Sharky''s Machine

  He rubbed a wrist with the palm of his hand, then shook the hand as though it might have fallen asleep.

  “Feelin’ better,” he said. “I just got the willies, okay? I’m tellin’ you, Victor.” He lowered his voice, stepping so close to DeLaroza the garlic on his breath almost brought tears to the big man’s eyes. “It’s them fuckin’ gooks is what it is. Could you, maybe tell ’em to knock off that slow-motion shit while I’m here? It’s makin’ me whacko. I’m off the wall, see?”

  “I’ll have a talk with them. It is a discipline, Howard. A thing they must do each day. But I will tell them to do it in the forward cabins, not in front of you if it upsets you.”

  “It upsets me, okay. Upsets the shit outa me.”

  DeLaroza nodded.

  “Y’see, I ain’t used to this. Cooped up here and all. Not used to it at all. Goddamn, I’d give anything for, y’know, a day at the track. Watch the ponies, lose a few bucks, win a few bucks. Maybe catch the Jets, watchin’ Namath throw that ball. See what I mean, I gotta have some action, not sit here, listenin’ to the fuckin’ water grow.”

  DeLaroza moved away from him, sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the cabin and lit his cigar, which had gone out. Now was the time, he thought, but he had to handle the situation carefully. Perhaps it was too volatile. Perhaps Burns was too hyper.

  “You mind?” Burns said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The cigar, do ya mind? It smells like a fuckin’ cow-turd burnin’, Victor. Jesus, it’s close enough in here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, okay. It’s I don’t like boats, see? All I need is to get seasick. Puke my guts out, that’s all I need.”

  “It’s just a lake.”

  “I don’t like boats!” His voice rose again, near hysteria.

  “I understand, I understand.”

  “Jesus, I don’t like to be this way, y’know.” Burns shook his head. “I like everything easy, no hassle. Slick ice. I’m sorry, okay?”

  “Of course. I was thinking …” He paused, trying to word the proposition just right.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have a situation. Something has come up. If you, uh, felt up to it. It could, uh, you could stay busy for a day or two. No. No, it’s not a good idea. Forget it.”

  “Forget what? You ain’t told me anything to forget.”

  “A bad idea.”

  “You wanna tell me about it? Let me decide?”

  “It’s the girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “I told you about the girl. Domino.”

  “The one you and Hotchins share. That one?”

  “It is not exactly like that. He knows nothing about the woman and me.”

  Burns laughed hard. He sat down next to DeLaroza and slapped his knee several times. “That’s rich, that is. You and him fuckin’ the same broad and he’s not in on it. I’ll tell you somethin’, Victor. You got some kind of funny balls, you do.”

  “The problem is not funny.”

  “It is to me. You ever hear of Angel Carillo? Big don in Philly, maybe the big don in Philly. No? Well, you don’t read much, because Angel makes the headlines now and then. He had an arm, name of Donny Duffield, Irish punk but a good arm. Very quick. He did a hit, it was no planning. He’d just go out, do it, go have a beer. Anyways, Donny introduces Angel to this broad which Donny has been punchin’ since high school. A real looker. And Angel gets a thing for her, starts takin’ her out, buyin’ her shit, clothes, jewelry, the old wham bam. Sets her up in this cushy apartment. And all the time Donny is giving her the old squirtaroo on the side. I mean Angel is maybe gettin’ it once, twice a week; Donny, he’s over there dippin’ in morning, noon, and night. You know those goddamn micks, got a hard-on thirty-six hours a day. So Angel finds out about it and he muscles Donny down to the old ice house there and he says to him, ‘Whaddya mean, you’re fuckin’ my girl?’ And Donny says, ‘Whaddya mean, “your girl”? I was fuckin’ her long before you.’ And Angel says, ‘Yeah, but she’s my girl now.’ And he takes out the old stiletto and whacko, clean as a whistle, he takes off Donny’s cock and balls. ‘Okay,’ Angel says when he’s through, ‘you want her, you got her.’ And like that he gives her back to Donny, who has to piss through a hole in his belly. Funny, hunh? What a sense of humor.” Burns leaned back in his chair and laughed again.

