Hate is Thicker Than Blood (14 page)

The tires squealed as they continued around the curve, the back of the convertible close to lifting off, and then they were
in a straightaway again. Lockwood’s eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror. They’d gained maybe fifty yards. The punk behind
was fine on the straightaways, but he apparently had less expertise, or guts, when it came to bends.

“Where are they? Are they still after us?” Frankie cried.

“They’re a little too far away to pot us, Frankie,” Lockwood yelled down at him. “Take a quick look topside, and see if you
recognize any of them.”

Nuzzo blinked, hesitated, and then dutifully did as he was told, slowly rising up, gripping the seat with both hands, then
raising himself just enough to see, his nose resting on the top of the seat, eyes squinting into the distance.

A shot rang out, and he dropped back down, again huddling near the floor, and looked up at the detective. “I recognized Richie
Marchetti. He’s Albert’s lieutenant.”

“Is Fish with them?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see him.”

The Packard was pulling closer, and for a moment Lockwood considered handing Frankie the .38, having him pump a few at their
pursuers. And then reconsidered.

“That’d be some sandwich I’d be making of myself, eh, putting me between your gun and the guns of your brother-in-law?”

Frankie looked up at him blankly.

“Skip it,” Lockwood told him, and drew out the pistol. “Help steady the wheel while I fire back at them. Any funny business,
and I’ll change my targets.”

Frankie’s hand went up, but not his head. “Okay, pal, time to gamble a little. If you’re going to drive you’re going to have
to look where we’re going.”

Slowly, fearfully, Frankie edged his face up to the windshield. He was sweating, and it wasn’t from the heat.

Satisfied, The Hook turned and emptied his pistol at the pursuing car. It seemed to throw them off, and the Cord gained another
ten yards.

“Keep holding onto the wheel,” Lockwood yelled at his companion. “I’m going to reload.”

He had the third bullet in its chamber when the car lurched suddenly.

“Look out! We’re goin’ off the road! I didn’t see it in time!” Frankie screamed, as the car hurtled along the side of the
road, bouncing and trembling each time it rose off the ground and then fell heavily down.

The Hook’s muscles strained, fighting to keep the auto on keel, while continuing to maintain the speed they so desperately
needed. A shot passed over his head, but he didn’t look back. Every part of him was concentrated on the task of getting the
Cord back on the road before it crashed or flipped over.

“I couldn’t help it! You’re the driver, not me!” Frankie shrieked, as tree branches sailed past them, just inches away from
his face.

They were still fighting their way along the side of the road when Lockwood saw it just up ahead. A three-foot wide break
in the dirt, maybe twelve inches deep. If they hit it at this speed…

He wrenched the wheel, and prayed, and the cinders flew out from under them, and then suddenly there was the roar of asphalt
under first one, then two, then under all four tires. They were back on the highway!

“Ow!” Frankied screamed, his hand doubling into a fist and jerking close to his body. Then he opened up his fingers, and stared
at his palm in horror-stricken disbelief. Red was running out of the bullethole in its center.

The Hook’s eyes darted up to the small mirror over the windshield, then down to the odometer. The car behind them was the
closest it had been, less than fifty feet away, and his goal was a little more than a mile from here. He ducked as far down
in the seat as he could, and waited for the curve he knew was coming.

This time he went into it without even momentarily slackening the pressure on the gas pedal. He knew this one as well as he
knew his own living room, and he hoped that the other thing he knew so well, the goal toward which they were heading, was
still as it had been the last time he’d seen it, five years before.

Again he looked in the mirror, and again he found he’d gained. The distance was right. Now if he could just maintain it. Not
let them get any closer.
Or
any further.

Things were changing out here in the country. Progress, they called it. But the Great Depression had slowed things up, had
practically, for a number of years, stopped them. Times were getting a little better, and things were beginning to progress
again, a little, and he hoped now that that little bit of progress hadn’t reached into Brookmeyer’s Woods.

He saw the turnoff a quarter of a mile ahead, and slowed only as much as he felt he had to, grudging any gain to the car behind,
but sure he’d be able to make it up once he made the turn. A shot spun over his head.
If
he made the turn.

