The winter of Frankie Machine

49

Eddie Monaco looked like Huckleberry Finn.

That is, if Huck were fifty years old and had just gotten laid. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, Eddie had this boyish, innocent look about him, and he could always make people laugh.

Nothing seemed to bother Eddie, ever. Life was a party, full of booze, broads, and buddies. And he was no Donnie Garth: Eddie was a legitimate tough guy who had done stints for extortion and counterfeiting. With a sheet, Eddie couldn’t get a liquor license, of course, so he had a front guy who technically owned the Pinto Club. But everyone knew that the club didn’t belong to Patrick Walsh. The Pinto was Eddie Monaco’s.

The strip club sat on Kettner Boulevard, in what had been Little Italy, just a few blocks away from Lindbergh Field. Frank and Mike were running limos out of the airport, and Mike made sure that every businessman who came into San Diego got the word about the Pinto Club.

“We’ll pick you up at your hotel,” went the pitch, “deliver you to the club, deliver you safely home. You can drink all you want, you don’t have to worry about a DUI, and if you happen to want some company on the way back-say, one of the girls, we can arrange for that, too, no extra charge. And if you want to write it off, no problem-we’ll give you a clean receipt. We can even give you a restaurant check, if you want it, to prove you were going to a business dinner.”

So seeing as how Frank was taking customers there all the time, and seeing as how he’d usually end up driving them home as well, he ended up hanging out there a lot.

The girls were pretty, he had to admit that.

Eddie Monaco knew how to find talent.

And he was generous with it.

“You want anything,” he’d tell Frank, “you don’t even have to ask. A sandwich, a drink, a blow job, it’s yours.”

Eddie liked having mobbed-up guys around. It kept things copacetic and gave the place a whiff of notoriety and danger, which brought customers through the door. What did he call it-“gangster chic”? And anyway, Mike and Frank were driving a lot of business up to those doors, so a meal, a little booze, a hummer in the back room, what was that?

Peanuts to Eddie Monaco.

Frank would accept the free food and the comped drinks, but he never took Eddie up on the BJs. There was something sad enough about the girls already, without them having feign enthusiasm on their knees in the office, and besides, with a toddler at home, he was trying to be faithful to his wife.

It wasn’t that hard to do. The strippers looked sexy at first-it was because of the lights, the pounding music, the atmosphere of undiluted eroticism-but the appeal wore off in a hurry. Especially when you hung out at the bar and got to know them, talked with them on their breaks. Then, sooner or later-usually sooner-the same tired, depressing stories came out of their mouths. The childhood sexual abuse, the cold, distant fathers, the alcoholic mothers, the teenage abortions, the drug addictions.

Especially the drugs.

These girls were so coked up, it was a wonder they could everstop dancing. Unless they hooked up with some sugar daddy, they were just caught in the spin cycle, until they were used-up coke freaks with more lines on their face than up their nose, and then they were out the door.

And a fresh crop came in.

There was never a shortage of girls.

There was never a shortage of anything, not in the world of Eddie Monaco.

Eddie had five vintage cars, including the Rolls he usually drove around in. He had women-lots of women, and not just the dancers, either-and the women had lots of jewelry that came from Eddie’s fingers. Eddie had a big house in Rancho Santa Fe and a condo in La Jolla.

Eddie had nice threads, Rolex watches, and wads of cash.

The other thing Eddie had a lot of was debts.

They went with his ambitions. Nothing was too good for Eddie, and nothing was too good for the Pinto Club. He spent millions remodeling the place-millions he didn’t have-but he wanted the Pinto to be the premier topless club in California, the base for a whole string of clubs. Eddie wanted to be king of the strip club world, and he didn’t mind spending money to get there.

Problem was, he was spending other people’s money.

Eddiewas the king of OPM. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of it, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He’d pay off his old debts in fresh OPM, and that way he just kept kiting the debt around. Somehow, people were always willing to give him money.

One of them was a loan shark named Billy Brooks.

Billy used to hang out at the Pinto, ogling the tits and ass and cruising for customers. His two goons were usually with him-Georgie Yoznezensky, known, for obvious reasons, simply as “Georgie Y,” and Angie Basso, who was actually Eddie Monaco’s favorite dry cleaner when he wasn’t breaking legs for Billy.

Angie was your typical goombah, but Georgie Y, Georgie Y was acase. A tall, gangly immigrant from Kiev with thick wrists and a thicker head, a guy so stupid and violent even the Russian mob up in the Fairfax district didn’t want him hanging around. Somehow he hooked up with Billy, and Billy gave him occasional work, even getting him a job as a bouncer at the Pinto.

Eddie gave him the job as a favor to Billy, and why not-Billy had loaned Eddie $100,000.

And Billy wanted to get paid back.

Eddie blew him off.

Billy would keep coming by the club, asking Eddie for his money. At first, Eddie would tell him, “Tomorrow, I promise,” or “Next week, Billy, sure thing.” He’d put him off with free girls, who would take Billy back into the office for a blow job, or down the street to a motel for a quickie.

But Billy wasn’t satisfied with pussy, Billy wanted hismoney.

And he wasn’t getting it.

And he had to sit there and watch while Eddie rented entire clubs for a night and threw himself a party, or drove around in his Rolls with Playboy models cuddled up to him, or gave C-note tips to doormen and coat-check girls and just generally threw money around like paper airplanes and didn’t pay Billy penny one.

It didn’t help that Eddie was handsome, Eddie was cool, and that Billy was neither. He had a mutt of a face, and this hangdog expression. Bad hair and bad skin. It must have been, Frank thought years later, like Richard Nixon watching Bill Clinton pull chicks.

If Eddie had just been nice to the guy, things might have gone down different, but Eddie got tired of Billy nagging him all the time and started blowing the guy off, ignoring him, not returning calls, brushing right past him in the club like he wasn’t there.

“What am I?” Billy said to Mike Pella one night. “An asshole?”

This was New Year’s Eve, and they were sitting at the bar of the Pinto Club, where Billy had arranged to meet Eddie to talk about the situation.

The fact that it was New Year’s Eve had not sat well with Patty.

“New Year’s Eve,” she’d complained. “I thought we could go out.”

“I have to work.”

“Work,” she said. “Hanging around with a bunch of whores.”

“They’re not whores,” Frank said. Well, some of them aren’t, he thought. “They’re dancers.”

“What they do isn’t dancing.”

“It’s the busiest night of the year. Do you know the tips I’ll make?” Frank asked. Besides, he thought, going out on New Year’s Eve to a restaurant or a hotel? Paying double for the same meal, which was usually subpar, with slow service and a mandatory 18 percent service charge thrown into the deal? When I could be out making good money? “Look, we’ll go outtomorrow night. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

“No one goes out on New Year’s night,” Patty said.

“So we can get a table,” Frank said.

“Big fun,” Patty said. “Two cheap people in an empty restaurant.”

“I’ll call you at midnight,” Frank said. “We’ll smooch over the phone.”

For some reason, that didn’t seem to mollify her. She didn’t even speak to him when he left.

When Frank got to the club, he sat at the bar, listening to Billy Brooks bitch to Mike. Mike and Billy had done time together in Chino, so they were old friends. As Frank sat there that night, listening to Billy whine about his Eddie Monaco problem, he knew what Mike would say about that, and Mike did.

