Gilded Canary

by Brad Latham

“All right. Good luck,” Raff whispered. “I’ll do what I can from here.” The Toomey car’s lights were still on, trained in their direction. “Mind if I put their engine out?”

  “Go right ahead,” Hook replied, and then faded into the black.

  As he moved out, he heard Raff’s pistol crack once, twice. There was the satisfying sound of bullet penetrating metal. Very smart. He’d left the lights alone and quietly destroyed the engine. If Toomey’s men tried to get away, they’d be in for a surprise.

  A tommy gun opened up, blasting in Raff’s direction. Lockwood paused. He hadn’t expected this. All he could hope was that somehow Raff could elude the deadly spray.

  He was in an open field now, and hugged the ground, working his body like a snake, quickly, because there was no time to lose. The moonlight was an enemy though, and he had to be cautious. It was Verdun again, he grimaced. Not the kind of thing he’d ever hoped to relive.

  Lockwood moved forward a few more feet, and his hand touched something. It was a tree branch, about four feet long. His fingers closed over it, and he continued on. In lieu of anything else, the branch could serve as a weapon.

  Twenty feet later, he froze. Footsteps were coming his way, and now he saw the outline of a man, crouched low, bulky. A few more steps and it was revealed to be Stuff Maggiatore, evidently assigned to the same plan of encirclement that Lockwood was following. His grip tightened on the branch. A quick strike at Maggiatore’s gut should put him out of action, knock the wind out of him.

  Maggiatore was close now, sharply etched against the dark as the moon broke through a cloud. With the moon behind Lockwood, there’d be no way the gunman could see him. He braced himself.

  Maggiatore was almost on him, coming in a direct line. Lockwood went into a crouch and shoved the branch straight at Maggiatore’s midsection.

  He had misjudged the sharpness of the end of the branch, and the softness of the bulky man’s belly. The branch stopped for a moment and then, as the outer flesh parted, continued in, one inch, two inches, until almost a foot of it was embedded. The Hook loosened his grasp, and Maggiatore, eyes wide, fell backward in a sitting position, his mouth in a small circle, like that of a hooked fish slapping about on a dock. Little bubbles of saliva began to form there, and he continued to sit, astonishment written on his face, oblivious to his assailant, who was now pulling the .32 out of his hand.

  Two shots sounded, evidently from Raff, and the tommy gun chattered again. Lockwood took a final look at Maggiatore, whose eyes were beginning to glaze, a thin trickle of blood oozing over his thick lower lip. No need to finish him off, probably. He seemed too deeply in shock to queer anything by screaming out. The Hook hit the ground again and moved in the direction of the tommy gun.

  He reached about where he thought the gun would be and stopped. Everything was still. “Another shot, Raff,” he thought. “Shoot again, so he fires back at you.”

  A few more seconds, and Raff obliged. A few feet away, a man rose and answered the lone bullet with a fusillade. The Hook made him out to be Slops Weinstein. He waited for silence, then commanded, “Throw down the gun, Slops.”

  “Shit!” Slops wheeled, disconcerted, his gun leveled. The Hook had to pump one into him. Slops clutched his chest with one hand, the other still gripping the tommy gun, as he staggered backward, then tripped and fell. His legs twitched violently, as if he were trying to make them work, but all the circuits were broken. “Slops!” came a voice. Lockwood didn’t recognize it.

  “Petey, I think they got Slops,” shouted the voice. Probably Elmer, Lockwood decided.

  Now he heard Ahearn’s voice. “Slops! Slops!” Both men were off to Lockwood’s right, Elmer probably twenty yards away, and Ahearn another ten yards beyond. “Slops! Slops!” Ahearn shouted again.

  “I think maybe we better get out of here,” came the closer voice. “We can’t see anything anyway.”

  “Shut up, dummy! There’s still the three of us against the two of them. And Slops probably got one of them anyway.”

  Another shot came out of the grove of trees. Toomey’s men didn’t return the fire. Then Ahearn was heard again. “Jesus! Where’s Stuff? He should have been down there by now.”

  “Maybe they got him, too.”

  “Stuff!” Ahearn called. “Stuff!”

  Off in the distance came the sound of crickets. “I told you,” screamed the other gunman.

