Eureka (34 page)

“Just a misunderstanding,” he said finally. “We get a lot of rough trade in town. Can't be too careful.”

“Sure,” I said. “Anybody can make a mistake.”

I got up and motioned to Ski.

“Let's go, partner. I don't think Marcus'd fit in here.” I turned to Ione Fisher. “Thank you for your help,” I told her, and headed for the door. Ski followed me.

“No hard feelings, right?” Guilfoyle said as we went out the door.

“No hard feelings,” I said.

We went out and got in the car. Ski didn't say anything as I pulled away but his anger filled the car.

“Well, that went pretty well,” I joked, trying to lighten things up.

Ski wasn't in the mood for jesting. He didn't say a word until we were almost out of town.

Then:

“Guilfoyle doesn't know we were talking to Fisher about Lila Parrish.”

Silence.

Then:

“Guilfoyle's worried about some of his on-the-lam gunsels paying big bucks to hide out in Mendosa.”

More silence.

Then:

“My guess is they're staying at Shuler's place, that's what got Guilfoyle's shorts in a bundle.”

More silence.

Then:

“You kind of slapped his face in front of his boys.”

“It comes naturally.”

“You're dreamin' if you think it stopped back there, Zeke.”

CHAPTER 28

I stayed on the speed limit until we got to the city limits, then I laid on the gas, but a mile later we hit fog again. It wasn't as thick this time but I had to slow down to forty. Both of us kept an eye on the rearview mirror.

“I been thinking about it,” Ski said. “He's not dumb enough to kill a couple of cops. Do you think he's that dumb, Zee?”

“I hope not.”

“I mean, how dumb could he be?”

“You heard what Lefton said. If he is that dumb, they'll kill us, run the car into the ocean, take our bodies out to sea, and feed us to the fish.”

“I don't think he's that dumb.”

“Don't bet on it. You're the one who said it first. We're dreaming if we think it ended back there.”

We had made two miles before the fog slowed us down to thirty. I was beginning to relax.

A mistake.

Ski fell silent for a minute and then said, “So much for dreams. We got company again.”

I looked in the rearview. Two circles of light shimmering in the fog. Pinpoints. But getting larger. Closing faster than they should have in the fog.

“Jesus,” Ski said, mostly under his breath.

He reached up under the dash and snapped the 12-gauge pump from its saddle. He cracked it an inch. It was fully loaded. He checked his .38, opened the pocket in the dash, took out an extra clip for his S&W, one for my Luger, and a handful of shotgun shells, and we were as fully armed as was available. We had roughly forty rounds.

The lights grew larger.

I turned on the spotlight, aiming it as far ahead as the fog would let me, lowered the beam on the headlights, and stepped on it.

“Remember what Lefton said about going off the road.”

“They know the road, Ski, they're gaining on us.”

He twisted in his seat as much as he could and hefted the shotgun up to his shoulder.

“Let 'em get close enough for me to put one shot through their windshield,” he said.

“We passed an icehouse on the way down,” I said. “It should be close. We need cover.”

“They're right on our ass.”

We were speeding in and out of the fog, strands of it swept by us. Through the mist I saw the sign pointing to the icehouse. Half a mile ahead.

“Hang on,” I said. As I said it, they opened fire. The first shot exploded the back window and shattered the rearview mirror.

“Son of a bitch,” Ski yelled.

He cut loose with the shotgun through the blown-out window. It hit the right side of their car and blew out the headlight. He pumped in another shell and the gun roared again, and I heard their radiator begin to hiss. The chase car swerved and tried to take us on the left side, so I let it, then hit the brakes, let the four-door Buick growl past, its ruptured radiator spitting steam.

One of Guilfoyle's goons aimed a .45 at us. I swerved into the rear of the chase car as he fired, and the gunshot whined off the hood of our Chevy. The other car slued in front of us. I smacked the rear of it again and it spun out just as I lost control and veered off the road on the opposite side, shattered the entrance sign to Ferguson's Icehouse, and skidded to a stop at the front door. The Buick screeched off the road behind us and hit a tree.

Ski and I piled out and ran up a bunch of steps to the door of the hulking, windowless two-story building. I hit the door with my shoulder and bounced back like a tennis ball.

