by Jack Cuatt
Exit ramps angle off the highway down covered drives. Huge green and white signs indicate the buildings' names and a list of their commercial and retail tenants. Underground, a person's access is limited based on income, credit history, and social position, all of which is imprinted on the card’s magnetic strip. Another way for the government to keep track of where the taxpayer's money goes. No cash exchanges are allowed in New Town, one of the reasons Low Town still survives.
Machine takes the Eli Whitney Building exit. Inside the structure, the driveway splits, yellow arrows indicating tenant parking to the right and the service entrance to the left. He takes a left.
The ramp spirals to the lowest level of the garage and ends at a wide concrete loading bay. Along the far wall is a row of huge green dumpsters attached to chutes that carry trash up from the floors below. The rest of the loading area is empty. Machine pulls into the head custodian's space, a perk the custodian is paid four hundred dollars a month for.
Machine locks the Lincoln, but doesn't arm the explosives, and enters the building through the steel service door which opens on a bleak gray hallway. He stops just inside and listens, straining for sounds of other people. All quiet. It's almost 9:00 PM, long past quitting time for domestics. He continues down the corridor, passing labeled doors - laundry room, store room, boiler room. The employee elevator is at the end of the hall. He has to wait for it to ascend. The elevator is huge with a metal grating for a floor. He steps inside, pushes 10 and leans against the wall.
Machine's family's apartment is one of two on the floor. The other is leased by Moses as well. The rent is high, but peace of mind is dear, especially to a junkie hit man. Machine exits the elevator and heads for a door marked 10A.
The apartment is exactly as it was left. Stark white leather sofa and chairs, black carpet and white-washed walls.
Machine closes the apartment door and heads for the kitchen. A bottle of orange juice is the only thing in the refrigerator. He drains it, dumps the bottle into the trash and crosses to the far corner of the room. Gripping a black lacquer bookcase with both hands, he turns it out from the wall, kneels and peels back the carpet to reveal a floor safe.
The safe is a small cylinder set in concrete. Only Moses and Machine knew the combination. Inside are two legal size envelopes and a pair of safety deposit box keys. He retrieves one of the envelopes, leaving the other and the keys where they are. The old envelope contains bank books for six off-shore accounts, only a phone call away, but safe from confiscation.
The first envelope is stuffed with bills from the safety deposit boxes that Machine had cleaned out the day before his mother arrived home from Stone Lake Asylum. All of the currency is in hundreds. The envelope bulges with worn and crumpled cash. Taking twenty-five thousand dollars, he puts the rest back in the envelope, closes the safe, shoves the bookcase back in place, and examines the corner for any sign of his activity. It looks undisturbed.
In his bedroom, he quickly packs a gym bag with slacks, shirts, socks, and underwear. From a dresser drawer he takes a large black chest-pack, only slightly smaller than a backpack, with shoulder straps, a waist cinch and a dozen compartments. Inside the pack are a medical kit, gun oil, gun cleaning equipment, lock picks, a whetstone, a roll of flesh-toned surgical gloves bound with a rubber band, a mini-tool kit, and other miscellany of the trade. Everything a good chopper needs. With the money broken into smaller bundles and distributed on his person, he leaves the apartment and heads for the elevator.
At surface level, he peels four hundred dollars off the roll in his right hand pocket, shoves it under the concrete wheel-stop in front of the janitor's parking space, climbs into the Lincoln and backs out. He has one other stop to make in New Town, a small warehouse in the commercial district, the part of town where auto garages and sanitation companies are located.
At the top of the building's exit ramp, Machine flips on the Lincoln's headlights and merges with the sparse evening traffic. The warehouse district is located on the south side. It only takes fifteen minutes to get there on the Beltway. He exits down a ramp labeled Rhenquist Storage & Warehousing.
The Rhenquist Building is four stories of black glass with antennas and satellite dishes growing like silver hair from the roof. It's a low-level access building, middle-class storage, nothing of real value. There are no security personnel, but the building is wired to the Jesus creeps via satellite and closed circuit TV.
