The winter of Frankie Machine

10

His first hit was on a guy who was already dead.

That was the weird thing about it. Well, the whole thing was weird, Frank thinks now, looking at the rain coming down outside.

The whole thing with Momo’s wife.

Marie Anselmo was a hot little number.

That’s what we would have called her back in 1963, Frank thinks. Nowadays the kids have shortened it to just “hottie,” but the idea is the same.

Marie Anselmo was hot and she was little. Petite, but with a nice rack tightly packed in that blouse, and a pair of shapely legs that led Frank’s nineteen-year-old eyes up to an ass that would give him an instant woody. Not thatthat was so tough, Frank remembers. When you were nineteen, anything would get you hard.

“I used to get a chubby riding to school in the morning,” he once told Donna, “just bouncing in the car. For two years, I had an affair with a ’57 Buick.”

Yeah, but Marie Anselmo was no Buick. She was pure Thunderbird, with that body, and those dark eyes, and the bee-stung lips. And that voice, that smoky come-do-me voice that would drive Frank up the wall, even if she was just telling him where to turn.

Which was mostly all Marie ever said to Frank, whose job it was in those days to drive her around in Momo’s car, Momo being too busy collecting the money he had out on the street or running his gambling wire to take his wife grocery shopping, or to the hairdresser’s or the dentist’s or wherever.

Marie did not like to stay home.

“I’m not one of your standard guinea wives,” she said to Frank one day after he’d been chauffeuring her for a couple of months, “who’s going to stay home, crank out babies, and make the pasta. I like to get out.”

Frank didn’t answer.

For one thing, he had a hard-on that could cut stone, so most of the blood in his body wasn’t concentrated in the part responsible for speech. And two, he wanted tokeep the blood in his body, which could be an issue if he started to discuss anything of a personal nature with a made man’s wife.

That was not something that was done, even in the more than casual mob culture of San Diego, where there was barely a mob at all.

Instead, he said, “Are we going to Ralph’s, Mrs. A.?”

He knew they were, although Marie wasn’t dressed like most women dress when they are going to the supermarket. That day, Marie had on a tight dress with the top three buttons undone, and black stockings, and a string of pearls around her neck that drew your eye right to her cleavage. Like her cleavage couldn’t have done that all on its own, Frank thought as he sneaked a glance and wondered if she was wearing a black bra under that dress. When he pulled into a parking spot in Ralph’s lot and stopped the car, her skirt rode up as she got out and he got a peek at those white thighs against the black hose.

She pulled her skirt down and smiled at him.

“Watch for me,” she ordered.

It’s going to be a long struggle with Patty tonight in the Ocean Beach parking lot, that’s for sure, he thought. He’d been dating Patty almost a year by then, and the most he could get was a little tit on the outside of her blouse if he pretended it was an accidental brush. Patty had a set on her, too, but her bra was built like a fort, and as for goingdown stairs, forget about it, it wasn’t going to happen.

Patty was a good Italian girl, a good Catholic, so she’d steam up the windows French kissing with him because they’d been going steady a year, but that was it, even though she said she’d like to give him the hand job he’d been begging for.

“I got blue balls,” he told her. “They hurt.”

“When we’re engaged,” she told him, “I’ll jerk you off.”

But it’s going to be a long night tonight, Frank thought as he watched Mrs. A.’s ass switch across the parking lot. How a guy as ugly as Momo Anselmo had nailedthat was a question for the ages.

Momo was this skinny, kind of hunched-over guy with a face like a hound. So Marie sure as hell hadn’t fallen for his looks. And it couldn’t have been the money-Momo did well, but he didn’t dogreat. He had a nice little house and all, and the required wise-guy Cadillac, and enough cash to flash around, but Momo wasn’t no Johnny Roselli or even Jimmy Forliano. Momo was a big deal in San Diego, but everyone knew that San Diego was really run from L.A., and Momo had to kick up heavy to Jack Drina, even though the word was that the L.A. boss was dying of cancer.

