Eureka

  Eli was a dreamer. A rich man with a vision. The joker in the deck was Riker but we’ll get to that.

  Four of us kids were friends in the truest sense of the word. There was Ben, Isabel Hoffman, Delilah, and me. We went to school together, played together, and lived the sweet life together on the Hill.

  That’s where I first learned what the word friendship meant.

  I learned about loyalty in France, with men who gave up their lives fighting for five miles of mud. I think Brett said it best. Courage is being there, heroism is staying alive.

  I learned about love from a friend whom I betrayed, and who knew it and never mentioned it. He’s still my best friend, although he’s long gone. And his wife, dear Isabel, taught me that first love is forever.

  Eli had our lives planned out for us. Ben and Isabel would marry. Ben would take over the bank. I’d take Buck Tallman’s place when the time came, and clean up Eureka. Trouble was, I was in love with Isabel and she was in love with me. But she was engaged to Ben and she truly adored him, too. So one night, I packed my duds and left. Joined the Marines, traveled the world, and ended up in France in 1918. I truly thought I would spend the rest of my life as a leatherneck but the war put an end to that. You know how that can be. Fate can change your life in the time it takes a howitzer shell to go off.

  Eli once told me everybody has to have a home to come back to. I guess that’s why I came back to Eureka when I got out of the hospital. It was the only home I had left. I had a godson and a family, and Delilah was here. And old Eli’s plan was waiting. I became Buck Tallman’s deputy. It was still a tough town because Riker still ran it. But that was about to change. Delilah ought to tell you about how that night started. Unfortunately, I was late for the party or history might have a different story to tell.

  It’s still hard to talk about, Delilah said. It was the worst night, the worst memory of my life. I remember every detail.

  Bucky was upstairs in my apartment. He always came by about six, for a cup of coffee and to listen to some opera records I had. It was a ritual. His deputy, Andy Sloan, was downstairs keeping an eye on things when the four of them came in.

  I heard some swearing downstairs, walked to the head of the stairs and one of them, an out-of-towner, they all were, told me to come down and talk. I knew what they were, I could tell by looking at them. At that point, Bucky walked up beside me. The lead man sneered at Bucky, said something about him being Buffalo Bill, and Bucky walked down the steps and up to him. They were nose-to-nose. Bucky said, “You oughta brush your teeth sometimes, your breath smells like a dead cat’s.”

  And just like that, the bastard pulled his pistol and shot Bucky in the stomach. And all hell broke loose.

  Bucky grunted and staggered backward, pulled that Peacemaker and fanned three shots into him. Bangbangbang, just like that, so fast you could hardly tell them apart.

  Five men were still standing and they all started shooting at once. It was unbelievable. Bullets shattered lamps and windows, and ripped into walls. I remember bits and pieces after that, like a collage: a vase of flowers bursting apart; the mobster standing against the wall to Andy’s right, turning toward him and taking Andy’s bullet in the face, falling on his knees and then doubling up, and falling forward with his head resting on the carpet; Bucky’s .44 making twice as much noise as all the other guns; the thug near the inside bedroom door spinning around with tufts of gabardine flying off his chest and back; the bastard near the door firing a single shot at Andy, blowing open the back of his head, and knocking him backward over a large, stuffed easy chair.

  It all happened in less than a minute. One of the hoodlums decided to run for it and Bucky shot him as he went out the door. Then Bucky fell against the staircase banister, started reloading his pistol, and the one who had shot Andy started to get up. He was crawling around on his knees looking for his gun. Then I heard a shot outside.

  Culhane: When I came through the door, there was Bucky, gut shot, trying to reload his Peacemaker, his hands so bloody the bullets kept slipping through his fingers and falling on the floor. Andy Sloan was dead on the floor. Everybody was dead but Bucky, me, and the last of Riker’s men. He and Buck were both shot all to hell. They were across the room from each other, probably twenty, thirty feet apart.