“Out of the way,” Ski yelled, and blew a hole where the doorknob and lock used to be. We charged into freezing cold as gunshots exploded behind us. Then the night was ripped with the sound of a tommy gun. I whirled around as slugs smacked into the heavy insulated walls, saw one of Guilfoyle's gunmen with the stutter gun spitting at us. I pulled the Luger, dropped to my knees, and fired half a clip at him. A bullet ripped into his throat and slammed him back against their wasted car. Blood spurted from his neck. He gasped like a dying fish and jackknifed to the ground.

From my left I heard two other guns start talking. One was heavy, a .357 or a .45. The doorjamb an inch from my face split open and showered me with splinters. Another gunman, a big man huffing as he ran, headed back toward their car, going for the machine gun. I slammed the door shut just as more gunfire erupted.

Behind me I heard Ski growl angrily, and turned as he fell against a mountain of hundred-pound cakes of ice. He was clutching his side.

I ran over to him, saw blood seeping through his fingers.

“Damn it!” he snarled. But it didn't slow him down. He grabbed a pair of ice tongs, dragged one of the big slabs of ice off the pile, and slid it across the floor, ramming the front door shut.

“How bad is it?” I said.

“Hit my side. Lots of padding. Don't worry about it.”

Outside, more gunfire. Bullets smacking the heavy walls. Then the machine gun barked again. A dozen holes burst through the door. We dropped to the floor as the bullets stitched across the towering ice chunks and shards of frozen water showered down on us.

I grabbed the shotgun and crawled near the door.

It got quiet. I looked around. The room was freezing cold. My breath swirled around my face. The place was fifteen or twenty feet high. There were two or three wired lamps in the ceiling providing paltry light. To the right of the door there was a desk and chair. No other furniture.

The tommy gun barked again and ripped more holes in the door. More shards spit out of the stacked ice.

“How many do you make,” Ski yelled.

“Three left. I took one down.”

Tommy boomed again. The door was being shot to pieces.

“The hell with this,” I said, leveled the shotgun at the wall in front of me, and pumped one, two, three shots into it. Bits of insulation and sheeting burst out of the hole. I fired again and saw a bit of light coming through the wall from our headlights. I stuck the Luger in my belt and put three more shotgun blasts into the hole. It opened up a three-foot hole in the side of the icehouse and I fell forward, pulled out the Luger, and peered through the gaping hole.

The albino was ten feet away, aiming a .357 at the hole I had just blown. Then suddenly he stopped and the .357 exploded twice in his fist. Bullets ripped through the hole inches from my face.

I laid the Luger barrel on the bottom edge of the hole and shot him. He was knocked backward into a tree. He looked amazed. Blood spurted from a hole in his chest. He fell to his knees and got off two more shots. I shot him again, this time my bullet tearing into his forehead. His back arched and he fell facedown.

The tommy gun was wasting the door.

I couldn't see the shooter with the stutter gun but the blond guy from Shuler's dashed into my view. He fired a shot with his .38 as he jumped behind a tree.

Off to my right I heard the circular magazine of the tommy gun click and fall to the ground, and another snap into its place. It began again, its thunder followed by the sound of .45-caliber slugs thunking into the icehouse door.

“Shoot over here at the hole in the wall,” the blond hoodlum yelled.

I rolled away from the hole as a blast shattered its edges. The blond thug took a chance and slid around the tree, his gun barking as he did. I crawled back to the hole and emptied the Luger into him, and he whirled away with a scream, fell on his face, and rolled over, hands outspread, legs crossed at the ankles.

Five feet away, the remaining gunman, who was almost as big as Ski, hit the door with his shoulder. It splintered and fell inward, sending the cake of ice spinning across the floor. He stormed through the door, saw me, and grinned. I dropped the empty Luger and dove for the shotgun but he had the tommy waist high, aimed down my throat.

Ski's .38 bellowed behind me and hit the big hoodlum in the chest. He grunted and whirled toward the sound of the gun. I swung the pump gun up and fired into his belly. It doubled him up and knocked him against the doorjamb. His mouth dropped open with surprise. I charged another round into the chamber and shot him again. His chest erupted. Behind me, Ski emptied his .38 into what was left of him. He took them all and then spun around and fell backward down the steps, his legs flipping over his head before he landed facedown in the dirt.

It got as quiet as Sunday morning.

Smoke and steam whisked around the open door. I ran over to Ski, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the stored ice, and helped him up as best I could.

“Let's go, partner. We gotta get you to the hospital.”

“You sure it's over?”

“It's over.”

“Christ, we sure made a mess of this place,” he said.

