by Brad Latham
Mr. Gray was trying to look unhappy. For him it was easy, since his face had had plenty of practice. But the unaccustomed lilt in his voice betrayed the disappointment indicated by his words. “You had to pay him that much?”
“$1560? For a five thousand dollar necklace? Come on.”
“Not $1560, Bill,” Gray corrected him, always enjoying any opportunity he could find to be one up on a subordinate. “You’ve forgotten that very large bill for expenses you also presented me with. The repairs on your car.”
“Sixty-two dollars.”
“Exactly.”
“Chicken feed, and you know it. Besides, with Nuzzo’s withdrawing both claims, we’re ahead of the game. We’ve got a five thousand dollar necklace and nothing to pay out.”
“Nothing to pay out?”
“Not with Nuzzo’s withdrawing both claims.”
“Withdrawing both claims? What do you mean?”
The Hook, about to light up a Camel, stopped in mid-motion. “Nobody’s called to cancel? He’s had more than a day.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The Hook cursed under his breath. Nuzzo couldn’t be that big a fool. “Let me use your phone a minute.”
“Not long distance?” Mr. Gray asked, alarmed. “We’ve already spent enough on this case. A long distance call—”
“Brooklyn,” Lockwood cut him off. “I’m only calling Brooklyn.”
Mr. Gray shrugged, indicated the telephone, and spuriously turned his attention to some forms. Lockwood knew Gray couldn’t concentrate now, that when he left the room, the pallid little man would spray disinfectant all over the phone. Deathly afraid of germs, and maybe even more deathly afraid of people finding out about his phobia.
Lockwood dialed, waited, and then, “Hello,” he said, exhaling a bit more on the mouthpiece than was necessary, enjoying it as Gray involuntarily flinched. “This is Bill Lockwood of the Transatlantic Underwriters insurance company. Is Frank Nuzzo there?” A mumbled “Hold on,” and he waited for a moment as muffled voices conversed.
“Yeah?” This time it was Nuzzo’s voice, unmistakably poisonous.
“Bill Lockwood here.”
“I know that.”
“I’m at the Transatlantic. They tell me here that your claims haven’t been withdrawn.”
Dead silence on the other end. Finally, “That’s right, you second-class gumshoe.”
“You’re not planning to withdraw your claims?”
“What you botherin’ me for, insect? You expect me to listen to scum like you?”
“It’s your last chance, Nuzzo,” The Hook said, coolly. “You don’t agree now, you not only lose all that money, you lose your life.” Mr. Gray’s head flicked up, hope again shining through his pale blue eyes.
“Talk’s cheap, sucker. Let’s see you do somethin’ about it.”
Lockwood figured Nuzzo’s men hadn’t been fished out of the Hudson yet. “Aren’t you wondering what happened to those four pals of yours you sent after me?”
“What?” He’d pierced Nuzzo’s armor.
“The four in the De Soto. They’re keeping the guppies happy. If you don’t withdraw those claims, you’ll soon be providing the same service for the worms up around Sing-Sing.”
“You—” Nuzzo’s voice was choked with anger. “If you tellin’ the truth, I get you, I swear to God I get you!”
“Then I take it,” Lockwood asked, his tones silken-smooth, “That I can assume you’re not withdrawing your claims?” Suddenly, he realized, he hoped that Nuzzo wouldn’t. Not that verminous wife-killer. Don’t give up the claims, Nuzzo. I want to nail you.
“Maggot! Crapeater!” and Nuzzo slammed down the phone.
Gray’s round face was pinched with disappointment. “He’s not withdrawing?”
“No,” Lockwood said, and flicked the silver and black Dunhill lighter, enjoying Gray’s expression as it clouded even more. “But Nuzzo won’t get any of the money. Not if I can help it. He was responsible for the death of Maria Nuzzo, I’m certain of it. And I’m going to prove it. Prepare yourself for a stiff little night club tab.”
