Hate is Thicker Than Blood (5 page)

Dead silence on the other end. Finally, “That’s right, you second-class gumshoe.”

“You’re not planning to withdraw your claims?”

“What you botherin’ me for, insect? You expect me to listen to scum like you?”

“It’s your last chance, Nuzzo,” The Hook said, coolly. “You don’t agree now, you not only lose all that money, you lose your
life.” Mr. Gray’s head flicked up, hope again shining through his pale blue eyes.

“Talk’s cheap, sucker. Let’s see you do somethin’ about it.”

Lockwood figured Nuzzo’s men hadn’t been fished out of the Hudson yet. “Aren’t you wondering what happened to those four pals
of yours you sent after me?”

“What?” He’d pierced Nuzzo’s armor.

“The four in the De Soto. They’re keeping the guppies happy. If you don’t withdraw those claims, you’ll soon be providing
the same service for the worms up around Sing-Sing.”

“You—” Nuzzo’s voice was choked with anger. “If you tellin’ the truth, I get you, I swear to God I get you!”

“Then I take it,” Lockwood asked, his tones silken-smooth, “That I can assume you’re not withdrawing your claims?” Suddenly,
he realized, he hoped that Nuzzo wouldn’t. Not that verminous wife-killer. Don’t give up the claims, Nuzzo. I want to nail
you.

“Maggot! Crapeater!” and Nuzzo slammed down the phone.

Gray’s round face was pinched with disappointment. “He’s not withdrawing?”

“No,” Lockwood said, and flicked the silver and black Dunhill lighter, enjoying Gray’s expression as it clouded even more.
“But Nuzzo won’t get any of the money. Not if I can help it. He was responsible for the death of Maria Nuzzo, I’m certain
of it. And I’m going to prove it. Prepare yourself for a stiff little night club tab.”

It was midnight when Lockwood hit the streets again. Edwin “Wall-Eye” Borowy was a big man with the ladies, especially the
chorus girls, and the ex-chorus girls who continued to earn their keep with their looks. He cast a peculiar charm over many
of them. Lockwood had seen him with the women, their eyes wild, beyond recklessness, their voices too loud, their giggles
underlaced by fear. Borowy was a sadist, and he terrified them, but he had a magnetism that drew them to him in spite of themselves.
Or maybe because deep down they felt they deserved whatever he gave them. The Hook didn’t know.

By one-thirty the trim, brown-haired detective had hit Lindy’s, 21, the Wooden Peg, Papa Bondy’s and another half-dozen joints
in the midtown area. No sign of Borowy. But at the last spot, The Three Deuces, someone suggested Borowy was hot for Harlem
these nights. A quick cab ride, and he was up on West 125th Street. The streets here were just as alive with people as downtown,
but there was more of a mix; downtown the only blacks you saw were musicians.

Small’s turned up empty, and so did Soldier Feeney’s, and the Cotton Club. But at the Aces High, a barnlike dive off the main
drag, Lockwood hit paydirt.

He was talking to the bartender, getting nowhere, when he heard her voice.

“Bill.”

He didn’t have to turn to know who it was. “Helene,” he said.

She was looking at him with a smile, but there was no joy there, just a longing. “It’s been a while, Bill.”

“Yes.”

“You look good. You always looked good. I guess you always will.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. In the half-light of
the place she was as she had been ten years before, blond and soft and glowing.

“You look fine, too.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Don’t kid
me
,” she answered, looking away. “Buy me a drink.”

“Sure. The usual?”

“Yeah, the usual,” she said, grimly. “Only twice what it used to be.”

“Blackberry brandy. Double,” he told the bullet-eyed man behind the bar. “Why here?” he asked her.

“Why not?” she shrugged. “One place is as good as the other. Now.”

Someone on the next stool lit a cigarette, and for the first time he could see her clearly. The full, lush lips, beginning
to droop a bit at the corners, the startlingly blue eyes no longer clear, faint shadows below them, the honey-blond hair that
had been her trademark now a garish yellow. The match flickered out, and he was grateful.

“Better I should ask
you
what you’re doing here. That would make more sense,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t care about the answer. Her eyes
were full of him, drinking him in.

“I’m on a case.”

“Still doing it, huh?”

“Yeah. Still doing it.”

“I should have gone along with you. I should have settled.”

