by Brad Latham
“What was this whole thing with Kepper?”
She sighed, “Lonely.”
“How come Lt. Jimbo Brannigan says that you and the widow Jones know each other? In fact, that you’re a frequent houseguest of hers? Have you been feeding her information about this case? I thought you didn’t even know the wench.”
She pouted. “It’s all very hard to explain.”
Hook stared at her. “Try.”
“I was afraid if I told you, Bill, you’d drop me like a hot potato. I figured you’d think I was hooked up with her. She and I had a big falling out months ago. I don’t see her anymore. I didn’t bring it up because it doesn’t matter, Bill, don’t you see?”
“Maybe I see.”
Amanda got out of bed, not bothering to put on a robe. She went to the wall mirror and compulsively brushed her hair. Lockwood’s eyes were arrested by her shapely bottom and the reflection in the mirror of the full blossoms of her breasts tipped with pale pink nipples.
“What did you two quarrel about?” he asked.
Naked himself, he went over to her and held her tightly by her bare shoulders.
“She was sleeping with Wade,” Amanda answered. She stopped brushing. “I told her I didn’t think she should cheat on Lorenzo, and she started screaming at me to mind my own business. She got really mad, and threw my purse and coat out the door. She said, ‘And don’t come back!’ It made me feel terrible, Bill.”
She stood there, and her perfect face eyed him in the mirror as if in a Renoir painting. Suddenly, his questions didn’t seem that important to Lockwood.
So she had known Cynthia Jones—big deal!
She looked at him, her lips slightly parted. He reached from behind her and fondled her breasts, taking one in each hand and gently cupping them. She pushed her chest against his kneeding fingers and moaned softly. Lockwood pressed against her.
This was no way to question a witness in a case that was a possible homicide. She leaned back against him, and he felt his cock grow larger against her. She grinned at him in the mirror.
For a brief moment he fought the impulse to take her again, but she reached behind, grabbed him, and took the matter out of his control.
Lockwood lay in bed. Amanda breathed deeply beside him. As she lay there sleeping, she looked beautiful. Like a goddamned angel. So did Robin. Jesus, he was going crazy. Maybe Gray was right, maybe he was female-crazy.
There would be time to sort the women out later. He had to get going.
He left Amanda asleep and pinned a little note to the pillow, “I’ll call.”
Outside, clouds were dark and looked angry, as if the skies were ready to burst open. The ground was still wet from the last rain, and Lockwood felt a chill in the breeze. A north wind.
He was almost to his car when he heard it—a cracking sound, like a branch breaking. He spun, his body moving faster than his mind.
“Wham!” A freight train hit him in the jaw. A freight train of brass knuckles. His legs buckled under him, and he flew back. He couldn’t stop moving. What was wrong? He tried to clear his head. He lifted his face, and his eyes began to focus. It was—
Something smashed into the back of his head. He felt himself falling, falling down onto the wet grass. The grass. Wet, it was wet on his—
His breath shot out of him as a foot smashed his ribs. He couldn’t breathe. The air was like tongues of flame. Suddenly, he felt blows everywhere. Sensations of pain rang out over his body, like sharp bells ringing too close.
In the midst of this, Lockwood heard his own voice, “Lockwood, an attack—fight, man, fight!”
Suddenly, he could see. His mind was cleared. He was on his back and—
A foot was flying at him, a big black boot. Hook grabbed the foot and twisted it hard, throwing the person attached to it over him. Then he quickly rolled to the side and jumped to his feet.
He was surrounded by three men. Dumbrowsky, Walter-the-Waiter, and another man, one Lockwood had seen several times before, Iron Man Lang, a tough street fighter who had almost been a heavyweight contender several years before. Jesus, the whole crew!
Dumbrowsky charged, a pair of mean-looking brass knuckles leading the way. Lockwood caught the punch in mid-air. He slipped under Dumbrowsky’s arm and kneed the wrestler in the gut, spinning his whole body into it, so that the knee whipped up, around, and smashed into the big stomach like a cannonball.
“Whooff!” Dumbrowsky’s mouth flew open as the air shot out of him like a popped balloon. He fell, clutching his middle.