I got him up, gathered up our weapons and the tommy gun, and helped him out the door.

“Can you make it to the car?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and he staggered toward Louie's ruined cream puff.

I checked all three of them. All dead. I took their ID's and stuck them in my suit pocket, and ran back to the man by the car, the first one I shot. He was leaning against the tire, trying to breathe. Air gurgled through blood. He looked up at me with frightened eyes and then his eyes lost focus. They turned to glass and death rattled in his throat. He fell over on his side. I reached down and closed his eyelids with my fingers, reached in his pocket and got his ID.

“What are you doing?” Ski asked.

“I wanna know who we just killed,” I said. I cranked up, spun around, and pulled back on the main road.

“Are they all dead?” he groaned.

“Yeah. Hang in there, partner. I'll have you in the hospital in five minutes.”

“I can't believe that son of a bitch would try to kill a couple of cops.”

“Dead men tell no tales. He thinks we know more about something back there than we know. Now, stop talking. Save your strength.”

He ignored my advice.

“This is the second time in four years we've had to use bullets to get out of trouble,” he sighed. “How come I'm always the one ends up getting shot?”

“There's more of you to hit,” I said.

CHAPTER 29

I got immediate attention when I roared up to the hospital with siren and horn blowing. I pulled up as close as I could to the emergency entrance, and the security guard and an attendant rushed out with a gurney and wheeled Ski up a ramp and into the hospital. I didn't know what to expect but there was about twenty miles of lonely road between me and Guilfoyle, and nobody around to back me up, so I pulled the car around to a darkened side of the hospital, and went inside carrying our riot gun, my Luger, and Guilfoyle's tommy gun with the extra magazine.

There was an office inside the emergency entrance, and I walked in and laid out all my firepower on the desk.

“Jesus, you expecting the Japs to attack?” the security guard asked nervously.

“My name's Bannon. Get the captain on the phone—I don't care where he is—and tell him Bannon was ambushed at Ferguson's Icehouse by four of Guilfoyle's mobsters. My partner is shot and we're here at the hospital. I need help.”

He rushed off, and I stepped into the operating room and stood beside the door. They were cutting Ski's pants off and Ski was beefing.

“It's my best suit, can't you just
pull
my pants off?”

“They're covered with blood, sir,” the doctor said. “It won't clean off anyway. What's your name?”

“Agassi . . . just call me Ski, it's a lot easier.”

“Good, Ski. I'm Dr. Butler and these are my assistants, nurse Gina Solomon and our on-duty intern, Dr. Knowles.”

“My pleasure,” Ski said with effort. “How bad is it?”

“There's no exit wound, so the round's still in there somewhere,” he said to the nurse, and to Ski, “I'm fairly certain it missed your kidney and liver. So if we can just dig that little devil out, you'll be fine.”

I moved a little closer and the doctor noticed me. He stared at me over his face mask and said, “And you are . . .?”

“Bannon. He's my partner.”

He went back to work. “May I ask what happened?”

“He got shot.”

The doctor gave me a wry look.

“I think it was a .38. There was a lot of shooting going on at the time and we were running for cover.”

“Should we be expecting anyone else?”

“No,” I said, “the other four are down at Ferguson's Icehouse waiting for a hearse.”

“Well, that's a relief,” Dr. Butler said. “So far tonight, I've had two broken legs and an old geezer who tried to swallow a bottle of gin in one swig. I'm a little tired.”

“T . . . red?” Ski said.

“Say good night now, Ski,” Butler said, “you're going to sleep.”

“Awwrrii . . .” and he was in lullaby land. I left the room.

A few minutes later, Culhane's Packard came screeching into the parking lot. I was boiling mad inside but keeping it under control. Rusty got out and opened the door for Culhane. He was followed by a guy I hadn't met yet. Six-four, all muscle, dark-skinned with long black hair tied in a ponytail. His .45 was holstered on his belt and he was wearing a badge on his brightly embroidered vest. Nobody but a man that size would have the guts to wear a pale red vest with lizards embroidered on it.

“This is Big Redd,” Culhane said. “You haven't met him yet.”

He nodded and damn near broke my hand with his.

“How bad is your man hurt?” Culhane asked.

“He's got a slug in his side. The doctor says he'll be okay. Can we go inside and talk?”

“Sure. Redd, you and Rusty keep an eye open until Max and Lenny get here.”

The big man nodded.

Culhane and I walked into the office. Culhane looked at the pile of guns on the table. He was about to make a crack but I didn't give him a chance.

