Sharky's Machine

by William Diehl

  Scardi shoved the Chinese servant over backward on the bed, where he fell with his hands stretched out at his sides. Scardi shot him three more times, twice in the face and once in the heart.

  The pain was like a hot needle deep inside Scardi’s chest. He gasped for breath, reached down, felt the handle of the dirk sticking in his side, and pulled it out. He dropped the weapon on the floor and leaned forward, clutching his side, pressing in, trying to squeeze the pain away. He could feel it, feel the burning puncture sapping his strength.

  He sat on the edge of the dresser, steadying himself with both hands. He examined the clown suit. He could hardly tell where the instrument had pierced the cloth. He went into the bathroom and unzipped the costume and examined the wound itself, a small, round hole beginning to swell at the edges. A pearl of blood appeared and winked obscenely at him. He carefully folded a washcloth and held it against the hole like a bandage and wrapped a towel around his waist to keep it in place.

  He went back to the dresser. Pain came at him in waves, burning inside him. Sweat had begun to erode his makeup. Red tears etched their way down his chalky cheeks into the corners of his mouth.

  The bastard, that filthy bastard, try this after all these years …

  The fury raged inside him again, welling up, giving him new strength. His hate was a passion. For thirty years he had listened to DeLaroza bragging, flaunting their combined wealth, taking credit. For what? For what? The whole scheme had been his idea, not DeLaroza’s. Scardi had invented La Volte. Scardi had gone in, done the legwork, taken the chances in the beginning. Scardi had set up the dummy hit at the lake, put the fix on Corrigon, arranged to transport the gold across the Alps into Switzerland.

  It wasn’t for me, he’d be nothin’. A fuckin’ bank clerk in Ohio someplace. Shit, he didn’t even know he was a fuckin’ thief until I saw it in him. A baby blue goddamn captain with no future.

  He slipped the clip out of the .22 and replaced it with a fresh one. There were two more in the drawer and he put them in the pocket of the clown suit.

  Got to stay up, he said to himself. Got to stay on my feet long enough to find that fat bastard. Try to put the cross on me. Shit. Shit! I made him. Me, Scardi.

  “I made you, you fat gutless sonofabitch …” he screamed aloud.

  He opened the small box on the dresser. Three red devils left. He popped two in his mouth and swallowed them without water.

  An instant later they jolted him, setting all his nerves on edge, intensifying the pain in his chest beyond bearing. He put the back of his hand over his mouth and screamed again.

  Then it was gone, replaced by the soaring rush of the speed. It cleared his vision, replaced the pain with a pure and driving hate. He snapped the silencer on the ugly snout of the Woodsman and slipped it inside the clown suit. Then he took his invitation and headed for Pachinko!

  30

  Scardi picked his spot carefully, with the same instincts, the same planning, that had kept him alive for forty-five of his sixty years in a business where death was as common as winter flu.

  Several factors dictated his choice of position. First, accessibility to the victim. He wanted a clean head shot. The .22 Woodsman had a specially designed eight-inch barrel with a Colt-Elliason rear sight and a ten-shot clip. The weapon was deadly up to seventy or eighty yards. With the silencer Scardi knew he could probably get off two, possibly three shots undetected. One would be sufficient, two ideal.

  Second, he checked the pedestrian traffic patterns, looking for a place he could get in a clean shot without a lot of people around.

  Finally, he looked for an escape route. It would be tough, escaping from Pachinko!, since it was accessible by elevator only. But there had to be a fire escape, a stairwell somewhere.

  His modus operandi did not include trapping himself.

  He stood on the balcony overlooking Pachinko! orienting himself, studying every inch of the place through pain-clouded eyes.

  He was standing with his back to the western wall of the building, looking down into the atrium. To his left was Ladder Street, winding down six stories to the park’s main floor, where it became the main thoroughfare of Pachinko!, ending at the gardens. To his right were the shallow pond and the Tai Tak Restaurant. In the far corner to his left was the entrance to the pinball ride and in the far corner to his right Tiger Balm Garden. Below him was the entrance to the underground Arcurion tour of historic Hong Kong.

