Sharky's Machine

Chapter Eight

DeLaroza was hunched down in the rear of the power launch. A forgotten Havana twirled unlit between his fingers. He stared straight ahead, a man hypnotized by his own thoughts, as the boat moved towards the northern end of the lake.

Suddenly his concentration was jarred by a speedboat which charged from a nearby inlet, skipping like a stone across the choppy surface of the lake. He watched through cold eyes as the boat arced wide around them and sped south, its engine buzzing like an angry bee, the driver perched on his haunches at the stern.

By the time the surly north wind had whipped the speedboat’s wake into frothy whitecaps, DeLaroza was deep in thought again, repeating over and over a single word:

‘Gowmanah.. . gowmanah. . . gowmanah...’

It was a form of Shinto meditation he had learned in Japan. In a few seconds the intrusion was forgotten. He was entranced, his mind cleansed.

Once his concentration was purged, be dealt with the problem at hand as he dealt with all problems. His method had been developed thirty years before in Brazil, where he had spent five years and a fortune becoming Victor DeLaroza and developing a personality that fitted the man he created. These had been the difficult years, the dangerous years just after the war, when his constant companions had been paranoia and fear. It was the Jews he feared most, for they could have become the unwitting instrument of a cruel and ironic joke. The Nazis had come to Brazil, seeking anonymity, trying to rebuild their failed dream. And behind them ceme the Jewish commandos, cold, efficient. zealously checking every record, perusing all newcomers, methodically rooting out war criminals. And always there was the gnawing fear-that they might tumble onto him by accident. He was a man wary of every footfall, suspicious of all strangers. The fear of surprise was a worm in his gut. To avoid surprises, he learned to predict them before they happened. His reflexes became as swift and deadly. He lied when necessary, bribed when expedient, arranged murder when he had to, a ruthless survivalist, as he moved on to Hong Kong, where he was Victor DeLaroza, the international businessman who destroyed competitors, sucked up companies, and built his empire.

His method was always the same. First, cleanse the mind of all emotional or personal considerations — they weakened logic; second, feed the facts into the mental computer; third, consider all alternatives, options, dangers. Once this was done, logic released the solution from his brain.

Sitting in the rear of the launch, he considered the facts. He was safe, safer than he had been for thirty years. They had lured Corrigon to Atlanta and eliminated him, and with him the last danger of recognition. His partner was about to leave the country but DeLaroza no longer felt he needed him. In Yokohama friends in the Yakuza were waiting to take care of that problem. Hotchins was no longer the dark-horse candidate. With Lowenthal and his people on the team Hotchins would become a serious contender and eventually the favourite.

Now only Domino posed a threat. No, more than a threat, she was dangerous. She could connect DeLaroza to Hotchins and possibly Corrigon to DeLaroza. Unwittingly she could tie the noose that would hang them all.

Those were the facts. The logic? Hotchins did not love the girl; he was obsessed by her sensuality. But he had made his decision clear that morning and although he had promised to consider giving her up, DeLaroza knew all the hungers that go with power. Like all self-made men, Hotchins was fiercely protective of his independence. In the end he would deal with the Domino situation emotionally and DeLaroza knew he could press the issue no further.

For be also knew Hotchins’s passion to become president.

The conclusion was obvious.

His mind made up, DeLaroza leaned forward, cupping his hands against the chill breeze, and lit the cigar.

‘Chiang,’ he called to his bodyguard and the Chinese turned to him. In addition to his powerful build Chiang had a scar running from his hairline down the right side of his face, across his eye to his jaw. The eye dropped from the old wound, half-closed, and the pupil had turned almost white. It added another dimension to his imposing size. ‘We must put the cover over the seats back here,’ DeLaroza said in Chinese. ‘It is too cold for open riding.’

Chiang nodded and DeLaroza knew it would be done before the day ended. DeLaroza bad saved Chiang from a prison in Macao almost ten years before. Now no task was too menial or too demanding: Chiang bad devoted his life to DeLaroza.

Twenty miles north of the marina the lake narrowed and the current became stronger. A mile or so ahead there was a steady rumble as the river emptied into the lake. It was a desolate area and rarely travelled. The launch slowed, swung easily around a tree-scarred peninsula. A cove emerged in front of them and at its far end, partially obscured by tall pines, the curious geometry of a Chinese junk appeared. Its polished stern rose high above the water, sloping gently towards the bow. Its tall masts were partially obscured by spidery burnt-orange sails which were furled tightly against them. The cabin was slightly astern, its roof bordered by a frieze of temple dogs and dragons that curled around the cornice.

Chiang guided the launch expertly alongside a small pontoon dock that was lashed to the side of the junk and quickly tied it down. Then he helped DeLaroza out of the launch. The big man slowly mounted the jacob’s ladder to the deck and stood for a few moments admiring his treasure. The deck and cabin glistened with teak oil that had been hand-rubbed into every crevice and pore. The paint, although old, was perfectly preserved. He called her Psalm-Lo, The Three Devils, after the legend of the dragons.

DeLaroza looked at Chiang and pointed below decks.

