“Quite the entrepreneur you are,” Richard replied. “And I suppose once we left, you’d make that phone call, let them know we were coming?”
Snyder paled, realizing he’d said the wrong thing. “C’mon guys, you’re not the heat. I’m guessing this has something to do with the rumble down in Kezar last night, right? Tell you what, you make it worth my while with some green, and we never spoke, got it? I’ll have never seen you two.”
“You want us to pay you to not rat us out to Cranston after you ratted him out to us?” Lynch asked, incredulous. “You’re playing more angles than a pool shark.”
Snyder shifted himself back against the headboard, his good hand behind him at the edge of the mattress. “Look, fellas, it’s just good business, okay? No one has to get hurt here, just a little financial transaction. For the right price, you’ll have your information and the assurance that Cranston won’t know you’re coming.”
“If I put a bullet through your head,” Richard said, raising his Walther, “he won’t know we’re coming, and one bullet is pretty cheap.”
“Woah, woah, woah! Hang on!” Snyder pleaded. “Okay, forget about the money! Just tie me and the girl up, stuff rags in our mouths or something, and by the time we’re free, you guys can be up there doing your thing. No worries!”
Lynch looked at his partner. “Well, what do you think? You trust him if he’s all tied up?”
“Nope,” Richard replied, a thin smile showing through the hole in the balaclava.
Snyder’s face grew flushed and his features twisted with rage.
“Then fuck you guys! Fuck you both!”
Snyder’s right hand came up from behind him holding a blued steel snub-nose revolver, but before he could bring it to bear, Richard fired twice. One bullet caught Snyder high in the chest, the other just under the chin. Snyder’s body jerked with the impact of the slugs and he spasmed, pulling the trigger of the .38 and putting a bullet through the closet door.
“Shit!” Lynch ran to the closet and opened it, dreading what he might find.
His dread was warranted. The girl, whose name Lynch didn’t even know, must have been huddling with her knees drawn up to her chest, her head tucked down. The .38 slug had caught her just below the hairline above her left eye and exited above and behind her right ear. There was a spray of gore across the back of the closet wall the size of a dinner plate, and the girl’s lifeless eyes stared at the carpet, a thin line of blood running down across her face from the hole in her forehead.
Richard stepped up behind Lynch and looked over his shoulder.
“We need to get outta Dodge, partner. You can be sure someone’s phoning that in,” Richard said softly.
Lynch stood there for a moment, staring at the girl. The contents of her skull were slowly making their way down the closet wall, and the room was filled with a sickening, slaughterhouse smell. Lynch stood there a moment, just staring at the young girl, and then he finally stepped back and shut the closet door. He glanced over at Snyder’s corpse, then walked to the nightstand and dropped the cop’s nickel-plated revolver back in the drawer.
“Okay, yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said.
TWENTY-ONE
Lynch was silent during the car ride north. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen an innocent caught in the crossfire and killed; he’d been in Vietnam for three years, and such tragedies were an almost daily occurrence. But, as he kept reminding himself, this wasn’t a war, and he was no longer a soldier. He was, essentially, a criminal, and if it ever came to trial he’d probably be considered an accessory to the girl’s murder.
As soon as the thought occurred to him, Lynch felt his face flush with shame. The girl was dead, and all he was concerned about was his legal standing? She was probably either a prostitute or a mistress, and he imagined she had some inkling that Snyder was a dirty cop, but there was no reason for her to die. She was only a hapless bystander, not a scumbag like Tully or those nameless punks in the park. A part of Lynch’s mind tried to argue that she took her chances bedding with a guy like Snyder, a man who made enemies every day, but the softer side of his nature wouldn’t allow him to rationalize away her death.
As he contemplated the girl’s fate, images came unbidden into Lynch’s mind. He pictured Stacy the waitress lying dead in his closet, killed by some enemy Lynch had made. Perhaps the killer would be an associate of Cranston’s, weeks from now when all of this was over and Lynch’s whereabouts were tracked down. Another morbid thought occurred to him; what if one of Cranston’s men had spotted him on the street yesterday? Lynch imagined Mary’s hotel room door bursting open and masked gunmen rushing into the room, guns blazing away, Lynch and Mary’s intertwined bodies shredded by gunfire.
