The Death of Lorenzo Jones (7 page)

“Hmm. Nice manicure, but I think you need another.”

Lockwood pretended to pocket the non-existent gun and grabbed both of Wade’s hands. He forced the fingertips against the rough
brick of the building. Wade screamed. Lockwood continued to scrape the fingers against the brick.

“Just giving you a better manicure, Mr. Fingers, Mr. Grab-the-Girl-and-Make-Her-Sweat.”

The millionaire squirmed and fought to escape. When Lockwood felt finished, he let Wade slide to the ground.

“Take my advice, Wade. Tell the cops about this, or hire any punks to take me on, and I’ll come back and do the same with
your prick, understand?”

Before he left, Lockwood suggested that Wade double his secretary’s salary. Wade was agreeable, especially after Lockwood
had adjusted his tie a little tighter. Big shot. The minimum wage under Roosevelt’s new Wage and Hours Act was 25¢ an hour.
Wade had been giving Robin 20¢. And pawing her. Now it would be 40¢ and hands off—or else.

Lockwood left Wade in the alley, whimpering and blowing on his raw fingertips.

Lockwood had been kicked around enough on this case, it was time to push back. Wade, the evil bastard, was a good place to
start. It had felt good. Real good.

Now Hook could do some company business. Like drive to the airfield and do some interviews. He enjoyed the ride, chuckling
when he thought of Wade. What would Robin think when her salary was doubled? She’d figure out what had happened. Wade was
really scared: he’d never tell the cops.

At Flushing Airfield Lockwood walked to the main hangar. Farther out on the field a red biplane was sputtering to a stop after
landing.

He saw the biplane stop, and a figure jump from it. Was it—a woman? The figure had on red coveralls and huge aviator’s scarf.
Baggy outfit, but yes, a woman. She was about fifty paces away, and he cut toward her through the weeds. She took coils of
wire out of her baggy pockets and tied down the biplane, hammering stakes into the ground. He approached her.

“Hello there, miss,” he yelled, waving. The wind was whipping up a bit: he could understand why the craft needed tying down.
It seemed eager to take off again on its own. Such a marvel of a contraption, painted red with lots of strut wires between
the double wings.

“Hi.” She turned toward him and smiled. Her voice was strong but feminine. She had chestnut brown hair in a pageboy cut, casual.
Blue eyes. No makeup as far as he could tell. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Lockwood’s the name. I was here yesterday. You wouldn’t be Amanda Seligman, would you?”

This woman in red coveralls was certainly comely. She was tanned from the sun, had a thin aquiline nose, and a glow only acquired
by being out in all sorts of weather. Her skin was flawless, and her deep blue eyes drew Lockwood in like whirlpools might
a ship. He grinned. He wanted to go down with all hands.

She answered only after checking him over as if he were a strange sea gull that had alit near her.

“That’s me.”

“Could I ask you some questions about Lorenzo Jones?”

“FAA?” She looked him over again. “No, insurance company.”

“Insurance investigator.”

She finished with the wire, then stood up from her crouch. She was about three inches shorter than Lockwood.

“Well, if you want to talk, you’ll have to come with me. I have to go to the end of the runway to check something. You don’t
mind, do you?”

He didn’t mind. It was a bit of a walk, but it was warm and sunny.

“Not much of an airfield, is it?” she said.

“It’s not Idlewild. Can a DC-3 land here?”

“Sure. They do all the time, when they have to. There’s no housing blocking the field, you can come in nice and low except
for that Old Gold sign.” She pointed at a billboard to the left. “That’s a pain in the rump.”

“Really?” Some language. He liked the way she moved under those coveralls. Curvy. Well constructed.

Her flashing eyes caught his again. “Say, do you have an I.D.? There’s an FAA rule about authorized persons on airfields.”

He showed her his buzzer. She looked it over carefully.

“You wouldn’t have been trying to make me think you were a cop by showing me that badge, would you? That would be illegal.
It really looks like a cop’s badge.”

Most people just assumed he was a cop when they saw the badge. She had a quick eye.

“A coincidence,” he said.

She smiled again.

Their destination was a snagged wind sock, the device that filled with air to show the direction of the wind, information
pilots needed in order to land. It had wrapped all around itself. She couldn’t quite reach it, so Lockwood obliged by holding
her up by the waist as she stretched to unsnag it. There was a small hole in the wind sock.

