Richard shook his head. “Naw, he’s just laying the foundation. You two jackrabbits need to build the rest. Now, where’s Cranston?”
The two men looked at each other. Tully shook his head. “Don’t say a fuckin’ word!”
Reynolds sneered at him. “These aren’t cops, idiot. It ain’t like we can call a lawyer.” He turned to Richard. “Cranston moves around. He’s got a few places.”
“Well, where were you supposed to take Roth when you found him?”
“There’s a roadhouse out on Cabrillo, a mile north of where it meets 84, called The Black Top. Cranston leans on them and they let him do business in the back room after hours. Poker games, stashing dope or putting someone on ice for a while. It’s out of town and off the radar, and he’s got some of the CHiPs on the take so they look the other way.”
“Is Cranston there now?” Lynch asked.
Reynolds shook his head. “He’s not going to sit on his ass there on the off-chance Roth is stupid enough to get caught. We’re supposed to call Cranston if we catch Roth.”
Blake scratched his stubbled cheek. “What’s Cranston’s play? He after Roth himself?”
“He got an offer from some wiseguy out in Vegas. I don’t know who. Roth’s on the hook with the guy big time. If Cranston finds Roth and his gizmo, the wiseguy makes a killing on some deal with one of them other electronics companies. Cranston’s got a bunch of guys combing the city looking for this egghead.”
Richard motioned to Blake and Lynch, and the three men walked to the other end of the warehouse, keeping an eye on their two captives. Once out of hearing, he turned and looked to Blake.
“This place have a phone?”
“You’re thinking of getting one of those clowns to call Cranston, have him show up at the roadhouse,” Blake said.
“How long would it take to get there?” Lynch asked.
Blake thought for a moment. “We take 280 south to 92, head west, then take Cabrillo south...maybe thirty minutes at this time of night.”
“Assuming Cranston is in the city, we’d beat him there, but not by much. What do you think?”
“This asshole is our best chance of getting to that Vegas wiseguy and whoever he’s dealing with,” Lynch said. “I just wish we weren’t so light on firepower.”
Blake grunted. “I’ve got a twelve-gauge pump gun in the trunk of my car, might even the odds a little.”
“Packing any other heat?” Richard asked him.
Blake pulled aside his sports coat. A large, heavy-framed revolver was hanging under his armpit in a shoulder holster.
“You’re going to have to use it,” Lynch warned. “You’re not going to get squeamish when the shooting starts?”
Blake sneered at the younger man. He slipped off his sport coat and unbuttoned his right cuff, rolling up the shirt sleeve. A faded globe-and-anchor was tattooed on his forearm.
“Squeamish? I hit the beaches of Peleliu and Okinawa with the 1st Marine Division. After the war I put in twenty years with the San Fran PD, most of that working homicide. Squeamish isn’t in my vocabulary anymore.”
Lynch met Blake’s eye and nodded. He looked back at the two men taped to the chairs. “Tully’s trying to be a hardcase, but we might be able to get Reynolds to make the call.”
“Spilling his guts is one thing,” Richard said. “Setting Cranston up for an ambush is another. You think he’s properly motivated?”
“Good point.” Lynch knew it was time to make some ruthless decisions. “Well, we don’t need two of these assholes, do we?” He gave Blake a questioning look.
Blake looked away for a long moment, and then he shrugged. “They’re just a couple of lowlifes. But keep it neat, I don’t want to have to clean up a mess.”
Lynch turned and started walking back to their captives while the other men followed. Steeling himself for what was coming, he walked around behind Reynolds, and as he approached Tully, he palmed the slapjack and swung it as hard as he could at the base of Tully’s skull. There was a sickening crunch and Tully’s body spasmed, tipping the chair sideways and onto the floor. Lynch stood over him and smashed the slapjack down twice more onto the base of Tully’s skull, the dead man’s limbs jerking and twitching with each blow. Lynch’s nostrils caught the sharp smell of piss as Tully’s bladder emptied, forming a puddle under the body.
