Machine's Work: A Hyper-Violent Crime Thriller (Assassination City Book 1)

by Jack Cuatt

The rain has stopped. The valet in the flak-jacket is gone. Two straight couples are waiting at the curb for his return. Machine trots down the stairs and turns left. It's almost three in the morning. He's dead tired. He heads for his hotel.

  The streets get darker and more deserted as he nears Tatum and the beginning of the projects and flophouses. His feet slapping the wet pavement are the only nearby sounds. He’s one block from his hotel, passing a pitch black alley, when he spots something moving fast up the steps of a burned-out tenement at mid-block. The impression is blue silk and dark hair. Instantly, he thinks of the hard-eyed Asian he just saw at the Roundup. Machine changes direction, crosses the street, jogs through a vacant lot, and ducks down the first alley he comes to. He turns right at the next street, sprints up the steps of a squat limestone structure with huge marble columns covered in graffiti, ducks through a door and heads toward the back of the building.

  At the end of the main hallway, blocking the exit, a man's body lies across the passage. The corpse is bloated, purple-black and stripped to its underwear. Its chest is covered in clotted blood from a dozen deep stab wounds. Machine steps over the dead man and out into the alley where he slows to a fast walk. After ten blocks he feels safe enough to stop. He leans in the doorway of a half-demolished factory four blocks from the river and listens to the night. Rustling trash, chattering rats. Nothing more. He breathes evenly, relaxing by degrees. He checks his watch. 3:30 AM. Wearily he pushes himself off the wall and heads back to his hotel.

  The street in front of the hotel is empty. Dark buildings and stripped cars. Trash moves on a breeze that smells of burned rubber. He steps from cover and walks toward the lighted door of the hotel thirty feet away. As he reaches the front door he sees something beneath the tattered awning of a bankrupt furniture store. Something darker than the night. His hand freezes on the door's handle. Hammerskins or Crips? Maybe the Asian from the Roundup? He steps into the small lobby, too tired to worry about it anymore. Let them come.

  The desk clerk is asleep with his butt on a metal stool and his head on the sweat-stained wooden counter. Behind him the TV is on. An evangelist proclaims the healing power of Jesus and the value of a dollar. One gets the other. It isn't exactly clear which is which. Machine doesn't wake the clerk. He steps behind the counter, takes the key from its peg and climbs the stairs, stepping lightly. He unlocks the door of room 207, steps inside and locks it behind him.

  Not bothering to bathe, he strips the sheets and mattress from the bed frame, drops the mattress on the floor in front of the door, spreads his jacket over it, then puts the Smith on the floor beside it. He strips to his underwear, lies down, and closes his eyes. He has to be up in seven hours. He has people to see.

  Sleep comes quickly followed by dreams. Blood and sorrow. A promise of eternal pain. Machine is used to it.

  15

  Machine awakens at 10:30 AM. For a moment he lies still, looking at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of running water, voices, radios, and TVs. Feet tread the floor above his head, shuffle-stepping. Down the hall a baby is screaming.

  Machine gets up from the mattress, returns it to the bed and steps into the tiny bathroom, leaving the door open. He hangs the holstered Smith on the towel rack within easy reach, turns on the shower and steps under the rusty trickle. The water is cold, but he endures it, scrubbing himself until his pores feel clean and his skin is sore.

  He redresses in dark slacks and a black button-down shirt then straps on the chest-pack. Using the strip of Velcro, he wraps the razor flat against his forearm, holsters the Smith and slips into a black wind-breaker. From the personal effects left on the sink while he showered, he takes a thin piece of Titanium wire shaped like a large paper clip. One side of the clip is bent at varying angles along its length; the other is curved. A lock pick, incredibly strong for its size. The idea is to rock it through a lock, hoping that some combination of the angles will match the tumblers and bounce them into place. Perfect for handcuffs. Machine slides it into a small slit cut into the underside of his belt. One of Moses' tricks, easily overlooked by the most scrupulous frisk.

  After wiping down the room for fingerprints, he drops the key behind the hotel's front desk without disturbing the still dozing clerk and steps out into the washed-out sunlight. An old partner of his father's, a retired Christian Police detective, Stanley Korsack, lives in an apartment building six blocks from the hotel. Ten minutes later, Machine is climbing the outside steps of a badly aging glass and steel apartment building.

