Eureka

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.

Culhane grabs a handful of Merrill’s shirt.

“I got you your ten minutes, Major.” His voice gets stronger. “Don’t… let… them… take… my… leg.” He begins to shake. Shock is setting in. The corpsman drops beside them and puts a tourniquet on Culhane’s upper thigh.

“Promise me, damn it!” Culhane yells above the din of battle.

Merrill grabs a leatherneck by the arm. “Listen to me,” Merrill bellows, shouting above the sounds of the Hell Hounds screaming, the peal of bayonets clashing, the thunder of guns. “You stay with your sergeant, get it? You stay with him when you get to the field hospital. You stay with him when they operate, and you tell whoever takes care of Culhane that I said if he takes off that leg, I’ll personally take off one of his.”

“Yes, sir, Major Merrill.”

“Th’nks,” Culhane stammers, and Merrill races into battle. He doesn’t hear Culhane’s last whisper before he passes out. “Good luck.”

The young Marine leans over and eases the sergeant into a sitting position.

“This is gonna hurt, Sarge, but it’ll be easier on that leg than if we go piggyback.”

Culhane groans as the trooper slogs back through the mud toward the field hospital.

“What’s your name?” Culhane asks.

“Woods. Eddie Woods. I’m in what’s left of A Company.”

“Thanks, Eddie.”

He passes out and when he comes to, the field surgeon is leaning over him. His scalpel gleams in the lamp held by a corpsman.

“I’m putting you under again, Sergeant, this could hurt a little.”

The surgeon puts a rag soaked in ether over Culhane’s nose, and the last thing he remembers is Eddie Woods standing very close behind the surgeon with his bayonet held at his side.

“Just remember what Major Merrill said,” Woods says in his ear. “ ‘You take the sergeant’s leg off, I’ll take off one of yours.’ ”

And then Culhane goes to sleep.

“Eddie Woods didn’t kill Verna Wilensky,” Culhane said quietly, after staring into space for a minute or two. “He wouldn’t do in a woman, particularly that way. If Eddie killed anybody, they had it coming.”

“Like Fontonio?”

He finished his drink and said, “Perhaps.”

He got up to leave.

“I’ve got some phone calls to make,” he said. “Don’t worry about your partner, he’s covered. As soon as he’s ready, an ambulance’ll take him down to L.A.”

“You’re going to call Guilfoyle, aren’t you?” I said.

“Yep,” he said. “And your boss. Just so everybody’s straight about what happened up here tonight.”

And he was gone.

I called the dispatcher in L.A., gave him the number of the Breakers, took a shower hot enough to wash away the smell of death, and crawled into a bed with a billowing goose-down pad over the mattress. I lay there wondering if Millicent’s bed was that soft and comfortable. I thought about being beside her in it, smelling her soft scent, feeling her touch me.

She answered on the first ring. Her voice had the texture of fine silk.

“I was hoping it was you,” she said softly.

“I was afraid I’d wake you up.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I, uh, I was thinking… uh, I was thinking about you,” I said awkwardly. Then, “I’m not real good at this…”

“No need to apologize,” she said. “I love hearing your voice. I’ve been thinking about you all day. When will you be home?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What is Mr. Culhane like?”

“An enigma. There’s something about these people… I can’t put my finger on it.”

I could feel her presence, as if she were in the room with me. And I remembered some lines I used to read to my father because he liked them so. “Read it again,” he would say.

“My father loved some lines from a book,” I said, staring at the ceiling. “I used to read it aloud to him…” And I whispered the lines:

Alas! They were so young, so beautiful,

So lonely, loving, helpless…

I stopped, forgetting the rest of the verse.

“That’s from Byron’s Don Juan,” she said with a sense of awe. “I didn’t…” And she stopped.

“Didn’t think a cop read poetry?” I said with a laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she answered, embarrassed. “That sounded kind of.. ”

I interrupted her. “We still have a lot to learn about each other,” I said. “I hope we’ll always be friends as well as lovers and we never have need to apologize for anything.”

“What a lovely thing to say, Zee. Can’t you come back tonight?”

“No. I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”

“Oh,” she said, and there was disappointment in her voice.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said. “It’s bound to make the papers and I want you to hear it from me first.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “But there was trouble up here. There was some shooting and…”

“Oh my God…”

I started babbling. “Four mobsters tried to ambush my partner and me. Have I told you about Ski? I don’t think we’ve talked about him much. He’s a great partner. Every cop should be as lucky as I am to have Ski as a partner. Anyway, he took a bullet but he’s okay. He’s a big guy, it takes more than one bullet to do any serious damage. They’re taking him back to L.A. Hospital by ambulance but he’ll be fine. The thing is, we killed them, Mil. And the story you’re going to read isn’t going to say that. I wanted to talk to somebody and explain it… ah, hell, I wanted you to understand. I’ll explain it when I see you.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Zee.”

“I want to,” I said. “I want you to know it was them or us. We killed four men tonight and, and… I want you to know that this kind of thing doesn’t happen often but it does happen and… it’s not something I do easily-”

“I wish you were here,” she said, cutting me off. “I wish you were here beside me and I could hold on to you.” Her voice was trembling.

“You’re here. You’re all around me.”

“Oh,” she said, and stopped for a moment, then, “I’ll stay home tomorrow. Please come over as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting.”

“You’re really something, Mil. You’re very special.” I paused, and added, “To me.”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t ever doubt it for a minute. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll count the minutes.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, my dear.”

I kept thinking about her. It was my last thought until the jarring bell of the phone roused me from an exhausted sleep.

“Sergeant Bannon?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Clampton, the dispatcher down at Central.”

“Morning,” I said in a voice still filled with sleep. I looked at my watch. It was 6:30 a.m.

“You got an urgent call here about a minute ago. Know a guy named Riker?”

That woke me up. I raised up on one elbow.

“Arnold Riker?”

“Yes, sir. He’s up at Wesco State, says he needs to talk to you toot sweet.”

“I thought he was in Q or Folsom.”

“Yeah, well, he’s at Wesco now. He says he can stand by the pay phone for two or three minutes.” He gave me the number.

Riker was the last person I wanted to talk to. I didn’t want to hear his I been framed litany, particularly at that hour. I am not at my best when I’m still shaking sleep out of my brain. But it was a call I couldn’t ignore. I got the switchboard and gave them the number. It rang once.

“This is Riker,” a sharp, edgy voice said.

“This is Bannon. What do you want?”

“Kind of brusque, aren’t you, Sergeant?”

“Get to the point.”

“I called to do you a favor,” he said. It was a cold voice and surprisingly cultured.

“I don’t need any favors from you,” I said.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“None of your damn business. What do you want?”

“We need to have a little talk,” the voice rasped.

“I’m a busy man, Riker.”

“You haven’t heard what I have to say yet.”

“I’ve heard it from every crook I ever met. You were framed. You’re an angel under your gruff exterior. You’re…”

“You want to know who killed Wilma Thompson? I’ll tell you straight up.”

That got me fully awake.

“Okay, let’s hear it. Save me the trip.”

“Sorry, Sergeant. Not a chance. You’ve got to come to me. The warden’s name is Jasper Rouche. He’ll take care of the formalities when you get here. I’ll be around.” He chuckled. “My calendar’s empty all day.”

And he hung up.