Stepping over to Reynolds, now wide-eyed and trembling with terror, Lynch held up the bloodied weapon, letting the man get a good look at it before he slowly wiped it clean on Reynolds’ jacket. Lynch leaned forward and looked Reynolds in the eye.
“You’re going to make another phone call.”
NINE
It was three in the morning by the time they reached The Black Top. Blake had left his car at the warehouse, transferring his shotgun, an Ithaca pump with rifle sights, to the back of the Gran Torino. He and Lynch took the lead while Richard followed driving Tully’s car with Reynolds and Tully’s corpse in the trunk.
Reynolds had no hesitation in calling Cranston after seeing Lynch beat Tully’s head in with the slapjack. Lynch hadn’t enjoyed the deed, but he knew they couldn’t let the two men go, and they couldn’t get involved with the police, either. No one was going to miss a thug like Tully, and the world was better off with him growing cold and stiff in the trunk of a car. It wasn’t the first time Lynch had killed an enemy in cold blood; deep behind enemy lines and often on the run, the Recon Teams took no prisoners, and left behind only bodies.
The two cars drove past the roadhouse first, everyone giving it a look-over on the way by. There weren’t any cars out front, and the lights were all out, but as they continued on, Lynch, sitting in the passenger seat, turned around and looked back. He saw a pair of dark sedans parked behind the building, tucked in where they wouldn’t be easily seen from the road.
“There’s someone still there,” he said. “Two cars.”
Blake tapped his brakes three times fast, the brake lights flashing a signal to Richard. Blake pulled off the side of the road and Richard pulled in right behind him. The three men got out of their cars.
Richard pulled the Walther from its holster and double-checked that the chamber was loaded. He holstered the gun and checked his .38 automatic as well. “Lynch, how about you and me take the place. Then Blake, you and I will pull in the cars and tuck them back where they won’t be seen, over by those trees.”
Blake nodded and popped the trunk of the Gran Torino. He pulled out his Ithaca and racked a load, then slipped another shell into the tube to top it off. He emptied a box of double-ought buckshot shells into the pockets of his sport coat.
“I’ll keep an eye on the road. If Cranston gets here before we clear the roadhouse and hide the cars, I’m going to empty this riot gun into his windshield, and you two better come running.”
Lynch double-checked his .45 to make sure it was locked and loaded, then pocketed the slapjack and the .357 snub-nose along with his spare magazines. “We’ll do this fast and hard - we don’t have time to fuck around. I’ll flash my penlight at you three times when it’s clear.”
It was a dark night and the grass along the side of the road was high, so the two men kept to a low crouch and moved fast. They covered the distance to the edge of the roadhouse parking lot in a couple of minutes, then skirted to the right, slipping around back behind the building. From this angle, Lynch saw a pair of four-door Chrysler sedans parked behind the building.
“We could be walking into a whole mess of guys,” he whispered to Richard.
“You think Cranston is here already?” Richard asked.
“Let’s hope not,” Lynch replied. “If he’s anything like Blake said, we’re a little light to take him on.”
Richard grunted. “So, how’re we going to do this?”
“Fast and hard, like I said before. There’s just two of us, so there’s no room for anything fancy. With any luck, whoever’s here is sitting out in the front, in the dark, looking for Cranston’s car to pull in. We take the ba
ck door and push on through to the front, dropping ‘em as we go.”
Richard nodded and drew his Walther. “You got balls, Lynch. Let’s do it.”
They sprinted for the back door in a low crouch, covering the distance in a few seconds. There was no sign they were seen, and Richard nodded to Lynch and readied his pistol as Lynch tested the doorknob. Surprisingly, it was unlocked.
“Guess they figure no point in locking it while they’re here,” he said.
With his .45 in hand, Lynch opened the door and stepped out of the way. Richard went in fast, gun up and pointing wherever he looked. Lynch followed him in, crouched low with his gun in hand. The room was a storage space with crates of beer and liquor and food stacked all around. Another door at the other end of the room was mostly shut, and there was light coming through the crack between the door and the frame. Richard moved up to the door and shouldered it open.
