The winter of Frankie Machine

53

Dave’s pushing his longboard into the back of his van when Frank comes up behind him.

“Very sketchy, surfing in a rainstorm,” Frank says. “God only knows what toxic crap is pouring out of the storm drains. You’re just begging for hepatitis.”

“You have the right to remain-”

“You’re not arresting me, Dave.”

“Why not?”

“Because you owe me one.”

It’s the truth, and Dave knows it. “Let’s prove everyone wrong,” he says, “and get in out of the rain.”

Frank gets into the passenger side of the van. The two men sit there looking at the ocean as raindrops splatter against the windshield.

“You catch anything good?” Frank asks.

“Mostly slop,” Dave says. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Running.”

“Did you run into a guy named Vince Vena, by any chance?”

Frank stares at him.

“He washed up in my jurisdiction,” Dave says. “Thanks a heap.”

“Weird tides in weather like this,” Frank says.

“Missed it bythat much.”

“If Iwere to say I killed him,” Frank says, “which I’m not, I’d say it was self-defense.”

“How about Tony Palumbo?” Dave asks. “Was that self-defense, too?”

“As a matter of fact.”

“Bullshit, Frank,” Dave says, getting angry. “You’re taking out the G-Sting witnesses.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Palumbo was one of my guys,” Dave says, “an undercover. Had been for years. Who paid you? Teddy Migliore? Detroit?”

“Here’s how they paid me, Dave.”

Frank pulls the neck of his sweatshirt down to show Dave the scar, which is still angry and red. “Your boy tried to take me out, Dave. He had a garrote around my neck.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Dave says.

“Palumbo wouldn’t be the first UC to work both sides of the fence,” Frank says. “Besides, was Vena one of your witnesses?”

“I was hoping he would be after I indicted him,” Dave says. “But you took care of that.”

“You have this backward, Dave. They tried to killme. They didn’t get it done.”

He tells Dave what Mouse Junior had to say, about his discussion with John Heaney and his confrontation with Teddy Migliore. About a crew from Detroit trying to take him out.

Dave looks at his old friend. Two decades of Gentlemen’s Hours, you get to know a man. And then there was the Carly Mack case…

“What’s G-Sting have to do with me?” Frank asks.

“Nothing that I know of,” Dave says.

“Tell me the truth!” Frank yells. “I’m trying to save my life here!”

“I can help you, Frank.”

“Yeah, like you helped me in Borrego?” Frank asks. “Like you helped me in Brawley? You had Sherm Simon wired, Dave. You had the GPS put in with the money. You tracked me and you gave me up to Detroit.”

“I tracked you,” Dave admits. “But I didn’t give you up to anybody.”

“You’re a dirty cop,” Frank says, looking into Dave’s eyes for confirmation.

He doesn’t see it.

What he sees is that his old friend is angry. He hasn’t seen him like this since the Carly Mack case.

“Come in,” Dave says.

“I won’t go into the program,” Frank says. “Whatever else I am, I’m not a rat.”

“Then you’d be about the only guy who isn’t.”

“I can’t answer for other guys,” Frank says. “I can only answer for myself.”

“These guys are trying to kill you!” Dave yells. “And you’re going to stand up for them? What has Pete Martini ever done for you? Orany of these guys? Ever? You have a daughter, Frank, on her way to med school. What’s Jill going to do with you six feet under?”

“Jill is taken care of,” Frank says. “So is Patty.”

“You stubborn bastard.”

“Can you give me my life back?”

“No,” Dave says. “But I can give youa life back.”

Even if it’s true, Frank thinks, it’s not good enough.

“I have an ask, Dave.” Payback for Carly Mack.

“Anything,” Dave says.

I owe you one.

“All I can figure is that this has something to do with something Mike Pella and I might have done back in the day,” Frank says. “I’ve been out of the loop for a long time now. I don’t know what’s what. I have to know if Mike’s dead. Or, if he’s alive, where the hell he is. I thought you might know something about that.”

“I can’t do that, Frank.”

Frank looks at him for a second, then opens the door to get out.

“Shut the door, Frank.”

Frank shuts it.

Dave says, “I need your word you won’t kill him.”

So Mike’s alive, and the FBI has him under surveillance. It’s all hooking together.

“I just want to talk with him,” Frank says.

The sky is a pearl gray, and, like a pearl, shiny in the rain, almost translucent. It’s pretty, Frank thinks. He watches a wave swell on the outside, start to build, a thick wall of water rolling in, a whitecap dancing on the edge like a tightrope walker.

“Pella has no involvement with G-Sting,” Dave says.

So…

“We like him for the Goldstein murder.”

Ka-boom. The wave explodes with a dull bass roar.

In Frank’s head.

He feels like he’s drowning. Held under in the impact zone.

“That’s not possible,” Frank says.

Dave shrugs. “He’s in Palm Desert. Under the name Paul Otto.”

“You guys have him under surveillance?”

Dave shakes his head. “He’s in the program, Frank.”

Mike’s a rat.