ELEVEN
After swinging by the warehouse to pick up Blake’s car, Lynch and Richard agreed they couldn’t go back to the hotel covered in spilled booze and dried blood. Blake offered to put them up for the night, and the two men followed him back to his home in San Mateo, a one-story ranch on a half-acre of land, surrounded by a man-high hedge and trees. They pulled in at a little after four in the morning, shutting their car doors carefully and quietly.
“Wife died of cancer four years ago,” Blake said as they entered the house. “Kids are all grown up. My oldest, she married ten years ago and moved to L.A., husband’s an entertainment lawyer. My boy got out of the Marines in ‘68, then joined up with some of the guys from his unit and moved to Seattle. He’s working at some coffee shop now, seems happy at least.”
The house was clean and well-maintained. A small black-and-white television and a stereo occupied the living room, along with a couch and a couple of armchairs, a coffee table and some bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. Although Blake had said his wife had passed away years ago, there was evidence of a woman’s touch everywhere Lynch looked. He guessed the house remained virtually unchanged since Blake had become a widower.
As Blake showed Richard to the bathroom, Lynch walked around the living room and looked at the framed photographs on the walls and the mantel. One of the photos showed a young John Blake in his Marine Corps dress blues, and nearby, a picture of a younger man who was clearly his son, also in dress uniform, standing alongside his proud father. There were other photos, several showing Blake in his SFPD uniform, as well as wedding photos of himself and his wife, and another, newer, wedding photo with a young woman Lynch guessed to be his daughter.
Tucked underneath one framed picture on the mantel, Lynch found a faded, dog-eared photo of Blake and several other combat-weary Marines standing around the fire-blackened entrance of a concrete bunker, surrounded by shattered palm trees and other debris. A cigarette dangled from Blake’s lips, and he stood shirtless and proud, a camouflage-covered helmet pushed back on his head, a combat shotgun propped on his shoulder and a holstered pistol on his hip. The other men in the photo were similarly armed, and one man stood bowed under the weight of a flamethrower. In the lower right-hand corner of the photo Lynch saw a pair of blackened sticks coming into the frame, and it took a moment for him to realize they were a man’s fire-shriveled legs.
Lynch heard a floorboard creak behind him, and turned to see Blake looking down at the photo in his hand.
“Peleliu, September of ‘44. Some asshole said we’d take that island in four days. Buddy of mine took that photo when we’d been there for only a week, and it took us Marines and the Army boys near two months to pull all those rat bastards out of their holes.” Blake looked Lynch in the eye. “You can see what I meant about not being squeamish anymore.”
Lynch nodded, tucking the photo back on the mantel where he’d found it. “Yeah, I believe it. My dad was Irish, went over to France in ‘39. He made it off the beach at Dunkirk, then fought in a British Commando unit for the rest of the war.”
“Those were some tough bastards,” Blake said. “Don’t suppose he talks about the war much?”
Lynch shook his head. “He died in a car accident when I was little. Drove home late from work on a rainy night, went off the road near a bridge. Car was found in the river with the driver’s side door open. They figure he made it out of the car, but was probably too badly hurt to make it to shore. They never recovered his body.”
Blake looked down at his feet. “Hell of a way for a guy like that to go out. Still, I suppose that’s how we’ll all end up, those of us who made it through the war.” Blake let out an amused grunt. “Hell, I’ll probably die sitting on the john. Heart’ll give out while I’m taking a shit.”
Lynch reached out and touched the blood-crusted side of Blake’s sport coat. “Unless you catch a bit of unfriendly lead first. We ought to take care of that.”
Blake slipped his jacket off, wincing as the dried blood pulled away from the shirt and the skin beneath. He took a look at the three-inch gash in the coat and shook his head.
“Goddamn it. This was one of my favorites.”
Just then Richard emerged from the bathroom, gingerly fingering his bruised face, now washed clean of blood.
“You got a first aid kit around here?” he asked Blake. “We should take a look at your side, and Lynch needs a bunch of glass picked out of his legs.”