“No offense, Billy,” Mike said, “but you should know people are talking, the way you’re letting Eddie laugh at you. It can’t be good for business.”

No, it can’t, Frank thought.

A loan shark has two assets-cash and respect. You let one guy not pay you-and throw it in your face in public, to boot-and pretty soon, the rest of your customers get the idea they don’t need to pay you, either. Word gets out that you’re a sucker, a pussy, a wimp, and then you can kiss your money good-bye. It ain’t ever coming back, principal or interest.

Then you’d better give up the shylock business and go into something you’re more suited to-like nursing or library science.

This was what Billy Brooks was facing, and it was a problem, because Eddie Monaco was a tough guy and he had his own mob connections. If Billy just took Eddie out-like he ought to-he could have serious problems with the Migliores. It was an interesting dilemma.

Truth was, everyone was watching to see how Billy Brooks would handle the situation.

“I’m in a hell of a situation here, Mike,” Billy said.

That’s all he had to say, all he had to say, and Frank knew that Eddie Monaco was a dead man.

Mike Pella was never a guy to let any grass grow under his feet.

“There’s money in tits and ass,” Mike had told Frank all those years ago. “Big.”

Frank wasn’t so sure if Mike had meant big tits, big asses, or big money, but whatever he’d meant, he’d been dying to get into the topless club business, and this was his chance. The very next day, New Year’s Day, 1987, Mike went to Eddie’s condo in La Jolla. Mike waited until noon, because Eddie probably hadn’t gone to bed until eight or nine in the morning.

Eddie opened the door, blurry-eyed.

Smiled when he saw it was Mike.

“Hey, guy, what-”

Mike shot him in the face three times.

Billy Brooks got instant respect, and a piece of the Pinto Club.

Mike figured that if Billy had a piece of the club, that meant that he did, too. Now Mike wasn’t just dropping customers off at the door, or coming in for an occasional drink; he started hanging around the club all the time, like he was one of the owners, which in his view, he was.

All of Mike’s crew started hanging there-Bobby Bats, Johnny Brizzi, Rocky Corazzo-and Mike would comp their drinks, their meals, their back-room blow jobs. Mike was running up a tab at the Pinto as long as his arm, and Pat Walsh didn’t have the stones to ask him to pay, and neither did Billy, and Mike never thought anything of it.

He figured Billy owed him.

Which he did.

And Mike being Mike, he wasn’t content to take the freebies, sit back, and watch the money roll in. No, he had to squeeze the club for everything it was worth. What he did was, he started selling the girls their coke.

It was a lucrative sideline-sell blow to the girls, let them build up an expensive habit, then put them out to the business trade to let them pay for their jones. Then take 50 percent of their hooker money.

Mike even bought an apartment building near the club andgave the girls the first and last month’s rent, knowing that the coke habit would take the rest of the rent money. Angie Basso and Georgie Y were always there to shy the girls the rent money, and then they really had them hooked.

The girls could never catch up, and that was the point.

Pretty soon, Mike was gettingall their money-their tips, their hooker money, their porn money. That was Mike’s next entrepreneurial maneuver-take a girl who was hopelessly behind on the vig and the rent and give her the chance to make some money doing a porn video.

A year down this road, Billy came to Frank about it.

“He’s going to ruin the business,” Billy said. “The cops are all over the place. I’ve had five girls-count them, five-busted on drug and prostitution charges. He has a six-figure bar tab…”

“What do you wantme to do?” Frank asked. “I just drive a limo.” Thinking, you brought him in on this, Billy. “You didn’t want Mike, you should have handled your problems yourself.”

“Yeah, butshit, Frank.”

“Shitnothing, Billy.”

Anyway, Frank thought, I have problems of my own.

Like a divorce.

Patty was threatening one.

I can’t really blame her, Frank thought. I’m always working, I’m never home, and when I am home, I’m asleep. Other than that, she spends most of her time wondering where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m doing-even though I’ve told her fifty thousand times I’m not sleeping with the girls.

Still, they had argued about it, and the last fight had been a doozy.

“You knew the deal,” Frank had said. “You knew who I was when you married me.”

“I thought you were a fisherman.”

“Yeah, right,” Frank said. “Frank Baptista, Chris Panno, Mike Pella, Jimmy Forliano come to a fisherman’s wedding with envelopes of cash. You grew up in the neighborhood, Patty. You’re a smart woman. Don’t go Diane Keaton on me now.”

“You’re fucking other women!”

“Watch your language.”

Patty laughed. “What, you cando it, but I can’tsay it?”

“If you did moredoing it thansaying it,” Frank heard himself say, “I might not be so tempted to do it!”

“Whenam I supposed to do it!” Patty asked. “You’re never here!”

“I’m out putting food on the table!”

“A lot of men put food on the table and still come home at night!”

“Well, I guess they’re smarter than I am!”

She told him if things didn’t change, she was going to file.

Frank had all this on his mind when Billy was bitching about Mike running the Pinto Club into the ground.

“It’s none of my business,” he told Billy. “You have a problem with Mike, take it up with Mike.”

Yeah, good advice.

Three nights later, Mike grabbed Frank at the bar and told him they needed to have a little talk with Billy. “This guy is giving me shit. Can you believe it?” Mike said. “This fucking ungrate.”

“That’sin grate.”

Mike blinked. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Because it’sun grateful, notin grateful,” Mike said.

“I just did it on a puzzle,” Frank said. He was spending a lot of his waiting time these days doing crossword puzzles. “I looked it up.”

“Anyway,” Mike said. “We gotta straighten this fucking Billy out.”

“Mike, I don’t have to straighten anyone out,” Frank said. Then he thought better of it-Mike had a quick temper. Who the hell knows what could happen, Frank told himself. He decided he’d better go along as a moderating influence.

They went for a cruise in Frank’s limo, east on Kettner into the warehouse district. Billy brought Georgie Y along for protection. Frank drove, Georgie Y rode in the front with him, and Mike and Billy sat in the back, arguing.

Mike sounded hurt.

Heis hurt, Frank thought. That was the funny thing-Mike really loved the club, thought he had a stake in it, and here Billy was, intimating (puzzle word) that hehadn’t actually hurt Mike’s feelings.

“Why are you hassling me, Billy?” Mike asked. “Why are you busting balls? I’m just trying to make a living here.”

“So am I!”

“So make! Who’s stopping you?”

“You are!” Billy said. “You got half my girls hooked on coke. You got them out turning tricks, doing porn-”

“You want a piece of their shy, Billy? Is that it?” Mike said. “Why didn’t you say? I’ll cut you in. Just come to me like a man and say-”

But Billy’s on a bitching roll, Frank thought, like a woman. Once they get started, they’re not happy just solving the problem. No, they have to vent. So Billy just can’t take the offer of good money. No, he has to-

“The cops are all over the place,” Billy continued. “We could lose our fucking liquor license, and speaking of liquor, Mike-”

“What?”

“Jesus, thebar tab you and your crew have run up-”

“What, you counting our drinks, you fucking mutt?”

“C’mon,” Frank said. “You guys are friends.”

“You’re counting ourdrinks?” Mike said. “You cheap-ass, nickel-and-dime piece of shit-”

“Hey!” Billy said.

“‘Hey’ nothing, you ingrate,” Mike said. “You wouldn’thave the fucking club, it wasn’t for me.”

“Whoa,” said Billy. “I didn’task you to clip Eddie.”