“You been shining me, all along,” I said, my voice trembling with rage.

He didn't say anything, just gave me that blue stare.

“My partner's in there with a bullet in him, Guilfoyle sent four of his goons to burn us, and I don't have a goddamn clue why! We killed four men tonight and
I don't know why
!”

“I wasn't grifting you.”

“The hell you weren't. The first day we took a ride together, when we were sitting up on the overlook? I showed you a picture of Verna Hicks and you brushed it off. You
knew
it was Lila Parrish.”

“I couldn't have recognized my mother from that clipping.”

“I talked to her mother. She says she hasn't seen or heard from Lila in twenty years and I'm beginning to believe her.”

“So . . .”

“So who was paying her off and why?”

“It's your case, Cowboy, you tell me.”

“I think you're covering up for a murderer. Or, at the very least, for somebody who hired the killer.”

“Get this straight, I haven't laid eyes on Lila Parrish since she walked out of the courtroom after she testified. If she was the Wilensky woman, I didn't know it. I don't know why she was killed. And I don't know why Guilfoyle sent his thugs after you.”

I started pulling the ID's out of my pocket, flipping them open, and throwing them on the desk in front of him.

“Look at this. Two of these guys are special deputies. Guilfoyle sent
cops
to kill us.”

“What the hell were you doing down there, anyway?”

“Ione Fisher,” I said. “Ring a bell?”

“Shit,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “She hasn't seen or heard from Lila in twenty years.”

He flipped through the wallets I had thrown his way.

“You're a real collector, ain't you, pal.” He laid them out side by side. “The two deputies are a big blond guy named Pierre Follet and an albino kid. This one?” He held up one of the wallets. “On the run for murder in St. Louis, picture's in every post office in the country. The other one I don't recognize but I'll bet you a year's salary he's got a sheet longer than the California coastline.” He picked up the Thompson and slipped it up against his shoulder. “You should never've gone down there,” he said.

“Well, thank you,” I told him. “A little late, but thanks a bunch. I've got a wounded partner, a busted-up car, and four dead guys, including two cops, on my hands. That ought to be enough to attract the attorney general down here and clean Guilfoyle's tank. And Moriarity will probably assign me to some hick town they haven't even named yet.”

“It was a fool's play by a goddamn pit bull.” He laid the gun down and stared at me with hard eyes. “Now we got to get you out of it.”

“Get me out of what?”

“Look, Guilfoyle may be dumb as a brick but he's a mobster and he thinks like one. You handed him an alibi when you snatched the ID's.”

I didn't get it at first.

“Alibi?”

“Guilfoyle sends two of his cops and two hooligans after you and Ski. You think that was an accident? If all goes well, they dump your car in the Pacific, take you two offshore, and throw you to the sharks. If you knock over a cop or two, he blames the hooligans. You knock off the hooligans, his deputies cop the blame. By now he knows all four of his people are down for keeps. He probably doesn't know Ski was shot yet. That's a wrinkle he wasn't expecting, so his story will probably be his cops and the bad guys killed each other, and leave you out of it.”

“And he thinks we're going to let him get away with that?”

“Who's ‘we'?” he said casually. “I had no part in this, Cowboy. And if you think I'm going down to Mendosa and start World War Two because you made a dumb play, you're crazy.”

“I don't think you have the guts to take on Guilfoyle,” I snapped. “He's sitting twenty miles down the road running a hideout for the scum of the earth, he shoots a cop, and you're sitting here on your goddamn thumb.”

He kicked the office door shut. “I'm going to explain the facts of life to you,” he growled. “So listen up. My guess is Guilfoyle figured you were there snooping around in your off-hours hoping to pick up a couple of rabbits hiding out down there. That's why they call it ‘Hole-in-the-Wall.' ”

“So he decides to hit us?”

“It's the way he operates. He learned from the master—Arnie Riker, ‘the Fisherman.' That's what we called him. I had a stoolie named Slim. He tipped me that there were four out-of-town shooters at Riker's hotel. They were the four who were killed at Grand View. The next day, Slim went missing. A month later, what was left of him after the sharks got finished washed up in Salingo, north of here. There was a bullet hole in the skull. We ID'd Slim from his teeth. That was how Riker took care of stoolies, card cheats, threats, people he didn't like.”

“Wilma Thompson?”

“Just one of many.”