Two men sat around a rickety table, playing cards with bottles of beer at their elbows. An ashtray between them was piled high with butts, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke. A double-barreled shotgun stood against the wall near one man, while the other had a revolver on the table next to him. They both glanced up as Richard and Lynch entered the room, but neither man had time to say anything before Richard opened fire. He put two rounds through the head of the man facing him, blowing brains and bone fragments all over the wall. The second man jerked around in his chair and tried to grab his gun, but Richard fired three bullets through his chest. The man grunted an unintelligible curse and slid out of the chair onto the floor, his elbow clipping a beer bottle and sending it smashing onto the tile floor.
“Hey, what the fuck are you guys doing?” a voice said from a room behind them. A door swung open, and Lynch spun on his heel, bringing his .45 around as a man stepped out of the bathroom, his eyes going wide. The man went for a gun in his waistband and managed to pull it free before Lynch fired twice, the unsuppressed shots staggeringly loud in the confined space. The first bullet caught the man in the chest, the second in the throat, and he slammed into the door and tumbled backwards, the revolver falling from his hand.
His ears ringing, Lynch wasted no time heading for the swinging double doors that led into the kitchen area, unlit and unoccupied, before he kicked open another set of double doors and barely escaped having his brains blown out. Although the lights were out in the dining area, light coming in from the parking lot silhouetted a man crouched near a booth by the front windows, firing a pistol in a two-handed grip. Lynch dove to the ground and slid out past the bar, emptying his pistol at the shooter. The last bullet made contact, catching the gunman in the mouth and knocking him flat.
Lynch reloaded while getting to his feet, as Richard came through the door, his .38 Super at the ready.
“I think we’re clear,” Lynch said. “Got the last fucker in the face.”
Richard lowered his pistol and turned, about to reply, when he was suddenly lit up by the headlights of two cars pulling off the road and into the parking lot.
They were too late. Cranston had arrived.
TEN
Blake’s Ithaca pump went off outside, a roar that shook the windows. Shards of windshield glass twinkled in the harsh glare of the parking lot lights, and the lead car, a dark blue Dodge, came to a screeching halt. Behind it, a massive black Cadillac swerved around the Dodge, putting the other car between it and the deadly hail of buckshot Blake was sending their way.
Cranston’s men immediately returned fire. A foot-long tongue of flame leapt out of the Dodge’s right rear door, as someone in there with a shotgun of their own blasted lead at their attacker. It was immediately followed by a fusillade of pistol shots. Blake’s shotgun fired one last blast and went silent - whether because he was dead or behind cover, Lynch and Richard couldn’t tell.
Richard crouched down in a nearby booth and began firing through the window, and Lynch went to the other side of the room and did the same, knocking a hole in the window glass with his Colt’s muzzle before opening fire. He took three shots at the driver’s side door of the Cadillac, aiming high to try and go through the glass, before shifting fire and emptying the remainder of his magazine at the rear passenger window. He saw all his shots connecting, but the window didn’t shatter into pieces; the Cadillac was fitted with bulletproof glass.
As Lynch and Richard both paused to reload there was a stuttering roar from the Caddy’s back seat, and suddenly the front of the dining area disintegrated in a flurry of broken glass and splintered wood. Someone had a submachine gun, something heavy and merciless, and it was tearing the front of the roadhouse apart. Both Lynch and Richard rolled out of their booths and hit the floor as dozens of slugs chopped through the windows, walls, and front door, then carried on to shatter the bar and everything behind it. Bottles of booze and glassware exploded, filling the room with the reek of spilled high-proof spirits.
“Jesus Christ, they brought a machine gun!” Lynch hollered over the racket.
“It’s a Thompson!” Richard shouted. “Gotta be a fifty-round drum!”
