The Winter of Frankie Machine Page 8

  She finished her drink, looked kind of hard at him, then laughed again and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  His hand was shaking as he opened the door.

  She saw it and it seemed to make her a little happier.

  They didn’t talk on the drive to the club.

  It was the most expensive supper club in town.

  Momo wasn’t going to take the L.A. boss anyplace but the best; plus, the club was owned by a friend of his. A friend of theirs. So they got a big table in the front, right by the stage, and most of the wise guys in San Diego were there with their wives, the girlfriends having been left in their apartments for the night with strict orders to wash their hair or something, but not to go anywhere near the club. This was a state visit, Frank knew, to establish that DeSanto was the new boss of Los Angeles, and therefore also the boss of San Diego.

  Except DeSanto hadn’t brought his wife. Neither had the handful of guys he’d brought down with him. Nick Locicero, DeSanto’s underboss, was there, and Jackie Mizzelli and Jimmy Forliano, all very heavy guys sitting at that table, all guys who were going to expect to get laid that night. Frank was glad he didn’t have that job, but he knew it was all set up, that a few of the cocktail waitresses had already agreed to go with these guys after the party but were supposed to stay away from the table in the meantime.

  So was Frank. Not that he’d expected to be at the table. He knew he was about thirty-seven rungs down that ladder and his job was to hang around the edges of the room in case Momo looked up like he needed something.

  Momo was sitting at the center of the table, next to DeSanto, of course.

  Except DeSanto wasn’t talking with Momo.

  He was talking with Marie.

  And saying something funny, too, because Marie was laughing real hard, and leaning way over and showing him a lot of tit.

  DeSanto was looking, too, not even bothering to disguise it. And she was giving him lots of chances, leaning over so he could light her cigarette, so he could smell her perfume, leaning in real close, pretending she couldn’t hear him over the music and the conversation.

  Frank was watching this; he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  There were rules about wise guys and their women, different sets of rules for sisters, cousins, mistresses, and wives. You wouldn’t treat a made guy’s gumar the way DeSanto was acting toward Momo’s wife. And if a guy’s girlfriend flirted with another guy the way Mrs. A. was flirting with DeSanto, that girlfriend was letting herself in for a good beating when they got back to her place.

  There are rules, Frank thought, even for a boss.

  He had certain privileges, but this wasn’t one of them.

  So Frank was pissed off for Momo, and he also had to admit he was a little jealous. Shit, Frank thought, she was making a move on me two hours ago. Then he felt guilty thinking that about Momo’s wife.

  He watched her laugh again, her tits jiggling, then saw DeSanto lean into her neck and whisper something in her ear. Her eyes widened, and she smiled, then playfully slapped him on the cheek, and he laughed back.

  DeSanto’s not a bad-looking guy, Frank thought. He’s no Tony Curtis, but he’s no Momo, either. He wore glasses with thick black frames and had his graying hair Brylcreemed straight back, with a little widow’s peak in the middle of his receding forehead, but he wasn’t ugly. And he must be kind of charming, Frank thought, because he’s sure as shit charming Mrs. A.

  Momo didn’t look so charmed.

  He was steaming.

  He wasn’t stupid enough to show it, but by this time Frank knew Momo well enough; he could tell the man was pissed off. Frank could feel the tension coming from the whole table—all the guys were drinking a lot, laughing a little too loudly, and the wives—the wives were torqued off. It was hard to tell if they were angrier at DeSanto or Mrs. A., but their necks were stiff from not looking even as their eyes couldn’t stay off the little scene. And they were leaning down and whispering to one another, the way wives do, and it didn’t take any imagination to know what they were talking about.

  When Momo got up to go to the men’s room, one of the San Diego guys, Chris Panno, went with him. Frank waited until they went in; then he wandered down the corridor and stood outside.

  “He’s your boss.”

  “Boss or no boss, there are rules!” Momo said.

  “Keep your voice down.”

  Momo lowered his voice a little, but Frank could still hear him say, “L.A. pisses on us. They piss all over us.”

