The Death of Lorenzo Jones

by Brad Latham

  “After she talks,” Half-Pint asked, “then what? Can I use her, boss? There are a lot of things I always wanted to do.” Amanda’s eyes cast wildly around the room as if searching for some way out.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Wade tittered. “But make sure she’ll talk first. You have to give dear Amanda here so much pain that she’ll talk even though she knows we’ll kill her when we get what we want.” Amanda strained at her bonds. “This bitch has drained my bank account long enough. Look at her squirm! You might move that shiv of yours around in her lower areas, too. We have time. Stymie gave us the place till tomorrow.”

  “Sure, boss. I can do that.” Half-Pint smiled and worked a toothpick around in his drooling lips.

  He went up to Amanda and tickled the girl’s throat with his blade. She pulled back as far as she could.

  Lifting the knife away from Amanda’s throat, Half-Pint asked Wade, “How do we know she’ll tell us the truth about where this thermos jug is?”

  “She’ll tell,” Wade said. “If you hurt her enough.”

  The way Half-Pint’s face lit up at the words “hurt her” made Lockwood sick. He dried his palm on his trouser leg.

  “The doc talked, didn’t he?” Wade said. “Even though he knew we were going to kill him as soon as we got the prescription.”

  “She ain’t talked yet,” muttered Half-Pint.

  “If she tells us the wrong place, we’ll torture her some more.”

  Wade thought. “Maybe you’ll go check where she says the thermos is. If it’s not there, call me. This bitch didn’t know who she was blackmailing.”

  Wade seemed to be getting himself all worked up. His arms and hands moved in the air restlessly.

  “Give me a cigarette, Half-Pint. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Half-Pint snapped his blade shut and pocketed it. He lit a spud for Wade and handed it to him.

  Amanda stared wide-eyed at the red hot ash.

  “Yes, darling, your left breast, unless you tell me where the thermos is….”

  Wade approached her with the cigarette. Half-Pint chuckled and worked his fingers against the hard organ between his legs.

  Amanda made a muffled scream through the gag.

  Kicking the door open with a loud bang, Hook leaped at them. He got off a shot while in the air, but it only hit the edge of Wade’s shoulder.

  Lockwood hadn’t seen the junk that lay around on the floor, and as he stepped forward he slipped on a pile of old paint cans and newspapers. As he fell he rolled and fired at the light. This shot hit dead center. The bulb shattered, and the room was pitched into darkness.

  Shots rang out everywhere. Flashes of light illuminated little sections of the room like flash bulbs. Otherwise it was blind man’s bluff.

  Lockwood kept moving. He remembered the war, bodies everywhere. A man stopping to fix Ms boot or his helmet had been shot dead like a steer, his last step the one into the grave.

  He rolled and twisted and jumped through the darkness as bullets whizzed by. He had to be careful, he didn’t want to shoot Amanda. He knew she was about eight feet ahead and maybe three to the left of where he now crouched.

  Wade’s voice broke the momentary silence in the black, grave-like room. “Where is the bastard?”

  “I don’t know, boss. Maybe we winged him. I don’t hear him moving or nothing.”

  “He’s alive. Scum like that don’t die easy. We’re coming for you, Lockwood,” Wade snarled. “We’ll get you. What we did to Doc is gonna look like nothing compared—”

  Lockwood stood up for the briefest second. He pointed the gun in the direction of Wade’s slimy voice and let off two shots spaced six inches apart. The gun lit up the room.

  Wade was crouched ten feet to the left of Lockwood, hiding behind a big wood crate. Half-Pint was five feet behind his boss, lying flat on the floor. Lockwood dove through the air.

  Not a half-second later, shots rang out from both Wade’s and Half-Pint’s guns. Bullets flew around Lockwood, but all they found was empty air before they smacked the wall at the other end of the room.

  Lockwood’s outstretched arms hit something soft. Amanda. Good. He knocked the tied woman and the chair over onto the floor.

  That hurt her, Lockwood thought, but better a big bruise than a skull full of bullets. He grabbed hold of the curved top of the chair and began dragging it and its prisoner along the floor.

