Sharky's Machine (34 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

The apartment houses along Piedmont Road facing the sprawling inner city park were a tawdry souvenir of more elegant times. Once, near the turn of the century, the park had hosted the International Exposition and on one brilliant afternoon John Philip Sousa had introduced ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ before an assemblage that had included the President of the United States. But the grandeur of Piedmont Road was long gone. The lawns in front of the apartment buildings had eroded into red clay deserts infested with old tyres and broken bottles. Behind paneless windows covered with old blankets derelicts of every kind huddled together in the agony of poverty, cooking over cans of Sterno or, worse, drinking it to forget their lost dreams.

The Nosh sat huddled behind the wheel of his Olds watching one of the battered apartments up the street. He was getting nervous, even a little scared. He looked at his watch. Seven-thirty. Time for the meet. Why the hell didn’t Sharky call?

He reached under the seat, got his flashlight, and climbed out of the car. And then, with blessed relief, he heard the phone in the booth ring.

lie caught it on the second ring.

‘Hello.’

‘Nosh? It’s Shark.’

‘Hey, man, I was gettin’ worried. I’m runnin’ outa time.’

‘What do you mean, runnin’ outa time?’

‘I got this weird phone call about six o’clock, Shark. Guy tells me he can identify the voice on the tape. “What tape?” I says and he says, “The Chinese tape.” So I says to him, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about” and he says, “Don’t be dumb
—
the one from Domino’s apartment” and then be tells me he can identify the guy on the tape for a hundred bucks, but I gotta come to this apartment on Twelfth and Piedmont alone before seven-thirty. So I argued a little, you know, told him I ain’t goin’ no place alone and then he says I can bring you
along.’

‘He said me? He said my name?’

‘Yeah. So anyways T went by Tillie the Teller and got a hundred bucks and I’m here now, right up the street from ...‘

‘Nosh, don’t move. Get back in your car and wait right there. I’m on my way.’

‘But he’s gonna leave at seven-thirty and it’s —‘

‘Nosh, you’re not listening! Don’t go near the fuckin’ place. Stay there. Wait for me, okay?’

‘. . . Well, okay. ..‘

‘Nosh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You stay there, you hear me?’

‘Okay.’

‘Gimme fifteen minutes. I’m leaving now.’

The Nosh hung up and stepped out of the phone booth. He paced back and forth in front of the car for several minutes, watching the building.

He ambled-up Twelfth Street to the front of the building. There were no lights. The street was black, the streetlamps broken or burned out.

If the canary splits, The Nosh was thinking, I can at least nail him when he comes out.

Paint curled from the windowsills of the three-storey building and broken windows stared bleakly out at the dark street. Here and there lights flickered dimly behind old blankets.

The pits. The absolute pits, thought The Nosh.

He stood at the doorway, waving his light around, checking it out.

A furry night scavenger dashed from the doorway into the sanctuary of the bushes. It crouched there, peering out, its amber eyes glittering in the beam of the flashlight.

The Nosh stamped his foot at it and the creature ran off up the street, its ugly hairless tail dragging behind it.

He turned the light back to the doorway and approached it. The front door was gone. Inside was a small vestibule.

The inside door was propped open by a cement block. The vestibule was a litter of empty wine bottles in brown paper sacks, broken glass, crushed beer cans. Someone had dropped a sack of garbage down the stairwell. It lay just inside the main door, a splash of refuse, well nibbled-over.

The Nosh shuddered.

There were sounds inside the building, but he could not believe that people actually lived there.

Night creatures scurried into cracks in the wall. A twenty-five-watt bulb cast dim shadows on the stairwell, which smelled of rotten carpeting and sour cooking. The Nosh patted the tape in his inside pocket for reassurance and stood at the bottom of the stairs. High up, towards the third floor, the hallway lights were burned out. Somewhere in the building a radio blared Static and country music. A child was crying behind one of the doors.

At first he hardly heard the voice. He thought it was the radio or something moving in the shadows or his imagination. He looked up into the darkness.

‘Abrams...’

A whisper, barely audible.