  Through the years, I’ve played what happened next over and over in my head like one of those slow-motion movies, and I wish I could stop it. I wish I could turn off the projector and stop time.

  I was twenty feet to the left of Riker’s man.

  He’s struggling to his feet. He’s raising his gun.

  Buck slaps the cylinder shut on his .44 and his arm is going up.

  I go for a head shot, figuring I’m closest. But even shot up as he was, Bucky was faster than me. Probably by half a second. Bucky shoots and I shoot. His bullet hits the gunman first, a split second before mine. His head snaps backward, and my shot goes right past him and hits the door to the bedroom on the first floor.

  Bucky looks up at Del and says, “Wouldn’t you know it. Killed in a whorehouse.”

  And then a woman screamed. She was behind the door to the first-floor bedroom, which was more or less reserved for locals. I ran across the room and kicked open the door. There was a man lying on the Persian rug, shot in the throat. Blood was spouting out of the wound. The woman was covered with his blood and hysterical. Her bloody hands were crossed over her face. She was shaking all over. But I wasn’t looking at her.

  “Get her out of here,” I yelled to Delilah, and they were gone, and I was looking down at the youngster lying at my feet. I saw his eyes go blank.

  It was my godson, Eli Junior.

  My bullet killed him.

  They both stopped talking. They were long past tears but the depth of their sadness swept through the garden like a cold wind. Bannon took Millicent’s hand with both of his, held it tightly, and kissed it. Tears trickled down her face.

  All I could think of was to get Eli out of there. I moved as fast I could. Wrapped him up in the Persian rug, which was drenched in blood. There was hardly any blood in the room except on the bedspread. I ripped it off the bed and threw it in the closet. Then I picked Eli up and carried him outside through the side door by the hedgerow, down to his car, and put him in the trunk. When I came back, the coroner was just arriving. I said as casually as I could, “Nothing in the bedroom.” I had left the door open so he wouldn’t see the hole in the door.

  Then I made the toughest phone call I ever made in my life. I called Ben and told him to meet me at the overlook. It was foggy as hell. You couldn’t even see your belt buckle. He met me there and we mourned over Eli. We prayed over him and we talked to him and we were dying inside. We decided his mother could never know what happened. Killed in a whorehouse, killed by a man she loved. It would have killed her. He was her magic child, the mortar in a great friendship. So we cranked up the Chevy and I got behind the wheel, drove it to the edge, and jumped out. It seemed to take forever before it hit the shelf. And then a minute or so later, it exploded.

  I don’t know how Ben kept his sanity when he went home to Isabel. He had to wait until the next morning, until a newsboy saw the wreck on his way up Cliffside Road, and I went over and told them both.

  He stopped and held his glass up. Delilah filled it. Bannon looked across the table at the old warrior.

  “And you kept that secret until Isabel died?”

  Culhane nodded. “Me, Ben, Delilah, and old Eli knew.”

  “And one more,” Bannon said. “The girl young Eli was with—Wilma Thompson.”

  Millicent looked shocked. Delilah surprised. Culhane just smiled.

  “Figured it out, didn’t you, Cowboy?”

  “It’s the only way it made sense. The out-of-towners weren’t coming to barter for a piece of the action. Riker sent them because he figured Delilah was hiding Wilma at Grand View.”

  “He had just done ten lousy days in the local jail for beating her up,” Delilah said. “I
t should have been ten years. When she dropped out of sight, he sent those animals up to my place to find her.”

  Delilah is in her apartment when Noah taps on the door.

  “It’s old Mist’ Eli,” Noah says. “He’s downstairs in his car. Can’t come in ’cause of the wheelchair.”

  Delilah and Eli are friends, have been for years. Not social friends. Eli had never been to Grand View, but they talked on the phone once a week or so, about Eureka, about Riker. Delilah grabs her mink, wraps herself in it, and goes down. Raymond, Eli’s chauffeur, holds the door for her and she gets in the backseat. Raymond wanders off in the dark.