I pointed to the buzzers on the table. “So, if Guilfoyle's that bad—now's your chance to blow the whistle on him. I got the evidence right there.”

“Evidence, hell. I don't have the authority to give Guilfoyle a parking ticket right now. Why do you think I'm running for governor? If the day comes, Brett Merrill will be attorney general and we'll clean out Mendosa and a half-dozen other crooked towns like it. We'll set a fire under the damn legislature and we'll run the Rolls-Royce assholes who think they run the state out of Sacramento. In the meantime, I'm not throwing my political future in the shit can because you had an attack of stupidity.

“Now. Let's talk about your future for a minute.”

“Future? My partner's got a bullet in him, there'll be a hearing, and . . .”

“There's not going to be any damn hearing, Cowboy. Guilfoyle has to take the out I'm gonna give him. That or explain to the attorney general up in Sacramento why two of his half-assed dicks paired up with two wanted felons to ambush a couple of L.A. cops. You think he wants to deal with that?”

“I've got my chief to deal with. Jesus, we killed four men tonight.”

“I'll explain things to your chief.”

“He won't buy the story.”

“He will the way I explain it.”

“I can't tell a bald-faced lie to my boss.”

“Listen to me, I'll tell you what'll happen if you play this straight. First off, the state patrol'll get involved. Then there'll be a hearing and it'll come out that you and Agassi dusted two cops and their pals, and there you were, a hundred miles off your turf, snooping around, playing some hunch without so much as a warrant. So now you're on administrative leave without pay, and the attorney general will stick his nose in it, and you've already got a rep for doing things your own way . . . Do I need to paint a picture for you? You lose winning, Cowboy.”

I didn't have an answer for that.

“Guilfoyle's stupid, but he's smart enough to work things out. You two were on your way back from dinner in Mendosa. All of a sudden the two cars came outta the fog, you got caught in their cross fire. Guilfoyle's cops chasin' Guilfoyle's thugs. Your partner caught one and you broke for the hospital. Now let's take a look at your car,” Brodie said.

He got a flashlight from security, and we went around the corner and checked out the Chevy. The left side was crumpled where we sideswiped the chase car, there was a bullet scar across the hood, the left front fender was stove in, one of the headlights was knocked out, the windshield was cracked, the rearview mirror was gone, and there was no back window.

“You can't drive home in this,” was all he said.

We went back to the emergency office, and he grabbed the phone and dialed a number.

“Jiggs,” he said, “I want you to call Wilbur at home and tell him I got a ‘41 Chevy cabriolet needs a windshield, a rear window, and a rearview mirror. And the left front headlight's dead. Tell him to forget about the body damage. I'll need it by 7:00 a.m. If he starts whining tell him he gets double time.” He turned to me and opened his hand.

“Keys,” he said. I tossed them to him and he handed them to security.

“Tell Wilbur the car's at the hospital. Bergen has the keys. A guy named Bannon, L.A.P.D., will pick it up in the morning. He's staying at the Breakers.”

“I got a room at Charlie Lefton's,” I said.

“I'll take care of that. You think you'd last until morning down there? You'd probably end up getting Charlie whacked.”

He scratched a wooden match to life on his belt buckle and lit another cigarette.

“I'll get you a room at the Breakers. And don't worry about being bribed—it's a trade for the tommy gun.”

When we got to the hotel, he went to the desk, talked to the clerk for a minute or two, and came back with a key.

“Nice room overlooking the ocean,” he said. “You can call your dispatcher and leave your number so they won't think you deserted the force. Your car'll be drivable by seven.”

“Why all the favors, Brodie?” I asked.

“You're beginning to grow on me. Besides, I'd like to see you nail the one who killed that lady. I don't like murder any more than you do.”

“And you don't have any curiosity about who was paying her and for what?”

“I'm not convinced they're connected.”

“Supposing I told you Eddie Woods bought one of those checks?”

He looked genuinely surprised.

“Where'd you hear that?”

“From the lady in the bank who sold it to him.”

He stared into his drink and didn't say anything.

As Merrill leads his men toward the embattled Germans, he runs past Culhane's foxhole and drops down beside him.

“The trap's working like a charm,” he says, and then he sees Culhane's leg.

“Sweet Jesus!” he cries out.

“Don't let 'em take my leg, Major,” Culhane says, his voice so weak Merrill can hardly understand him.

Merrill looks through the charging company of Marines and sees a red cross. “You, Corpsman, get over here!” he orders.