The Death of Lorenzo Jones

by Brad Latham

  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.

  Lockwood floored the accelerator.

  “Hit the floor, baby,” he yelled, starting a wild weaving motion with the steering wheel.

  The new tires screeched madly on the pavement. Shots, the staccato chop of a Tommy gun cut the air. They missed, but the flashes of the machine gun were duplicated on the other side of the car.

  The second chopper was more accurate. Despite Lock-wood’s distance from the Caddy, the bullets chipped at his trunk. It sounded like they had hit the rear lights. Just in case they hadn’t, Lockwood flicked the switch that turned off the rear lights but not the front headlamps, which made it harder for the Cord to be seen from behind.

  Lockwood dug into his waistband and extracted his .38 Police Special.

  “Here,” he said, handing the revolver to Amanda. “You won’t hit them. Don’t even stick your nose out to see if you are firing in the right direction. Just roll down your window, stick the gun out, and fire to the rear.”

  Amanda’s moxie took over; she did what he asked. She managed to hit a headlight on the Caddy. If only she could hit the other one! Lockwood reached over to the glove compartment, popped the lock open, and took out a mean-looking German Luger.

  Lockwood drove with one hand, his right, while he used his left to make sudden turns and fire at the car careening behind them.

  Lockwood was approaching his special little place for losing tails: a garage, long abandoned, just around a hairpin bend in the road. It would be better if the Caddy lost another headlamp before they reached that spot. The choppers opened up again, and part of the side-view mirror spun off into the darkness.

  Lockwood was having no luck with the Luger, but Amanda’s sixth shot from the .38 hit something—or somebody. The Caddy weaved wildly and went faster, almost catching up
to their insane speed and snagging their rear bumper. Lockwood heard screaming in the Caddy. The figures hanging out the window moved back inside the black vehicle.

  “Shit, he’s dead. Get his fucking foot off the pedal, help me you—”

  Lockwood didn’t hear the rest of the yelling because the Caddy suddenly blew a tire on a wild turn to the left. It rolled over on its roof, not once but three times, and burst into flames behind them. Lockwood slowed immediately.

  The flames behind them erupted into a towering orange ball of burning metal and flesh. The repercussions of the blast hit the Cord and rocked it on its wheels, though it was at least fifty yards away. Small sputters of bullets went off from the heat after that. The interior burned white hot, incinerating everything and everyone inside. Lockwood had stopped, but after a few seconds, as other vehicles approached, he pulled away again.

  Neither he nor Amanda spoke a word for the rest of the trip to her house. She sat there stunned, holding the smoking .38 in her lap while he slowly drove.

  Lockwood put the Luger down on the seat between them.

  They had spent a sleepness night in bed together, Amanda’s body unresponsive to his tentative touches, and she only began to unfreeze after a lot of coffee and a breakfast of scrambled eggs a la Lockwood. He was pretty good at eggs, actually an omelette made out of the mushrooms, green peppers, and anchovies he found in her well-stocked icebox. She was impressed.

  They began talking. She was upset because she was glad those goons had been cremated in the Caddy.

  Dames. Who could figure them? Lockwood had thought she was upset because they had nearly been killed again.

  “But it isn’t right,” she pleaded, “to be happy when someone dies.”

  “I don’t know about you, Amanda,” he replied, hugging her from behind the chair she sat in. “But I’m sure as hell happy it was them and not us. I don’t feel guilty for feeling that way.”

  She stared at her half-eaten omelette. Then she turned her deep blues at him and gave him a wan smile.

  “Thata girl,” he said.

  They spent a quiet afternoon together, listening on the big Magnavox receiver to the dismal reports from Europe about the gathering war clouds. They found a special program of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. What a riot! You wouldn’t think a ventriloquist would go over on radio, but Bergen was the hottest thing on the airwaves. Charlie McCarthy’s snide remarks brought howls from the studio audience and from Amanda, too. From their brittle sound it was as if she was learning how to laugh all over again.

  He let her relax, spend time just reading magazines. He went outside and winced when he saw the rows of neat holes six inches apart decorating his automobile. By the time suppertime rolled around Amanda was totally herself again and famished.

  “Let’s celebrate our good luck, Amanda. Let’s have a big meal at the Stork Club.”

  “I hate to admit it,” she said, putting down the Saturday Evening Post, “but I do want to celebrate. I want to scream to the whole world, ‘I’m alive, I’m alive.’ “

  He grinned and held out his arms to her. She ran into them.

  CHAPTER

  17

  At the table that Sherm led them to, Lockwood found Walter Winchell waiting for him with a big smile. Winchell stood up and shook hands with his old friend, Hook. The columnist looked great.

  At the other side of the table sat the greatest baseball player who had ever lived—Babe Ruth.

  After insisting that Lockwood and Amanda join them, Winchell introduced them. The Babe said, “Hi,” and handed Lockwood a big cigar.

  Winchell said, “I heard Half-Pint Gumps was after you. Pretty nasty bunch you’re playing with. Take my advice and lie low.”

  He drew Lockwood over to the telephones on a pretext.

  “Listen, Hook,” Winchell said. “I can’t say this in front of the Babe. He doesn’t want to hear anything bad about baseball players. Loves the sport too much. But you gotta know—Lorenzo Jones’ wife, Cynthia, was screwing another guy the whole two years she was married to Lorenzo. That hick Jones didn’t know it was going on, but half the town did.”

  “Who was it?” Lockwood asked.