Lockwood heard something coming at him from behind. He leaped to the side. Walter-the-Waiter’s eight-inch blackjack missed his head by inches.
Lockwood jumped back at Walter before he could draw back the nasty little head-crusher. Quick as a panther, Lockwood slammed his elbow into the goon’s face directly below his nose.
“Crunch!” Something on Walter’s face cracked. He screamed and fell to his knees, his hands over his mouth as if he had just eaten something he shouldn’t have.
“Lockwood! Lockwood!” somebody screamed.
Lockwood turned. Iron Man Lang stood ten feet away, glaring.
“Lockwood! It’s my turn!” he yelled. He came toward Lockwood. His big eyes bulged out of his head like two plums. The veins in his neck stood out and pulsated. His whole body rippled and trembled.
“I didn’t know you cared!” Lockwood yelled back. He put his fists up in readiness for the assault.
Lockwood looked around quickly. The other two had started to move a little, shaking their heads and trying to get a grip on themselves. Lockwood had a little time before they got going again.
Iron Man moved in. He bobbed and weaved as if he were back in the ring. He threw a left jab at Lockwood, and Lockwood moved back quickly to avoid it.
The guy was good, no doubt about that. Much better than most street thugs.
A cruel smirk on his face, Iron Man whipped punch after punch at Lockwood’s head. One, two—nine, ten—they came at Lockwood like bullets.
A touch faster than the thug, Lockwood blocked each punch inches away from his face. As the big fists tried to smash in, Lockwood deftly slapped them aside. No way to go against Iron Man with strength, he’d have to stay light and fast.
“Thwack!” Lockwood got in a shot to the heavy boxer’s cheek. Fast. Real fast.
He waited till Iron Man finished one of his little flurries and then threw his hand in there again. Just as quickly, he danced back, out of range.
They circled each other on the lawn, stepping around the puddles carefully so as not to slip. Iron Man was growing frustrated. His fights were usually over in two punches or less.
“Where’d you learn to fight like this?” Iron Man asked after missing Lockwood for eight punches in a row.
“Oh, from my mom. Maybe you should take lessons from her.”
Iron Man bellowed like a wounded bull, charged, and punched with both hands.
Just what Hook wanted. One of his earliest boxing lessons had been: Get them angry and out of control, stay cool and collected. It worked almost every time.
The goon was almost on him. Suddenly, Hook jumped to the right. Punching at the air, Iron Man went right by. Lockwood slammed his left hook, his namesake, into Iron Man’s face. Dead center. It almost sank in, like into a pudding. Lockwood smashed his right hand, blade-like, down on the slob’s neck.
Iron Man sank to the ground as if shot by a bullet. His eyes glazed over, and he lay there like a dying gorilla.
“Okay, Lockwood,” a voice said behind him.
He turned. Walter-the-Waiter stood there holding his face in one hand and a gun in the other.
“You hurt my face, Lockwood. I’m going to hurt yours. You ain’t gonna look so pretty no more.” He snickered. Blood gushed out of his nose.
Dumbrowsky was up, too. He stood a few feet to the side of Walter. He pulled out a long folding knife and snapped it open. A ten-inch blade sprang into view.
They both
moved toward Hook, who just stood there, his hands hanging at his sides as if he had given up.
“Cut him, Dumbrowsky,” Walter said. “I’ll hold the gun on him so he don’t try no funny stuff.”
“My pleasure,” the giant Dumbrowsky said. He held out the blade and twirled and waved it around.
“Where do you want to get cut, Lockwood?” Dumbrowsky asked. “You want an eye sliced? How about I cut off your ear?”
“Cut his goddamn lip!” Walter yelled. “Cut it right off, so he can’t smart-mouth no more.”
Dumbrowsky moved in on Hook. He slashed at Hook’s face.
Lockwood spun his foot up like a football player trying for a sixty-yard field goal. It hit something soft, then hard. Dumbrowsky screamed and flew two feet into the air. Just as quickly, he crashed back to earth. On his way down, Lockwood grabbed the knife from the surprised giant wrestler’s hand. He threw his arm around Dumbrowsky’s throat and held the knife to the thug’s Adam’s apple.