He went up a couple of steps and listened.

Nothing.

He Looked at his watch. Another five minutes and Sharky would be there.

‘Abrams...’

The Nosh looked up again and pointed the finger of light into the blackness.

‘Down here,’ he said.

Nothing.

He went up to the first floor. The child stopped crying and started to laugh. A woman’s nasal voice joined Dolly Parton on the country-music station. The Nosh felt more secure. How could there be any danger in a building where children were laughing?

He went to the second floor.

‘Up here Abrams ...‘

‘Who’s there?’

Silence.

The stairs groaned with age as he climbed to the third floor and stood at the head of the steps in the darkness, probing the dank hallway with his Light. Apartment 3-B was at the end of the hail, the number painted sloppily on the door with house paint. He walked slowly towards it and stood outside the apartment.

‘Hello?’

Nothing.

He pushed the door open. It swung slowly on aged hinges. The apartment had a long central hallway ending at the living room with bedrooms off the corridor. No lights. A tremor rippled along The Nosh’s arm and across his back and he shook it off. He took a few nervous steps inside. Broken glass crunched underfoot. He was walking with his hand against the wall, following the beam of his flashlight. He passed a doorway to his right and turned towards it, swinging his light at the doorless opening.

Then he heard Sharky, out on the street, calling to him:

‘!’Nosh !’

Thank God. He turned back towards the main doorway of the apartment. It was then he heard the movement in the room. Instinctively he dodged to his right and crouched at the same time. But it was too late.

He saw the blinding flash before he heard the dull, muffled explosion. The shotgun boomed in his face. Two barrels, shattering the quiet of the hallway with their silenced thunk, thunk! For an instant the corridor was lit by the ghastly yellow-red exhaust flame as the gases burst from the ugly barrels. The heat from the gas shattered The Nosh’s glasses, scorched his eyes, and the pellets tore into his face and chest. He was blown across the hallway into the wall. Pain chopped through the side of his face and tore at his shoulder. His feet flopped helplessly inches above the floor and he seemed to hang there for an instant before he fell.

He saw a figure dart through a doorway. It seemed miles away. His foot was kicking the ‘wall convulsively and he thought, I should stop that. But the effort was far too great. His reflexes Went wildly out of control.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, his one leg bent behind him, still kicking, and fell against the wall. He was vaguely aware that his life was leaking out of him, forming a dark pool at his feet. His hand was shaking, but he managed to work his wallet out of his pocket and threw it aimlessly into the main hallway.

‘P-p-p-police,’ lie stammered at nobody. ‘P-p-p-police

And then with all the fading strength he had left, be screamed:

‘HELP M-M-M-M-E-E-E-E.. ·

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Sharky had taken only a moment to tell Livingston he had to leave, that he was worried about The Nosh, and to tell Domino he would be back shortly.

He drove like a maniac across the city, speeding through red lights, cutting through filling stations at intersections, his hand on the horn all the way. Pedestrians fled for their lives before him. He spotted The Nosh’s Olds from a block away and screeched in beside it, but lie saw it was empty before he even stopped. He jumped out of the care looked up Twelfth Street.

Darkness. The wind rattled old fences and dead tree limbs.

Which apartment? Where was he?
Sharky’s heart was pounding so hard he could hear it, like a pump in his ears. He cupped his hands and yelled:

‘Nosh I’

And a moment later he saw in the nipper-floor window across the street the hideous yellow-red flash.
Oh
Jesus!
He grabbed his flashlight and ran across the street and into the apartment house, his automatic ready. Then he heard the terrible scream:

HELP M.M-M-M-E-E-E-E....’

Sharky charged up the stairs, up to the third floor, his light leading him on. When he reached the top floor he stopped, looking at the open door at the end of the long hail. He heard something thumping inside the apartment, like someone knocking on the wall. He moved cautiously down the hallway and then the light picked up the glitter of gold on the floor. A gold detective’s badge.

‘Nosh!’

