Sharky's Machine

by William Diehl

  “I just broke all my plans until after the holidays,” Colter said.

  “Aren’t I the lucky one?”

  War Eagle came out of the men’s room with tears in his eyes, wiping his tie with a paper towel. A blast of heat and noise hit him like a tidal wave. His cheeks bulged and he turned and fled back through the door.

  “I bet you’re gonna need a ride home tonight,” Colter said.

  “Nope,” she said, “he is.”

  “I’ll call a cab.”

  _____________________

  The Nosh leaned intently over the controls of his electronic magic set, a carefully organized series of tape recorders, filters, rerecorders, and other electronic hardware that looked like a small radio station. He was in his glory, punching buttons, twisting dials, hunched under padded earphones as he worked to lift the voices from one of Sharky’s tapes.

  He looked up suddenly, startled by the appearance in the doorway of Sergeant Anderson. The Nosh felt sorry for Anderson, a man beaten down by life, his hair an ugly tangle of gray, his shoulders sagging under the weight of an unhappy marriage. Anderson seemed always to be around, offering help where it wasn’t needed and advice where it wasn’t wanted. The squad room was his home. He remained there, night after night, until he was too tired to stay awake or until he ran out of excuses to avoid going home.

  The Nosh pulled off the earphones.

  “Give you a hand?” Anderson said.

  “Nah. Thanks anyway.”

  “Coffee or something?”

  “Thanks anyway, Sarge.”

  “What you up to, anyway?”

  “Just giving Vice a hand. A little wiretap operation.”

  The tape was still running and a cacophony of sound emerged from the loudspeaker. A combination of soft music and cries of passion.

  “What in God’s name is that?” Anderson asked.

  The Nosh giggled. “Sounds like a Chinese orgy,” he said.

  “Well, I’ll be around a while longer if you need anything.”

  “Tell you what, Jerry. I got a fingerprint report coming in on the telex from the Bureau. If you hear the bell ring, gimme a call, will ya?”

  “Glad to,” Anderson said and smiled, grateful for something to do. “But they won’t come in with anything before morning, will they?”

  “I tagged urgent on it and I got a flash back. They’re gonna pull the package for me tonight, if there’s anything to pull.”

  “Okay,” Anderson said. His curiosity was aroused, but before he could pursue the subject further, The Nosh said, “If you should run out of the house for anything, you might swing by Grady morgue. Twigs has a tape over there for me.”

  The coroner had called a few minutes earlier to report that he had completed the autopsy on Domino. But, he had added, there was little in the post mortem that would help the Machine.

  “I’ll just go on over now,” Anderson said. “I need a little air.” And he left.

  The Nosh slipped the earphones back on and was immediately lost in his electronic fantasy world. Somewhere in that Chinese orgy, he thought, there’s a word or two, something, that’ll make sense to somebody. All he had to do was lift them out, get rid of the background noise. Eagerly he returned to his dials.

  _____________________

  Sharky was stamping his feet in a phonebooth near the Peacetree-Battle shopping center when the phone rang. He lunged for it.

  “That you, Sharky?” Ben Colter asked.

  “Right.”

  “I got lucky.”

  “Good! Give it to me.”

  “There’s a pusher named Gerald Lofton, a regular in the place. I got enough shit on this guy to bury him. But I can’t move on him yet. There’s a lot more where that came from. Anyway, right after you called, Lofton came in and we had a drink together and I moved the subject around to speed. I mentioned a friend of mine in Chicago told me something about red devils and was he hip to them and Lofton’s eyes lit up like a church steeple and he tells me red devils are dynamite but expensive. Then he tells me a friend of his just moved—are you leaning on something?”

  “I’m leaning on something.”

  “Fifty pills. At ten bucks a jolt!”

  “Ten bucks!”

  “I say this buyer must work for the mint and Lofton tells me he don’t know who the big score was, but during the conversation he dropped the name of the connection.”

  “And …”

  “The pusher’s a first-class asshole who uses the name Shoes.”

  “Shoes? Like on your feet?”