That was a mistake, Frank thought. That was the wrong thing to say. Mike just went off.

“You didn’t ask? You didn’task?” Mike said. “You didn’thave toask, because you were myfriend, Billy, and if you had a problem, which you did, it wasmy problem, too. You didn’task?”

“I didn’t ask you to-”

“No,” Mike said. “Youdidn’t ask. You sat there andwhined like a little girl. ‘I’m in trouble, Mike. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.’ I tookcare of it for you, motherfucker. I stepped up.”

“I thought you were going totalk to him, Mike!” Billy said. “I didn’t think you were going to-”

“Jesus, maybe I shot the wrong fucking guy,” Mike said.

Frank looked back and Mike had a pistol in his hand now. “Mike, no!”

“I think Idid, ” Mike said. “I think I shot the wrong fucking guy! Maybe I should give you what I gave him!”

Georgie Y reached into his pocket for his gun.

Frank cranked the wheel, steered the limo to the curb, and, with his other hand, trapped Georgie’s wrist against his waist. It wasn’t easy-Georgie Y was a strong boy.

Billy was trying to bail out. He was fumbling with the door handle when Mike started shooting. Three blasts made Frank’s ears ring. He couldn’t hear a thing; he just saw Georgie Y’s lips mouthing the wordJesus. Then he turned and saw Billy slumped against the car door, his right shoulder a mass of blood and a bullet hole in his face.

But he was breathing.

Frank jerked Georgie’s pistol away from him, put it in his own pocket, then said, “Come on, I have some towels in the trunk.”

Frank looked around.

No other cars.

No cop cars with sirens screaming.

He got out, opened the trunk, grabbed the towels, then went around to the backseat. “Get the fuck out of my way, Mike.”

Mike got out of the car and Frank slid in. He wrapped towels around Billy’s shoulder and then pressed another hard against the head wound. “Georgie, get in here!” He felt the big man flop onto the seat. “Hold this tight against his head. Don’t let go.”

Georgie Y was crying.

“Georgie, you don’t have time for that,” Frank said. “Do what I tell you.”

Frank got out, grabbed Mike, and pushed him into the front passenger seat. Then he went around, got behind the wheel, and tromped on the gas pedal.

“Where the fuck you think you’re going?” Mike asked.

“The E room.”

“He ain’t gonna make it, Frankie.”

“That’s between him and God,” Frank said. “I think you already did your part, Mike.”

“He’ll talk, Frank.”

“He won’t talk.”

He didn’t.

Billy knew the rules. He knew that if he had been fortunate enough to survive one gunshot to the head, he wouldn’t luck out the second time. So he stuck with the story: He’d been coming out of the club and some junkie tried to rob him. He never saw the guy.

He never saw anything else, either. The bullet hit a nerve and left him permanently blind.

“You’re going to pay him,” Frank told Mike. “Billy keeps his share of the cluband you’re going to cut him in on the shy, like you said.”

Mike didn’t argue.

He knew Frank was right, and besides, Frank always thought that Mike felt bad about shooting Billy, even though he’d never admit it. So Billy still owned the Pinto Club, but he didn’t come around much after he got out of the hospital. Watching strippers couldn’t have been that much fun for a blind guy.

But Billy Brooks kept his mouth shut.

It was Georgie Y they had to worry about.

Mike did, anyway.

“The cops are all over this fucking thing,” Mike said to Frank one night. “They know Billy’s story is bullshit; they’re going to press. You and me, Frank, we can stand up, but I don’t know about Georgie. I mean, can you see him in an interrogation room?”

No, Frank thought, I can’t.

“And thanks, by the way,” he said, “for putting me in the way of an accessory-to-attempted-murder beef.”

“This temper of mine,” Mike said. “So what are we going to do about Georgie?”

“Have the cops contacted him yet?”

Mike shook his head. “It’s the ‘yet’ I’m worried about.”

“We can’t clip a guy on a ‘yet,’” Frank said.

“We can’t?”

“Mike, you do it, I’m done with you,” Frank told him. “My hand to God, I’ll turn my face away from you.”

So Georgie Y kept his life and his job as a bouncer at the club. The only difference was, now he went out and busted legs for Mike instead of for Billy. He even started dating one of the dancers, a skinny little thing named Myrna, and they seemed to get along pretty well.

So that should have been the end of it.

It wasn’t.

The Strip Club Wars were just beginning.

Frank will never forget the first time he saw Big Mac McManus.

Hell, nobody ever forgets the first time they saw Mac. A six-foot-six, 250-pound black man with a shaved head and a cut body comes walking into the place, wearing a tailored leopard-skin dashiki and carrying a diamond-studded walking stick, you tend to remember the moment.

Frank was sitting in a booth with Mike and Pat Walsh when Big Mac strolled in. Big Mac paused on the landing just inside the front door, taking in the scene. More to the point, he let the scene takehim in, which it did. About everyone in the place looked up and stared.

Even Georgie Y was looking up. Big Mac McManus had a couple of inches on Georgie, who seemed to have the sense that he should be doing something, even though he didn’t know what that was. He looked over to Frank for direction, and Frank gave him a subtle shake of the head.

Like, Leave it alone, Georgie. This is out of your league.

Georgie let Big Mac through.

Big Mac descended the stairs into the club.

He had three guys with him. Three white guys.

Frank got the sly joke right away. The black man had an entourage, and they were white.

Mac walked right over to the booth and said, “Billy Brooks?”

“That’s me,” Walsh said.

“Mac McManus,” Mac said. He didn’t offer to shake hands. “I want to buy your club.”

“It’s not for sale.”

“I have controlling interests in the Cheetah, the Sly Fox, and Bare Elegance, to name a few,” Mac said, “I want to add the Pinto to my portfolio. I’ll pay you a fair price, with a generous profit figured in.”

“Did you hear the man?” Mike asked. “He said it’s not for sale.”

“Excuse me,” Mac said, “but I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Do you know who I am?” Mike asked.

“I know who you are, Mike Pella,” Mac said, smiling. “You’re a wise guy who’s done stints for assault, extortion, and insurance fraud. The word is that you’re with the Martini family, but the word is wrong. You’re more of an independent operator with Mr. Machianno here. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Frank. I’ve heard good things.”

Frank nodded.

“Meet my associates,” Mac said. “This is Mr. Stone, Mr. Sherrell, and, last but not least, Mr. Porter.”

Stone was a tall, muscled, blond California dude. Sherrell was shorter, but thicker, with black permed hair that had just gone out of style. Both men were dressed casually, jeans and polo shirts.

Porter was medium height, medium build, his hair cut short. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, and a tie and had a cigarette between lips that otherwise held nothing but a continual smirk. His black hair was greased straight back, and it took Frank a second to figure it out before he realized that the guy was going for the Bogart look. And almost made it, too, except that Bogie had a soft side, and there was nothing about this guy that was soft.

They all nodded and smiled.

Mac took a card from his pocket and laid it on the table. “I’m having a little get-together Sunday afternoon at my place,” he said. “I’m really hoping that you gentlemen can attend. Very casual, very mellow. Bring dates if you’d like, but there will be an abundance of ladies there. Say two o’clock or thereabouts?”

He smiled, turned, and left, with Stone and Sherrell at his heels.

Porter paused, made a special effort to get Frank’s eye, then said, “Nice meeting you blokes.”

“‘Blokes’?” Mike said when Porter had walked away.