He ran to the doorway of the apartment, saw the flashlight on the floor, its beam fixed on a foot that was jerking spastically, kicking the wall over and over again. He flashed his light on The Nosh’s face. Abrams was leaning against the wall. The side of his face was blown away and his mouth was crooked and bloody. His jaw was torn loose at one side and bits of glass sparkled on his cheeks. There was a jagged, gaping hole where his shoulder had been and blood spurted from a dozen wounds in his chest.

Sharky jammed his gun in his belt and dropped on his knees beside the little man.

‘Nosh. Jesus, Nosh, hold on. I’ll get somebody. Can you hear me, buddy? Hay, c’mon Nosh, nod. Blink your eyes. Do something!’

I. . . grahg. . . largh . . . agha. .‘ The Nosh’s voice was an ugly croak stifled by the blood that filled his mouth and overflowed onto his chest. He began shivering violently and Sharky pulled off his jacket and threw it over him.

‘C’mon buddy, hang in there. I’m gonna find a phone, okay? Shit, man, don’t fade out on me now.’

The Nosh’s eyes rolled in his head. He looked up at Sharky without recognition. His eyes were turning glassy.

More blood surged up from his chest and filled his mouth.

He was limp. His head lolled against Sharky’s chest.

‘Nosh!’

Abrams looked up again. His face seemed to sag. The skin grew loose. He was turning grey. His eyes were no longer focusing. They began to cross. There was a clatter in his throat and then his eyes rolled crazily and turned up into his head.

‘No. . . c’mon...’

Sharky’s attention was riveted on his dying friend. When he heard the sound behind him, it was too late. The knife edge of a hand slashed into the back of his neck and he was thrown over The Nosh’s body, the pain from the blow stunning him as he lurched into the wall. He twisted as he flew forward, swinging one leg in a wide arc in the darkness, kicking blindly, feeling it hit something soft, sinking deep into human flesh. He kept rolling, away from the wall and into the dark hail until he was stopped by two legs. He swung his knees under him, balled his fist, and shoved himself upward, driving his fist between the two legs until it slammed into a crotch. He grabbed in the dark, his hand closing around the unseen figure’s genitals, and he jerked him forward. A toe found his back and buried deep just over the kidney and Sharky roared with pain and rage and twisted back in the other direction, swinging his fist in the dark. He missed, took another blind swing, and missed again, then remembered his gun and pulled it from his belt, but he was afraid to fire. He was disoriented in the dark, afraid he might hit The Nosh. He sensed movement all around him. A fist hit his shoulder and bounced away in the darkness and he roiled again, towards the main hail, away from the activity.

The beam from one of the flashlights swept the hallway, found him, and Sharky spun around, half sitting, and fired an inch above the light. The flashlight spun crazily in the dark, hit the floor, and shattered. There was a groan in front of him, the sound of a body hitting the floor.

A foot crashed down on his ankle and the pain stabbed up his leg. He swung the gun, trying to Imagine his assailant there, in the dark in front of him, and raised the gun, but before he could get another shot off a foot kicked his wrist, knocking his arm straight up. The gun flew out of his hand and clattered away in the darkness. Another foot slammed down into his stomach. Sharky gasped, grabbed the leg, and twisted hard, pulled himself up to his knees, his fury turning to blind hate. He wanted to hurt them, these unseen figures striking at him in the dark, to kill them.

And then a fist as hard as a gauntlet smashed into his temple and his brain seemed to explode. The floor tilted insanely under his knees and he floundered, trying to catch himself, to stay up. Another fist slammed into his neck and this time the pain could not be ignored. It fanned out through his body like an electrical shock. His hands went numb. His back gave out. He jackknifed and fell forward and it seemed forever before the floor came up to meet him.

The sounds around him were echoes that grew fainter and fainter. And then there was only the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sharky stirred and turned over on his back, but his foot was caught on something and he stopped. He tried wiggling it and felt the bite of a rope in his ankle. He was tied to something. He opened his eyes and his vision strayed crazily around the room. Nausea swept over him and he closed them again.

Pain mushroomed into his neck and temples.

He closed his eyes and lay still. He felt like he was moving, rocking back and forth.

I’m still dizzy, he thought.