  There were three side streets in Pachinko! One was Prince Avenue, which ran perpendicular to the main street, starting at the foot of Ladder Street, and terminated at the giant figure of Man Chu, the robot who operated the ride. A second street, Queen Road, paralleled Prince Street near the gardens. A narrow alley connected them, the stores on its eastern side built up to the far wall of the atrium.

  The alley was virtually empty. Few of the guests who jammed the spectacular complex had discovered it yet. Only two stores on the alley had been completed. One was a petshop about halfway between Prince and Queen. The other was on the western corner of the alley and Prince Street, a trinket shop with a stall in front.

  Perfect.

  Scardi guessed Hotchins and DeLaroza would come down Ladder Street, turn into Prince, and go to the pinball ride. They would pass within fifteen feet of the alley. From the corner, hidden by the trinket stalls, Scardi could get off a couple of good head shots and escape down the alley.

  And then what?

  He continued to study the far side of the atrium floor. Then he saw the fire door. It was located on Queen Street between the alley and the wall.

  The fire door provided his escape route. Scardi also reasoned that there would probably be an access door from the playing field of the ride to the fire stairs. If necessary he could enter the main floor of the ride and escape through the tunnels that led to the first floor. A risky trip, particularly for a wounded man, but an out nevertheless in case the stairway itself was blocked by police or security guards.

  The wound burned deeply, but Scardi went over the plan two more times in his head before he was satisfied.

  Scardi smiled. He was satisfied. It was a daring plan, but he had pulled off worse. And even if he didn’t, he was certain now that he could put a bullet in DeLaroza’s brain before he died himself.

  _____________________

  Hotchins had been introduced with glowing platitudes by the state’s senior senator, Osgood Thurston. Hotchins’s speech was short and to the point, a straightforward declaration that he was running for president and running to win, for the guests had come to play, not to listen to political speeches. The press would have its chance at him later at the press conference.

  Five minutes, that’s all it would take.

  He was halfway through the announcement when he saw her the first time. A face in the sea of masks, staring up at him, smiling cryptically.

  He floundered, lost his place as panic seized him. He smiled at the crowd, regained his composure, and when he looked back she was gone.

  A moment later he saw her again, this time staring enigmatically from between the posters in a display in front of one of the booths.

  Again, a few moments later, from farther down in the crowd.

  He went on, losing track of what he was saying, flashing that smile, inventing lines, frantic to get it over with. For sixteen years he had savored the anticipation of this moment. Now it was here and he was seized with terror.

  Domino was out there, in that crowd of masked revelers, taunting him.

  He finished with relief, backing away from the podium, his bandwagon supporters crowding around him, raising his arms over his head. Lowenthal, Thurston, three governors, the mayor, five congressmen, a dozen state legislators, several bankers, and two of the nation’s most powerful labor leaders.

  The crowd was cheering wildly as the band struck up a furious version of “Georgia on My Mind.” Flashbulbs and strobes blinded the dignitaries, and movie and television cameras swept the crowd, capturing its l
usty reaction to their favorite son’s entry into the campaign.

  Only DeLaroza read the fear in Hotchins’s eyes.

  He pulled him aside after the furor had died away.

  “What is the matter with you?” DeLaroza demanded.

  “She’s down there,” Hotchins said. He was trembling.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s in that crowd. She’s leering at me!”

  “Who?”

  “Domino. She’s here. In this place.”

  “You are going to pieces. She would never take such a chance.”

  “I’m telling you, Domino is out there. She’s trying to rattle me and she did it.”

  “Listen to me,” DeLaroza said, “we have only to walk down that stairway and over to the entrance of the ride and get in that steel ball and then you will be finished here. I assure you, she will not be at the press conference.”

  “I’m not going down there.”

  “You are most certainly going down there. The cameras, the reporters, the public, they are all waiting for us. Everyone who sees you on television riding in an amusement park will identify with you. It is something everyone can relate to. You are not backing out now.”

