The Death of Lorenzo Jones (15 page)

Robin, now out of her granny disguise, signed in as Rebecca Fiden, Lockwood as her husband. He winked at the clerk, slipped
him a few bucks, and mentioned Harv.

After the grinning desk clerk had opened their cabin door, winked at Lockwood, and walked away, Lockwood kissed her. Stroking
her hair, he held her for a minute. “Gotta go, baby. I’ll call you as soon as anything good happens.”

She clung to him. “Please stay, Bill. I’m afraid.”

“Nothing will happen to you if you just do what I say. Stay here. Don’t go out. Have the desk boy get you food. I’ll be back.”

He left her weeping on the bed. Broads, he loved them, but did they always have to break down about everything?

That taken care of, he drove straight to Amanda, stopping only to call Brannigan to find out if the cop had picked up Half-Pint.

“No, but I got some other news for you, Hook. Info you’re not going to like.”

Lockwood groaned. “Shoot.” Brannigan did, unloading a lot of straight dope on him.

When Lockwood arrived at Amanda’s, she opened the door, wearing only a pink negligee. She quickly pulled him inside.

“How do you like it?”

He liked it. It was a see-through number.

She was glad to see him. Very glad.

I’m going to get worn out, thought Lockwood, as he sank into the vast Hollywood bed with Amanda. I guess my questions can
wait till I get her softened up for them.

Lockwood wasn’t satisfied with Amanda’s saying she knew Rodney Kepper in only a Platonic way.

“What was this whole thing with Kepper?”

She sighed, “Lonely.”

“How come Lt. Jimbo Brannigan says that you and the widow Jones know each other? In fact, that you’re a frequent houseguest
of hers? Have you been feeding her information about this case? I thought you didn’t even know the wench.”

She pouted. “It’s all very hard to explain.”

Hook stared at her. “Try.”

“I was afraid if I told you, Bill, you’d drop me like a hot potato. I figured you’d think I was hooked up with her. She and
I had a big falling out
months
ago. I don’t see her anymore. I didn’t bring it up because it doesn’t matter, Bill, don’t you see?”

“Maybe I see.”

Amanda got out of bed, not bothering to put on a robe. She went to the wall mirror and compulsively brushed her hair. Lockwood’s
eyes were arrested by her shapely bottom and the reflection in the mirror of the full blossoms of her breasts tipped with
pale pink nipples.

“What did you two quarrel about?” he asked.

Naked himself, he went over to her and held her tightly by her bare shoulders.

“She was sleeping with Wade,” Amanda answered. She stopped brushing. “I told her I didn’t think she should cheat on Lorenzo,
and she started screaming at me to mind my own business. She got really mad, and threw my purse and coat out the door. She
said, ‘And don’t come back!’ It made me feel terrible, Bill.”

She stood there, and her perfect face eyed him in the mirror as if in a Renoir painting. Suddenly, his questions didn’t seem
that important to Lockwood.

So she had known Cynthia Jones—big deal!

She looked at him, her lips slightly parted. He reached from behind her and fondled her breasts, taking one in each hand and
gently cupping them. She pushed her chest against his kneeding fingers and moaned softly. Lockwood pressed against her.

This was no way to question a witness in a case that was a possible homicide. She leaned back against him, and he felt his
cock grow larger against her. She grinned at him in the mirror.

For a brief moment he fought the impulse to take her again, but she reached behind, grabbed him, and took the matter out of
his control.

Lockwood lay in bed. Amanda breathed deeply beside him. As she lay there sleeping, she looked beautiful. Like a goddamned
angel. So did Robin. Jesus, he was going crazy. Maybe Gray was right, maybe he was female-crazy.

There would be time to sort the women out later. He had to get going.

He left Amanda asleep and pinned a little note to the pillow, “I’ll call.”

Outside, clouds were dark and looked angry, as if the skies were ready to burst open. The ground was still wet from the last
rain, and Lockwood felt a chill in the breeze. A north wind.

He was almost to his car when he heard it—a cracking sound, like a branch breaking. He spun, his body moving faster than his
mind.

“Wham!” A freight train hit him in the jaw. A freight train of brass knuckles. His legs buckled under him, and he flew back.
He couldn’t stop moving. What was wrong? He tried to clear his head. He lifted his face, and his eyes began to focus. It was—

Something smashed into the back of his head. He felt himself falling, falling down onto the wet grass. The grass. Wet, it
was wet on his—

His breath shot out of him as a foot smashed his ribs. He couldn’t breathe. The air was like tongues of flame. Suddenly, he
felt blows everywhere. Sensations of pain rang out over his body, like sharp bells ringing too close.

