Sharky's Machine

by William Diehl

  “He still does,” Twigs said. “Besides, until you arrived, Barney, Arch was the senior officer on the scene. All I am required to do is make a preliminary study of the corpse on the scene prior to performing an autopsy. The officer in charge gets the results. In this case, I believe Sergeant Livingston was the ranking man on the scene.”

  Barret smiled. “I follow the same procedure. Livingston will get my report. If he handles it improperly, it’s his problem, not mine.”

  Friscoe sat down on the couch. “Cheez,” he said. He sat for several seconds shaking his head slowly. Finally: “Okay, okay. Everybody here’s gone a little ape. I can understand that. I’ll work it out. I’ll take on The Bat and get it straightened out.”

  “Barney, all we want is the weekend. Sixty hours. What the hell’s that? Until Monday-morning roll call,” Livingston said.

  “It’s nuts, that’s what it is,” Friscoe said. “Look, I said I’d get it straightened out. But right now we got to get some Homicides up here and fast.”

  Ironically, it was Papa who exploded. Papa—who rarely said anything and when he did could reduce the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to a single syllable, Papa who rarely showed any emotion—exploding like a wounded bull.

  “Fuck ’em!” he roared, jolting the anguished Friscoe. “Fuck ’em all. Fuck The Bat, fuck Homicide, fuck that goddamn psalm-singin’ moron of a DA. Fuck ’em all. Arch and me have been stuck down in that stinkin’ garbage pail at Vice for six years. You been there longer, Friscoe. Everybody in the House thinks all we’re good for is puttin’ the arm on hookers and perverts and wipin’ dogshit off our shoes. We ain’t a bunch of morons, y’know. Between you, me, and Arch there we got about fifty years in. This here’s our caper. We turned it up. I’m the one waltzed that goddamn Mabel around interrogation until my arches fell and that’s what started it all, got us into this here spot in the first place, or maybe you forgot that. Now you know what we’re gonna get outa all this? More shit, that’s what. The rest of the force is gonna come down on us with their wisecracks and insults. It don’t make no never mind that Sharky was up there on the roof doin’ his job proper. Don’t make no never mind that we turned this whole thing up and followed through. Hell, no! All we’re gonna hear is that we had a man on the roof when that lady there got her brains handed to her. Well, I’ll tell you what—I’m tired of bein’ the asshole of the whole police department. Fuck ’em all, Barney. I say we go after this son of a bitch ourselves and when we get him we hang his goddamn balls on Jaspers’s wall. I’m tired of bein’ shit on.” Papa pulled open the french doors and stormed out on the balcony, his face as pink as a salamander.

  Friscoe was flabbergasted. “I don’t understand what’s happening to everybody. I’ve known Papa for ten years. Worked with him for six. That’s more in one breath than he’s said the whole rest of the time I’ve known him. What the hell’s the fuss? What we got is a hooker suspected of complicity in a felony who got totaled. Big fuckin’ deal. It ain’t the first time somebody put the zap on a goddamn prostitute.”

  “She was a nice lady,” The Nosh said.

  “A nice lady?” Friscoe said.

  Sharky had been sitting on the couch without a word. Now he had to say something. But what? How could he possibly explain that he had met Domino and the strange circumstances of the meeting. Or that he had sensed a vulnerability that had drawn him to her. Or that because he had felt an attraction to her this senseless violence that had snuffed out Domino’s life seemed somehow directed at him, too.

  “Don’t you understand,” he said finally. “I feel responsible. Whether I am or not, I feel responsible.”

  Friscoe stared at Sharky and his anger began to subside. “Okay, I do understand that. Thing is, nobody here’s responsible. You were doin’ exactly what you were supposed to be doin’. Look here, did you—did anybody—have any idea she was gonna get shoved over?”

  No answer.

  “Anybody at all?”

  Still no answer.