  Eli looks frail; even in the darkness of the car she can see the toll the shooting has taken on him. Six months and he is still mourning. Will always mourn the loss of his grandson. But his eyes glitter in the gloom. The window is cracked slightly and smoke from his cigar wisps through it.

  “Does the cigar bother you?” he asks. Always the gentleman.

  “Don’t be silly,” she says and lights a cigarette.

  “There’s nobody I can trust as much as I trust you, Del,” he says. There is something in his voice, a cruelness she has not heard before. Anger, yes, but not cruelty.

  She says nothing.

  “The young girl, Wilma? You are protecting her, aren’t you?”

  Delilah doesn’t answer at first. Then she slowly nods.

  “She’s not one of my girls, Eli. She does some work around the place and I pay her a salary, but she stays under cover.”

  “She meant a lot to young Eli, didn’t she?”

  Delilah nods. “She’s a decent young woman. Just got mixed up with Riker. Those things happen.”

  “I have a plan,” the old man says.

  “What kind of plan?”

  “To get rid of Riker once and for all.”

  Delilah just nods, wondering where he is heading with this.

  “They call the son of a bitch ‘the Fisherman’ because he kills people and drops them at sea for the fish to eat. He probably doesn’t do the killing himself, his kind never do. They have scum who do it for them.”

  Delilah still doesn’t say a word.

  “Supposing it appeared that he killed Wilma?”

  “Kill Wilma!”

  “I said ‘appears.’ ”

  Delilah stares at him, at the tip of the cigar glowing in the dark.

  “You want to frame Riker?” she say cautiously.

  “He lives on his boat. I hear he drinks heavily. Drunk almost every night . . .”

  “You want to frame him,” she says, and it is not a question.

  He quickly outlines his plan.

  Delilah sits quietly for a minute.

  “Brodie won’t buy it, Eli. Brett Merrill won’t either.”

  “I know that. We need somebody else to do it, somebody who’ll pull it off without a hitch, so nobody ever knows. Wilma can disappear, go anywhere she wants. I’ll arrange for her to get a new license, a new identity, and make life easy for her for the rest of her life.”

  Delilah is quiet again. A long minute passes.

  “This is a very risky thing.”

  “I know that, my dear.” His voice is the voice of the crafty old fox. The man who outfoxed her father. Age and illness had wasted his body but not his brain.

  “You want me to set this up?”

  “No. Just find the right man. I’ll do the talking. Only the three of us will ever know. When I die, I want to know we are rid of Riker forever.”

  “Let me think about it,” she says after a little thought.

  Two nights later she comes to his house. They sit in his library.

  “Do you know Eddie Woods?” she asks.

  “I met him when he first came on the force. And his friend . . .”

  “Dave Carney. Woods saved Brodie’s life.”

  “I know all about that.”

  “Woods is from Boston. A tough street kid. After he got out of the Marines, he was headed for trouble. Carney was a Boston cop. He and Woods served in Merrill’s regiment together. They became friends. Carney was married, had two kids. But he had heart problems and the Boston police retired him early. Not much of a pension for a man with three mouths to feed. When Brodie called Woods and asked him to come on the force, he brought Carney in, too. You know Brodie. Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

  The old man nods.

  “When he first came here a year or so ago, Eddie used to come by the place every once in a while. Then he started seeing some young girl from down in Milltown. On the sly.”

  “Is that important?”

  “Woods may need a witness. Without a body, it will be hard to convict Riker.”

  “I see.”

  “And he may need Carney’s help.”

  “That’s a lot of people . . .”

  “You, me, Eddie, Dave, Wilma, and the girl. Six people.”

  “I’ll make it profitable for them all.”

  “You’ll have to ask him, Eli. Woods is in awe of you. If the idea is presented by you, and he thinks it will help Brodie clean up the town . . .”

  She lets the sentence die.

