Sharky charged through the madhouse, stepping over the wreckage of the awning. Uncle Sam was struggling to his knees, his six-foot trouser legs straggling out behind him.
‘You okay?’ Sharky yelled at him.
l would be if I could get these damn pants off.’
Sharky went on, racing to the end of the alley. He stepped cautiously into Queen Street and looked both ways. The street came to a dead end at the wall on his left. To his right it was clogged with merrymakers. No sign of Scardi. He walked past the first few shops, looking in through the windows.
Nothing.
The bleeding clown had vanished.
Scardi stood inside the fire door for a few moments gasping for breath. He had caught a glimpse of a big guy in a tweed Suit running after him. A cop? Some irate guest? He didn’t care. He saw the door on the landing below, the door that led out onto the giant pinball playing field. His escape route.
He leaned against the wall and staggered down to the landing, pulled the door open, and stepped over the spring- loaded guard rail that surrounded the tilted board.
It was like walking into his own nightmare. All around him, reflected on the mirrored walls, the Mylar ceiling, were grinning Orientals. They towered over him, mocking him, strobe lights flashing from their slanted eyes, colours kaleidoscoping from their rubber bodies, electricity humming through the springs that wound around their bases. I- fe was hypnotized by the fantasy garden, by the flashing lights, and he lurched crazily out among them like a somnambulist.
The upper part of the board was adjacent to the bottom of Ladder Street, separated from it by a wall of mirrors and plywood. Near the top over a narrow chute with bumpers on both sides, was the control booth for the ingenious ride. The operator, who controlled the speed of the ball, was too busy to notice the madman strolling through the maze of bumpers and chutes and tunnels. He had checked out all the controls. Everything was ready. He picked up an intercom phone. ‘Okay’ he said, ‘let ‘er roll.’
From the safety of the trinket shop Domino and Papa watched DeLaroza and Hotchins climb into the six-foot steel sphere. An attendant pulled the guard bar up and locked it across their laps.
The press was having a field day, shooting pictures, ordering the candidate and the owner of the spectacle to wave, smile, shake hands with the mob that crowded around.
From deep inside the infernal machine, the operator pressed the start button.
The steel ball began its descent.
The crowd was cheering, lining up to be next.
The ball plunged down into the tunnel.
Sharky had walked up Queen Street almost to the main thoroughfare and then turned and started back. Scardi was close by, he could feel it, sense the evil of the man. But where?
He walked back towards the end of the street. Then he saw the fire door, discreetly marked, camouflaged by shrubbery.
He ran down the street to the door, ‘waited a moment, listening, drew his Mauser, and then, shoving the door open, jumped inside and cased the stairwell.
Empty.
Bloody footprints led down the stairs to the other door. He followed them, waited for a second, and pulled the door open.
A moment after the operator had ordered the ride to begin he looked up and saw Scardi, wandering like a lost child among the field of flashing bumpers.
‘Hey, you!’ he screamed. ‘Get outa here, you crazy fool!’ The bleeding apparition kept coming towards him. ‘Oh, my God,’ he cried, ‘get outs there. The goddamn balls coming!’
He snatched up the emergency phone.
Scardi shot him in the head.
The operator fell to the floor. Scardi could hear the rumble as the ball began its descent. It boomed out of the tunnel at the upper end of the game, spiralled around the giant playing surface, and rolled out onto the board, struck the first bumper, bounced away from it in a blaze of lights and clanging bells. It sped up towards the top of the field, ricocheting off the guard rail into another bumper.
From inside the ball, DeLaroza saw the grinning face of Shou-Lsing, god of long life, grinning down at him as the steel car struck the springs around its base and bounced away, spinning around on its ball bearings, rolling towards another. It was picking up speed as it bit another bumper and another, jerking him and Hotchins from one side of the seat to the other. The ball sped past the control booth and he looked up.
There was no one in it!
‘My God!’ he cried out.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘There’s no one at the controls, no one to brake us.’
The ball struck another bumper and reeled away from it, spinning on its axis, and rolled into one of the narrow funnel-like bunkers, slowing as it went through the tight passageway.
At the other end Scardi was standing in a duelling position, his side facing the ball, his hand held straight out, aiming his pistol at DeLaroza.
DeLaroza’s eyes bulged as he saw the assassin standing there, waiting to kill him.
