Sharky's Machine

Chapter Seven

Sharky guided the grey Dodge Charger down through a squalid warehouse district known as the Pits and parked in front of a bleak, washed-out two-storey brick building. He switched off the engine.

Livingston, sitting beside him In the front seat, slid down and lit a plastic-tipped cigar. ‘Welcome to Creepsville,’ he growled.

From the outside the building looked deserted. Weeds pushed through cracks in the sidewalk, water stains streaked its sides, a sign, ravaged by time and’ weather and barely readable, announced: For sale or lease. B. Siegel and Sons. The building had no windows, although here and there along its grimy face large squares of new brick indicated where several had been sealed up. Midway in the building was its only opening, a scarred, grim, ugly door with a single window covered with steel mesh. It was electrically operated and everyone entered and left the building through this single forbidding portai.

‘Looks like something you’d see in Russia. The bad part of Russia,’ Livingston said.

The building housed the Organized Crime Division, known as the OC, which was run by a pompous, taciturn political opportunist, Captain D’Agastino. Inside, a maze of computers, readouts, photo lines, and electronic gadgety connected the building, like a giant umbilicus, to the FBI.

‘D’Agastino runs this place like the fuckin’ CIA,’ Livingston said. ‘He doesn’t do zilch for us out on the street, him and that bunch of elitist shits.’

‘Bunch of assholes, you ask me,’ Papa volunteered from the back seat.

They fell silent. Livingston stared up at the sky thick with black, swarming clouds and blew a smoke ring which wobbled through the air like a flat tyre and fell apart against the windshield.

‘Gonna rain like a son of a bitch,’ he said.

More silence.

Sharky stared straight ahead, toying aimlessly with the steering wheel.

‘Thing is,’ Livingston said, ‘I don’t trust any of those turkeys in there.’

Silence.

‘Do you trust any of them, Papa?’ he asked.

‘Shit,’ Papa said with disgust.

Sharky picked lint from his suede pullover.

Livingston finally looked over at him.

‘And this Abrams, he’s a buddy of yours, hunh?’

Sharky nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well uh, how come you’re so thick with somebody In the goddamn OC?’

There it was, the big question. Sharky had felt it coming. They were testing him. And why not? He was the new kid on the block and already he was captain of the ball club and bringing in his own pitcher.

Livingston blew another imperfect smoke ring, watched it fall apart. ‘1 heard that bastard D’Agastino won’t even consider you for the OC unless you’d turn in your own mother. You hear that, Papa?’

‘Anything you beard, I heard worse. I beard you gotta pass the bad breath test just to get in the door.’

Sharky started to burn, but he held his temper in check.

‘What’ve you heard there, Sharky? Livingston said.

‘Not much.’

‘Not much, hunh.’ More silence. Finally: ‘Wanna tell us about this Abrams?’

Sharky did not answer immediately. What could he tell them? That he and The Nosh, which is what he had called Abrams since they were kids, were born across the street from each other, grew up together, fought together, had even broken the law together? Should he tell them about Red Ingles or the night the transmission fell out? Shit. In high school Sharky and The Nosh had befriended a grizzled, solitary alcoholic named Red Ingles who lived up the street from them. Ingles had a singular talent; he souped up cars. Boy, did he soup up cars. Ingles souped up cars the way a piano tuner coaxed perfect pitch from the strings of an old baby grand. The chromium touch, Sharky called it. Ingles worked in his backyard, a backyard cluttered with battered old wrecks that looked as if they might fall apart if you slammed the door too hard.

But under those tarnished, dented hoods, engines gleamed with stainless-steel carburettors, chromium headers, and glistening valve lifters. Ingles usually worked on two cars at a time, interchanging parts and tuning one against the other until the engines hummed in perfect harmony. Then he gave The Nosh and Sharky five dollars apiece and told them to ‘take those Jessies and blow them mills out good’. And he would settle back with his jar of still whisky while they drove Out to the river, poised fender to fender on hidden dirt roads, motors straining underfoot, and then took off, the engines whining and shivering in their mounts, speedometers inching up to 150 and 160 as they skimmed over the dirt, skittering at the very edge of disaster with that reckless and wonderful sense of indestructibility reserved for the young.

