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

by Jack Cuatt

  “You pay for the Škorpions now.” The dealer stops him, making a give it over gesture with his right hand.

  Machine doesn’t argue, he counts off the bills and passes them to the redneck, then stows the Škorpions under his jacket.

  The redneck turns to the tool box and starts digging again.

  “I'll take the silencers and clips tonight,” Machine cuts off the search.

  The hillbilly turns from the box, shrugs and nods. “All right.”

  Machine opens the rear doors and drops to the asphalt, the awkward bulk of the pistols wedged under the chest-pack. He hunches his shoulders against the rain. Lightning flashes in the distance. Thunder shakes the ground.

  The dealer locks the door and steps away from the van, peering at Machine from under the dripping bill of his cap. “I'm assuming you got a good reason for this stuff, and, that if you get caught, you ain't going to point no fingers.”

  “I don't make trouble for others.”

  “Good enough,” the dealers sticks out his hand. “Jerry.”

  Machine looks at the hand and shakes his head.

  “I'll be here at seven.” He turns and heads for the side gate, walking a diagonal line across the parking lot, keeping Jerry in sight. The redneck disappears up the loading dock's steps as Machine reaches the gate. The Jesus creep who is supposed to be watching the gate is gone, probably inside, out of the rain. Machine takes a left and trots back to the Granada.

  Rain drums on the Ford’s battered exterior and funnels through the rust spots to the asphalt below. He unlocks the door and drops behind the wheel. The rain's gray curtain isolates him inside the car. He takes the Škorpions from under his jacket and stows them under the front seat. He's happy with the purchase. The pistols' small size and rapid rate of fire are perfect for the Scarpo work. With the frags and the rifle, he only needs one other thing; a way into the compound.

  Before starting the car's engine, Machine takes the Smith and the razor from the glove box, straps them on and ditches the plastic strip. He feels whole again.

  Aftera stop in New Town for more money, he drives slowly through the rain, back to his hotel. He parks the Granada on the Avenue, beside his graffiti covered hotel, slides the Škorpions under his jacket, and exits the car.

  The rain has become a drizzle again. The air smells almost fresh, cleaner, easier to breathe. The street is empty except for a few cars prowling the Avenue. Machine locks the Granada and walks around to the front of the hotel.

  The desk clerk is smoking a joint behind the counter. He watches Machine through the clumsily rolled cigarette's smoke.

  Wordlessly, Machine drops a twenty on the counter.

  “Gracias,” the clerk mumbles, holding in the smoke, and hands over the key. The money disappears by the time Machine reaches the stairs.

  Machine locks his room's door behind him, slips out of his wet jacket, drapes it over the chair to dry, and lays the Škorpions on the bed's rumpled coverlet. What he needs is a place to stash the pistols until after the meet tonight. It would be bad enough to be caught with the Smith, but possession of a fully-automatic weapon in Low Town is an automatic twenty-five years in the prison factories. He looks around the room. There isn't much to work with. His eyes come to rest on the light fixture jutting from the center of the water stained ceiling.

  The fixture is a rusted metal plate bolted to the ceiling from which the light socket and bulb protrude. Above the plate will be a hole for the wires. Machine pulls the room's one chair beneath the bulb and slips on a pair of surgical gloves. From the mini-tool kit in the chest-pack, he takes a small screwdriver, steps up on the chair and removes the three screws holding the metal plate in place. He cautiously tests the weight of the plate against the furry old wires. They stretch taut, but hold.

  The hole in the ceiling is about four inches in diameter, too small to pass the guns through. The hole's edges are ragged and covered in spider webs. The yellowed sheetrock crumbles under his fingers. He quickly enlarges the orifice by two inches, tossing the chunks on the middle of the bed.

  With the hole widened all around, he steps down from the chair and uses a T-shirt to sweep the floor clean of powdered bits of sheetrock, then gathers the small pile in his hand and deposits it on the bed with the chunks.

  After wrapping the Škorpions in a clean T-shirt, he shoves the awkward bundle into the gap, allowing the weapons' grips to overhang the hole so that most of their weight will be supported by the metal plate. He screws the plate back in place and steps down to inspect his handiwork. The plate covers the enlarged hole as completely as it had the smaller one. No sign of tampering. The Škorpions should be safe.

