by Jack Cuatt
He fires a half-dozen rounds at the front tires, exploding both of them. The Nova veers sharply and its dead driver falls sideways across the front seat. The car squalls through a hard right turn that almost flips it and races at the office of AAA Bail Bonds across the street from Herman's. Machine fires six more times into the Nova's back seat. Three of them hit the rear's only occupant, a heavy-set soldier who’s twisting around in his seat, trying to get a shot off. The hollow-points smash through his rib cage and toss him across the seat a split second before the Nova slams into the brick wall of the bondsman's building at thirty miles an hour.
Glass shatters, the Nova's front end buckles and the car comes to a shuddering rest, its engine winding down with a ratcheting groan.
Machine keeps the Smith locked on the Nova for a tense moment. Steam rises from under the car's crumpled hood. No one inside moves.
End of business.
Machine drops the Smith on the Chrysler's front seat, stoops and retrieves the spent clip, then slides behind the wheel. The Chrysler is still running. He slaps the gear shift into drive and presses the gas pedal. The tires spin, grab hold, and the Chrysler lurches away from the curb.
Blood colors the front of Butch's jacket. The dash and front seat drip. Butch's complexion is waxy. His face is streaked with tears. He leans against the door, eyes pinched shut.
Machine heads for the turnpike. It takes longer than the elevated highway, but they'll be less likely to run into a creep battle cruiser. He glances in the rearview mirror at Vincent sitting on the back seat breathing heavily. Vincent won't meet Machine's eyes. The dapper gangster is a wreck. His face and shirt front are damp, hair limp and tangled. He looks jacked up and scared, but he's handling it. Butch is not the same story.
To Machine's experienced eye, it looks like Butch took a load of buck-shot. Butch is still gripping his Glock so tightly his knuckles are white. The slide is back, the clip empty, but he isn't thinking about the automatic, he's preoccupied with the red ant farm inhabiting his left arm.
“Where're you going, Machine?” he demands.
Ignoring Butch, Machine turns the Chrysler up the turnpike's access ramp. The turnpike is untended and degrading. More potholes than asphalt, rusted railings and washed out signs. Perfect for a private drive. Machine stays in the right hand lane.
“I need a doctor,” Butch sobs, sitting up straight. He looks at the empty 9mm in his hand then carelessly tosses it on the floorboard. “I need a fucking doctor.”
Machine retrieves the Smith from the seat beside him and tucks it between his thighs, fingertips touching the checkered grip.
“Turn the fucking car around, Machine!” Butch screams at the teenager's profile. “You gotta take me to the safehouse. I'm bleeding to death!”
“Shut up,” Machine replies.
“Machine,” Vincent intervenes, leaning over the seat. “He needs a doctor. Let's just take him to the safehouse and be done with it.”
“I'll be done with it when Paul takes the case.” Machine replies coolly, meeting Vincent's eyes in the rearview.
Vincent blinks, shrugs, leans back, and looks out the side window.
Butch whimpers, fogging the passenger side window. “It hurts,” he groans. “It's fucking killing me.”
Machine grabs the Smith, cocks it and jams the barrel against Butch's temple. “Would you like something for the pain?” he asks, his eyes never leaving the road ahead.
“No! Please,” Butch squeaks. “Please.”
Machine tucks the Smith back between his thighs and accelerates to ten miles over the speed limit, silently cursing Fat Paul.
Butch has passed out and night has settled by the time Machine turns in at the estate’s driveway and is waved through the gate. At the end of the drive, beyond the house, he parks the Chrysler and he and Vincent get out.
Vincent has combed his hair and wiped his face. He's the picture of the cool gangster again. He snaps orders at two teenage Zips, cold-eyed teenaged killers imported from Russia who are smoking near the garage, to transport Butch to the pool house.
Vincent takes the briefcase and goes in search of Paul. Machine follows the Zips, laden with the unconscious Butch.
Butch wakes up sobbing on the pool house's doorstep. The Zips dump him on the bar to save the carpet and furniture. Machine lights a cigarette as the blood-smeared pair exit, muttering in guttural Russian and picking at their ruined clothes.
