by Brad Latham
As Lockwood left, Mr. Gray was tipped back in the chair behind his big desk, his face rosy with expectation. Perhaps neither claim, the one for five thousand, or, better yet, the one for $100,000, would have to be honored.
Frankie Nuzzo was a mess: freshly-dried blood covered a third of his forehead, a chunk of flesh was missing from the bridge of his nose, and when he spoke, you could tell he was having trouble moving his jaw.
Being cranky didn’t make Frankie look any better, either. “I don’t unnerstan’ why you havta come here. When you said you was from the insurance compny, I figgered you was bringin’ me the money.”
“I’m a claims investigator, Mr. Nuzzo,” Bill Lockwood informed him. “Insurance companies can’t just pay out claims without checking. That kind of policy might prove too tempting to those with criminal minds.”
Nuzzo looked back at him, dead-eyed, and said nothing.
“If you could tell me exactly what happened.”
Nuzzo exploded at him. “What! You want me to talk about that? You think I ain’t got no feelings?”
“Until we know exactly what happened, there’s no way we can put through your claim.”
“Oh.” Nuzzo shrugged. One more “oh” and all his grief seemed to fall away. “Okay, so what should 1 tell you?”
“The intruder. How’d he break in?”
“The back winder. He broke in through the back winder.”
“Your neighbors didn’t hear?”
“Them creeps? Naah. Besides, he taped the window first, so it didn’t make no noise when he broke it. The adhesive tapes ‘re still on it, if you wanna see.”
“Maybe later. Where were you when he came in?”
“Out.”
“Both you and Mrs. Nuzzo?”
“Right.” Nuzzo rubbed his jaw carefully. “I took the missus out for a big night. Movies. A double feature at the Loew’s Kings, then a real nice meal at George’s—langostura, the works, then dancin’.”
“That’s why she was wearing the necklace.”
Nuzzo stared at him. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“What happened when you got home?”
“He was waitin’ for us, behind the front door.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Who knows? He was wearin’ a mask.” Nuzzo’s voice took on an edge. “Look, I already told all this to the cops…”
Lockwood ignored him. “You couldn’t tell anything about him? His voice? His size?”
“He didn’t say nothin’. He hit me almost immediately. I had no chance to see how big he was.”
“Then what?”
“Then I dunno. Finally, I come to, the cops’ve arrived, and they’re pullin’ me out of the hall closet. An’ then I see Maria.”
“She was dead when you found her?”
“Yeah.” Nuzzo’s face pinched together. “The poor thing. Killed like that. In cold blood.”
“And the necklace was gone.”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing else.”
“What?”
“Nothing else was stolen?”
“No.” Nuzzo was looking edgy again. “No, nothin’ else.”
“Strange.”
“What?” The voice was sharp and angry.
“I said it’s strange, nothing else being taken.”
“What strange? Maria’s necklace was valuable. Five thousand dollars.”
“Mmm. But why nothing else?”
“Who the fuck knows?” Nuzzo’s anger had exploded. The left eyelid began to flicker. “How about wrappin’ it up, pal? I’m tired of goin’ through this shit.”
“You’re going to have to go through a little more if you want this investigation to go anywhere.”
“Okay, big shot dick; look—” Nuzzo’s eyes were ice. “—there was nothin’ in this house to steal. I don’t keep no money here. What’s the guy going to do? Grab my radio?” He pointed to a large floor model. “Look around. What’s he gonna take?”
“Your wife’s other jewels.”
“My wife’s—” Nuzzo looked genuinely surprised, then laughed a hard, rasping laugh. “My wife don’t got no other jewels. Didn’t have no other jewels,” he corrected himself.
“You’re sure?”
Nuzzzo’s left eyelid again began to flutter rapidly. “You callin’ me a liar?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t believe in crap like that for women. The only reason she had the necklace was she inherited it from her grandmother. The rest was from the dimestore.”
“Your wife had a policy for her jewelry.”
“Right. That’s the claim I put in. Five thousand dollars.”
“That was another one. She had a second one in her name for sixty thousand.”
Nuzzo stared at Lockwood. The concept seemed to be too tough for him. “What you mean?”
“Just that. Your wife seems to have owned another sixty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels. Sixty thousand that you seem not to have known about.”
