Sharky's Machine

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.’

Sharky did not answer.

‘1 ask you again, where is the woman?’ Kershman was almost screaming.

Sharky kept his teeth clamped shut.

‘Where is she?’ Kershman said and there was an almost feline quality to his panicked tone.

Somebody’s putting the heat on him.

‘You’re a fool,’ Fat Boy screeched. ‘Jaw sao.’

Liung picked up the sharpening steel and the blade rang across the rough metal. It grated Sharky’s nerves, turning them raw. His finger began throbbing from anticipation. Fear was a lump in his throat.

The Chin stuck the knife point into the table next to his finger and waited.

‘Kan ni ti ch’ua pa,’ Kershman said.

This time Sharky was more aware of what was happening. He heard the knife slice through bone and gristle a second before the pain stabbed up his arm to his shoulder. The cabin whirled around him and he groaned into his clenched teeth, stifling his agony. The finger was already numb when Liung cauterized it.

Sharky slumped forward, let his body go limp, felt them unstrap him, drag him back to the cot, and drop him on it. They tied his leg.

He was going to pass out again, he could feel himself slipping into that dark pit. He thought about The Nosh and the anger sustained him for a few minutes. He began to slip. He thought about Fat Boy, about his Mauser stuck there in his belt. That was good, that helped, but then he began to drop off again.

He thought about Domino and that was fine. Was she worth all this? The answer came back instantly. Yes. And how about the tape with the Chinese orgy? It was clear now. The man trying to kill her was with her the night he had been monitoring her. Why was she protecting him?

The worst of it passed and Sharky’s mind began to clear again. His hand was a pulsating lump at the end of his arm. He tried to ignore it, to concentrate on Fat Boy.

There has to be a way to get the little asshole in here.

There is, stupid. The slant-eyed bastards are the answer.

They don’t speak English. Fat Boy speaks English. Lie has to hear you, right?

Right.

He rolled over with his back to the door, and reaching down with his good hand, he undid the belt buckle and then slowly, inch by inch, he slipped it through the loops. The belt fell loose and he relaxed for a. minute.

He was lying on his left side. The only way to get any leverage and keep his back to the door was to swing the belt with his crippled hand.

Jesus!

He pressed the end of the belt into his palm and, gritting his teeth from the pain, held it in place with his thumb. With his left hand he slowly wrapped the belt around his fist until about six inches were left. The heavy brass buckle hung on the end of the belt like a ball on the end of a mace.

One shot, kiddo, that’s all you get. And don’t forget Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. They ain’t gonna be hanging around sipping tea.

One thing at a time.

He had one shot and he had to make it good. If they got the belt, he was dead.

There was movement on the deck above him again. Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod were probably up there, doing their homework. Fat Boy was on the phone again. His voice was up a notch. More panic.

There were nine shots left in the Mauser, counting out the one he had used in the dark.

Two each for Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod.

One for Fat Boy.

One for the rope.

One for luck.

Go for it, kiddo. Go for the bomb. Time’s running out.

He heard Fat Boy hang up the phone. He was coming down the passageway. Sharky rolled over almost on his face. He slid one knee up under his leg.

Fat Boy was at the door. He was coming in.

Sharky moaned.

Fat Boy edged a little closer.

He groaned again, a little lower.

Fat Boy moved in.

‘Help me,’ Sharky said, almost in a whisper.

From behind him be heard Fat Boy’s voice, close to his ear, ‘The address, Sharky. Where is Domino? Tell me and I’ll help you.’

A 1ile closer, Sharky thought. A foot or two.

‘Domino?’

‘Damn you!’ Fat Boy said, leaning closer, his lips wet with saliva, his frog eyes bulging with anger.

Sharky hunched his shoulders and with a massive effort, he rolled over, straightening his arm. The buckle snapped at the end of the belt. The belt whipped in a full arc and whooshed into the side of Kershman’s nose. It burst like a raw egg. The bone shattered. Blood gushed out like water from a pump. The fat man screamed in pain, his eyes bulging with horror as he saw Sharky reach out and grab at his belt.

Sharky’s fingers felt the butt of the gun, but the fat man was reeling backwards. He clutched at it frantically, pulling it loose, but it fell from his hand. Sharky lunged off the bunk to the floor and grabbed the automatic as Kershman grappled with the chair to keep his balance.

Sharky could hear the Chins coming on the run. He grabbed the gun, held it at arm’s length straight up at Kershman, saw the fear in his bleeding face.

‘Please!’ Kershman screamed as Sharky fired. The bullet tore straight up through his chin, his mouth, and into his brain. He went down on his back, his face frozen in terror.

Sharky whirled, still holding the gun at arm’s length, held it an inch from the knot around his ankle, and fired again. The heat from the blast scorched his ankle. The rope dis.. integrated.

Liung swept through the door with the grace of a ballet dancer, his arm whipping up from his belt, the glint of steel in his fist. Sharky fired, saw the disc sparkle towards him, felt it rip through the top of his shoulder and thud into the wall behind him. The bullet tore into Liung’s chest, jolted him, but did not stop him. He kept coming, his hand swept to his belt again. Sharky felt the Mauser jump and roar in his fist. He shot Lung in the stomach. The Chin made no sound. Blood spurted from both wounds. And he still came.

Jesus, it’s like shooting an elephants

His kneecap, idiot, his kneecap.

