City of Dreams

by Don Winslow

Frankie has information, and this has always been his real bread and butter. But any fucking idiot (well, apparently not any fucking idiot) knows that when a miracle comes from nowhere and pulls you out of a bad situation, you stay out. When people who should by all rights have killed you let you live, you thank God and leave those people alone. Yeah, not Frankie. Chalk it up to desperation. Or to being fucking stupid. What Frankie does is he walks over to East Village to a corner where they’re clearly slinging H and asks the Mexican kid on the corner if he knows Neto Valdez. The kid is too smart to answer that. “Whatever,” Frankie says. “Tell him that Frankie V wants to talk to him.” And then Frankie actually says that he’s living at the Golden Lion Hotel. Spoon. Drawer. Two nights later, Frankie is hanging from a meat hook in a warehouse in Chula Vista. “Who was it?” Neto asks him. “Who robbed the stash house? Was it Chris?” Frankie has balls, you have to give him that. More balls than brains. He says, “A hundred grand and I’ll tell you.” “Frankie, you’re going to die,” Neto says. “But you have a choice. You can die slowly and in great pain, or you can die quickly. Up to you, I don’t care. But you are going to tell me who robbed the safe house and you are going to tell me the truth, because I’ll know. Now, what’s it going to be?” It’s going to be Danny Ryan.