Then he heard a weird scream, a sorrowful cry that seemed to echo over and over again, raising the hair on his arms.

My God, he thought, what was that?

It came again, a mournful shriek that died slowly and was answered a few seconds later by another echoing from farther away. He recognized the sound. It was a loon, lamenting insanely in the night, its demented love call answered by its mate.

A loon?
He lay there sorting out the sounds around him. They began to make sense: ropes creaking, boards groaning, the rhythmic slap of water against wood somewhere below him. It was a boat.

He opened his eyes and blinked, trying to clear his fuzzy vision. The room was shadowed, lit only by a lantern that swung in an easy arc overhead. He lay hypnotized by it until the nausea returned. He gritted his teeth to keep from vomiting and turned his eyes away from the light.

It was a small room, a cabin, and he was lying on the lower bunk of a double-decker. One side of the room curved in and there was a porthole in it. Facing it, on the other side of the cabin, was a hand-carved lattice-work partition which separated the room from the hail. The door was heavy and made of some kind of dark wood, rosewood or mahogany. The far side of the room, opposite the bunk, was dark. The lantern shed a small pool of light over a table and chair which sat in the centre of the cabin. He smelled pork cooking in garlic.

In the darkness opposite him, a cigarette glowed briefly. He concentrated, trying to make out a shape, a form of some kind in the shadows but he could see nothing.

Then he remembered The Nosh.

God damn them. God DAMN them!

He fought back tears, but they came anyway, dribbling down the side of his face, and he readied up and wiped them away.

‘Well, welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Sharky,’ a voice said from the shadows.

He squinted into the darkness

‘Oh, don’t try to see me,’ the voice said. ‘It’s much too dark. It will only strain your eyes.’

It was a big boat, too big for the river. Then the loon cried again and Sharky thought, I’m on the take. Seventy miles from Atlanta.

A voice he did not recognize, hoarse and trembling with fatigue, said:

‘Where’s my partner?’

My God, he thought, was that my voice?

‘Unfortunate,’ the voice from the darkness said, ‘but the sacrifice was necessary.’ It was a weak, whining, nasal voice and Sharky hated it.

The rage built inside Sharky, like a tornado in his gut. But he held his tongue. Nothing more would be accomplished with dialogue. Escape was the only thing he could think about now. Concentrate on it, he thought. There will be a way. There will be a way. He looked down at his foot. It was lashed tightly to the foot of the bunk. His jacket was stained with The Nosh’s blood. The fire roared inside him again.

Let me take one of them out. Let me watch his eyes when he goes, the way I watched Larry’s eyes.

‘Hai, Liung,’ the voice in the shadows called oat and the door opened. Three men entered. They were Orientals, short and lean, their faces wide and hard, their noses broad, their eyes beads under hooded lids. They wore white tee- shirts, the cotton moulded around hard muscles and taut, flat stomachs. One of the three had a scorched hole in the shoulder of his shirt and a bloodstain down one side. Sharky could see the bulge of a bandage under the shirt.

Sorry it wasn’t a couple of inches lower and an inch to the left, you sorry son of a bitch.

Another one had a splint on his forearm.

Sorry, Nosh, sorry I didn’t do better.

The one with the splint on his arm stood near the door, his arms at his sides as the other two approached the bunk, untying his foot and dragging him to his feet. His knees buckled and they pulled him upright. His vision wobbled. The room went in and out of focus.

From the shadows, smoke curled like a snake, twisting into the heat from the lantern. Sharky concentrated on the corner, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness.

‘If you’re trying to build a mental image of me, forget it,’ the voice said. ‘It’s much too dark. And there’s no need to say anything to my three friends. They don’t speak English. In fact they rarely speak at all.’

Sharky said nothing. He continued to stare into the dark corner of the room.

‘You can save yourself a lot of time and pain if you will simply answer one question for me,’ the voice said. ‘That’s all we’re here for. A simple sentence will do it, Mr. Sharky. ‘Where is the girl?’

Sharky said nothing.

‘Where is she? Where is Domino?’

