by Brad Latham
“I was right. You can handle yourself,” he told her, admiration in his eyes, and handed over the .32. “Don’t expose yourself to anything. Just keep an eye on the staircase. If anything shows, shoot.” He watched her for a moment. “Hold the pistol with two hands. That’ll steady it.”
Someone tried to run across the small front lawn toward the house, and found it was a mistake, as the detective’s revolver cracked, and the thug hit the ground, rolled, and then scrambled back to safety behind a parked car.
“There’s someone downstairs. I can hear him moving around.” Gina suddenly whispered.
“Okay.” He turned his back to the window and waited. One, two, then three shots crashed through the window behind him, and still he waited. He placed a hand on Gina’s arm, pushing it down, encouraging her to lower the pistol. As long as there was time, he’d take the stairs himself.
The first step groaned. A big man, no doubt.
The second stair echoed the first sound. He was coming up slowly, and by the fourth tread they could hear his breathing. Big and probably fat. Out of shape. A slow one. Right now, he’d take a slow one. He could use all the odds he could get.
Another step, and Fat’s head began to show. At first the back, but as he rose to the next tread, it began to swing around, on the defense. No doubt his gun was swinging around, too. Lockwood found himself hoping it wasn’t a shotgun. Even if he dropped him first, that damn stuff could really fly. He pushed Gina down toward the floor.
Fat was a half-step higher, and suddenly their eyes locked. Fats’ began to widen, his arm began to raise, and then everything stopped in mid-motion, as the .38 slug from The Hook’s weapon tore through the bulk of the gunman, slamming him back against the wall, and then down onto the stairs, hitting heavily, then sliding down, down, down, the weight dragging him, then a crashing sound as he hit something, one of his cronies, just a few steps below him, both bodies then tumbling to the floor at the foot of the stairs.
“One down,” The Hook coolly told Gina, as he inserted a fresh bullet into the empty chamber. “Cover the stairs again,” he said as he returned to the window.
There seemed to be three or four of them perched behind their cars, fewer than before. The rest must be in the house, or about to enter it. He sent two shots over the cars, just to keep them from getting too cocky, then sank back against the wall and reloaded.
“I usually provide something better than this when I take a girl on a date,” he told Gina, as another bullet whistled by, thunking into the wall about them.
“I’m happy just to be with you,” she said, simply, and he felt himself warm as he never had before.
Again there was a stirring from the floor below, and this time the footsteps on the stairs were swift, a tall blond racing up them, coattails and tie flying, gun raised. Lockwood let him reach the top of the stairs, having no taste for shooting a man in the back. The man whirled, and he saw it was Willie the Weeper Kenidrette, a young punk who threatened to turn into something worse as he grew older. He was still wearing the pustules of late adolescence, his cheekbones gaunt, eyes empty of intelligence or of anything much else. Lockwood felt satisfaction as the bullet ripped into the hood, buckling him at the waist. Who knew how many lives his death would save? Kenidrette sagged toward the floor, but raised his pistol, trying to take aim. Lockwood put another slug into him, and it was all over.
Gina’s head was buried in her hands, and she was sobbing. Nothing he could do for her now. He turned, and saw a shape outside the window, too late, as an arm smashed through and grabbed him around the throat.
He was choking, the air dissipating inside him, leaving a vacuum of blackness that was threatening to engulf his brain. He dropped his gun hand, swung it back, and fired. Still the grip on his throat, tightening, and he tried again, firing in another direction. No good. He was about to go under when the arm encircling his neck jerked free, and he heard a scream.
He staggered back against the wall, just as the form loomed near again. This time, when he pulled the trigger, his aim was true, and the form stiffened, seemed to rise into the air, and then plunged away from the house, thudding softly onto the ground below.
“I couldn’t shoot him,” Gina explained, shame-facedly. “So I bit him.”
He tried to reload and saw he had nothing for the sixth chamber. “Let me have it,” he said, indicating Frankie’s .32. He cracked it open. Six shots. Eleven bullets between them and Fish Lomenzo’s grinding machine. He’d have to make almost all of them count.