But Frank liked Momo a lot, which is why he felt a little bad lusting after the man’s wife. Momo was giving him his shot, letting him break in, even if it was as an errand boy, but that’s how most guys broke in. So Frank didn’t mind going out for the coffee and doughnuts, or the cigarettes, or washing Momo’s Caddy, or even driving his wife to the supermarket. At least he didn’t have to go in with her and push the cart around-even an apprentice wise guy wasn’t expected to do that-so he got to hang out and wait in the car and listen to the radio. Even though Momo bitched that it ran down the battery, Momo didn’t have to know about it.

Which beat the hell out of busting his ass working on the tuna boats, which was what he would have been doing if Momo hadn’t given him a shot. That was what Frank’s old man did, and whathis old man had done, and whathis old man had done. The Italians had come to San Diego and taken over the tuna-fishing business from the Chinese, and that was what most of them still did, and what Frank had done from the time he was big enough to shovel bait.

Out there on a tuna boat before the sun came up, cold and wet, ass-deep in a smelly bait pit, or, worse, cleaning out the scuppers. When he got bigger, he’d graduated to working the net, and then when his old man figured he could wield a knife without cutting his own hand off, he’d gotten to clean the fish, and when he complained about how disgusting and filthy it was, the old man had told him that was why he should finish high school.

So Frank did. He got his diploma, but then what was he supposed to do? His choices seemed to be the Marines or the tuna fleet. He didn’t want to stay on the tuna boats or get his head shaved at boot camp. What he really wanted to do was hang out on the beach, surf, drive up and down the PCH, try to lose his cherry, and surf some more.

And why the hell not. That was what you did when you were a young guy in San Diego in those days. You surfed with your buddies, you cruised the strip, and you chased girls.

Just one of the guys trying to find a way to keep up the sweet life.

Which wasn’t the tuna boat or the Marines.

It was Momo.

The old man didn’t like it.

Of course he didn’t. The old man was old-school. You get a job, you work hard, you get married, and you support your family, end of story. And even though there weren’t a lot of wise guys in San Diego, the old man didn’t especially like the ones who were there, Momo included.

“They give us a bad name,” he said.

And that was about all he’d say, because whatcould he say? Frank knew full well why the old man got a fair price from the fish buyers, how his catch got unloaded while it was still fresh, and why the truckers took it straight to the markets. If it weren’t for the Momos of the world, then the good, honest, hardworking civilians of the business community would have screwed the Italian fishermen like a two-dollar whore in a Tijuana donkey show. You ask what happened to the longshoremen in this town when they tried to get a decent wage and organize a union and they didn’t have the wise guys backing them up. The cops beat them and shot them until blood ran down Twelfth Street like a river to the sea, that’s what. And that didn’t happen to the Italians, and it wasn’t because they worked so hard (which they did) to support their families.

So when Frank started to spend less time on the boat, and didn’t go into the Marines, but signed on with Momo instead, the old man griped a little bit but mostly kept his mouth shut. Frank was making money, he was paying room and board, and the old man didn’t really want to know the details.

Actually, the details were pretty boring.

Until the thing happened with Momo’s wife.

It started out okay.

Frank was hanging out one day when Momo came out and told him to wash the Caddy and wax it, ’cause they were going to the train station to pick up a special visitor.

“Who, the Pope?” Frank asked, because he thought he was a funny guy in those days.

“Better,” Momo said. “The boss.”

“DeSanto?”

Old Jack Drina had finally died and the new boss, Al DeSanto, had taken over in L.A.

“Mr. DeSanto to you,” Momo said, “if you open your mouth at all, which you shouldn’t unless he directly asks you something. But yeah, the new king is coming down to visit the provinces.”

Frank wasn’t quite sure what Momo meant by that, but he picked up this tone, and he wasn’t sure what that was, either.

“Jesus, I’m gonna drive the boss?”

“You’re going to wax the car forme to drive the boss,” Momo said. “I’m gonna bring him to the restaurant; you’re going to go pick up Marie, bring her over after.”

After they’ve discussed business, Frank knew.

“And dress decent,” Momo added, “not like a surf bum.”

Frank dressed up. First he polished that car until it shined like a black diamond; then he went home, showered, scrubbed his skin until it hurt, shaved again, combed his hair, and changed into his one suit.