“British,” Frank said.

“Check them out,” Mike said.

It didn’t take long to get the rundown.

Horace “Big Mac” McManus, was a former California Highway Patrol officer who had done a four-year stretch in the federal pen for counterfeiting. Now forty-six, he was a major player in the California sex trade. It was true that he was a silent partner in the clubs that he had mentioned. He was also a big-time porn producer and distributor and probably ran hookers out of both the clubs and the movie sets.

“He lives,” Frank said, “get this, on an estate in Rancho Santa Fe he calls ‘Tara.’”

“The fuck is that?”

“Gone With the Wind,” Frank said.

John Stone was a cop.

“Jesus shit,” Mike said.

“He was McManus’s partner before Mac got busted, and he’s still on the CHP. He has a piece of all Mac’s clubs, and he spends most of his time helping Mac run his business.”

“Right-hand man sort of thing?” Mike asked.

“More like a partner.”

Danny Sherrell was the manager of the Cheetah. His nickname was “Chokemaster.”

“Was he a wrestler or something?” Mike asked.

Frank shook his head. “Porn actor.”

“Oh,” Mike said. Then“Ohhhh. What about the Brit?”

“His name is Pat Porter,” Frank answered. “Beyond that, we don’t know much about him. He came over here about two years ago. Sherrell hired him as a bouncer at the Cheetah. He must have worked his way up in the world.”

“Jesus…cops,” Mike said. “What are we going to do, Frankie?”

“Go to a party, I guess.”

Tara was amazing.

The house had been built to match the antebellum mansion in the movie. The only difference was that all the servants were white, not black. A white teenager in a red vest ran up to Frank’s limo, opened the passenger door, and was surprised to find that there was nobody in the back.

“Just me,” Frank said, flipping him the keys. “Be careful with it.”

Frank walked onto the huge expanse of soft green lawn, where tents and tables had been set up. He was wearing a suit, but he still felt shabby compared to the other guests, who were all arrayed in various forms of expensive, casual California cool. Lots of white linen and cotton, khaki and cream.

Mike had gone the black-on-black route.

He looked just like a goombah, and Frank felt a little ashamed that he was embarrassed.

“You seen this spread?” Mike asked. “They got shrimps, they got caviar, tritip beef, champagne. ‘Little party’ my ass.”

“He does this every other Sunday,” Frank said.

“You’re kidding me.”

Beautiful place, beautiful grounds, beautiful food, beautiful wine, beautifulpeople. That was the thing-all the people were drop-dead gorgeous. Handsome men, incredibly lovely women. We’re like mutts here, Frank thought.

I guess that’s the point.

Mac made an entrance onto the lawn.

Dressed in an all-white linen suit and Gucci loafers with no socks, he had a woman on his arm who was wearing a slinky summer dress that revealed more than it hid.

“I know that chick,” Mike said.

“Yeah, right.”

“No, Iknow that chick,” Mike said. Then a few seconds later, he blurted, “That’s Miss May. That’s Miss fucking May. McManus’s grooving aPenthouse centerfold.”

Mac and Miss May worked through the guests, pausing and smiling and hugging, but it was clear that Mac was working his way over to Frank and Mike. When he did, he said, “Gentlemen, I’m so glad you could find the time. Mike, Frank, this is Amber Collins.”

Frank was praying that Mike wouldn’t bring up his revelation.

He didn’t. He just gawped a “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Frank said.

“Do you have everything you need?” Mac asked. “Something to eat, something to drink?”

“We’re good,” Frank said.

“How about a tour of the house?” Mac asked.

“Sounds good,” said Frank.

“Amber,” Mac said. “I’ll miss you, but could I ask you to play hostess to the other guests?”

The house was unreal.

Frank, who appreciated quality, recognized that Mac did, too. He knew good stuff and he had the money to pay for it. All the fixtures, the plumbing, the kitchen appliances were top-of-the-line. Mac led them through the enormous living room, the kitchen, the six bedrooms, the screening room, and the dojo.

“I’m into hung gar kung fu,” Mac said.

Six six, Frank thought, two and a half bills, cut like stone, and a martial-arts black belt. God help us if we have to take Big Mac McManus down.

In back of the mansion, Mac had his own private zoo-exotic birds, reptiles, and cats. Frank didn’t know his zoology all that well, but he thought he recognized an ocelot, a cougar, and, inevitably, a black panther.

“I love animals,” Mac said. “And of course, all the movements of kung fu are patterned after animals-the tiger, the snake, the leopard, the crane, and the dragon. I learn just by watching these beautiful specimens.”

“You got a dragon here?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Mac said. “I have a Komodo dragon. But the dragon is a mythical beast, of course. You keep its spirit in your heart.”

They walked back into the house.

“This is like the Playboy Mansion,” Mike said as they walked back through the main room.

“Hef’s been here,” Mac said.

“You know Hefner?” Mike asked.

Mac smiled. “Would you like to meet him? I can arrange it. Let’s go to the study, sit down, have a dialogue.”

The study was a quiet room in the back of the mansion. All the furniture was dark teak. African masks adorned the walls; the carpet and sofa were zebra skin. The large chairs were some kind of exotic leather that Frank didn’t recognize. Large built-in bookcases held a collection of volumes on African art, history, and culture, and the floor-to-ceiling CD racks contained an archival collection of jazz.

“Do you like jazz?” Mac asked, seeing Frank eye the collection.

“I’m more of an opera guy.”

“Puccini?”

“You got it.”

“Yougot it,” Mac said. He pushed a few buttons behind his desk and the opening strains ofTosca filled the room. It was the best-quality sound that Frank had ever heard and he asked Mac about it.

“Bose,” Mac said. “I’ll set you up with my man.”

Mac pushed another button, and a butler came in with a tray with two amber-filled glasses, which he set on side tables next to the chairs.

“Single-malt scotch,” Mac said. “I thought you might enjoy it.”

“What about you?” Frank asked.

“I don’t drink. Or smoke or do drugs.” He sat down in a chair opposite them. “Shall we do some business?”

“We’re not selling the club,” Mike said.

“You haven’t heard my offer.”

Frank took a sip of the scotch. It was smoky and smooth, and a second later he felt its warmth permeate his stomach.

“Congratulations on the Pinto Club,” Mac said. “You’ve done very well with it. But I think that I could take it to the next level in ways that you can’t.”

“How’s that?” Mike asked.

“Horizontal integration,” Mac said. “I take my adult-video actresses and book them into the clubs, take my star dancers and put them in the videos.”

“We do that now,” Mike said.

“In a cheap way,” Mac said. “I’m talking about headliners. Names in the industry, people you can’t afford. Similarly, you pimp your girls to traveling salesman for a couple of hundred bucks. Our girls go with millionaires.”

“You’ve told us why you want to buy the club,” Mike said, “not why we should sell it.”

“You can sell it now and make a profit,” Mac said. “Or you can wait until I drive you out of business, and lose money. I control six clubs in California, another three in Vegas. Pretty soon I’ll be in New York. The headliners, the names, will work my clubs and no others. Another six months to a year, you won’t be able to compete. At best, you’ll be a bottom-feeding operation selling draft beer to Joe Lunchbucket.”

“I might consider selling you forty-nine percent,” Mike said.

“But I wouldn’t consider buying it,” Mac replied. “Iwould consider an eighty percent share. Believe me, you’ll make more with that twenty points than with your current one hundred.”

