Sharky's Machine

Chapter Ten

Chiang drove the black Cadillac Seville up into the plaza and circled it slowly, observing the entrance to the apartment and the location of the security guard, then he turned back into Peachtree Street, went half a. block to a side street, and parked. He sat immobile, staring straight ahead, awaiting his instructions.

DeLaroza looked at his watch. Seven forty-five. Three hours, he figured. Domino could perform a miracle in three hours.

DeLaroza’s mind was still in a turmoil. The day had been eventful, exhausting. But now his thoughts were on Domino. I want you to think about it all day long, she had said, it wilt be much sweeter that way. And he had. Images of her had flashed continually through his mind, images of other times, when he had introduced her to a world reserved for the gods and the very rich.

Burns was right. He was concupiscent, a man driven by his lust as others are driven by fame.

Now it would end. But not before tonight.

They walked back to the apartment and DeLaroza stood in the shadows while Chiang entered, standing in front of the night guard, his bulk concealing the front door as he haltingly tried to explain that he was lost. The guard, confused by his broken English, concentrated on every word while DeLaroza slipped into the building and trotted to the stairwell. He did not want to risk being seen on the elevator. He walked up to the tenth floor, preparing himself for her pleasures as he climbed the steps, cleansing his mind.

Gowmanah

remembering her in Paris, flaunting h r sensuality until even the fag couturier was bewitched by her

gowmanah

remembering her at Quo Vadis, where even the arrogant waiters stopped and looked when she made her entrance

gow,nanah

remembering her in the bathhouse in Tokyo and the four geishas, flocking around her, bathing her, caressing her breasts while he sat forgotten in an adjoining tub

gowmanah...

The pressures of time slipped away. DeLaroza was prepared for whatever Domino had to offer.

She too had prepared herself for his arrival. It was to be her game, her rules tonight. She answered his first ring and DeLaroza stepped back in awe when she opened the door.

Her eyes were sketched into delicate almonds by the subtlest of eye-liners. A dust of shadow accentuated her high cheekbones. Her black hair was pulled to one side and pinned behind her ear by an azalea blossom. Her formfitting gown of white gauze was split almost to the hip on each side and trimmed in gold. She wore no shoes, no jewellery.

The scent of flowers surrounded her. Behind her the room shimmered in the glow of candles, revealing freshly cut daffodils and the coffee table bearing wine and other delights. A recording whispered Chinese love songs. She stepped back into the cool, dim fragrance and he could see her body through the thin cotton. Her skin seemed to glow in the dark, to provide its own radiation. The chocolate points of her breasts held the gauze at bay and he could see the thick black triangle of hair where her trim legs joined.

She put her hands together and bowed her head.

‘Welcome, Cheen Ping,’ she said, ‘to the lair of the Third Dragon.’

Sharky listened, heard the doorbell ring, heard her open the door but her remarks were lost among the tinkling bells and the Oriental music on the stereo. What was that? Something about dragons? There was movement, a rustling as though she perhaps had removed his coat.

‘Dor-jeh.’ A deep voice. Mature. But what was he saying? ‘There will be only three courses to dinner,’ she said and her voice was soft. Melodic. Almost.. . subservient? ‘And before each you must satisfy your innermost desires so that you may enjoy the meal to its fullest.’

God damn! Sharky lit a cigar, held it between his teeth, and pressed the earphones so he could hear better. Was this the same woman he had followed to Moundt’s? Who had joked with him about being an elevator man? Served him soup and wine and seemed hypnotized by his broken nose?

‘Only two courses, Ho Lan Ling. I am afraid three might be more than enough.’

He heard her laugh. Well, shit, Sharky said half aloud, they’re off and running in Peking!

She led DeLaroza to one of the Savoy chairs, stood behind him, began massaging his temples. Her touch was so light he hardly felt it. She pressed her thumbs in the middle of his forehead, held the first three fingers of each hand just inside the depression of his temples, and began rotating them in circles, widening the circle until her fingers moved over his eyelids. He sat with his hands resting on the arms of the chair. Her fingertips relaxed him. His head grew light under her touch. He eased into the chair. The music filled his head.