“I want you to go up into the attic,” he told Gina.
“No. I want to be here with you.” Her chin was firm, her eyes proud.
“If you stay with me, I’ll probably get myself killed. I’m too concerned about you to really concentrate on what I’ve got to do. If I figure you’ve got half a chance of being safe, I’ll be better off. So will you.”
She couldn’t fight that, and quietly obeyed, letting him lead her back into the tiny room below the attic opening. He boosted her up, his hands, even at this moment, enjoying the feel of her hips, savoring them, remembering. Reason enough to look forward to the future.
He resumed his station by the window in the hall, and then jumped up, flinging himself to one side as machine-gun bullets came tearing up through the floor. Lomenzo was pulling out all the stops.
He realized he had to do something, and fast. Just by the law of averages, one of those slugs was bound to come ripping up at him. No sense of racing to the opposite end of the hall. Probably someone stationed down on the stairs, waiting to pink him if showed up there. Maybe even another tommy-gunner.
The bathroom was across from him. He leapt to its doorway, ran in, stooped, grasped the great clawed iron legs of the bathtub, and with muscles straining, shoved it up, fast, way up, pointing it toward the ceiling, then twisting, as water sprayed out of the breaking pipes. He let go, allowing it to clatter to the floor, then shoved it through the door into the hall. The sound of machine-gun fire reverberated through the house, several of the shots clunking against the tub. In a moment, he jumped inside it, popping a shot out the window as he did so, and then crouched there, waiting. Even if a bullet did smash its way through the tub, much of its force would be spent. He might not be safe, but he was safer.
There was cursing below as the water from the bathroom began spilling down onto Lomenzo’s waiting men, cursing which increased when they heard the submachine gun’s bullets splanging against iron. Most thugs were easily frustrated, like the arrested, twisted children they were. And frustrated thugs often made chance-taking thugs. Dumb chance-taking thugs. It was a little guy this time, trying to make it up the stairs, screaming curses as he saw Lockwood, still screaming as the metal ripped into him, the curses replaced by animal sounds of pain, and horror, the horror of knowing that death was on its way.
Again the machine-gun below chattered, and again the tub proved an effective shield. There was water all over the hall now, too, as the pipes continued their cascade.
Plenty of water, but maybe not enough. He heard it even before he smelled it. A crackling sound, puzzling at first, and then the sudden realization of what it was. Even as he raced to get Gina, the smoke began pouring up. They were trying to burn them out.
“Gina!” As he called to her, a bullet whined by. He whirled, and in the backyard below he found his target. He smashed his pistol through the window and fired, one, two, three times. The third bullet did its job, and it wasn’t till the man went down that he noticed the two bullet holes in the arm of his coat. He checked his own arm. No pain, no blood. If he ever got out of this alive, he smiled grimly to himself, he’d have to find an invisible weaver. Always the petty things of life, no matter what.
Gina was staring down at him, eyes wide, but with awareness, not fear.
“We’re going to have to make a run for it,” he told her. “They’ve torched the house.”
She said nothing, just nodded, and lowered herself down to him. He held her tightl
y for a moment, kissed her gently, longingly. Then, “follow me,” he told her, and led her to a window by the side of the house.
He raised it, and looked out. There was a small roof, about three feet long and eight feet wide, four feet below the window. He scanned the area beneath, but there were no signs of anyone. “I’m going out,” he told her. “If there’s anyone there, I’ll draw immediate fire. If nothing happens to me by the time I’m all the way out, follow immediately. Don’t wait. They could be behind us at any moment.”
He put one foot through, then the other, then lowered himself quietly onto the roof. No response. In a moment, Gina was there beside him, and he moved her away from the window and against the wall, trying to shelter her as best he could.
“We’ll wait a second,” he told her. “If no one turns up, we’re going to have to drop off here.” She nodded up at him, full of trust.
He could hear them running up the stairs now, several of them. In a few more seconds they’d be racing through all the rooms upstairs, and inevitably would find them out here.
