Sharky's Machine

by William Diehl

  The decision to give her up had come quickly once he faced it. Hotchins had trained himself to make fast decisions. He simply programmed the pluses and minuses into his brain, a trick he had learned from Victor. Emotion had nothing to do with it.

  It was done. Time to move on.

  He started thinking about his own political machine. The nucleus was there, although he recognized that in its strength there was danger. DeLaroza, Roan, Lowenthal, each a shrewd and powerful strategist but each with his own needs to fulfill. It would not be easy, balancing their egos, keeping the machine oiled and moving.

  He did not hear her open the hatchway behind him.

  “Composing your acceptance speech?” she said.

  He turned, startled by her voice, ignoring the remark or perhaps not hearing it. Instead he was staring at her as she stood in the hatchway, huddled in a green jacket which she held shut with both hands, her magical features framed by tousled black hair, her green eyes still filled with sleep, her long, perfect legs bare below the jacket.

  “God you’re something,” he said. “You are really something.”

  She laughed. “Changing your mind?”

  His face grew grew somber again and he turned away from her, staring back into the fog when he shook his head.

  “You’re making it sad,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be sad. There are still a couple of very good hours left before the sun comes up.”

  Without thinking he began stroking his leg. She came out and stood near him, putting her head gently on the back of his neck and moving her fingers lightly in his hair.

  “Want me to do that for you?”

  “No. It’s nothing.”

  “Did you hear what I said? It doesn’t have to be sad. That’s for the songwriters.”

  “It got to me a little, seeing you there. A little nudge, that’s all. What is it the French say? ‘To say goodbye is to die a little.’”

  She sighed. “You’re going to get emotional on me. I can tell.”

  “Well, my mother always said I was emotional. ‘Donald,’ she’d say, ‘don’t be so dramatic.’”

  She sat down beside him and nestled against him. He put his arm around her.

  “Well, don’t go getting dramatic on me. Save that for the taxpayers.”

  Hotchins laughed. “You’ve noticed that too, hunh?”

  “Come on. When that voice begins to tremble and those eyes fire up, I just have to marvel at you.” Then, a moment later: “You’re going to win, Hotch. You’re a straight-line guy and people like that.”

  “What do you mean, ‘straight-line guy’? That sounds stuffy.”

  “Not at all. It’s one of your … charms. You get right to it, no fussing around. Now most men would have brought me out here, wined me, had a little dinner catered in a pretty picnic basket, made love to me all night, then made their little farewell speech two minutes before we docked. You gave it to me before we even got out of the harbor. And I like that about you. The only problem is, you’ve been acting like a little boy who did something wrong ever since.”

  “Well I—”

  “It’s not guilt. Guilt is not one of your problems.”

  “I guess I figured, when you close the door it isn’t fair to climb back in the window.”

  “How about me? How about the way I feel?”

  He drew her closer to him, his fingers searching the jacket, feeling her nakedness under it. He remembered a time in Virginia, one of the first times she stirred feelings in him he thought he had lost forever. His hand moved around her and up until he felt the curve of her breast and she turned slightly so it rested against his palm.

  Out beyond the cove a foghorn sounded, its mournful tune going sour at the end of the bleat.

  “That’s old Jerry Stillman’s tugboat,” Hotchins said. “That foghorn’s had a frog in its throat since I was a kid.”

  “You know what, Hotch? I knew you were going to be a good lay the first time I ever saw you.”

  “Oh?”

  The remark startled him. Her uninhibited observations always caught him off-guard. He laughed and said, “You mean, you thought about bedding me down the first thing? Right in the middle of a cocktail party?”

  She thought about that night. She had seen his picture in the newspaper, seen him on television, and had wondered about him the way any woman wonders about a man of prominence. It was Victor who had introduced them.

  “Want to meet the next president?” he had asked her.

  “Of what?”

  “The United States.”

