The Death of Lorenzo Jones (6 page)

Hook ordered hors d’oeuvres and they got a drink to get going while looking over the long menu.

“You order,” Robin said to Lockwood, putting the huge list down with a sigh. “Cheers,” she toasted, but in a quavering, almost
sad voice. She looked pale. Lockwood became perturbed.

“What’s the matter, drink no good?”

“No—Bill, it’s wonderful. I-I’ve been thinking about telling you something. Promise you won’t say anything about it. though.”

Lockwood nodded and said, “Shoot.”

“Mr. Wade—paws me. He says he’ll fire me if I don’t let him. I need the job but….”

Lockwood stared at her, his eyes widening.

Robin continued, “I’m so embarrassed. Everytime I complain to him, about his touching me, he tells me it’s my fault. He—he
says I have a provocative walk, and wear tight clothing and—well, maybe it
is
my fault. My figure, it is a bit —full—and lots of men stare and—” She nearly broke down in tears.

“What are you saying, Robin?” Lockwood asked, clasping her trembling hands. “You have a lovely figure. A lovely figure is
no reason to be ashamed.”

“B-but Mr. Wade, he says I provoke him. I arouse him. walking about the office….”

“He paws you?” Lockwood was getting enraged.

“I’m so—perhaps I shouldn’t tell—”

He squeezed her cold hands. “Tell me!” he said firmly.

She lifted her green eyes and looked into his.

“When I’m passing him, he puts his hand here, and then on my—my uppers and squeezes.” She started crying.

“That’s disgusting. I’ll pulverize the bas—”

“That’s what I mean, Bill, I don’t want that. I don’t want—It happened once before, violence because of me, and I never want
to see it happen again.”

“What do you want me to do?” Lockwood asked. “Give him a medal? I’ve got friends on the police force. I could have someone
call on him and persuade him that he’ll face charges unless he leaves you alone. I’d rather do it myself though, with my fist.”
He showed her his heavy right knuckles, scarred from many a fight.

“Whatever you do, Bill, and let’s stop talking about it. Please. No violence.”

She took out a small white handkerchief, turned away, and blew her nose and dried her eyes.

Lockwood dropped the subject and after a dinner of pâté de foie gras, lobster flambe and chocolate mousse, they said good
bye to Maurice the maitre d’ and Toots. Lockwood put it on his tab and signed an ample tip. Robin was impressed.

“Please,” she said. “Let’s spend no more money tonight. You must have struck oil, Bill. But don’t spend so much on me. I’m
not worth it.”

“You’re worth it, baby,” he said.

He tipped Mario for bringing back the Cord in the same shape he had left it. Lockwood was ready for dancing at the Copa, conversing
over a split of champagne, but Robin said he was crazy, laughed, and suggested a movie.

“If that’s what you really want to do. I love movies.”

“Then a movie it is.” Gone was her look of sadness. Back was the freshness of her smile and the sensual turn of her lower
lip.

Lockwood would have liked to have held her long into the night, dancing cheek to cheek. But some other time. He didn’t rush
women, he understood them.

They saw
Brother Rat
starring Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan. Afterward, Robin told Lockwood that he was handsomer than both of them put together.

“And you’re better looking than Ava Gardner.”

“You’re nice to say that… .” she said sweetly. The moon played tricks with her eyes and hair, making them sparkle in the night.

She was so vulnerable. Too vulnerable, he could see that. A nice small-town girl with a build that got her into trouble. She
needs a
nice
guy, not me, thought Hook. A guy who will go easy on her, protect her. A guy to make her a home.

No, he thought, as he drove her home, she certainly doesn’t need me or anyone like me. Especially not a slimy creep like Wade.

He resolved to take care of Wade tomorrow.

They didn’t go up to her aunt’s apartment, and Lockwood didn’t offer to take her to his hotel. Not yet.

Before he left her, she drew him behind a palm tree in the lobby of her building. There, she leaned closer. Her breathing
was warm. He took the hint and kissed her. Long and hard.

She sighed and said, “That was nice.” She grabbed his face and kissed him back passionately. Her body leaned against his,
and he loved the feel of her hills and valleys.

She finally broke away and said, “Please, call me again. Here’s my number, it’s unlisted because of….”

Wade! Lockwood thought. He kissed her once more and left.

Mr. Wade would have a visitor first thing in the morning, and a knuckle sandwich unless he agreed to lay off. Lock-wood’s
hands felt itchy, the way they did before a fight.