It was midnight when Lockwood hit the streets again. Edwin “Wall-Eye” Borowy was a big man with the ladies, especially the chorus girls, and the ex-chorus girls who continued to earn their keep with their looks. He cast a peculiar charm over many of them. Lockwood had seen him with the women, their eyes wild, beyond recklessness, their voices too loud, their giggles underlaced by fear. Borowy was a sadist, and he terrified them, but he had a magnetism that drew them to him in spite of themselves. Or maybe because deep down they felt they deserved whatever he gave them. The Hook didn’t know.
By one-thirty the trim, brown-haired detective had hit Lindy’s, 21, the Wooden Peg, Papa Bondy’s and another half-dozen joints in the midtown area. No sign of Borowy. But at the last spot, The Three Deuces, someone suggested Borowy was hot for Harlem these nights. A quick cab ride, and he was up on West 125th Street. The streets here were just as alive with people as downtown, but there was more of a mix; downtown the only blacks you saw were musicians.
Small’s turned up empty, and so did Soldier Feeney’s, and the Cotton Club. But at the Aces High, a barnlike dive off the main drag, Lockwood hit paydirt.
He was talking to the bartender, getting nowhere, when he heard her voice.
“Bill.”
He didn’t have to turn to know who it was. “Helene,” he said.
She was looking at him with a smile, but there was no joy there, just a longing. “It’s been a while, Bill.”
“Yes.”
“You look good. You always looked good. I guess you always will.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. In the half-light of the place she was as she had been ten years before, blond and soft and glowing.
“You look fine, too.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Don’t kid me,” she answered, looking away. “Buy me a drink.”
“Sure. The usual?”
“Yeah, the usual,” she said, grimly. “Only twice what it used to be.”
“Blackberry brandy. Double,” he told the bullet-eyed man behind the bar. “Why here?” he asked her.
“Why not?” she shrugged. “One place is as good as the other. Now.”
Someone on the next stool lit a cigarette, and for the first time he could see her clearly. The full, lush lips, beginning to droop a bit at the corners, the startlingly blue eyes no longer clear, faint shadows below them, the honey-blond hair that had been her trademark now a garish yellow. The match flickered out, and he was grateful.
“Better I should ask you what you’re doing here. That would make more sense,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t care about the answer. Her eyes were full of him, drinking him in.
“I’m on a case.”
“Still doing it, huh?”
“Yeah. Still doing it.”
“I should have gone along with you. I should have settled.”
“It wasn’t for you, Helene. I wasn’t. I’m a cop, when it comes right down to it. Just like your father was. You couldn’t have lived through all that again.”
“No one’s killed you.”
“Not yet.”
She shrugged and took a long slug of the brandy. Her dress was low-cut, full breasts overflowing the top of it, smooth and compelling. She noticed where his gaze lay.
“I see your eyes are still as itchy as ever.” A new note crept into her voice, a coarseness he’d never heard before. Old times came back to him, and he pushed them away. Too late now. He took a pull at his whiskey.
“Maybe I can help you, Bill.” Her voice had softened as she saw his reaction. “What are you looking for? Or who?”
He stared at her. He hoped she couldn’t help. “A two-bit gunman. Big man. Blond. Wall-Eye. That’s his nickname. Wall-Eye. Wall-Eye Borowy. Straight handle, Edwin.”
“I know him,” she said, simply.
He looked down at his drink. He didn’t want to hear the re
st.
“It’s—it’s nothing important, is it? I mean, he’s not in trouble, is he?”
“Skip it, Helene. Stay out of it. I don’t need your help.”
“No. I want to help. There wasn’t anyone ever like you, Bill. Ever. Let me help.”
“No.”
“You can’t stop me. Give me a cigarette,” she said, playfully.
He looked at her. “You don’t smoke.”
“Didn’t. I’m a big girl now. A real big girl,” she said with bitterness in her voice, and he offered her the pack, his index finger tapping a Camel halfway out of the deck.
She put it between her lips as he flicked the Dunhill, and she drew in greedily. “He’s not easy to find these days, Bill. I can lead you to him.”
He considered her. She was eager, hopeful. “All right,” he said, finally.
She stood up. “Come on.”