  Machine takes the Smith from its holster, ejects the clip and ratchets the slide to eject the round under the hammer, then seats himself at the dresser and disassembles the damp 9mm.

  His fingers work expertly over the weapon as he thinks about the meeting tonight. He doesn't think the brothers are a hazard, but what about their friend? Someone dealing in heavy ordinance is likely to be more formidable than the two meth-heads he met today. The whole deal may be a scam. But he has to play it out. If things get complicated, three gun dealers will get closer to Jesus.

  When the Smith is reassembled, he reloads it before removing and discarding the thin plastic gloves.

  He takes the mattress from the bed, drops it in front of the door, lies down in his clothes, and looks at the ceiling. He finds a yellow spot among the many and focuses on it, breathing slowly through his mouth. The dot grows larger until it fills his vision. His limbs feel like they're floating, then cease to feel at all. Blackness and silence. Huddled in the darkness, deep inside, he finds momentary rest disturbed only by the need to keep a part of himself alert.

  22

  For three hours Machine lies on the hotel mattress, eyes open and staring, the precise pace of his breathing unchanged. At 6:00 PM his eyelids flutter, he sits up and turns his feet out on the floor. Through the room's dirty window, he sees the sun setting. The rain has stopped.

  He takes the Smith from the floor, holsters it and slips into his jacket, then leaves the hotel and drives back to the Convention Center.

  It's 6:30 PM by his watch. He's thirty minutes early. He would have liked to make it an hour, but the heavy Christian Police presence at these shows forces him to limit his exposure. The show has been over since 6:00 PM. The neighborhood surrounding the convention center boasts drug deals as its only source of commerce and the poor and gangbangers as its only residents. The cops close these shows down early to get the good citizens back to the suburbs or the walled city before dark.

  Machine backs into a space near the street and cuts the Granada's engine. From where he sits, he can see a corner of the convention center and a steady stream of traffic exiting the building's parking lot. On the sidewalk in front of the lot's gate, a Jesus creep in full riot gear is impatiently waving vehicles through, his back to Machine.

  Machine exits the car, locks it, and crosses the street at a trot. He reaches the opposite sidewalk and the first of the elevated highway’s massive support columns. He ducks into the shadows and quickly climbs up the weedy slope carved into tiers by brick retaining walls, into the cover of overgrown shrubs and scraggly, sun-starved trees. Dropping to hands and knees, he crawls to a sprawling dead chinaberry tree directly opposite the Center's open chain-link gate. The tree's low growing limbs won't completely shield him from view, but they will break up his outline. With the darkness it should be enough. He seats himself on the damp earth under the tree, leans back against the low wall supporting the next tier and puts his attention on the gate.

  His view is only slightly obstructed by the tree's limbs. The convention center's parking lot is a confusion of backing and turning trucks, screaming drivers, hurrying loaders, and Jesus creeps. This is the last day of the show, time for the gun dealers to move on to the next city on their route. Jerry's yellow van is two trucks back in the queue idling before the loading dock, waiting
their turn to load. Machine gets comfortable and prepares to wait.

  Fifteen minutes later the battered yellow van is one truck away from the dock, the younger brother behind the wheel. He stays there as Jerry gets out and walks to a red panel truck three vehicles back. Jerry steps up on the truck's running board and leans in the passenger window. It's too dark for Machine to see the truck driver's face.

  A spot at the dock opens. The younger brother taps the horn and guns the van's engine. The van lurches forward and makes a looping u-turn. Gears grind and the van lunges at the dock in reverse. Its rusted bumper rams the concrete at ten miles an hour. The van shudders and its engine dies. Jerry rejoins his brother and the pair start ferrying the contents of their booth out to the van. By the time they’re finished, night has settled and Machine's watch reads 7:10 PM Jerry slams the van's rear doors closed and, for a moment, the two brothers converse on the dock, oblivious to the glares from drivers still waiting in the queue.