The garage is well lit, each floor a half acre of concrete and white stripes. Machine backs the Lincoln into a space near the up ramp. He looks over the lot as he walks to the elevators. A pair of cheap Italian Electrons and a Vespa are parked near the elevator doors. A sixteen-wheeled satellite hauler, rented from U-Haul, is parked across a dozen spaces near a larger elevator in the far corner. No movers are in sight. Machine swipes his access card across a magnetic plate and waits for the elevator.
It doesn't take long. He steps inside, the doors close, and the elevator descends. He steps off on the third floor down, and is forced to step aside as a pair of men in overalls wheel a sofa down the hall. When they're past, he follows numbered arrows painted on the floor, passing only one other person, a sour-faced old woman sorting a bag of children's toys in the middle of the hallway.
Machine stops in front of room 667. The storeroom's doors are as wide as two house doors and formed of tempered steel panels. A solid steel padlock, extraneous to a coded electric keypad, hangs from a hasp. Most of the doors lining the hall still have the old fashioned locks. People trust what they know works, or at least what they think works. His father was no exception. Coming close to death on a daily basis makes you cautious.
Machine fishes his key ring out and opens the padlock. A push of three buttons and the steel doors open with a pneumatic hiss. Carrying the padlock, he steps through and closes the doors behind him then flips the light switch on.
A one-hundred-watt bulb buzzes to life, its glare reflecting dully off the gray cinder-block walls and concrete floor. The room is empty.
Machine is momentarily stunned. Where he expected to see duffel bags and cardboard boxes labeled CLOTHES, KITCHEN or BATHROOM, but actually filled with shotguns, pistols, explosives, and ammunition, only dust remains. His fingernails carve half-moons in his palms. Someone has stolen what took Moses and Machine years to acquire. Anger floods his brain black, but it only lasts a moment before the cold seizes control. Anger is useless. The equipment is gone, that's it. But, maybe the thieves didn't get everything…
Crossing to the corner nearest the door, Machine kneels and digs his fingernails into the mortar between two cinder blocks on the bottom row. It's soft - gray Play-Doh. The walls between this room and the next are double cinder-block with a gap between. A perfect place to stash small items. Machine peels away the Play-Doh and rocks the block out of its niche. He shoves his hand into the gap and drags two black nylon bags into the light. One is bulky and heavy while the other weighs only a few pounds. He opens the lighter of the two bags, already half knowing what he'll find. Moses stashed it there the last time they were here together. His father was in high spirits that day.
Inside the bag are two kilos of black tar - Mexican heroin - so named for its sticky blackish-brown consistency - wrapped in aluminum foil and sealed in plastic bags. Looks like another dealer has contributed his dope and his life to Moses' addiction. Machine zips the nylon bag closed and shoves it back into the gap. The other bag is far more interesting.
What the bag contains isn't much compared to what the room had once held, but it's better than nothing. A Pancor Jackhammer twelve-gauge shotgun, with three loaded drum magazines and a half case of mixed smoke and HE rounds lies on top. Under the Jackhammer, a Heckler and Koch MP5-A3 9mm SMG with a retractable stock is jumbled in with a half-dozen rag-wrapped .45s and 9mms. At the very bottom of the bag are a dozen clips for the pistols, several silencers and a dozen boxes of 9mm and .45 caliber Hydra-Shok. He zips the bag closed, shoves it back in the hole, then replaces t
he cinder blocks and Play-Doh. One final look around the empty room and he exits.
The old woman and her toys are gone. Machine rides the elevator up alone. Back in the parking garage, he notices the U-Haul satellite truck has departed. He unlocks the Lincoln, slides behind the wheel, starts the car, drives up the ramp, and turns toward the North Gate.
14
Due to a slow cruise of Low Town, it's after two in the morning when Machine arrives back at Horace's garage. Neither Horace nor the Ox are anywhere in sight. Machine parks and arms the Lincoln, then carries the duffel bag containing his clothes down the ramp and onto the street.
A sludgy drizzle is falling from black, low slung clouds. Machine heads for the strip. It's close to the witching hour, when the crowded bars, serving watered down drinks and salmonella poisoning in the pork rinds, close. There aren't many people on the back streets; a few junkies nodding in doorways, cut rate prostitutes, and the ragged homeless. Machine is home again.
