by Brad Latham
He ignored her and continued, “And somehow you must have let slip to Toomey that Jabber-Jabber had done it, and so Toomey had his men take Jacoby out.”
Raff looked at him steadily, and something about him seemed to have faded a bit. “I’d never meant—”
“No, probably not. It’s not likely you told Jacoby enough to incriminate you. Possibly you bragged to Toomey about the Winchell item, never realizing how he’d take the fact that somebody else might know something. You he could depend on to keep your mouth shut. Jabber-Jabber was an unknown quantity. And the fact that he had an in with Winchell, a guy who delights in trapping crooks, was another factor working against poor Jabber-Jabber. The final one was that, as a two-time loser, Toomey couldn’t afford another bust.”
It was nearing noon, and the sun was beginning to stream in, hot and strong. “But even Jacoby didn’t count for that much, as far as your involvement is concerned,” he told Raff. “Your strangling of Stephanie Meilleux is all that’s needed to put you away for good.”
Muffy gasped. “He—?”
“You’re mad!” Raff shouted, eyes blazing.
“No. I’m afraid you’re the one who’s mad. Or perhaps desperate is the better word. I never could figure out why Stephanie left Muffy and attached herself to me. It made no sense, at least not until I realized it was you who’d set up the theft.
“Stephanie was in love with you, Raff, something you probably weren’t even aware of until the evening she called you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You’re a charming man, handsome. It must have been easy for her to become attracted to you, to fall hard, and then, later, to feel sorry for you, knowing that her mistress was cheating on you. Love and sympathy. It was enough to make her do everything she did.”
“All right.” Raff was trying to bluff it out. “Just what was it she did?”
“Somehow she must have found out you were involved in the theft. An overheard phone call, perhaps. She was in love with you and willing to do anything to protect you, probably in the forlorn hope that somehow, as time went on, the two of you would become close. Something she said to me made me realize she was afraid of me, that there was a relentlessness about me, she felt, that would keep me on the case until it was solved. So she stayed with me, did everything she could to hinder me.”
He turned toward Muffy. “The petit mal seizure when I was chasing One-Eye. That was one example. She had no idea who he was, just was afraid that somehow or other, if I caught him, he might lead me back to Raff.”
A little bit of loyalty had lodged itself somehow in Muffy. “Raff couldn’t have done it,” she said, flatly.
“He did. Finally, one night, when we were talking to Winchell, she realized I wasn’t going to let her come along, and that I might be on the trail of something. So while we were at the Stork with Winchell, she excused herself, said she was going off to the powder room, and instead called Raff. For the first time she told him that she knew he was responsible for the robbery, told him that he’d have to throw me off now that she was unable to.”
He turned to Raff. “And so you ‘accidentally’ bumped into me at the club.”
Raff was impassive. “Keep talking, Lockwood. Maybe somewhere along the way you’ll actually drop a truth or two.”
“You drove with me out to Long Island. And in the potato field, after I’d finished with Petey Ahearn and Elmer, you took a shot at me. You could have taken another maybe, but didn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe you froze, but I suspect somehow you thought better of it. You didn’t really need me dead at that point, since there was no way of knowing whether or not you’d be caught by me. But you did know that Stephanie had the goods on you.
“As I say, Stephanie was in love with you, but by that point her love may have been wavering a bit. Perhaps you sensed that, perhaps you just didn’t want to take any chances. So after we returned to the city, you waited till you knew I was gone. Called once probably, when I was there, and hung up when I picked up the phone. The next time, I imagine, Stephanie answered. And you went up to my apartment, and when you got the chance, strangled her.”
Raff had gone white. “I tell you, you’re crazy.”
“It’ll be easy enough to prove: my madness or your guilt. I was told the cops got several nice sets of fingerprints. Very clear. All the same pattern. Now that they’ve got someone to match them up to, there should be no problem.” Lockwood picked up the phone on the desk beside him. “And now,” he told them, “it’s time to call the police.”