Nuzzo’s lip curled, and Lockwood caught a flash of his crooked teeth. “That bitch!” He exploded out of his chair, then stopped. “Naah, it ain’t possible. I know her stuff. All she had was costume jewelry, aside from that necklace.”
Lockwood nodded. “Costume jewelry. May I see it?”
Nuzzo’s features contorted angrily, but then he shrugged. “Sure. Waddo I care? Come on.”
The Hook followed the gangster into a bedroom that was overfurnished in the height of contemporary fashion—if you shopped at Woolworth’s. Gewgaws abounded, garish, loud draperies and bedspread accented an air of sensual, if ill-conceived, decor. Nuzzo opened a huge genuine imitation leather jewelry case. “Here,” he said with disinterest, his hand casually taking up a few baubles. “This is all she had. I know it.”
The Hook took an offered necklace and slowly scrutinized it. Next, he plucked a ring from the box and strode over to a window, where sunlight was flooding in. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a jeweler’s loupe, then fixed it in his eye.
“Now you know. Shit, right?” Nuzzo smiled, a little uncertainly.
Lockwood said nothing, then turned from studying the ring to the necklace he’d retained.
“Come on, I’m busy,” Nuzzo snapped, edgily.
After a moment, Lockwood dropped his hand, removed the loupe, and returned it to his pocket. “My guess is this stuff’s the real thing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Lockwood handed him a sheaf of papers. “Here’s a copy of your wife’s policy. This necklace is listed in it along with this ring. So, probably, is everything in this jewelry box. I’m no expert, but from what I see, this stuff’s far from paste.”
Again, Nuzzo seemed to have trouble comprehending.
“Everything listed in this policy is genuine. Our company wouldn’t insure something like this without checking it over first. My looking over these two—” and he dropped them back into the box, “is enough to convince me that all of this is the real stuff.”
Nuzzo sat down on the bed, stunned. “It don’t make no sense.”
“Come on, Nuzzo. You’re no kid. You know lots of wives don’t tell everything to their husbands.”
“She couldn’t have bought that stuff. She didn’t have that kind of money.” Nuzzo ran a hand through his inky black, oily hair. “It don’t make no sense. Where could she get that kind of dough?”
Lockwood shrugged, and began moving from the bedroom. Immediately, Nuzzo followed him, looking now like a Doberman Pinscher about to pounce. “Get outta here!” he yelled at the detective. “Get your filthy self outta here!”
“Not quite yet, Frankie. I think it’s best I tell you all you need to know before I leave.”
Nuzzo’s taut cheekbones were working. “What you mean?”
“Withdraw your claims.”
“What?”
“Withdraw your claims. Both of them.”
Nuzzo’s expression was
pure menace. “Who you think you are tellin’ me what to do?”
“Better listen to me, Nuzzo. I’m not a cop. I don’t put people in jail. You withdraw the claims, and that’s the last you’ll hear of me.”
“What’re you, crazy? I’m owed that money!”
“You’re not owed anything, Nuzzo. Those policies are void. A policyholder can’t collect if he’s the one who’s the cause of the claim.”
“Whadda you mean?”
“Think about it, Frankie,” The Hook answered, calmly, taking out a pack of Camels, and offering one to the gangster. Nuzzo shook his head, violently, and Lockwood shrugged, paused to light up, and took a good, long drag. “A burglar breaks into your house, and waits for you and your wife to come home. When you do come home, he slugs you, and puts two bullets in your wife, then takes off, with nothing but her necklace.”
“What do you mean, nothing? That’s five thousand dollars’ worth!”
“True. But it doesn’t add up. Jewel thieves aren’t dumb—at least not about jewels. They know the good stuff from the worthless. So a burglar breaks in, no one’s home, there’s a jewel case in the bedroom, full of valuables —sixty thousand dollars worth, and he doesn’t touch it—any of it. Just sits and waits for a five thousand dollar necklace and a better than even chance of getting gunned down by you, caught by the cops if your wife screams, whatever, when all he’d have to do is take the jewel box and run.”
“He coulda been an amateur.”
“Not likely. And then the two of you turn up. So who’s the more dangerous of the two of you to him? You or Maria? You, right? So you he only slugs, and into your wife he pumps two bullets. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Get out of here.”
