Gilded Canary (11 page)

“The better for us to see them, my dear,” Hook answered, doing a garble on Red Riding Hood as he pulled the hand brake and
swerved rightward. “It pays to know just which wolf it is you’re up against.”

As he’d expected, the car behind, caught short by the maneuver, the use of the emergency brake keeping the Cord’s brake lights
from flashing, involuntarily shot past them. Enough of a moon shone into the vehicle’s interior to satisfy The Hook. “Slops
Weinstein,” he said.

“What?”

“One of Two-Scar Toomey’s bimbos,” Lockwood answered, his mouth set. “Now we know it’s not fun and games.”

The car up ahead had slowed down, moving into the wrong lane, waiting for Lookwood to catch up. “Get down,” Hook said. “We’re
going to pass them, and they’ll be slinging lead.” Again he hit the accelerator and again the Cord leapt forward.

They were pulling up to the other car, and Lockwood slid deep into the seat, relying on memory, his hands guiding the wheel,
as two slugs whistled over his head.

He was sitting up again, head low, as the bullets now came at them from the rear. He’d passed Toomey’s bunch successfully,
but the engine of the pursuing car seemed to be a match for the Cord’s.

“Okay,” Lockwood said. “First chance I get, we pull off the road, and scramble out of the car.” He reached down toward his
belt. “Here,” he said, pulling out the .38, “you hold onto this.”

“What about you?”

“You’re company. You get served first.”

“But that’s not right. It’s your gun.”

“Dammit, Spencer, button up. I’m not going to leave you defenseless.”

The Packard was almost on them when Lockwood whipped the Cord to the right, speeding through the gravel at the roadside, down
an embankment and into a field, the car bouncing and groaning as it sped over the uneven ground. Lockwood saw a grove of trees
and headed toward it, then braked. “Out!” he called, and threw himself after Raff, through the open car door on the passenger’s
side. Already the auto behind, which had followed them all the way, had stopped, twenty yards distant, its headlights glaring.
“Run for that bunch of trees,” Hook urged. “I don’t want them shooting at the car. We’ll still need it tonight, after this
is over.”

“You don’t ever quit, do you?” Raff marveled, as they ran. “You’re bound and determined to get where you’re going, aren’t
you?”

“Shut up and keep your head down,” Lockwood urged, as a bullet whined by.

Another few seconds, and they’d gained the trees.

“Stay here and keep them entertained with an occasional shot,” Lockwood said. “I’m going to try to circle around.”

“It looked like four of them to me,” Raff told him. “That seems like an awfully tall order for you.”

“That’s the fun of this business,” Lockwood said, but there was nothing about his expression that suggested fun.

“All right. Good luck,” Raff whispered. “I’ll do what I can from here.” The Toomey car’s lights were still on, trained in
their direction. “Mind if I put their engine out?”

“Go right ahead,” Hook replied, and then faded into the black.

As he moved out, he heard Raff’s pistol crack once, twice. There was the satisfying sound of bullet penetrating metal. Very
smart. He’d left the lights alone and quietly destroyed the engine. If Toomey’s men tried to get away, they’d be in for a
surprise.

A tommy gun opened up, blasting in Raff’s direction. Lockwood paused. He hadn’t expected this. All he could hope was that
somehow Raff could elude the deadly spray.

He was in an open field now, and hugged the ground, working his body like a snake, quickly, because there was no time to lose.
The moonlight was an enemy though, and he had to be cautious. It was Verdun again, he grimaced. Not the kind of thing he’d
ever hoped to relive.

Lockwood moved forward a few more feet, and his hand touched something. It was a tree branch, about four feet long. His fingers
closed over it, and he continued on. In lieu of anything else, the branch could serve as a weapon.

Twenty feet later, he froze. Footsteps were coming his way, and now he saw the outline of a man, crouched low, bulky. A few
more steps and it was revealed to be Stuff Maggiatore, evidently assigned to the same plan of encirclement that Lockwood was
following. His grip tightened on the branch. A quick strike at Maggiatore’s gut should put him out of action, knock the wind
out of him.

Maggiatore was close now, sharply etched against the dark as the moon broke through a cloud. With the moon behind Lockwood,
there’d be no way the gunman could see him. He braced himself.

Maggiatore was almost on him, coming in a direct line. Lockwood went into a crouch and shoved the branch straight at Maggiatore’s
midsection.

