The winter of Frankie Machine

84

Dave Hansen is at Shores.

Well, at least there’s plenty of parking, he thinks as he pulls into the public lot across the street from the little playground.

Donnie Garth is already out there, standing by the vacant lifeguard tower, looking out at the gray sea. He looks vaguely ghostlike in his hooded white slicker. Or, Dave thinks, like a hopelessly out of place Klansman.

Dave gets out of the car and steps over the low wall onto the beach.

“Are you wearing a wire?” Garth asks.

“No, are you?”

“I’m going to have to pat you down.”

Dave lifts his arms and lets Garth feel him for a wire. Satisfied, Garth says, “Let’s go for a walk.”

They head north, toward Scripps Pier.

“This Summer Lorensen nonsense,” Garth says, “I don’t know what you think you know, but youdon’t know what you’re fooling with.”

“See, I think I do,” Dave says. “That’s the problem.”

“You’re damn right it’s a problem.” Garth turns to look at him. Rain drips off the edge of the hood onto his nose. “You’re a few months away from retirement. Take your pension and go fishing. Visit the grandkids. Forget about all this.”

“What if I don’t?”

“There are certain people who want you to know,” Garth says, “that if you persist with this crusade, you’ll leave with nothing. You’ll be a security guard on the night shift, if you’re not in jail, that is.”

“In jail for what?”

“Start with cooperation with a known organized crime figure, Frank Machianno,” Garth says. “You’ve been protecting him. Or how about your collusion in the torture of Harold Henkel? Or assaulting a federal agent. There’s plenty, Hansen. More than enough, trust me. And without friends to protect you…”

“Oh, you want to be my friend.”

“You need to decide who your friends are, Dave,” Garth says. “You choose wrong, you end up as a disgraced cop with nothing. Choose right, you can live a happy life. Christ, why would you sacrifice your future for some second-rate hit man, anyway?”

“He’s afirst -rate hit man, Donnie,” Dave says. “As you, of all people, should know.”

Garth stops and turns around. “I’ll walk back by myself. If Frankie Machine contacts you, we expect you to do the right thing. Do you understand?”

Dave looks over the man’s shoulder at the waves.

I’d rather be out there, he thinks, in a wave, under a wave. Anything would be better than this.

“Do you understand?” Garth says.

“Yeah.”

I understand.