“My, you’re strong. You can let me down now,” she said. “I’ll have to come out and sew it.” She frowned. “Let me down. I get
the picture, you can hold me up all day long.”

“My pleasure.”

What a nice tight body she had, and a surprisingly small waist under those coveralls. Her breasts had brushed against him
also, but she wasn’t in the least embarrassed. He let her down.

“Now this Lorenzo, I only knew him slightly, but he was a hell of a nice hick,” she said. “He knew a lot about piloting, and
I can’t see how he crashed on such a nice day, with all the maintenance he did on his craft.”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

“You’ve seen it? The wreck? I sneaked a peek. It must have nosed down. A wing would practically have to break off to have
that happen. I know. I fly basically the same craft. Except his was supercharged.”

“What do
you
think happened?”

“Whatever did happen, Lorenzo turned the wrong way on takeoff.”

“Could
that
have made him crash?” Lockwood was at last getting somewhere, he thought.

“Heavens, no. It doesn’t matter except that we always turn right to avoid that sign. We like to give it lots of room. But
he cleared the sign easily from what I heard. I wasn’t watching.”

“Who was?”

“Stinky, a kid who hangs out here, and Jones’ wife—and his boss, a Mr…. something, Glade.”

“Wade.”

“Yes.”

“What’s Mrs. Jones like? I know Wade.”

“Cold, sorta. She and Lorenzo weren’t in the same class. He was a hick. A smart one, but a hick. She has family, way back
to the
Mayflower
. How the twain met, I can’t imagine.”

“Now
you
sound like a cop.” Hook changed the subject. “Did Lorenzo Jones drink coffee?”

“What a weird question! Sure. It pays to stay alert in the air.”

“Did he carry a thermos in the plane?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you carry a thermos when flying?”

“Sure, if I’m going for more than a spin. Why?”

“How far was Lorenzo going the day he crashed?”

“About 200 miles.”

“Then he would have taken coffee with him.”

“If he remembered.” She was irritated by his questions. “Why?”

“I didn’t find a thermos in the wreckage.”

“Either he forgot it, or it’s out there in the grass. Why do you care?”

“It’s missing. Missing things bother me.”

They walked back toward the hangars, passing her biplane. She seemed to have an inspiration. “Say, you lifted me up. Now I
can return the favor. You can’t easily get an overview of where Jones crashed. From the air, it’s easy to spot. How about
going for a spin with a lady?”

Lockwood eyed the double-winged beast straining at its tethers. He wasn’t happy about the suggestion. Still, it
was
part of his job to see all he could.

“How long have you been flying?” he asked.

“I would have crashed by now, Mr. Lockwood, if I was going to. Come on. Are you chicken?”

“No, I just haven’t checked out my insurance policy lately. I don’t know if it includes flying with a woman pilot. Should
it?” He smiled.

She frowned. “Women make better pilots than men.”

“Like they make better drivers?”

“Come on, scaredy-pants.”

A challenge. Lockwood saw that he would look as yellow as a lemon if he declined. He never trusted women drivers. But this
was no ordinary frail woman. And there was a reason to do it, to get a look from the air at the crash site.

“Anything a dame can do, I can. How do I get in?”

“That’s the old moxie.”

Am I really doing this? Lockwood asked himself as he climbed into the back of the craft behind Amanda. It looked like a seat
on the roller coaster at Coney Island, even with a strap to hold you in. The strap looked strong. He put on the pair of goggles
she gave him and rolled up his jacket collar.

It didn’t seem they were going very fast when the plane suddenly lifted off the bumpy gravel and headed steeply upward to
the right.

Lockwood saw the Old Gold sign that she had spoken of. It said in black letters five feet high:
“Old Gold Smokes the Best. Miles Above the Rest. Take a Load Off Your Chest.”
Then in smaller print, longhand, was the slogan “Hacking cough from poorer spuds? Then try O
LD
G
OLD
, the smoke that refreshes your lungs.”

“Nice sign, isn’t it?” she yelled over the roar of the biplane’s engine. Lockwood was busy with a pad and pencil he had taken
from his pocket—not copying the slogan but drawing a map of the marshy areas. He drew it so he could walk there later.