  Now who could turn down an invitation like that? Of course she wanted to meet him. There had been a fund-raising dinner to save the historic old Fox Theater, with a private cocktail party beforehand.

  “He is a lonely man,” DeLaroza had told her casually.

  “Does it show?”

  “Only to those who know him. The public sees only what he wants it to see.”

  “Bad marriage?”

  “Typical. He married a small-town girl when he was quite young. She has not kept up. She is uncomfortable in the political arena.”

  “Suicide,” she had said. “She better get used to it.”

  “Too late.”

  She had been overwhelmed by his personal charm, a charisma that television never adequately captured. He was commanding, charming, friendly but formal, and she had watched him from across the room. Several times she had caught him staring back at her.

  Thinking back on it, she knew now that it had been more than just Hotch. She had known commanding, charming, friendly, and formal men before, but never one who was going to run for president. It had been a challenge, no question about it. Yes, there had definitely been a challenge there.

  What had Victor said? ‘You are attracted by power.’ No, she thought, not really. She had known from the beginning that the benefits of power would be denied to her. From the beginning she had been a closet mistress. Nothing would ever have changed that. And there had been affection. But love? No, that was the delusion.

  And so she too was relieved that it was over.

  “Hey,” he said, snapping her back to the present.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “I said, did you really think about bedding me down right there in the middle of that cocktail party?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t I what?”

  “Think about laying me the first thing?”

  “Uh no, but—”

  “But you would now?”

  “I’ve got prior knowledge now.”

  “Hotch, if you met me in a restaurant right now, for the first time, what is the first thing that would go through your mind?”

  “You win.”

  “Thank you. Now you understand. I looked across the room at you and I said to myself, ‘He’s going to be great in bed.’”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “I saw your hunger. Not for me, not for any other woman in the room. But you were hungry. And a powerful, hungry man is a powerfully good lay.”

  He turned and looked down at her. The jacket had fallen open and he could see her breasts swelling against the cloth.

  “Did I disappoint you?”

  “Of course not. It was fun, like waking up a sleeping tiger. Oh, you were a little shy at first, but …”

  She smiled and let the sentence drift away in the fog, then after a few moments she said, “You’ve been a very good lover.”

  More silence. She moved again, this time against him, and he could feel the heat from her body through the jacket.

  “How long have we been lovers?” he said.

  “Seven months this Thursday.”

  “Have you been marking the calendar?”

  “I never forget good things. It’s a lesson I learned from my dad. If you don’t expect anything from the world, everything you get is a surprise. And that makes the really good things that much better.”

  “He must’ve been a very wise man.”
<
br />   “Nope, he never kept a promise in his life. But … he made some beauties, so he also taught me the value of dreaming.”

  “That’s a very generous way of putting it. What was he like?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You know, we’ve known each other for seven months and I don’t know a damn thing about your life away from me? I don’t even know your real name.”

  “You don’t like Domino?”

  “Well, it always struck me as a bit melodramatic.”

  “Intriguing. I like intriguing. It’s a much better word.”

  “Okay, intriguing.”

  “Good. And that’s the way we’ll keep it.”

  “I, uh, I feel …”

  She sensed the awkwardness in his voice and held a finger to his lips.

  “Shh,” she said. And then: “I want to make love to you. Right now. Because it’s something we both enjoy and because I find you most appealing out here like this and because I’m horny as hell.”

  She made a sound in her throat and moved a hand up his leg, sliding her fingers down the inside of his thigh. He turned toward her and kissed her and she reached up between their mouths with two fingers and squeezed his lips very lightly between them, and his mouth opened and their tongues touched, flirted with each other, and she moved against him, very lightly, so he could feel the fullness of her. She slid one leg up over his lap, drew her mouth away from his, and laid her head against his chest. Then she took the zipper of his jacket between her teeth and very slowly moved her head down, unzipping it almost to the waist. Then, raising her head, she kissed him again and this time both their jackets were open and as they kissed she moved her breasts lightly against him and he felt her hard nipples caressing his chest.