He waved his hand as if to encompass his estate, and Frank got what he was trying to say: Boys, look at my home and then look at yours. He’s right, Frank thought. It was the move to make-take a profit from the sale of the eighty points, then let Big Mac make money for them.

“What would we have to do with the club if we sold you this interest?” Mike asked.

“Nothing,” Mac said. “Go to the mailbox, pick up your checks.”

And that was the problem, Frank saw. Mike loved the club. He loved playing owner, being the man. This was the flaw in the plan that Mac couldn’t see. He hadn’t correctly gauged Mike Pella’s real interest.

“I’d want to maintain some kind of managerial voice in the operation,” Mike said.

“You mean sell coke to the girls and shylock them the money?” Mac asked, smiling. “No, that has to stop. The business is growing up, Mike Pella. You’d better grow up with it.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll drive you out of business.”

“Not if you’re dead, you won’t.”

“Is that really the road we want to walk down?” Mac asked.

“You tellme. ”

Mac nodded. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if he was meditating. Then he exhaled, opened his eyes, smiled, and said, “I’ve made you a business offer, Mike Pella. I encourage you to consider it in a businesslike fashion, and get back to me in a timely manner. In the meantime, I sincerely hope that you enjoy the rest of your afternoon. If you’d like, Amber can introduce you to some friends of hers who are unattached.”

Mike liked.

He hooked up with one of Amber’s friends and they found their way to a bedroom in the guest house.

Frank went back outside and enjoyed the food, the wine, and the beautiful people. Mac’s “associates” were there, of course. John Stone was in the full swing of the party, frolicking in the pool with a couple of young ladies while Danny “Chokemaster” Sherrell played his faithful wingman.

Porter wasn’t in the pool.

He was in his same dark suit, sucking on a cigarette, and every time that Frank glanced his way, Porter was checking him out from behind a whirl of smoke. Either the guy is queer for me, Frank thought, which is very doubtful, or he has an agenda. Either way, Frank wasn’t going to let it ruin his enjoyment of the party food, which was excellent.

He was munching on a shrimp satay when Mac approached him.

“You’re too smart for those people,” Mac said. “You’re wasting yourself. Come work with me-make some real money in a classy environment.”

“I’m flattered,” Frank said. “But Mike and I have been together a long time.”

“Every additional day is a waste.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Frank said. “But no thanks. Mike’s my guy. I’ll stick with him.”

“I respect that,” Mac said. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“But try to get him to do the smart thing, will you?” Mac said. “The smart thing is always good for everybody.”

But Mike didn’t see it that way.

Later that night, even as he was relating the marvels of sex with a futurePenthouse model, he was saying, “You know, we’re going to have to kill that moolie.”

“No, I don’t know that,” Frank said. “As a matter of fact, I think you should sell him the eighty points.”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

“I’m serious as a heart attack.”

“No fucking way, Frankie,” Mike said. “No fucking way.”

“He’s acop, Mike.”

“He’s anex -cop,” Mike said, “and an ex-con.”

“Once a cop, always a cop,” Frank said. “They stick tighter than we do. And he’s got a cop partner, so it’s the same thing.”

“I ain’t selling the Pinto,” Mike said.

He called Mac to tell him so.

The next week, inspectors started coming around the place-fire inspectors, health inspectors, water inspectors. They all found something wrong, and none of them took the usual C note. Instead, they wrote the place up.

The following week, CHP cars started parking across the street. Customers would pull out of the lot and get stopped for DUI. Jerked out of the car, made to walk the line, blow into the tube, the whole nine yards. Even if they weren’t legally drunk, it was a hassle.

Undercover cops started coming into the place-sniffing around the men’s room for dope, pretending they were johns looking for working girls, trying to buy coke from the bartenders.

Customers started to be afraid to come in.

It hurt business.

“Something’s gotta be done,” Mike said to Frank, and Frank knew what that something was.

“You want to start a shooting war with the CHP?” he asked Mike.

Mac called and upped his offer by ten grand, as a peace gesture.

Mike told him to go fuck himself.

The next week, two girls were busted for prostitution, and another for possession. The following morning, Pat got a call from the liquor commissioner, who was threatening to yank the club’s license.

Mac upped his offer again.

Mike told him to fuck himself in the ass.

Privately, he wasn’t so confident.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” he asked Frank. “What the fuck are we going to do?”

“Sell him the club.”

Mike had a different answer-more of a traditional wise-guy response.

He firebombed the Cheetah Lounge.

He was very careful to do it after closing, even making sure that the janitor was out; then he and Angie Basso launched two very well-built Molotov cocktails through the window.

The joint didn’t burn to the ground, but it was going to be a long time before it opened again. Just to make sure Mac got the point, Mike phoned him with condolences. “Gee,” he said, “it’s too bad the fire inspectors weren’t out there.”

Mac got the point.

He got it so well that Angie Basso got jumped coming out of his dry-cleaning business late at night. Pat Porter and Chokemaster Sherrell dragged him to the edge of the sidewalk, held his hands over the edge, and jumped on his forearms, snapping both his wrists.

“You shouldn’t play with fire,” Porter told him.

“What am I going to do?” Angie asked Mike the next night. “I can’t even take a piss by myself.”

“Don’t look at me,” Mike said.

But he responded. He had to, or give it all up.

So, three nights later, Frank waited in the backseat of a car parked across the street from Bare Elegance, waiting for the Chokemaster to lock up. Mike was in the driver’s seat, because Frank didn’t trust him to make a good shot.

“I’m just going to shoot him in the leg,” Mike had said.

“You’d screw up and hit the femoral artery,” Frank had told him. “Then Sherrell would bleed out and we’d be in a full-scale war.”

“I’d aim for his dick,” Mike’d said. “Couldn’t missthat target.”

Mike had rented a couple of Sherrell’s old porn videos and shown them in the back room of the club. Frank was half-convinced that Mike had picked the Chokemaster for a target out of phallic jealousy.

Anyway, now he sat low in the backseat of a work car and watched while Sherrell came out, said good night to the bartender, pulled the metal screen down, and started to set the padlock.

Frank stuck the. 22 rifle through the car’s open window, sighted in on the fleshy part of Sherrell’s right calf, and fired. Sherrell went down, Mike hit the gas, and that was it. Frank knew that the bartender would come back and get Sherrell to the hospital. The Chokemaster would be on crutches for a couple of weeks, if that.

All in all, it was a very tempered response to the assault on Angie Basso, whose wrists would take months to heal. If anything it was ade escalation of the war, but instead, the other side kicked it up a notch.

Frank saw it happening-literally.

He was at the airport waiting for a pickup when he saw Pat Porter walk into the terminal. Frank gave him a little space and then followed him in, where Porter met a direct flight from Heathrow and warmly greeted two men as they got off the plane.

They were what the Brits would call “hard men.” Frank could see that by the way they walked and carried themselves. Heavily muscled, but graceful, like athletes. One was barrel thick and wore a rugby shirt over jeans and tennis shoes. The other was thin and a little taller, sporting an Arsenal football club jersey.

Porter had brought in a crew.

They showed up at the Pinto Club two days later.

It was late afternoon on a Tuesday, just when the after-work construction crowd would start to come in. Pretty quiet, not dead. Frank was sitting in his regular booth, grabbing a quick cheeseburger and a Coke before the evening rush started and he’d have to leave to make pickups.

