‘Who is this Burns?’
‘It’s Scardi’s moniker. . . alias. Scardi was very big in the news about seven years ago.’
‘Oh, bell,’ she said, ‘seven years ago I was seventeen and living in Mudville, Utah, and all I cared about was Warren Beatty and rock and roll.’
‘Then he’s just the trigger. Somebody else wants you scratched and that’s the somebody I want.
‘it sounds personal.’
‘Well, it got that way...’
‘Why? Because of me, Sharky? Because you thought I was dead?’
Livingston saved him.
‘You gonna be okay?’ he asked Domino.
‘Yes. And I thank you.’
‘Sure.’ He turned to Sharky. ‘I’m gonna check in with Friscoe but I’m not givin’ him this number. I’ll set up a phone drop, have him leave a number. For now I’d like to keep this place between the four of us.’
‘Good idea,’ Sharky said. ‘What we should do, I can stay here with her. You meet the Machine someplace and fill them in. Everybody needs to know.’
‘Right. Be back in a minute.’ He went in the other room to make the call.
Sharky moved the suitcase off the chair and dropped into it like a sack of cement.
‘You look like something out of a horror movie,’ Domino said. ‘When’s the last time you were in bed?’
‘I forget.’
‘Come here.’
‘If I lay down on that bed, I won’t get up until Easter.’
She looked at him and mischief played at her lips. ‘Wanna bet?’
Sharky thought about it. He wasn’t too tired to think about it. Then she held out her foot. ‘Would you mind helping me off with my boots?’
He went over, turned his back to her, and took the boot by the instep and heel and pulled it off. She watched him and when he had pulled the other off, she said, ‘Anybody ever tell you you’ve got a beautiful ass?’
Sharky turned around and looked down at her. ‘That’s supposed to be my line,’ he said.
‘Oh, piffle. Haven’t you heard? Times are changing.’ Livingston called to him from the other room and she sighed.
‘Saved by Ma Bell,’ she said ruefully as he left the room. Livingston handed Sharky a slip of paper with a phone number on it. It was a drop, the P in front of the number indicating a phone booth.
‘You got two urgents from The Nosh,’ Livingston said. ‘The first one was at six-ten, the other one about ten minutes ago. He says he’ll be at this number until seven-thirty.’
A warning bell went off deep inside Sharky, but he didn’t stop to analyse it. It was seven-thirty already. He grabbed the phone and dialled the number.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The apartment houses along Piedmont Road facing the sprawling inner city park were a tawdry souvenir of more elegant times. Once, near the turn of the century, the park had hosted the International Exposition and on one brilliant afternoon John Philip Sousa had introduced ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ before an assemblage that had included the President of the United States. But the grandeur of Piedmont Road was long gone. The lawns in front of the apartment buildings had eroded into red clay deserts infested with old tyres and broken bottles. Behind paneless windows covered with old blankets derelicts of every kind huddled together in the agony of poverty, cooking over cans of Sterno or, worse, drinking it to forget their lost dreams.
The Nosh sat huddled behind the wheel of his Olds watching one of the battered apartments up the street. He was getting nervous, even a little scared. He looked at his watch. Seven-thirty. Time for the meet. Why the hell didn’t Sharky call?
He reached under the seat, got his flashlight, and climbed out of the car. And then, with blessed relief, he heard the phone in the booth ring.
lie caught it on the second ring.
‘Hello.’
‘Nosh? It’s Shark.’
‘Hey, man, I was gettin’ worried. I’m runnin’ outa time.’
‘What do you mean, runnin’ outa time?’
‘I got this weird phone call about six o’clock, Shark. Guy tells me he can identify the voice on the tape. “What tape?” I says and he says, “The Chinese tape.” So I says to him, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about” and he says, “Don’t be dumb — the one from Domino’s apartment” and then be tells me he can identify the guy on the tape for a hundred bucks, but I gotta come to this apartment on Twelfth and Piedmont alone before seven-thirty. So I argued a little, you know, told him I ain’t goin’ no place alone and then he says I can bring you
‘He said me? He said my name?’
