A deathly silence fell over the blockade, interrupted occasionally by a cricket fiddling for its mate or night birds talking to each other.
We waited.
But not for long.
CHAPTER 39
Thin and wispy, the fog began to creep in. It swirled knee-deep, pressed against the earth by cool night air. Light from the camp’s red neon sign turned the mist into a red glow that enveloped the cars.
Culhane stared down the road toward Mendosa and smoked quietly. I wondered what was going through his mind. Was his political career ruined by the implications of an old frame-up? Or would it be enhanced by revelations that Riker was a monster who ordered up death the way some people order a steak dinner? Now Riker’s hands were also drenched with the blood of Henry Dahlmus. And we had an eyewitness to prove he had committed that crime himself.
Culhane’s play was to get past Guilfoyle to get to Riker. My play was to bring down Riker for arranging Verna Wilensky’s murder.
In the darkness above the circle of light around the cars, I saw a new slender ridge of light appear. Culhane saw it, too. He straightened slightly and watched it grow, forming silhouettes of the trees as it got closer.
“Heads up,” Culhane said.
The ridge of light grew brighter and reshaped into a pair of haloed orbs. Headlights, which rose over a slight crest in the road.
Culhane said, “Lights!”
The headlights of our cars clashed with the oncoming headlights like knights galloping toward each other full tilt. The lead car coming toward us slammed on its brakes and screeched to a stop thirty feet in front of us. The car following stopped a few feet short of rear-ending it.
Nobody moved. Fog swirled around us and was carried off by the wind.
Culhane split the butt of his cigarette, poured out the residue, balled up the paper, and popped it in his mouth.
“Is Guilfoyle in there?” he barked. “Or doesn’t he have the guts to do his dirty work himself.”
A minute crawled by before the front door on the driver’s side opened and a long leg stepped out, followed by the rest of Guilfoyle’s enormous frame. He stared into the lights. He was wearing a yellow suit with a vest, and a flowered tie. A brown derby was cocked over one eye and a cigar lingered forgotten in the corner of his mouth. He slammed the door behind him and said in a loud voice, “Everybody stay put until I say otherwise.”
He hooked two thumbs in his vest pockets, strolled to the front of the car, and leaned against the front fender of his black Cadillac.
Guilfoyle took the cigar out of his mouth and spit at Culhane’s shoe.
“What are you and yer Boy Scouts doing out tonight?” he sneered. “Do you get a merit badge for learning how to take a leak in the dark?”
“No,” Culhane said, “we get our merit badges for landing two-bit bottom-feeders like you.”
Guilfoyle’s face clouded up. He paced back and forth from one side of the Cadillac to the other and stopped with his right side toward the car and put his right foot on the bumper. An automatic glistened threateningly from under his jacket.
“Watch out, he’s a southpaw,” I mumbled to Culhane.
While Culhane kept the uncouth Irish thug talking, Bobby Aaron pulled up behind the two mobster cars, blocking them in.
Guilfoyle looked back at Aaron’s car, then at Culhane. Worry furrowed his brow.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.
Culhane reached in his back pocket and took out the warrant on Guilfoyle for harboring.
“I got a warrant here for your arrest, signed by State Supreme Court Judge Gray,” Culhane lied. “I’d show it to you but you can’t read.”
“For what?”
“Aiding and abetting in first-degree murder, harboring known felons, attempted murder of two Los Angeles police officers. Want me to go on?”
“On what authority?” Guilfoyle sneered.
“You’re in my county,” Culhane said. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Show him, Max.”
The one-eyed deputy flicked on the spotlight on the side of the Packard, and swept its beam to the side of the road about forty feet behind Guilfoyle’s car. A sign read county line.
Guilfoyle’s jaw began to twitch.
“Hey, Rusty,” Culhane said without taking his eyes off Guilfoyle, “show this muttonhead our guest of honor.”
Rusty opened the office door in Lefton’s lodge and pulled Earl out. He stared across the road at Guilfoyle.
“Earl here’s all the witness we need,” Culhane said. “We been playing twenty questions. You know how to play twenty questions, Guilfoyle? It’s like I ask him, what’s bigger than a grain of sand and smaller than a pea, and he says, Guilfoyle’s brain.”
Culhane took a pair of handcuffs out off his pocket and held them up, letting them dangle like a noose in the lights of the cars. “Reach around with your right hand, take out that peashooter of yours, and drop it on the ground,” he ordered.
To my right, I heard two shotguns click as shells were charged into chambers.
There was movement inside Guilfoyle’s car.
“Fuck you,” Guilfoyle snarled, turning full face toward Culhane.
“Either you throw down your gun or I’ll take it away from you,” Culhane said calmly.
Guilfoyle stood fast. The fingers of his left hand began to twitch.
“You, boys!” Culhane yelled to Guilfoyle’s crew. “Don’t be stupid. You’re in a cross fire. Give up your hardware and nobody gets hurt.”
He took a step toward Guilfoyle, and the big mobster’s left hand flashed toward his automatic.
Culhane bent his knees in a crouch as he swept the. 44 from its holster. He fanned the hammer back as he brought his gun hand up and fired.
It sounded like a cannon.
The big man grunted as if he had been punched in the stomach. Culhane’s bullet tore into Guilfoyle’s abdomen, knocking him backward onto the grille of the Caddy. He looked shocked but the bullet didn’t stop him. Growling like a wounded animal, he pushed himself off the grille and blindly fired a shot. It chipped the road under the Packard and whined off in the dark.
Culhane fanned off two more shots.
Both into Guilfoyle’s chest.
He screamed as he was knocked backward again. His elbow smashed out a headlight. His breath wheezed out of him like air wheezing out of a balloon. The derby flew off his head and bounced at his feet. Deep red blood oozed from the wounds in his chest and stomach.
He swung his gun up as his chin fell against his chest and fired another shot. It nicked Culhane’s shoulder, kicking a tuft of his silk shirt into the air.
Culhane said nothing. He held his arm at full length and fired again. The last shot knocked Guilfoyle’s head straight back. His eyes rolled up. He slumped and his right arm draped over the headlight support as his legs turned to rubber. He fell straight down and dangled from the support.
The passenger door flew open and a gunman jumped out, swinging a tommy gun. Culhane whirled, fell to one knee, and fanned off his last two shots. One smacked into the gunman’s cheek. His head snapped back, its side bursting into a plume of blood and bone. His hat floated off and rolled into the darkness. The shot spun him around. His finger tightened on the trigger and the stutter gun ripped a trench in the ground at his feet, blew out the front