He spotted the British crew as they came through the door. So did Georgie Y, who left the bar, where he was sitting with Myrna, and started toward the Englishmen. They smiled like he was a meal walking their way.

Frank waved Georgie over to the booth instead.

“Frank,” Georgie said. “I don’t like them coming in here.”

“Did I ask what you like?” Frank said. “Myrna’s up. Go watch her dance, think about what she’ll be doing later tonight with you.”

“Frank-”

“What did I say, Georgie? I have to repeat myself now?”

Georgie gave Porter a bad look, then took a seat ringside and watched Myrna gyrate her little body in a bad imitation of eroticism.

Porter walked over to Frank’s booth, his two boys, still decked out in their sporting gear, on either shoulder.

Frank didn’t ask them to sit.

Porter was in his uniform-dark suit, buttoned collar, skinny black tie. He looked at Frank and said, “You know, in the end it’s going to come down to me and you.”

“What is this, Shane?” Frank asked, laughing. Looking at Porter’s face, he knew one thing for sure about him: Pat Porter didn’t like being laughed at.

“Me and you,” Porter repeated.

Frank looked over Porter’s shoulder. “Then what are they here for?”

“To make sure no one else steps in,” Porter said. “I know how you guineas are.”

Frank went back to eating his cheeseburger. “I’m on a clock, Sam Spade,” he said, chewing. “If you have a point, make it. Otherwise…”

Frank jutted his chin toward the door.

“I’m going to kill you, Frankie Machine,” Porter said. “Or make you kill me.”

“I’ll take door number two,” Frank said.

Porter didn’t get the joke. He just stood there, like he was waiting for something. What, Frank thought, am I supposed to jump up and “draw”? We’re going to do B Westerns, 1988 on Kettner Boulevard?

Frank finished the last bite of his burger, took a swallow of the Coke, then stood up and slammed the heavy glass into the side of Porter’s face. Rugby Shirt started in, but suddenly Frank had a pistol out. He cocked it, pointed it at the two sidekicks, and said, “Really?”

Apparently not.

Rugby Shirt and Arsenal stood there, frozen.

Keeping the gun on them, he reached down to where Porter was now kneeling with blood pouring down the side of his face, grabbed the man’s tie, wrapped it around his neck, and, with his gun on the other two Brits, dragged Porter across the floor, up the stairs to the landing, and out the door.

He waved the pistol at Rugby Shirt and Arsenal and said, “Out.”

“You’re dead, mate,” Arsenal said.

“Yeah. Out.”

They walked out the door. Frank came back into the room, stepped carefully over the broken glass and blood, and sat back down in the booth.

He signaled to the waitress for the check.

Everyone was staring at him-the waitress, the bartender, the three construction workers sitting at a table, Myrna and Georgie Y. They were all wide-eyed.

“What?” Frank asked.“What?”

I’m in a bad mood, all right? he thought. I haven’t seen my kid awake in three weeks, my wife is threatening to call a lawyer, I’m trying to eat a burger before I work all night, and some Brit has to come in and hassle me with bad movie dialogue? I shouldn’t have toexplain myself to you people.

“Get me some club soda and a few bar towels,” he said.

“I’ll clean it up, Frank,” the waitress said.

“Thank you, Angela,” Frank said, “but I made the mess. I’ll clean it up.”

“We have cheesecake today, Frank.”

“That’s okay, honey. I’m watching my figure.”

He cleaned up the blood and broken glass, and was more than normally alert when he went out in the parking lot to start making his pickups. When he got back with his first customer, Mike was waiting for him, laughing. “Don’t youever fucking lecture me about my temper again.”

“The blood came out of the carpet okay.”

Mike looked at Frank, then grabbed him by the cheeks and said, “I love you. I just fuckinglove you, all right?”

He turned to the whole bar. “I just love this fucking guy!”

Two weeks later, it happened.

It shouldn’t have, wouldn’t have, except that Mike suddenly had a group of Japanese businessmen who wanted to party, and he needed both limos to take care of them. So Frank would be driving instead of doing what he had planned to do, which was make a pickup of some shy money. It was supposed to have been a very simple, no-sweat errand-this junkie boyfriend of one of the dancers had borrowed some money and was going to make his first payment on the vig.

“Have Georgie do it,” Mike said. “He can swing by the guy’s place on his way in.”

So Frank called Georgie, and he was happy to do it. Frank and Mike went out and drove the Japanese around, and when they got back to the club, it was one in the morning and Myrna was sitting at the bar, two other strippers holding her shoulders as she sobbed hysterically.

It took Frank thirty minutes to get the story out of her.

She had gone with Georgie to make the pickup. The junkie lived in an apartment building in the Lamp. They were going to pick up the money on the way in to work, so that’s why she was with him. They pulled into the parking lot and Georgie told her to wait in the car. She said that was fine, because she needed to get her makeup on.

When Georgie got out of his car, three guys got out of another.

“Did you recognize them?” Frank asked.

Myrna nodded, then broke into another fresh bout of sobs. When she recovered, she said, “Frankie, one of them was that guy you beat up the other day. He had bandages on his face, but I recognized him. The other two were the guys who were with him.”

Frank felt sick as Myrna told the rest of the story. Georgie tried to fight them, but there were three of them. One of them kicked Georgie in the head and his legs buckled under him. She got out of the car and tried to help him, but one of the guys wrapped his arms around her and held her.

Then the guy with the bandages took something out of his pocket and hit Georgie in the face with it. The other guys grabbed Georgie and held him and this guy just kept hitting him and hitting him, mostly in the stomach, but sometimes in the head, too, and when they let Georgie loose, he just fell to the ground. Then the guy with the bandages on his face kicked him over and over and over again, in the ribs and in the crotch and in the head.

“He kicked Georgie one last time in the head,” Myrna said, “and Georgie’s neck kind of snapped back and then the guy with the bandages came over and said-”

She broke down again.

“What did he say, Myrna?” Frank asked.

“He said…tell you…” She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “It was supposed to beyou, Frank.”

Itwas supposed to be me, Frank thought. Porter got this junkie to set me up, but poor dumb Georgie walked into it instead. If it had been me, there’d be three dead Brits lying in that parking lot now, instead of Georgie…

“Where’s Georgie now?” Frank asked.

“In the hospital,” Myrna sobbed. “He’s unconscious. They said he isn’t going to wake up. He has a sister… I’ve been trying to get her number.”

Frank and Mike were bedside fifteen minutes later. Georgie Y was all tubes and needles; a respirator was doing his breathing for him. They sat there for three hours, until the sister arrived from L.A.

She gave the okay to pull the plug.

Frank and Mike went to the junkie’s apartment. He’d split, of course, but the dancer was home at her place.

“Where’s your fucking boyfriend?” Mike asked her after he kicked the door in.

“I don’t know. I haven’t-”

Mike punched her in the mouth, then stuck the gun barrel through her broken teeth. “Where’s your fucking junkie boyfriend, bitch? You lie to me again-”

The little shit was hiding in the bedroom closet.

Junkies aren’t smart.

Mike ripped the door off its runners, yanked him out, and punched him in the gut. Frank took a pair of the girl’s panty hose out of her chest of drawers and shoved them into his mouth. Then he ripped the phone out of the wall and tied the guy’s hands behind his back with the cord.