As he opened the door to the Cord, he saw he had visitors.

How did they know to lay for him there? Lockwood didn’t have much time to muse about it. It was Half-Pint again with his two
bruisers, Killer Dumbrowsky and Walter-the-Waiter. Half-Pint snickered, working that half-chewed toothpick about in his mouth.
His arm was in a sling.

“Surprised to see me, Hook?”

“Not really,” Lockwood answered laconically. “Every time I turn over a rock, you’re under it, like a worm.”

Half-Pint spit out the toothpick. “Get him,” he yelled.

Killer Dumbrowsky came at Lockwood first. He was ugly as ever, six-four with a hook nose busted to the side and a scar half
across his cheek. His bald head glistened.

Lockwood blocked him effectively with a tremendous kick of his left heel to the brute’s midsection. It would have put anyone
else out of service, but it just stopped the hulk for a moment.

The meaty ham hock of a fist belonging to Walter came at him from left field. Walter’s smaller but more muscular body slammed
into Lockwood shortly after the fist—not because Walter had intended to dive at Lockwood but because Dumbrowsky was staggering
forward again and bumped into his companion from behind.

The initial clumsiness of the two made Lockwood confident. That confidence faded when Walter spun him around, and Dumbrowsky
brought an elbow against his neck from behind. Dazed, the investigator tried to get away to recover, but they wouldn’t let
him.

Dumbrowsky, the wrestler, was in his element now. He caught Hook around the waist with a huge grunt, squeezed as he lifted
him to chest level, then turned him upside down and dropped him.

Lockwood had lost his hat at the first blow, so he landed on his skull without the benefit of a cushion. Dazed, he bit at
the big brute’s ankle, getting his teeth into the Argyle socks. That brought a scream from above. While Dumbrowsky hopped
about on one foot, Lockwood rolled to his feet, and although still dazed, kicked Dumbrowsky in his hopping leg, sending him
sprawling.

Half-Pint was cringing in a doorway, pallid and covering his sling with his other arm. Lockwood eyed him, figuring to undo
what the doctors had mended, but before he could take a step toward the squirt, Walter-the-Waiter came at him with a good
imitation of a windmill. The blows were hard, but Hook blocked effectively and got in a few good ones to Walter’s chest and
chin.

“You bastard,” snarled Walter, backing off.

Walter dropped his guard when he suddenly backed into Dumbrowsky, who was still writhing on the ground. Hook took advantage
of the opening and delivered his special, a solid left hook.

Walter went limp, his headlights rolled up, and he fell back over Dumbrowsky.

Dumbrowsky thought it was Lockwood who had fallen on him and tried to tear Walter’s head off. When the dumb bastard realized
what he was doing, he started shaking Walter, saying, “Hey, pal. I’m sorry. Wake up.”

Lockwood turned again toward Half-Pint, who was still cowering and holding his sling against his chest with his good arm.

“How come you don’t come out here and join your pals?”

“L-let me alone, Hook. Don’t h-hurt me. I-I’m a cripple.”

Lockwood expected Half-Pint would get down on his knees any second, but it was just a stall. Walter had awakened, was on Lockwood
from behind, and punched him in the kidney. Pain shot through Lockwood, but he turned and smashed an uppercut into the muscular
sneak. It took two, a right, then a left, to down Walter this time, and when Lockwood turned Half-Pint was not to be seen.
The investigator spun to see him leaning into the window of a black Dodge, his feet off the ground. But before Lockwood could
go over and pull the pip-squeak out by his rump, Half-Pint dropped back out of the car window and turned. He held a mean-looking
.38. That snicker was back.

“Guns?” asked Lockwood. “Isn’t that upping the ante?”

“Just stand still, Hook,” threatened the little creep. “I’ll ventilate you.”

Half-Pint’s goons got up and started working Hook over. Lockwood couldn’t do much because Half-Pint had a gun. They pushed
him in the alley when they had finished.

They then left him for unconscious or dead. He was neither. As Half-Pint turned to leave, Lockwood grabbed hold of the squirt’s
shoe and tripped him. Although he was beat, Lockwood then knocked the gun into an ashcan by smashing Half-Pint’s wrist on
the metal edge. Then he got in a few fists to the twitching face before the odds took over again. The three got the upper
hand and were going to finish him. Someone was yelling “Police,” and he heard a distant siren.

