“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.”