  He was totally captivated by her, the thought of having her was dizzying to him. He felt her hand touch him and felt himself responding. He reached up, stroked her face and throat, gradually widening the circle his hand was making until it brushed her nipple. And then he knew she was already starting the buildup and at that moment Hotchins realized fully what his obsession to become president had cost him.

  17

  The Majestic Grill was an obscure and unrecognized landmark that had endured on the same streetcorner since 1934, oblivious to the changes that had occurred around it. The shoe repair shop beside it had become a magazine store which had become a head shop which had become a natural food store which was now a pinball parlor; the theater up the street had declined from first runs to double features to porn; and if the Majestic was a monument to early Thirties style, the hotel across the street was a six-story monument to Early Nothing architecture. It had been boarded up for years. But the Majestic never changed. It had resisted time and transition, catering to a clientele that defied demography or caste. A bum nursing a cup of coffee received the same curt service as a college president.

  Inside, bacon and sausage sizzled on ancient grills, the odors spicing the heady aroma of roasting coffee. The decor was nondescript, a well-worn combination of stainless steel, formica, pale green walls, and dark green vinyl seats. A dining room had been added to the rear of the diner years before and there Papa sat, at a corner table, mesmerized by the menu from which he was about to order a breakfast big enough to delight an entire Marine brigade. Sharky and Livingston joined him and a few minutes later Friscoe arrived, an apparition in scruffy corduroys, a peaked deepsea fishing cap, and a scarred jacket that predated antiquity.

  He appraised the ragtag bunch, their eyes charcoaled from lack of sleep, their cheeks scraggly from not shaving, their bodies sagging under the weight of a sleepless night.

  “Jesus,” he said, “you all look like you just got sprung from Auschwitz.”

  “And thank you, Cinderella,” Livingston said.

  “So where’s Abrams? He ain’t gonna be one of those late guys, is he?”

  “On his way,” Sharky said. “He got hung up on a phone call.”

  A gargantuan waitress with arms like a wrestler’s hovered over the table. “Are we ready here?” she said. It was more a demand than a question.

  “We’ll have coffee all the way around while we’re deciding,” Sharky said and she padded off toward the coffee urn on slippered feet.

  Friscoe leaned back in his chair and looked at the other three detectives. “I’ll tell you what. I hope to shit you guys did better than me. I musta put in five hours trying to get a line on this Neil and what do I get out of it? Sore feet and a fuckin’ goose egg, that’s what.”

  Papa took a tattered notebook from his pocket and licking a thumb, flicked it open. “His name’s Dantzler,” he announced. “With a t.”

  “What’sat?” Friscoe said.

  “Dantzler with a t. D-a-n-t-z-l-e-r. He lives in a condo in The Courtyard, which, if you’ll remember, is also where Tiffany lives. That’s because she’s Dantzler’s girlfriend. She uses her apartment mainly for tricks. She also has another boyfriend on the sly and she occasionally shacks up at Domino’s place. Dantzler’s a rich kid gone sour. His game’s pimping and scam. He’s outa town, be back a week from tomorrow.”

  Friscoe stared at Papa with a hint of indignation. “Sounds like a pornographic soap opera,” he said. “Where’d you come up with all that shit?”

  “A snitch.”

  “You got all that from one fuckin’ snitch?”

  “Had a little help from the security guard at The Courtyard.”

  “Maybe I just should have stood in bed,” Friscoe said, feeling suddenly inadequate.

  “Sometimes you get lucky,” Papa said.

  “Well, sometimes wasn’t last night for me,” Friscoe said. “Is there anything else?”

  “Dantzler’s sporting a new Ferrari, braggin’ on the street how he took some cowboy to the cleaners. Domino is out. Didn’t know about it.”

  “And just how did you find that out?” Friscoe said.

  “Snitch.”

  “Shit, who is this fuckin’ stoolie?” Friscoe said. “Maybe we oughta put him on the goddamn payroll.”

