Hate is Thicker Than Blood (16 page)

“Did you find it?” she asked.

“The .32? Yes.”

“Is it the right one?”

“I won’t know till it’s checked out by ballistics. You were crazy to come.”

Her arms tightened around him. “I had to.”

He patted her, and said nothing. No reason to point out that whatever risk she’d worried about had probably been increased
tenfold by her turning up.

The first rays of dawn were breaking as they reached the first floor. “I had no idea I’d been here this long,” he told her.
“Your brother-in-law must have been great at hide-the-handkerchief.”

They reached the room he’d originally entered. “Let me go out first,” he told her, and began to climb through the window.
He was nearly halfway out when he saw the tiny movement, nothing more than a minute blurring, and shoved himself back in with
lightning speed, crying out “duck,” and pushed her down a split second before the bullet arrived.

Gina clutched at him, contrition in her face. “I’m sorry. I must have led them to you.”

“Not necessarily,” he told her. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got enough to worry about as it is,” he added, as he heard shots
coming from outside the front of the house. “They seem to have us surrounded.”

He led her to the stairs, and then to the second floor. “We’re better off up here. We’ll be able to hear them if they come
up the stairs.” A bullet whined over his head, and he broke through a pane, and fired down into the street. “This shouldn’t
last long. All I’ve got to do is hold them off till someone calls the police.”

Gina shuddered. “This isn’t New York. Not many people here have telephones. Possibly no one.”

Another bullet whistled over them, but this time Lockwood didn’t return the fire. “You’re right,” was all he said, sinking
down beside her. And then shrugged. “It’s our only chance. We’ll just have to hope,” and turned and fired down into the street,
aiming at a shadow behind a parked car. A volley of shots answered his.

“Must be a half-dozen of them out front. No telling how many around the rest of the house. Look. Maybe you’d better get into
another room. If they do manage to get up here, they wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Me? A traitor to my blood? Consorting with the enemy? They probably want me even worse than they do you.” Her eyes were cool,
her face unruffled. “Is Frankie’s gun loaded? I could protect your back.”

“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 tightly 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.

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.