“Oh yeah,” she says. “You?”
“That was me screaming,” he says.
He’s lying there politely, considerately, but she knows that he’s already restless. It’s fine with her; she’s not that much of a cuddler, and anyway, morning comes early and she sleeps better alone. So she gives the standard cue: “I’m going to wash up a little.”
Which means that he can get dressed while she’s in the bathroom, and when she comes out, they can go through the comfortable rituaclass="underline"
“Oh? Are you heading out?”
“Yeah, I think so. Busy day tomorrow.”
“You can stay if you want.”
And he’ll pretend to consider it, then say, “Nah, I’d better get home.”
And then they’ll have a warm kiss and he’ll say, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And then he’ll be gone. To go home, grab a little sleep, and start the whole thing over again.
It’s the routine.
Except tonight turns out different.
7
Tonight, he drives home and there’s a car in the alley.
A car he doesn’t know.
Frank knows the neighbors, knows all their vehicles. None of them owns a Hummer. And even through the now-driving rain, he can see there are two guys sitting in the front seat.
They aren’t pros; he knows that straight off.
Pros would never use a vehicle as conspicuous as a Hummer. And they aren’t cops, because even the feds don’t have the budget for a vehicle like that. And third, professionals would know that I love life, and because I love life, I haven’t, in thirty years, pulled into my house at night without driving around the block first. Especially when my garage entrance is in an alley where I could get cut off.
So if these guys were pros, they wouldn’t be sitting in the alley; they’d be at least half a block down, wait for me to pull into the alley, and then come in.
They spotted him, though, as he drove by.
Or they think they did.
“That was him,” Travis says.
“Bull fucking shit,” J. answers. “How can you tell?”
“No, that was him, Junior,” Travis says. “That was Frankie fucking Machine. A motherfucking legend.”
Parking isn’t easy in Ocean Beach, so it takes Frank about ten minutes to find a spot on the street three blocks away. He pulls in, reaches under the seat and finds his. 38 S amp;W, puts it in the pocket of his raincoat, pulls his hood up, and gets out of the car. Walks another block out of his way so that he’ll hit the alley from the east and not from the west, where they might be expecting him. He comes around to the alley and the Hummer is still there. Even over the rain he can hear the bass vibrating, so the dumb mooks are in there listening to rap music.
Which is going to make it easier.
He walks up the alley, his feet sloshing in the puddles, ruining the shine on his shoes, and he’s careful to stay dead center with the back of the Hummer so he’s less likely to get spotted in either rearview mirror. As he gets closer, he can smell the reefer, so now he knows he’s dealing with complete doofs-kids, probably, drug dealers-sitting in their cool sled, getting high and listening to tunes.
He’s not even sure they hear him when he opens the back door, slides in, sticks a gun in the back of the driver’s head, and pulls the hammer back.
“I told you it was him,” Travis says.
“Frankie,” J. says. “Don’t you recognize me?”
Yeah, Frank maybe recognizes him, although it’s been years. The kid-maybe in his mid-twenties-has short black hair gelled into spikes, some sort of stud stuck through his bottom lip, and earrings through the tops of his ears. He’s decked out in surfer clothes-a long-sleeve Billabong shirt under a Rusty fleece, and workout pants.
“Mouse Junior?” Frank asks.
The other one chuckles, then quickly shuts up. Mouse Junior doesn’t like being called Mouse Junior. He prefers “J.,” which is what he tells Frank now.
The other one is also dressed like a clown. He’s got the gel thing going, too, and a wispy goatee, and he’s wearing one of those surfer’s beanies on his head, which Frank resents, because Frank wears one to keep his head warm when he’s come out of the cold water after actuallysurfing, and not to look pseudo-hip. And both of them are wearing sunglasses, which is maybe why they couldn’t see a full-grown man coming up behind them. He doesn’t tell them this, though, and he doesn’t put the gun down, even though holding a gun to the son of a boss is a major violation of protocol.
That’s okay, Frank thinks. He doesn’t wantBut he respected protocol carved on his headstone.
“Who are you?” he asks the other one.
“My name is Travis,” the other says. “Travis Renaldi.”
This is what it’s come to, Frank thinks. Italian parents giving their kids Yuppie names like Travis.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Machianno,” Travis says. “‘Frankie Machine.’”
“Shut up,” Frank says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, shut the fuck up,” Mouse Junior says. “Frankie, could you put that gun down now? Could we go inside, maybe you could offer us a beer or a cup of coffee or something?”
“This is a social call?” Frank asks. “You waiting in the alley in the middle of the night?”
“We figured we’d wait until you were done with your booty call, Frankie,” Mouse Junior says. Frank’s not sure he knows what a “booty call” is, but he can figure it out from the nasty tone of Mouse Junior’s voice. He hasn’t seen Junior in probably eight years, and the kid was a spoiled teenage punkthen. He hasn’t matured any. Frank would like to give him a hard cuff in the ear for the “booty call” remark but there are limits to what you can do to a boss’s kid, even a boss as limp as Mouse Senior.
Mouse Senior-Peter Martini-is boss of what’s left of the L.A. family, which also includes what’s left of the San Diego crew. Peter got the nickname “Mouse” after L.A. police chief Daryl Gates famously referred to the West Coast mob as “the Mickey Mouse Mafia,” and the name stuck. He became Mouse Senior after he had his son and named him Peter.
But the rules are the rules: You can’t lay hands on a boss’s kid.
And you can’t refuse him hospitality.
Frank doesn’t like it, though, as he leads them into his place. For one thing, he doesn’t like letting them get the lay of the land, in case they come back later to try something. Second, it’s not a good idea in case they ever flip and take the witness stand. It will be harder for him to deny that a meeting ever happened if they can accurately describe what the inside of his house looked like.
On the other hand, he knows his house isn’t wired.
He pats them both down the second they come in.
“No offense,” he says.
“Hey, these days…,” Mouse Junior says.
No kidding, these days, Frank thinks. This is probably what this little sit-down is about anyway-Mouse Senior sending Mouse Junior down to get reassurance that Frank is still on the reservation.
Because Mouse Senior hasn’t been named on the Goldstein hit, even though he was the one who ordered it done, and Frank knows it.
Like Mouse Senior is so careful, Frank thinks. For three years, three years, back in the late eighties, Bobby “the Beast” Zitello was wearing a wire, while Mouse Senior thought the sun shone out of his ass. Bobby’s “Greatest Hits” album went platinum and put half the family in the joint for fifteen years. Now Mouse Senior is out, and he doesn’t want to go back in.
But the Goldstein thing might put them all in the can for good. Poor Herbie got clipped back in ’97 and a couple of low-level mokes confessed to it. But there’s no statute of limitations on murder, and the Goldstein killing has come back like a ghost. The feds have been all over it lately, as part of Operation Button Down, their attempt to put the last nail in Mouse Senior’s coffin. What probably happened is the two mooks found out they didn’t like prison so much and decided to trade up. For all Frank knows, Mouse Senior might be under a sealed indictment and be looking to make some trades of his own.