The Death of Lorenzo Jones (12 page)

“I don’t know. I guess he’s like a reptile at the zoo. He’s so ugly I keep going back for another look. I don’t believe my
eyes. And I know, like a reptile, he’s deadly. I’m just waiting to see his little pointed tongue lash out.”

“Gives me the shudders,” Amanda said. “But I want to be with you today, Bill.”

“Well, come with me, baby. I want to be with you, too.”

They drove to the Polo Grounds. Lockwood was thinking about Robin. What would he do if Amanda and Robin met? Well, he didn’t
sleep with Robin, so what did Amanda have to get jealous about? Still, he had taken Robin out.

The Polo Grounds weren’t as blustery this time, and his hat stayed firmly in place. With Amanda at his side, he walked the
now familiar route through the underground passage and came up near the dugout. The coach was there, standing with Wade. They
were arguing about money. Wade had a small white bandage at the end of each of his ten fingers.

“Hello,” Lockwood said.

Wade turned around and sneered, “Lockwood! You. I’m going to throw you out of here—Medelsohn, call a guard.”

“Hold it, Medelsohn. This is a friendly visit. See? I brought a date. Don’t bother calling security.”

Wade coughed and looked Lockwood up and down a few times, but saw there was no need to fight now. Nothing would happen here.

The coach came over and shook hands. A second later, a player, “Sykes” it said on his jacket, came in. He was rubbing his
left ear as if it were bruised. He smiled when he saw Amanda. She nodded.

Johnny Sykes was a catcher. Six-foot-six inches tall, blond, blue-eyed. He looked like an idealized portrait of the American
athlete.

It had been a bad-breaks season for the team. Sykes, an excellent catcher, had made some spectacular plays and saved the day,
Medelsohn said by way of introduction.

Wade grudgingly acknowledged Sykes’ presence. He appeared to be in a hurry to leave. Lockwood wondered what there was about
Sykes’ presence that made Wade so uncomfortable.

Lockwood introduced Amanda, and Sykes grinned stupidly, smitten by Amanda’s looks. Wade kept eyeing his hat hanging on the
wall rack. He was an ugly reptile, all right. Lockwood could have shivered just watching his eyes.

Sykes had known Jones pretty well, it turned out. That surprised Lockwood. He had been told that Jones was a loner. The investigator
decided to question Sykes before something violent happened to him.

Wade finally found a chair and took it. He brought up Doc. “I heard about what happened to Carruthers. Did you?” He looked
accusingly at Lockwood.

“Lieutenant Brannigan was here,” said the coach, “an hour ago. He urgently wants to see you, Mr. Lockwood. He said if you
showed up I was to tell you that.”

“Did Brannigan say anything else?”

Wade narrowed his eyes at Lockwood. “Only that someone had tortured Doc before he shot him in the head.” He jammed his fingers
farther into his pockets.

Lockwood turned to Medelsohn. “Listen, did Brannigan say anything else?”

“Well,” offered Medelsohn, “he did ask me if I knew anyone with a German accent. I don’t know why.”

Ah, my call about Doc’s death, the investigator thought. He smiled but said nothing.

“To change the subject,” Hook said, “is it true, Mr. Wade, that you have doubled Robin’s salary?”

Wade squirmed in his seat, but finally spat out, “Yes, damn it. I’m so seldom in the office—she has to assume extra responsibilities.
So I doubled it—satisfied?”

“That lets you off the hook,” Lockwood said.

The coach looked from one to the other, not understanding this exchange. Then he fell into a lament about how awful it was
that Doc had met his death. Sykes chimed in, and even Wade gave a brief eulogy about the kindly doctor.

It was sickening. Then Johnny had to leave, so Lockwood took Amanda by the hand, and together they walked the baseball catcher
toward the parking lot.

Lockwood asked questions on the way. Sykes, walking rapidly, half-whispered, “Not here. I’ll tell you what I know once we’re
in my car.”

The three entered the lot and walked over to Sykes’ brown Nash. Sykes put the key in the door and was turning it when there
was the crack of a rifle report that echoed through the walls of the stadium.

Lockwood grabbed at Amanda, and they hit the ground.

Sykes was already on the ground, a big ugly hole in his head.

Lockwood dragged Amanda against the car on the side away from the shot. Then he crawled over to Sykes.