“Look at you,” Marie said when she answered the door.

Look at me? Look atyou, Frank thought. Her black cocktail dress was cut low, practically down to the nipple, her full breasts pushed up by what had to be a strapless bra. He couldn’t help but stare at them.

“You like the dress, Frank?”

“It’s pretty.”

She laughed, then went to her dressing table, took a drag on her cigarette and another swallow of the martini that was sweating on the table. Something in her manner told Frank that it wasn’t her first drink of the night. She wasn’t drunk, but she wasn’t exactly sober, either. She turned back to Frank and gave him the whole view, then patted her frosted hair to place it perfectly on her neck, picked up her little black bag, and said, “So you think they’re done with their business now?”

“I don’t know about that, Mrs. A.”

“You can call me Marie.”

“No, I can’t.”

She laughed again. “Do you have a girl, Frank?”

“Yes, Mrs. A.”

“That’s right,” she said. “That little Garafalo girl. She’s pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“Youhad nothing to do with it,” she said. “Does she put out?”

Frank didn’t know what to say. If a girl put out, you didn’t tell, and if she didn’t, you didn’t tell that, either. Anyway, it wasn’t any of Mrs. A.’s business. And why was she asking, anyway?

“We better get to the club, Mrs. A.”

“There’s no hurry, Frank.”

Yes, there is, Frank thought.

“Can’t a girl finish her drink?” she asked, setting those bee-stung lips into a pretty pout. She reached back and picked up her drink and sipped on it, never taking her eyes off his, and it was like she was giving him a blow job, which Frank had never had but which he’d heard about. In fact, this was just like a scene from one of those dirty books he’d read, except reading one of those books wouldn’t get him killed and this could.

She finished her drink, looked kind of hard at him, then laughed again and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

His hand was shaking as he opened the door.

She saw it and it seemed to make her a little happier.

They didn’t talk on the drive to the club.

It was the most expensive supper club in town.

Momo wasn’t going to take the L.A. boss anyplace but the best; plus, the club was owned by a friend of his. A friend oftheirs. So they got a big table in the front, right by the stage, and most of the wise guys in San Diego were there with their wives, the girlfriends having been left in their apartments for the night with strict orders to wash their hair or something, but not to go anywherenear the club. This was a state visit, Frank knew, to establish that DeSanto was the new boss of Los Angeles, and therefore also the boss of San Diego.

Except DeSanto hadn’t brought his wife. Neither had the handful of guys he’d brought down with him. Nick Locicero, DeSanto’s underboss, was there, and Jackie Mizzelli and Jimmy Forliano, all very heavy guys sitting at that table, all guys who were going to expect to get laid that night. Frank was glad he didn’t havethat job, but he knew it was all set up, that a few of the cocktail waitresses had already agreed to go with these guys after the party but were supposed to stay away from the table in the meantime.

So was Frank. Not that he’d expected to be at the table. He knew he was about thirty-seven rungs down that ladder and his job was to hang around the edges of the room in case Momo looked up like he needed something.

Momo was sitting at the center of the table, next to DeSanto, of course.

Except DeSanto wasn’t talking with Momo.

He was talking with Marie.

And saying something funny, too, because Marie was laughing real hard, and leaning way over and showing him a lot of tit.

DeSanto was looking, too, not even bothering to disguise it. And she was giving him lots of chances, leaning over so he could light her cigarette, so he could smell her perfume, leaning in real close, pretending she couldn’t hear him over the music and the conversation.

Frank was watching this; he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

There were rules about wise guys and their women, different sets of rules for sisters, cousins, mistresses, and wives. You wouldn’t treat a made guy’sgumar the way DeSanto was acting toward Momo’swife. And if a guy’s girlfriend flirted with another guy the way Mrs. A. was flirting with DeSanto, that girlfriend was letting herself in for a good beating when they got back to her place.

There are rules, Frank thought, even for a boss.

He had certain privileges, but this wasn’t one of them.

So Frank was pissed off for Momo, and he also had to admit he was a little jealous. Shit, Frank thought, she was making a move on me two hours ago. Then he felt guilty thinking that about Momo’s wife.