  DeLaroza rubbed gooseflesh from his arm. “I really don’t see the analogy,” he said.

  “You don’t make the connection, hunh?”

  “I seriously doubt that Donald Hotchins would castrate anyone.”

  “Ah, what ya mean, you take me literally there. No, I ain’t sayin’ he’d do it in so many words. But what’s the dif between him and Angelo Carillo? They both of them are heavy hitters there, Victor. You don’t take from them. Angel, he does his own cuttin’. Hotchins gets it done for him. Maybe in a different way, see. But the end result, that’s the same. Like they say, don’t fuck with Matt Dillon, he’s got the biggest gun. I was you, I’d back off.”

  “That is not the problem. I cannot tell him about her. That she is a prostitute, I mean. After all, I introduced them. There is too much at stake here.”

  “So let him dump on her. Lemme tell you something, partner. You better stay outa the picture. You better be the man that wasn’t there, you know what I mean?”

  “I just give advice.”

  “And money,” Burns said viciously.

  “Yes, money. This man is going to be the next president.”

  “I don’t get you, Victor. What’s in all this for you? Takin’ these chances. You were afraid Corrigon would make you, somebody else could too. All this so you can call the White House when you get the urge? Big deal.”

  “It is what I want. What do you want? To walk free, yes? To put the past behind you. I have done that already. We have played a different kind of game, you and I.”

  “I played the only game I knew. The spots, there, they come on the leopard.”

  “Well, you will get what you want, finally.”

  “I’m still busy cleanin’ up, Victor. I’ll never walk free again. The onus was on me before I ever met you. It started when I was a kid. You think they ever let you off the hook? Shit, the only way you get out, they take you away feet first, throw roses in your face. All they gotta do, somebody sees my face one time and every pistol in the fuckin’ country’s after me. You think them years in Nebraska was easy, livin’ like a goddamn shirt salesman? All I want is to be covered until I get lost again, see what I mean? Go someplace, sit in the sun, get freckles. I’m fifty-six, I ain’t got all that much time left. But I wanna use what I got. I want the rest of it to be good, see? It ain’t gonna be easy now, keeping the Feds and the Family from tumblin’ on to me. Thing is, what’s all these millions you parlayed for us gonna do for me, I can’t enjoy it, right?”

  DeLaroza toyed with the cigar.

  “There’s something else about all this,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

  “She knows something. She saw you with Corrigon that night. She was leaving my place.”

  “She saw me hit Corrigon?”

  “No. After. Putting him in the car.”

  “But she saw me?”

  “I do not think, honestly, that she can recognize you.”

  “Ho ho. Bullshit there.” Burns’s eyes narrowed. His breath hissed through clenched teeth. “She saw me. She saw me.”

  “It was dark. It could have been—”

  “She saw me.” Burns stood up and paced the cabin. He rubbed his wrist again and then snapped his hand. “Okay, so they turn up Corrigon. Sooner or later they’ll probably turn him up, know what I mean? Maybe even figure out who he is. Then they put his picture in the paper. She recognizes him, see. She leads them to the scene. Your front door. And then she starts doin’ the mug books. Maybe she didn’t see me, but then maybe she saw enough there, to make me from the pictures.” He turned and stood over DeLaroza. ?
??See what I mean? She could put me together with Corrigon at your front door and there goes the fuckin’ ballgame. You got that picture there?”

  DeLaroza nodded.

  “I was, uh, I didn’t want to worry you,” DeLaroza said.

  “Oh, you didn’t, hunh? Gonna let me sit around, wait till the building falls in on me?”

  “It is both of us.”

  “I did the hit. Just like in Hong Kong that time. It was me!” Burns bellowed. “I’m the one they’ll come squat on. You may go down the toilet there, Victor, but I get the gas pipe.”

  “Well,” DeLaroza said and let the sentence hang.

  “We got a saying in the rackets. The rope only has one noose. You know what I mean, Victor? I only got one neck. How many times you think they can stretch it? How come you wait so long to gimme this piece of news?”

  “I just found out.”

  “When?”

  “At noon.”