“It wasn’t for you, Helene.
I
wasn’t. I’m a cop, when it comes right down to it. Just like your father was. You couldn’t have lived through all that again.”

“No one’s killed
you.”

“Not yet.”

She shrugged and took a long slug of the brandy. Her dress was low-cut, full breasts overflowing the top of it, smooth and
compelling. She noticed where his gaze lay.

“I see your eyes are still as itchy as ever.” A new note crept into her voice, a coarseness he’d never heard before. Old times
came back to him, and he pushed them away. Too late now. He took a pull at his whiskey.

“Maybe I can help you, Bill.” Her voice had softened as she saw his reaction. “What are you looking for? Or who?”

He stared at her. He hoped she couldn’t help. “A two-bit gunman. Big man. Blond. Wall-Eye. That’s his nickname. Wall-Eye.
Wall-Eye Borowy. Straight handle, Edwin.”

“I know him,” she said, simply.

He looked down at his drink. He didn’t want to hear the rest.

“It’s—it’s nothing important, is it? I mean, he’s not in trouble, is he?”

“Skip it, Helene. Stay out of it. I don’t need your help.”

“No. I want to help. There wasn’t anyone ever like you, Bill. Ever. Let me help.”

“No.”

“You can’t stop me. Give me a cigarette,” she said, playfully.

He looked at her. “You don’t smoke.”

“Didn’t. I’m a big girl now. A real big girl,” she said with bitterness in her voice, and he offered her the pack, his index
finger tapping a Camel halfway out of the deck.

She put it between her lips as he flicked the Dunhill, and she drew in greedily. “He’s not easy to find these days, Bill.
I can lead you to him.”

He considered her. She was eager, hopeful. “All right,” he said, finally.

She stood up. “Come on.”

She turned toward the rear of the room, and he walked along beside her, Helene holding onto his arm tightly, the way a drowning
man would grasp a log.

They reached a door at the back, a door without a knob. “In here,” she said, and knocked twice, then paused, then three more
knocks. The door swung open and they moved inside, then down a dim hallway. Whoever had opened the door remained behind it
till they were out of sight, and then The Hook heard the door lock into place.

There were doors along the hallway, and sounds came from behind some of them. Animal sounds, deep and gutteral, high-pitched
laughing sounds as well, and once, a cry of pain.

“In here,” she said, opening a door.

At first the light was blinding, but already he knew what he’d see; a mattress, a small sink, a tiny table stacked with towels.
Helene had her back against the door.

“No, Helene,” he told her.

“Please,” she said, “for me. Just one last time. That’s all I’m asking. Just one last time.” Her eyes pleaded, and his resolve
crumbled. She’d had it all, he thought. She’d had it all, and now…

She was already stripping off her clothes, quickly, her motions practiced. He saw the body was still firm, only a few wrong
shadows on the flesh presaging the collapse that soon would come. Those long, curving legs were still the same, rising majestically
to the full hips that framed the thick tuft of hair that had once been the whole center of his life. The curve of her belly
was inviting, her waist still wasp-slim, her breasts fulfilling the promise they’d offered Hook while he and Helene had sat
at the bar. In spite of everything, he found himself stirring.

“Please,” she said, and when he didn’t move, she walked to him, and started to undo his tie. And stopped, and threw her arms
around him, saying nothing, just holding, until finally his arms drew around her body, and she knew for the time being he
was hers once more, as he had been so many years before.

“We’ll make magic again,” she told him, drawing her head back from off his chest, the years falling away for a moment, girlish
glee in her eyes as she helped undress him.

“I can’t, Helene.” He tried to stop himself. “I’m working. I can’t stop for—”

“I know where he is, Bill. I promise. Right after this, I’ll lead you to him.”

She drew him down onto the pallet, yearning in her eyes, her lips drawn up in desire.

“It’ll be like before, Bill. I promise.”

He kissed her, and she worked her mouth feverishly against his, and then stopped. He saw the tears in her eyes. “Every night,
every night,” she said, “I’ve wanted you.”

He ran his hands over her, and her back arched, her whole body alive with feeling. Her hand slid down to his penis, and she
held on, fondling it, working it against herself. “Why did I let you go?” she whimpered, but she wasn’t asking him, only talking
to herself, expecting no answer, and he said nothing, just touched her, stroked her, the way he had in the days of old, pleasuring
her now as she loved to be then.

