have a house-where is it? Bellingham, maybe?

“Frank, youhate my sister.”

“Go up and visit her, Patty,” Frank says. “Go today.”

She hears the tone in his voice. “Are you all right, Frank?”

“I’m fine,” Frank says. “I just need you to go.”

“Frank-”

“I’m fine,” Frank repeats.

“How long will I be gone?”

“I don’t know yet,” Frank says. “Not long. Go upstairs and pack.”

“Iam upstairs.”

“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 foronce, 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 amessage from me, from mepersonally. 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 gotme 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.