At the last minute he hit the brakes, and swung the wheel sharply to the right, sand flying out behind him as he left the
highway for a dirt country road. The Packard’s brakes screamed wildly, and for a moment he thought his goal would not be necessary,
that the big car behind them was up-ending, thrashing about on the narrow black roadway, seconds away from bursting into flame.

Instead, in a moment he saw the Packard behind him again, and his grip tightened on the wheel. If he was wrong. If things
no longer were the same … he looked at Nuzzo, who was white with fear. If things no longer are the same, he thought, then
Frankie, you’d better start looking a lot more frightened. Because this is one we can’t get out of.

He remembered twenty years before, the five of them clearing out the road; he, Buzzy, Charlie, Dave and Tom. Hacking through
the woods, a quarter of a mile, up to Brookmeyer’s Creek, and then for a little distance beyond, this time making a circular
path. And then trimming it all down, and finally bringing the cars in, running them up and down this side of the creek till
it got smooth and packed down hard. Charlie had been a sort of genius at certain kinds of things, and they’d believed him,
and it had seemed worth all the effort, because he brought out that kind of confidence in you. And they were all young, and
reckless, and death had seemed impossible. And so finally they’d perfected the road, a trail really, as much as possible;
had done what they could on the other side, done it till Charlie had said it was good enough. And then they’d tried it. And
it had worked.

Their parents never found out about it, and neither, apparently, had the succeeding generation of elders, judging by the look
of things the last time Lockwood had seen it. A little more overgrown, maybe, but obviously still in use.

He saw the entrance now, dark by the side of the road, and again he had to slow down, hit the brakes, and swerve, and hope
the car behind would be caught off guard, enough to keep the bullets away from their intended marks.

Now he was on the trail, and he wasn’t sure. There were bushes in the way, small branches that cracked as he sped over them,
and he found himself hoping there were no felled trees blocking the way, hoping no floods had eroded the final few crucial
yards.

He turned, and the Packard was coming after them. He slowed a bit, and the pursuing car vaulted nearer. Then he hit the gas
as they came into the final stretch, committing himself fully, and hoping time didn’t prove to be even more of an enemy than
the thundering hulk behind them.

Nuzzo screamed when he saw it coming; the big black yawning gap ahead, with its terrifying intimations of the thirty-foot
drop into the water below. “Stop! Stop!” he screamed, and tried to grab for the steering wheel.

In desperation, Lockwood lifted his left hand off the wheel, and sent it soaring in Nuzzo’s direction. It caught the screaming
man on the point of the chin, and as Nuzzo went in one direction, the car, aimed just so, went in another, forming a graceful
counterpoint to Nuzzo’s fall as it soared up into the air, one foot, two feet, and then began to drop, slowly, as if in a
dream.

Charlie’s decades-old calculations were proved all over again as the dream faded into solid reality, the car suddenly crunching
down onto the trail at the other end of the chasm, continuing on another thirty yards, and then swinging around to face the
drop again. Lockwood slammed on the brakes, jerked up the emergency, and vaulted out of the car, gun ready.

He’d already heard the hulking Packard go down, heard the splintering sounds of glass, the big tearing noises of metal being
dashed apart, and he knew he was halfway there.

“Wait up!” It was Frankie Nuzzo, running after him, afraid of being left alone.

“You’re heading in the wrong direction,” The Hook told him. “
There’s
where the danger is,” he said, pointing in the direction he was heading. Nuzzo said nothing, continuing to keep up with him,
uncertain, afraid to be left alone.

They got near the edge of the crevice, and Lockwood motioned Nuzzo to stay where he was. Moans and curses were coming from
below. He edged a few steps closer and looked down.

The Packard was a shambles, already looking like something that had been lying there since the trail was first built. Two
of the doors were open, the driver hanging out of one, not moving; two men staggering out of the back, groggy and bloodied,
but evidently able to navigate. If anyone in the car needed help, one of them would obviously be able to reach the road and
flag someone down. The Hook turned and motioned to Nuzzo. This time they ran back to the car, Lockwood hitting the ignition
before the door was closed. He threw the shift into reverse, backed up as far as he could, then rammed it into second, going
for power, riding the clutch till it caught, the engine blasting, branches cracking as they sped down the trail. Nuzzo, seeing
what was about to happen, sank to the floor, unwilling, and unable, to take a second helping.