She poured him a glass of dry white wine and offered him a white pill on a satin pincushion. He washed the pill down with the wine, watched her do the same. She opened a long, shallow antique box, removed a pipe from it. Its porcelain stem was eight inches long and the rosewood bowl was well worn and scorched black. Then she took a piece of what appeared to be black putty and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger into a perfect ball. The Quaalude began to work on him, he felt his organs being stroked as though her hands were inside him. The room was a warm, protected place for him. She knelt beside him, humming in harmony with the music, put the ball in the bowl of the pipe, and held a match to it. As it glowed red, she offered him the pipe and he took it, drawing deeply, feeling the smoke burn his throat and lungs. He took it deep, holding it in until he thought his chest would burst. She turned the stem to her own mouth, drew deeply herself, closing her eyes, letting her head fall back. Then she offered the pipe back to him.

The first rush of opium engulfed him.

His body began to vibrate. He seemed to be sinking into the pillows.

The music engulfed him.

His skin was caressed by invisible feathers. His groin began to swell.

Domino lay back in a bed of pillows she had arranged at the foot of the chair, the Quaalude and opium etching her desire, defining her prurience. She felt another presence outside of herself, like a second skin, shimmering, protecting her and caressing her. The dress slipped down between her legs, rested against her hair and she felt its weight along her vulva. Her thighs began to tighten and relax. Tighten and relax.

The chimed music filled her head, flowed down through her throat and filled her chest. Her nipples grew until she thought they would pierce the gauze that enslaved them. The music began to flow again, down through her stomach, deep inside, and finally into her vagina. Her body spasmed, very lightly, and again. She stared at DeLaroza through eyes already fogged with passion. Her mouth was open. She was beginning to breathe in a long pattern, inhaling to the count of seven, holding to the count of seven, exhaling to the count of seven. It enhanced the music inside her. She put her hands on her stomach, searched lazily, lightly, for her navel, found it and brushed her fingertips around and into it. She looked at DeLaroza and the swelling, between his legs excited her even more. She crossed her chest with her hands and began moving them up her sides, exploring her armpits while the palm of her hands grazed her nipples. She rose to meet the hands but they were elusive, rising as she rose. Her nipples swelled to meet them finally — the touch. The thrill shot through her, like electricity, firing sparks into her breasts, her stomach, her neck, into her vagina, her rectum. She caressed her neck, slid her fingers under the gauze dress, savoured the roundness and then felt the dimpled ridges of her nipples. She held them gently between her fingers, began to squeeze them. DeLaroza now was breathing with her, his erection straining against his zipper.

She took one hand from under the dress and moved it down between her breasts to her stomach, slid it over her thigh, reached the bottom of the skirt, and pulled it up, slowly. Her hand disappeared under the skirt, slipped along her thigh, brushed over her hair and moved back down.

She began to rock up and down to the rhythm of her breathing, rising up to meet her hand as it grazed her thick patch. She let her hand slip between her legs, her finger probing, closed her eyes, stretched her head back, and gasped, then began rocking and breathing faster and faster and faster....

Sharky listened to the sounds. First her singsong humming, then the breathing. He tried to picture the man. Deep voice. Probably large, not fat, but large. The voice was mature. A man in his forties, possibly early fifties. And there was a trace of accent or perhaps the lack of an accent. An Americanized foreigner. German?

Then he envisioned Domino. Naked.

The Big Man was touching her, kissing her, possibly going down on her. The Big Man’s hands caressed her, stroking her tits. He was touching her now, his hand stroking the dark fur between her legs. Now she rolled him over and got up on her knees and straddled him and he was hard and he reached out for her.

Only it wasn’t the Big Man anymore, it was Sharky, reaching out for her, touching her.

He pulled the earphones off and dropped them on the bed. His pulses were jumping in his wrists. He wiped sweat oil’ his forehead with a corner of the blanket. He felt guilty, embarrassed, humiliated. And then he began to question his feelings. Guilty? Of what, getting a hard-on listening to a beautiful woman screwing another guy? Hell, who wouldn’t? Embarrassed? For whom, by ‘whom? There was nobody else there but him. And why should he be humiliated? They were not even aware he was listening; they certainly were not trying to humiliate him. He lit another cigar. And thought again about Domino.

As Domino began rocking faster, she began chanting, at first very faintly.

‘Hai. . . hai. . . hai .. . hal...’