  The building is covered in graffiti. As ugly as a tumor in the morning's unforgiving haze. Stanley lives on the third floor.

  Machine has no special love for Stanley. The old man is so crooked he has to screw his gun belt on. While on the force, Stanley and his crew of dirty cops had been well-paid body-removers and sometimes body-makers for Vlad Kukov. If the price was right, an arrest could easily become an execution. In the four years since Stanley's retirement, Moses has kept the old cop alive with large sums of cash for small jobs. It wasn’t charity. Stanley still has friends on the force.

  Condom wrappers and crack vials litter the stoop. A whore's quick trick spot. The walls are urine-streaked and covered in Crip-graffiti. Machine climbs the stairs to the third floor and knocks at a door marked 306.

  A shadow passes the door's peephole and the door opens a crack on its own weight. Machine pushes through into a gloomy living room that smells like Lysol but looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years. Stanley, a bone-thin wreck with broken blood vessels in his nose and cheeks, stands in the middle of the room looking nervous.

  Machine closes the door.

  Stanley is carefully dressed in a neat gray suit, a bold red tie and blue waist coat. His hands are bloated and purple. With two sausage-sized fingers he's plucking at a light gray fedora. Machine has caught him on the way out.

  “Machine,” Stanley slurs. At 11:00 AM it's hard to tell if he's drunk or high or neither. He always looks the same: juiced up. “I was worried about you. I heard about Connie and Red Sleeves.” Stanley shakes his head and dabs at an imaginary tear with a bloated finger.

  “That's why I'm here,” Machine says as he flips the deadbolt.

  Stanley's lower lip drops and his right hand slips quickly into his jacket pocket. The ghost of the cold-blooded killer can be seen in that suddenly steady hand, but his jittering eyes give him away.

  “I don't get you,” Stanley says, his hand inching further under his coat. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  Machine would have laughed if he had it in him. As junked up as Stanley is, he couldn't organize a hit on himself.

  “I need your help,” Machine reassures the old chopper, remaining motionless, his back to the door. There's no telling what Stanley has in his pocket. Machine would rather not find out. “I want the chopper who did the work. You still have friends on the force.”

  Stanley relaxes. His hand drops and he becomes instantly officious. The cop comes out. “Description,” he says, looking out of place without a note pad.

  Machine gives it to him.

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I'm meeting some of the fellas at the track. I'll ask around, quiet-like. Your father was a friend of mine. I'll do all I can.”

  “Moses didn’t have any friends,” Machine replies. “And neither do you.”

  Stanley frowns at that, but he doesn’t argue the point.

  “When was the last time you saw Moses?” Machine asks the same question he put to Charlie Mack. He'd like to find out what Moses was doing during his two weeks AWOL - the weeks just preceding the murders at the Metro.

  Stanley squints at the floor for a long moment. “A month, maybe five weeks ago,” he says finally. He looks up with genuine sadness. “A long time.”

  Machine takes a step to the left, unlocks and pulls the door open in one motion.

  “If I find out something, I'll call,” Stanley says. “I want to help,” he adds
earnestly, but he has something else on his mind. Stanley licks his lips and rubs his swollen index finger and thumb together. “You think I can maybe get a little something to get me through the month? I wouldn't ask but...” he doesn't finish explaining; instead he makes a helpless gesture with his hands.

  Machine reaches for his wallet and peels off ten hundreds. Stanley's eyes take in the cash and five years drop off his wrinkled face.

  “I'll call when I get something,” he promises as he folds the money into the pocket of his slacks. “Maybe one of the fellas will know something.” He nods jerkily, anxious for Machine to go.

  Machine exits. He takes the stairs down, looking at his watch. He has a couple of hours to kill before his next stop. He decides to do some shopping for work clothes. The Free Zone has a dozen thrift stores and resale shops open during the daylight hours.

  16

  After dropping off the clothes at his hotel and reclaiming a Lincoln from Horace's garage, Machine hits the streets behind the wheel. There isn't a lot of traffic in Low Town at three in the afternoon - a few businessmen looking for an early rising hooker, junk-sick heroin addicts looking to score, and homeless kids who have nowhere else to be.