  “Of course not. Nobody’s responsible for nothin’. Nobody knew it was comin’ down, right? Now I can understand Doc Twigs here goin’ a little off the wall. You gotta be a little weird, goin’ around sniffin’ that goddamn formaldehyde all the time. But not the rest of you. See, no matter what we did, if we wrapped this one up before breakfast, we’d all end up one through five on The Bat’s shit list. When he finds out, that’s it. And he’s gonna find out, make no mistake about that. Anybody wanna argue that point? No, there ain’t no argument there. And even, see, even if Jaspers falls deaf, dumb, and blind in the next thirty seconds, we still got one J. Philip Riley to contend with. I’m sure you will all recall that Lieutenant Riley heads up Homicide, but what maybe you don’t know is that when God handed out brains this same J. Philip Riley was on the front of the line. And also what maybe you don’t know is that J. Philip Riley has got a temper that when he blows, The Bat and D’Agastino’re both gonna sound like a pair of sopranos in the Sunday school choir. I mean, Riley ain’t gonna take too lightly to the fact that a bunch of stand-up comics from Vice just hi-de-ho stepped in and took over one of his homicide cases. That’s for openers. For closers I would like to point out that this same J. Philip Riley happens to be a friend of mind and a damn good cop and I ain’t inclined at this minute to stick my dick in the meat grinder just because Sharky here feels responsible.”

  “That was quite a little speech, Barney,” Barret said in his quiet, funereal voice. “All they want is the weekend. I happen to know that Jaspers is in Chicago addressing the NAPO convention. He won’t even be back until Monday night.”

  “That’s fuckin’ immaterial,” Friscoe snapped.

  “I don’t think so,” Twigs said.

  Friscoe whirled away from him as if he had the plague. “Just keep your dime out of it, Twigs,” he snapped.

  “Why? What you’re saying merely points up the fact that Sharky and Livingston, Papa out there on the porch, are right. It doesn’t make any difference what you do now, The Bat and Riley are both going to be on the warpath. What’ve you got to lose?”

  “I don’t go for breakin’ procedure—that’s one thing I don’t go for. That’s suicide!”

  “Yeah, Barney,” Livingston said, “the reason you’ve been in Vice for almost seven years is because you’re so big on procedure. Shit, we haven’t followed procedure since I been in the squad.”

  “This is interdepartmental,” Friscoe said.

  Sharky stood up and began pacing around the room. The shock was wearing off and in its place was anger, a welling fury deep inside him. “Maybe you like it down there in Friscoe’s Inferno,” he said, and his voice was brittle. “Maybe you been lying with the dogs so long you like the fleas.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are, say a shit thing like that to me?” Friscoe said, his face turning blood red.

  “I’m just thinking about that spiel I got when I checked in yesterday,” said Sharky. “Was that all bullshit? About how you and Arch and Papa were down there because you didn’t suck ass. Didn’t play by the book. A bunch of hardheads. I’ll tell you what, Lieutenant, you gave me this machine and Arch and Papa and The Nosh there are along for the ride. Now you want to hand it over to Riley? Shit, maybe you were right. Maybe I should walk. Maybe I should walk right now, right out that door, and go after the son of a bitch myself.”

  “You do and I’ll bring you down myself. I don’t go for headhunting. That’s cheap shit and you know it.”

  “Look, every minute we sit around here arguin’, the son of a bitch is moving farther away,” said Livingston. “Why not give Twigs and George a chance to tell us what they’ve picked up? Five, ten minutes more. Like you say, we’re up to our asses in alligators anyway.”

  Friscoe’s shoulders sagged. Defeated, he waved his hand at Twigs. “Go ahead, for Chrissake.”

  Twigs smiled. “Don’t worry about Riley. He’s got seven stiffs down there in the icebox and two of them are John Does. He’ll probably be
grateful for any help he can get at this point.”

  “That’s a laugh,” Friscoe said. “Riley ain’t happy unless his caseload looks like the casualty report from World War Two.”

  “May we go ahead?” Barret asked.

  “Sure, why not?” said Friscoe. “Before this is over we’re all gonna be directing traffic on the outskirts of Boise, Idaho, anyhow.”

  “What do you remember from ballistics training?” Barret asked.

  “You must be kidding,” Friscoe said. “I been in Vice so long, I can remember when they busted Socrates for pinchin’ little boys on the ass. Keep it basic.”