  “If Bap was here…,” Frank heard someone say.

  “Bap ain’t here,” Momo said. “Bap’s inside.”

  Frank knew they were talking about Frank Baptista, who’d been the San Diego underboss until he got hit with a five-year rap for trying to bribe a judge. Frank had never met Bap, but he’d sure heard about him. Bap had been a legendary button man since the thirties. There was no telling how many guys Bap’d put in the dirt.

  “Jack would not have allowed this,” Momo was saying.

  “Jack’s dead and Bap’s in the joint,” Panno said. “Things are different now.”

  “Bap’ll be out soon,” Momo said.

  “Not tonight he won’t be,” Chris Panno said.

  “This isn’t right,” Momo said.

  Then Frank saw Nick Locicero coming down the hall.

  Shit, what to do?

  He decided fast and walked into the men’s room. The guys looked at him, like, What the fuck?

  “Uhh…,” Frank said. He jerked his head toward the hallway. “Locicero.”

  The guys looked at him for a second, then got their faces on.

  Locicero came in.

  “What are we, broads?” he asked. “We all gotta go the little girls’ room the same time?”

  Everyone laughed.

  Locicero looked at Frank. “Or is this the little boys’ room?”

  “I’m just going,” Frank said.

  “D’you come in to take a piss?” Momo asked Frank. “Take a piss.”

  Frank had a hard time with it. He unzipped, stood at the urinal, but nothing came out. He pretended it did, though, shook his dick off, put it back in. He was relieved to see that the men were all carefully washing their hands and paying no attention to him.

  “Nice party,” Locicero was saying.

  “The boss seems to be having a good time,” Momo said.

  Locicero looked at him, trying to see if he was just busting balls or if he was serious. Then he said, “Yeah, I think so.”

  Frank just wanted to get out of there. He headed for the door.

  “Frankie,” Momo said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Wash your hands!” Momo said. “What are you, raised by wolves?”

  Frank blushed as the men laughed. He stepped in, washed his hands, and managed to get to the door, when Momo said, “Kid, nobody else comes in here, okay?”

  Jesus, Frank thought as he stood on guard in the hallway. What’s going to happen in there? He half-expected to hear gunshots, but he only heard voices.

  Nicky Locicero was saying, “Momo, we came down here to be nice.”

  “What’s going on out there is nice?”

  “You guys have been going your own way down here,” Locicero said, “for too long. It’s time you came back under control.”

  “When Jack—”

  “Jack is gone,” Locicero said. “The new guy out there wants you to understand that you are not your own family down here; you are just another L.A. crew, a hundred miles down the road, that’s all. He wants your respect.”

  Chris Panno weighed in. “If he wants respect, Nick, he should show respect. What’s going on out there is not right.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Locicero said.

  A guy came down the hall to use the men’s room.

  “You can’t go in there,” Frank said, stepping in his way.

  The guy was a civilian. He didn’t get it. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s broken.
”

  “All of it?”

  “Yeah, all of it. I’ll let you know, okay?”

  The guy looked for a second like he might want to argue the point, but Frank was a big kid, with muscles showing beneath his jacket, so the guy turned around. Frank heard Locicero say, “Look, Momo, all respect, but your Mrs. has had a little too much to drink. Have your kid drive her home; then there’s no problem.”

  “There’s a problem, Nick,” said Momo, “when this guy who wants respect treats our wives like whores!”

  “What do you want me to say, Momo? He’s the boss.”

  “There are rules,” Momo said.

  He came out of the men’s room, grabbed Frank by the elbow, and said, “Mrs. A. is going home. You drive her.”

  Holy hell, Frank thought.

  “Go tell the valet to get the car,” Momo said.

  Frank had to go through the main room to get outside. He looked up at the table and saw DeSanto whispering into Mrs. A.’s ear again, except now she wasn’t laughing. And the boss’s hands weren’t on the table. Frank couldn’t see them under the long white tablecloth, but he could guess where they were.

