"Hired movers, maybe." Golze lifted the binoculars. "Shut up."
The gate in the fence opened, and two men in overalls walked out holding faded lawn chairs. Behind them several men were carrying a flat tarpaulin-draped square with table legs visible under it.
Marrity noticed that the men with the draped table took short steps, planting their feet carefully, and that the table didn't swing at all.
"Stop them," he said, leaning forward, "they are taking the machine."
Golze lowered the binoculars to squint at him. "It's chairs and a table."
"They've got the Chaplin slab on a table, dammit! If they set it down, the legs would collapse — look how heavy it is!"
The radio was mounted below the dashboard, and had apparently survived the fire that had wrecked the stereo above it. Golze lifted the microphone.
"Seconde," he said.
"Tierce," came the reply from the speaker.
"Come north on Euclid, and when you're just past the house, I want you to park on the wrong side of the street, north of a U-Haul truck you'll see there. Kix." He adjusted the setting of a dial on the radio, then went on, "Let the guys out to run alongside, and then I want you to drive south, in reverse, and ram the U-Haul truck as hard as you can, Wheaties."
"No," said Marrity loudly, "part of it's glass! They'll break it!"
"Frosted Flakes." Golze changed the frequency again. "Never mind that, do not ram them," Golze said into the microphone. "Do not ram the truck, understand?"
"We won't ram it. Just park where you said? Special K."
The men down the street had carried the tarpaulin-covered object to the rear of their U-Haul truck, and had laid it on its side on the hydraulic lift.
Golze changed the frequency again. "Right. Guns ready. I'll be right behind you. How soon?"
"I'm just passing Dodger Stadium," came the reply. "Five minutes if I crank."
"Crank."
Golze hung up the microphone.
"I guess these guys will run if they see guns," ventured Marrity. He clasped his hands between his knees; he wasn't shivering, but all his muscles felt poised to start.
"If they're Mossad," said Golze, "they'll have guns of their own. Our only chance would be to surprise them."
"I hope they realize there were some gunshots fired here just a couple of hours ago," Marrity went on. His mouth was dry. "The cops are likely to respond extra quick if there's any more."
"If they're Mossad, they know and don't care." Golze was staring through the soot-smeared windshield at the men down the street. He exhaled and hitched around on the seat as if to reach into his pocket for his wallet; but what he pulled out was a heavy stainless-steel .45 automatic, and with his thumb he clicked down a little lever on the side of it. "Busy day," he said.
Marrity was just narrowly glad that he was still able to see, and clasp his hands, and make a dent in the car seat. Can I continue to exist, he wondered, if these people make it impossible for me to use the machine in 2006?
The hydraulic lift at the back of the U-Haul truck had risen to the level of the truck bed, and the four men were now wrestling the tarpaulin-covered square into the shaded interior. Another man, dark haired and wearing a blue sweatsuit, closed the gate to the old woman's yard and trudged toward the passenger side of the truck cab.
"Got to follow them," snapped Golze, "can't wait for our guys. The slab was obviously the last of it." He jerked the gearshift lever into drive, but slammed it back into park again when the man by the truck fifty yards ahead scattered a couple of handfuls of glittering objects across the asphalt of the street behind the truck.
"Ach!" exclaimed Golze.
He opened the driver's-side door and crouched behind it, bracing his right forearm in the V between the door and the slanting doorpost. Sunlight gleamed on the .45 in his chubby fist.
The bang of the gunshot was stunning, and the ejected shell spun across the empty driver's seat and landed in Marrity's lap; it was very hot, and he brushed it away with a shudder.
Golze fired three more shots, hammering the air inside the car, and Marrity batted away the hot brass shells as they spun toward him — then Golze paused, and only then did Marrity think to look through the windshield toward the truck.
The man who had been walking toward the truck was lying down now, mostly on the grass but with one arm draped over the curb onto the street. All Marrity could see inside the truck's back compartment was the square tarpaulin-draped bulk that must be the Chaplin slab. On the other side of the street, across from the truck, a man had stepped out of a white Honda that had been parked at the curb.
Then the car Marrity was sitting in was thumping and quivering as flashes winked around the edges of the draped square in the truck and a staccato popping echoed between the old bungalows on either side of the street. The loudest noise was a sharp smack as tiny bits of glass stung Marrity's cheek and the windshield was suddenly a glowing white grid, and as he ducked he heard Golze tumble back into the driver's seat.
There was bright red blood spattered on the fat man's hand as he shoved the gearshift lever into reverse, and then Marrity was flung forward against the diagonal constriction of the seat belt as the car accelerated backward, the engine roaring. Golze was twisted around to look out the back windshield, which was still clear. Marrity managed to raise his head, and he saw that the left shoulder of Golze's jacket had a pencil-size hole in it; the white shirt underneath was already blotting with red.
Something crunched under the back wheels and thumped under the car, and Marrity saw a section of chrome handlebar with a green rubber grip on the end spin away to the curb as the car's front end jumped briefly — then they were on past, and Golze had backed the car to the far curb and slammed the gearshift lever into drive, and after punching out a section of the opaque windshield with his right fist, he was driving rapidly north up Euclid. Marrity was as stunned as if he'd been shot himself, and he could not shake the idea that Golze had run over a phantom of Marrity's childhood, preserved and projected by these unchanged streets until now. He clasped his hands together more tightly.
"Caltrops," said Golze, speaking loudly to be heard over the headwind that was blowing his beard around his ears. His face behind the beard was so pale that it seemed almost green. "This hurts — a lot."
"I—beg your pardon?" Marrity said.
"My shoulder hurts!" With his right hand Golze slapped the wheel around in a right turn onto California Boulevard.
"I meant — 'caltrops'?"
"What that guy scattered on the street. Like jacks that little girls play with—but bigger and with pointed ends. They don't brush aside, they dig in, you gotta pick 'em up one at a time — I couldn't follow — not on flat tires." He was breathing fast, almost whistling with each exhalation. "They got the machine — we gotta get the Chaplin movie."
But it's burned up, thought Marrity, and you can't go back in time to rescue it, now that those guys took the machine. He was feeling nauseated himself; it was just beginning to dawn on him that Golze had probably run over a child a few moments ago.
"The movie isn't burned up," said Golze, "if Daphne Marrity never existed."
With conscious care and deliberation, Oren Lepidopt reversed into a driveway and followed the U-Haul truck as it lumbered south on Euclid Street. It would be his job to divert any further attempts to interfere, whether they came from this rival crowd or from the police.
His ears were ringing. Ernie Bozzaris was dead.
Lepidopt had been standing in the street, still holding his little .22 automatic, when he had caught the eye of one of the sayanim who had picked up Bozzaris's body from the curb; and just before sliding the body into the back of the truck and climbing in to pull down the sliding door, the man had given Lepidopt a thumbs-down.