She felt her lips swell and open, her fingers slide down across her trigger, felt it harden and grow under her touch, just as DeLaroza was growing. Her finger slid inside her, was entrapped by the moist muscles which tightened around it, held it, then released it. She rocked faster, increasing the tempo of her cries.

‘Hai...hai...hai...’

DeLaroza gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles were swollen white. His pulse thundered in his temples and the muscle under his testicles jerked in spasms.

He was hypnotized by her fingers, grazing, brushing, their whispered touch urging her lips up through the forest of her sex. Her cries urged blood up into his swollen penis. He slid down in the chair. His legs stiffened.

She was rocking in a frenzy, her redolent musk torturing his nose, her hair weaving frantic patterns across her face as her head jerked back and forth.

‘Hai . . . hai . . hal . . . haihaihaihaihaihai. H-h-haaaaiii.’

She stiffened, her head thrust back among the pillows. Her body jolted in the spasms of orgasm. DeLaroza was on the edge of madness. He too began to spasm and as he did, she rose slowly, tantalizingly to her knees before him, shuddered, zipped down his pants, freeing him, and, with a tiny animal cry, let her face fall across his lap. Her mouth enveloped him, her tongue brushed him, the moist membranes of her mouth closed on him, and an instant later he too exploded.

The meal was prepared by the chef of the finest Szechuan restaurant in the city, who arrived at precisely nine o’clock, assisted by two busboys, and moved silently into the kitchen, where he set up and awaited her command. Domino sat at the head of the table. She was no longer the servant, now she ruled like an empress, clapping her hands once at the beginning of each course and twice when they were finished, the busboys appearing and disappearing as silently as time passing. DeLaroza sat at the opposite end of the table, eating slowly, savouring every bite, smiling, and nodding approval after each course. They ate in silence, in the manner of Chinese royalty, devoting their full attention to the food.

It was spectacular. The courses were small, to prevent overeating. And while Domino bad prepared only one course, the shark’s fin soup, she had planned the entire meal, selecting the most succulent dishes from the menu of the Princess Garden restaurant in Hong Kong. It was truly a meal fit for an emperor: t’ang-t’su-au-pien, a salad whose main ingredients were fresh lotus roots, sesame seed oil, and soy sauce; chow fan, a mound of rice concealing bits of egg, shrimp, ham, peas, and onions, all deep-friend in peanut oil; hasi-tan, a side dish of deep-fried bamboo shoots and water chestnuts served over noodles; and Peking duck, basted in salad oil and roasted until the skin crackled, th n served as three different courses. First, the skin was presented, dipped in thick soybean paste, sprinkled with onions, and wrapped in Chinese pancakes. Next the bones were offered, boiled into a gravy with cabbage and mushrooms and served with the chow fan. Finally, the meat itself, juicy, spicy, hot, and sliced into thin strips. The dessert — sliced bananas dipped in batter and deep-fried, then immersed in ice water that froze the outer crust into a glaze while the bananas remained steaming hot — was the perfect conclusion.

When the meal was over and the chef and his assistants had departed as silently as they had come, she served absinthe, smuggled in from Ecuador, and they smoked a joint of pure Colombian grass the colour of cinnamon. It warmed and mellowed them, stirring the libido again. They stared dreamily across the table at each other. Not a word had passed between them for more than two hours.

Finally she left the table and went back to the massage room. DeLaroza lit a cigar, leaned back in his chair, fully content, awaiting whatever surprises she would offer next.

His thoughts began to wander. To Hotchins. To the campaign.

To Burns.

The thought of Burns chilled him and he closed his eyes, summoning his mantra to purge the devils from his mind.

Gowmanah

thinking about her, lying before him among the pillows

Gowmanah

stroking herself, turning herself on, performing for him...

Gowmanah

visualizing her undressing, revealing her immaculate body...

Gowmanah

and it was simple. Once again, Eros commanded his mind.

He heard her clap her hands and, turning, saw her silhouetted against a dozen or more candles, her body oiled and glowing. He obeyed her command and went to her. Feather fingers stripped him, eased him down among the pillows on the floor, spread warm oil over his body, massaging him from head to foot, subtly caressing his genitals, stroking him, her tongue teasing him to fullness. She knelt over him, resting on her knees, her spiderweb plume brushing against him, her moisture preparing him. He began to throb and she shifted, rolling to her side beside him and reaching to the small table beside her, picked up a mirror, and placed it on her stomach.