‘Hal,’ Chiang answered.

DeLaroza knew that the three Orientals who manned the junk despised the Gwai-lo, the foreign devil, who was living on board, although they would never say anything to DeLaroza. They had been his servants, his bodyguards, his soldiers, for many years. Each was a master of karate; each was an expert at Tai Chi, the Way of the Peaceful Warrior; each had a deadly proficiency with the dagger and the yinza, a small steel disc the size of a silver dollar with twelve barbs around its perimeter which when scaled with the flick of a powerful wrist could pierce the skull and drive deep into the brain. And each of them religiously followed the ancient rituals of his ancestors. To them the Gwai-lo was a coward who killed without honour.

DeLaroza went below. The cabin was divided into three sections. Below the foredecks each member of the crew had his own quarters and behind them, towards the stern, was the galley. To the rear, under the lofty stern, were two bedrooms, one decorated in modern decor, the other with antiques smuggled out of Kowloon to avoid the new laws that prohibited the removal of historic artefacts from the crown colony. The living room was a museum: teak and rosewood chests with sculptured gold handles and hinges; sofas and chairs covered with thin-striped silk from the finest shops on Pearl Street; hand-painted mandarin screens dating from the dynasty of the boy emperor, Ping, eight hundred years ago; delicate Royal Doulton porcelain figures, jade statues, and Lalique crystal.

Against one wall was a mahogany cabinet with glass doors and inside, displayed against purple velvet, were several ancient weapons: a jewel-encrusted samurai sword; an awkward blunderbuss with an ornate buttplate and a curious swirling hammer; several daggers, their worn blood gutters hinting of dark deeds from the clouded past.

DeLaroza stood quietly in the darkened room looking for — who was he now? His partner had had so many names through the years that DeLaroza sometimes had difficulty remembering who he was from day to day. Howard? Yes, Howard Burns, that’s what he again called himself.

At least I have been consistent in my own alias, DeLaroza thought.

The junk moved gently in the water. The screens muffled the sounds of the lake, the water slapping against the hull, the dock nudging the side, timbers groaning underfoot. But the cabin was still.

And yet DeLaroza knew he was there, could sense that deadly presence and smell the odour of death that seemed to exude from his partner’s every pore.

‘Howard?’ he said, peering into the dark corners of the cabin.

There was no answer. But there was a stirring, a shifting of shadows, and then he saw the eyes, gleaming, alert, cold, the eyes of a snake. Burns moved into the light filtering through the portholes and DeLaroza sensed that he was in the presence of a man verging on madness. His gaunt face reflected a lifetime of killing. His thin, ‘veined fingers were taut. A muscle in his jaw jerked with the beat of his pulse. He had a stubble of grey beard and the nostrils in his hawk-like nose twitched, like a predator sniffing out his prey.

In one hand he held a .22 calibre Woodsman, its long, slender barrel encased in the ugly silencer.

Burns said nothing. He moved slowly into the centre of the cabin, his eyes darting feverishly.

He stepped closer to DeLaroza and held the gun an inch from his heart, his eyes afire with rage.

‘Bang,’ he shouted and an icy hand squeezed DeLaroza’s heart. ‘You’re an inch from being dead,’ he said. ‘Next time don’t keep me hangin’ like that. I ain’t heard shit from you in almost a week.’

DeLaroza stared down at the gun. ‘Don’t make jokes,’ he whispered.

‘You think I’m joking?’ He waved the pistol around, backed into the shadows. ‘You think I’m joking? Stuck out here with these goddamn slant-eyed creeps of yours. They don’t ever talk. Move around like mice. Half the time I can’t hear them, don’t know where the hell they are. I got the willies. They’re all the time doin’ this weird slow- motion shit, moving around on one leg, like a bunch of faggot ballet dancers. The TV ain’t worth a slit. All I get on this fuckin’ radio is static . .

He lashed out suddenly, smashing the pistol into the loudspeaker of the radio, which flew off into the corner and crashed in the shadows. An instant later the hatch opened and Chiang stood above them, glaring down, his fingers stiff at his side. Burns aimed the pistol at the Chinese.

‘Get outa here. Tell that gook to get lost or —‘

DeLaroza held a hand towards Burns and turned quickly to Chiang. ‘Jaaw hoy Jaaw hoy,’ he said quickly and the Chinese disappeared. He turned to Burns. ‘Easy.’

‘Don’t tell me easy,’ Burns roared. His face flushed, his eyes danced from corner to corner, back to DeLaroza, over to the hatch door. ‘They’re pushin’ me around the bend, them gook monkeys of yours.’

‘When they move like that, what you call slow motion, they are practising Tai Chi, the Way of the Peaceful Warrior it is called.’

Burns wiggled the gun under his nose. ‘They come around me, fuck with me, I’ll make peaceful warriors outa them.’

‘To attack them is like attacking water. When you strike them, it is like striking air. They cannot be hurt and they cannot be stopped when they are committed. They can kill with one finger. And they have been ordered to protect you at all costs.’

