Sharky's Machine (14 page)

‘1 unnerstan’ this, pal, all that what you done you’re so proud of? It started with the rip-off. I don’t care if you made fty billion, see, you couldna done it without the four mu we took off Uncle Sam. Any way you slice it, you and me we’re both thieves. And a gonif’s a gonif. A genius gonif, maybe, but a gonif all the same. You aia’t changin’ that by puttin’ your fuckin’ picture in the papers.’

‘There is no way for you to comprehend what it has been like for me. All these years, hiding my face, letting others take the credit, give the interviews . .

‘Hey, I been in a closet myself there, seven years now. Don’t tell me what it’s like, livin’ with your face to the wall. All I’m sayin’ is that pushin’ over Corrigon, that wasn’t necessary. I done it, okay? but that wasn’t part of our deal, see, that was a personal gift, me to you, got that?’

‘Howard, for thirty years I have lived in fear of the day Corrigon got out of prison. Wondering whether I might turn around in an airport one day and find myself face to face with him.’

‘He wouldna recognized ya, not after all that time.’

‘I never would have been sure. And if he had recognized me, you would have suffered too.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ya made the point. Okay. Look, whaddya want from me, anyways? Ya think it was easy, phonyin’ up my own death a second time? My old lady still ain’t made sense outa the whole thing. Point is, it’s done, okay? Corrigon is kaput. Now I want outa here!’

‘Very soon, now, I promise you.’

A thin line of sweat formed at the edge of Burns’s brow. It began to inch down his forehead. He wiped it with the back of his hand.

DeLaroza walked cautiously to the chest and picked up the gun by the barrel. Burns turned as fast as a hummingbird, took two steps, reached out, and grabbed the pistol, twisting it sharply in towards DeLaroza’s body and snapping it out of his hand.

‘Don’t touch my piece. You got that? That clear? Nobody touches my piece.’

‘Of course, of course.’

Burns slid the gun back under his arm.

‘I was just, uh, you see this chest is six hundred years old —,

Burns cut him off. ‘Fuck the chest. I don’t give a .shit, Moses stored the tablets in it. When am I movin’, gettin’ outa this fuckin’ scow? Away from them Chinks?’

‘A few more days.’

‘Shit!’

‘Just a few more days, Howard.’

‘Too long!’

‘It’s the passport, Howard. It’s going to be clean, no strings. You will never again have problems. This is all being done right for you.’

Burns leaned against the wall and breathed hard through his nose. He wiped his mouth with his hand, pinched his nose several times.

‘Too old for this kinda shit, anyhow,’ he said.

‘I know, I know.’

Burns looked up at him and said quickly. ‘It don’t mean I lost my touch. I mean, don’t go blowin’ smoke rings up your ass, you think I ain’t what I used to be.’

‘I didn’t say anything about that, Howard.’

‘I like things to happen quick. No bullshit, see? I’m on the run. You don’t get that, do you there, Victor?’

‘Of course.’

No, he didn’t understand. Victor had it made, all the aces. But him, be had spent years developing one cover, losing it, and now he was starting again dodging from rock to rock like a fox with the hounds snapping at his heels. DeLaroza had offered a chance, a chance to get out for good. But the closer it got, the more terrified he became. His insides were burning, his guts grinding with turmoil.

Burns sighed and leaned against the bulkhead, breathing deeply through his mouth. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

‘Easy, my friend. I promise you, you’re almost out.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I hope so. Hope so.’

‘Have you, uh. . . you aren’t taking. . . pills?’

Burn’s eyes jumped back and glared at DeLaroza.

‘So what. What if I did? Yeah, I had a little shot there, took a red, one stinkin’ red to get started this morning. Any of your business?’

‘Of course not, I —‘

‘You’re big time, ain’t you, Victor. Get all that nookie, that’s your reds, Vie, hunh? Right? I pop a red, get a little shot, you get your ashes hauled. Same dif, same dif.’

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 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, listen’ 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’ cowturd 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. ‘1 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, jewellery, 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 luck in’ 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 humour.’ 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 Angel 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 wilt 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 one me?’

‘It is both of us.’

‘I did the bit. 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.