As Butch's moans gain momentum, Machine steps out on the balcony that overlooks the pool. He closes the French doors behind him and steps to the railing. The pool light is on, sending up a lazy, steamy glow to meet the descending night. Machine drags deeply on his cigarette and tries not to think of his mother, or the men he has just killed. He's halfway through the cigarette when he hears the pool house's front door open and bang closed. Reluctantly, he grinds out his smoke and slips quietly back inside.
To his surprise, Kukov himself stands in the middle of the living room glaring at the wounded soldier. The boss's face is red; the moles dotting it stand out dark brown.
“Why do you always have to get cute, Butch? I should have you boxed and buried for this,” Kukov promises, chomping the cold stub of a hand-rolled Cuban.
Butch tries to reply, but Kukov cuts him off with the wave of a hand.
“Shut up. I’m not interested.” He turns to the door.
Machine, watching from just inside the French doors, wouldn't give even odds that Butch will make it through the night. He's playing with sharks where the weak or wounded are quickly devoured.
As he exits, Kukov spots Machine. “My office, Alex,” he says curtly and is gone, leaving the door open behind him.
On the garden path, headed for the house, Machine passes the Zips walking back to the pool house. Tonight the new recruits will make their ‘bones’ and Butch will become bones. Machine finds Kukov seated behind his desk. Vincent, suit still damp but arranged neatly, is facing the boss from one of the wing chairs. Fat Paul is on the sofa.
Kukov looks up as Machine enters and points to the empty chair facing his desk. Machine sits.
“Vincent gave me the rundown,” Kukov begins. “He says you pulled your weight when the shit went down. He says you took out three of Scarpo's boys.” Kukov leans back in his chair with a satisfied smile. “He also told me about that asshole dying in my pool house. He says it was all Butch. I believe him, so we don't have to go through that shit again,” he glances at Vincent. Vincent smiles stiffly back. “Next time out you're the crew captain, Vincent. You got good sense. Get cleaned up and get something to eat.” Kukov glances at Paul. “Fix him up with something nice, Pauley.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kukov. I really appreciate that,” Vincent says, rising to his feet.
Kukov accepts Vincent's thanks with half-lidded eyes and a benign nod.
Wordlessly, Paul follows Vincent out. Kukov waits until the door closes behind them before speaking to Machine.
“It happened like that?”
Machine nods.
“That's good, I like Vincent. He's not bright but he's steady. Butch, well he's not worth thinking about anymore.” Kukov's eyes Machine for a moment before asking, “What do you think about it, Alex? Good idea gone bad or shit from the start.”
Machine doesn't take time to think. He doesn't need to. “Bad idea. The follow through was comical.”
“You would have done it different?”
“I wouldn't have done it at all.”
Kukov smiles as he chooses a fresh cigar from the box on his desk, “Why not?” he asks with interest. “Why not take out Herman? He's skimming. Paying Scarpo.” He clips the cigar with gold scissors and clamps it between his teeth. He takes his time lighting it, turning it gently in the flame of a gold lighter, relishing the process. He's the kind of man who appreciates the finer things, like a kilo of uncut coke or a stupid whore.
Again Machine doesn't have to think, “Herman's good for thirty-five a week.”
Kukov grins sa
vagely around the cigar, “Just right. And after it's through for Scarpo, I up my percentage on the little fucker and stick it to him for eternity.” He puffs the glowing cigar. “Nice work, Alex.”
“Not the work I'm used to,” Machine points out. “Not the kind I'll do again. Wetwork only, no enforcement or drug running.” He will play the shark's game, but only with other sharks. A promise to his mother's memory
Kukov plucks the cigar from his mouth, frowns and leans his forearms on the blotter, spilling gray ash across the clean white month.
“You don't make the rules,” he says. “I tell you what to do and you do it. You don't and you're Butch.”
Machine shrugs and folds his hands in his lap. “I thought I might take up where Red Sleeves left off. In exchange for my mother's killer.”