They never asked what Red did with the cars. They didn’t have to. At night they sneaked down to his place and Jay under the shrubs, watching him negotiate with heavyset men in galluses and sweaty felt hats, passing the fruit jar back and forth as they argued and cursed and ranted. Finally Red would smile and slam his hand down on the fender of the car in question and the good old boys would count out the price. In the morning the cars were gone. Sharky was certain that Red Ingles was the sole supplier of transportation for every moonshiner in North Georgia.

Then ingles had made them an offer. He needed transmissions, tough transmissions. He would pay them seventy dollars for every working Corvette transmission they delivered to him. The Nosh was delighted. ‘I can drop a Vette transmission in fifteen minutes flat,’ he confided to Sharky and they went into business. They put roller skate wheels on a piece of plywood and once a week they borrowed the rumpled pick-up Sharky’s old man used at the hardware store and they cruised the dark streets, looking for prospects. When they found one, The Nosh rolled up under the car and dropped the transmission while Sharky sat behind the wheel of the pick-up, ready to sound the horn in case of trouble. They were the toast of Grady High. The Nosh, barely five feet tall, became a ladies’ man while Sharky, already a cocksman of some renown, became the Beau Brummel of Ponce de Leon Avenue. then one night the owner of a brand new Stingray appeared suddenly and unexpectedly while The Nosh was toiling under his car. Tt was too late to blow the horn. The owner flicked a speck of dust ‘ the trunk, kicked a tyre, clinibed in, revved up, and took off with his tyres chewing up the pavement.

But no Nosh. He was caught under the Vette, his jacket hung up on the transmission, and he went right with the car, rocketing along on his plywood platform. When he finally tore himself loose, the platform flew out from under the Vette, sparks showering from the tortured roller skate wheels. It screamed down the Street, hit a curb, and splintered, the wheels soaring off into the night while the Nosh was launched end over end into a fishpond.

Sharky ran to his side. A dazed, soggy Nosh staggered from the pool. And at that moment, with an anguished clatter, the transmission fell out of the Corvette. They ran to the pickup and took off down the street while the teary-eyed Corvette owner ran after them, hands waving wildly overhead.

‘I don’t ever want to take a ride like that again,’ The Nosh said.

‘Right,’ said Sharky.

‘Besides, I feel sorry for that guy.’

‘Me too.’

‘There’s got to be an easier way to make a buck.’

‘Yeah.’

And they quit.

So how come I’m so thick with The Nosh ? Sharky thought. It was basic. They had grown up together, exchanged bloody noses and embarrassed apologies, got laid together, and had joined the cops together. Their roots went deeper than blood or family.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Sharky said, ‘we been asshole buddies almost since the day we were born. And I don’t give a damn if he’s in the OC, the PDQ, or the screw-you, it’s okay with me.’

Livingston puffed on his cigar. Papa cleared his throat but said nothing. Finally Livingston nodded. ‘Well, it ain’t much detail, but it’s sure clear as hell.’

After a moment, Papa said, ‘Where did he get that crazy monicker?’

‘It’s Yiddish. Means to nibble, eat between meals. The Nosh is one hell of a nibbler. He can also fix plumbing, do carpentry, fix radios, cameras. Shit, he can do just about anything. And he just might be the best wireman that ever came down the pike.’

Between puffs Livingston said, ‘Does he walk on water?’

Sharky laughed. Probably. One of his ancestors did.’

‘Well, I just got to wonder, okay? I got to wonder how in hell he ever got tied in with that mother-humping piece of camelshit, D’Agastino.’

‘Like I said, he’s the best wireman in the country. Maybe D’Agastino needed him.’

‘I don’t care if he can bug running water. If be ain’t white, Christian, six-feet tall, and don’t wear pin-stripe suits and look like a goddamn stockbroker, he’s in the wrong outfit.’

Sharky pointed towards the door of the OC. ‘Does that look like a six-foot stockbroker to you?’ he asked.