It would be safest to hang from the roof and drop, he knew. Less chance of a broken leg. But if bullets were to come their way he had to protect Gina from them. He turned toward her, and lifted her in his arms, then stepped backward off the roof, his back, he hoped desperately, screening her, most of her, from sight.
A pistol cracked as they plummeted, and again as they landed, Lockwood pushing Gina down as he simultaneously raised his .38. Off in the distance sirens sounded.
A head popped up. “Cops! Let’s get out of—” the head began to say, when it was stopped in mid-sentence by a .38 calibre bullet, which entered on one side and left on the other, bearing with it, on its final journey, a fragment of brain.
Both Lockwood and Gina saw it happen, saw who the bullet struck, saw his body fall. “Fish” Lomenzo. Gina’s brother. Dead. By the detective’s hand.
Lomenzo’s gang was already scattering, the lucky ones vaulting into their cars, and screeching away, the others sprinting for safety.
Slowly, they walked over to where Lomenzo lay. Gina said nothing, just stood there, looking down, crystalline droplets flowing softly over her smooth young cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Lockwood told her.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
She came with him to police headquarters in the Brooklyn precinct, saying litle, responding to the cop’s inquiries with as few words as possible. They were gentle with her, respectful. Cops, good and bad, knew human nature, and they recognized character when they found it.
Finally satisfied, they let the two of them go, returning the .38 and the .32 to the detective.
It was mid-afternoon, and a day that was glorious to most, the sky a brilliant blue, the air warm and balmy. Still, she did not leave him, and drove with him to Manhattan and Jimbo Brannigans, merely shaking her head when he asked if there was someplace he could take her.
They drove in silence, he not knowing what to say, afraid to say anything. He couldn’t allow her to slip away from him. In time she’d understand what he’d done, maybe even did now. After all, she was with him, wasn’t she? It was all he had to content himself with, and he hung onto it, for all it was worth. He would never find another like her, he knew.
Brannigan sensed his mood immediately, and abandoned his usual good-natured, heavy-handed ragging, simply taking Nuzzo’s .32 down to ballistics, and asking them to give it a quick check.
Neither had eaten since the night before, but when Lockwood asked her if she wanted something, she shook her head. At Brannigan’s inquiring glance, The Hook shook his as well. He wondered if he’d ever feel hungry again. Her brother—he’d killed Gina’s brother.
Brannigan’s face was grim when he finished reading over the ballistics report. There was no cutesie crap this time either, just the straight facts. “I’m sorry, Bill. Frankie’s gun doesn’t check out. The slugs from it don’t match the bullet in Maria Nuzzo.”
Lockwood nodded, and looked at Gina. She’d been right. But there was no reaction from her, no joy. He wondered if she’d ever smile again. And if she did, if he’d ever get to see it.
They had left the stationhouse, and paused on the sidewalk, as he turned to ask her where he could take her, when he heard his name called.
“Bill!”
The voice was shrill, and filled with fear. A woman’s voice.
He whirled, and she was running toward him.
“Bill!”
He waited for her, watching her as she ran, her eyes wide with terror.
“Bill!” She collapsed into his arms, sobbing, and he felt Gina draw away.
It had been years since he’d seen her in the daytime, and as she looked up at him, he fervently wished that it were night. All the beauty that had once been there … “What’s wrong, Helene?” he asked her.
“Oh, Bill,” she said trembling. “Bill, I never thought I’d reach you in time.” She began to shake, and her teeth started chattering, and he realized she was withdrawing from something. Her body was screaming for it, shrieking for another shot, but still she persisted, her eyes full on him.
“A report came over the radio. They mentioned you were here, at the stationhouse. Borowy heard it. All along he’s been swearing he’s going to get you, Bill! And he heard the report, and he got his gun, and he left. He’s going to get you. Doesn’t seem to care what happens to him. I was sure I’d never get here in time.”