Sharky lowered the pistol and shattered Liung’s kneecap with the next shot. He wobbled and fell straight forward, reaching out and grabbing Sharky’s ankle. Sharky thrust the Mauser an inch from Liung’s temple and fired. The Chinese died without a sound.

Six shots.

Three left.

He was on his feet when the second Chin charged the door. Sharky stepped over Kershman’s body and tilted the table on end, dropping behind it as the Chin flung out his band and sent three steel discs into the tabletop. Sharky raised on his knees and squeezed off a shot straight into the Chin’s face, but he was moving too fast. It hit the corner of his jaw and tore half his ear off.

Two left.

The Chin leaped at him, kicked the table, split it in two as Sharky rolled over and slammed his back into the side of the bunk. The Chin rose over him, his hand raised, the fingers rigid, and started to chop down on him. The gun roared in Sharky’s fist and the Chin’s left eye exploded. He plunged over Sharky’s head and died face down on the cot.

Sharky spun towards the door. The third one was there, his hooded eyes gleaming through the latticework, not six feet away.

One shot left.

Sharky swung the gun out, holding it with both hands, the belt still dangling from his ruined hand.

The Chin whirled and was gone. Sharky was on his feet. He jumped to the doorway and swung into the passage in time to see his adversary leap through the hatchway to the deck. Sharky ran to the bottom of the hatch ladder and stopped. He listened.

Nothing.

The Chin too was motionless. He had jumped up on the cabin roof and was poised there, over the batch, every muscle tensed, his fingers curved in a classic karate pose. Waiting.

Sharky peered through the hatch and checked out the afterdeck. The Chin was not there. There was no place to bide. Against one railing there was a large emergency box. Two fuel tanks on the stern. Nothing else.

He looked overhead, wondering whether the Chin was up there. He had one shot left and the Chin had God knows how many of those whatchamacallit discs.

Sharky could take a chance, run out on the deck cowboy- style, and try to drop him with a John Wayne shot.

Suicide.

He had to get in close, put him away with one shot.

The Chin crept towards the bow of the boat, moving as soundlessly as a puff of smoke

Sharky reasoned that the longer he waited, the slimmer the odds were. The Chin was trained to be patient. He could outwait Sharky until they were both too weak to walk. Sharky’s patience was already running thin. If he missed with his last shot, the Chin could kill him with his big toe. He looked at the emergency box. Perhaps there was something in there he could use as a weapon. An axe, anything.

His finger began to throb. His nerves were screaming.

Go for the box. If it’s empty, take your best shot and go overboard. Maybe the son of a bitch can’t swim.

Sharky climbed to the top of the hatch ladder, hesitated for a moment, and then ran towards the emergency box. He looked back over his shoulder. The Chin was walking on the roof in the other direction, maybe sixty feet away. Sharky slid up to the box and flipped open the lid.

The Chin came after him like an antelope.

Sharky did a two-second inventory. Blankets, life preservers, flare gun, water bottles, radio . . . flare gun! He grabbed it and snapped it open. It was loaded.

The Chin leaped off the roof and landed running.

Sharky had to slow him down. He swung the pistol over the edge of the box and aimed at the biggest target he saw, the Chin’s chest. The Mauser roared and Sharky heard the bullet thud home. The Chin was knocked sideways. He fell, sliding past Sharky into the stern railing.

Sharky’s hand was shaking, his eyes were fogged with pain. He saw the Chin Jump to his feet and be pointed the bulky flare pistol at him and fired. The flare spiralled out of the short barrel with a chunk. The Chin twisted as he fired and the blazing flare streaked across his chest, scorching his shirt, and ripped into the valve of one of the gas tanks. The nozzle blew off, releasing a flood of gasoline. The gas hit the blazing flare and burst into flames. The Chin, distracted by the sudden fire, turned for an instant and as he did Sharky fired again. The second flare bit the Chin in the chest, shattered his ribs and lodged there, knocking him backwards to the railing. He floundered there with the phosphorous flare shell sizzling in his chest and then plunged backwards into the lake. Sharky looked down into the dark water at the flare, still burning fiercely, its bubbles boiling to the surface, bursting into puffs of acrid smoke, as the Chin sank deeper into the lake, the glowing shell growing smaller and smaller.

A moment later the tank went.

The explosion knocked Sharky halfway across the deck. A ball of fire roared out of the ruptured tank and swept up into the mast and furled sails of the junk. The sails burst into flames.

Sharky ran from one side of the junk to the other, looking over the side. The motor launch was lashed to a floating pier.

The keys. Fat Boy had to have them. He raced to the cabin and leaped down the stairs. Kershman was still lying on his back, his crazed eyes staring at the ceiling. Sharky ran the fingers of his good hand through the pockets and found not one but two sets of keys.

The other gas tank blew up. Fire spewed out along the deck and poured through the hatchway. Sharky ran down through the main cabin and up the bow hatchway. He went over the side and dropped down to the pier.

The junk was burning like a piece of scrap paper. Bits of flaming sailcloth drifted out over Sharky’s head and hissed into the lake. He tried the keys and finally found one that fitted and cranked up the launch, jamming the throttle forward and twisting the wheel away from the blazing junk. The launch roared out into the lake, tearing the pier to pieces as it went.

Sharky did not look back. He flipped on the night lights and headed off into the darkness.