Larry Abrams, The Nosh, came out of the building, a short, boxy little man, a hair over five feet tall and almost as wide, wearing faded jeans, a blue work shirt, a suede jacket, and carrying a black tool box almost as big ashe was. His thick black hair was longer than regulations permitted; he was wearing glasses a quarter-inch thick and his crêpe- soled hiking boots were as muddy as they were ugly. The Nosh was grinning; he usually was.

Livingston looked shocked. ‘He’s in the OCI’

‘Jesus,’ Papa said, ‘there ain’t much to him is there?’

Livingstone watched the little man approach the car. ‘Amazing,’ he said, ‘everything in the world that fuckin’ D’Agastino hates. He’s Jewish, he’s too short, his hair’s too long, he’s overweight, his shoes are dirty, he’s smiling, he’s dressed like a janitor, and he looks human.’

The Nosh leaned against the door of the car. ‘Hey, Shark, what’s up?’

‘Any problems with D’Agastino?’

‘Nah. I told him I had to go over and do a trick for the FBIs. That’s the magic word in the fortress there. You say FBI, everybody wets their pants.’

‘Hop in.’

The Nosh crawled into the back seat and Sharky introduced him around.

‘Where we headed?’ the Nosh asked.

‘Moneyville. Lancaster Towers,’ Sharky said.

The Nosh whistled through his teeth. ‘Who we after?’

‘A very pretty lady,’ Livingston said.

‘Aww,’ the Nosh said, ‘I hate to pick on pretty ladies.’

Livingston turned sideways in his seat so he could look at Abrams as he talked. ‘Me too, but this lady happens to be a very high class hooker whose pimp just shook fifty g’s out of a Texas oilman. We think she may be involved in a new scam and this time the stakes may be even higher. What we’d like is to wire up her place like a Christmas package and see what we can turn up.’

‘What kind of set-up?’

‘Nobody’s been inside yet. You know the Lancaster Towers?’ said Livingston.

‘I’ve driven by it, never been inside.’

‘Okay, what we got is twin towers, twelve storeys each, an east tower and a west tower. They’re connected at the third floor by a terrace that runs between them. Swimming pool, bar, that sort of thing. The parking garage is below ground-level, three storeys, with a gate that’s activated by one of those plastic coded cards. Visitor parking on ground level. Both buildings have security guards. She’s in 10-A, facing the east wing. We been checking her number for the past hour or so and her machine answers.’

The Nosh nodded. ‘She could be up there doing a number.’

‘We considered the possibility,’ Sharky said.

Th-e Nosh said, ‘We can give the door a rattle. If she answers, we tell her we’re checking the TV cable, something like that.’

‘Sounds good,’ Livingston said. ‘We also have the security guards. I’d like to keep this in the family, but I don’t see any way to get past them without showing our hand.’

The Nosh smiled and opened his tool chest. It was meticulously arranged. Wire, diodes, phone-jacks, screws, nuts and bolts of all sizes, miniature amplifiers, microphones, and tape recorders, all were neatly fitted into the case. A tray on top contained tools of all kinds and, arranged neatly in one corner, two Baby Ruth bars, a box of Good’n’ Plenty and a coconut Twinkie. The Nosh opened a drawer and took out a bundle of business cards. Leafing through them, he stopped and smiled. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘We’re from the elevator inspection department. That’s city.

Suppose we, uh, suppose we’re doing a stress check on the elevators. We’ll be in and out for the next couple days.’

‘What’s a stress check?’ Papa asked.

‘Hell, I don’t know,’ The Nosh said, ‘but it sounds good.’

They all laughed.

Papa stared at the candy bars. ‘I got a weight problem,’ he said. ‘You got a weight problem?

‘I can put on a couple pounds driving past a deli,’ The Nosh said.

‘I gain weight readin’ recipes,’ Papa said.

‘Wanna split a Baby Ruth?’

‘Love it.’

He cut one of the candy bars in two and gave Papa the larger piece. Livingstone turned back to Sharky. ‘It’s love at first sight,’ he said. ‘They’ll be engaged before the weekend’s over.’

‘Here it comes,’ Sharky said as raindrops began pummelling the windshield.

‘You mind I ask you a personal question? Livingston said to The Nosh.

‘Shoot.’

‘How the hell you ever get in the fuckin’ OC?