She turned toward the rear of the room, and he walked along beside her, Helene holding onto his arm tightly, the way a drowning man would grasp a log.
They reached a door at the back, a door without a knob. “In here,” she said, and knocked twice, then paused, then three more knocks. The door swung open and they moved inside, then down a dim hallway. Whoever had opened the door remained behind it till they were out of sight, and then The Hook heard the door lock into place.
There were doors along the hallway, and sounds came from behind some of them. Animal sounds, deep and gutteral, high-pitched laughing sounds as well, and once, a cry of pain.
“In here,” she said, opening a door.
At first the light was blinding, but already he knew what he’d see; a mattress, a small sink, a tiny table stacked with towels. Helene had her back against the door.
“No, Helene,” he told her.
“Please,” she said, “for me. Just one last time. That’s all I’m asking. Just one last time.” Her eyes pleaded, and his resolve crumbled. She’d had it all, he thought. She’d had it all, and now…
She was already stripping off her clothes, quickly, her motions practiced. He saw the body was still firm, only a few wrong shadows on the flesh presaging the collapse that soon would come. Those long, curving legs were still the same, rising majestically to the full hips that framed the thick tuft of hair that had once been the whole center of his life. The curve of her belly was inviting, her waist still wasp-slim, her breasts fulfilling the promise they’d offered Hook while he and Helene had sat at the bar. In spite of everything, he found himself stirring.
“Please,” she said, and when he didn’t move, she walked to him, and started to undo his tie. And stopped, and threw her arms around him, saying nothing, just holding, until finally his arms drew around her body, and she knew for the time being he was hers once more, as he had been so many years before.
“We’ll make magic again,” she told him, drawing her head back from off his chest, the years falling away for a moment, girlish glee in her eyes as she helped undress him.
“I can’t, Helene.” He tried to stop himself. “I’m working. I can’t stop for—”
“I know where he is, Bill. I promise. Right after this, I’ll lead you to him.”
She drew him down onto the pallet, yearning in her eyes, her lips drawn up in desire.
“It’ll be like before, Bill. I promise.”
He kissed her, and she worked her mouth feverishly against his, and then stopped. He saw the tears in her eyes. “Every night, every night,” she said, “I’ve wanted you.”
He ran his hands over her, and her back arched, her whole body alive with feeling. Her hand slid down to his penis, and she held on, fondling it, working it against herself. “Why did I let you go?” she whimpered, but she wasn’t asking him, only talking to herself, expecting no answer, and he said nothing, just touched her, stroked her, the way he had in the days of old, pleasuring her now as she loved to be then.
“Ohh, don’t stop.” Her head was moving from side to side, her whole being sunk in ecstasy.
His hands caressed her breasts, slightly pinching at her nipples, the way she used to ask him to. She was rubbing his phallus against her, teasing herself with it, stopping, starting, stopping then starting again. Finally, she thrust herself up against him, engorging herself with the flesh of him, and they moved against each other, slowly at first, then more quickly, her hands running up and down his back, touching all of him, frantically, as if her fingers were working at this, working at storing up memories, memories that she knew a few minutes from now were all she’d ever have to fall back on.
They were both nearing the climax now, feeling the inevitability of what was to come, anticipating it, yet trying to keep it off, trying to keep this feeling for as long as they could.
And then they failed. And their bodies surged, and crested, and fell. It was over. For the last time.
“See!” she said weakly. “I told you.”
He smiled at her and kissed her one last time. And sat up. And for the first time noticed her arms. The hollows on the insides of them were thick with scars and lesions and glowing red welts. For the second time that night, she noticed the direction of his glance.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice vulgar again, “I’m a hop-head.” And she turned her back to him, and dressed, never bothering to wash.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
“What for? It has nothing to do with you. It’s my own choice, you know?” Her eyes were wet again. “I like it. It’s the only thing in this crummy—” her throat closed up, and she sank to the floor, sobbing.
“Helene.” He was down beside her, cradling her head in his hands. “Whatever I can do for you, I will.”