It happened too fast for him to see it coming. Raff, in one lightning motion, had grabbed an ashtray off the table alongside him and flung it at Lockwood. The Hook took it in the chest, the phone thunking to the floor, and before he had the gun up, Raff had sprung through the bedroom door, the .32 in his hand exploding at Lockwood.
Lockwood leapt behind the sofa that stood out from the wall and fired back. Two slugs thudded into the wall behind him, and he realized Bunche was shooting at him, too.
He flung himself to the far side of the couch, leaned out quickly, and got off two shots, one in the direction of Bunche, who was behind the other couch, and one at Raff. He ducked back as the cross fire came at him again, and Muffy began screaming. It sounded like fear, rather than pain. “Stay down!” he yelled at her.
He raised up behind the couch, getting off two more quick shots. He had to keep them away from the door, had to chance their clipping him as he exposed himself, and barely got down in time to escape the four bullets that were pumped at him in return.
He couldn’t stay behind the couch any longer. Bunche or Raff could advance on him without his seeing. If he gained the opposite wall, he’d be out of Raff’s line of vision and could concentrate on Bunche. Quickly, he broke open his gun and added new ammunition. Couldn’t expose himself with just two rounds left in the chambers.
A bullet tore through the back of the couch, and he leapt for the opposite wall, wheeled, arm straight before him, and pumped out two shots as he caught a glimpse of Bunche. Raff, of course, could at any moment pop out of the bedroom and try slinging lead at him, but that was a chance he’d have to take.
Bunche’s head came up, and they exchanged two quick shots. Lockwood felt searing pain in his right arm as Bunche’s bullet tore into his flesh. Damn. He couldn’t afford any more of those. He’d have to act quickly.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Muffy, flat out on the floor, still half naked, her arms covering her head, sobbing. Then he noticed the mirror hanging behind the couch that hid Bunche. It was huge and heavy, and he aimed carefully at it. He took a chance, a big chance, and got off three quick shots.
The glass of the mirror was still exploding into the air as he raced across the room, taking a shot at getting across before Raff could pull the trigger.
He leapt atop the couch, pistol pointing down at Bunche, whose arms were still over his face, trying to protect himself from the shower of glass. “Drop it!” Lockwood yelled.
Bunche ignored him, the pistol coming up fast, and Lockwood sent off his final bullet, catching his foe between the eyes. Bunche’s own shot, a split second too late, fired off wildly into the ceiling, as his arm jerked out of control.
Lockwood was behind the couch now, crouched over the dead man, waiting for Raff to fire at him, hastily trying to reload, then finding he was out of ammunition. Quickly, he seized Bunche’s pistol, pulling away the dead man’s fingers, and then realized there was no sound, aside from Muffy’s crying and the whir of the giant window fan.
He raised his head, ducked, then raised it again, a foot farther down the couch. Nothing. No sounds came from the bedroom. Slowly he rose and quietly moved toward the bedroom entrance. Could it be he’d put one into Raff? He glanced toward the door of the suite. Still closed. No way Raff could have got through there without his seeing him.
A foot from the doorway, he leapt out sidewise, gun ready, but there was just blank wall. He
sprang forward, whirling in mid-air, and pointed his pistol at the entrance again, but nothing was revealed from this angle either. He backed up, then raced for and through the bedroom entrance, dropping into a crouch as he hit the floor, .38 leveled, but again he saw no one. Quickly, he checked the bathroom, then the closet, then darted toward the open window, its curtains waving feebly in the light summer breeze.
He looked to the right, saw nothing, then whipped his head to the left. A foot was disappearing into a window about thirty feet down the narrow stone ledge that circled the building. He turned and dashed out of the suite, past a dazed Muffy, who was just beginning to raise herself off the floor. He made a quick right down the corridor, and heard a heavy door slam. He raced to the end of the high-vaulted hall, tore open the brass exit door. Echoing out came the sound of rapid footsteps. He ran in and listened for a second, and judged the sound to be coming from below.
He leapt the stairs four at a time, .32 at the ready, but not gaining on the footsteps, which must have already been two or three floors below. His heart was pounding, lungs beginning to burn, and still he ran.