While Lynch sat in the back seat and gloomily contemplated the evening’s turn of events, Blake and Richard said little during the drive. Blake had been furious to learn Snyder was dead, but Lynch backed Richard’s explanation that the cop had gone for a second gun, and the shooting had been in self-defense, with the girl’s fate a tragic accident. Still, they all knew Snyder’s death would complicate matters further, no matter how the rest of the evening progressed. A police lieutenant doesn’t get murdered in his bedroom, accompanied by a dead prostitute, without some boots pounding the pavement in response.
“We’re only a couple of minutes away now,” Blake muttered from behind the wheel of the Gran Torino.
Lynch double-checked both of his handguns, as well as his submachine gun and the rest of his kit, most of it identical to what he’d brought with him to Kezar Stadium. That they were stepping into the same exact situation again ran through Lynch’s mind, a thought he didn’t relish at all. Cranston had proven to be a cunning adversary twice now, escaping the ambush at the roadhouse and turning the tables on them at the stadium. Now, he’d had a day to entrench himself in this country house, and there was no telling what resources remained at his disposal. While they’d killed a number of his gunmen over the last few days, Blake had professed no idea how many men Cranston either had in his employ, or available to him on a contract basis.
Blake slowed down and eyed a sign along the road, then killed the headlights before taking a right-hand turn and motoring up a narrow, winding, two-lane side road. Blake drove slowly, and they all rolled down the windows, listening to the chirping of insects and the leaves rustling in the night’s breeze. The road was lined with bushes and trees, but further away the foliage opened up, and larger fields of tall grass turned into softly rolling hills. Lynch imagined that during the day this would be a beautiful place, quiet and verdant, but tonight the moonlit fields and shadowy roadside trees seemed menacing. A prickle of fear crept up Lynch’s spine.
Blake turned to look at the two other men. “We’ll see if we can’t find a spot to pull off the road and then -”
A neat, round hole appeared in the center of the windshield, accompanied by the crack of a high-powered rifle. Tiny shards of glass sprayed through the passenger compartment, and Lynch sensed the bullet snap past his ear before it punched through the rear window and continued on its way.
Blake slammed on the brakes and the Gran Torino skidded to a halt. “Everyone out!” he roared.
Lynch was already halfway out of the car before it came to a halt, propelled by the airborne infantryman’s fear of being trapped inside a transport while it was riddled by enemy fire. Lynch didn’t even take the time to grab the submachine gun, and he cursed the enthusiasm of his reflexes as he rolled into the roadside ditch, leaving most of his gear in the car. A second later Richard slithered into the ditch in front of him, the moonlight gleaming on Richard’s .38 Super.
“Okay, soldier boy, now what?” Richard whispered.
Before Lynch could answer, the rifle fired again, and they heard the bullet tear through the Gran Torino’s two open right-side doors. Lynch raised his head just enough to look under the belly of the car, and he saw the soles of Blake’s shoes as the big man crawled into the ditch on the
opposite side of the road.
“We can’t let him pin us down,” Lynch whispered. “Otherwise he’ll just hold us here until reinforcements arrive, and then we’re fucked.”
“That’s a bolt-action rifle,” Richard said. “Something heavy, like a .30-06 or a Mauser.” A third shot thumped into the open driver’s-side door. “Don’t sound like he’s too familiar with it, either.”
Lynch nodded. “He’s taking too long to cycle that bolt. He’s no sniper, just some asshole Cranston parked down here. We need to rush him, assault the ambush point.”
Lynch saw Richard shake his head in the darkness. “Typical army man, always charging the guns. I’ll flank him from the right, you move forward.”
With that, Richard eased himself into the high grass along the side of the ditch. A bullet slashed through the grass as it swayed, but the shot was too high. This time, Lynch had spotted the muzzle flash; the gunman was on the opposite side of the road, crouched behind a large tree about fifty yards away. Keeping as low as possible, Lynch drew his .45 and braced his hands on the edge of the ditch. He fired three shots, aiming for the tree, hoping to make the shooter duck back.