The mugs down below heard the Cord coming and one of them whipped out his pistol, firing wildly as the great mass of steel
soared over his head, screening off the sun like some dark avenging angel, then disappeared from view, roaring back over the
trail on which it had come. Lockwood, looking back, saw a pistol rising into the air, flung there in desperation by Lomenzo’s
frustrated lieutenant.

Frankie looked bewildered when he saw the first signs of an approaching Manhattan, and the look was still on his face when
Lockwood drove into the Radio City parking garage, then took his numbed ward by the arm and steered him to the offices of
Transatlantic Underwriters.

Everything about Mr. Gray’s office was comfortable; the rich wood paneling, the thick wall-to-wall carpet, the big mahogany
desk and its accompanying swivel chair. But Gray looked far from comfortable when the two of them stood before him, Nuzzo
cradling his bloody, bandaged hand against his chest, tie askew, hatless, hair wild.

“Greetings,” Lockwood said, enjoying the look on his chief’s face.

“Well, I—ah—what is all this?” Gray stammered, clamping on the pince-nez, the better to stare in disbelief.

“This is a client of ours, Mr. Gray. This is Mister Frank Nuzzo.”

“Ah—ah—” Gray’s eyes skittered in their sockets, as if hoping that something somewhere in the room would provide assistance.
Finally, disappointed, they rested, and settled themselves on Nuzzo. “Ah—but why is he here?” Gray asked, his face showing
just the slightest tinge of red.

Lockwood took out a pack of Camels and offered them around. Gray declined, with an impatient wave of his hand; Nuzzo grabbed
one gratefully, and after Lockwood lit the two of them, he gave himself a long, pleasurable inhale, and spoke: “It’s a little
complicated, Mr. Gray, but I’m afraid I’ve got to board Mr. Nuzzo with you for a while.”

He stopped and said nothing, watching while Gray squirmed. If it were going to be an “easy case,” Gray might as well share
a little bit of that “easiness.”

“I don’t understand,” Gray finally said, nervous with the long silence.

“Mr. Nuzzo is being pursued by people who are hoping to terminate him—to cancel him out.”

“Yes, but—?” It was unusual to see Gray obviously out of control. And satisfying.

“Mr. Nuzzo has placed himself under my protection, and I believe it’s in the best interests of Transatlantic Underwriters
that we provide that protection.”

Mr. Gray stared helplessly at Lockwood.

“I think it’s perfectly clear why we should,” The Hook explained, making his speech almost as formal as the writing in an
insurance policy: the kind of talk Gray understood. “If Mr. Nuzzo does not survive these attempts on his life, we will have
to pay his survivors, who are his brother-in-law and sister-in-law. On the other hand, if we keep him alive long enough, we
should be able to prove that Mr. Nuzzo in effect was the agent who set the two policies in motion, and thus we should be able
to void them and therefore incur no further expense to the company.”

Gray nodded slowly, his mouth hanging slightly open as he tried to take it all in.

Lockwood took another drag on the Camel and continued. “I can’t think of a safer place to keep Mr. Nuzzo than right here.
No one would ever look for him here, and the executive apartment would be an excellent place to house him during the time
that he can’t remain with you in your office. Of course the more time spent directly under your eye, the better for him—and
the company.”

Gray nodded uneasily.

“I’m going to have to leave now. I still have a lot of work to do on this case,” Lockwood said, rising. He began moving to
the door when a thought occurred to him, and he retraced his steps, then bent and whispered into Gray’s ear. “Just remember:
be cautious. The man you’re going to have staying with you is almost certainly a murderer.”

He left immediately, not looking at Gray’s face, content to let his imagination furnish him the look of profound dismay tinged
with abject fear that was undoubtedly displayed on the features of the whiney-voiced mediocrity who headed the claims department
of Transatlantic Underwriters.

Lockwood was in the hall, nearing the bank of elevators, when he saw her. Evelyn Venable. Dr. Evelyn Venable.