  They were downstairs.

  Five minutes later, Momo was pulling Mrs. A. out of the club. Frank got out and held the door open for her.

  “You’re such an asshole,” she said to Momo.

  “Stupid twat, get in the car.”

  He pushed her in. Frank closed the door.

  “Take her home and stay with her till I get back,” Momo told him.

  Frank just hoped he’d get home soon. Marie didn’t say a word on the drive home, not a word. She lit a cigarette and sat there puffing on it so the car filled with smoke. When he got to Momo’s place, he jumped out and opened the car door for her and she walked pretty fast up to her own door and stood there impatiently while he fumbled with the key to the front door.

  When he got it open, she said, “You don’t have to come in, Frankie.”

  “Momo said I did.”

  She looked at him funny. “Then I guess you’d better.”

  Inside, she went straight to the bar and started making a Manhattan.

  “Do you want one, Frankie?”

  “I’m too young to drink.” It’d be two more years before he could get a legal drink.

  She smiled. “I’ll bet you’re not too young for other things, are you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. A.”

  But of course he did, and it scared the hell out of him. He was in a jam here—if he got up and left, which was what he wanted to do, he’d be in big trouble. But if he stayed here and Mrs. A. kept making moves on him, he’d be in bigger trouble.

  He was working through this when she said, “Momo can’t fuck me, you know.”

  Frank didn’t know what to say. He’d never even heard a woman say fuck, never mind what Mrs. A. was telling him.

  “He can fuck every cheap whore in San Diego and Tijuana,” she continued, “but he can’t fuck his wife. What do you think of that?”

  Just hearing this could get me killed—that’s what Frank thought of that. If Momo found out that I know this, he’d clip me so I couldn’t tell anyone else. Which Momo really doesn’t have to worry about, because I’m never going to say this even to myself. Doesn’t matter, though. If Momo knew that I knew that he wasn’t taking care of business with his wife, he’d kill me just because he couldn’t look me in the eye.

  “A woman has needs,” Marie was saying. “Do you know what I mean, Frankie?”

  “I guess so.”

  Patty didn’t seem to have them.

  “You guess so.” Now she sounded angry.

  Frank figured she couldn’t be too angry, though, because she started to slide her dress off her left shoulder.

  “Mrs. A….”

  “‘Mrs. A.,’” she mimicked. “I know you’ve been looking at my tits all night, Frankie. They’re nice, aren’t they? You should feel them.”

  “I’m leaving, Mrs. A.”

  “But Momo told you to stay.”

  “I’m leaving anyway, Mrs. A.,” he said. Now he could see the top of her breast in the black brassiere. It was round and white and beautiful, but what he reached for was the doorknob, thinking, You screw a made man’s wife, what they do is they cut your balls off and make you eat them. That’s before they kill you.

  Those were the rules.

  “What’s the matter, Frankie?” she asked. “Are you a homo?”

  “No.”

  “You have to be,” Mrs. A. said. “I think you’re a homo.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are you afraid, Frankie, is that it?” she asked. “He won’t be home for hours. You know how these things go. He’s probably with some whore right now.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  Her face got softer now. “Are you a virgin, Frankie? Is that it? Oh, baby, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll make you feel so good. I’ll show you everything. I’ll show you how to please me, don’t worry.”

  “It’s not that. It’s—”

  “You don’t think I’m pretty?” she asked, her voice getting an edge. “What, you think I’m too old for you?”

  “You’re very pretty, Mrs. A.,” Frank said. “But I gotta go.”

  He was turning the doorknob as she said, “If you leave, I’ll tell him you did it. I’m in for a beating, anyway, so I’ll just tell him that you fucked me until I screamed. I’ll tell him you screwed me silly.”

  Frank remembered it, what, forty years later, how he was standing there with his hand on the doorknob and his chin on his chest, thinking, What’s this drunken broad saying? That if I don’t screw her, she’s going to tell her husband that I did?