As soon as he fired the third shot, Lynch dropped to his belly and began crawling forward as fast as he could, hoping to move ahead and put some distance between him and his last firing position. There was another shot, and gravel flew into the air behind him as a bullet cratered the lip of the ditch where he’d been. The shot was answered by the heavy boom of Blake’s .41 Magnum as the ex-cop fired twice at the rifleman. Lynch used the distraction to continue crawling as fast as he could, and several times he heard the faint crackling of dry grass and leaves to his right, as Richard moved ahead, sacrificing silence for speed in his flanking maneuver.
The gunman had been quiet for too long, and Lynch wondered if the man had been hit. He took a chance and peered over the edge of the ditch, then fired a single shot at the gunman’s position. A muzzle flash immediately appeared in his gun sights, and a bullet geysered bits of asphalt up into the air a few inches from his hands, several particles striking him painfully in the side of the head. Lynch emptied the last three rounds from his pistol as fast as he could fire them, then dropped back into the ditch as a second shot gouged a fist-sized crater in the roadway, right where he’d been a moment before.
Lynch continued to crawl as he reloaded, taking an extra second to tuck the empty magazine in his coat pocket. He heard Blake’s revolver boom twice more, the shots coming from almost directly across the road from Lynch, and the rifle barked a third time in reply. Lynch rose up and fired two shots from his own gun, not taking the time to aim carefully, but to simply attract the shooter’s attention away from Blake for a moment. An answering rifle bullet snapped overhead, passing just above the edge of the ditch, and immediately afterward Blake emptied his revolver with two more shots.
Before the rifle could fire again, three shots rang out from up ahead, the reports lighter and less impressive that the rifle. Lynch recognized the sound of Richard’s .38 Super firing, and peering up over the lip of the ditch, Lynch saw a dark figure sprint from right to left across the side of the road, the .38 cracking once more. Lynch rose to a crouch and scuttled along the ditch fast, as only an infantryman can in such a ridiculous posture, until he was across the road from the rifleman’s position.
“It’s me, don’t shoot,” Lynch whispered as he moved across the road.
Richard was crouching over the crumpled body of a man in a dark coat, a rifle on the ground nearby. Lynch picked the rifle up and saw it was an old Springfield 1903 bolt-action, probably a surplus gun picked up someplace for cheap. Richard handed Lynch a fistful of cartridges, and Lynch reloaded the rifle as Blake approached.
“They’re going to be here any moment,” Blake whispered, breaking open his revolver and reloading.
“You got that right,” Richard drawled, holding up a walkie-talkie. Soft crackles of static were coming from the little speaker, stopping when Cranston’s voice came through.
“Lonetti, you useless shit, I want a report!”
Blake held out his hand, and Richard gave him the radio. Blake held it up to his lips and pressed the transmit switch.
“Lonetti can’t reply right now, Philip. His brains are leaking into the ground.”
There was a few seconds of static before Cranston came back on the radio.
“I knew it must be you, John. This isn’t the middle of Golden Gate Park. I’m going to hunt you down, and I’m going to put a bullet in your belly, old man.”
“You keep talking tough, Philip,” Blake replied. “We’ll just keep killing your goons until you’re the only one left. And then I’m shoving my Magnum up your ass and pulling the trigger.”
“You’re too old and too slow, John. You’re never going to catch me. And when we part ways tonight, whether you’re alive or dead, I’m going to pay a visit to your kids, John. I’m going to take a trip up to Seattle, and I’m going to find your son, and I’m going to set him on fire.”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Philip,” Blake growled into the radio.
“I’m going to shoot him in the gut, dump some gas on him, and watch him burn, John. Then I’m going to find your daughter, and before I roast her alive, I’m going to-”
Blake roared and smashed the walkie-talkie repeatedly against the tree trunk until it came apart in his hands. Then he looked at Lynch and Richard. “He was buying his men time. They’re going to come at us any second now. We need the heavy artillery we left behind in the car.”