  “I said shut up! Stuff! Stuff!” One minute went by, then two. “Okay,” Ahearn shot out, “let’s get out of here.”

  Lockwood heard them running, and he rose and ran after them. They had a good head start, and he could hear the doors thunk shut while he was still thirty feet away.

  The motor whirred, then stopped. Again it whirred, and this time small pinging sounds were heard. Curses filled the air. “Out of the way! I’ll do it!” Ahearn yelled. Lockwood saw the car door open, and Elmer stood there for a moment, as Ahearn slid behind the driver’s seat.

  “Freeze!” Hook shouted, and Elmer looked incredulously in his direction, then leapt toward the rear of the car before Lockwood could get off a shot. Ahearn, from the sounds, was still desperately fooling with the ignition.

  “Don’t move, Ahearn! You’re covered!” Lockwood shouted, as he crouched behind a small rise in the ground. A bullet whizzed near him. Ahearn gave it one last try, and Lockwood fired into the windshield, but Ahearn had already ducked. Seconds later, he joined Elmer behind the car, their two pistols zeroing in on The Hook, flashing out in the night.

  He aimed toward one of the flashes, and there was the soft thud of body hitting plowed field as Elmer toppled backward, a bullet in his throat. “Throw down your gun and you won’t be harmed,” Lockwood yelled, but three quick blasts answered him.

  Ahearn was known to be good with a gun, and Lockwood decided to try a new tactic. Quickly he moved around to the side of the automobile, about twenty-five feet from it, keeping low. There was no sound from the car now, and he hoped Ahearn was still behind it. He gave him one last chance. “Throw down your gun, Ahearn. We’ve got—” he couldn’t finish the sentence, as once more Ahearn answered him with lead.

  He ducked, and then raised his head, straightened out his arm, and took careful aim. The silhouette of the big car was murky in the moonlight, and he hoped he was seeing right. He squeezed the trigger once, twice.

  A giant explosion filled the air. His aim had been true, and one of the bullets had hit the vehicle’s gas tank, rupturing it, and igniting the volatile fuel.

  Lockwood rushed forward, standing out in the moonlight, chancing that he’d succeeded.

  A few steps nearer, and in the light of the vehicle’s flames he saw he had. Ahearn was ten feet away from the car, his clothes in shreds, face and body blackened, half his side blown away. He was still alive, and when he saw The Hook, his hand and arm twitched convulsively, as if searching for the automatic that had been blasted out of his hand. Lockwood bent down to do what he could, taking a huge clump of sod and stuffing it into the gaping wound. Anything to stop the bleeding, he knew.

  But it was too late. Ahearn’s face was already skull-like as death rushed into him, gnawing and ravaging. No time for the idiocy of making his last moments comfortable, Lockwood decided. “What about the Dearborn jewels? Who took them, and why?”

  Ahearn stared up at him, a pure innocence in his face now, looking as he must have looked at four, before the streets got to him. He strained to say something, but it turned into a gurgle. He tried again, and it was too much. His body pushed outward, then collapsed, his head flopping to one side, eyes staring into nothingness.

  Lockwood straightened up and sighed. Just a few minutes more, Petey. If only you’d lived a few minutes more. A bullet whistled over his head and he whirled, the .32 ready. “Drop it!” he yelled.

  He was facing Raff.

  Raff had the .38 pointed at him, smoke still drifting from its barrel. His face was drained.

  “I said drop it.”

  The
.38 lowered, and Raff slumped a little. “My God! I didn’t know it was you!” he said, barely breathing the words. “I could have killed you.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “In the light—you looked gross, misshapen,” Raff explained. “It didn’t look like you.”

  “May I have my gun? Handle toward me,” The Hook said, body taut, eyes closely monitoring every one of Raff’s movements.

  “Of course. My God,” Raff said again, “I don’t blame you if you don’t quite trust me. I didn’t hit you, did I?”

  “No.” Lockwood took the gun.

  “You got them all?” Raff asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to remember, I was a flier,” Raff said, recovered enough to try a mild attempt at humor. “I’m not much at ground warfare.”

  “Mistakes happen,” Lockwood said.

  “What do we do with these?” Raff asked, staring at the two bodies.