Sharky continued to stare at the glowing tip of the cigarette.

‘All I want is the address.’

Sharky moved slightly towards one of the Orientals and then quickly twisted the other way, snapping his arms down towards his sides. As he did, the two Chinese exerted the slightest pressure on the nerves just above each of his elbows. Pain fired down Sharky’s arms to his fingertips and both arms were almost immediately paralysed.

‘Don’t he foolish,’ the voice said. ‘They can paralyse you with one finger — and they will. That was a simple exercise. The feeling will return to your arms in a minute or so. The next time they will be more persuasive.’

Sharky felt the numbness begin to subside. His arms felt I as though they had fallen asleep. They tingled as the feeling1 returned. He shook his hands from the wrists and flexed his fingers.

‘You see what 1 mean? Now can we make it simple, Mr. Sharky? Or will you require more complicated tricks?’

Sharky still did not talk. He peered hard into the shadows. Was it Scardi? The tobacco was brash and smelled rancid. Sharky concentrated on that for a few minutes. English cigarettes, he thought. But his accent is American. Sweat beads rolled down his face and collected on his chin, stubbornly refusing to drop oil.

Gerald Kershman, the man in the shadows, was becoming annoyed.

‘Stop staring over here,’ he said. ‘I find it irritating.’

Sharky stared stubbornly at the corner.

Kershman said something in Chinese and one of the men holding Sharky reached up with a forefinger and pressed a nerve beside Sharky’s right eye. The pain was literally blinding. The vision in the eye vanished. Kershman chuckled. He felt a surge in his testicles, a sensual thrill. He was growing hard watching Sharky’s ordeal. Secretly he hoped Sharky would prove difficult, that the torture would get more intense, and he began to tremble with excitement at the thought. He dropped his Players cigarette on the floor and, turning his back on Sharky, lit another. Then he said:

‘Time is of the essence. You will give up the information. It’s really just a matter of time.’ Then, sharply: ‘Pa t’a k’un tao chuo tze.’

The two Orientals jerked Sharky to the chair and forced him down into it. There were two straps attached to each arm and two others mounted on the table. They strapped his arms to the chair, leaving his wrists and hands free, and shoved the chair against the table and fastened the straps on the table over the back of each hand, tightening them until he could hardly curl his fingers.

‘Before we proceed any further, perhaps I should explain a little about the three Chins. They arc members of one of the oldest Triads in Hong Kong, Chi Sou Han. Since the twelfth century the oldest male of each of the three families of Chi Son Han has been taken from his mother at birth and trained to be the ultimate warrior. Their discipline is beyond the western mind. I have seen one of these men stand in a crouch for ten hours without a falter. They endure the most excruciating pain in silence.

‘They are experts in tai chi ch’uan, karate, and judo.

They communicate through the use of body movements:

and they use only two weapons — their hands and the yinza. Are you familiar with the yinza, Mr. Sharky? Da yu’an p’an!’

The man near the door with the splint on his arm moved with fluid grace, twisting to his right from the waist up while his right hand swept past his belt and swung up shoulder high. Immediately, without breaking the continuity of the move he shifted his body in the opposite direction, flicking his wrist sharply as he did. There was a flash at his fingertips, a glint in the air, and a steel disc the size of a silver dollar ripped into the table so close to Sharky’s hand that he could feel the cold metal. It had twelve steel barbs an inch long around its perimeter.

‘An ancient weapon, Mr. Sharky, and far more accurate than a bullet. Chi Sou Han are also famous throughout China for what we would call in English The Perfect And. The art of torture. The most effective example of The Perfect And is the Ordeal of the Fifth Finger. It is used to persuade the most obstinate subjects only. Very simply, a joint is cut off a finger every eight hours beginning with the little finger. Five fingers, five days. The Chi Sou Han claim that no man has ever resisted them beyond the thumb of one hand.’

Terror seized Sharky. He was drenched in his own sweat. He lowered his head, staring down between his hands. He tried to curl his fingers but his hands were strapped too tightly to the table.

Kershman said, ‘For the last time, where is Domino?