He watched her laugh again, her tits jiggling, then saw DeSanto lean into her neck and whisper something in her ear. Her eyes widened, and she smiled, then playfully slapped him on the cheek, and he laughed back.

DeSanto’s not abad -looking guy, Frank thought. He’s no Tony Curtis, but he’s no Momo, either. He wore glasses with thick black frames and had his graying hair Brylcreemed straight back, with a little widow’s peak in the middle of his receding forehead, but he wasn’t ugly. And he must be kind of charming, Frank thought, because he’s sure as shit charming Mrs. A.

Momo didn’t look so charmed.

He was steaming.

He wasn’t stupid enough to show it, but by this time Frank knew Momo well enough; he could tell the man was pissed off. Frank could feel the tension coming from the whole table-all the guys were drinking a lot, laughing a little too loudly, and the wives-the wives were torqued off. It was hard to tell if they were angrier at DeSanto or Mrs. A., but their necks were stiff from not looking even as their eyes couldn’t stay off the little scene. And they were leaning down and whispering to one another, the way wives do, and it didn’t take any imagination to know what they were talking about.

When Momo got up to go to the men’s room, one of the San Diego guys, Chris Panno, went with him. Frank waited until they went in; then he wandered down the corridor and stood outside.

“He’s your boss.”

“Boss or no boss, there are rules!” Momo said.

“Keep your voice down.”

Momo lowered his voice a little, but Frank could still hear him say, “L.A. pisses on us. They piss all over us.”

“If Bap was here…,” Frank heard someone say.

“Bap ain’t here,” Momo said. “Bap’s inside.”

Frank knew they were talking about Frank Baptista, who’d been the San Diego underboss until he got hit with a five-year rap for trying to bribe a judge. Frank had never met Bap, but he’d sure heard about him. Bap had been a legendary button man since the thirties. There was no telling how many guys Bap’d put in the dirt.

“Jack would not have allowed this,” Momo was saying.

“Jack’s dead and Bap’s in the joint,” Panno said. “Things are different now.”

“Bap’ll be out soon,” Momo said.

“Not tonight he won’t be,” Chris Panno said.

“This isn’t right,” Momo said.

Then Frank saw Nick Locicero coming down the hall.

Shit, what to do?

He decided fast and walked into the men’s room. The guys looked at him, like, What the fuck?

“Uhh…,” Frank said. He jerked his head toward the hallway. “Locicero.”

The guys looked at him for a second, then got their faces on.

Locicero came in.

“What are we, broads?” he asked. “We all gotta go the little girls’ room the same time?”

Everyone laughed.

Locicero looked at Frank. “Or is this the littleboys’ room?”

“I’m just going,” Frank said.

“D’you come in to take a piss?” Momo asked Frank. “Take a piss.”

Frank had a hard time with it. He unzipped, stood at the urinal, but nothing came out. He pretended it did, though, shook his dick off, put it back in. He was relieved to see that the men were all carefully washing their hands and paying no attention to him.

“Nice party,” Locicero was saying.

“The boss seems to be having a good time,” Momo said.

Locicero looked at him, trying to see if he was just busting balls or if he was serious. Then he said, “Yeah, I think so.”

Frank just wanted to get out of there. He headed for the door.

“Frankie,” Momo said.

“Yeah?”

“Wash your hands!” Momo said. “What are you, raised by wolves?”

Frank blushed as the men laughed. He stepped in, washed his hands, and managed to get to the door, when Momo said, “Kid, nobody else comes in here, okay?”

Jesus, Frank thought as he stood on guard in the hallway. What’s going to happen in there? He half-expected to hear gunshots, but he only heard voices.

Nicky Locicero was saying, “Momo, we came down here to be nice.”

“What’s going on out there isnice?”

“You guys have been going your own way down here,” Locicero said, “for too long. It’s time you came back under control.”

“When Jack-”

“Jack is gone,” Locicero said. “The new guy out there wants you to understand that you are not your own family down here; you are just another L.A. crew, a hundred miles down the road, that’s all. He wants your respect.”

Chris Panno weighed in. “If hewants respect, Nick, he shouldshow respect. What’s going on out there is not right.”