  “Leave them. They’ll keep. There’s still more work to do.”

  “You’re leaving me here, too?”

  Lockwood considered him. He’d done all he’d asked him, drawn the Toomey gang’s fire so that he could take them from behind. Just now, he possibly could have gotten off a second shot when Lockwood had yelled, but he hadn’t. It wasn’t an easy decision, but….

  “No, you come along. Besides, I really shouldn’t leave you here to face the cops. It wasn’t your fight.”

  They drove in silence the rest of the way, Lockwood feeling the weariness now. It had been a long, hard day, with who knew what yet to come. He lit up a Camel and puffed on it twice, then crushed it out. A neon star was beckoning to them, perched on a tower atop the roadhouse they were seeking.

  The Hook slowed, and eased into the graveled parking lot. It was 4 A.M., but the lot was almost full. Billingsley had been right about the place being a lure for the young rich. A number of convertibles, most of them new and expensive, could be seen.

  They got out of the Cord, and Lockwood looked down at his clothes. Brooks Brothers stitched together a good, sturdy suit, but it would be unreasonable to expect anything to stand up to what he’d just put it through. A button was gone on the jacket, and a pocket was ripped. There was mud all over the jacket and pants, and there was a hole in the knee of the trousers. Lockwood brushed his hands over his clothes, doing the best he could do with them. “I’m not exactly presentable,” he told Raff. “Better you go in ahead of me, so that I’m obscured a bit.” Raff nodded, more than eager to return to Lock-wood’s good graces.

  The man at the door was wearing a tuxedo; otherwise he’d have given a good imitation of a guy playing tackle for Notre Dame. He was a big one, and from the look of his face, he’d been hired as a bouncer as well as maitre d’, his nose broken, one ear cauliflowered. “Good evening, gentlemen. Bar or a table?” he asked.

  “Table,” Lockwood said, figuring it’d hide most of the sartorial damage. A thought struck him. “Have you been here before?” he asked Raff.

  “Hardly. Crowd a little too young for me,” Raff replied, and they both surveyed the men and women in their late teens who filled most of the tables in the place, exuberantly noisy. Money seemed to shine from them.

  Once seated, each ordered a Canadian and soda from the waiter, who physically was a match for the man at the door. “This would be more Muffy’s cup of tea,” Raff explained, pulling out his pipe. “If she preferred men her own age, that is.”

  Raff filled the pipe, then drew in on it repeatedly, till he was satisfied it was lit. “Odd, but she does seem to prefer men my age. Or Jock Bundle’s.” His eyes went a little hard. “Has she been making any noises to you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Lockwood said. He was staring at the pianist, whose back was to them.

  “Come off it, Hook. You’re not that thick,” Raff said. “The last time I saw Muffy, she was asking a lot of questions about you.”

  “Jealous, eh? Well, let me ease your mind. The last time I saw Muffy,” Lockwood smiled, “she was threatening to crown me with a hairbrush.”

  Raff laughed. “Yes, she told me that.” He sounded relieved.

  Lockwood caught a glimpse of a small slice of the pianist’s face, and now he was sure. “That’s Cracks Henderson.”

  “So it is,” Raff said. “What the devil is he doing here?”

  Lockwood wondered as well, as Cracks continued to play, barely heard over the hubbub of the room. He called a waiter over. “Tell Mr. Henderson we’d like to see him when he’s done,” Lockwood told him.

  Henderson was on his last tune now, driving through “Embraceable You,” having started it as a ballad and then, halfway through, altering it into a jump tune. His long blond hair was falling lankly over his forehead, a stub of a cigarette hanging from his lips. He went into a run, altering every chord along the way, hit the last few notes, looked a little dazed as he accepted the scattered applause, listened to the waiter who bent over him, and then glanced in the direction of Lockwood and Raff. He shrugged, picked up the drink on his piano, and ambled over.

  He blinked a couple of times as he neared them, then focused on Spencer. “Hello, Raff,” he said.

  “Hello, Cracks. What the blazes are you doing all the way out here?”

  Cracks shrugged again. “It’s a job.”

  The Hook motioned to him. “Have a seat.”

  Cracks peered at him. “Do I know you?”

  “Bill Lockwood. We met at Muffy’s opening night. After the fight.”

