The winter of Frankie Machine

45

The bullet smacks the wood a half inch above Jimmy the Kid’s head.

His whole body quivers and then he fights for control of himself and wins.

A dumber guy would have thought that Frankie Machine had missed, but Jimmy is smarter than that.

Frankie Machine doesn’t miss.

Frankie was sending a peace message: I could have killed you if I wanted, but I didn’t.

Jimmy the Kid waits five minutes, then starts cleaning up the wreck of the Wrecking Crew. Carlo’s gotten over the shock and can walk, so he and Jimmy haul Paulie down the stairs and into a car. Then they drive out on the highway a little ways, because even the cops have woken up in this sleepy town to the fact that something out of the ordinary has gone down at the EZ Rest.

Then Jimmy puts in the call he really doesn’t want to make.

Wakes Mouse Senior out of a sound sleep.

“I got two down,” Jimmy says.

“And?”

“And nothin’,” Jimmy says. “He slipped us.”

“Sounds like he did more thanslip you,” Mouse Senior says, and Jimmy hears a trace of satisfaction in his voice.

“Listen,” he says, “what am I gonna do about my two guys?”

“Are you hot?”

“Fuckyes. ”

“Okay,” Mouse Senior says, taking on this calming, fatherly-type voice, like he’s Jim fucking Backus inRebel Without a Cause, which sends Jimmy up the freaking wall. “You’re about twenty-eight minutes from Mexico. Drive across the border to Mexicali. Hold on.”

Mouse Senior comes back on the phone about three minutes later and gives him an address. “Go there. The doctor will fix your guys up. You have health insurance?”

“What?”

“Just joking, kid.”

Yeah, you’re Open-Mike Night at the Comedy Store, Jimmy thinks, punching off. I hope you’re still yukking it up when I perform your colonoscopy with a Glock and hold the trigger down.

Then Jimmy makes the call he really doesn’t want to make.

Thisguy he doesn’t wake up.

Thisguy answers before the first ring stops; this guy has been obviously sitting by the phone waiting for the call.

But notthis call.

This guy was waiting for the call that said Frankie Machine was at a family reunion with his ancestors. He definitely does not want to hear that Frankie M. is still in this world.

“This is a quid pro quo,” the guy says. “Tell your people they cannot expect the quid unless they deliver the quo.”

Whatever the fuckthat means, Jimmy thinks. Not only does he not know what the guy is talking about; he doesn’t even know who he’s talkingto. He just has a phone number, and he’s supposed to talk to whoever’s on the other end.

This very unhappy guy with his quids and quos.

“We’ll deliver,” Jimmy says, settling for that. He doesn’t want to get into it, and besides, Paulie is starting to bleed all over the place.

Jimmy has such a headache when he hangs up, he almost wishes Frankie M. had blown his brains out.

Well, you should have, Jimmy thinks.

You fucked up, Frankie M.

Let’s hope it’s the first of many.

Because I ain’t stoppin’ and I don’t think I “owe you one” either. Nobody fucking asked you for quarter, and nobody’s going to give it, either.

Not with whatyou know, old man.