  Machine cruises Washington looking for Finnegan, a panhandler, petty conman, and needle freak. Loyal to no one, Finnegan is a professional snitch. Machine keeps the mental picture focused, a mop of red hair, rags, and pink-brown lesions, as he inspects doorways and alleys for three blocks around the Metro. The junkie usually panhandles the retail areas near the North Gate early in the afternoon. The Christian police don't hassle virus carriers.

  After two hours, Machine gives up. He pulls to the curb a block from the concrete facade of the Metropolitan Station as a herd of blackened factory workers explode from the doors, anxious to get to their hovels and a night of television and booze. He locks the car and strolls the district, checking the bars and the shooting galleries, ending his search in Lee Park where the junkies and crack-heads score and use. No Finnegan.

  A dark fog pregnant with soot is crawling into the city when Machine returns to the Lincoln. Not for the first time that day he wonders if Finnegan has finally been worked, or succumbed to the virus.

  Machine drives to the garage off Lexington. As he turns in, Horace and the Ox are briefly silhouetted in the Lincoln's headlights. They’re near the back of the lower level, standing in the shadow of a concrete pillar. Horace has a black automatic in his hand. Ox is holding his sawed-off baseball bat. Horace pockets the pistol as Machine cuts the headlights and turns up the dark ramp.

  The Lincoln's bumpers come whisker-close to the concrete walls. Machine takes the almost pitch black corners fast, the automobile as fluid as a horse. He turns into the slot beside the other Lincoln, kills the engine and exits the car. After dropping the cover over the Lincoln and activating the alarm and explosives, he crosses the oil-stained concrete to the down ramp.

  Horace and the Ox are waiting at the bottom. As Machine nears the two men, Horace turns and walks toward the far right-hand corner of the garage, beckoning Machine to follow. The Ox brings up the rear, but stays far enough back to keep Machine from getting nervous.

  Horace leads the way through a maze of broken-down cars, engine blocks and unidentifiable junk piles. He stops in a cul-de-sac between two rusted old diesels. A tarp is spread over two lumpy shapes lying on the concrete floor. Horace kneels, grabs a corner of the tarp and pulls it off then stands and backs off a step.

  Two corpses are lying on the concrete. Both are clean-cut, mid-twenties, wearing jeans and black denim jackets. Their bodies beneath the clothes are twisted and bent like pipe-cleaners. Their faces and hair are clotted with dried blood. Ox's work. A baseball bat can be just as effective as a 9mm hollow-point.

  “Recognize them?” Horace asks without taking his eyes off the bodies.

  “Hard to tell,” Machine replies. “I don't think so.”

  “I told Ox not to fuck up their faces. He didn't listen,” Horace grumbles, looking sidelong at the huge man with the baseball bat.

  The Ox shrugs.

  Horace continues. “They came here at about 3:00 AM last night. We followed them upstairs. They went straight to the Lincoln, pulled off the tarp and one of them slid under it. Ox bashed that one,” Horace points to the body on the left, “then he dragged the other one out. We asked some questions but got nothing.”

  Machine looks the two corpses over more thoroughly. He still doesn't recognize them.

  “They had a crowbar and both of them had handguns,” Horace adds. “No ID, no jailhouse tats or scars on that one,” Horace points at the corpse on the left. He turns the finger to the one on the right, “But he's got the hammer brand on his right bicep. Sure you don't recognize them?”

  Machine shakes his head again, wondering what the two dead men were planning. Did they have anything to do with the work at the Metropolitan Station? And how did they know about the Lincolns? First someone rips off the weapons stash in New Town and now this. Two places that Machine was sure were secure have been compromised.

  What had Moses been into?

  “Two for the river, Ox,” Horace says as he turns and walks back toward the front of the garage.

  Machine lingers a moment with the Ox. “You need help with this?” he asks the giant.

  The Ox shakes his head.

  Machine reaches for his wallet, but the Ox shakes his head again. “Part of the service,” he says.