The Nosh giggled. ‘It was because of the Feds,’ he said. ‘I was workin’ radio maintenance down in Central and one day this FBI named Weir shows up and he’s lookin’ for somebody can really do a number on an automobile, so they loaned me to him. What it was — you remember that Mafia guy, Degallante, retired down here about a year ago?’

‘Sure,’ Livingston said, ‘he got deported.’

‘Well, not exactly. That’s what the Feds are puttin’ out. What really happened, the FBIs figure Degallante is not really retired. He’s down here maybe to get his foot in the door and they wanted to pin something on him, only they were striking out all over the place. So they decide maybe if they bugged his car he might, y’know, be doin’ business there and they could get something on him. A big black Lincoln limo. I hung around the Lincoln place until they brought the car in for service and I wired it front to back. The first tape we pulled, you wouldn’t believe it,’ and he began to giggle. ‘What it was, the old bastard bad his son-in-law giving him head in the back seat.’

There was a moment of stunned silence before everybody laughed.

‘No shit, there he was cruising down the interstate and his daughter’s husband is blowing him. Well, Weir takes the tape out to Degallante’s place on ‘West Wesley Road and they’re all sitting around the living room finessing each other out and Degallante is telling them how he’s not connected anymore and he’s retired and they can get lost and then Weir turns on the tape recorder. Thirty seconds and the old man throws up all over the floor and Weir tells him what they’re gonna do, they’re gonna give copies to The New York Times, Time magazine and Playboy. A month later he was back in Sicily and the whole family was with him and that’s the way it really happened.’

‘So how did you get in the OC?’ Papa said.

‘Weir told D’Agastino and D’Agastino drafted me. I got a workshop in the basement. He never sees me, I don’t see him. We’re both very happy about the arrangement.’

Sharky turned into Lindburgh Drive and headed towards Peachtree Street. The two white buildings loomed through the rain like stark, windowed tombstones.

‘How much time we gonna need?’ Sharky asked The Nosh.

‘Not long. We give the place a quick wash, decide where we want the buttons, then plant ‘em. I want to see the roof first, maybe set up a listening post up there. I’d say fifteen, maybe twenty minutes and we’ll be out.’

‘You’re on,’ Sharky said.

‘Papa and I can recognize her,’ Livingston said. ‘How about I stay in the car so I can spot her when she comes in? Papa can ride the elevator, slow her down if he has to.’

‘That’s the play, then,’ Sharky said.

They parked the car. Sharky, Papa, and The Nosh entered the building. The security guard, a large white.. haired man with a wasted body lost in an oversized uniform and a seamed face, was sitting in a small office reading The National Enquirer. The Nosh laid the card on the desk in front of him.

‘I’m Friedman, city inspection department. We’re doing a stress check on your elevators,’ he said. ‘We’ll be in and out of the place here for the next couple of days.’

The guard looked at the card and reached for the telephone. ‘I better check the main office,’ he said.

‘You didn’t get the letter?’ The Nosh said quickly.

‘I didn’t get no letter,’ the guard said, his hand resting on the phone.

‘Well, your main office got the letter. We already checked with them.’

‘Hell,’ the old man said. ‘I sit here on my duster all day, nobody tells me shit.’

‘Ain’t it the truth. We’re always the last ones to know, right?’

The guard relaxed. He had found company for his tarnished ego. ‘Sure is the way. The workin’ man is always the last one to know anything. Well, I go on Social Security in six months. After that they can all dip their wick in the mashed potatoes for all I care. You need any help?’

‘Is the door open onto the roof?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then we’re in business. Tell you what, we’ll leave Johnson here in the elevators. That way, if we have to shut down for a minute or two he can calm down the residents.’

‘I appreciate that. I get enough crap as it is. People ain’t happy if they ain’t bitchin’ about something.’

‘Keep the card so the night rnan’ll know we’re here, okay? Don’t want anybody takin’ a shot at us.’ The Nosh winked at him.

‘Gun ain’t loaded anyway.’

They got on the elevator.

‘There’s a guy got the wrong end of the chicken all his life,’ Papa said. He looked at The Nosh. ‘You coulda been a pretty good conman.’

‘He is a pretty good conman,’ Sharky said.