For the next hour, the three men cleaned each other’s wounds and bandaged themselves up as best they could. The flattened ricochet had left a long, shallow crease across Blake’s ribs.
“You should probably get this stitched,” Lynch said while daubing at the wound with some antiseptic.
Blake shook his head. “I got enough scars, it’ll be fine.”
Once Blake’s injury was tended to, Richard used a pair of tweezers to pick slivers of glass from Lynch’s shins. He pointed at a puckered wound on Lynch’s calf.
“That looks like it must have hurt.”
“Bullet fragment caught me there back in ‘70. Gave me a bit of a limp.”
“Hope you gave the sumbitch more’n just a limp.”
Lynch smirked. “Him and quite a few of his buddies. That was a heavy day.”
Richard looked up at him. “You did pretty well tonight. Guess you weren’t fibbing when you said you’ve been in some serious action.”
“You didn’t do so bad yourself. But something tells me you’ve never worn a uniform.”
Richard shrugged. “That’s a story for another time.”
After they’d cleaned and bandaged their wounds, Blake went to the dry bar in the living room and poured each of them a stiff bourbon. The three men raised their glasses and toasted their survival.
“Cheers, gentlemen,” Blake said. “Here’s to a good day’s work, killing scumbags and burning down buildings.”
Lynch took a long sip from his glass. The bourbon was sweet and smooth, settling into the pit of his stomach with a fiery glow.
“Think there’s going to be any blowback?” he asked Blake.
The older man lit a cigarette and took a deep draw before he shook his head, puffing the smoke out through his nostrils. “I think we’re in the clear. No one will connect this to us. Well, except Cranston, and that’s the only thing that worries me.”
Richard peered into his bourbon introspectively. “You think he’s guessed Steiger isn’t peacefully sitting this out?”
“He’s probably got enough ears pressed to the ground to figure out if there’s another underworld player trying to get their hands on Roth. Who knows - maybe Roth is indebted to more than one party, and he’s trying for a bidding war. Something tells me he’s not that clever. Cranston might not have figured out Steiger’s in the game now, but he’ll determine soon enough that it wasn’t any of his competitors. Just a matter of time before he puts two and two together.”
“You think he might move on Steiger?” Richard asked.
Blake shook his head. “Cranston is too smart for that. Killing Steiger would bring too much heat down on him. No, he’ll make a more subtle play. We’ll just need to be ready for it when it comes.”
“Speaking of which,” Lynch said, looking around. “I’m dead on my feet, and that couch appears mighty comfy.”
Blake tossed back the rest of his bourbon and nodded his head towards the back of the apartment. “I’ll grab you a blanket from the linen closet. Richard, you’re welcome to my son’s room. Sorry Lynch, wife turned my daughter’s room into a crafts studio. She liked to paint.”
The three men fell asleep as the first rays of morning sunlight filtered through the curtains.
TWELVE
Lynch awoke to the smell of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee. His stomach growled, his hands and shins ached, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He sat up and glanced around the living room. Judging by the angle of the sunlight coming in, it was close to noon.
Blake craned his neck around the kitchen doorway. “Hit the shower - there’s a car on the way, had one of Steiger’s errand boys go out and get you some new clothes. He’ll be here in a minute.”
Lynch stepped out of the shower ten minutes later, and found a new set of clothes sitting on the toilet seat. He dressed and walked into the kitchen, his stomach insisting there be no more delays. Richard sat with Blake, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. A small transistor radio next to the stove was tuned in to the news, and a reporter was giving updates on last night’s battle at the roadhouse.
“I guess we’re the talk of the town this morning,” Lynch muttered, as he helped himself to breakfast from the stovetop.
“It’ll be another day or so before they ID those bodies,” Blake said. “And that’s if they even have dental records on any of them.”
“Cranston is no dummy. None of the guys we searched were carrying any kind of identification, just cash,” Richard said.
Lynch joined the two men at the table and proceeded to fill his empty stomach. He and Richard had eaten a light dinner before going out last night, but that’d been at least sixteen hours before, and he knew in combat the body devoured calories at a frightening rate.