  Cracks eased himself down into the chair next to Raff. “Oh. Well, okay,” he said, blankly.

  “Weren’t you playing for Muffy tonight?” Lockwood asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Then how’d you get out here?”

  “Drove. Do it every night.”

  “That seems a pretty tough schedule.”

  “Whatever Jock wants, I do.”

  “Jock?” Lockwood asked in surprise. Next to him, Raff straightened up a little and leaned in.

  “Jock Bunche.”

  “What’ve you got to do with Bunche?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s the guy who discovered me. He’s the one who put me together with Muffy, after he convinced her to be a pro singer. And when he opened this place, he made sure I’d be the pianist.”

  “Jock Bunche owns this club?”

  “Sure. Well, not in his name, natch. Some other cats front it for him.”

  The Hook sat back and stared at Cracks. Jock Bunche, the owner of the Star. And Widwer Levinskey, One-Eye, involved in some way with the club. So the two of them were tied together, apparently.

  Lockwood began to take another pull at the Canadian, then stopped. Something told him he’d need 100 percent of his faculties while he was here. Instead, he pulled out a Camel, lighted up, and inhaled deeply, all the while regarding Cracks.

  “You know a man known as Levinskey?”

  Cracks jerked his head to one side. “Name means nothing to me.”

  “He has one eye,” Hook said. “Big man, with one good eye, one glass one.”

  “Only gate I know like that is Johnny Apples,” Cracks offered.

  “Johnny Apples?”

  “He’s a front man here for Jock. Should be around somewhere.”

  “This Johnny Apples,” Lockwood said, “does he have a tie with Two-Scar Toomey? Vernon Toomey?”

  “You got me. I never heard anything like that. Got a butt?” he asked. “I’m out.”

  Lockwood gave him one and lit it for him. “Okay. What have you heard about Johnny Apples and Muffy Dearborn’s jewels?”

  Cracks’ pupils dilated, and his hand appeared to shake a little. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Johnny Apples and Jock Bunche and Muffy’s jewels,” Lockwood said. Was it finally all beginning to tie together?

  “I don’t know anything about any of that.”

  “Johnny Apples or Jock Bunche, or both of them, stole the jewels.”

  “
No.”

  “Come on, Cracks.”

  “No. I’m sure they didn’t. Anyway, if they did, I don’t know nothing about it.” Little beads of sweat were beginning to form on his brow.

  “Cracks, I’m not a cop. I’m an insurance investigator.”

  “Oh yeah, now I place you!” Cracks grinned foolishly. He appeared to be happy to get off onto another topic, one other than the jewels. “You’re way outta your territory, aren’t you? Have a good ride?”

  Lockwood steered him back. “Whatever you know won’t get you into trouble with me. I don’t arrest people. All I want is the jewels. I’ll even pay to get them back.”

  Cracks’ smile faded, and his pale blue eyes stared unblinkingly at Lockwood.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “I think you do.”

  Cracks turned to Raff. “You’re a nice cat, you’ve always been decent with me. How about getting him to lay off?”

  “He’s got a job to do,” Raff said.

  Cracks turned sullen. “I don’t know anything, and that’s that.”

  “It could mean money for you,” Lockwood told him. “Reward money, or something like it.”

  “I don’t dig people who call me a liar, Lockwood,” Cracks snarled, angry now, or at least giving a good imitation of it. “I treat people like gentlemen and expect to be treated the same way.” He pushed his chair back, and rose.

  “Cracks,” Lockwood began.

  “Stuff it!” Cracks cried, and backed away, as if afraid to take his eyes from them. He reached the crowd by the bar, still watching them, and then quickly exited through a doorway.

  “Jock Bunche? You think Jock Bunche stole Muffy’s jewels?” Raff asked, after Cracks disappeared.

  “He’s got something to do with them. I’m sure of that now,” Lockwood answered, grimly. “I was hoping I could get Cracks to spill.”

  Raff looked up, then smiled and relaxed into his chair. “Forget Cracks. You seem to have another possibility.”

  The Hook glanced at Raff, then toward the direction in which his companion was looking. One-Eye was about ten feet away, facing them. Behind him were the maitre d’ and their waiter. None of the three looked friendly.