They got off at twelve. Papa said, ‘Keep in touch,’ as the elevator doors hushed shut. Sharky and The Nosh went up to the roof, surveying it through a hard, slanting rain. ‘Over there,’ said the Nosh, ‘that concrete blockhouse.’ They ran through the rain to the concrete shed in the middle of the roof and entered it. It was a single room, fairly warm and spotless. Fluorescent tubes flickered overhead, shedding uncertain light on a row of humming motors. On the wall facing the motors was a bank of power and water meters.

‘Perfect,’ The Nosh said.

‘What are we doin’ up here?’ Sharky asked.

‘What we’re gonna do, we’re gonna set us up a listening post in here, okay? The mark is only two floors down so we can use wireless mikes.’ He opened the tool chest and took out an object no larger than a button which was attached by a single wire to a rectangular box about the size of a disposable cigarette lighter. A pin protruded from the back of the button. It looked like a drawing pin.

‘This is the mike,’ The Nosh said, ‘and the little box is the amplifier. We pre-set the amplifier to a specific frequency and it can be picked up by this miniature FM tuner.’ The tuner Jay in the flat of his hand. ‘Then I plug this cassette deck into the tuner. It’s voice-activated. When anybody down there talks, the tuner picks it up, the recorder turns on automatically, and it’s all on tape.’ The cassette deck was also miniaturized. ‘I made it myself,’ The Nosh said. ‘Real simple. Only one circuit.’

‘You could put the whole works in your pocket,’ Sharky marvelled.

‘Each mike has its own tuner and recorder. If she walks from room to room talking, one recorder cuts in when the other one cuts off. We’ll plant the mikes in each room.’ He pointed to a button on the tape decks. ‘This is a monitor button. Push it down and you can listen continuously. I also have a set of earphones I’ll leave up here which will help with the monitoring.’

‘Amazing,’ Sharky said. ‘Will it pick up anything else?’

‘Yeah, stereo, radio, like that. Not walking or normal room noises. But don’t worry. Later on, see, we can go in with a dip filter and erase the background noise. What we do, we dip in there and set the filter for the voice frequency, then —‘

‘Nosh?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You’re telling me more than I want to know.’

‘Right.’

He took out three tuners and recorders and fitted them together and placed them in one corner of the room behind the motors. ‘One more thing,’ he told Sharky. ‘I got you a dozen or so cassettes and they’re clearly marked so you don’t put ‘em in backwards. The tapes’re good for ninety minutes a side. There’s a beeper on each tape which sounds off thirty seconds before the end.’

‘Right.’

‘Okay, let’s go down and see what we got on ten.’

Sharky removed a walkie-talkie from a case attached to his belt. ‘This is Zebra One, we’re leaving topside.’

They found 10-A next to the elevators. Sharky rang the bell. Nothing. He rang it again and they waited. Still nothing. He knocked sharply on the door.

‘Okay,’ The Nosh said, ‘let’s do it.’

He took a case from the tool chest and opened it. It contained a set of stainless steel needles varying in length from one to six inches. He studied the lock carefully, then selected one of the needles and, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, eased it into the keyhole, twisting it slowly as he did. ft caught for an instant and The Nosh gave it a quarter-turn, felt it slip farther until it caught again. Another quarter-turn and the tumblers clicked. He smiled, stood up, and opened the door.

They moved in quickly and quietly, closing the door behind them, waiting, listening. There was not a sound. ‘Okay,’ Sharky said, ‘check it out.’ They went swiftly through, the apartment, peering into each room. Empty. They returned to the small entrance ball by the front door and studied the layout. The living room was directly in front of them. On either side of it was a bedroom and bath. The dining room was immediately to their left and the kitchen was adjacent to it. A balcony connected the living room and the master bedroom to the right.

Sharky curled his tongue against his teeth and whistled softly.

‘I’ll give her one thing,’ he said. ‘She’s got class.’