  “Jesus. I don’t believe you. I don’t fuckin’ believe you. Here we got this broad can hang us both higher than the church steeple, you’re still gettin’ a little. You just finished tellin’ me you don’t know how to handle this here with Hotchins, you’re dippin’ the wienie. Jesus Christ!”

  “It was not like that. I talked to her. Told her to step out of Hotchins’s life. She is a threat to his future.”

  “Well, I’ll bet she lapped that up with a fork all right.”

  “No, you are right. She did not lap it up with a fork.”

  “What do ya need, a picture book? They’ll get ya every time. Ask Adam. Ask John the Baptist. Ask Samson. Ask ’em all, man. She’s got a meal ticket. He goes to Washington, she goes along for the ride. Besides, that ain’t the question here. You know what the question here is, Victor. Can she put it on us? Can she finger me for chilling Corrigon? And if the answer is maybe, that means the answer is yes.”

  DeLaroza said nothing. He wanted desperately to light his cigar. Outside, the first deep rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

  “Listen to that. It’s gonna rain like a son of a bitch,” Burns said. He fell quiet. The juices were beginning to run. He felt the first nibble of excitement, the first surge of lust. His palms tingled. He licked his lips.

  DeLaroza went up the steps and opened the hatch door leading to the cabin, watching the storm clouds race angrily across the sky. He lit the cigar, letting the hard, cold wind carry the smoke out across the lake.

  “You know where she lives?” Burns asked.

  “Yes. In fact, I, uh, I am going there tonight.”

  Burns shook his head. “Unreal,” he said.

  “It is something special. A goodbye. I have known this woman for a long time,” he said. Then, after a pause: “Too long, maybe.”

  Burns smiled but there was no mirth in the grin. Then he said, “Not too long. So long. Get what I mean?”

  DeLaroza turned and looked back at him. “What do you mean?” he said.

  “What do you mean, what do I mean? You know what I mean. Don’t act dumb, because I know you ain’t dumb.”

  A sudden flash of lightning jarred DeLaroza. A second later it cracked like a whip snapping in the trees nearby. Burns seemed to draw strength from it. His eyes lost their coldness and began to beam with exhilaration.

  “You’re gonna be right there,” Burns said. “So you can case out the situation for me. You’re in the catbird seat there, Victor, because we ain’t got a lot of time. Now do you know what I mean?”

  DeLaroza did not answer. His lower lip began to tremble. He was thinking about tonight, about making love to her. Burns was totally calm, the killing machine, lubricating itself with visceral oil.

  “You did good, Victor,” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Sure you do. You didn’t come out here to feed me all that bullshit about my passport, that crap. You came out here to put the edge on the knife. Right?”

  DeLaroza fell quiet again. He stared down at the cigar.

  “I ain’t pissed about it, Victor. In fact, I gotta hand it to you. In your own sweet way you’re just like me. You’d kill your own mother for a two-point safety. You worked it out nice. It’s one and one makes two, just that simple. You’re here because the chippie has to take a hit and I’m the one’s gotta do the job. Ain’t that right, Victor?”

  DeLaroza stared at the floor. Finally he nodded very slowly.

  “Lemme hear you say it there, partner.”

  DeLaroza continued to stare at the floor.

  “Lemme hear you say it,” Burns said flatly. “Say it out loud.”

  DeLaroza remained quiet.

  “Say it.”

  DeLaroza started to speak. His lips moved, but the words died in his mouth. He coughed, trying to clear his throat.

  “Say it!”

  The voice was hoarse and seemed far away. “Kill her,” DeLaroza said.

  Burns grinned. “See how easy it is when you try.”

  9

  The ant was as big as an elephant. It crawled across the ceiling and Sharky watched it, wondering what it was doing on the roof of a twelve-story building and why it even wanted to be there at all.

  Sit and wait. Boredom. The curse of the stakeout.

  At least Livingston had provided him with what Arch called his stakeout kit—an army cot, blanket, hot plate, and several packets of instant soup and coffee. It helped. They had also left a car on the street below near the exit of the apartment parking deck in case he had to tail her.

  But he had nothing to read. After all the stakeouts Sharky should have remembered something to read. And he would be there until Papa relieved him at eight A.M.