“I don’t disagree,” Locicero said.

A guy came down the hall to use the men’s room.

“You can’t go in there,” Frank said, stepping in his way.

The guy was a civilian. He didn’t get it. “What do you mean?”

“It’s broken.”

“All of it?”

“Yeah, all of it. I’ll let you know, okay?”

The guy looked for a second like he might want to argue the point, but Frank was a big kid, with muscles showing beneath his jacket, so the guy turned around. Frank heard Locicero say, “Look, Momo, all respect, but your Mrs. has had a little too much to drink. Have your kid drive her home; then there’s no problem.”

“There’s aproblem, Nick,” said Momo, “when this guy who wants respect treats our wives like whores!”

“What do you want me to say, Momo? He’s the boss.”

“There are rules,” Momo said.

He came out of the men’s room, grabbed Frank by the elbow, and said, “Mrs. A. is going home. You drive her.”

Holy hell, Frank thought.

“Go tell the valet to get the car,” Momo said.

Frank had to go through the main room to get outside. He looked up at the table and saw DeSanto whispering into Mrs. A.’s ear again, except now she wasn’t laughing. And the boss’s hands weren’t on the table. Frank couldn’t see them under the long white tablecloth, but he could guess where they were.

They were downstairs.

Five minutes later, Momo was pulling Mrs. A. out of the club. Frank got out and held the door open for her.

“You’re such an asshole,” she said to Momo.

“Stupid twat, get in the car.”

He pushed her in. Frank closed the door.

“Take her home and stay with her till I get back,” Momo told him.

Frank just hoped he’d get homesoon. Marie didn’t say a word on the drive home, not a word. She lit a cigarette and sat there puffing on it so the car filled with smoke. When he got to Momo’s place, he jumped out and opened the car door for her and she walked pretty fast up to her own door and stood there impatiently while he fumbled with the key to the front door.

When he got it open, she said, “You don’t have to come in, Frankie.”

“Momo said I did.”

She looked at him funny. “Then I guess you’d better.”

Inside, she went straight to the bar and started making a Manhattan.

“Do you want one, Frankie?”

“I’m too young to drink.” It’d be two more years before he could get a legal drink.

She smiled. “I’ll bet you’re not too young forother things, are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. A.”

But of course he did, and it scared the hell out of him. He was in a jam here-if he got up and left, which was what he wanted to do, he’d be in big trouble. But if he stayed here and Mrs. A. kept making moves on him, he’d be in bigger trouble.

He was working through this when she said, “Momo can’t fuck me, you know.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. He’d never even heard a woman sayfuck, never mind what Mrs. A. was telling him.

“He can fuck every cheap whore in San Diego and Tijuana,” she continued, “but he can’t fuck his wife. What do you think of that?”

Justhearing this could get me killed-that’s what Frank thought of that. If Momo found out that I know this, he’d clip me so I couldn’t tell anyone else. Which Momo really doesn’t have to worry about, because I’m never going to say this even to myself. Doesn’t matter, though. If Momo knew thatI knew that he wasn’t taking care of business with his wife, he’d kill me just because he couldn’t look me in the eye.

“A woman has needs,” Marie was saying. “Do you know what I mean, Frankie?”

“I guess so.”

Patty didn’t seem to have them.

“You guess so.” Now she sounded angry.

Frank figured she couldn’t be too angry, though, because she started to slide her dress off her left shoulder.

“Mrs. A…”

“‘Mrs. A.,’” she mimicked. “I know you’ve been looking at my tits all night, Frankie. They’re nice, aren’t they? You should feel them.”

“I’m leaving, Mrs. A.”

“But Momo told you to stay.”

“I’m leaving anyway, Mrs. A.,” he said. Now he could see the top of her breast in the black brassiere. It was round and white and beautiful, but what he reached for was the doorknob, thinking, You screw a made man’s wife, what they do is they cut your balls off and make you eat them. That’sbefore they kill you.

Those were the rules.

“What’s the matter, Frankie?” she asked. “Are you a homo?”

“No.”

“You have to be,” Mrs. A. said. “I think you’re a homo.”

“I’m not.”