  “Right. Shoes. Anyway this Shoes, you gotta watch him. What he does, he plays the redneck joints out near Inman Park on payday. Does some heavy over-the-counter trade in pills and even some nickel bags.”

  “The red-devil buy was made in Inman Park?”

  “No. He also has some select clientele out this way.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Hell, you won’t have any trouble there. Tall, all bones. Has long white hair, almost like a high yellow, only he’s white. Dresses like a cowboy. Also he never holds. He usually pays a teenager or some wino to carry the shit for him. He makes the deal, goes out in an alley, puts the stuff in a paper bag, and then the customer picks it up from the decoy. By that time Shoes is half a block away.”

  “Neat.”

  “Tonight’s a good night to dump him. It’s payday.”

  “Good.”

  “What’s comin’ down, anyway? I thought you got dumped off the dope squad?”

  “I did. This is something else. In fact you can do me a favor and forget we even talked.”

  “That’s cool. One more thing about this Shoes. He was dropped twice in New York state, both felonies. The last time he did a nickel-dime and went thirty-three months before parole. He’d put his own mother on ice to stay out of the slams. But Oglesby doesn’t want him busted right now. He’s hoping the son of a bitch’ll lead us upstairs.”

  “Thanks, Ben.”

  “Anytime, Shark. Everybody on the squad owes you one. You took a bad rap. Anyone of us woulda done the same thing in your boots. I guess we’re all just glad it wasn’t us The Bat dumped on.”

  “See you in the lineup, Ben.”

  Sharky returned to the car.

  “We scored,” he said to Livingston. “You know a pusher does the country-music scene name of Shoes?”

  “Nope.”

  “Tall. Beanpole. Mulatto-white hair. Dresses like a rodeo rider.”

  “Sounds like we could make him in the dark.”

  “He just dumped fifty red devils on somebody at ten bucks a hit.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you wanna take him first or visit my friend Zipper?”

  Livingston had struck out on the first two bookies. He was obviously losing faith in his hunch. Sharky decided he deserved to run his string out first.

  “Let’s do your guy first. Mine’ll be around till they turn the streetlights off.”

  “You got it.”

  He turned the red light on and went down Peachtree Street to Spring and then into the middle of the city with his foot on the floor. Sharky casually hooked up his safety belt as they screamed in and out of traffic past the Omni complex, a cluster of tall buildings that included a hotel and a sports arena. Livingston turned into the city viaduct and went down to Hunter Street where he turned again. Six blocks later he pulled up to the curb. A block ahead of them was a low, squat building joined like a Siamese twin to a three-story indoor parking garage. A sign flashed on and off over the building, announcing that it was the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley.

  “We’ll hoof it from here,” Livingston said. They got out of the car and locked it. The street was filled with festive black men in fur coats and Borsalino hats with laughing ladies on their arms. Sharky and Livingston walked toward the bowling alley.

  “Let’s do this my way, okay?” Livingston said. “I grew up here. It’s my turf. I know every cr
ack in the sidewalk.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Here’s the set-up. A long mall with the bowling alley at the end. Twelve alleys all together. When you go in, there’s a lunch counter on your right and a concession stand on your left. The motherfucker running the concession stand owns the place, but you’d never know it. He’s uglier than a cross-eyed kangaroo and twice as mean. What I need is for you to get his attention long enough for me to come in behind him and freeze him. He’s got buttons under the counter. If he gets nervous, he’ll blow the whole play on us. Go down in there, okay? Walk along the alleys until you’re right in front of the fuckin’ concession stand, then walk straight back to it and lose some time there. Buy a candy bar, anything. If he gets nervous, put him on ice. Stick that 9 mm of yours right up his nose, otherwise he won’t think you’re serious. When I make my play, gimme some room and do exactly as I say, okay?”

  “I got it.”

  “Good. Let’s give it a try and see what happens.”

  Sharky went down the mall and stopped behind the chairs of the middle alley. A tall teenage black gave him a dirty look, then went back to his game. Sharky moved slowly along the alleys, aware of the concession stand to his left but not looking directly at it. When he was in front of the stand, he turned and strolled straight back to it.