The catcher was very dead. Blood oozed out of a bullet wound in his left temple that left his brains exposed. His eyes stared
blankly into the beyond. Lockwood felt sick.

The single rifle shot had come from the window on the scoreboard. A tiny puff of white smoke was dissipating near the open
window.

Lockwood pulled the right-hand Nash door open, shoved Amanda in, then followed. He rolled the window down and pulled the key
from the door, slamming it into the ignition. He depressed the clutch and started the car. They screeched away as another
shot shattered the rear window. Shards of glass flew through the air like shrapnel.

“Keep down, damn it!”

Amanda slouched down and so did Lockwood. Another shot hit the fender. They were almost at the end of the parking lot. Lockwood
saw the little booth where the parking attendant sat would block the car from sight of the window with the rifle. He swerved
the Nash, put her in reverse, and backed behind the structure. Unless the sniper changed location, they were safe. He left
the engine running.

Poor Johnny Sykes. Lockwood got out his .38 and left Amanda with a kiss in the Nash. He found a phone in the little booth
and called Jimbo.

Brannigan said, “I’m on the way, but if this is some sort of joke—”

“I’m serious,” Lockwood answered. “On my mother’s—” “On my way.” There was a click.

Together, Jimbo and Lockwood found the rifle in the room behind the big scoreboard, where a man usually sat during the games
and posted the big black and white numbers of the scores.

The rifle had been wiped clean of prints. It might be traceable. Probably not.

No one had seen anything, though everyone had heard the shots. They questioned the five guys who had been working on the scaffolding
for the new lighting system, then Wade and the security man.

Nothing.

The five workmen didn’t know where the others had been at the time of the shooting; Wade and the coach hadn’t been within
sight of each other either. Seven suspects, plus the possibility of an unknown eighth—and not one with an alibi.

Jimbo had a team of 2nd Division patrolmen comb the stadium.

Later, after retrieving Amanda, Lockwood sat with Brannigan in the cop’s tiny office. Another body. Another mystery.

“You wouldn’t happen to have developed a German accent in the past few days, would you, Hook?”

Lockwood said, “Why, what do you mean?”

“Wherever you go, Hook, there’s trouble. You’re a jinx.”

Amanda reached over and put her hand in Lockwood’s.

“Ah, true love again. Heaven praise you both. Good luck, lady. You’ll need it.”

It went on like that. Lockwood insisted that he was incapable of even imitating a German accent, and that he had no idea who
killed Doc. He kept Robin’s ring pushed deep in his pocket. He did tell Brannigan of the prowler around Amanda’s house.

“Half-Pint again,” Brannigan muttered.

“Yes. And a big friend of his, probably a mug by the name of Dumbrowsky.”

“Hook, not that insane wrestler, the one that was thrown out of the racket because—”

“The same.” Lockwood didn’t want Amanda to hear the details of how Dumbrowsky was banned from wrestling for twisting a man’s
head off in the ring out in Chicago. She had had enough gruesomeness for one day.

“Well, Hook, you are really up to your neck in it this time, aren’t you? What do you propose we do about it?”

Lockwood was touched. A minute ago the quixotic lieutenant was putting the screws on him, now he was making a sort of offer
of assistance.

“I’ll manage, but thanks.”

“Well, be sure to leave the little lady someplace safe if you are going to chase after trouble.”

“I didn’t expect trouble at the Polo Grounds, Brannigan.”

Then Brannigan asked, looking serious, “Was Sykes killed by someone trying to hit you, Hook?”

“No. It was aimed at Sykes. Sykes was going to tell me something. Something he knew about the Lorenzo Jones case.”

“But the next shot was aimed at you.”

“After the first shot, I wasn’t standing still.”

Brannigan frowned, tapped a pencil on his desk, and said nothing.

“Can we go?” asked Amanda.

Brannigan tapped some more. Finally, he said, “I guess there’s really no reason to hold you two. But, Hook, stick around town.
I want you available for questioning on short notice. I’m not satisfied. For now, however… .”

“Thanks, Jimbo.”

Lockwood took his hat from the rack, helped Amanda with her wrap, and they left Brannigan there tapping his pencil and lost
in thought.

“Well, Amanda,” Lockwood asked in the precinct’s high-vaulted corridor, “what now?”