  He lay on the cot with the blanket under his head and the earphones on and watched the ant scurry across the ceiling and start down the wall. The recorder for Domino’s living room whirred quietly on the floor near the cot. The radio was on. Led Zeppelin boomed in his ears.

  She was moving around, singing to herself, the recorders for the bedroom and massage room cutting on and off as she went from one to the other. She was in the master bedroom when she made the phone call.

  “Hello, is Mister Moundt there, please? … Hi, it’s Domino … Fine, and you? … Oh, you do? Wonderful. I was afraid it wouldn’t get in…. Thank you, that’s so sweet. It’s for tonight. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble…. Wonderful, I’ll be by in a few minutes. Bye.”

  Good. He could pick up a paperback or some magazines. He pulled on his suede pullover, smoothed back his hair, and walked down to the ninth floor, making sure the elevator he took did not stop at ten. He did not want to end up in the same elevator with her. He walked through the cold drizzle to the stakeout car, a blue Chevy, got in and waited. A few minutes later the gate swung open and the blue Mercedes pulled out.

  He followed her down Peachtree Street, staying several car lengths behind her. When she turned into the lot at Moundt’s he drove past, u-turned, and ambled back, giving her time to enter the store.

  Moundt’s was a gourmet supermarket, possibly the best in the city. It had two entrances, the main door on Peachtree Street and another through the side that led past a snack bar. He got a cup of coffee, stood in the doorway, watching her as he sipped it. She was in the rear of the store, talking to Moundt, a tall, gray-haired, amiable man who seemed to know her well. He gave her two cans which she put in her shopping cart.

  Supposing she makes you? Sharky thought. Remembers you from the elevator?

  He went to the fruit department, got some white seedless grapes and half a dozen hard apples, then cruised the store, staying two or three rows away and well behind her. He reached the paperback rack and, keeping his back to her, looked for a book. He selected a thick novel by Irwin Shaw, then turned cautiously, and looked back over his shoulder.

  She was gone.

  He moved toward the checkout counter, peering over the tops of the aisles. As he reached the end of the aisle she stood up. She had stooped down to get some crackers and now, suddenly, the
y were face to face, an aisle apart.

  He left the basket, went back up the aisle, aimlessly searching the counters as though he had forgotten something. She was facing the other way when he came back and he pushed his cart hurriedly to the checkout counter.

  An elderly lady got there at the same time. He smiled, reluctantly, and motioned her in front of him.

  Goddamn, she must have fifty dollars worth of stuff in that cart.

  He watched her put the items on the checkout counter. It took forever. Sharky waited. Then he casually turned sideways and looked back over his shoulder toward the store.

  Domino was standing there, right behind him, three feet away.

  Well, shit!

  She smiled at him, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. His nose is broken. How interesting. “We seem to be following each other,” she said pleasantly.

  Do something, stupid, don’t just stare at her. He smiled back. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” he said.

  “You live in the neighborhood?”

  “No,” he said, then realized it was a stupid answer and added quickly, “I like to shop here.”

  “Me too. It’s my absolute favorite.” I’d like to reach up and just touch him, there between the eyes. “Are you going to be working in the building for long?”

  “Well, uh, I, uh, yes, a couple of days.” Neat, Sharky. Why don’t you give her an itinerary? Show her your shield. Take out the old pistol and spin it on your finger, do a couple of John Waynes for her. Back out of the conversation. You’re blowing it. Putting it all in your mouth. Foot, socks, shoe, the works.

  And she thought, He’s interesting. Trim and hard, almost skinny. Faded green eyes, very warm. And that flat place across the bridge of his nose. He’d be pretty if it were not for that.

  He was staring into her shopping cart.

  “Shark’s fin soup?” he said with surprise.

  “Have you ever tried it?” I’m glad he’s not pretty. Good God, what are you doing? Getting off on his broken nose!

  “I’ll be honest with you,” he said, “I never heard of shark’s fin soup.”

  His eyes wandered. She was wearing a tee-shirt with ice cream written across the chest in dribbling letters, as if it were melting, and tight Italian jeans that hugged her ass and a fur jacket that looked like it would have cost him a year’s salary. There was no doubt about it—she was something special.