  Jerry waves a dirty hand and smacks his palm with his fist. The younger brother stares at the concrete, nodding his head. The two break it up as a Jesus creep starts in their direction. They jump off the edge of the dock and climb into the van, Jerry behind the wheel. He pulls away from the dock and parks close to the fence that separates the parking lot from the street, in the shadow of a row of industrial-sized air-conditioners. A lighter's flame briefly illuminates the van's interior. Both brothers light up. The weak glow of a pair of cigarettes replaces the flame.

  Behind the sprawling tree, Machine stands, checks the Smith and razor and takes a deep breath, drawing in the chill, polluted air, then slips down the brick wall, paralleling the street, keeping low. He quickly crosses the street and turns left on the sidewalk in front of the convention center. The center's lights are off, the front entrance locked. He stops at the corner of the chain-link fence surrounding the dealers’ parking lot. Huge evergreen hollies stand in tight clusters along the fence, their branches entwined in the diamond pattern. Machine squeezes between two of the shrubs. It's a tight fit. The branches dig into him. Invisible from the street, covered by the rusting air-conditioners on the opposite side, he takes a short pair of wire cutters from the chest-pack, cuts a hole in the chain-link and steps through it, into the narrow corridor formed by the fence and the air-conditioners.

  The air is greasy with the odor of moldering hot-dogs and nachos from the dumpsters fifty feet east. Machine walks to the last air-conditioner, kneels and looks around the corner. The yellow van is twenty feet away. He can see a slice of the driver's side window and the pale green glow of dash lights, but nothing more.

  There are no vehicles within forty feet of the yellow van and the creep at the gate isn't paying any attention to the parking lot behind him. Machine steps from the shadows of the air-conditioners and trots to the rear of the van, feet falling lightly. Quietly, he slips along the flank of the vehicle then steps lightly up on to the running board.

  “Ready to do business?” he asks.

  Jerry is snorting fine yellow powder from a flattened-out piece of aluminum foil with the barrel of a disposable ballpoint pen. He almost jumps out of his clothes as Machine appears like a ghost. The powdered amphetamine goes flying.

  “Jesus Christ, what'd you to do that for?” Jerry squeals, leaning half out of his seat, away from Machine. “Sneaking around can get a man killed. I might’ve—”

  Machine cuts him off. “Are you ready to do business?”

  Jerry takes a deep breath, holds it for a second then lets it out. “We're ready,” he says. “We're waiting on the guy I told you about. He's at the dock right now.” He points a jittery hand at the red panel-truck and quickly regrips the wheel. “He's got everything you wanted.”

  Machine follows Jerry’s finger. The red panel-truck's rear doors are open. Men are moving back and forth carrying boxes. He looks back at Jerry.

  “How long?”

  “I reckon they're about done. He's got a couple of people helping.”

  “We can't do anything here with all these cops,” Machine points out. “Do you have a place?”

  “Tommy's got some land in Red Oak. He figured you'd ride with us.”

  Machine smiles at that. “I'll follow in my car,” he says.

  “That's not how Tommy wants to do it. We better stick to his plan,” Jerry says firmly, looking straight out the windshield.

  “We'll do it the way I said,” Machine replies. He isn't riding anywhere with this pair of junkies.

  Jerry shrugs. “All right tough guy. Let’s see what Tommy has to say about that.” Jerry’s little brother leans against the far door, looking out the window at nothing, his hands shaking.

  A sweaty guy in a camo tank top slams the panel-truck's rear doors closed and pounds twice on the roof. The red truck pulls away from the dock. Machine watches as the truck crawls toward Jerry's van. He can make out the outline of one person in the cab. The panel truck makes a sweeping right and pulls up on the passenger side of the van. One swarthy arm, heavily muscled and covered in jailhouse tattoos, is all Machine can see of the driver.

  “You guys set?” The guy asks in a smoker's growl.

  “He wants to follow in his car, Tommy,” Jerry says, leaning forward to peer past his brother, talking fast. “I told him that wasn't the plan, but he won't do it any other way.”