  He grabbed Hotchins’s arm and led him down into the crowd, bodyguards and security men forming a wedge through the mob, leading them down through the noisy bazaar.

  They had gone a few steps when Hotchins saw the sketch. He pulled free of DeLaroza and rushed to the artist.

  “Who is that?” he demanded, pointing to the easel. “When did you do this sketch?”

  “Just before the speeches,” the young artist stammered.

  “Where did she go. Which way?”

  The artist waved his arm toward the crowd.

  “Out there somewhere, sir. She said she’d come back later and pick it up.”

  “What was she wearing?” DeLaroza demanded.

  “Wearing?”

  “What kind of clothes was she wearing?”

  “Uh … I was concentrating on her face, y’know. Uh, gold gown. That was it, a gold gown. Big splash of red right here in the middle.”

  Hotchins remembered the woman at the entrance, the eyes following him from behind the impenetrable mask.

  “It was her downstairs. I knew it. I knew there was something …”

  DeLaroza was urging him along the stairs.

  “Smile. Wave at the crowd. We are surrounded by guards. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “I have her to worry about!”

  _____________________

  Like Scardi, Sharky too had devised a daring scheme, one designed to unnerve Hotchins, and it was succeeding. He and Domino had moved to the rear of the crowd. Now, as the spectators turned from the speaker’s platform to walk down Ladder Street, they were leading the way into Prince Avenue. At the end of the street, the glowering figure of Man Chu waited ominously to send Hotchins and DeLaroza on the first official spin through the pinball machine. Photographers were jockeying for position and TV cameramen were eagerly setting up their tripods.

  It had worked like a charm. Domino had put the mask on the back of her head and faced Sharky. Every time Hotchins looked in her direction, Sharky had turned her around facing him and then, the instant his eyes were averted, had turned her quickly back around, so that when Hotchins looked up again he saw only the expressionless mask.

  They had moved through the crowd, trying the trick a dozen times or so, and Sharky was sure Hotchins had seen her at least three or four times.

  Now for the cherry on the sundae. Hotchins and DeLaroza moved toward the robot. When the two were safely inside the steel car, with the guard rail snapped shut and the door secured, Domino would step out of the crowd and call each of them by name. The last thing they would see before plunging down into the dazzling interior of the ride would be Domino.

  Sharky hoped they would try something desperate.

  As they started up Prince Avenue, Sharky lowered his head slightly and spoke into the microphone pinned on the back of his lapel.

  “How you doin’, Vulture?”

  Papa’s answer crackled in his hearing aid.

  “Right behind them. Hotchins’s flipping. May not work, but he ain’t gonna sleep tonight.”

  “Stay close.”

  “Gotcha.”

  On the street below, Friscoe and Livingston stamped their feet and tried to control their excitement, waiting for something to break loose. They anticipated the unexpected and it was about to happen.

  _____________________

  Scardi was in position. Waiting.

  So far, so good. The alley was almost empty. Twenty, thirty people milling about.

  The crowd was moving up Prince Avenue, choking the street from storefront to storefront. He could see DeLaroza’s bald head and flaming red beard through the mass of people, moving toward him.

  He checked the alley again. The people were beginning to move toward him, attracted by the noise of the approaching crowd.

  At the far end of the alley a mime on stilts, dressed like Uncle Sam, stalked around the corner and started awkwardly toward him.

  The wound was numb now. His chest no longer pained him. His life was ebbing away, trickling down his leg. He looked down at the clown suit, at the crimson stain, widening, seeping down over his hip toward his thigh.

  He leaned closer to the wall, peering around the corner and over the stall of souvenirs. He slipped the last red devil in his mouth, waiting for its surge, suddenly feeling himself growing taller, more confident.

  Come on, you bastard, just a little closer. He zipped down the clown suit and reached inside, felt the comforting grip of the Woodsman, drew it out, and folded his arms across his chest with the gun concealed, the snout pressed up into his armpit.