In the midst of this, Lockwood heard his own voice, “Lockwood, an attack—fight, man, fight!”

Suddenly, he could see. His mind was cleared. He was on his back and—

A foot was flying at him, a big black boot. Hook grabbed the foot and twisted it hard, throwing the person attached to it
over him. Then he quickly rolled to the side and jumped to his feet.

He was surrounded by three men. Dumbrowsky, Walter-the-Waiter, and another man, one Lockwood had seen several times before,
Iron Man Lang, a tough street fighter who had almost been a heavyweight contender several years before. Jesus, the whole crew!

Dumbrowsky charged, a pair of mean-looking brass knuckles leading the way. Lockwood caught the punch in mid-air. He slipped
under Dumbrowsky’s arm and kneed the wrestler in the gut, spinning his whole body into it, so that the knee whipped up, around,
and smashed into the big stomach like a cannonball.

“Whooff!” Dumbrowsky’s mouth flew open as the air shot out of him like a popped balloon. He fell, clutching his middle.

Lockwood heard something coming at him from behind. He leaped to the side. Walter-the-Waiter’s eight-inch blackjack missed
his head by inches.

Lockwood jumped back at Walter before he could draw back the nasty little head-crusher. Quick as a panther, Lockwood slammed
his elbow into the goon’s face directly below his nose.

“Crunch!” Something on Walter’s face cracked. He screamed and fell to his knees, his hands over his mouth as if he had just
eaten something he shouldn’t have.

“Lockwood! Lockwood!” somebody screamed.

Lockwood turned. Iron Man Lang stood ten feet away, glaring.

“Lockwood! It’s my turn!” he yelled. He came toward Lockwood. His big eyes bulged out of his head like two plums. The veins
in his neck stood out and pulsated. His whole body rippled and trembled.

“I didn’t know you cared!” Lockwood yelled back. He put his fists up in readiness for the assault.

Lockwood looked around quickly. The other two had started to move a little, shaking their heads and trying to get a grip on
themselves. Lockwood had a little time before they got going again.

Iron Man moved in. He bobbed and weaved as if he were back in the ring. He threw a left jab at Lockwood, and Lockwood moved
back quickly to avoid it.

The guy was good, no doubt about that. Much better than most street thugs.

A cruel smirk on his face, Iron Man whipped punch after punch at Lockwood’s head. One, two—nine, ten—they came at Lockwood
like bullets.

A touch faster than the thug, Lockwood blocked each punch inches away from his face. As the big fists tried to smash in, Lockwood
deftly slapped them aside. No way to go against Iron Man with strength, he’d have to stay light and fast.

“Thwack!” Lockwood got in a shot to the heavy boxer’s cheek. Fast. Real fast.

He waited till Iron Man finished one of his little flurries and then threw his hand in there again. Just as quickly, he danced
back, out of range.

They circled each other on the lawn, stepping around the puddles carefully so as not to slip. Iron Man was growing frustrated.
His fights were usually over in two punches or less.

“Where’d you learn to fight like this?” Iron Man asked after missing Lockwood for eight punches in a row.

“Oh, from my mom. Maybe you should take lessons from her.”

Iron Man bellowed like a wounded bull, charged, and punched with both hands.

Just what Hook wanted. One of his earliest boxing lessons had been: Get them angry and out of control, stay cool and collected.
It worked almost every time.

The goon was almost on him. Suddenly, Hook jumped to the right. Punching at the air, Iron Man went right by. Lockwood slammed
his left hook, his namesake, into Iron Man’s face. Dead center. It almost sank in, like into a pudding. Lockwood smashed his
right hand, blade-like, down on the slob’s neck.

Iron Man sank to the ground as if shot by a bullet. His eyes glazed over, and he lay there like a dying gorilla.

“Okay, Lockwood,” a voice said behind him.

He turned. Walter-the-Waiter stood there holding his face in one hand and a gun in the other.

“You hurt my face, Lockwood. I’m going to hurt yours. You ain’t gonna look so pretty no more.” He snickered. Blood gushed
out of his nose.

Dumbrowsky was up, too. He stood a few feet to the side of Walter. He pulled out a long folding knife and snapped it open.
A ten-inch blade sprang into view.