  “All right. First, the obvious. The weapon was a shotgun, twelve-gauge, judging from the number of pellets in the shot, and I think we both agree that it was sawed-off. Why? Because the shot leaves the barrel at a muzzle velocity of about eleven hundred feet per second. Up to about three feet the shot is contained; the effect is like a single rifle bullet. After that, the pellets begin to spread. If you want the shot to spread faster, the best way to accomplish your purpose is to saw the barrel off. The effect of a sawed-off scattergun is the same at about three feet as the pattern of a normal shotgun at about eight or ten yards. Now, let’s take a look at the scene a minute. Mr. Grimm?”

  “Yes, Mr. Barret.”

  The gaunt man took a pencil from his inside pocket and drew the point along his hairline at the forehead. “Singed hair along the frontal lobe here. In fact the hair was burned in places. Also some scorched bits of skin embedded in the wall with the pellets that didn’t hit her. The heat from a shotgun blast dissipates very rapidly. So I would say the weapon was three to four feet from the victim’s face when it was fired.

  “Judging from the destruction, the pattern was already wide, seven to eight inches in diameter. Where it hit the wall there it has already spread to ten inches. That’s the kind of dispersal we would normally expect at eight or ten yards. So I would say the gun was fired from the vicinity of the door and that it was sawed off pretty close, maybe eight or nine inches from the firing pin as opposed to a normal barrel length of thirty or thirty-two inches. Mr. Barret?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Grimm. As for the weapon,” Barret said, “if you listen to Sharky’s tape recording you will notice that the two shots came almost simultaneously; in fact they overlap slightly. They are too close together for the weapon to be an automatic or a pump or lever action. So what we got is a sawed-off double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun and one that was very effectively silenced.”

  “A lupara?” Livingston asked, and there was surprise in his voice.

  “What’s a lupara?” Sharky said.

  “It’s Sicilian for a shotgun of this kind. The classic Mafia execution weapon,” Barret said. “Certainly a possibility.”

  “You sayin’ this is a Mafia hit?” Friscoe said.

  “I’m saying it’s a similar kind of weapon. And I’m also saying that this was no amateur at work. No amateur would have a weapon like that. Certainly not one that was silenced. Besides, this was very well planned.”

  “There’s another thing,” Twigs said. He knelt and picked up one of the pellets from a plastic bag with a pair of tweezers and held it under Friscoe’s nose.

  “Smell anything?”

  “Yeah,” Friscoe said, “gunpowder.”

  “Anything else?”

  Friscoe closed his eyes and sniffed. His forehead wrinkled up. “What is that—garlic?”

  “Exactly,” Twigs said.

  “Don’t tell me,” Friscoe said, “the shotgun had spaghetti for dinner.”

  Barret smiled. “Perhaps. It is another Mafia trademark. The caporegimi, the Mafia lieutenants, sometimes soaked their bullets in garlic. It infected the wound and also made the wound more painful. It was a tactic used mostly for revenge or official executions. But never in a shotgun. It’s quite strange.”

  “You’re not saying this is some kind of official Mafia hit?” Friscoe said.

  “I tend to doubt it.”

  “What then?”

  “Maybe it’s part of his m.o.,” Sharky said.

  “That’s more like it,” Barret said. “A habit. Or perhaps even a trademark.”

  “So he could be an old-time caporegime,” Livingston said.

  Barret nodded.

  “What the hell good is that?” Friscoe said. “So you’ve narrowed the field down to a coupla thousand ace hitmen spread out all over the country. Big deal.”

  “Profiles, dear Barney, profiles,” Twigs said. “A few more details. The projectile was upward. You can tell from the way the shots hit the wall. The victim measures approximately 178 centimeters, that’s about five-ten. Assuming from the other physical evidence that the killer was standing in the doorway, we can draw an imaginary line from the center of the pattern through the victim’s head to a point where the killer was standing. We can assume he did not shoot from the hip. If he had, the second shot probably would have hit him in his own chin. So he either fired with the piece under his armpit or against his shoulder. From all this we can make a pretty good guess at the killer’s height. Mr. Barret?”

  Barret had drawn a diagram on a sheet of paper and was punching the keys of a small pocket calculator. “Five-nine tops. More likely five-seven or eight. Also from the position of the two shots, I would say you’re looking for an over-under double-barrel rather than a side-by-side.”