“Well, it does make sense, but only this way. You decide you’ve had it with your wife, and it’s time to dump her. But why not make a profit on it, the way you do everything else? So you take out a policy on her life, then find yourself a hit man—not one of your own, probably, because you want to keep this secret, apart from your everyday life—and you promise him he’ll be paid with that necklace. You arrange a big evening out, so Maria will have the necklace on, tell him how to get into the house, and when you come home, he holds a gun on you and your wife, belts you around a bit to make it look real, and then stuffs your willing body in the closet. Two bullets later and your wife dead, he leaves with the necklace, and you’re sitting there with a sore jaw and the prospects of a nice fat bundle of cash.”
“Get out!” Nuzzo was livid with anger, his left eyelid flicking up and down with machine-gun speed.
“I’ll be happy to, Frankie. Just remember: drop the claims or I’ll see that you wind up in the hot seat.”
An animal-like snarl spitting out of him, Nuzzo sprang at The Hook, the two of them flying against, and then over, the plush, violet-covered couch that was the living room’s centerpiece.
“I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Nuzzo, his face red, had his hands around his adversary’s throat, squeezing with maniacal strength.
The Hook tensed, then threw his legs up in the air, unbalancing Nuzzo, the grip loosening, and The Hook tearing free.
Before he was halfway up, Nuzzo was at him again, wild with rage, fingers again reaching out for his throat. Lockwood shifted to one side and Nuzzo caromed off him, each hitting the floor again. Still sprawled there, Lockwood threw an uppercut, but Nuzzo slipped it, and fired back a short jab of his own which just missed its mark.
“Pig!” This time Nuzzo went for his gun, but Lock-wood’s hand flashed out and stopped him in mid-motion, his iron-like grip on Nuzzo’s wrist. A straight left to the mid-section and Nuzzo grunted in pain, then lunged forward, his stiff index and middle fingers aimed for the detective’s eyes.
Lockwood rolled, at the same time kicking back at Nuzzo. Springing to his feet, he kicked again, sending the .32 revolver sailing across the room.
But now Nuzzo was up, and Lockwood could see his hands were quick, and practised, the venom behind each punch lending it just that much more impetus. A right smashed in at his cheek, a whistling left caught him in the pit of the stomach before he could set himself. A large vein was now throbbing in the middle of Nuzzo’s forehead.
“You’re a dead man, Lockwood. Dead.” Nuzzo shot in another left, but this time his opponent was able to parry it, and came back with a right of his own which caught the mobster over the left eye, laying open the flesh that rooted the eyebrow.
Nuzzo reacted with a wild right, which Lockwood blocked, sending off a hard left to the midsection in return, then following up with the left hook that had given him his nickname. Nuzzo flew back, landing on the couch cushions.
Wild-eyed, he looked for the .32, located it, and dove in its direction, grabbing the gun and aiming it up at Lockwood. Already a lamp was sailing unerringly in his direction, smashing harmlessly against his head, but giving The Hook time enough to crash his heel down on the wrist that held the pistol, the sound of splintering bone followed immediately by the clatter of the falling weapon. Another flick of Lockwood’s foot, and the gun sped to a far corner of the room. As Lockwood bent, he grabbed Nuzzo by the shirtcollar and pulled him to his feet. Then, as he jerked Nuzzo’s head toward him, he rocketed a right into it, the resultant collision instantaneously transforming Nuzzo into a sagging, inert bundle of cloth, skin, and bone.
The Hook paused a moment, watching as the bundle toppled heavily to the floor. He then strode to a mirror, adjusted his silk navy blue tie, brushed off his Brooks Brothers gray flannel jacket, buttoned it, smoothed back his hair, and, without glancing back, left. He nonchalantly descended the brick steps that led from the nondescript two-story frame home, got into the silver-and-black coffin-nosed Cord that stood in front of the house, and drove away.
CHAPTER
THREE
Nuzzo hadn’t wasted any time, Bill Lockwood mused, as he stared in the rear-view mirror at the black De Soto that was dogging him. The car seemed to have four occupants, big ones. He pressed his foot all the way to the floor. The Cord’s specially installed Packard twin six engine roared, and the car leapt forward, instantly doubling the gap between it and the De Soto. For a moment Lockwood relaxed, but after another glance at the rear-view mirror, he swore. The De Soto seemed to have a custom power rig of its own, and was slowly making up the distance it had lost, despite the never-yielding pressure of Lockwood’s foot against the gas pedal.