He turns west on Washington Avenue and walks toward the south side of the Zone. The hunt is about to begin, but first he has to find a flop and ditch the bag.
He finds a men's hotel on Tatum Street, a narrow avenue of run-down hotels and crack-houses, pays the desk man and drops his bag in his room. It's just clothes, so it should be safe. Slinging the loaded-down chest-pack on under his jacket, he returns to the rain-shrouded street.
After an eight-block walk, he's soaked, gritty, and cold, and deep in the Bottoms, not far from the river. Only one building on the block shows signs of life.
Machine stops near the building, half-hidden by the night and the drizzle. Dim, multicolored lights glow from behind the windows. Expensive cars are lined up at the curb. A valet in a black flak jacket and shoulder holster stands near a portable podium. Above the building's main entrance a hot-pink neon sign announces the ‘Roundup Saloon.’ Above the sign are five stories of crumbling brick pocked by acid rain.
Everyone knows what goes on at the Roundup. A freakish combination of queens, straights, dope dealers, and junkies frequent the place. Junkies and stud hustlers rent rooms by the hour. Drug dealers rent permanent offices, though no actual dealing is done in the club itself. Charlie Mack, the Roundup’s part-owner - Kukov owns seventy percent - takes no risks.
As Machine heads up the steps, the valet gives him a street warrior’s challenging glare. He ignores it. He stops at the top and raps on the door. It instantly jumps open, the person operating it keeping to the shadows, and Machine steps through. A loud beep sounds as he passes the door's sill: a metal detector finding the 9mm and the razor.
The landing is dark and humid, the air gray with cigarette smoke. The muffled throb of country bass guitar vibrates the walls. Three shadows in black jumpsuits block the narrow hall. Machine recognizes two of them - Sol, a rail-thin ex-kickboxer and the imposing coffee-colored queen called Big Tina. The other is new, skinny and swarthy, with pig eyes and thinning hair. Machine nods at Big Tina as pig-eyes steps forward, hands out to frisk. Big Tina puts a restraining hand on the man's forearm and returns Machine’s nod with a tilt of the head, her eyes dead above a shadow of stubble and a smear of red lipstick. As Machine walks past her, she pulls a cell from her pocket. Tina isn’t stupid enough to try to take the young killer’s weapons - that would be suicidal - but she will put the rest of the crew on alert. A chopper's visit is always suspect.
The hall is only half as long as it should be, ending at double steel doors. Again Machine knocks and waits. The doors open on strobe lights and a whirling confusion of twisting bodies.
The place is packed. Most of the club's patrons are straights from New Town. They line the bar and fill the tables, talk too loud and drink too much.
The club is as wide as the building itself. The apartments have been gutted from the rear half of the building leaving an open space sixty feet tall. The flat roof is supported by metal I-beams. Stairways, catwalks and platforms crowded with tables create a confusing metal web over the dance floor, all of it strung with neon lights and luminescent cables that combine with the smoke from a hundred cigarettes to form a multicolored fog. Despite the industrial flavor of the cat-walks, stairways and neon, the Saloon has a western motif. Ropes, saddles, Confederate flags, and steer heads adorn the walls and a bucking machine fills a padded corner. The dance floor, surrounded by a wood railing, is covered in sawdust. But there's not a cowboy hat or piece of denim in sight.
Machine weaves through the crowd toward the private lounge at the back of the room where he knows he'll find Charlie Mack. Charlie used to head up one of the Playboy Gangster Crips’ dope crews, but he had bigger ambitions. He moved into the heroin trade, a business controlled by Vlad Kukov. Vlad saw a gold-mine in the young black dealer, but Charlie wouldn’t play along until Moses went to work on Charlie’s number two with a chainsaw. He and Machine dropped the pieces off in Charlie’s bedroom one night. Charlie has been working for Vlad ever since.
Machine avoids eye contact, but makes a path, moving people with a hand or elbow. Not aggressive, just insistent. At the bar a thin Asian, younger than Machine, gives him a steady stare over the rim of his glass. Machine ignores him. He doesn't need more trouble than he already has. The Asian's eyes follow Machine until he disappears into the crowd, then the Asian nods to himself and turns his eyes back on the dance floor.