The living room was done in beige and cream with pale mauve walls. A large Olympus beige-on-cream sofa faced them. It was several feet in front of the french doors, which opened onto the balcony, and half the width of the room. Two brown and beige striped Savoy chairs faced each other on each side of the sofa. A Porto Bello coffee table in antique white sat in front of the sofa and between the chairs. The vicuna rug was grey. There were plants all over the room, beside the french doors, in the corners and hanging from the ceiling, tall nephrolepis ferns, bottle palms, begonias, columnea, and spider plants. The stereo sat in a lowboy against one wall with the speakers in the ceiling.

The dining room had mirrored walls and a large smoked glass table with chromium and silk chairs.

‘Shit, the furniture in here cost more than my house,’ The Nosh said.

‘You take that bedroom and I’ll check out the master,’ Sharky said. ‘We may run out of time.’

The bed was king-sized and covered with a llama blanket. The wall behind it and the ceiling were mirrored. The rest of the furniture was white wicker with pale green cushions. An enormous Norfolk pine filled one corner of the room and several hanging baskets dominated the corner facing it. Sharky checked the drawers in the night tables. One contained s small bottle of pills, a vial of white powder, a silver cigarette case, and three vibrators of various sizes, one of which was shaped like an egg. Sharky tasted the powder, opened the cigarette case, smelled one of the cigarettes, and examined the pills.

‘Hey Shark, c’m’ere,’ The Nosh called from the other room.

He put the pills back in the drawer and closed it. The other room contained a massage table over which was a light bar with four sunlamps aimed at the table. The two windows were stained glass. A pair of lovebirds cooed and kissed each other in a tall wicker cage that hung among the flowering baskets that dominated the room. A small marble-topped table covered with vials of oils and body creams Sat beside the massage table. In one corner there were perhaps a dozen multi-coloured pillows of all sizes arranged on the floor and against the wall. Tropical fish peered bug-eyed from an enormous gurgling aquarium against the other wall. The fish stared at them, then darted soundlessly through dancing seaweed.

‘It’s Disney World, Sea World, and Jungle World, all wrapped up in one,’ The Nosh said with delight. ‘I could let the kids loose in here for hours.’

‘The table in there by the bed has some first-rate machine rolled Colombian grass, Quaaludes, poppers, and some coke that must’ve cost a bill-and-a-half on the street.’

‘You ever get the feeling we’re in the wrong business?’ The Nosh said.

‘Only when I’m awake,’ said Sharky. ‘Let’s get it on.’

‘The plants are perfect,’ The Nosh said. He took one of the button-mikes and slipped the pin into the stem of a broad-leafed calathea plant in a corner of the room. The mike faced the massage table. He ran the wire down along the stem of the plant, securing it with a roll of green tape. Then he pushed the aerial down into the soft earth and brushed loose dirt over it. He opened one drawer of the tool chest and took a small tube of green paint from among many multi-coloured vials and dabbed the mike until it blended into the plant. He stood up and smiled.

‘That’s it. This room is fixed.’

‘What if she waters the plants?’ Sharky asked. ‘Won’t It hurt that equipment?’

‘Nope. All the stuff is coated with silicone, It’s waterproof. Let’s hit the living room.’

He stood in the centre of the room and snapped his fingers several times, checking the ambient sound. ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘not bad at all. All the furniture, plants, that shit, deadens the room. We won’t get too much bounce. But we gotta keep away from those speakers in the ceiling.’ This time he chose a ficus tree and jabbed the mike into the trunk, close to the dirt. He dabbed it with brown paint, whistling softly to himself as he buried the amplifier. Sharky stood on the balcony, trying to look down at the parking lot, but he could barely see it.

‘Hey, Shark,’ The Nosh said, ‘you remember the time I bugged the teachers’ lounge at Grady and we caught old man Dettman screwin’ the phys. ed. teacher?’

‘Are you kidding? That’s how I passed geometry.’

‘I was just thinkin’ how at the time we thought they were such degenerates. She was a real hunk, Shark. A real hunk.’ He smoothed dirt over the amplifier. ‘Lookin’ back, I can’t say 1 blame old Dettman.’

‘Maybe we should’ve worked out a trade-out with her. Who ever uses geometry anyway?’

‘What was her name?’

‘Old Torpedo Tits.’

‘No, her real name?’

‘Jesus, I don’t remember.’