Silence.

Kershman’s pulse thundered and he said, ‘Nung hao la.’

The Chin with the splint on his arm stepped from the room for a few moments and returned carrying a small hibachi only slightly larger than his hand. It was filled with glowing coals. He placed it on the corner of the table. In his other hand he held a sharpening steel and a dirk, its tapered blade about six inches long. He stood close to Sharky and slashed the knife blade down the steel several times, the blade ringing as it clashed, steel against steel.

Sharky clamped his teeth together.

They’re so proud of silence. I’ll give them silence.

Sweat ran into his mouth and he spat it out.

The man with the knife put the sharpening steel on the table and turned towards the shadows.

‘Hai. Tuo ch’ung la,’ Kershman said. He stepped forward a bit, his eyes shining with anticipation as the Chin stuck the point of the knife into the table beside the first joint of Sharky’s little finger. With one swift downward chop he sliced off the end of the finger.

Sharky stifled the scream in his throat. It swelled there, hurting his tongue. He was shaking hard, but he held it in.

The Chin placed the blade over the coals until it was red hot and then held the edge of it against the stump of Sharky’s finger. It sizzled. The room filled with the smell of burning flesh. Sharky stifled another scream, only this time it did not die. It was a squeal trapped behind his lips as pain triggered the nerves to his brain.

He stared at the bizarre sight of his fingertip lying on the table.

My God they did it, he thought. The bastard cut off my finger.

And he fainted.

He awoke with his pulse throbbing in his ruined finger. Every movement of the boat, every sound, seemed like a knife jabbing into it. He used the pain, thought about it, let it clear his head.

He lay motionless, listening. Above him, on what he assumed was the deck, there was movement. At least one of them was up there, maybe all four. He tried to separate the movements, but that was impossible.

There was another sound from somewhere down below, to the right of his prison cabin. He tuned in on it. The nasal voice. The whiner. Talking. Hesitating. Talking. He was on the phone, reporting to someone.

Sharky thought about escape.

How? Where would I go? Where am I? What the hell kind of boat is this?

Immaterial, stupid. Get out first, then worry about where you are.

He focused his thoughts on escape. He thought about weapons. The knife was still on the table and he was tied by only one leg. The bastards were confident enough. But when he checked the knot he knew there was no way to untie it with only one good hand.

Anything else?

Jacket? No. Shoes? Hardly. Nothing In my pockets. My belt? The BELT!

It was a wide leather belt with a large, heavy, square brass buckle he had bought at the flea market. It would hardly make a dent in the skulls of Winkin, Blinkin and Nod, but Whiny Voice, now there was a possibility. He had to get him in close.

He had to make the miserable bastard show his face. But then what? He thought about the three Chinese with their little steel discs. Careful, Sharky.

The thinking had tired him and he closed his eyes and rested. He heard someone in the passageway. He turned his head towards the door, lying with his eyes half-closed, watching the door as it swung open.

The man standing there was short and fat, wearing a rumpled grey suit with the jacket open. His belly sagged over his belt. Thick, obnoxious lips, jowls, frog eyes. So that was the body that went with the voice. Sharky felt better.

Then he saw the 9mm Mauser jammed down in Fat Boy’s belt.

Kershman stared down at Sharky with contempt. DeLaroza had just chewed Kershman out. ‘Five days, hell. I want the answer before morning.’

Kershman had felt humiliated.

He called out to Liung and the Chin with the splinted arm came down from the deck above. A moment later the other two followed.

All three of them are outside. Good.

Kershman handed Liung a tube of smelling salts and nodded towards Sharky. Sharky closed his eyes, feigning unconsciousness. He felt his foot being untied. Then the sharp odour of amyl nitrite burned his nose and he involuntarily jerked his head to one side.

‘Wake up,’ Fat Boy said, back in the shadows now. ‘Time for round two.’

They pulled Sharky to his feet, shoved him into the chair and strapped him down. He felt like a rag doll in their hands.

‘Look at you,’ Fat Boy said. ‘How much longer do you really think you can hold out? You’re a wreck.’