They walked him out to the car. Frank drove while Mike held the junkie down on the floor in the back.

They drove out to the river floodway and pushed him over the edge. The floodway was dry and the junkie was pretty beat-up by the time he landed on the bottom. Mike and Frank slid down and pulled him up to his knees. The junkie was puking and starting to choke because the vomit was going back down his throat.

Frank pulled the panty hose out of his mouth and the junkie puked. Then he gasped, “I swear I didn’t-”

“Don’t lie to me,” Frank said. He squatted down and spoke quietly in the junkie’s ear. “I know what you did. You have one chance to save yourself now. Tell me where they are.”

“They hang out down in Carlsbad,” the junkie said. “Some English place.”

“The White Hart,” Mike said.

Frank nodded, pulled his gun, and fired into the junkie until the chambers were empty.

Mike did the same.

They got back in the car and drove to the White Hart.

They both knew the place.

The bar had warm beer, bangers and mash, and satellite feeds of soccer games, so a lot of the SoCal British expats hung out there. A pub-style sign with old-fashioned lettering and a painting of a white deer was hung over the door, and a Union Jack was stretched across the one window.

“Wait here,” Frank said when they pulled into the parking lot. He reloaded the. 38.

“Fuck that,” Mike said. “I’m coming with you.”

“This ismy thing,” Frank said. “Just have the motor running and the car in gear, okay?”

Mike nodded. He handed Frank his own pistol.

Frank checked its load, then asked, “You got a kit in the trunk?”

“Sure.”

Mike popped the trunk open.

“Clean?” Frank asked.

“The fuck am I?” Mike asked. “Some beaner robbing a 7-Eleven?”

Frank got out of the car, walked back to the trunk, and found what he expected-a twelve-gauge sawed-off shotgun, a bulletproof vest, a pair of gloves, and a black stocking. He took off his jacket, slipped on the gloves, then buttoned up the vest and put his jacket back on over it. Then he stuck both pistols into his belt, tucked the shotgun into the crook of his arm, and pulled the black stocking over his head.

“See you in a minute,” Mike said. “Frankie Machine.”

Frank stepped through the door.

The place was nearly empty, just a couple of guys at the bar. The bartender and Rugby Shirt and Arsenal were all sitting at a table, drinking pints and looking up at a soccer match on a television set bolted high on the wall, near the ceiling.

Arsenal turned when the door opened.

The shotgun blast blew him out of his chair.

Rugby Shirt tried to stand to pull his pistol from his waistband, but Frank unloaded the second barrel into his stomach and he crumpled onto the table.

Where is Porter? Frank asked himself.

The men’s room was at the back of the bar. Frank let the shotgun drop to the floor, took both pistols from his belt, and kicked the door in.

Porter was braced against the sink, his pistol raised. He was wearing his usual black suit, but his fly was unzipped and his hands were dripping water. He fired and Frank felt the three shotsthunk into the vest, right over his heart, knocking the air out of him, and then he saw the look of alarmed surprise in Porter’s eyes when he didn’t go down.

Frank fired twice with the gun in his right hand.

Porter’s head smashed back against the mirror, cracking it; then he slid down the sink and onto the floor.

Blood pooled onto the yellowed tiles.

They’ll never get that out of the grouting, Frank thought as he dropped the gun, turned, and walked out of the bar.

Mike had the car in gear.

Frank got in, and Mike drove slowly out of the parking lot, onto the street, and then pulled on the 5.

Bap would have been proud.

“Where to?” Mike asked.

“Tara,” Frank said.

Sometimes you just have to go in.

Usually, you try to be careful. You set everything up. You’re patient and you wait until the moment is exactly right.

But sometimes you just have to go in.

They stopped off at Mike’s condo in Del Mar first. Mike had an arsenal tucked away in the guest bedroom closet. Frank picked out two . 38 snubbies, a Wellington over and under. 303 ten-gauge, an AR-15, and two hand grenades.

When they got to Tara, there was no guard at the gate and it was open.

“What do you think?” Mike asked.

“I think they’re waiting for us inside,” Frank said. “I think we drive in and they ventilate the car.”

“Sonny.”

“What?”

“Sonny Corleone,” Mike said.

“You guys ever watch anything else?”

“Youguys?”

They drove the car around the back, got out, and climbed over the wall. Frank knew they must have tripped off motion sensors, but nothing happened-no lights, no alarms. Still, he thought, Mac must have night-vision cameras linked to the sensors, and he’s probably watching us now, on the monitor. That’s okay, you knew when you came in that you were going to fight the battle on his terms.

It was like being back in Vietnam.

Charlie never fought except on his own terms.

If you found him, it was because hewanted you to find him.

Frank carried the AR-15 and had the shotgun slung over his back. He liked the automatic rifle for range-the shotgun wouldn’t be that useful until they got inside. If they got inside.

They had to walk through the zoo to get to the house. It was weird, because the animals were awake at night. The birds started to squawk, and he could hear the cats pacing in their cages, see their eyes flash red.

And, like Vietnam, Frank expected to see other flashes break up the night-the muzzle flashes of an ambush-then he realized that he and Mike were between the shooters and the animals, and Mac wouldn’t take a chance on one of his pets getting shot accidentally.

The pool glittered a cool blue. It was lit up, but there was nobody out there, not anyone they could see anyway. They’re inside the house, Frank thought, or, better, on the roof, waiting for us to get in so close that they can’t miss.

Any second, the night sky is going to light up like the Fourth of July.

Frank edged around the pool, then flattened himself on the patio at the edge of the house and signaled Mike to do the same. Then he trained the rifle’s night scope on the roof and scanned it left to right. He didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t up there, lying flat against the dormers or behind the chimneys.

It was about fifty feet of open lawn to the back of the house.

“Cover me,” he whispered to Mike.

Then, ducking as low as he could while still being able to run, he dashed toward the house and threw himself flat against the wall. He took one of the grenades out of his pocket, hooked his finger inside the pin, got ready to flip it up onto the roof, and then waved his hand to Mike.

Mike lunged off the ground and raced to the house, and they stayed there for a few seconds, pressed flat against the wall, catching their breath.

The sliding glass door was locked. Frank smashed the glass with the rifle butt, then reached in and pushed the door open. Mike pushed past him and went in with his shotgun at his cheek and swept the room.

Nothing.

Frank leapfrogged past him to the next wall and they made their way through the house like that.

They found Mac in the dojo.

Shirtless and barefoot, wearing only the pants of a blackgi, he was slowly and rhythmically slamming roundhouse kicks into a heavy bag. The bag doubled up and popped toward the ceiling with every kick, the solid wham of the impact echoing through the empty room.

A jazz flute played quietly on the sound system.

A stick of incense burned in a holder on the floor.

Frank stayed twenty feet back and kept the rifle trained on him. A man of Mac’s size and athletic ability could cover that distance in a stride and a half, and the kick would be lethal.

Mac turned his head to glance at them but didn’t stop kicking.

“I left the front door open for you,” he said. “You went to a lot of needless trouble, upset my animals, and you broke my slider.”

“They beat the kid to death,” Frank said.

Mac nodded and kicked the bag again. The motion looked both smooth and effortless, but the bag flew up toward the ceiling and then dropped again with a shudder. “I heard,” Mac said. “I didn’t authorize it. I don’t approve of it.”

“Let’s just fucking shoot him, Frank!”