There was no way to see into the parking lot. He went back into the living room. ‘Old Torpedo Tits,’ The Nosh said, heading into the master bedroom.

Down below, a blue Mercedes 450SL drifted into the complex and stopped in front of the east tower. Sharky’s walkie-talkie came to life.

‘Zebra One, this is Zebra Three,’ Livingston said. ‘You got company.’

‘Okay Nosh, she’s back,’ Sharky said. He pressed the button on his box. ‘Zebra Two, this is Zebra Three. We need a little time.’

‘You got it,’ Papa said.

A porter came out of the building, running through the rain, and held the door for her. She got out, a long silk- sheathed leg preceding her. She stood an inch taller than the porter as she slipped him a dollar.

‘She’s heading for the lobby,’ Livingston said. The Nosh was on his knees, dabbing paint on the mike. ‘I’m wrapping it up,’ he said.

Sharky started to leave the room, then went back to the night table. He opened the drawer, took one of the joints from the cigarette case, and dropped it in his pocket.

‘Let’s hustle, brother.’ The Nosh was checking out his case.

‘I’m missing a paintbrush,’ he said. ‘It’s gotta be right around these plants somewhere.’

‘Shit,’ Sharky said.

Papa had seen the blue Mercedes pull up in front of the apartment, watched as she got out carrying a large Courrèges bag, tipped the porter, and then walked through the rain. He pressed several buttons on one elevator and sent it up, then waited in the other one. She entered the building, smiling at the security guard, walking with her chin slightly raised, looking straight ahead with azure eyes that glittered with life. She was taller than he remembered and very straight and as she approached the elevator she looked straight at Papa, but her gaze seemed to go through him, past him, off someplace beyond him. Papa was suddenly embarrassed, not from tension, but because she was prob.. ably the most stunning creature he had ever seen.

Jesus, he thought, no wonder she gels six bills a pop.

She stopped, hesitating a moment at the elevator that was already going up. ‘Going up,’ Papa said. ‘We’re just checking this one out.’

‘Thank you.’

A voice like down feathers.

She stood beside him.

The back of Papa’s neck got very warm. ‘What floor?’

‘Ten, please.’

He pressed the button and the doors closed. The elevator started up. Papa shifted slightly so his body shielded the control buttons and, reaching out very cautiously, he pressed the stop button. The elevator glided to a halt.

‘Oh, no!’ she breathed.

Papa pressed the button on his walkie-talkie.

‘Say, uh, up there, uh, this here’s Johnson. I got a passenger, uh, and, uh, like the power just cut off.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Delicately.

‘Nab,’ Papa said, ‘they just shut us off there for a second. Don’t you worry none, little lady.’ His walkie-talkie came alive. It was Sharky’s voice.

‘Uh, yeah, sorry about that, Johnson, we, uh, just bad to, uh, reset the flatistan up here. Uh, it’s okay now, uh, you can crank it up again.’

Papa pushed the ten button and the elevator started up again.

‘Sorry about that,’ Papa said.

She smiled at him, looking directly into 1is eyes.

‘It’s perfectly all right.’

Hardly more than a whisper. Papa felt a thrill like he had not felt for many years.

‘Nice weather,’ he stammered for lack of something better to say.

She laughed. ‘Yes. I love the rain.’

Beautiful, Papa thought, nice weather all right. There’s a typhoon outside.

The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. Sharky and The Nosh were standing there. Domino looked first at The Nosh and then at Sharky. She stared at him for a fraction of a second and then her lips parted very slightly in a smile.

‘Hello,’ she said as she walked past him.

Sharky was immobilized, nailed to the floor, stunned as though he had been clubbed. It was more than her elegance, her beauty, something else. A softness he had not expected, a vulnerability he sensed, in her eyes and the softness of her voice. The Nosh had to pull on his sleeve to get him into the elevator. Her scent was still there. He watched her until the doors closed.

‘Okay,’ The Nosh said, ‘we’re in business. We go back on the roof, check everything out, and then maybe we swing by Taco Bell, grab a quick burrito supreme.’

Papa smiled. ‘You got my vote.’

But Sharky did not hear either of them. He was like a statue, staring at the closed door. In just a few seconds Domino had claimed a new victim.