The phone. The whole shooting match.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s tough shit,’ said Friscoe. ‘All we got is what’s down here in the dump. One lousy tape recorder and maybe a little help from the phone company to tap into her phone.’
‘I want the whole place,’ Sharky said.
‘Good luck,’ Livingston said.
‘I got just the guy for the job,’ Sharky went on. ‘He’ll love it. It’ll be a challenge.’
‘Who is this genius?’ Friscoe asked.
‘The Nosh,’ Sharky said.
‘Who the fuck is The Nosh?’
‘Larry Abrams. He’s got everything we need. Voice- activated recorders. Mikes the size of your fingernail. FM pre-amps for the pick-up. Let me tell you, The Nosh could plant a bug in a hummingbird’s ass.’
‘So where do we find this wonder boy?’ Friscoe asked.
‘Right here in the House. He’s in OC.’
Friscoe rolled his eyes. He shook his head. ‘Forget it,’ he said forlornly, ‘Organized Crime is D’Agastino’s outfit. That cheap guinea wouldn’t loan us the dog shit on his shoes.’
‘The hell with D’Agastino,’ Sharky said. ‘The Nosh and I go back long before either of us was on the force. I can sneak him out long enough to get it done.’
Friscoe thought about it for a few moments, then shrugged. ‘Look, it’s your machine, see. We all figure, maybe you can bring something into it we can’t. We’ve all been.. . you just get jaded after a while. You ‘wanna do some dog- robbing here in the House it’s okay with me. If the shit hits the fan, well.. . we’ll all duck.’
Sharky was thinking about The Nosh. Little Larry, fiddling around in the workshop in his garage, inventing gadgets that only he would ever use. He chuckled thinking about it.
‘I tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna be all over this Domino. Before we’re through we’ll know what she’s thinking. Because The Nosh and I, we’re going to put more wire in her place than an AT and T substation.’
Chapter Seven
Sharky guided the grey Dodge Charger down through a squalid warehouse district known as the Pits and parked in front of a bleak, washed-out two-storey brick building. He switched off the engine.
Livingston, sitting beside him In the front seat, slid down and lit a plastic-tipped cigar. ‘Welcome to Creepsville,’ he growled.
From the outside the building looked deserted. Weeds pushed through cracks in the sidewalk, water stains streaked its sides, a sign, ravaged by time and’ weather and barely readable, announced: For sale or lease. B. Siegel and Sons. The building had no windows, although here and there along its grimy face large squares of new brick indicated where several had been sealed up. Midway in the building was its only opening, a scarred, grim, ugly door with a single window covered with steel mesh. It was electrically operated and everyone entered and left the building through this single forbidding portai.
‘Looks like something you’d see in Russia. The
The building housed the Organized Crime Division, known as the OC, which was run by a pompous, taciturn political opportunist, Captain D’Agastino. Inside, a maze of computers, readouts, photo lines, and electronic gadgety connected the building, like a giant umbilicus, to the FBI.
‘D’Agastino runs this place like the fuckin’ CIA,’ Livingston said. ‘He doesn’t do zilch for us out on the street, him and that bunch of elitist shits.’
‘Bunch of assholes, you ask me,’ Papa volunteered from the back seat.
They fell silent. Livingston stared up at the sky thick with black, swarming clouds and blew a smoke ring which wobbled through the air like a flat tyre and fell apart against the windshield.
‘Gonna rain like a son of a bitch,’ he said.
More silence.
Sharky stared straight ahead, toying aimlessly with the steering wheel.
‘Thing is,’ Livingston said, ‘I don’t trust any of those turkeys in there.’
Silence.
‘Do you trust any of them, Papa?’ he asked.
‘Shit,’ Papa said with disgust.
Sharky picked lint from his suede pullover.
Livingston finally looked over at him.
‘And this Abrams, he’s a buddy of yours, hunh?’
Sharky nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well uh, how come you’re so thick with somebody In the goddamn OC?’
There it was, the big question. Sharky had felt it coming. They were testing him. And why not? He was the new kid on the block and already he was captain of the ball club and bringing in his own pitcher.