  The man behind the counter was the size of a warehouse with arms like two sides of beef. Thick lips were wrapped around the short end of a cigar which had gone out hours before. An earring glittered in one ear. He wore a tweed cap pulled down over his forehead and a black tee-shirt with a black-power fist emblazoned in the middle of it.

  He eyed Sharky as though he were a cockroach walking across the counter.

  “Alley’s full,” he said as Sharky leaned on the countertop.

  “Got any Good ‘N’ Plenty?” Sharky said. Behind the man with the earring, Livingston entered a side door and moved quietly toward the concession stand.

  The black man leaned on the opposite side of the glass countertop. His eyes were not as bored as he wanted them to seem. One arm dropped to his side, dangling near a drawer under the candy shelf.

  “Nope. Try the drugstore for that fancy shit.”

  Livingston reached the other side of the counter. “Easy, Cherry,” he said. The owner’s face went blank, then he smiled, a gold tooth twinkling in the front of his mouth.

  “Yes, suh,” he said without turning around. “How they hangin’, Sergeant?”

  “Hangin’ full, babe. What’s happenin’?”

  “Not a thing, not a thing. Just hangin’ around, right?”

  “Right. That’s my friend Sharky. Say hello.”

  Cherry kept on smiling. “Hello, brother,” he said.

  Livingston walked to the side of the counter and lifted a hinged section of the countertop and stepped inside. He ran a nimble hand down one side of Cherry’s body and up the other, extracting a stubby .25 caliber pistol.

  “I got a permit for that, Sergeant.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Livingston opened the drawer and ran his hand along the top of the space. He smiled. Cherry smiled.

  “Now how we gonna do this, Cherry?” Livingston said. “You gonna keep that drawer closed and stay over there while I go upstairs, or am I gonna take this whole fuckin’ counter apart?”

  “Don’t do that, Sergeant.”

  “Then it’s cool, dig?”

  “Gotcha,” Cherry said and moved away from the drawer with his hands resting on top of the counter.

  “Just stay right there. Sharky and I are gonna go over there by the Coke machine and have a chat.”

  They went to the Coke machine and Livingston dropped in two quarters. He gave one of the soft drinks to Sharky.

  “See the door over there, about halfway down the first alley?”

  Sharky looked over at the door. A red exit sign glowed over it.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m goin’ through that door. You stay here and make sure Cherry don’t break the rules. If he gets fancy, bust him up alongside the head and make it good. He’s got a head as hard as his bowling balls.”

  “Got it.”

  “Anybody gives you any shit, show them some bronze. Then wait for me.”

  Sharky nodded. He went back to the concession stand and watched Arch Livingston walk to the red exit door, his hands loose at his sides, striding on the balls of his feet like a prizefighter.

  Sharky smiled at Cherry. “Just you and me, pal,” he said and Cherry said, “Right, brother. You and me.”

  Livingston disappeared through the door.

  _____________________

  Livingston stepped cautiously through the exit door into what was the second floor of the parking garage. The entrance was one deck below on a side street. A noisy car elevator dominated the core of the building, surrounded by numbered parking places. Most of them were full. From somewhere close by, Stevie Wonder’s plaintive voice lamented the sorrows of “Livin’ for the City.”

  Livingston moved slowly along the rows of cars, holding his .38 down at his side. The music grew louder. He stopped behind a pale green Lincoln. A black man wearing a floppy white hat and a silver gray full-length suede coat sat in the front seat with the door open, beating his knees in time with the music, a .32 Special lying on the dashboard a few inches from his hands.

  Livingston moved around the car until he was directly behind the gunman. It was then he recognized him as a young tough named Elroy Flowers. “Keep your hands on your knees and—”

  He never finished. Flowers moved unexpectedly and with the agility of a greyhound, swinging both legs out of the door as he reached for his pistol. It was a mistake. Livingston slammed the car door, smashing Flowers’s ankles between the door and the jamb, and swung his pistol in a wide overhead arc down on top of Flowers’s head. The felt hat deadened the blow but not enough. The half-conscious gunman grunted, reaching out blindly with one hand and knocking the pistol to the floor of the car.