“I’ve left myself vulnerable to you as a gesture of my sincerity,” Mac said, “and of my contrition. If you want to kill me, kill me. I’m at perfect peace.”

He stopped kicking the bag.

Frank backed off two more steps and kept the rifle trained, but Mac knelt on the floor, rested his haunches on his heels, took a deep breath of the incense, closed his eyes, and opened his arms with his palms held flat up.

“The fuck is this?” Mike asked.

Frank shook his head.

But neither of them shot.

A long minute went by; then Mac opened his eyes, looked around as if he was a little surprised, and said, “Then let’s discuss business. You should know that you are behind the information curve: Mr. Porter has decided to pursue his own agenda. His exact words were, ‘I’m tired of working for some jumped-up monkey,’ the monkey in question being myself. That being the case, I am willing to accept a fifty percent purchase of the Pinto Club. And if you want me to kill Pat Porter, I’ll kill him.”

“That’s already been taken care of,” Frank said.

Mac got to his feet and smiled. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

Life was really good for a while.

They’d had to lay low in Mexico for a few weeks, with the cops and the media all over the Strip Club Wars like vultures. It had everything that the eleven o’clock news guys could want and more-sex, violence, gangsters, and more sex. Stripper after stripper gave on-air interviews, and one even held a press conference.

Then some new horror took the pride of place and the media moved on.

The cops had a longer attention span.

Four murders in one night, apparently related, put a lot of heat on the homicide guys, and the FBI came in on the OC angle and started a turf battle. Everyone liked Mike Pella for the Georgie Yoznezensky murder, but for a change, Mike was actually innocent of that, so it never got any traction.

Myrna kept her mouth shut and Mike got her a job at a club in Tampa. The stripper with the junkie boyfriend just split town, and Frank heard years later that she’d overdosed in East St. Louis.

As for the three Brits gunned down in ninety seconds at the White Hart, nobody at the bar could identify the shooter and the guns had no prints and were untraceable. Eventually, the San Diego cops and the feds decided that it had been a London turf battle fought out in Mission Viejo and they put it in the cold file.

So Mike and Frank took a vacation in Ensenada and then came back to the sweet life, because being partners with Big Mac McManus wascake.

Mac had the golden touch.

He was like this king, this magnificent emperor of an enchanted land where milk, honey, women, and money flowed in streams.

But Frank didn’t get in on any of that. He turned down Mike’s offer of a piece of the Pinto, because the feds were all over it. He kept working the limo thing, plowing the money into his fish business or socking it away against the proverbial rainy day. He would go to the Sunday afternoon parties sometimes, though, to get in on the buffet.

“You’re going to pick up whores,” Patty would say.

“No, I’m not.”

It was a tired old argument.

“Sundays should be for your family,” Patty argued.

“You’re right,” Frank said. “Let’s all go.”

“Nice,” Patty said. “Now you want to bring your wife and daughter to anorgy. ”

She had a point there, Frank had to admit. Although he never took part in the sexual escapades. Mostly, he and Mac would repair to the dojo and work out. Mac taught him martial arts, taught him, in fact, the move that would save his life on the boat almost twenty years later.

They’d work out hard-hitting and kicking the bag, then doing some sparring, then hitting the weight bench, where they’d spot for each other. Then they’d go and sip fruit juice and talk about life, business, music, philosophy. Mac taught Frank about jazz, and Frank got him into opera.

They were good times.

They couldn’t last.

It was the coke.

Frank never knew when Mac started doing it, but it seemed like all of a sudden that’s all he was doing. Mountains of coke would go up Mac’s nose, and he would take what seemed like a harem into his bedroom and disappear for days. After a while, he stopped taking the harem and just disappeared by himself, to emerge late in the afternoon, if at all, and demand more coke.

It changed him.

Mac started to be angry all the time. He’d fly into sudden, unpredictable rages, and launch into long, barely coherent rants about how he did all the work and all the thinking and how nobody appreciated him.

Then came the paranoia.

They were all out to get him, all plotting against him. He doubled the amount of security around the place, bought Dobermans that he let prowl the grounds at night, installed more alarm systems, and spent more and more time huddled alone in his room.

He stopped going into his dojo altogether. The heavy bag hung still and unused, a lonely symbol of Mac’s decline.

Frank tried to talk to him. It didn’t do any good, but Mac loved him for the attempt.

“All these people,” he said to Frank one night when they were sitting alone together at the pool. “All these people are hangers-on. They’re all parasites. Not you, Frank Machianno, you’re aman. You love me man to man.”

It was the truth.

Frank did love him.

Loved the memory of the distinguished, generous genius that Mac had been, and could be again. Instead of the paranoid, mean, incoherent shell he had become. Mac looked awful-the once-tight body was sagging and thin. The man rarely ate, his eyes were dilated, and his skin looked like dark brown parchment paper.

“These people,” Mac continued, “will kill me.”

“No, Mac,” Frank said.

But they did.

John Stone came to Frank one day at the Sunday party that autumn and said, “He’s cheating us.”

“Who is?”

“Our ‘partner,’” Stone said. He gestured toward Mac’s bedroom, where Mac was holed up, as he usually was those days. And the Sunday party wasn’t what it used to be, either. Fewer and fewer people came, and those who did were mostly the hard-core sex and coke freaks.

“No way,” Frank said.

“Don’t tell me no way,” Stone said. “Half our money is going up that nigger’s nose.”

Frank didn’t want to believe it, but the “cheating” talk only got worse. Stone and Sherrell met with Mike to show him the figures. Frank refused to be there. He had it rationalized six ways to Sunday: (a) Mac wasn’t stealing; (b) even if he was, he was making them so much money, they were better off with him stealing than without him; (c) Mac wasn’t stealing.

But Mac was.

He knew Mac was.

Stone confronted Mac with the evidence and Mac threatened to kill him, kill him and his whole family, kill them all.

“He’s gotta go,” Mike said to Frank.

Frank shook his head.

“No one’s asking you for yourvote, Frankie,” Mike said. “The decision’s been made. I just came as, you know, acourtesy, because I know the guy is your friend.”

You just came, Frank thought, because you wanted to make sure that Frankie Machine wouldn’t take it personally. See it as a grudge, respond the way I did over Georgie Y’s killing. Well, you have a legitimate concern there.

“The guys down in the Lamp,” Mike added, “they’ve signed off on it.”

Letting Frank know that if he decided to do something about this, he’d be taking on Detroit, too.

“What do the Migliores have to do with it?”

“They own strip clubs,” Mike said. “This moolie getting toxic affects them, too. They don’t like it. Headlines are bad for business. He’s gotta go, Frank.”

“Let me do it.”

“What?”

“Let me do it,” Frank said.

You guys are scared shitless of him. You’ll panic and just blast away until there’s nothing left of the man. If it has to be done, let me do it quick and clean.

I owe the man that much.

He’s my friend.

Frank found him in the dojo. The sound system was blasting out Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew.” Frank walked in and saw Mac standing on one shaky leg, kicking the heavy bag with the other.

The bag barely moved.

And Mac didn’t even notice him.

Frank walked up and put two. 45 slugs into the back of his head.

Then he went home, got his old longboard out of the garage, and gave it a good waxing. Then he took it out into the water and let the waves pound him.

He never went back to the limo business or the Pinto Club.

Patty filed for divorce later that year.

Frank didn’t contest it.

He gave her the house and custody of Jill.