The winter of Frankie Machine

43

Jimmy walks up the stairs to the second floor of the motel.

He isn’t doing any comedy bits now; he’s mainlining adrenaline, his asshole gripped tighter than a white-collar con at his first day in the showers.

What’s waiting up in that room, after all, isFrankie Machine. He might be an old dude, but there’s a reason hegot to be an old dude. Jimmy knows all the stories, and if even half of them are true…Jimmy’s heard the story about how The Machine walked into that bar in San Diego and gunned down those Brits before they could even get their hands off their teacups. Nevertheless, if you want to be the Man, you got to be the man whobeat the Man, so Jimmy is psyched for the opportunity.

And Jimmy has a plan.

The Machine probably has the chain lock hooked, so Carlo has one of those DEA warrant-service battering rams to smash the door in with. Then Jimmy will step in and put a few into Frankie M.’s head.

Hopefully, the old fuck is asleep anyway.

Jimmy the Kid nods and Carlo swings the battering ram.

The door isn’t exactly Fort Knox material anyway and caves like the Yankees against the Red Sox.

Jimmy goes in.

Frankie M. isn’t in bed.

He ain’t anywhere in the room.

Jimmy the Kid suppresses his adrenaline rush and swings his gun in a controlled arc, sweeping the room in precise vectors, left to right.

No Machine.

Then he hears water running.

The old bastard is in the shower, didn’t even hear the door cave in.

Now Jimmy can see the steam from under the bathroom door.

He grins.

This is going to be easy.

Andclean.

Jimmy nudges the bathroom door open with his foot.

His hands are on the. 38, out in front of him in the approved FBI shooting stance.

Except he don’t see nothing in the shower. No shape of a man through the thin shower curtain.

He yanks the curtain open with his left hand.

And sees a note-duct-taped on the shower wall with the little GPS monitor.

Jimmy grabs the note and reads: “Did you think you were playing with children?”

Jimmy hits the deck.

He belly-crawls out of the bathroom and back toward the front door.

Carlo is already down, sitting propped against the wall with his hand pressed against a wound in his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers, his other hand limply holding his gun.

Paulie lies on the balcony floor, mewling and clutching his right lower leg, looking at Jimmy like a wounded soldier looks at a bad officer, like, What have you gotten us into, and how are you going to get us out?

It’s a good fuckin’ question, Jimmy thinks as he curls up as tight as he can against the door frame and tries to peer through the balcony rails. He can’t see where the shots have come from. He searches for a motion, a reflection, anything, but he can’t lamp a single thing that might help him. He only knows the next shot could smash into his head. On the other hand, if Frankie M. was shooting to kill, both Carlo and Paulie would already be dead.

Are Jackie and Tony hit, too? Jimmy looks down in the parking lot for their car and can just make them out, slumped down in the front seat, their hands on their guns, looking up at him. Jimmy makes a small gesture with his hand: Stay down, stay put.

“I need a doctor,” Paulie whines.

“Shut up,” Jimmy hisses.

“I’m bleeding out!” Paulie cries.

No you ain’t, Jimmy thinks, looking at his leg. The bullet didn’t hit an artery-it was precisely placed to stop but not to kill.

Frankie freaking Machine.