  But if I do screw her…

  You’re dead anyway, he thought.

  Frank felt the panic welling up in his chest as he looked at that hot little number Marie Anselmo standing there with her little black dress half off, holding a lipstick-smudged Manhattan glass up to her bee-stung lips, her perfume swirling around him like a sexy, deadly cloud.

  What saved him was the door opening.

  She turned from him and got her dress back on just as Momo came into the room.

  He didn’t look so good.

  They had beaten the shit out of him.

  Nicky Locicero shoved him into the room and told him to sit down on the couch. Momo did it because Locicero had a .38 in his hand. Locicero looked at Frank and said, “Get some ice for your boss.”

  Frank stepped over to the ice bucket at the bar.

  “Ice cubes,” Locicero said, “from the freezer, dipshit. In the kitchen.”

  Frank hustled into the kitchen, got a tray out of the freezer, and cracked a few cubes into the sink. Then he found a dish towel in a drawer, put the ice in the towel, and wrapped it up. When he got back into the living room, Al DeSanto was there. He had a real smirk on his goofy-looking face.

  Marie wasn’t smiling. She just stood there like she was a piece of ice herself. Frozen, stone-cold sober now.

  Frank sat next to Momo on the couch and held the ice up to his cut, swollen eye.

  “He can do it himself,” Locicero said.

  Frank heard him but didn’t listen. He kept holding the cloth up to Momo’s eye. A trickle of blood ran down the towel, and Frank twisted it to keep the blood from getting on the sofa.

  “We have some unfinished business,” DeSanto said to Marie.

  “No, we don’t,” Marie said.

  “I disagree,” DeSanto said. “You don’t play with a man like that, then leave him high and dry. It isn’t nice.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “Where’s the bedroom?”

  She didn’t answer. He slapped her across the face. Momo started to get up, but Locicero pointed the gun at his face and Momo sat back down.

  “I asked you a question,” DeSanto said to Marie, his hand cocked again.

  She pointed to a door off the living room.

  “That’s better,” DeSa
nto said. He turned to Momo. “I’m just going to go give your wife what she wants, paisan. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Locicero, leering, stuck the pistol in Momo’s temple.

  Momo shook his head.

  Frank could see him trembling.

  “Come on, honey,” De Santo said. He walked her to the bedroom door and pushed her in. He went in himself, started to shut the door, then changed his mind and left it ajar.

  Frank saw him toss Marie face-first onto the bed. Saw him grab her by the neck with one hand and rip the dress down with the other. Saw her kneeling on the bed in her black lingerie as DeSanto pulled her panties down and unzipped his fly. The guy was already hard and he shoved himself into her.

  Frank heard her grunt, saw her body quiver under DeSanto’s weight.

  “You had it coming, Momo,” Locicero said. “You ran your mouth.”

  Momo didn’t say anything, just put his head in his hands. Bubbles of snot and blood ran down from his nose. Locicero put the pistol barrel under Momo’s chin and lifted his face so he had to look.

  DeSanto had left the door open so that Momo had to see him pulling Marie’s hair back and riding her hard. Frank saw it, too. Saw Marie’s face, her lipstick smudged, her mouth twisted into an expression Frank hadn’t seen before. DeSanto was pulling her hair with one hand and mauling her breasts with the other. He grunted with effort and his glasses were askew on his face as his sweat made them slide down his nose.

  “This is what you wanted, isn’t it, bitch?” DeSanto asked. “Say it.”

  He yanked her head up.

  She murmured, “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Yes!”

  “Say, ‘Fuck me, Al.’”

  “Fuck me, Al!” Marie cried.

  “Say please. ‘Please, fuck me, Al.’”

  “Please fuck me, Al.”

  “That’s better.”

  Frank saw him push her face into the mattress and lift her ass up so he could drive into her harder. He was really piling into her, and Frank heard Marie start making noises. He couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain or both, but Marie started moaning and then yelling, and Frank saw her small fingers grip the bedspread as she screamed.