She had prepared four long rows of cocaine on the mirror, carefully chopped and arranged in narrow files, each one about five inches long. Beside the rows were a short piece of glass straw perhaps four inches long and a spoon of pure Andean gold brought from Cuzco, the capital of the Inca empire, in southern Peru, its handle delicately hand- carved in a sculpture of Virgo, the Inca goddess of coca, the minutely detailed headdress containing the tiny bowl of the spoon itself

He turned and lay between her legs, her tuft against his chest, took the straw and; holding one nostril shut, moved the straw up one row of coke, inhaling sharply. He snorted deeply through the other nostril. The coke hit him in a rush. His groin surged. The tartness of the drug burned his throat. He slid the mirror towards her, slipped down, buried his head between her legs.

She lay the mirror beside her, turned slightly, snorted the second row, let it sizzle through her body, felt it charge up deep into her sinuses. She lay back down, shuddering as the cocaine surged through her senses, touching every organ with life.

DeLaroza rose up on his elbows, retrieved the mirror, and, using the straw as a pusher, filled the spoon with the powder. She bent her legs slightly at the knees. Venus rose towards him, lips apart and moist, inviting him, enticing him. He held the spoon between her legs, lowered it until it almost touched her. Her ringlets rose towards his hand and parted and he lowered the spoon, touched her vivid heart-shaped opening, tapped his finger against the side of the spoon, watched the minute crystals sprinkle as he moved the spoon along her waiting lips.

Her eyes were closed. She began to shudder.

He moved the mirror, slid up between her legs, rose up above her, overpowered by her lust. She was his erotic master, orchestrating his orgasm. He felt godlike. He was Priapus, son of Dionysius and Aphrodite, who fornicated for eternity without losing his erection, and he roared with desire as he surged against her.

The cocaine felt like ice, first numbing her membranes, then suddenly setting them afire. She cried out, feeling him against her, rising up to meet him, her senses screaming for satisfaction.

‘Ohhh.. . my God!’

Sharky lay on the cot smoking a Schimmelpenninck, staring up at the smoke hanging near the ceiling like strands of cotton candy, his thoughts jumping to Domino, envisioning her. He dropped the cigar on the floor and put the earphones back on, heard her peculiar breathing pattern starting again.

Seven in, hold seven, seven out.

And he joined her, closing his eyes, letting his own fantasies take control.

He was lying among the pillows in the massage room. She was standing over him, her long legs dominating him.

Thick black swansdown inviting him as she stared down...

Stared down between her breasts, smiling...

He reached up, touching the soft skin behind her knees, stroked it, then pressed lightly.

She lowered towards him, an agonizing vision in slow motion.

Seven in, hold seven, seven out.

She stretched out over him, not quite touching him. Her nipples brushed his, her lips hovered over his, her thick tuft teased his shaft. Their lips brushed together, tongues searching, touching, melding into one.

He kissed her neck, her throat, the bulge of her breasts, her nipples, and felt her settle against him, moving against him, like a wave washing over him.

He could wait no longer. He reached down, lifted her by the hips, and together they stared down between their bodies, moving, touching, and moving apart until neither of them could stand the agony any longer and as he poised her over him and they both looked down at what was waiting and he reached between them, brushed his band across her silken mound, she moaned, Ohhh.. . my God!’ as he rose up and felt her against him. Open and waiting, she sucked him inside..

DeLaroza rose high above he and then plunged down, the power, grasping, taking, and she felt him inside her, only her eyes were closed and now her fantasy took over and it was not DeLaroza entering her, it was Sharky, for now she no longer wanted the lust of power, she wanted to get and to give, to join him, not be his for the taking. She felt his hard, muscular stomach, his lean chest, his neck, taut and straining, his arms with their pinion fingers stroking, gentling, hardening her, and his mouth against hers, lightly at first, then crushing against hers.

Her breathing pattern shortened.

Five in, five hold, five out.

She counted faster as her breathing quickened. He was breathing with her, thrusting with her.

Two, two, two.

Two, two, two.

two,two. ..two,two.two,.two...

One, one.

One

One!