“Are you afraid, Frankie, is that it?” she asked. “He won’t be home for hours. You know how these things go. He’s probably with some whore right now.”

“I’m not scared.”

Her face got softer now. “Are you a virgin, Frankie? Is that it? Oh, baby, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll make you feel so good. I’ll show you everything. I’ll show you how to please me, don’t worry.”

“It’s not that. It’s-”

“You don’t think I’m pretty?” she asked, her voice getting an edge. “What, you think I’m too old for you?”

“You’re very pretty, Mrs. A.,” Frank said. “But I gotta go.”

He was turning the doorknob as she said, “If you leave, I’ll tell him you did it. I’m in for a beating, anyway, so I’ll just tell him that you fucked me until I screamed. I’ll tell him you screwed me silly.”

Frank remembered it, what, forty years later, how he was standing there with his hand on the doorknob and his chin on his chest, thinking, What’s this drunken broad saying? That if I don’t screw her, she’s going to tell her husband that I did?

But if I do screw her…

You’re dead anyway, he thought.

Frank felt the panic welling up in his chest as he looked at that hot little number Marie Anselmo standing there with her little black dress half off, holding a lipstick-smudged Manhattan glass up to her bee-stung lips, her perfume swirling around him like a sexy, deadly cloud.

What saved him was the door opening.

She turned from him and got her dress back on just as Momo came into the room.

He didn’t look so good.

They had beaten the shit out of him.

Nicky Locicero shoved him into the room and told him to sit down on the couch. Momo did it because Locicero had a. 38 in his hand. Locicero looked at Frank and said, “Get some ice for your boss.”

Frank stepped over to the ice bucket at the bar.

“Icecubes, ” Locicero said, “from thefreezer, dipshit. In the kitchen.”

Frank hustled into the kitchen, got a tray out of the freezer, and cracked a few cubes into the sink. Then he found a dish towel in a drawer, put the ice in the towel, and wrapped it up. When he got back into the living room, Al DeSanto was there. He had a real smirk on his goofy-looking face.

Marie wasn’t smiling. She just stood there like she was a piece of ice herself. Frozen, stone-cold sober now.

Frank sat next to Momo on the couch and held the ice up to his cut, swollen eye.

“He can do it himself,” Locicero said.

Frank heard him but didn’t listen. He kept holding the cloth up to Momo’s eye. A trickle of blood ran down the towel, and Frank twisted it to keep the blood from getting on the sofa.

“We have some unfinished business,” DeSanto said to Marie.

“No, we don’t,” Marie said.

“I disagree,” DeSanto said. “You don’t play with a man like that, then leave him high and dry. It isn’t nice.”

He grabbed her wrist. “Where’s the bedroom?”

She didn’t answer. He slapped her across the face. Momo started to get up, but Locicero pointed the gun at his face and Momo sat back down.

“I asked you a question,” DeSanto said to Marie, his hand cocked again.

She pointed to a door off the living room.

“That’s better,” DeSanto said. He turned to Momo. “I’m just going to go give your wife what she wants, paisan. You don’t mind, do you?”

Locicero, leering, stuck the pistol in Momo’s temple.

Momo shook his head.

Frank could see him trembling.

“Come on, honey,” De Santo said. He walked her to the bedroom door and pushed her in. He went in himself, started to shut the door, then changed his mind and left it ajar.

Frank saw him toss Marie face-first onto the bed. Saw him grab her by the neck with one hand and rip the dress down with the other. Saw her kneeling on the bed in her black lingerie as DeSanto pulled her panties down and unzipped his fly. The guy was already hard and he shoved himself into her.

Frank heard her grunt, saw her body quiver under DeSanto’s weight.

“You had it coming, Momo,” Locicero said. “You ran your mouth.”

Momo didn’t say anything, just put his head in his hands. Bubbles of snot and blood ran down from his nose. Locicero put the pistol barrel under Momo’s chin and lifted his face so he had to look.

DeSanto had left the door open so that Momo had to see him pulling Marie’s hair back and riding her hard. Frank saw it, too. Saw Marie’s face, her lipstick smudged, her mouth twisted into an expression Frank hadn’t seen before. DeSanto was pulling her hair with one hand and mauling her breasts with the other. He grunted with effort and his glasses were askew on his face as his sweat made them slide down his nose.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, bitch?” DeSanto asked. “Say it.”