“Sure you weren’t slinging hash instead of bullets in the Pacific?” he teased Blake.
The older man laughed. “That’s cop cooking you’re eating. Enough carbohydrates and protein for long stakeouts and night shifts. No telling what today’s going to bring, so I figured we all needed a big meal in our bellies.”
As if on cue, Blake’s phone started ringing. He got up and answered it. From the tone of the conversation, Steiger was on the other end of the line, and the news wasn’t very good.
Blake hung up the phone, his face grim. “Let’s wrap it up. We’re going back to SEC. Cranston just called Steiger on his private line. He’s got Roth and the prototype.”
“Jesus, that was fast,” Lynch said.
Blake nodded. “And, after our shootout last night, he’s probably not in a good mood, either.”
Half an hour later, the three men walked into Steiger’s office. The CEO was pacing back and forth, hands clenched behind his back.
He glared at Blake. “Took you long enough to get here.”
Blake didn’t flinch. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Especially if you’re only getting up at noon. We had a long night.”
“So it appears. Let’s have it.”
The three men filled Steiger in on all the details. Lynch had to give the man credit; Steiger didn’t even blink when the story got messy. They’d agreed over breakfast to keep a few of the details out of the debriefing, especially Tully’s murder, but ten dead men was still quite a body count for one night.
When they’d finished, Steiger stood and processed it all for a moment. Then he walked over to his desk and picked up a compact cassette player. He put it down on the coffee table.
“I have all external calls coming in to my personal line recorded, for record-keeping purposes. I received this just before I called you,” he said, pressing the play button.
“Steiger, listen carefully. I’ve got Roth. I’ve got your prototype. I’ve also got an offer to have both taken off my hands for forty large. I’m giving you a chance to make a counteroffer. I want fifty thousand, by midnight, in unmarked bills. I’ll know if they’re marked, so don’t get clever. I’ll also know if you go to the cops, so don’t get stupid on top of clever.”
The voice was harsh, the words tinged with contempt. Lynch looked up at Blake, and he nodded - it was Cranston.
“Who is this?” Steiger’s voice asked.
“Who I am doesn’t matter. What matters is your attention to detail. Fifty thousand. Unmarked bills. No cops. By midnight.”
“That’s a lot of money to produce in twelve hours,” Steiger replied.
“Don’t insult me, Steiger. A guy like you can make the banks dance to his tune whenever he wants. You can have that cash sitting on your desk in an hour. Fifty grand, Steiger. Or I put your propeller-head and his toy in the trunk of a car and take him someplace where you’ll never find him.”
“Where do we bring the money?” Steiger asked.
“I’ll call you by eight with the location. Just remember, this is between you and me. If you talk to the cops, if you talk to the feds, I’ll know, and Roth takes a road trip.”
The line went dead. Steiger turned off the cassette player.
“The money is on its way now,” Steiger told them. “Although I’m hoping I don’t have to pay. I don’t really have any faith in this Cranston character keeping his end of the bargain.”
Blake shook his head. “If Roth has seen Cranston’s face, he’s a dead man. Best case scenario, we get back the prototype, but that’s it.”
“Why do we think he’s trying to make a better deal with us?” Richard asked. “Doesn’t seem too smart if he originally contracted with the Mob.”
“He’s got no formal association with them,” Blake answered. “He’s totally freelance. They probably offered Cranston a bounty if he could find Roth and bring him in, but if he decides to cut them out of the picture, they don’t really have the weight around here to lean on him too hard. The Mob hasn’t ever been too thick in this city, which is why Cranston gets so much of their enforcement work. They need him more than it’s worth to give him grief about Roth.”
“Okay, so if that’s the case, what’s our next move?” Lynch asked.
They thought for a moment. Richard touched the bruising on his face. “We’re lucky Cranston didn’t have another Tommy gun last night, or we’d have been buzzard meat for sure. Our sidearms and Blake’s scattergun aren’t enough to go into that kind of a fight again.”
Blake looked at Steiger, who gave a small nod. “Whatever you need, I’ll cover it.”