  A bullet flew into the wood floor right between Lockwood’s legs. He felt the breeze of the deadly lead on his skin. Can’t get much closer than that, Lockwood thought. The gods are smiling on me.

  Still pulling the heavy load along the splintery floor, he aimed behind him and got off another two shots. This time in the gun flare he saw a little bunch of boxes piled haphazardly on top of one another.

  With a burst of strength, Hook leaped to his feet, lifted the chair and the girl, and pushed them with all his might behind the boxes.

  He heard a sound, then another, then a louder smashing sound of wood ripping. Had a box fallen on her? At least she was out of the line of fire.

  He didn’t have time to speculate as Wade and Half-Pint let loose another barrage. Wade’s gun barked loudest—a .45.

  Again Lockwood leaped, this time directly to the left. The bullets flew by.

  The room was pitch black when guns weren’t flaring. Black as a cave.

  Lockwood kept squinting hard as if, by squeezing his eyelids together, he would be granted vision. But every time he could vaguely see the outline of something, a gun was fired by one of the thugs, and the flash filled his pupils with afterimages. They were all blind as bats. He reloaded his pistol. He heard them doing the same.

  But maybe Lockwood could use that to his advantage. After all, he couldn’t see them, but they couldn’t see him either.

  He felt around on the floor for a couple minutes until his hand encountered a small bag. He reached in and found small boxes of tacks and screws.

  He poured the contents of ten of the boxes into the bag then filled his right hand with plenty of ammo and gripped the bag with his left.

  The shooting had stopped for about ten seconds. They’d start again any moment. The time was right.

  He jumped to his feet and threw handfuls of the makeshift darts as hard as he could at the side of the floor where Wade and Half-Pint were gunning for him.

  He heard muffled screams as the nails made contact with flesh. He’d gotten someone. He ran toward the two lizards, firing from his hip like an old-time gunfighter. Then he heard them slipping and sliding on the tacks and screws.

  Wade and Half-Pint started shooting, too, but wildly, until the whole place sounded like a shooting range. Bullets whistled and thudded, lighting up first one part of the room and then the other as each man fired.

  Lockwood kept moving and firing at flashes. He heard a scream. Then another. Then just as quickly the shooting stopped. It was eerily silent, as if nothing had just happened. The smell of gunpowder was heavy and acrid. His armpits were soaking wet. Silence, nothing but silence. But Lockwood wasn’t about to strike a match just yet.

  He loaded his gun again, quickly sliding the bullets into the hot chamber.

  “Amanda, stay down! I think I got them,” he said.

  He heard a scraping noise and then a loud thumping sound like a door being closed. Jesus, were the bastards getting away?

  He slid along the wall and came just behind where Wade and his goon should be. He fired three shots and then leaped forward.

  He landed on something soft and sticky. One of them had bought it. Which one? Nothing was stirring in the room, so holding the gun at ready, he pulled out his lighter and flicked.

  Wade was gone! He could see only Half-Pint.

  He was blown apart. There were holes in his head and chest like a wormy apple. Blood pulsed out of him like from a goddamn reservoir.

  Both Lockwood and Wade must have hit the little creep. Yeah, that was one of Hook’s, right through his chest. But the one t
hat went through the back of his head and splattered his brains out, that was Wade’s .45. The bullethole was as big as a silver dollar. Jesus, he looked bad. Like hamburger. Lockwood almost felt sorry for the little murderous punk, until he remembered Amanda and what the shrimp had been doing to her.

  Amanda! Lockwood found the light switches on the wall: The other overhead came on.

  No obvious wounds. He pulled the gag from her mouth, and she instantly let out a loud scream, then another. Lockwood had to slap her across the face. She collapsed into tears.

  “I know, baby, it’s been pretty rough,” Lockwood said. He held her, till her spasmodic crying came to a halt.

  Then Lockwood found that Wade had escaped through some kind of little trap door in the floor of the back corner. Yeah, sure, Stymie would have had an escape route when the cops came for him, and Wade had found it.

  If it takes the rest of my life, Lockwood vowed, I’m going to get that lizard.

  Amanda cried more when Lockwood told her about Stinky.