Lockwood’s eyes flicked up and down the street. The sidewalks were thick with people. He didn’t see Borowy, but in this crowd … he began moving to the car, his arm around Gina. “Thanks, Helene,” he told her. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
Still she clutched him, eyes imploring. “I’ll be all right, I promise you. Now you’d better leave. You don’t want him to see you with me.”
She nodded, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead as all of her began to writhe in agony, twist with the craving for a needle full of forgetfulness.
He kissed her gently on the forehead, and she moved away, melting into the crowd. He seated Gina in the Cord, and was opening the door to the driver’s seat when he heard her again.
“Bill!” The voice was almost in his ear.
He turned, and she was flinging herself at him.
“Bill! Duck!”
And then he heard the shot, and saw her stiffen, her eyes filled with fear. But not for herself. For him. “Bill, look out,” she said, her voice already going slack, her body beginning to slump.
He caught her around the waist as she began to go down, the .38 in his hand, people screaming, fighting to get away. Borowy tried again, but this time Lockwood was ready, sure of his weapon at this range, unworried about hurting an innocent bystander. He pulled the trigger.
Borowy cursed, whirled, and began to run. He knew he’d hit him. Quickly he lowered Helene to the pavement. She was smiling up at him, but by the time her body lay on the sidewalk, he knew she was dead. She’d thrown herself in front of Borowy’s bullet to save him.
There were tears in his eyes as he ran, and vengeance in his heart. Helene. He’d tear Borowy limb from limb.
Up ahead he could see Borowy’s head bobbing as he raced through the crowds, bowling people over, their bodies only halfway up off the pavement when Lockwood ran past them.
Once, Borowy stopped, turned, and fired in his pursuer’s direction.
“Down! Down!’ The Hook yelled, pushing people toward the sidewalk, as the shot came at them. The bullet hit a sign and ricocheted off, spent.
Again he ran after the gunman, and suddenly the blond head disappeared. Lockwood ran up to where he’d last seen him. Only a few steps beyond was the IRT entrance. He raced down the stairs to the subway, hoping.
The platform was empty, and at first he thought he’d guessed wrong. Then, in the distance, he heard the sound of leather slapping against stone. Borowy was running down the tracks.
Quickly, Lockwood leapt off the edge of the platform, and
listened again. His quarry was heading downtown.
Swiftly, he followed, aware that at any moment a train could come barreling along. If it did, he’d get it before Borowy.
The footsteps were closer now, and he knew he was gaining. Another ten yards and he stopped, raised his arm and fired down along the tracks. No chance of hitting anyone else, down here.
The footsteps hesitated, halted, and Lockwood ducked instinctively, just before the bullet spit over him. And then the footsteps began again, and Lockwood followed, running at top speed.
The air was close down here, and his lungs began to burn. Everything in his body screamed quit, but still he kept on.
And then he heard it. From out of nowhere, the sound of the train, bearing down on him. Tons and tons of steel, hurtling down the track, too close for brakes to do any good.
He had no time to think, to make a choice. Instinctively, his body dove to the right, to the indentation in the wall. The screaming of the wheels behind him blotted out all other sound.
He gave a roar, a roar like a giant explosion, and he felt the wind whip at him, tear at him, as he pressed himself against the grit of the grime-ridden wall, flat, flat, all of him pushing against it, his body drawing into itself, away from the cars that were now rushing by.
Another moment, and it was all over, the train hurtling down the tracks, then fading into the distance. He felt himself. He was all there.
Again he started to run, wondering what he’d find, whether Borowy had lucked out, too, or whether it was all over.
He passed where he thought Borowy might be, and saw nothing. Still, a body could be hurled hundreds of feet … and then he heard the footsteps again, heard the quick slap-slapping of Borowy’s feet, and, encouraged, increased his speed, giving no heed to his flaming lungs, to his aching body.
And then the footsteps stopped.
Lockwood stopped, too, and leaned forward, listening. Almost immediately he heard a new sound; a sound of jumping, and then the clank of metal, one, two, three, quick. Borowy had found an exit.