The winter of Frankie Machine

59

Jimmy the Kid waits with what’s left of the Wrecking Crew.

Paulie’s on injured reserve with his leg wound, but Carlo, Carlo is a gamer, dude. Carlo knows the diff between hurt and injured, and he’s going to be there when the whistle blows. Besides, he’s got a little payback to deliver.

And payback, as they say, is a bitch.

It was Jimmy who figured it out: Sooner or later, Frankie M. would go to Mike Pella to try to get this straightened out. Pella was his wingman, his boy, his goombah. So it was a simple matter of finding out where the feds had Pella stored, then putting a net around it and waiting.

For Frankie M. to fuck up.

Which he did.

Rode right into the old box canyon.

There are only four roads out of Ramona, and three of them break off the same intersection. So when Frankie M. turns north on the 78, they know they got him. It’s the worst-possible route for the man to take, because it winds down the edge of a steep canyon.

A stone cliff on one side of the road, the big drop on the other.

So as Frankie M. goes into the canyon, they put a car behind him. Jimmy’s car waits at a turnoff on the other side of the road, about two miles down.

It’s like one of them old Westerns, Jimmy thinks.

The dumb-ass cavalry goes riding into the canyon.

Where the Apaches are waiting for them.

Frankie M. is Custer.

And I’m Geronimo.