He had misjudged the sharpness of the end of the branch, and the softness of the bulky man’s belly. The branch stopped for
a moment and then, as the outer flesh parted, continued in, one inch, two inches, until almost a foot of it was embedded.
The Hook loosened his grasp, and Maggiatore, eyes wide, fell backward in a sitting position, his mouth in a small circle,
like that of a hooked fish slapping about on a dock. Little bubbles of saliva began to form there, and he continued to sit,
astonishment written on his face, oblivious to his assailant, who was now pulling the .32 out of his hand.

Two shots sounded, evidently from Raff, and the tommy gun chattered again. Lockwood took a final look at Maggiatore, whose
eyes were beginning to glaze, a thin trickle of blood oozing over his thick lower lip. No need to finish him off, probably.
He seemed too deeply in shock to queer anything by screaming out. The Hook hit the ground again and moved in the direction
of the tommy gun.

He reached about where he thought the gun would be and stopped. Everything was still. “Another shot, Raff,” he thought. “Shoot
again, so he fires back at you.”

A few more seconds, and Raff obliged. A few feet away, a man rose and answered the lone bullet with a fusillade. The Hook
made him out to be Slops Weinstein. He waited for silence, then commanded, “Throw down the gun, Slops.”

“Shit!” Slops wheeled, disconcerted, his gun leveled. The Hook had to pump one into him. Slops clutched his chest with one
hand, the other still gripping the tommy gun, as he staggered backward, then tripped and fell. His legs twitched violently,
as if he were trying to make them work, but all the circuits were broken. “Slops!” came a voice. Lockwood didn’t recognize
it.

“Petey, I think they got Slops,” shouted the voice. Probably Elmer, Lockwood decided.

Now he heard Ahearn’s voice. “Slops! Slops!” Both men were off to Lockwood’s right, Elmer probably twenty yards away, and
Ahearn another ten yards beyond. “Slops! Slops!” Ahearn shouted again.

“I think maybe we better get out of here,” came the closer voice. “We can’t see anything anyway.”

“Shut up, dummy! There’s still the three of us against the two of them. And Slops probably got one of them anyway.”

Another shot came out of the grove of trees. Toomey’s men didn’t return the fire. Then Ahearn was heard again. “Jesus! Where’s
Stuff? He should have been down there by now.”

“Maybe they got him, too.”

“Stuff!” Ahearn called. “Stuff!”

Off in the distance came the sound of crickets. “I told you,” screamed the other gunman.

“I said shut up! Stuff! Stuff!” One minute went by, then two. “Okay,” Ahearn shot out, “let’s get out of here.”

Lockwood heard them running, and he rose and ran after them. They had a good head start, and he could hear the doors thunk
shut while he was still thirty feet away.

The motor whirred, then stopped. Again it whirred, and this time small pinging sounds were heard. Curses filled the air. “Out
of the way! I’ll do it!” Ahearn yelled. Lockwood saw the car door open, and Elmer stood there for a moment, as Ahearn slid
behind the driver’s seat.

“Freeze!” Hook shouted, and Elmer looked incredulously in his direction, then leapt toward the rear of the car before Lockwood
could get off a shot. Ahearn, from the sounds, was still desperately fooling with the ignition.

“Don’t move, Ahearn! You’re covered!” Lockwood shouted, as he crouched behind a small rise in the ground. A bullet whizzed
near him. Ahearn gave it one last try, and Lockwood fired into the windshield, but Ahearn had already ducked. Seconds later,
he joined Elmer behind the car, their two pistols zeroing in on The Hook, flashing out in the night.

He aimed toward one of the flashes, and there was the soft thud of body hitting plowed field as Elmer toppled backward, a
bullet in his throat. “Throw down your gun and you won’t be harmed,” Lockwood yelled, but three quick blasts answered him.

Ahearn was known to be good with a gun, and Lockwood decided to try a new tactic. Quickly he moved around to the side of the
automobile, about twenty-five feet from it, keeping low. There was no sound from the car now, and he hoped Ahearn was still
behind it. He gave him one last chance. “Throw down your gun, Ahearn. We’ve got—” he couldn’t finish the sentence, as once
more Ahearn answered him with lead.

He ducked, and then raised his head, straightened out his arm, and took careful aim. The silhouette of the big car was murky
in the moonlight, and he hoped he was seeing right. He squeezed the trigger once, twice.