Half-Pint yelled, “Cheese it!”

The three ran off, leaving Lockwood lying there. The police siren wasn’t for him; it went past. Lockwood picked himself up,
fell down, picked himself up, fell down again before he staggered to the car and somehow drove home to the Summerfield Hotel.

His ribs on the left side felt like they were cracked. They jabbed him every time he took a deep breath. His eyes were so
swollen that everything looked blurry. His teeth felt loose.

But he didn’t like hospitals. People died in hospitals.

How he had made it to the Summerfield, he didn’t know. He got into the elevator in a stupor. The elevator operator, James,
asked him what the hell had happened.

“Tell you later,” Lockwood mumbled.

He staggered to his room, found the key, entered, and fell on the bed. He slept in his clothes. When he awoke, hours later,
his tongue felt swollen and his face felt like one large bruise. It seemed like a horse had sat on his stomach.

Wait till I get my hands on that squirt, he thought. He showered for thirty minutes in water as hot as he could stand. He
cut himself three times shaving. He had six cups of black coffee and lay back down for another hour.

In boxing circles they say you should be in a doctor’s office if you piss red, but he ignored it. Once, after being in the
ring, the same thing happened, and his kidneys had recovered. Of course he had been a lot younger then.

A second trip to the bathroom mirror confirmed what the first had told him. He looked like something the cat had dragged in,
dragged out, and dragged back in again. Bad.

Puffy, red, cracked lips, and abrasions. He groaned softly, poking at his lip as he tried to get a toothbrush in. There was
a knock at the door.

He stumbled over and answered it. It was the Summer-field’s number-one bellboy, Diego. Diego was a Filipino with lots of ugly
moles peppering his face. He was so ugly that everyone tipped him well just so he would leave. But he was a real pal, a great
guy. The little fellow had a roller cart full of remedies. Iodine, Vaseline, gauze, bandages, and a raw porterhouse steak.

Lockwood, sitting there on the toilet, let Diego do it all, wincing at the slightest touch while Diego administered to him.

He took six aspirins and had a scotch. That didn’t go well with the coffee.

Then he went back to bed, this time with his clothes off and under the sheets. Diego made a neat pile of his clothes and took
them out to be cleaned and pressed.

Eighteen hours later he woke up. The bruises had turned a bit blue, but a little talc made them fade. He still felt sore as
hell, but he was ready to go.

He made sure he had his .38 in the holster in his waistband underneath his jacket in back, cop style. He wasn’t going to let
himself get suckered into any more fights.

What was it he had to do? Oh yes, take care of that sinister boss of Robin, Cyrus Wade. Lockwood grinned; that ought to make
his morning.

Lockwood caught Wade leaving his office for lunch. He left the Cord and trailed him to a remarkably modest restaurant. Lunch
in a dive. Wade was as cheap as he was a bastard. The beanery was called Lulu’s, scarcely more than a diner.

The investigator followed Wade in and grabbed him at his table right after he ordered.

“Lockwood! Let go. What’s the meaning of this? Unhand me.”

“Not on your life.” Lockwood tightened his grip on Wade’s wrist.

“Wha-what happened to your face, Lockwood?”

“Pretending you don’t know? Your friends have itchy hands. Now I’ve got itchy hands, Wade. We’re going for a walk.” Lockwood
lifted the thin man up by the wrist, stuck a finger in his pocket against Wade’s back. “This is a gun. Move.”

Lockwood told Wade to put a dollar on the table. “You leave a big tip.”

Outside, Lockwood looked both ways as he pushed Wade along the sidewalk.

“Where—where are we going?” Wade was sniveling. At the same time he was looking for an out. Lockwood watched for sudden moves.
This guy was dangerous. The sneaky kind. He was stringy, too, and stronger than he appeared.

“Here!” Lockwood shoved him into an alley. “I think you’re having me beat up in alleys, and I’m returning the favor.”

“
No
. Let me go.” The quick eyes searched for a weakness in Hook.

“And anyway, even if it wasn’t you who ordered up goons-to-go, I’ve got to teach you to be the gentleman you pretend to be.”

“What?”

“You’ve been pawing your secretary, Robin Mobley. You’re pretty free with your fingers. Here, let’s see those fingers.”

Lockwood forced Wade’s right hand up to face level, careful that those manicured nails didn’t have the opportunity to strike
out at his eyes.