  Livingston grabbed a handful of Flowers’s shirt and coat, swung him out of the car, spun him around, and slammed him against the hood. He put the flat of his hand against Flowers’s head and shoved him hard into the window of the Lincoln.

  The window cracked and Flowers’s eyes went blank. He sighed and dropped straight to the floor. Livingston dragged him by his shirt front across the floor and into the car elevator, dropping him face down on the metal floor. He pushed the up button and then jumped off the elevator and ran across the parking deck to the fire steps, taking them two at a time as he raced to the third floor.

  The elevator shuddered, groaned, and started rising. On the third floor another black man was leaning against the fender of a cream-colored Rolls Royce. He was bigger, more dangerous, than Flowers, a blockhouse of a man in a dark blue suit. He was reading a racing form which he tucked under his arm as the elevator started up. He walked casually toward it. Behind him Livingston stepped through the third-floor door and leaned against the back of a parked car, holding his .38 in both hands and aiming it at the center of the big man’s back.

  The big man peered down into the slowly rising elevator and saw Flowers lying on the floor.

  “Hunh?” he said. His hand slipped under his coat, reaching for his armpit.

  “Don’t do nothin stupid, nigger,” Livingston yelled. “I got soft-nose loads in this piece.”

  The big man turned toward him but kept his hand inside his jacket.

  “Bring it out slow and easy, motherfucker. You do anything sudden, I put a hole in your belly big enough to park that Rolls in.”

  The big man continued to stare. His hand stayed inside the coat. Doubt troubled his eyes as he calculated the odds.

  “Don’t get fancy, man. I’m the heat and I don’t miss.”

  The rear window of the Rolls glided silently down and a voice that was part silk and part granite said, “Okay, Steamboat, cool it. I’ll talk to the man.”

  The back door of the Rolls swung open. The man ca
lled Steamboat uncoiled and withdrew an empty hand.

  Livingston peered over the .38 into the interior of the Rolls. It was a study in gaudy opulence. The seats were unholstered in mauve velvet with gold buttons. The floor was covered in ankle-deep white shag carpeting. Built into the back of the front seat were two white telephones, a bar and an icemaker. A bottle of Taittinger champagne sat on the bar shelf.

  The man who sat in the corner arrogantly sipping champagne matched the decor. He was shorter than Livingston and looked younger, but he was beginning to show the signs of good living. His afro flared out, encircling his head like a halo, and his mustache was full and trimmed just below the corners of his mouth. He was wearing a dark-blue pigskin jacket, rust-colored gabardine pants, and a flowered shirt open at the neck, the collar flowing out over the lapels of the jacket almost to his shoulders. Gold chains gleamed at his throat, diamonds twinkled on his fingers, a gold Rolex watch glittered from under one cuff. His mirror-shined shoes were light tan with three-inch hardwood heels. A white handkerchief flopped casually from his breast pocket. He stared at Livingston through gold-framed tinted glasses, then looked down at the .38 that was pointed at his chest.

  “You mind, nigger?” he said, nodding toward the gun.

  Livingston appraised the back seat, lowered his gun, and laughed.

  “Shit,” he said, “I could get you ten to twenty for what you done to this poor Rolls.”

  “Get on in, goddammit. All my fuckin’ heat’s runnin’ outa here.”

  Livingston got in and pulled the car door shut.

  “Been a long time, Zipper.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Last time I saw you, you was wearin’ a fuckin’ monkey suit, sittin’ in the front seat of a goddamn patrol car. Bi-i-ig shit.”

  “Last time I saw you,” Livingston said, “you were in Fulton Superior Court apologizin’ for boosting car radios.”

  “That long ago, hunh? Shit, time do fly. You mind tellin’ me what the fuck all this Wild West shit’s about, comin’ in here, bustin’ up my people, wavin’ all that iron around? No need for that shit. You here to bust my ass?”

  “This is a social call.”

  “Shit. What d’ya do when you come on business, kill somebody?”