He yanked her head up.

She murmured, “Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes!”

“Say, ‘Fuck me, Al.’”

“Fuck me, Al!” Marie cried.

“Sayplease. ‘Please, fuck me, Al.’”

“Please fuck me, Al.”

“That’s better.”

Frank saw him push her face into the mattress and lift her ass up so he could drive into her harder. He was really piling into her, and Frank heard Marie start making noises. He couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain or both, but Marie started moaning and then yelling, and Frank saw her small fingers grip the bedspread as she screamed.

“Jesus, Momo,” Locicero said, “your wife is a hot little number.”

DeSanto finished and pulled out. He wiped himself off on her dress, zipped his fly back up, and got off the bed. He looked down at Marie, still lying facedown on the bed, her chest heaving. “Anytime you want more of that, baby,” he said, “you have my number.”

He walked back into the living room and asked, “Did you hear the bitch come?”

Locicero said, “Hell yes.”

“Didyou hear her, Momo?”

Locicero nudged Momo with the gun.

“I heard,” Momo said. Then he asked, “Why don’t you just shoot me?”

Frank felt like he was going to throw up.

DeSanto looked down at Momo. “I don’t shoot you, Momo, because I want you to keep earning. What Idon’t want is any more of this San Diego bullshit. What’s mine is mine and what’syours is mine. Capisce? ”

“Capisce.”

“Good.”

Frank was just staring at him. DeSanto noticed and asked, “What, kid, you got a problem?”

Frank shook his head.

“I didn’t think so.” DeSanto looked back toward the bedroom. “You want sloppy seconds, Momo, I don’t mind.”

He and Locicero laughed and then walked out.

Frank sat there in shock.

Momo got up, opened a dresser drawer, pulled out a wicked-looking little. 25 revolver, and started for the door.

Frank heard himself say, “They’ll kill you, Momo!”

“I don’t give a damn.”

Then Marie was standing in the hallway, leaning against the doorjamb, her dress still pulled down, her makeup smeared over her face like a crazy clown, her hair a tangled mess. “You’re not a man,” she said, “letting him do that to me.”

“You liked it, you cunt.”

“How could you-”

“He made you come.”

He lifted the pistol.

“Momo, no!” Frank yelled.

Momo said, “Shecame for him.”

He shot her.

“Christ!” Frank screamed as Marie’s body twirled and then corkscrewed to the floor. He wanted to lunge and take the gun away, but he was too scared, and then Momo took a step away from him, put the gun to his own head, and said, “I loved her, Frankie.”

Frank looked at those sad hound eyes for a second; then Momo pulled the trigger.

His blood spattered all over Kennedy’s smiling face.

Funny thing, Frank thinks now, that’s what I remember more than anything-that blood on John Kennedy. Later, when Kennedy was killed, it didn’t seem like such a surprise to him. It was like he’d seen it already.

Marie Anselmo survived-it turned out that Momo had hit her in the hip. She rolled around on the floor screaming while Frank frantically called the police. The ambulance took Marie away and the detectives took Frank. He told them most of what he’d seen-that is, that Momo had shot his wife and then himself. He left out any mention of Al DeSanto or Nicky Locicero, and was relieved to hear later that Marie had also kept her mouth shut about the rape. And if the San Diego cops were busted up over Momo’s suicide, they kept it hidden pretty well, unless open laughter was what they used to suppress their grief.

Marie spent weeks in the hospital, and had a barely detectable limp after that, but she lived. Out of respect for Momo, Frank used to deliver groceries to the house, and when she recovered enough, he still used to drive her to the supermarket.

But after that, Frank was disillusioned. All the stuff Momo had taught him about “this thing of ours”-the code, the rules, the honor, the “family”-was straight-up bullshit. He’d seen their fucking honor that night at Momo’s house.

He went back to working on the tuna boats.

And that probably would have been my life, he thinks now, looking out the window at the gray ocean and the whitecaps, except that, six months later, who should show up but Frank Baptista.