Damn. Lockwood felt a twinge in his right arm. Gray had promised this would be an easy one. Easy! This time he might not be as lucky when he stopped a wad of lead.
Already one was screaming by him, as one of the De Soto’s occupants leaned out and got off two quick shots. These guys had obviously been told to do the job, or else. This was roaring twenties kind of stuff, a the-hell-with-the-law approach that had fallen into disfavor in recent years as the mobs found that subtle approaches worked best. Too bad I’m not one for nostalgia, The Hook thought.
He drew the .38 Colt Detective Special from the spring holster clipped under the waistband of his trousers. The street there in North Brooklyn was empty, and he could chance a shot or two.
His eyes flicked up to the mirror and then he wheeled, firing twice, then whirled back to straighten out the wheel as he nearly careened against a curb. Another look back in the mirror but nothing had changed. The car was still relentlessly pursuing him, one of the mobsters again leaning out the side window, pumping bullets at him.
One crashed through the back window and then through the right side of the windshield, with a crack extending half over to the driver’s side. Again Lockwood spun and fired, this time in the direction of the De Soto’s tires.
No dice. They were still coming after him, and getting closer. He tried to remember where the nearest precinct house was. Maybe he could draw up to it; maybe make it inside before they opened up. Or with luck, there’d be some cops standing around, and these mugs would have to give it up, Nuzzo or no Nuzzo.
Too far. He remembere
d now, and realized he could never make it there in time. Another shot cracked, and something grazed the top of the Cord. Gray’s going to love this expense sheet, The Hook thought. If I get the chance to make one up.
There were two shots left in the chambers of his .38 and he tried again, hoping to hell he didn’t crash into anything as he roared up the narrow street. His back to it, eyes fixed on the car behind him, he sent off the remaining shells. This time one of them seemed to make it. He watched, first over his shoulder, then an instant later, after he righted the Cord, in the rear-view mirror, as the thug next to the driver clutched his throat, and then slowly sank out of sight. One down, but three too many to go.
Despite the loss of one member of their party, the men behind him never hesitated, and the De Soto continued to race after the hurtling Cord. Lockwood wheeled right, off Hamilton onto Van Brunt. There was one chance, one small chance. He jerked the pedal to the floor again, pouring on every last ounce of speed, counting on the De Soto to follow suit.
A truck loomed up, a big moving van, and, frantically, Lockwood swerved to the left, hoping nothing was coming his way. The truck driver hit the brakes, swearing, as first the Cord, and then the De Soto, zoomed by, a trail of black smoke pouring out of its exhaust.
A sound like firecrackers echoed behind him, and The Hook knew they were throwing more lead his way. He sank deeper into his seat, hearing one, then two bullets thunking into the Cord’s trunk. Another two blocks. If he could evade their bullets, keep ahead of them for just another two blocks….
They were near Kane Street now, and Lockwood leaned forward, every muscle taut, waiting… .
At the last moment, just as the intersection of Kane and Van Brunt came into view, he wheeled the car to the left onto Kane, all the way to the left, a quarter-inch from the side of the big brick warehouse, and suddenly slammed on the brakes. There was no time to watch what was happening behind him. He started to break open the .38 on the chance his plan hadn’t worked, on the chance he’d have to shoot it out. And then he heard the De Soto, and as his head snapped up, he saw the wide-open eyes of the three gunmen as they screeched past him. The big black car skidded its way down the end of the street, its brakes on a fraction of a second too late. It slammed into the low barrier at the street’s end, and somersaulted, almost as if in slow motion, hundreds of pounds of metal upending, high, higher, then higher, and then sailing, like some ancient mammoth that, in its dying moment, had been gifted with the power of flight, sailing through the blue of the sky, the distant buildings of Governors Island forming a misty backdrop as the car continued on and then, reaching the crest of its arc, began to fall. Screams, three of them, all from the same hurtling source, yet each separate and distinct, issued from the car as it continued on its predestined course. Lockwood’s eyes closed involuntarily for an instant. A hell of a way to die, he thought.