‘I protect myself. Me and Betsy here is all the protection I need. The bullets are soaked in garlic, know what that means? It’s poison inside you. You die screaming for your mother.’

A shiver rippled through DeLaroza,

‘Please. Everything is good. Believe me, I’ve been very busy, very busy. I do not want to use the mobile radio; it could be dangerous. From now on I’ll come every other day...’

‘From now on! How the hell long?. . .‘ Burns’s shoulders slumped. He dropped the gun with a clatter on a polished rosewood chest and rubbed the knuckles of one hand furiously into the top of his close-cropped hair. ‘It was only gonna be a month, gettin’ this show on the road. Christ, I been here what, eight weeks? Nine? Don’t fuck me over, you got it? Don’t fuck me over.’

‘Nobody is fucking you over, Howard. It takes time to get passports, visas, make the proper arrangements. Your wife is safe, we moved her to Canada, then across to the coast, and then on over to Yokohama. Nobody knows. Even the FBI lost her. It was done perfectly, as promised.’

‘Yeah, well, it ain’t perfect with me. Twice you ask me to do a job for you, twice in what? — the thirty years I’ve known you? Both times I come through.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that. Quick, right? Clean, right? Everything down to a tee. Now you got this thing to do for me, it’s a month of Sundays already.’

He paced the room on the balls of his feet, tense and alert, like a prize-fighter stalking his opponent. His nerves were stretched out like violin strings. DeLaroza could almost hear them keening.

‘This ain’t my turf, okay. I don’t even know where the hell I am, out here, some fuckin’ lake, eighty miles from nowhere. Nothin’ to do all day but listen to those fuckin’ monkeys doin’ that slow-motion shit. It’s a.. . I’ll tell you what, it’s a goddamn bad dream come true is what it is. Get me outa here. Get me outa here, Victor.’

Madness burned in Burns’s eyes. There was bate there, and fear. DeLaroza could see it. He was a different man from the cool killer in Hong Kong.

‘You and this nut idea, wantin’ to put your fuckin’ mug in every paper in the world. Lemme tell ya, pal, I didn’t mind doin’ that job for you in Hong Kong, [could unnerstan’, see, bow you could go a little off the wall when you seen that Colonel from Italy. But suckin’ Corrigon in, plantin’ that seed in his brain, and bringin’ him down here, right in your own fuckin’ backyard, that was crazy. Suppose he told somebody else, hunh? Suppose be wrote it down somewheres to cover himself? You ever think of that?’

‘There was no reason for him to do that. You think he knew we were setting him up?’ DeLaroza said.

‘After thirty years, a guy gets prison wise, learns a lot. I’m just sayin’ we coulda left it alone. We didn’t have to wiggle the finger, get him down here and kayo him just so’s you could come outa the closet after all these years. Shit, you got the fuckin’ tenderloin, you gotta have it all?’

‘You do not understand what it was like, all those years, all I have done, and no recognition for any of it.’

‘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.

‘Yes. In fact, I, uh, I am going there tonight.’

Burns shook his head. ‘Unreal,’ he said.

‘It is something special. A goodbye. I have known this woman for a long time,’ he said. Then, after a pause: ‘Too long, maybe.’

Burns smiled but there was no mirth in the grin. Then he said, ‘Not too long. So long. Get what I mean?’

DeLaroza turned and looked back at him. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘What do you mean, what do I mean? You know what I mean. Don’t act dumb, because I know you ain’t dumb.’

A sudden flash of lightning jarred DeLaroza. A second later it cracked like a whip snapping in the trees nearby. Burns seemed to draw strength from it. His eyes lost their coldness and began to beam with exhilaration.

‘You’re gonna be right there,’ Burns said. ‘So you can case out the Situation for me. You’re in the catbird seat there, Victor, because we ain’t got a lot of time. Now do you know what I mean?’

DeLaroza did not answer. His lower lip began to tremble. He was thinking about tonight, about making love to her.

Burns was totally calm, the killing machine, lubricating itself with visceral oil.

‘You did good, Victor,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sure you do. You didn’t come out here to feed me all that bullshit about my passport, that crap. You came out here to put the edge on the knife. Right?’

DeLaroza fell quiet again. He stared down at the cigar. ‘I ain’t pissed about it, Victor. In fact, I gotta hand it to you. In your own sweet way you’re just like me. You’d kill your own mother for a two-pont safety. You worked it out nice. It’s one and one makes two, just that simple. You’re here because the chippie has to take a hit and I’m the one’s gotta do the job. Ain’t that right, Victor?’

DeLaroza stared at the floor. Finally he nodded very slowly.

‘Lemme hear you say it there, partner.’

DeLaroza continued to stare at the floor.

‘Lemme hear you say it,’ Burns said flatly. ‘Say it out loud.’

DeLaroza remained quiet.

‘Say it.’

DeLaroza started to speak. His lips moved, but the words died in his mouth. He coughed, trying to clear his throat.

‘Say it!’

The voice was hoarse and seemed far away. ‘Kill her,’ DeLaroza said.

Burns grinned. ‘See how easy it is when you try.’