  You pipsqueak little nothin’. A fuckin’ G.I. that I turned into a millionaire. What a fool, to think you could kill the old pro.

  The speed surged through his blood, cleared his vision. He checked out the people in the front of the crowd, looking for telltale signs. Cops. Bodyguards. Security guards. He could always tell them by their eyes, by the way they checked everywhere.

  His gaze fell on the woman in the gold gown. She was walking straight toward him. He stared into her face. There was something familiar there. Did he know her? Was it someone who could identify him? He panicked for a moment, then remembered the clown face. Nobody could see through that clown face.

  And yet …

  He concentrated on the face again. She was twenty feet away, bearing down on him. He dipped into his memory and then it began coming to him. Slowly. A photograph. That was it, a photograph. A photograph he had studied for hours.

  And then it hit him.

  Domino!

  Domino?

  No. It couldn’t be. She was dead. He had seen her face explode in front of his shotgun, seen her brains hit the wall. Domino was dead.

  “You’re dead,” he muttered. He started backing away from her. “You’re dead,” he repeated.

  Domino saw him before Sharky did, a terrifying sight. His face had dissolved, paint melting into a surrealistic glob of red and blue and chalky white. The ridiculous clown suit was stained blood red. His eyes were mad with fever. He was backing away from her. Saying something.

  “Sharky?”

  “I see him,” Sharky said and stepped in front of her.

  “He’s saying something.”

  The crowd pressed them toward him.

  “He’s saying … Jesus, he’s saying ‘You’re dead’ over and over,” Sharky said.

  He looked hard into the crazed face, at the hawk nose, the pointed chin, the pig eyes. Then he saw the gun in his hand, the Woodsman.

  “Jesus,” he yelled, “it’s Scardi!”

  The clown turned and ran.

  Sharky shoved Domino into the doorway of the store on the corner.

  “Stay here. Put on the mask, don’t let Hotchins and DeLaroza see you.”

  “But�
��”

  “It’s Scardi, don’t you understand? He’s all we need.”

  He yelled into the mike:

  “Papa, the store on the corner of the alley. Cover Domino!”

  “On my way.”

  “I’ve spotted Scardi!”

  On the street the name shocked Friscoe and Livingston into action.

  “Shit,” Friscoe cried out.

  “Let’s roll,” Livingston said.

  Scardi ran down the alley, shoving people aside, plunging between the stilted legs of Uncle Sam. The mime teetered and plunged forward into an awning over the petshop, crashed through it, and fell on top of several cages. They split open and the alley was suddenly alive with yapping Maltese and Pekingese dogs.

  Sharky charged through the madhouse, stepping over the wreckage of the awning. Uncle Sam was struggling to his knees, his six-foot pantlegs straggling out behind him.

  “You okay?” Sharky yelled at him.

  “I would be if I could get these damn pants off.”

  Sharky went on, racing to the end of the alley. He stepped cautiously into Queen Street and looked both ways. The street came to a dead end at the wall on his left. To his right it was clogged with merrymakers. No sign of Scardi. He walked past the first few shops, looking in through the windows.

  Nothing.

  The bleeding clown had vanished.

  _____________________

  Scardi stood inside the fire door for a few moments gasping for breath. He had caught a glimpse of a big guy in a tweed suit running after him. A cop? Some irate guest? He didn’t care. He saw the door on the landing below, the door that led out onto the giant pinball playing field. His escape route.

  He leaned against the wall and staggered down to the landing, pulled the door open, and stepped over the spring-loaded guard rail that surrounded the tilted board.

  It was like walking into his own nightmare. All around him, reflected on the mirrored walls, the Mylar ceiling, were grinning Orientals. They towered over him, mocking him, strobe lights flashing from their slanted eyes, colors kaleidoscoping from their rubber bodies, electricity humming through the springs that wound around their bases. He was hypnotized by the fantasy garden, by the flashing lights, and he lurched crazily out among them like a somnambulist.