tire, and sent the hubcap spinning away. He fell facedown, his feet crossed at the ankles.
Inside Guilfoyle’s car a shape moved, a shotgun swung up.
“Look out!” Max yelled, shoving Culhane out of the way as he leveled a sawed-off shotgun at the windshield and fired both barrels. The left side of the windshield splattered and crumbled in on itself. Behind it, the mobster took the full blast in his face. Blood and bone showered the backseat as he was smacked backward.
The last gunman started screaming.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m finished,” he cried, and threw his. 45 out the car window. It was followed by his wiggling empty hands. Max pulled the door open, grabbed a fistful of shirt and tie, dragged him from the car, and threw him on the ground. He lay there whimpering, his face and suit splattered with the blood of his dead partner.
In the rear car, pistols and shotguns came flying out of windows. Hands were wiggling to show they were empty. One by one, four more of Guilfoyle’s shooters tumbled out with their hands straight up over their heads.
The smell of cordite was whisked away by the wind.
Culhane stood up and brushed himself off. He looked at his shoulder. “Ruined my best shirt,” he said.
“You okay?” Max asked.
“Thanks to you,” Culhane said, and smacked him on the shoulder.
I did a dead head count as Culhane walked over to Guilfoyle, still dangling from the headlight support. He wrenched the. 45 from Guilfoyle’s taut fist, held it behind him, and Max took it. Blood showered down the side of Guilfoyle’s face and spurted from the holes in his suit.
“Nice shooting,” I said.
“Buck Tallman used to say shooting’s just like swimming,” Culhane replied, holstering the Peacemaker. “You never forget how.”
He watched as the four hooligans from the rear car were herded up to us by Bobby Aaron.
“You know the setup at Shuler’s?” Culhane asked me.
I nodded.
“How much security?”
“Lightweights. Ski and I got in without any problem-until Guilfoyle showed up.”
“They know you?”
“They wouldn’t remember me, it was dark.”
“Bring Earl up here,” Culhane said. “You know where Riker’s holed up?” he asked the gunman.
“I wasn’t there when he came in, but I’m guessin’ he’s on the third floor of the rage ward. That’s where the VIPs usually stay. There’s a swimming pool on the first floor, and the second floor is for the loonies, the ones they chain to the floor.”
“How do we get in?”
“Only one staircase up to three. Got a steel door, so it’s hard to break in. The elevator’s the only other entrance to three. It’s at the end of a short hall from a private door. It could be a death trap.”
Culhane walked back and forth in front of him for a minute or so.
“Okay,” he said to his crew, “here’s the plan. We go in with two cars. Morningdale’s gonna drive one car, with Rusty beside him and Redd and Max in the backseat. Aaron drives the other car, with me and two backups. Morningdale will get us through the gate. You do anything fancy, Morningdale, Redd’ll cut your throat. You understand that?”
“I understand,” he nodded. A tear of sweat wriggled down the side of his face.
“What we want is surprise.”
I heard myself say, “No,” again.
Culhane looked at me with surprise.
“No?” he said.
“You’re trying to count me out again,” I said. “Riker’s mine. I started this case and I’m going to finish it. You sit this one out, you’ve done more than enough. And you might still have a political career to worry about. I’ll ride shotgun with Morningdale. Redd and Lenny in the backseat. Aaron drives with Rusty, and Max in the other car. We’ll assume he’s holed up in one of those apartments at the sanitarium.”
“That’s where he’s at, the sanitarium,” one of Guilfoyle’s men, Bloom, offered suddenly. “I drove him and Guilfoyle up to building B from the boat. There’s four apartments on the third floor.”
“How many entrances in and out?” I asked.
“It’s a fire trap,” he said. “There’s only three doors in on the first floor and one of them goes straight to an elevator-express to the third floor so the big shots can go in and out without entering the main building. There’s staircases on each end of the building, but only one of them goes to the third floor.”
“That’s the one with the steel door to three?”
“Right.”
I drew a little sketch with my finger in the dirt beside the road and studied it.
“There’s also a staircase to the roof right next to the elevator,” he said. “It’s the only access to the roof.”
“So if we cover the elevator and the third-floor door to the staircase, we’ve got him boxed,” I said.
“If you can get onto the third floor,” they both agreed.
“That is, of course, if he’s there,” said Culhane.
“Let’s go find out,” I said.
CHAPTER 40
It was a little past midnight when we drove through the gate in the eight-foot stone wall and kept going as quietly as we could, past the pond down to the Victorian main building of the Shuler Institute. The guard at the gate saw Earl and waved us through. There was a light over the door and a dim night-light in the main office, but the place was deserted.
We cut off our car lights and followed the gravel drive around the main building, guided by the moon. We stopped under a group of trees and turned the car off. The second car followed. I got out, walked to the edge of the trees, and listened.
It was deathly quiet. A cricket chirped way down at the end of the property and an occasional breeze whisked the leaves. Otherwise there was not a sound.
The rage ward loomed behind the main office building like a haunted Victorian mansion etched by moonlight. Like the main building, the third floor had four large gables, one facing in each direction, their spires reaching up like daggers toward the full moon. The second floor had several high windows on each side. That would be the ward for “the loonies” as Morningdale had called them. The first floor, apparently the gym and swimming pool, was windowless.
There was a single light on. It cast an eerie yellow glow from the gabled window facing west, toward the Pacific. Otherwise, the building could have been deserted.
“Is that where Riker’s holed up?” I whispered to Morningdale.
“Probably,” Earl said. “I know Dahlmus had the south room, and me and that nut from Baltimore each had a room.”
In the darkness of the south room, Riker had watched the two cars drift under the trees and stop. Was it Guilfoyle and his bunch coming back? They had left in a hurry, he assumed to pick up Earl and that loopy one in the gaudy shirt. Riker sat on the window seat, saw two of the men come to the edge of the grove of trees and stare up at the building. He began to get nervous. He took out a cigarette, cupped his hand when he lit the match.
Big Redd squatted in the safety of the trees and stared hard at the one darkened window he could see. Then he thought he saw a flare. He squinted his eyes. Not sure. He focused on the dark window. Then he saw a red pinpoint brighten for a second. He picked up a pebble and tossed it at Bannon.
I felt a stone hit my leg, turned around, and saw Redd, hunched down. He made a motion for me to move