A giant explosion filled the air. His aim had been true, and one of the bullets had hit the vehicle’s gas tank, rupturing
it, and igniting the volatile fuel.

Lockwood rushed forward, standing out in the moonlight, chancing that he’d succeeded.

A few steps nearer, and in the light of the vehicle’s flames he saw he had. Ahearn was ten feet away from the car, his clothes
in shreds, face and body blackened, half his side blown away. He was still alive, and when he saw The Hook, his hand and arm
twitched convulsively, as if searching for the automatic that had been blasted out of his hand. Lockwood bent down to do what
he could, taking a huge clump of sod and stuffing it into the gaping wound. Anything to stop the bleeding, he knew.

But it was too late. Ahearn’s face was already skull-like as death rushed into him, gnawing and ravaging. No time for the
idiocy of making his last moments comfortable, Lockwood decided. “What about the Dearborn jewels? Who took them, and why?”

Ahearn stared up at him, a pure innocence in his face now, looking as he must have looked at four, before the streets got
to him. He strained to say something, but it turned into a gurgle. He tried again, and it was too much. His body pushed outward,
then collapsed, his head flopping to one side, eyes staring into nothingness.

Lockwood straightened up and sighed. Just a few minutes more, Petey. If only you’d lived a few minutes more. A bullet whistled
over his head and he whirled, the .32 ready. “Drop it!” he yelled.

He was facing Raff.

Raff had the .38 pointed at him, smoke still drifting from its barrel. His face was drained.

“I said drop it.”

The .38 lowered, and Raff slumped a little. “My God! I didn’t know it was you!” he said, barely breathing the words. “I could
have killed you.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“In the light—you looked gross, misshapen,” Raff explained. “It didn’t look like you.”

“May I have my gun? Handle toward me,” The Hook said, body taut, eyes closely monitoring every one of Raff’s movements.

“Of course. My God,” Raff said again, “I don’t blame you if you don’t quite trust me. I didn’t hit you, did I?”

“No.” Lockwood took the gun.

“You got them all?” Raff asked.

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to remember, I was a flier,” Raff said, recovered enough to try a mild attempt at humor. “I’m not much at ground
warfare.”

“Mistakes happen,” Lockwood said.

“What do we do with these?” Raff asked, staring at the two bodies.

“Leave them. They’ll keep. There’s still more work to do.”

“You’re leaving me here, too?”

Lockwood considered him. He’d done all he’d asked him, drawn the Toomey gang’s fire so that he could take them from behind.
Just now, he possibly could have gotten off a second shot when Lockwood had yelled, but he hadn’t. It wasn’t an easy decision,
but….

“No, you come along. Besides, I really shouldn’t leave you here to face the cops. It wasn’t your fight.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way, Lockwood feeling the weariness now. It had been a long, hard day, with who knew
what yet to come. He lit up a Camel and puffed on it twice, then crushed it out. A neon star was beckoning to them, perched
on a tower atop the roadhouse they were seeking.

The Hook slowed, and eased into the graveled parking lot. It was 4
A.M.
, but the lot was almost full. Billingsley had been right about the place being a lure for the young rich. A number of convertibles,
most of them new and expensive, could be seen.

They got out of the Cord, and Lockwood looked down at his clothes. Brooks Brothers stitched together a good, sturdy suit,
but it would be unreasonable to expect anything to stand up to what he’d just put it through. A button was gone on the jacket,
and a pocket was ripped. There was mud all over the jacket and pants, and there was a hole in the knee of the trousers. Lockwood
brushed his hands over his clothes, doing the best he could do with them. “I’m not exactly presentable,” he told Raff. “Better
you go in ahead of me, so that I’m obscured a bit.” Raff nodded, more than eager to return to Lock-wood’s good graces.

The man at the door was wearing a tuxedo; otherwise he’d have given a good imitation of a guy playing tackle for Notre Dame.
He was a big one, and from the look of his face, he’d been hired as a bouncer as well as maitre d’, his nose broken, one ear
cauliflowered. “Good evening, gentlemen. Bar or a table?” he asked.

“Table,” Lockwood said, figuring it’d hide most of the sartorial damage. A thought struck him. “Have you been here before?”
he asked Raff.

“Hardly. Crowd a little too young for me,” Raff replied, and they both surveyed the men and women in their late teens who
filled most of the tables in the place, exuberantly noisy. Money seemed to shine from them.