For a long moment, Kukov's eyes crawl over the pale teenager's face. Finally, the boss smiles, tight-lipped. When he replies, his tone is several degrees cooler, “I don’t like it, but okay, Alex. It's a deal. Sure you wouldn't rather drop this shit?”
Machine shakes his head. “I want him, and the one behind him.”
Kukov nods then sighs heavily. “Be careful how far you push this, Alex.”
It's Machine's turn to nod. “I’ll be heading back to the city.”
“What?”
“There are things I have to take care of.”
Kukov thinks about that as Machine rises. The boss shrugs. “Paul can take you back. You'll probably find him in the kitchen trying to turn out the new maid.” The sarcasm is heavy, yet Kukov keeps Paul as underboss. It makes no sense to Machine, but he really doesn't care. He nods and leaves without a goodbye.
As predicted, Paul is in the kitchen harassing a young Filipino girl who looks about fifteen years old. She's smiling and blushing, pretty in the way all young, healthy girls are: innocent, gullible.
“Still at work, Paul?” Machine asks.
Paul spins around and steps away from the girl, his greasy-seductive smile withering.
“Alex,” he says. “What do you want?”
“Vlad wants you to drop me in the city. Now.” Machine walks to the back door, opens it, and waits for Paul.
The underboss stays glued to the floor for a long moment before grudgingly crossing to the door and out without saying a word. Machine follows.
12
Machine directs Paul to the north side of Low town, near the old amusement park and the turnpike.
The abandoned park looks like a giant erector set left to rust in the middle of a cracked asphalt sea. Machine points to the curb near the front gates and Paul eases the Cadillac into the shadows. Machine steps out of the car. Neither man says goodbye. The door thumps closed and Machine fades into the night.
From the gloom of the moldering midway, he watches the Cadillac's taillights disappear before making his way through the amusement park toward the Zone, weaving through a maze of metal bungalows, tattered canvas awnings, crumbling rides, and concession stands. He knows this place well. He has hidden here many times to wait out the stepped up patrols that often follow a high-profile drive-by or street work. He exits the park on Gibson Street.
The first part of any work is assembling resources. Machine needs to check on the cars, weapons, and cash. After that he can move on to the job of finding his mother's killer. He won't wait for Vlad and Paul. It's not in him to play the passive role.
Moses Slaski kept four cars at all times. Two of them are identical charcoal-gray Lincolns. Always the same; Moses replaced them every two years. They're nondescript in a high-dollar way. Black market Diplomatic Corps stickers, a red shield surmounted by a black cross, are pasted in the corners of their windshields. The Diplomatic Corps are the Christian Council's secret police and execution squad. Even the Jesus creeps respect and fear the Corps. The other two cars are not as nice. The battered Granada is one; an almost new, pale yellow electric station-wagon with red tasseled curtains in the rear window is the other.
Machine reaches the intersection of Lexington and Bowen. This area was once called Little Saigon for its large population of Vietnamese immigrants. One night of fires and street-executions by the Children of the Blood Militia had emptied the area for good. Gutted buildings line the street. Tattered awnings and signs painted with Vietnamese characters sway in an icy wind blowing in from the polluted river. A hulking parking garage is the last building on the north side of the street, six stories of crumbling concrete and rusted rebar, the open-air levels as dark as caves.
The garage isn't used by straights anymore; it's a drop for hot cars run by an associate of Moses' named Horace Kennedy. A person in the know can leave a car here until it cools, or arrangements can be made for it to become a pile of blow-torched parts. The two Lincolns have permanent berths, the Granada too, though it's still parked near the Bradley Hotel. The station-wagon is sitting in an east-side warehouse owned by Vlad Kukov. Moses and Machine ditched it there a month ago after working two of Scarpo's street pimps. The car is still too hot to be of use.