  Tommy laughs an unfriendly chuckle and his arm disappears inside the truck. He fumbles with something under his jacket and Machine palms the Smith, preparing himself to fall away from the van blasting. But Tommy's hand reappears with only a cigarette in it. A lighter flares inside the red truck, momentarily illuminating Tommy’s face. Thick lips, a jutting jaw and eyes like polished pebbles. Tommy extinguishes the lighter and sucks on the cigarette. The red ember lights his brutish features hellishly.

  Machine takes a second to scan the parking lot, taking in the diminishing number of trucks and people near the dock. A Jesus creep is on the loading platform barking orders, ready to shut it down for the night, while men hustle boxes into the backs of the waiting trucks. No one is paying any attention to the two vehicles parked near the fence.

  “It's his money. What's the plan?” Tommy says indifferently as he draws in a lungful of smoke.

  Machine speaks loud enough for Tommy to hear, but not so loud that his voice carries. “Give me five minutes then turn out of the lot. I'll follow you wherever.”

  “What're you driving?” Tommy asks, the cigarette's ember bobbing in front of his face, “So I don't lose you.”

  “I won't lose you,” Machine replies.

  Tommy shrugs. Mr. Affable. “Five minutes then. And you better have the fucking cash.” He fires a plume of smoke at the windshield. End of discussion.

  Machine drops from the running board and holsters the Smith. He stops at the rear of the van, takes a quick look around it, then sprints to the slit he cut in the chain-link fence. He shimmies through the leafy gap to the sidewalk and hurries to the Granada, eyes making their customary one-eighty, senses tingling with foreboding. He's positive now the dealers are planning a rip-off. Machine has killed a dozen men just like Tommy. It's always the cleverest guys that end up eating a bullet. But it doesn't matter; he has nowhere else to go for the weapons. He climbs behind the wheel of the Ford, confident that he can handle these three and ten more just like them. But he reminds himself to be careful. He can't afford to be injured in any way. The real work is Scarpo, not these survival freaks; he has to be one-hundred percent for that.

  He starts the Granada after transferring the Smith from its holster to his lap.

  The panel-truck and the van pull up to the gate, Tommy in the lead. Machine falls in behind them and hangs back. All three vehicles make the turn up the elevated highway's access ramp.

  Not many people use the highway at night anymore. It's not safe. Gangs cruise the roads. Asphalt pirates, the newspapers call them. They ram cars and rob, rape, and murder the occupants. Machine lags back, cuts into the second lane and paces the larg
er vehicles, keeping a quarter mile between himself and them as the caravan heads west for ten miles, exits on I-17, then rolls north through abandoned industrial parks and bedroom communities into the countryside. After forty-five minutes the red truck turns south on a state farm road, the yellow van on its bumper. Machine is fifteen seconds behind them.

  Beyond brush-choked fences, dark fields border a narrow strip of old asphalt. Large trees throw black branches out over the humped and pitted pavement. Machine kills the headlights and hangs back two hundred yards. After fifteen minutes of scrolling fields the trucks take another right. A left and another right follow. Machine pauses at each intersection and watches the trucks until he is afraid he might lose them before he follows. Turn after turn, the roads grow progressively smaller. Finally, the van and the panel truck make a left on a rutted dirt track. Machine stops at the crossroads and watches their taillights through a thin screen of trees. Less than a hundred yards down, the trucks make a left at a half circle dirt driveway edged in white stones.

  Machine takes his foot off the brake and the Granada rolls quietly past the intersection. Two hundred yards further down, he angles off the road just before a rusted old iron bridge.

  The road's shoulder slopes steeply down for twenty feet and ends in a level shelf of knee-high grass where a pair of the bridge's iron supports jut out of huge concrete blocks. Machine bumps down the slope, parks in the shadows of the bridge, cuts the engine, and exits the car. He eases the door closed, lifting the door handle and lowering it so the latch doesn't click. No telling who might be about; militia-types usually run in packs. He heads for the scrubby tree-line at the far edge of the plateau, eyes sweeping the landscape.

  The moon is a weary sliver moving toward rebirth, its pale light worse than none at all: so dim and watery it saps the color from the earth and makes ghostly shadows of the trees. Machine slips through a sagging barbed-wire fence and enters the woods.