  Between sobs she told Lockwood how she had hidden the thermos and the other evidence against Wade in a secret drawer inside her dresser.

  Lockwood asked her to call Brannigan and tell him about the fight and Half-Pint’s dead body—what was left of it.

  “And tell him to get the chair ready, ‘cause I’m going to bring him something to fry.”

  Lockwood drove to Amanda’s house. He didn’t see any cops around.

  He went in and immediately ran to the bedroom and looked for the secret drawer she had described.

  Not a bad idea. It sprang open. He took out his handkerchief to preserve any prints. He lifted the thermos out. The goddamn thing had caused torture, blackmail, and murder. He held it away from his body as if it contained a disease he didn’t want to catch.

  Next to the thermos was a handwritten note which read, “Mr. C. Wade got a prescription for digitalis from Dr. S. Carruthers. The doctor charged him $50, no questions asked. I saw Wade slip something into Lorenzo Jones’ thermos at the field before Jones took off in his biplane. If anything happens to me, you can be sure that Cyrus Wade did it. His prints are probably on this thermos, and inside are doubtless traces of digitalis. I’m writing this note just in case.”

  It was signed Amanda Seligman.

  So, Amanda had Wade by the balls.

  The little notebook next to all this told him how much Amanda had taken the guy for. Lockwood whistled softly. He found her derringer in the top dresser drawer.

  At last, concrete proof that Wade had killed Jones.

  I still want Wade, Lockwood thought. For personal reasons. Even if Transatlantic is in the clear at this point, I want Wade. He would have to die for what he had done. Either from Lockwood’s fists, his bullets, or in the electric chair.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Of course Wade wasn’t at his apartment. He would be on the lam now. Lockwood remembered something his nosy news buddy, Doug Sheer, had said about Wade having a country place.

  A quick call to Sheer got him all the information he needed.

  “Yeah, Hook, a hunting lodge, near Brewster, up in the wilds of Westchester. Just take Route 28A up to… .”

  Lockwood bet that Wade was holed up in the lodge. It might be a long shot, but it was his only bet.

  He tore up the highway in the Cord and got to the cutoff to the lodge by sunset. On the rough road to the lodge, he cut his headlights and slowed down.

  As he drove down the gravel road with a big log house standing at its end, Lockwood thought, I only have two weapons and he probably has a dozen up there. My .38 and the ten sticks of dynamite that Half-Pint so kindly supplied me with when he tried to blow me up. They could come in handy now… .

  The road became rougher and rougher, hardly more than rocks, and then completely stopped, ending in a mass of thick, tangled bushes. He pulled up right behind a 1936 blue Packard. That was Wade’s buggy, no doubt.

  The person inside the hunting lodge wasn’t about to wait for introductions. A rifle shot whizzed by Hook’s head, but not with the same accuracy of the shot that had smashed into Johnny Sykes. It missed Lockwood and shattered a window of the Packard.

  Crouching in the darkness, Lockwood opened his trunk. He took out the ten sticks of dynamite, fuses still attached, and ran for a little group of trees that formed a momentary oasis in the dark night. It was just like the World War all over again, running up to the enemy houses with sniper fire.

  Suddenly, the rifle opened up again. Wade was using it like a machine gun, firing shot after shot into the darkness in hopes of hitting Hook by accident. Splinters flew from the pine Lockwood was crouched behind.

  Lockwood couldn’t get at Wade from this range, but the night could be a friend.

  He crawled through the grass, wiggling and inching his way along. The cool dew of the night coated his clothes and exposed skin, but he kept the dynamite high to keep the fuses dry. He slipped around the side of the house by crawling through the bushes and tall grass that almost formed a kind of shield around the lodge.

  Wade was firing at everything. Every time there was the slightest motion, from a branch moving in the breeze to a frog leaping from rock to rock, Wade blasted away, leaving little craters in the ground.

  Lockwood hoped he didn’t have much ammo, but he seemed to have plenty. Jesus, the guy could be ready for a siege in there. And the way he was firing, he must have more than one gun, and one of them must be an elephant gun from the size of the holes it made around him.