  “I have a friend, a night clerk, at one of the hotels downtown. I won’t tell you which one. The man with Cynthia Jones signed with name ‘Charlie Waters.’ Tall, thin man, about fifty. Older than Cynthia. Looked like big money. That dumb Lorenzo! Baseball players are so naive.”

  “Charles Waters? Tall, thin, rich—my God, that could be Cyrus Wade. Maybe he and Cynthia bumped Lorenzo off, after all. I thought the motive had disappeared when a certain Dr. Dallas told me that Lorenzo’s arm was okay.”

  “Keep your source for this under your hat, pal.”

  “Sure, Walter. Listen, do you think if I gave you a photo of Wade, you could show it to this clerk?” He handed Winchell a newspaper clipping with Wade’s face.

  “Provided you assure anonymity. Even if this goes to court and you have to perjure yourself, Hook. I keep my sources confidential. I have to in my racket.”

  “Sure. I promise, Walter.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll have the night clerk take a look.”

  They went back to the table. Dinner was served. The Babe started talking to Amanda about baseball.

  The Babe was saying that the Giants had won the pennant in 1936 and 1937, only to lose the Series to the superior Yankee team. This year, of course, the Giants hadn’t gotten into the Series, and the redoubtable Yanks had slammed the Cubs into the ground. Despite the fact that the Cubs had Dizzy Dean pitching for them.

  According to the Babe, Dizzy was the greatest pitcher ever, until he hurt his toe in an All Star game. He was never the same after that.

  “His toe was that important?” Amanda said, looking amazed.

  “Yes,” said the Babe. “It’s awful. A small injury and a great man’s pulled down.”

  “You knew Lorenzo Jones?” Lockwood asked.

  “No, but I know he had a lot of promise. Terrible, terrible,” the Babe said, looking at the floor. “One thing I do know.”

  “What’s that?” Lockwood asked.

  “If I injured my arm, I would see more than one doctor. I’d see at least two, and one would be a specialist.”

  Lockwood grinned. If only he had talked to Babe Ruth the first day he was on the case.

  Ruth looked at him. “Huh? Did I say something important?”

  “No, no. I was just thinking about something else,” Lockwood lied.

  Ruth went on, talking about his greatest love, baseball. “The Yanks are still the ones to beat,” he stated. “And it’s because of their farm teams. They keep bringing up the best players.”

  Lockwood asked if Babe had heard of Cyrus Wade.

  “Not in any complimentary way. He’s a wheel, is what I heard—he bails out teams in trouble financially and then takes a chunk of the action. I heard he had some deal with Lorenzo that boiled down to taking a good chunk of Jones’ earnings.”

  “Yeah,” Lockwood said.

  “Babe,” interjected Winchell. “You’re the greatest home-run hitter ever, when are you going back to it?”

  “I never will, Walter. My eyes are getting bad, I’m 43, and I’m fatter and slower than ever. It’s time to forget about comebacks.” He grinned. “I might stay on though, as coach to the Dodgers. Let someone else try to beat my record.”

  “Never could,” said Lockwood. “714 home runs. Who could beat that?”

  “My record will stand for a while, but its inevitable, someone will break it. Maybe this new kid, Joe DiMaggio.”

  “Never,” Lockwood stated.

  “Someone will, sooner or later,” the Babe replied.

  On that note, the conversation drifted to other subjects, and they ate their meal. Lockwood had veal cordon bleu; Amanda worked over a spinach salad. Winchell mostly drank, hardly touching his capon, and the Babe had spaghetti and meatballs. The food was topnotch, as one would expect from the bill than soon appea
red on the table.

  Winchell picked it up, emphatically refusing everyone’s money. They thanked the columnist, and Lockwood danced Amanda around the floor to the orchestra’s early set. He had them play “Autumn Leaves.” As he glided her around the large dance floor, her body pressed warmly against his.

  Red and blue lights swirled across the dancers as they moved about among the small crowd of others enjoying the evening’s entertainment. The music moved from “Autumn Leaves” to “Perfidia” to “Night and Day.”

  Amanda was obviously lost in reverie. And in a way, so was Lockwood—except his reverie alternated between pleasant and dark feelings.

  Whenever the red spotlight hit the orchestra leader—an amiable gentleman who faced the audience as much as the band—Lockwood would have a flash. Instead of the baton there would be a thermos, and instead of the smiling face there was the anguished grimace of Lorenzo Jones.

  Jones’ face was twisted in pain, his eyes spilling out like exploding soft-boiled eggs, his veins bursting on his forehead, blood spurting from his ears.

  The aviator was clutching at his chest, his heart speeding to a thousand, then two thousand beats a minute. His jaw slammed shut and opened so fast and hard that his teeth smashed like plaster and fell to his feet.

  He lifted and pointed one hand dripping with blood, pointed it at Lockwood as he whirled about the dance floor. A trembling voice rose over the music, “Get him, get him for me, Hook.” That voice from the grave vibrated in Lockwood’s chest and made his heart skip in empathy.

  The orchestra leader—dead aviator then started burning in that hot spotlight of red and burned to a twisted cinder in flames as Lockwood stopped in mid-step, frozen before the apparition.

  “Why have we stopped dancing, darling?” asked Amanda. Evidently, she hadn’t seen anything unusual.

  Lockwood composed himself, but his face was pale and his hands cold. “Nothing—I mean, no reason, Amanda,” he said and continued to dance.

  For the rest of the night, the orchestra leader stayed the orchestra leader and the red spotlight was just a red spotlight.