Then he heard the footsteps stop. There was a flurry of sound, then a banging, as if Raff were kicking at a door. Sometimes these fire stairs led to dead-ends, Lockwood remembered, to doors that were locked from the outside. He stopped for a moment, listening, but all was silent. He began the descent again, still swiftly, but trying to keep the sound down. He reached the next flight and then the next and finally what seemed to be the bottom. Still no Raff.
“Don’t move.” It was Raff’s voice. “You were moving so damn fast, you never saw me in the shadows up here on the landing.”
He heard Raff come down a step or two, no doubt to assure himself of his bullet going precisely where he wanted it to.
“I’m really sorry about all this, Hook,” Raff told him. “I never thought of myself as this kind of person. Oh, not one of your greater saints, certainly. A little hanky-panky here, a bit of flim-flam there, but nothing serious. When you come down to it, what I did with Muffy’s jewels wasn’t that much either, but it was by far the darkest thing I’d ever done.”
Raff had moved down the rest of the stairway, and now Lockwood could feel the muzzle of the gun, pressed against his spine. He still had the .32 in his hand, but at this point it might as well have been a pop gun, for all the good it could possibly do him.
“I’d always thought of myself as someone with courage. I laughed it off, but dammit, it did take courage to take those planes up in the air when the Germans came in. And I did take my plane up, again and again.
“But then I came back, and I built a world I didn’t want to lose. It was a good life in its way. Oh, certainly nothing important could ever come of it. Some would call it useless and beneath respect, but I didn’t feel that way. It was a comfortable life, an aesthetic life: beautiful homes, beautiful women, good food. I was quite happy in its midst, and how many people can say the same for their lives? So when Stephanie called, you can understand my feelings.
“I went with you at first because, really, she talked me into it. I wasn’t particularly apprehensive. But then when I saw you in action, realized just how unstoppable you really were…. Well, I took a shot at you, there in the potato field, hoping to kill you and let the police assume you’d been gunned down by the others. I had a chance for a second shot, too, you know, but changed my mind. After all—I did owe you. And I—I still didn’t want to think I was quite that bad. And then when you showed me your trust and allowed me to come with you, even after that, well I—I just couldn’t. It was as if by then you were the only one holding the last shred of my manhood together.”
The muzzle began to rise now, tracing its way up Lock-wood’s spine, then along his neck, until it came to rest at the back of his skull.
“But of course, Stephanie was another question. She was too much of a handful, Hook. I hadn’t really planned to kill her. Just wanted to see her, to speak with her, assure myself I could be safe with her. But instead, she became hysterical. In one breath she tried blackmailing me into loving her and going off with her, and in the next, reviled me, compared me to you, with myself coming off decidedly second best. My guess, Hook old boy, is that by then, she was on the verge of transferring all her affection to you. So I led her into the bedroom, and when she turned her back for a moment, I—I did it. Put my hands around her neck and squeezed. Squeezed till I thought the veins in my arms would burst. She was threatening everything I held dear, Hook, and so I felt I had to do it.”
He jammed the gun harder against Lockwood’s head. “And of course you’re responsible for all of this. You just couldn’t dog it, had to keep on coming, until you’d found out all that you needed. And I resent it. I tell you, I had a wonderful life before you turned up. Wonderful.” He pulled back the hammer. Lockwood heard it click.
“So long, friend.” Lockwood whirled as the hammer fell, and they both stood stock still for a moment, in surprise. No sound of gunfire came out of the barrel, just a loud, empty “snap.” The chamber had been empty.
Lockwood’s hand came up, the .32 still in it, pulling the trigger as Raff tried again, and simultaneously from The Hook’s gun came the same hollow sound as Raff’s. Bunche, like Raff, had expended all his bullets.
They stood facing each other, Raff’s expression incredulous. “Fancy! Both of us caught with our drawers down. I suppose now it’s a case of ‘shall the better man win.’”