“I know a guy who lives outside of Reno,” Blake said. “He can get us some real hardware, off the books. It won’t be cheap, though.”
“Reno is what, a four-hour drive from here, at least?” Lynch asked.
“John, take the plane out of San Carlos. I’ll call ahead,” Steiger said. “And pick up some cash downstairs. I want all of you back here before Cranston calls again.”
The three men stood up and looked at each other. Blake grinned.
“Okay, boys. Let’s get some bigger guns.”
THIRTEEN
They flew out of a small county airfield a few miles to the north, where SEC maintained a hangar. Their corporate passenger plane was a Cessna 421 Golden Eagle, flown by a former US Army Air Force captain who’d flown a P-38 Lightning in the Pacific against the Japanese. The flight was smooth and scenic; Lynch had never flown this way before, with plenty of legroom and no crying children or inconsiderate neighbors slamming into the back of his seat.
“I could get used to traveling like this,” he said to Richard.
The Texan smiled. “It’s the only way to fly.”
“You do this a lot, I take it?”
Richard shrugged. “A lot of the clients I’ve worked for, they prefer fast results over pinching pennies. Best part is, no one cares if you’re packing.”
Lynch had noticed that both Richard and Blake were wearing their guns that morning, so he’d reloaded his spent magazines and tucked his .45 into his waistband. But sitting on the plane was uncomfortable that way, so he’d wrapped the pistol into the folds of his jacket sitting on the seat next to him. Lynch decided that if they had time, he wanted to pick up a holster for the pistol. Carrying it around like a criminal was less than ideal.
The plane landed at a small airfield outside of Reno, and an older man, around Blake’s age, was there to greet them. His name was Taggart, and he was an old war buddy of Blake’s. Taggart was short and stocky, with a bit of a paunch and a round face half-hidden in a bristly grey beard. He wore faded blue jeans and work boots, and a checkered shirt, with an old cowboy hat tipped back on his head. They loaded up into Taggart’s Jeep Wagon
eer and headed out into the country, where they arrived at his place, a big, rustic cabin overlooking Pyramid Lake. A curious blue-tick hound greeted everyone in the driveway, and Taggart invited them inside for a beer.
After a drink and a few minutes of catching up between Blake and Taggart, the two got down to business.
“So, you’re looking to make a few purchases. Didn’t think I’d be doing business with a former lawman like yourself,” Taggart told his old friend.
Blake smiled. “Former Marine first, ex-cop second. My friends and I are in the middle of a serious professional disagreement with a gentleman who’s got us outgunned.”
Taggart gestured to his radio. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with what I heard on the radio this morning, would it? Big shootout south of San Fran? Reporters saying someone used a machine gun on the place.”
“Sounded to me like one bunch of bad guys killed another bunch of bad guys,” Richard interjected. “Scumbags killin’ scumbags.”
Taggart grinned, “Horseshit, son. But it don’t matter none. John here,” he gestured to Blake, “he saved my life a dozen times in the war, and I saved his just as many. Ain’t no connection stronger than that. That’s stronger than kinfolk. Anything you boys need, I’ll provide - for the right price.” He said the last with a twinkle in his eye.
Taggart lit a Coleman lantern, and the three men followed him down a narrow staircase into the cabin’s basement. Old war surplus ammo cans and packing crates were stacked here and there, junk left over from the wars of the last thirty years. At Taggart’s direction, Richard and Lynch moved a number of items from a corner of the room, and after a few moments’ discreet work, Taggart pulled aside several of the hand-cut wooden planks making up the wall, revealing a hidden storage space about twice the size of a phone booth.
“What’re you looking for, anyhow?” Taggart asked.
“Automatic weapons,” Richard replied. “Submachine guns, compact automatic rifles, machine pistols.”
Taggart nodded. “All right, I have a few that might meet your needs. I’m not going to lie, though; I’m not parting with them for cheap. It’s getting harder and harder to lay hands on that kind of ordnance these days.”
San Francisco Slaughter Page 6
