The winter of Frankie Machine

73

Troy drives carefully through the rain, even though there’s little traffic on the streets this time of night. But he can barely see in the slashing rain-his front and rear wipers are putting up a brave but losing fight against the buildup of water on the glass.

He drives down through the Lamp, gets out of his car near Island, puts his umbrella up, and walks into a phone booth.

An umbrella to walk three steps, Dave thinks, watching him from a car a block away. With a cell phone clipped to your belt.

Who are you calling, Dave wonders, you don’t want a record of?

He doesn’t pause to think about it, though. There’ll be time to grab the phone records in the morning. He has to get over there before the people on the other end of that phone, whoever they are.