He flung himself at Lockwood, and the two closed on each other, arms around each other’s necks, feet grappling with one another, each of them trying to trip his opponent to bring him down, but they were too evenly matched. In a moment, Raff dropped his arms and leapt back. “Revised Marquis of Queensbury, I guess,” he smiled, his fists raised in front of him. “Kicking, gouging, and biting very much in order.” His eye fell for the first time on Lockwood’s bleeding arm. “And handicaps get no special privilege.” For the first time Raff looked confident about beating him, and Lockwood couldn’t blame him. The wound was beginning to tell on him; he could feel himself weakening.
Raff advanced on him, his doubled-up hands looking slightly wrong as they assumed a boxing position. Raff evidently had had no tutoring in this department, but he was wiry and athletic, and his two arms against Lock-wood’s one seemed to put him very much in the favorite’s seat.
The Hook watched him warily, his left hand cocked, the right affording only a semblance of defense.
Raff let loose with a flurry of punches, poorly directed, with not much power behind them, and Lockwood fended them off as best he could. He returned with two quick lefts, the second snapping Raff’s head back. His foe seemed surprised, then angry, and he came in at him again, this time putting more weight behind his punches. He missed with all but two; one of them a grazing right to Lockwood’s chin, the second more telling as it landed on his right arm flush on the bullet wound, sending almost shattering pain shooting up the arm, into the shoulder, and even halfway up the neck. He couldn’t take many more of those, if any.
Raff came at him again, and this time one of four punches landed, catching Lockwood on the chin and sending him reeling back. But when Raff rushed after him, sensing a kill, Lockwood jolted him with a hard left to the midsection and another to his cheek.
A vein in the middle of Raff’s forehead was standing out now, throbbing, and, in desperation, he kicked at Lockwood, catching him in the thigh. The Hook buckled, fell to the floor. Raff came in to finish him, foot aiming at his head, a murderous grin on his face.
But Lockwood had seen the .32 on the floor where he’d dropped it, and his hand went for it, cobra-like. As Raff kicked out, Lockwood replied in kind, forgetting all the rules, and jammed the gun up between Raff’s legs.
Raff went down, in intense agony, and the wounded Hook took no chances. He sprang behind Raff, and, as the former wartime hero tried to twist around, crashed the .32 down on the back of his head.
There was a sickening thud, and
Raff slumped, seemed to recover for an instant, and then went down and stayed there.
Lockwood sank to the concrete floor. It was all over, finally. He brushed the perspiration off his face, out of his eyes, and as his vision cleared, he saw the drops of blood dotting the floor. His blood. Slowly, carefully he removed his jacket. The bullet hadn’t hit an artery, he saw, relieved, but the blood was still flowing freely. He removed his shirt, and with his teeth and left hand, managed to tear off a strip. He then ripped off a sleeve, pressed it against the wound, then painstakingly, again with one hand and his teeth, bound the strip tightly over the compress.
He rose now, and turned to the door. He pushed against it, on the chance Raff, in his haste, had tried opening it incorrectly. But it was locked. He banged on it then, once, twice, three times, shouting out as well, but no one responded.
Raff was stirring, and Lockwood knew he had no other choice. He took the gun and pistol-whipped him a second time, then dropped the weapon, stooped, and with his one good arm, slung Raff across his back.
He trudged up the stairs, trying the door at each landing, every muscle screaming its protest as, foiled, he once more moved to climb yet another flight. At the fourth floor, Muffy’s floor, the door was open, and again he found himself in the same corridor, the corridor he’d stood in for the first time just five days ago, when he’d attended Muffy’s opening night party.
There were sounds down at the end of the hall, and as he came closer, he saw that Muffy’s door stood open. The cops were there, probably. The sound of gunfire had undoubtedly brought them in a matter of minutes.
He still had Raff over his shoulder when he entered the suite. Jimbo was there, at the back end of the room, kneeling behind the sofa. He saw Lockwood immediately, and instantaneous concern filled his hard-bitten face.
But he was the same old Brannigan. “Jesus,” he said. “You sure make life around here tough on the chambermaids.” He pointed down behind the couch, where Bunche’s body still lay, in a pool of congealing blood. “I assume this is some of your work.”