“Ohh, don’t stop.” Her head was moving from side to side, her whole being sunk in ecstasy.

His hands caressed her breasts, slightly pinching at her nipples, the way she used to ask him to. She was rubbing his phallus
against her, teasing herself with it, stopping, starting, stopping then starting again. Finally, she thrust herself up against
him, engorging herself with the flesh of him, and they moved against each other, slowly at first, then more quickly, her hands
running up and down his back, touching all of him, frantically, as if her fingers were working at this, working at storing
up memories, memories that she knew a few minutes from now were all she’d ever have to fall back on.

They were both nearing the climax now, feeling the inevitability of what was to come, anticipating it, yet trying to keep
it off, trying to keep this feeling for as long as they could.

And then they failed. And their bodies surged, and crested, and fell. It was over. For the last time.

“See!” she said weakly. “I told you.”

He smiled at her and kissed her one last time. And sat up. And for the first time noticed her arms. The hollows on the insides
of them were thick with scars and lesions and glowing red welts. For the second time that night, she noticed the direction
of his glance.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice vulgar again, “I’m a hop-head.” And she turned her back to him, and dressed, never bothering to
wash.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“What for? It has nothing to do with you. It’s my own choice, you know?” Her eyes were wet again. “I like it. It’s the only
thing in this crummy—” her throat closed up, and she sank to the floor, sobbing.

“Helene.” He was down beside her, cradling her head in his hands. “Whatever I can do for you, I will.”

“I know you would,” she said. “But it’s too late now.”

“It’s not.”

Her eyes went ugly. “It is,” she snapped at him. “I’m Wall-Eye Borowy’s girl.”

She was right. It was too late. “All right,” he told her. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs,” she said, vaguely motioning with her head. She wasn’t looking at him.

“How do I get up there?”

“I’ll take you.”

He tried to help her up, but she snatched her hand away. “No!”

She pushed open the door, and he followed her down the dank corridor, past several more doors. One of them stood open, and
he saw a young black girl, standing naked, shackled to the wall, and a fat white man kneeling in front of- her, his face buried
in her pelvis. Helene worked here. He continued on, sickened, following her.

There was a stairway through a door at the end of the hall. They went up it, ancient wooden boards creaking as they ascended,
the smell of disinfectant that pervaded the hallway only faint now.

At the top of the stairs, Helene moved to a door just beyond them, and knocked, this time using a different signal. “Come
in,” a voice called, and she opened the door, entered, then stood aside as Lockwood followed.

“Hook Lockwood!” Wall-Eye’s mouth went slack. “What the hell’s he doing here?” he rasped at Helene, while seeming to stare
at the two of them.

“He was looking for you, Eddie. I told him I—know you,” she answered, voice quiet, subdued.

‘ “Who the hell ever told you—aah, the hell with it. Get out of here! Both of you.”

“I’ve got to talk to you, Borowy.” Lockwood’s eyes were slits as he stared at the bulky man behind the desk, jacket off, tie
open at the neck, black suspenders accenting the crisp whiteness of the shirt.

“What for?”

“You’re involved in a case I’m handling.”

“I’m involved in nothing that’s any concern of yours, pal. Get out of here.” His finger reached for a button on the desk.

“Don’t do that, Wall-Eye,” Lockwood cautioned him. “That would be a mistake. And you’re in a business where you can’t afford
too make mistakes. Not a single one.”

Borowy’s hand came away from the button, and he leaned back in the chair. “Make it good … and make it fast.”

Lockwood jerked his head toward Helene. “Get her out of here,” he told Borowy. “You won’t want her to hear this.”

Borowy nodded at Helene, and she turned and left, not looking at either of them.

“Okay, shoot.”

He didn’t fool around, just hit him with it right away. “I know you were the hit man in the Nuzzo job.”

Those crazy eyes of Borowy’s gave nothing away. How the hell could they? He just sat there, looking at Lockwood, or maybe
not looking at him, there was no way to tell. Finally, he spoke, voice even, unrevealing. “Who says?”

“I say. I know you did it, Borowy. That’s why I’m here. To help you.”

Borowy blinked, then smiled, a savage, nasty smile. “Help me. Yeah, right.”