The submachine gun finally went dry, and there was a moment of silence before the tattered front door burst open and two men ran in, pistols in their hands. They immediately opened fire on Lynch, not noticing Richard behind them, and Lynch rolled across the floor as bullets chewed holes all around him. He finally got himself behind the bar, soaking his pants in spilled liquor and feeling broken glass cutting into his hands. He brought up his .45, firing blind over the bar top and hoping Richard had the sense to keep his head down. As he blasted away, Lynch pulled the snub-nosed .357 from his jacket pocket, and the moment his automatic snapped open on an empty chamber, he gritted his teeth and jumped to his feet. Richard and one of the men were rolling around on the floor, each trying to get their pistols pointed at the other’s face, while the second man was picking himself up off the floor. Lynch fired a single round from the revolver, hitting his target in the chest and sprawling the man into a booth seat.
The squeal of spinning tires came from outside and Lynch vaulted the bar, kicking Richard’s assailant in the head as he ran across the room and out the door. The Cadillac was accelerating around the Dodge, and Lynch threw himself to the ground as the Tommy gun in the back seat opened up on him again, slugs cutting through the air over his head. Lying on the asphalt outside the roadhouse and dropping his empty .45, Lynch steadied the snub-nose in a two-handed grip and thumbed back the hammer. Taking deliberate aim, he emptied the revolver at the black car’s retreating headlights as it careened out of the parking lot and onto the road. The Thompson gunner fired a parting burst at Blake’s position, and Lynch was glad to hear the Ithaca deliver the last word before the Cadillac’s tires got a grip on the asphalt, and the big car roared away.
Lynch threw aside the empty revolver and reloaded his automatic, rolling over and bringing the gun to bear as a foot crunched broken glass behind him. It was Richard, staggering out of the roadhouse, a streak of blood running down his chin, more blood clotted around his knuckles.
“Thanks for the assist,” he muttered past bloodied lips.
“Any time,” Lynch said as he got to his feet. “Let’s clear that car.”
They approached the silent Dodge with guns at the ready, but they weren’t necessary. The driver was dead, his blank eyes staring up at the roof of the cab, face and throat riddled with holes from double-ought buckshot. The passenger next to him was coughing up dark pulses of blood, a saucer-sized hole in the door and a dark stain of blood spreading across his chest, a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun broken open and empty in his lap. Richard took one look at him and leaned inside the car, blowing the dying man’s brains out with a shot from his .38 Super.
Both men looked up at the sound of shoe leather slapping asphalt and saw Blake running across the parking lot, revolver in hand. The side of his sports coat was dark and glistening with blood.
“You’re hit,” Lynch said.
“Caught a ricochet off the ho
od of the Buick,” Blake replied. “It’s just a graze. You two okay?”
Richard and Lynch looked each other over. There were a few spots of blood seeping through Lynch’s jeans where slivers of glass had pinked him, and his hands were cut up some, but other than that, he was whole. Richard had taken a bit of a beating, but after he rubbed a handkerchief across his knuckles, Lynch saw the blood wasn’t his.
“That guy still breathing?” he asked.
“What do you think?” Richard answered, daubing at his face with the handkerchief.
“Any of them still breathing?” Blake nodded towards the Dodge.
“Not anymore,” Lynch replied. He pointed at the passenger in the Dodge. “That guy was still alive, but he wasn’t going to last much longer, and we wouldn’t have gotten anything out of him, anyway.”
Blake looked around, eyeing the shredded front of the roadhouse. “We need to get going. Anyone driving past this mess is going to see something’s wrong. You two take a moment and look for anything useful inside, any documents or leads we might be able to follow. Then I want you to burn the place. I’ll pull the Buick in here and torch it and this Dodge.”
“What about Reynolds?” Lynch asked.
Blake shook his head. “That last blast from the Cadillac tore right through the Buick’s trunk. I popped it open. Reynolds is worm food.”
Two minutes later, the three men were in the Gran Torino, heading north towards San Francisco. Lynch had scooped up the .357 snub and pocketed it, along with his discarded magazines, and a quick search of the back room revealed nothing of substance. Cranston was living up to his reputation, leaving nothing at the roadhouse that could lead back to his organization. Richard had put a match to all the spilled alcohol behind the bar, and The Black Top roadhouse was fully engulfed in flames when they pulled onto the road. As they left the hellish scene behind them, Lynch glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the Buick’s gas tank blow, followed seconds later by the Dodge.
San Francisco Slaughter Page 5