Walter-the-Waiter waved his gun around and tried to get a clear shot at Lockwood, who kept Dumbrowsky right in front of him.
“Go ahead and shoot,” Lockwood said. “You’ll do the world a favor.”
“No! Don’t shoot!” Dumbrowsky begged.
It seemed like a standoff. Lockwood was wondering just what the hell to do next when the problem was solved for him.
Dumbrowsky grabbed both of Lockwood’s hands and swung his head forward and down. Lockwood sailed through the air across the lawn.
Everything was in slow-motion. Lockwood saw the whole scene beneath him as he spun end over end. Dumbrowsky was pulling a big gun and pointing it toward Lockwood. Walter was pulling the trigger on his .45 and a pull of smoke lazily popped from the barrel. Iron Man Lang, fifteen feet away on the lawn, was slowly rising on his hands and knees.
A bullet buried itself in the ground below Hook. Everything speeded up again as he plummeted toward the grass. With a loud thud, he smashed into a garbage can standing by the front door of Amanda’s house.
Bullets hit all around him. Wood splintered in the doorframe next to him, sending little pieces onto his shoulder. He rolled end over end, somersaulting behind a long hedge that stood in front of the house’s front window.
He reached for his Special. Nothing! The holster was empty. Lockwood’s heart missed a beat. Jesus, it must have flown out during the fighting.
He lay there in the middle of the hedge, flat on the ground, as bullets whizzed over.
Was this it? After years of fighting, was he going to lose it all to two dumb thugs who hardly deserved to live on the same planet?
He felt a stinging wrench in his right shoulder. A bullet had sliced a neat little path about a half inch long into his shoulder flesh, then exited. Blood welled up.
Suddenly, Amanda appeared in the front door with a gun. Now Lockwood would know whose side she was on. Who was she going to shoot?
She looked around the yard. Of course, the other hedges hid her from the goons’ view!
“Amanda!” he shouted. His heart sank. She seemed to look right through him, as if they hadn’t spent hours together in bed.
Then she saw him and raised the gun.
“Amanda! Don’t shoot me!” Lockwood screamed.
She tossed the pistol to him. It soared through the air for about ten feet and landed right in Lockwood’s hand. It was her little derringer. Only two shots. They’d have to count.
The thugs were shooting at Amanda now. A bullet zipped by an inch from her ear and smashed into one of the little gaslights by the front door.
“Duck!” Lockwood screamed, “dammit, duck!”
Amanda leaped back into the house.
At that exact moment, Hook stood up and held the gun straight out, sighting down his arm for accuracy.
The first shot caught Dumbrowsky in the middle of his chest. He staggered around, looking dumbly at the spreading red spot in his shirt.
Walter-the-Waiter was shooting wildly at Lockwood. Lockwood took just an extra second to aim. He pulled the trigger of the small gun, and the bullet flew out to catch Walter in the neck, go through his throat, and exit out the back of his head. Blood sprayed. The dying goon clutched his throat and tried to say something, but only gurgling sounds and blood came out. He fell to the grass, jerked a few times, and lay still.
“Don’t shoot,” pleaded Iron Man Lang. “I give up!” The thug from Hell’s Kitchen raised his hands.
The idiot didn’t even know that Lockwood had only a two-shot gun. Hook wasn’t about to educate him.
Lockwood pointed the derringer right at Iron Man’s face so he could look right down the barrel and stare death in the face.
“Who sent you?” Lockwood demanded.
“Screw you!” was the quick reply.
“Tell me or—” Lockwood pointed the gun at the big goon’s scrotum.
“Okay, okay! Don’t shoot! It’s only what I heard Half-Pint let slip. He said that we was paid by a millionaire. We could expect a bonus if we snatched you. This millionaire wanted us to deliver you.”
“No names?” Still aiming at Iron Man’s tenderest parts, Lockwood cocked the hammer.
“No names. Honest, Lockwood, on my mother’s grave. Dumbrowsky’s the one who knows where to deliver you.”
“All right, lummox. Now go tell Half-Pint what happened to your friends. I’m letting you go because I hear you’re nice to alley cats and give them milk.”
“Huh?” Iron Man didn’t believe it.