  “Will you set up the meeting with Eddie Woods?”

  “Tomorrow night.” Delilah nods. “Just the three of us to start with . . .”

  “It worked like a charm,” Delilah said. “Woods worked out the details. He and Dave spent two months stealing blood from the hospital, a little bit at a time. They grilled Lila Parrish until she had her story down pat. Carney watched Riker like a hawk, knew every move he made. Carney’s payoff was a trust fund for his wife and kids. He knew his ticker wouldn’t last long. Eddie didn’t ask for a dime. But after it was over and Fontonio took over for Riker, Eddie knew he had to take him out, too. Eli set him up in business and gave him twenty thousand dollars to get started.”

  “And Lila Parrish?”

  “She went to college down in San Diego, on Eli’s tab.”

  “And then Eddie married her,” Bannon said.

  Brodie is getting tired, Bannon thought. The flash is drifting out of his eyes and his shoulders are beginning to droop. Or maybe just thinking about that night again sapped everything out of him.

  “You figured that out, too, huh,” Culhane said.

  “And you didn’t know?” Bannon said to Culhane.

  Brodie didn’t answer.

  “You handled the payoffs,” Bannon said to Delilah.

  She smiled. “You had that one right from the start,” she said.

  “You were on the right track,” Brodie said. “But I kept telling you, you were after the wrong dog. I figured it was Guilfoyle who killed Wilma. You were the one who nailed Riker.”

  “Actually it was Ski who figured it out, lying up there in the hospital.”

  And Bannon thought: It was Ski, too, who had wired for young Eli’s birth certificate and figured out that Eli Junior was Brodie Culhane’s son. “That’s why Isabel and Ben Gorman went to Boston and married so soon after Brodie left Eureka,” he had told Bannon while lying in a hospital bed. “I’ll bet old Eli probably fixed the birth certificate, too. Showing Ben as the father.” That was what Brodie meant when he said he had “betrayed a friend,” what he meant by “the mortar in a great friendship.”

  Brodie Culhane had accidentally murdered his own son.

  There were some things in your past you could run from. But not that. No wonder Brodie seemed to have no fear. There was nothing left that could scare him. The greatest punishment he could have was to go on living every day knowing what he had done.

  “How’s that partner of yours doin’?” Culhane asked.

  “He made lieutenant,” I said.

  “Good for him.”

  Bannon had one more question, but Brodie leaned over, reached under the table and brought up a gift-wrapped package. He slid it across the table to Bannon.

  “Here,” he said. “Call it a wedding present.”

  Bannon and Millicent looked at the package, then Bannon sli
d it over in front of her.

  “You open it,” he said.

  She unwrapped it the way women do, pulling on the ribbon until the knot unties, then stripping the ribbon off and laying it carefully to the side. She unwrapped the paper with the same care, without even wrinkling the paper.

  It was a walnut box with a small plaque on the lid that said:

  buck tallman 1899–1920

  captain brodie culhane 1921–1946

  sergeant zeke bannon 1946–

  It was the Peacemaker. Oiled and polished and shined to a fare-thee-well. There was a card inside that said “Don’t shoot your damn foot off.”

  “I hope you never use it, Cowboy,” Brodie said. “Hang it on the wall or buy a table and display it in the library. But try not to use it. That’s my wedding gift to you, Millicent.”

  Millicent leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “I have to ask you one more question, Brodie. When did you figure it was a frame-up? Riker, Wilma, Eddie. The whole thing. When did you know?”

  He looked at me and suddenly the fire came back in his tired eyes and he got that crooked smile on his lips and his voice got strong.

  “What’s the dif?” he said.

  Also by William Diehl

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group:

  Sharky’s Machine

  Chameleon

  Hooligans

  Thai Horse

  The Hunt (formerly titled 27)

  Primal Fear

  Show of Evil

  Reign in Hell

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2002 by Gunn Productions, Inc.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.