Sharky's Machine

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.. ·