  “Pretty common, right?” Friscoe said.

  “Yes,” said Barret, “I wouldn’t waste my time trying to trace the gun. The significant thing is that it adds to his m.o.”

  “The more you talk, the more I think we better get Riley and company up here fast,” Friscoe said. “Let Homicide and the OC worry about it—it’s their problem.”

  “If D’Agastino gets involved you can forget it,” The Nosh said. “Before it’s over, he and Riley will be killing each other. That D’Agastino actually keeps evidence to himself so the OC can get the glory.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll put Riley against him any day. You ain’t seen nothin’ till you’ve seen that crazy Irishman mad.”

  “Barney, Phil Riley got his job because he deserved it. D’Agastino is a politician. In your experience, which gets preference in the official hierarchy, politics—or talent? Riley’s going to spend weeks wading through the red tape and then he’ll be lucky if the case stays in his department.” Twigs took out his Maalox bottle and celebrated his analysis with a swig of brandy.

  “Let’s add up what we know about the shooter, shall we?” Barret said. “I think we’re looking for an old-timer, someone with definite habits. Extremely cautious, a careful planner, experienced enough to be sure of himself. I’d say he goes back a ways. The young ones avoid habits. They vary their methods constantly to avoid detection. The older ones are too set in their ways. They follow traditions. They’re scared to make changes. They stick with what they know works. So I’d say an old-timer definitely. Late forties, early fifties at least, maybe older. Five-seven to five-nine. Quite possibly a contact killer, someone who likes to work close to the victim, perhaps even psychopathic in that sense. Mafia and possibly an executioner fairly high in the Mafia hierarchy, because of the garlic thing. The use of garlic these days, I would think, is part of his ritual, something associated with luck or tradition.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Barret,” Twigs said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Grimm,” Barret said.

  Papa broke into the conversation from the balcony. “You know what I think?”

  “God knows,” Friscoe said.

  “The fink was watchin’ the apartment. Had to’ve been. Wouldn’t stand in the stairwell all day waitin’ for her to come home. Wouldn’t be out in the open—too easy to spot. Phone call was probably to make sure she was home. Had to be where he could see lights come on. He was watchin’. From over there someplace.” He gestured toward the east tower.

  They all looked toward the other building, at the irregular boxes of light shining through apartment windows. Sharky felt a sudd
en chill. Goose pimples rippled along his arm and he rubbed them away as surreptitiously as he could. Perhaps the killer had been there, all day, watching as Sharky listened from his perch on the roof. Anger began replacing the sorrow he felt for Domino, worms nudging his instinct for revenge, urging it into motion. He remembered the previous day when they were planting the mikes in the apartment and Domino had returned. He said, “Papa’s right. He had to be watching. It happened too fast to be luck or coincidence. And you can’t see this apartment from the street. Yesterday Arch had to warn The Nosh and me when we were up here. We couldn’t see her when she came home.”

  “You can’t see it too good from the swimming terrace, either,” Papa said. “Which leaves the north side of the building, and that’s all residential, a lot of trees and backyards …”

  “And over there,” Papa said.

  They all stood on the balcony, looking across at the east tower.

  “He could be sitting over there watching us right now,” said Twigs.

  “You kiddin’?” Friscoe said, “He’s halfway to Detroit by now.”

  “Makes sense, y’know,” Barret agreed. “Perhaps an empty apartment?”

  “Too chancy,” Friscoe said. “He’s sittin’ in there, somebody comes in for a look-see, a prospective tenant, you know. Bingo, he’s made. Too smart for that.”

  “How about somebody who’s out of town?” Sharky suggested.

  “Sounds like a lot of crap shootin’ to me,” Friscoe said.

  “No,” Twigs said, “it’s deduction. And that’s what’s going to break this one no matter who handles it. You, D’Agastino, Riley, or whoever.”

  “There’s not enough physical evidence at this point. I agree,” Barret said.

  “I think,” said Sharky, “it’s time to have a chat with the security man.”

  “Look,” Friscoe said, “if we are gonna do this we can’t even tell the press she’s dead. We can’t even notify her next of kin. What the fuck are you going to tell the security man?”