‘Ahhh!’

She cried out again and again. Her body stiffened. Volcanoes sputtered, rumbled, spat fire, and erupted inside her. Hot lava engulfed her, warmed her, flooded through her head, her throat, her chest, her stomach. Her vagina burst and words tumbled from her lips that made no sense, a disconnected alien vocabulary surging from her throat.

DeLaroza popped the amyl nitrite tube and passed it back and forth between them, felt her instant response, the renewed assault on her senses. She was an errant star, lost in space, as it hit again and again and again. The mountain below his testicles swelled and slammed between his legs and he too convulsed and erupted...

in his post on the roof Sharky heard them, felt the same urgent rush, the same mountain between his legs, the same volcanoes blowing apart, the same fervid explosion in his groin and, crying out, he came.

DeLaroza lay beside Domino for only a few minutes, then got up, showered, and dressed. When he returned to the room she was still lying on the table, although she had covered herself with a robe. He was anxious to leave. With his orgasm DeLaroza had closed the book on Domino.

He leaned over the table and she looked at him with smoky eyes, smiling. ‘Magnificent,’ he said. ‘You exceeded your promise. I shall never forget tonight. When next we meet, it will be as old friends. The past is erased.’

‘Thank you,’ she said softly, ‘for everything. For showing me the world and its treasures. You have been a dear friend. Joy geen.’

‘Goodbye to you,’ he said and kissed her, knowing it was the last time he would ever see her. Then he closed the door. En his mind Domino was already dead.

She lay alone for several minutes before the tears came and then she cried softly to herself, not so much because she would miss him, but because it was an ending and endings always saddened her.

Sharky did not hear them. He had pulled off the earphones and dropped them beside him on the cot. The last twenty-four hours had burned him out. He had killed a man, been chewed out royally by The Bat, been transferred to Friscoe’s Inferno, assigned to this machine, bugged an apartment, and had not only been attracted to a suspect but joined her vicariously while she made love to another man.

Great, Sharky. You aren’t even hitting the slow pitches.

His nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Everything seemed amplified. The buzzing fluorescent tubes overhead, the humming motors, the wind whistling at the crack in the door, all agitated his skin. He scratched his arms and neck.

I’m cracking up, he thought. Standing in the doorway of the rubber room.

He remembered the joint he had lifted from the drawer earlier in the day. He put on his jacket and went out into the icy air. Leaning against the wall of the utility room, he lit up and took two deep hits, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he could before exhaling. The high came quickly, soothing his tattered nerves. He closed his eyes, let the cold wind wipe his face.

He thought more about Domino, surprised that he felt no ill feeling towards her, that he did not condemn her open sensuality, her need to embrace pleasure, and he understood why. He had the same needs, the same desires, and for the first time in his life he accepted them without guilt.

He wanted Domino. Period.

‘So what?’ he said aloud and then chuckled.

He appraised the situation. She had done nothing illegal tonight. No money had changed hands. There wasn’t even any talk of money. Hell, there was hardly any talk at all. She had entertained a friend and how she entertained him was her business.

Unless, of course, the man below was the mark and tonight was part of the set-up. If so, the tapes would prove she knew him. Intimately. They would provide the connection.

He would have to identify the mark. He could call in Livingston, have him follow the guest when he left her apartment. But that would take time. So he would do it himself.

He returned to the dim interior of his listening post. The tape recorder to the master bedroom was spinning.

Jesus, he thought, they’re not going at it again!

He held one of the phones to his ear. There were two women speaking now.

He put the earphones on, pressed them to his ears, concentrating on the voices. One was talking, the other was singing. And the shower was going.

Of course, the television was on. Virginia Gunn, Channel Five, was giving the weather report. The shower stopped. He heard her come into the bedroom, heard the click of a remote unit, and the television went off.

Silence.

The recorder stopped.

The mark was gone. He had left while Sharky was out on the roof.

‘Shit!’

He went back out on the roof, knowing it was too late. He looked over the parapet, down at the parking lot, but there was no activity. He went to the other side of the roof and stared down into darkness. The wind rattled the treetops below him. Overhead the storm clouds moved silently away and the cold stars mocked him.

He went back to his solitary room, dropped wearily on the cot, then stretched out, and before he could decide on his next step, Sharky fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.