Machine steps through a small gate into a fenced-off area, dimly lit, devoid of neon, and empty of people. A faded yellow sign reads AREA CLOSED FOR REMODELING. He sidesteps the sign and heads for a table at the back where the red embers of several cigarettes weave complicated patterns in the darkness like obese fireflies. He’s only taken three steps toward the table before a bouncer in a black jumpsuit peels himself off the wall and intercepts him.
“Hold up there,” the bouncer grunts through a smashed-flat nose. His brow is heavy with scar tissue. Calcium deposits from old breaks lump his jaw and knuckles. An ex-pit-fighter wiped out in the ring one too many times. It's a wonder no one finished him off for the body count bonus.
Machine stops five feet from the man's beer-gut, and looks over the bouncer's shoulder to the table at the back. From where he stands, he can see the huddled shadows of four men, though their features are obscured. Glasses and a half bottle of vodka sit on the table beside an overflowing ashtray. Machine smells the sticky odor of weed laced with the chemical stench of methamphetamine.
“Charlie,” Machine raises his voice to penetrate the deafening boom of bass. “I need to talk.”
The shadows put their heads together and confer before one of them rises and comes around the table to meet Machine.
Charlie is six-foot-five but weighs only a hundred and seventy pounds. He's not handsome with his gold-capped teeth, khaki-colored skin and red afro, but his navy blue silk suit is impeccably tailored. He waves the bouncer back to the wall.
“Machine, baby,” Charlie says in a laid back, nasal drawl. “I heard about your Mom, man. Some trippy shit.” His eyes are red-rimmed, the whites as yellow as egg yolk. “What's on your mind, baby?” Charlie glances over his shoulder at his friends, grins and nods.
“Let's get a table,” Machine points to one near the bouncer, but far from Charlie's crew.
Charlie shrugs, but his smile slips before coming back in a flash of gold.
“All right,” he says and shrugs.
Machine follows him to the table. A half-dozen pair of eyes trail them. Probably that many guns as well. Charlie eases into one of the chairs, smoothes his lapels and slides his hands under the table out of sight. Machine takes the opposite chair keeping his own hands in sight, flat on the table, making himself vulnerable to make Charlie more comfortable.
“Drink?” Charlie asks.
“No. I've got a favor to ask.” Machine is, as ever, blunt.
“A favor,” Charlie repeats thoughtfully. “What favor?”
“I want the chopper that worked my mother. And I want the man who paid him.”
Charlie nods, unsurprise
d and uninterested. “I'm not Missing Persons. Ain't there anybody else you can ask?”
Machine stares steadily across the table.
“Oh, that's right,” Charlie continues sarcastically. “I forgot. Most of the people you meet end up dead,” he laughs, but it’s not a friendly sound. “What do you expect me to do?”
“Ask around,” Machine answers tersely. He shows respect and expects to receive it in return. Charlie is pushing the line. He must think he's bulletproof.
“Asking questions ain't a smart thing to do these days, Machine. What's in it for me?”
“Peace of mind,” Machine replies flatly.
Charlie's smile dissolves. He leans forward, hands still under the table, expression as bland as an alligator's. “You threatening me?”
“I don't threaten my friends.”
Charlie's eyes remain on Machine a long moment. Finally he blinks, puts his hands on the table and drums his fingers, thinking, calculating. He wants no part of Machine's trouble, but the teenager could be a formidable ally if Vlad ever decides Charlie has outlived his usefulness.
“Tell me what you know,” Charlie finally says.
Machine gives him the killer's description, keeping it brief: height, weight, age, general features, and eye color.
Charlie whistles softly. “Not much there,” he says dropping his fingers one by one. He shrugs. “I'll see what I can find out. No promises.”
Machine offers no thanks. “One more question. When did you last see my father?”
“A month ago. You were with him.”
Machine rises. The bouncer in black comes off the wall and the conversation at Charlie's private table stalls. All eyes follow Machine as he departs. He winds his way across the dance floor. The Asian is still at the bar. He watches Machine leave, eyes lidded, his drink forgotten.
Big Tina nods goodbye as she opens the front door for Machine.