They both moved toward Hook, who just stood there, his hands hanging at his sides as if he had given up.

“Cut him, Dumbrowsky,” Walter said. “I’ll hold the gun on him so he don’t try no funny stuff.”

“My pleasure,” the giant Dumbrowsky said. He held out the blade and twirled and waved it around.

“Where do you want to get cut, Lockwood?” Dumbrowsky asked. “You want an eye sliced? How about I cut off your ear?”

“Cut his goddamn lip!” Walter yelled. “Cut it right off, so he can’t smart-mouth no more.”

Dumbrowsky moved in on Hook. He slashed at Hook’s face.

Lockwood spun his foot up like a football player trying for a sixty-yard field goal. It hit something soft, then hard. Dumbrowsky
screamed and flew two feet into the air. Just as quickly, he crashed back to earth. On his way down, Lockwood grabbed the
knife from the surprised giant wrestler’s hand. He threw his arm around Dumbrowsky’s throat and held the knife to the thug’s
Adam’s apple.

Walter-the-Waiter waved his gun around and tried to get a clear shot at Lockwood, who kept Dumbrowsky right in front of him.

“Go ahead and shoot,” Lockwood said. “You’ll do the world a favor.”

“No! Don’t shoot!” Dumbrowsky begged.

It seemed like a standoff. Lockwood was wondering just what the hell to do next when the problem was solved for him.

Dumbrowsky grabbed both of Lockwood’s hands and swung his head forward and down. Lockwood sailed through the air across the
lawn.

Everything was in slow-motion. Lockwood saw the whole scene beneath him as he spun end over end. Dumbrowsky was pulling a
big gun and pointing it toward Lockwood. Walter was pulling the trigger on his .45 and a pull of smoke lazily popped from
the barrel. Iron Man Lang, fifteen feet away on the lawn, was slowly rising on his hands and knees.

A bullet buried itself in the ground below Hook. Everything speeded up again as he plummeted toward the grass. With a loud
thud, he smashed into a garbage can standing by the front door of Amanda’s house.

Bullets hit all around him. Wood splintered in the doorframe next to him, sending little pieces onto his shoulder. He rolled
end over end, somersaulting behind a long hedge that stood in front of the house’s front window.

He reached for his Special. Nothing! The holster was empty. Lockwood’s heart missed a beat. Jesus, it must have flown out
during the fighting.

He lay there in the middle of the hedge, flat on the ground, as bullets whizzed over.

Was this it? After years of fighting, was he going to lose it all to two dumb thugs who hardly deserved to live on the same
planet?

He felt a stinging wrench in his right shoulder. A bullet had sliced a neat little path about a half inch long into his shoulder
flesh, then exited. Blood welled up.

Suddenly, Amanda appeared in the front door with a gun. Now Lockwood would know whose side she was on.
Who
was she going to shoot?

She looked around the yard. Of course, the other hedges hid her from the goons’ view!

“Amanda!” he shouted. His heart sank. She seemed to look right through him, as if they hadn’t spent hours together in bed.

Then she saw him and raised the gun.

“Amanda! Don’t shoot me!” Lockwood screamed.

She tossed the pistol to him. It soared through the air for about ten feet and landed right in Lockwood’s hand. It was her
little derringer. Only two shots. They’d have to count.

The thugs were shooting at Amanda now. A bullet zipped by an inch from her ear and smashed into one of the little gaslights
by the front door.

“Duck!” Lockwood screamed, “dammit, duck!”

Amanda leaped back into the house.

At that exact moment, Hook stood up and held the gun straight out, sighting down his arm for accuracy.

The first shot caught Dumbrowsky in the middle of his chest. He staggered around, looking dumbly at the spreading red spot
in his shirt.

Walter-the-Waiter was shooting wildly at Lockwood. Lockwood took just an extra second to aim. He pulled the trigger of the
small gun, and the bullet flew out to catch Walter in the neck, go through his throat, and exit out the back of his head.
Blood sprayed. The dying goon clutched his throat and tried to say something, but only gurgling sounds and blood came out.
He fell to the grass, jerked a few times, and lay still.

“Don’t shoot,” pleaded Iron Man Lang. “I give up!” The thug from Hell’s Kitchen raised his hands.

The idiot didn’t even know that Lockwood had only a two-shot gun. Hook wasn’t about to educate him.

Lockwood pointed the derringer right at Iron Man’s face so he could look right down the barrel and stare death in the face.