The wind whipped around the tiny windshield and slapped his face like a wet towel. The Old Gold sign was really pointing toward
the approach to the Whitestone Bridge. A little access road led up to it through the marshy brush.

What a view! From the skyscrapers of Manhattan to Idle-wild!

A bird flew uncomfortably close and pelted the windshield with a white splatter of dung.

“How’s your stomach?” Amanda’s words were half-blown away by the wind whistling around his little windshield.

He tightened his strap as they made a long slow curve, remembering that aircraft have to
lean
to make turns.

“Not bad.”

Was that her laugh? She pulled the plane up sharply, which left his stomach behind, and headed straight into the noonday sun.
They seemed to stall out, sputtering, then the plane fell
backward
toward the ground.

Lockwood tried not to yell, but did. “What are you
doing?"

“Shortcut,” the lady pilot said. “Don’t worry, everything’s under control, see?”

She banked the plane out of the stall, and the engine roared violently as they pulled up fifty feet short of the swamp and
leveled off just over the brush.

“Are you trying to be funny?” he shouted.

Amanda laughed. “Just trying to see what you’re made of, Mr. Lockwood. After all, aren’t I a woman driver? Want to go back
down?”

“No, first you take me over the crash scene, “okay? If
you
can handle it.”

They did a gentle arc and ahead, from about two hundred feet up, Lockwood saw a burned spot on the verdant landscape. Not
much to see. It was off in the opposite direction of their ascent and to the left of the Old Gold sign. Quite a sharp turn
for a plane taking off. Had Lorenzo been suicidal, after all?

Just a burned spot below. Lockwood fixed its location in relation to the Old Gold billboard, the field, and the road on his
little pad. He would find a map and mark it when he got back to
terra firma
. If he got back!

“Want a low pass?” she asked.

“Yes. Let’s go down.”

She made another lower-wheel. They zoomed past the crash site. Just burned grass and a few scraps. Then the wind sock zipped
past and the tires screeched and threw up the gravel. Something let go inside Lockwood’s tense wrists. He saw that his knuckles
were white from gripping the sides of the seat.

His knees felt a little wobbly, but he tried not to show it as she helped him down off the plane.

“Well, how did you like the ride? Can the little woman drive okay?”

“Reminded me of the war.”

She laughed. “I just wanted to see if you could hold your cookies.”

“Where did you learn to fly like that?”

“I used to barnstorm at county fairs with a stuntman. He’d stand on the wing.”

“This other guy still alive?” Lockwood brushed his suit.

“Of course. He’s in the Army Air Corps, as a matter of fact. How about a spot of java, Mr. Lockwood? I’ll tell you more about—whatever
you want to know.”

With the ground firmly beneath him, Lockwood began to regain his composure. “Why not? Lead on.”

They walked over to a small shack adjoining the main hangar, in which was an old seat from a 1920s Dodge and a scattering
of chairs, motors, and magazines. She picked a thermos off a battered desk and poured his coffee into a cup from the sink.

“Not much in the way of a restaurant, but we make a mean cup of coffee. Percolator’s in the main hangar.”

It was as good a nickel’s worth as he had ever had, only not too hot. “Good thing I like it black.” Lockwood needed the brew.

“Now you’re talking! A tough guy, that’s what you are, Lockwood. You should be a pilot.”

“Call me Bill. You’re a tough lady. And a pretty one. Very pretty.”

“Well, cheers. Thanks for the compliment. Here’s to more of the same.”

Lockwood spent the next two hours snooping, while Amanda worked on her plane. He walked to the end of the runway.

Using the little sketch he had made in the air, he found the way to the crash site in the tall weeds. There was nothing left
but two bolts. The high weeds might be hiding more though. Lockwood put the two bolts in his pocket. Nowhere in the weeds
did he find the thermos that Lorenzo had carried in the plane with him, not even after a full two-hour search.

Of course, it
could
have been thrown a few hundred feet, but Lockwood doubted it. He saw the tracks of a tractor and a spent fire extinguisher.
The tractor had obviously dragged the wreckage back to the little service road of the big Old Gold sign, then along a dirt
road to the runway. He finished looking about the burned area, then walked along the tractor ruts, scaring toads and a few
field mice. Not a piece of wreckage and definitely no thermos along the gouged tracks, nor along the access road to the sign.