Lynch finished reloading the Springfield and swapping fresh magazines in his .45 automatic. “You two go back and bring up the big guns. I’ll hold them here.”
“You sure about that, amigo?” Richard asked.
Lynch smiled at him and hefted the Springfield. “I’ve spent a lot of time fighting in the dark. They’re the ones who need to worry.”
TWENTY-TWO
The four men who came down the dark road were clearly city folk. Lynch could see them approach, each man standing upright but slightly hunched, as if they were walking down a sidewalk during a rainstorm. They were smart enough to avoid using flashlights, but one man had a lit cigarette in his mouth, the dull red glow at the tip clearly visible.
Lynch decided the smoker was the first to die. Lying prone behind the tree, he mated his cheek to the rifle stock and peered through the sights with one eye while closing the other to preserve his night vision. Lynch tucked the front post just underneath the tiny red dot of the lit cigarette and squeezed the trigger. The .30-06 bucked against his shoulder and the report was like a clap of thunder right in his face. Opening his other eye, he saw the silhouette of the smoking man was gone. Of the other three men, two of them were crouched and running through the grass on either side of the road, while the third stood paralyzed in the middle of the road for a moment before raising a pistol and firing aimlessly in Lynch’s general direction. Several bullets snapped overhead, one thunking into the tree above him, but nothing came anywhere close.
Lynch’s second shot knocked down the shooter, who cried out once as he crumpled over. Not wanting to take his chances staying in one place for too long, Lynch rolled away from the tree and into the tall grass of the field. Getting to his feet and crouching low, he began circling wide out to the left, the Springfield up and ready. The gunman on the other side of the road cut loose with a shotgun, sending blasts of shot scything through the brush along Lynch’s side of the road and raking the position where he’d been, but the shooter did nothing but give away his position. Lynch took a knee and as soon as the man gave away his position with another muzzle flash, Lynch fired.
The familiar roar of a Thompson submachine gun came from Lynch’s left, and a murderous hail of bullets whipped through the grass all around him. Lynch dropped flat, his combat reflexes taking over, and blades of grass rained down around him, cut through by the fat .45 caliber slugs. Lynch jerked in pain and hissed through his teeth as a slug kissed his hip
, the touch as painful as a red-hot iron pressed against his skin. He slithered through the grass like a snake, trying to move away from his original position, but the fire from the Thompson was relentless, the gunman sweeping back and forth erratically, giving Lynch little sense of where to maneuver. He drew his .45 and snapped off several shots in the gunman’s general direction, then rolled hard, clearing his position a split-second before a half-dozen slugs chewed up the ground. He needed distance to get out of the shooter’s field of fire, and time to line up a shot, and the bastard wasn’t giving him either.
Suddenly, an automatic weapon snarled behind him, the sharp chatter of another submachine gun. The Thompson’s fire shifted to Lynch’s right as the gunman engaged his new threat, giving Lynch the reprieve he needed. Rising to one knee, he sighted his pistol on the Thompson’s foot-long muzzle flash and emptied his magazine. The tongue of flame swung about wildly for a moment before winking out, the weapon falling silent. Lynch holstered his pistol and grabbed the Springfield, then glanced behind him. A figure cut through the grassy field in a crouch, a submachine gun raised.
“Lynch, where the heck are you?” Richard whispered.
“Right here,” Lynch replied. “I think I got him.”
The two men linked up and Richard handed Lynch the M76 submachine gun. Lynch slung the Springfield over his shoulder and made sure the M76’s bolt was locked back, the weapon ready to fire. The two men moved cautiously through the grass towards where the Thompson gunner had dropped, and they heard a wet, gurgling, coughing sound. Ten feet away, Richard levelled his Russian submachine gun and let off a long burst, tearing up the dark patch of flattened grass before they even saw the wounded man.
“I think you got him,” Lynch said.
“Can’t be too sure,” Richard replied, swiftly reloading his weapon and firing another burst.
San Francisco Slaughter Page 12