“Riker…”
“I didn’t see him.”
Inmates in their white gowns were staggering around the yard, babbling inanely, some pointing at the blazing ward and giggling, some flailing at their burning gowns.
“He can’t be far,” I said. He went one way, I went another, both of us working our way through the stunned victims of the fire. Behind me, another fireball erupted from the burning building.
In the flare of the explosion I saw Riker.
He was twenty yards ahead of me, wielding a switchblade, slashing at the crazed tenants. He grabbed one of the inmates by the hair, threw him to his knees, slashed his throat, and pulled off his gown, putting it on himself.
“Riker!” I yelled.
He turned and looked at me. I pulled my Luger and walked toward him.
He looked down at my gun and then back at me and laughed.
“That pistol’s soaking wet. It isn’t worth shit,” he hissed. He held the knife toward me.
“Come on,” he said, and rushed at me. I held the Luger at arm’s length and squeezed the trigger.
It misfired.
He was so close I could feel the heat from his burning body when he slashed my arm with the knife. As he did, another screaming human comet rushed to him, grabbed him, and knocked him down. Riker tried to struggle free but the human torch was twice his size. Flames licked at Riker’s purloined robe, etched up it, set Riker’s hair on fire. As fire engulfed them both, he kicked and screamed, and finally rolled over and broke free of his fiery captor. His terrified eyes locked on mine for a moment. He charged up at me.
He was three feet away from me, engulfed in fire, his face literally melting from the flames, when I heard the whoosh and saw a flash of silver an instant before the thick knife blade pierced his throat. It cut windpipe and jugular and went all the way through his neck, stopped only by the hilt of the bowie knife.
Riker’s scream was cut off as air rushed from his lungs and blood spewed from his jugular, and the vile mixture of breath and blood burst from his throat. Riker’s mouth gaped open. I stared into eyes of pure madness and watched life flicker out of them before he fell dead.
Big Redd walked up and looked at my arm. He pulled out his shirt, tore a strip off the tail, and tied it tight just above the knife wound.
“Thanks,” I said. “That’s two I owe you.”
“One,” he said. “Charlie and I fished together.”
It was the second and last time I heard him speak a word.
CHAPTER 41
In the morning’s light, the back side of the Shuler Institute looked like a battlefield. The security building had burned itself out and collapsed into the swimming pool. All that was left was a huge pile of charred lumber. Firemen were rolling up their hoses, the last ambulance and the last of the hearses had pulled out.
A tall, burly man in a state trooper’s uniform, with one of those Boy Scout hats pulled down low on his forehead, found me drinking coffee in a clinic they had set up in one of the smaller buildings. A kindly old doctor had used twelve stitches to sew my arm back together.
The trooper offered me his wolf’s paw of a hand and said, “I’m Major Stacks, from up at the San Luis Obispo Station. Are you up to a few questions?”
“Sure,” I said. “I could use a drink about now but people would talk.”
He smiled formally and took out a pad and pen.
“What was the final death toll here?” I asked.
“Seventeen dead, fourteen injured.” He said it as casually as if he were talking about the score of a football game. “Could you just kind of run over the events of last night for me?”
I remembered Moriarity’s advice: “Keep it simple.” I started with the APB on Riker and Dahlmus, gave him the front-page version up to the shoot-out at the Shuler Corral, and ended with Riker stabbing the defenseless mental patient and Big Redd’s bowie knife ending Riker’s days among the living.
“Well, that’s pretty much the way the big Indian says it ended,” Walker said.
“And far be it from me to contradict anything a big Indian with a bowie knife might tell you,” I said. Then I held up my arm. “Riker sliced about six inches out of this before Mr. Redd came to my rescue.”
He flipped his book shut and nodded his thanks. “You will be around if we have any other questions, won’t you?”
“You can find me at Central Homicide in L.A. anytime.”
“Little off your beat, weren’t you?” he said.
“I had bad directions.”
He shook his head and smiled.
“By the way, did you hear about Captain Culhane?” he said, stopping at the door.
“Did something happen to him?”
“Osterfelt and Bellini announced this morning that they were joining forces. Osterfelt is running for governor and Bellini will run for lieutenant governor. Culhane announced he was cancelling his plans to run and dropped out of the race about thirty minutes ago.”
“Thanks for the news,” I said, but he was already gone.
It was noon when I drove up to The Breakers. I parked in front of the place, locked the car as usual, and went in. As I headed for the ballroom, the desk clerk waved at me.
“Sir,” he said with a little spit in his tone.
I ignored him. I wasn’t in the mood.
Then he snapped his fingers at me. Snapped his fingers! I admit I looked like hell. But snapping fingers at human beings does not sit well with me. I went back to the desk. He looked me up and down, and raised his nose an inch or two.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you visiting someone?”
I held my arm at full length under his nose and snapped my fingers four or five times in his face, real fast.
“Do you like that, pal?” I said. “Do you like being treated like a dog?”
He didn’t know what to do. He started to babble, but I walked away and went up the stairs to the ballroom.
Little had changed since the night before. The ballroom ceiling was still covered with red, white, and blue balloons, with red, white, and blue streamers sagging between them. The tablecloths were still the same patriotic colors, as were the paper cups and platters. There was a small bandstand at the end of the room and the music stands were the national colors. But a lot of the balloons had lost air and were flitting around the dance floor under the ceiling fans. There was no band. The large tables on either side of the dance floor were covered with cold cuts, various kinds of bread, potato salad, and baked beans in tureens, but there was no one to eat all the food.
Culhane was the only person in the room.
His tie was off and his shirt open and his tux jacket was hung over the back of his chair. He was having a drink.
I walked the length of the room, kicking balloons out of my way, and stopped at the food table to put together a roast beef on rye bread with plenty of mayo and commandeer a bottle of Budweiser from a large tub filled with ice.
“Just like a cop,” Culhane growled. “Never pass up a free feed.”
I sat down across from him and took a swig of beer.
“And a beer drinker to boot.”
“Only when I’m eating,” I said, and held the bottle up in a toast to him.
“What’s that for? You toasting to my defeat?”
“Look at it this way: you scared the hell out of them for a few days and took a walk. The voters deserve