The wide entrance leads to twin ramps as dark as the building's exterior. Dusty cars and trucks, jumbled boxes, and junk of all description crams the lower level. It looks like an archeological dig. The cops would never find anything here, probably wouldn't even try. Machine heads to a wooden shack between the dark up and down ramps. He circles wide around the shack, eyes and ears reaching into the dark, before approaching the open door. A TV in the booth is tuned to the Bible History Quiz Show, but the booth’s single chair is empty. Horace is here somewhere, probably with a gun on Machine's back.
Machine steps away from the door and turns to face a small sound, the Smith instantly in his hand, but held low at his side. On the far side of the garage, a silhouette detaches itself from the shadows and Horace steps into the light, pocketing a handgun. There's another silhouette behind Horace, a six-foot-eight, four-foot wide, four-hundred pound shadow carrying a sawed-off aluminum baseball bat. The Ox, Horace’s silent partner. The Ox can bench-press a Buick and calculate Pi to 100 decimal places. His forehead bulges over deeply set eyes.
“I need the spare key for the Lincolns,” Machine says without preamble or explanation.
Horace nods. The old man has wild gray hair, a dirty face streaked with grease and blue eyes as sharp as ice picks. Dressed in greasy overalls, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, he sidesteps Machine, enters the booth, and grabs a key off a pegboard. Ox remains outside, eyes on Machine.
“Sorry about your ma,” the Ox says, which is just about as many words as Machine has ever heard him speak at one time.
“Thanks,” Machine says and the Ox nods.
“You know where they are,” Horace says as he passes the key over. “You're two weeks past due,” he adds, not an accusation, just a statement of account. A banker relating financial information to a client.
Machine doesn’t quibble; he takes four hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and passes them over. Horace stashes the cash and Machine heads upstairs.
The Lincolns are on the third level, side by side under brown tarps. They're fully-loaded, cruise control, leather, power windows tinted a deep black, forty-gallon fuel cells, and enough C-4 to blow the garage to the moon. He strips the cover off the nearest car, reaches under the front bumper and flips a switch that deactivates an explosive charge mounted under the car's dashboard, then unlocks the driver's side door, tosses the duffel in, and drops behind the wheel. He starts the car and sinks back into the leather as Haydn fills the car with violin strings through the stereo speakers.
The Lincolns came equipped with conventional electric engines, but Moses had them retooled to accept the aluminum block, sixteen-valve engine outlawed for civilian use, the same engine the battle cruisers use.
Machine lets the car warm up before backing from the space and driving down the ramp. Horace and the Ox are nowhere in sight. He turns out of the garage, flips on the headlights and aims the Lincoln for the gates of New Town.
13
N
ew Town's North Gate is actually two metal arms raised by electric motors when a driver's security card is accepted. One lane in, one lane out - a bottleneck. A small guardhouse formed of tinted bulletproof glass and four-inch thick steel panels stands beside each gate. Two Jesus creeps man each one.
As Machine pauses at a granite and chrome pillar set before the gate at window level, a helicopter gunship buzzes overhead, its rotor churning the air as it makes its endless circle of New Town. Machine swipes one of the three access cards he carries over the electric eye. He uses the lowest priority card, which authorizes access to all the city's common areas and the building his apartment is in. The top shopping malls, clubs and restaurants are excluded. The card lists his profession as student. Just another kid driving his father's car.
The gate's arm lifts and Machine enters the city by the Beltway.
The Beltway is ten lanes of elevated highway that describes a figure eight inside the walls surrounding New Town. The highway's two loops merge at the center of the city, near the chrome-glass pinnacle of the Church of Faith. Other than the highway, New Town's only other surface structures are featureless glass cubes in bright reds, blues, greens, and yellows. Despite the colors, they are unappealing to the eye. A geometric arrangements of children's blocks awash with floodlights. No citizens are outside to enjoy the grounds. There are no sidewalks and no streets except the Beltway. The trees and shrubs are to be enjoyed from above. They could be made of plastic.
None of the buildings are more than four or five stories tall. In New Town only the parking levels are above ground. Beneath the glass structures' lowest levels lies the real city. Walkways, both electronic and pedestrian, and an underground electric tram provide access from building to building.