Lockwood pocketed the gun. “You dumb bastard, get out of here before I change my mind.”
Iron Man ran.
“Bill!” Crying, Amanda ran out from the house where she had been hiding. “Oh, thank God you’re alive. You’ve been shot!” she gasped.
“It’s nothing, a scratch compared to what those two got.”
He looked across the lawn at the two dead gangsters. They looked almost peaceful in death, like statues. Lockwood half expected little fountains to gush from their opened mouths.
“You’re all right, Amanda. You’re all right. I didn’t know for sure if—” He pulled her to him tightly.
“If you could trust me?” Amanda asked, and she kissed each ear.
“Something like that. But you saved my goddamned life just now.”
At that moment a deep wave of love for her swept through him. Jesus, it felt good just to be alive.
CHAPTER
21
Lockwood went back to his hotel and bandaged his wounds. The bullet had just cut a tiny ridge in his upper shoulder, barely touching the muscles beneath. He washed it out with alcohol and wrapped some gauze over the throbbing area, then taped it at both ends. There, that should hold, he thought. No need to spend five bucks to have some quack who could hardly see fuss with it. He could never understand why people willingly gave their money to the biggest thieves of all, doctors.
He poured a Canadian and soda and lay down.
Iron Man would go tell Half-Pint what had happened. The boys in blue would knock on Amanda’s door, and she would say that the two thugs had just started shooting at each other. With their criminal records, that would be that. Then Brannigan would hear about it and put two and two together. Jimbo was a smart cop.
Until then though, Lockwood would have the mobility he needed.
But how was he going to get Wade? Wade was smart. There must be something—say a receipt—that he had taken from Doc’s office after torturing him. The thermos? Wade probably had taken that, too. He must have gone out to the crash site before anyone else and grabbed it.
Provided Lockwood’s whole poison-and-thermos notion held up. He had no proof. But everybody involved—Wade, Robin, Stinky, Amanda, all those flying nuts at the airport—knew he was looking for a thermos. Then, pow—thugs. He was getting close to something or someone, and it all kept pointing to Wade.
Unless—unless—someone else had gotten out there before Wade. Maybe someone else had the thermos.
Lockwood dec
ided he would have to get into Wade’s apartment over on Fifth Avenue. Maybe the millionaire had kept something around that could put him into the chair.
Hook got his hat and called Wade’s number. He let it ring twenty times and got no answer. Good, he wasn’t in.
He walked across town to Wade’s digs as it grew dark. He grabbed a tough Irish kid who was playing in the street with some of his pals.
“Hey, want to make two bucks?” Lockwood asked.
“Who I gotta kill?” the pug-nosed kid half-jokingly replied.
“Just go kick that doorman in the leg.” Lockwood pointed across the street to the elderly, sour-looking doorman decked out in a fancy uniform, gold braid, and a large visored cap bigger than a general’s.
“Sure,” the kid said happily as he snatched the two bucks from Lockwood’s outstretched hand.
Without losing a beat, the kid walked across the street, right up to the doorman, and kicked him hard in the shins.
“You little bastard,” the doorman yelled and took off in hot pursuit of the running boy. They disappeared around the corner.
Lockwood strolled in and walked to the elevator.
“Hi.” He smiled at the old black elevator operator like he had known him for years.
“Mr. Wade’s, please,” Lockwood said as he stepped into the fancy oak-lined elevator.
“Yes, sir,” the old black man replied, hardly looking at Lockwood.
He closed the big gate and pulled the stick that made the elevator rise slowly. It took forever.
“Ten, sir.” The operator opened the gate and let Lockwood out. Then he slowly descended out of sight.
The lock on Wade’s door looked like a snap. In joints like this they didn’t expect you to get past the lobby. In a minute Lockwood was inside.
The place was dark, but the moon streamed in from over the Park and spotlighted different sections of the living room. Lockwood saw a man’s coat draped over a chair. And something else, next to it: a lady’s dress.
Coming from the next room, through the closed door, Lockwood heard huffing, puffing, and groans. He smirked.
“Can’t you do it anymore?” asked a female voice. “For crying out loud, not limp again? When my husband was alive you could always—”