“Just take me home, Bill. I—I have a headache. Poor Johnny Sykes. I can’t get over it. It was all so fast. One minute, a living,
vibrant young man—the next… .”

Lockwood put his arm over her shoulder. “It could have been you or me. I know how you feel. I never get hardened to these
things. But you can be sure I’m going to find this killer. Then—” He drew his finger across his throat and at the same time
patted his gun butt.

“Revenge? Violence? Is that all you think of, Bill?” she flared out. “Revenge and violence. Where will it end? Oh God. I need—quiet.
I don’t know what. Not bloodshed.”

Lockwood said nothing. You would think
he
had shot Johnny Sykes the way she was carrying on. He attributed it to a woman’s inability to accept that it was a violent
world, and would go on being violent.

In the Cord, Lockwood turned on the Motorola even though he preferred the police band. He wanted to loosen the knots in Amanda’s
stomach and to start healing what seemed to be a rift between them.

With “Perfidia,” played by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, coming in clear and mellow, they cruised through the canyons of the
city.

On the way they passed through Times Square, where crowds were gathering to go to the Broadway theaters and restaurants, everyone
dressed in his Sunday finest. They had to stop for a light right under the huge Camel sign, the one where a five-story-high
man blew smoke rings fifty feet out into the air.

“Oh, look;” Amanda exclaimed, pointing at one perfectly formed steam smoke ring rolling out of the sign’s mouth directly over
them.

Lockwood grinned. “Yeah, isn’t that something? I’ve always wondered what kind of machine they had behind that sign to blow
such great smoke rings.”

The chill seemed gone from Amanda now. She demanded that he light a Camel and blow a smoke ring “like the sign.” The light
changed, but he pulled over and lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Then he formed his mouth in a circle and tried to exhale
a perfect ring. It came out like a figure eight.

Amanda doubled over with laughter. Then she said into his ear, closely, her breath warm, “Nice try, Bill. I—I’m sorry about
snapping at you back there.”

“Forget it,” he replied. “You were upset about what happened. I don’t blame you. Let’s go to your place and patch it up, in
bed.”

She grinned and nodded, “Uh-huh.”

He pulled out into traffic again, and the bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go broke up by the time they reached Central Park and
turned east to catch the Harlem River Drive. The city’s bright lights faded as they turned onto the Drive and headed up toward
Westchester.

By the time they got to the Macombs Dam Bridge, Lockwood knew they were being followed.

It was a ‘32 Cadillac, big, black, and with the sun visors turned down so that the men—at least two—were in the shadows of
the occasional street lamps.

“Don’t look now,” Lockwood warned, “but we’ve got company.”

Amanda’s body froze. Finally, after several more blocks, she asked, “A-are you sure?” She looked over her shoulder. They were
on the bridge.

“Don’t turn around, baby. I’m sure. No reason to let them know we know.”

“Them? There’s more than the driver?”

“Occasionally the light from behind silhouettes them. Two, maybe more. They been on our tail since Times Square.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I wasn’t positive. Now I am.”

“What are we going to do?” She drew closer to him.

“Nothing. Maybe it’s Brannigan’s boys, but maybe not. In any case, let’s wait for an opportunity to lose them. I know a few
juicy spots along the Post Road.” He turned to her momentarily and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Oh good.” She was pallid—perhaps. Hard to be sure. The lights of the bridge gave way to the darkness of the Bronx streets,
and they stopped for another red traffic signal. The Cadillac stopped right behind them. The tailers were being pretty obvious.

When the driver accepted a light from his companion, Lockwood saw a hard, long face under a snap-brim hat, a face he didn’t
recognize. The other two figures—he saw three in all—were still clothed in darkness.

The tension was palpable until the light changed and Lockwood accelerated, temporarily leaving the Caddy in the smoke. But
he didn’t want to try to lose them here. Better on the Post Road, where he could show them some real speed. His Silver-town
tires, his shocks, and his motor were no doubt better than their equipment and would be particularly telling on the Post Road’s
slippery cobblestones.

The Cord crossed the streetcar tracks of the Bronx, passed garlic-smelling streets of tenements teeming with pushcarts and
men playing checkers in their undershirts, and now they tooled along the Boston Post Road at a good clip. Fifty. The Cadillac’s
windows filled with men leaning outward, holding long black objects. Machine guns.