  “One more thing,” said Papa. “Dantzler hasn’t got the guts to kill anybody or get it done. Rule him out. Ditto Tiffany.”

  “Same snitch?” Sharky said.

  Papa nodded.

  “You sure he’s reliable, Papa?” Friscoe said.

  “Yes. When this guy talks, it’s bankable.”

  “So that retires Dantzler, Tiffany, and the mark in Texas as possibles,” Livingston said.

  Friscoe shook his head. “Too bad. They would have been the easiest shot we had.”

  At that point The Nosh arrived, alert, ebullient, and smiling. Friscoe glared at him sourly. “You look like you just come back from a week at the beach,” he said.

  “I think I’m on to something,” The Nosh said.

  “Okay, everybody gets their turn. Papa there just made himself an A-plus. Now it’s Sharky’s turn at bat.”

  Sharky quickly described the deal on red devils made by Shoes and the layoff bets made by Arnold, the bartender at the Matador. Before he was through, the waitress returned with the coffee and demanded their orders while The Nosh complained bitterly that they might at least have selected a place that had bagels on the menu.

  “This here’s a diner, not a deli,” Friscoe said.

  When the waitress had gone again, Sharky said, “We didn’t make Shoes. He never showed up on the street last night. But both these leads tell Arch and me that the shooter’s still in town.”

  “Could be coincidence, Shark,” The Nosh said.

  “If it was just one or the other, I’d agree,” said Livingston. “But here we got information from two completely different sources and it dovetails.”

  “Yeah,” Friscoe said, “I never been big on coincidence myself. It’s like circumstantial evidence. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

  “Arch and I are going to move on Shoes tonight,” Sharky said. “But we need somebody to get on this Arnold, find out who the big bettor is.
”

  “Can you maybe get a line on this Shoes before tonight, hit him in his nest?” Friscoe asked.

  “It’s pushy. If we move too hard on him we could blow Ben’s cover,” Sharky said.

  “Okay, I’ll worry about Arnold, there, see what I can come up with,” Friscoe said. “We just don’t have time. We got nothing but maybes and probablies, and what we need, we ain’t got. We ain’t got a face, we ain’t got a name, we ain’t got a motive, we ain’t got shit.”

  “Is it my turn yet?” The Nosh asked.

  “Jeez, you’re like some kid in grammar school thinks he’s got all the answers,” Friscoe said.

  “Go ahead, Nosh,” Sharky said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay, I got a positive make on the prints.”

  Friscoe almost swallowed his coffee cup. Sharky, Livingston, and Papa froze in mid-bite, like sculptured figures.

  “You know who the killer is?” Sharky said.

  The Nosh nolded. “Howard Bums. Male Causasian, age 59, owned a short-haul trucking outfit in Lincoln, Nebraska.”

  “A trucking company?” Friscoe said. “This Mafia button owns a trucking company?”

  “What do you mean, owned?” Sharky said.

  The Nosh smiled. “According to the Bureau, Howard Burns was killed in an automobile accident on October twentieth.”

  Again silence, broken finally by Friscoe. “That ain’t possible.”

  “That’s right. It sure ain’t,” The Nosh said. “I checked it out again with George Barret. He says the prints are fresh, no question about it.”

  “What kind of accident?” Sharky asked.

  “A single-vehicle wreck on the outskirts of Omaha. Car went off the road, hit a tree, and exploded. Burns’s wife made the identification using dental charts.”

  “Uh oh,” Friscoe said, and a smile began spreading across his face.

  “Neat,” Livingston said.

  “Now that ain’t a coincidence,” Papa said.

  “And think about the date,” Livingston said.

  “Yeah about two weeks before he surfaced here looking for red devils and a healthy bookmaker,” Sharky said.

  “There’s more,” The Nosh said.

  “I shoulda stood in bed,” said Friscoe.

  “Look at this Bureau telex on Burns. Notice anything funny?” The Nosh asked.