  Machine nods and heads out. He exits the garage on foot and turns left on Lexington. Machine walks three blocks into the Free Zone, into the turmoil of sex, dope, and money all washed in tawdry neon.

  As he crosses the Avenue near the Metro, a Cobra gunship makes a lightning-fast pass twenty feet above street level, its rotor wash churning up trash and scattering straights and freaks clutching their hats and hairdos. The helicopter peels off sharply, turning almost vertical before disappearing behind the Metro. The volume on the street jumps back to normal. People leave doorways and alleys, giggling and patting their clothes and hair, or shoving and cursing.

  Machine ducks down an alley, drags out the prepaid cell phone and dials the number to the answering machine at the New Town apartment. The answering machine picks up and Machine punches buttons.

  “You have one new message,” the woman's monotone informs him, “Would you like to hear it now?”

  Machine pushes ‘one’ for ‘yes’ and Fat Paul's voice crackles in his ear.

  “Machine, call me.”

  Maybe Kukov found something, he thinks. But the excitement dies fast. It's more likely that there’s work to be done. Murders to be committed. Only one way to find out. Paul should be at Dino’s by now; it opens in less than an hour.

  Machine heads south toward the Historic District. Fifteen minutes later he's crossing the L-shaped asphalt parking lot of Dino's Supper Club.

  Dino's is a two story mirrored-glass cube draped in blue neon. A few ratty-looking electric cars are parked near the dumpsters at the rear of the building. Paul's Cadillac sits in the customer's lot, parked in a spot reserved for the handicapped. No valet is on duty, but a plywood sign on the curb announces that the cost is ten dollars. Ignoring the front door, Machine cuts down the alley to a steel fire door near the dumpsters.

  The door isn’t locked. It opens on the kitchen’s dishwashing station - two sinks and a drying machine. The kid washing dishes looks up from a steaming sink of pots and pans. A butcher knife emerges from the greasy water in his right hand. Dark eyes under a tangled mess of shoulder length hair stare at Machine over the blade.

  Machine steps through the steel door and closes it behind him, looking from the knife to the dishwasher's eyes. All movement begins with the head.

  “What’d you want,” the dishwasher asks in a stiff Bottoms drawl, pointing the dripping knife at Machine's midsection, pretending he knows how to use it.

  “That’s not your problem,” Machine says as he steps past him, coming within a foot of the soapy
blade.

  Two narrow aisles run perpendicular across the kitchen with work stations in the middle. Along the back wall are a pair of industrial stoves and a bank of refrigerators. Pans, pots, dishes, and cutlery hang from the ceiling and are stacked on metal tables. Ten people in grubby whites preside over pastry boards, steaming pots and blazing ovens. From his perch on a stool at the center of the rear aisle, Bonito, Paul's obese master chef, imperiously directs the production.

  “Evenly,” he shouts, wagging a lazy finger at a woman shredding lettuce. “Like all the same fucking size, understand?” Bonito’s pot belly overflows his white pants and rests on his thighs. His face is red. His bald head is covered by a chef's cap two sizes too large. He's too busy yelling to notice Machine walking swiftly past a row of cooling racks and out the swinging door into the dining room.

  The dining room is large and spacious with wine-red carpet, plush wing chairs, and tables and booths spaced far enough apart to afford privacy. Diffused lighting comes from recessed spots in the ceiling and the candles burning on every table. A half-dozen waiters and busboys in white jackets are circling the tables straightening chairs and silverware.

  A carved antique oak bar is on the left. Behind the bar is the door to Paul's private office. Machine heads for it, pretending not to see the doorman seated near the restaurant's entrance.

  Upon sight of the teenager dressed in black, the doorman bounces out of the chair quick enough to break his neck. Barrel-chested and short, with an impressive set of arms and shaggy eyebrows, he charges across the dining room raising his left hand while reaching under his jacket with his right.

  “Hold up!” He shouts, weaving through the tables at a half trot.

  Machine stops near the bar and turns to face the doorman. He isn't part of the Kukov family, unless he's a recent recruit. More likely he's a bully boy Paul hired to watch the front door and call cabs. A wannabe.

  “Where you going?” The doorman asks, stepping way too close. The busboys and waiters stop what they’re doing to watch the confrontation.