“I know you would,” she said. “But it’s too late now.”
“It’s not.”
Her eyes went ugly. “It is,” she snapped at him. “I’m Wall-Eye Borowy’s girl.”
CHAPTER
SIX
She was right. It was too late. “All right,” he told her. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs,” she said, vaguely motioning with her head. She wasn’t looking at him.
“How do I get up there?”
“I’ll take you.”
He tried to help her up, but she snatched her hand away. “No!”
She pushed open the door, and he followed her down the dank corridor, past several more doors. One of them stood open, and he saw a young black girl, standing naked, shackled to the wall, and a fat white man kneeling in front of- her, his face buried in her pelvis. Helene worked here. He continued on, sickened, following her.
There was a stairway through a door at the end of the hall. They went up it, ancient wooden boards creaking as they ascended, the smell of disinfectant that pervaded the hallway only faint now.
At the top of the stairs, Helene moved to a door just beyond them, and knocked, this time using a different signal. “Come in,” a voice called, and she opened the door, entered, then stood aside as Lockwood followed.
“Hook Lockwood!” Wall-Eye’s mouth went slack. “What the hell’s he doing here?” he rasped at Helene, while seeming to stare at the two of them.
“He was looking for you, Eddie. I told him I—know you,” she answered, voice quiet, subdued.
‘ “Who the hell ever told you—aah, the hell with it. Get out of here! Both of you.”
“I’ve got to talk to you, Borowy.” Lockwood’s eyes were slits as he stared at the bulky man behind the desk, jacket off, tie open at the neck, black suspenders accenting the crisp whiteness of the shirt.
“What for?”
“You’re involved in a case I’m handling.”
“I’m involved in nothing that’s any concern of yours, pal. Get out of here.” His finger reached for a button on the desk.
“Don’t do that, Wall-Eye,” Lockwood cautioned him. “That would be a mistake. And you’re in a business where you can’t afford too make mistakes. Not a single one.”
Borowy’s hand came away from the button, and he leaned back in
the chair. “Make it good … and make it fast.”
Lockwood jerked his head toward Helene. “Get her out of here,” he told Borowy. “You won’t want her to hear this.”
Borowy nodded at Helene, and she turned and left, not looking at either of them.
“Okay, shoot.”
He didn’t fool around, just hit him with it right away. “I know you were the hit man in the Nuzzo job.”
Those crazy eyes of Borowy’s gave nothing away. How the hell could they? He just sat there, looking at Lockwood, or maybe not looking at him, there was no way to tell. Finally, he spoke, voice even, unrevealing. “Who says?”
“I say. I know you did it, Borowy. That’s why I’m here. To help you.”
Borowy blinked, then smiled, a savage, nasty smile. “Help me. Yeah, right.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
The voice again was impassive. “I’m tolerating you, Hook, remember that. I’m just tolerating you. Don’t expect me to do it for too much longer.”
“Okay, Borowy, I’ll make it plain to you. You don’t mean anything to me in this case. Nothing. I want to nail Frankie Nuzzo.”
“Only Frankie, eh?” The voice was disbelieving, taunting.
“Frankie Nuzzo filed two claims against Transatlantic,” The Hook told him. “Big ones. We don’t want to pay. We shouldn’t have to pay. That’s where you come in.”
“No. This is where you get out.” Once more Borowy’s fingers moved toward the button.
“Wait.” The hand stopped. “You know I’m not a cop, Borowy. I’m an insurance investigator. I don’t make arrests, I don’t make judgments. I’m out to help my company any legitimate way I can. I know you killed Maria Nuzzo, and if I know it, sooner or later, the cops are going to know it.”
Borowy ran a manicured hand over his smooth-skinned face. “Not if I take care of you, they won’t.”
“Come on, Borowy, if I came up with the dope, what’s to stop them from finding out the same thing?” Borowy’s fingertips paused in mid-motion, and The Hook continued. “Look, if you get caught for this, that’s it for you. One night all the lights in Ossining will go dim, and people will be blaming you. Not that you’ll be aware, of course. I’m giving you an out.”