  He continued to crawl through the maze of shrubbery. The bright eye of the moon was partially covered by clouds, and Hook would wait until it disappeared for a few precious seconds before he inched ahead on his belly, commando-style, closer to the wood fortress.

  At last he got within ten feet of the house. Now there was just bare ground, without vegetation to cover his movement.

  He saw Wade’s rifle tip poking out of the main window about thirty feet to his left. All the other windows in the place were shuttered tight as a drum, and Hook was sure the doors were just as secure. Wade was ready to fight it out against a goddamned army.

  Well, it didn’t leave many choices. There was really only one thing to do. As the moon disappeared, Lockwood jumped up and ran toward the side of the house. Wade’s cannon roared shot after shot.

  Suddenly Lockwood was there, hugging the side of the house. He pressed against the logs, neatly layered one on top of the other. Wade was trying to swing the rifle around in the narrow window frame to get a better shot. But he didn’t stop firing. The gun kept blasting out, hitting trees and shrubs everywhere as Wade frantically tried to get a better angle.

  There were only seconds. Lockwood pulled the dynamite from his shirt. All ten sticks were wrapped together with heavy black tape. He lit the 18-inch fuse and pulled out his gun.

  He started firing shot after shot at the window where Wade was still struggling with the rifle. The fuse was down to 12 inches. His shots made Wade momentarily pull inside. Now or never! Lockwood ran along the edge of the lodge, shooting all the time. He reached the window and with 6 inches of fuse left he heaved the bright red sticks through the opening.

  Lockwood ran like a son of a bitch around the side of the house and toward a little gully. He leaped over the side of the dirt embankment just as the whole place exploded. Lockwood’s ears were deafened by the blast. He was blown off his feet and sent spinning onto the ground.

  The sky was lit with an orange fireball—probably Wade’s arsenal going up with the dynamite. Pieces of burning woodwork, glowing red and yellow in the black night, floated down from the sky.

  The investigator sat up and pulled a Camel from his jacket pocket; only one in the pack was still not broken. He lit it up and watched the big old house burn merrily. Nobody staggered out. He took a long drag and warmed his palms by holding them up toward the house.

  Lockwood sat there on his haunches, thinking about the case, about Amanda, and about Robin. He remem
bered how Stinky had looked when he died, and the corpse of Doc. Also Johnny Sykes with the bullethole in his head.

  The pathetic thing was that all had died in vain. Wade didn’t have to kill Lorenzo Jones. If Wade had just spoken to Dr. Dallas in Philadelphia, then he would have known that dumb and cheap Doc Carruthers had made a mistake: Lorenzo Jones’ arm was not permanently damaged.

  Next season Lorenzo would have made a lot of money for Wade. But Wade figured from talking to Doc that Jones was through as a pitcher. His ironclad contract with Jones to pay him whether or not Jones could pitch and his greed had left him no way out but to kill the young pitcher.

  Wade had bought a prescription for digitalis, a medicine which, used in quantity, will burst the heart. He had slipped a lot of the stuff in the thermos Lorenzo always took in his biplane. And boom, that was it.

  And then there was all this killing because one crusty old doctor had made a dumb diagnosis. In a way, it was funny. Wade was a victim of his own greed.

  The roof of the house collapsed onto the burning pyre. Lockwood stood up and began walking back to his Cord. It sparkled in the night as flames reflected off its shiny chrome.

  He got in and had the key in his hand when the first shot rang out.

  The windshield spidered into a jagged network of glass. A second shot exploded but by that time Hook was moving. He flung the door open and dove to the ground. The bullet tore into the leather cushioning of the seat where his backbone had been resting seconds before.

  He rolled under the car and pulled out his .38. So the lizard was still alive! How was it possible? He should have known it would take more than ten sticks to kill a crocodile like Wade.

  “Lockwood! You hear me? This is Wade! Didn’t think you’d ever see me again? I’m smarter than you, Lockwood. You should have held the dynamite a few seconds longer.” A loud laugh followed. Jesus.

  Lockwood fired in the direction of the voice. It sounded like it was coming from a cluster of six or seven leafy bushes about a hundred feet from the Cord.

  “Too bad, Lockwood. You missed by a mile. You should have paid attention in target practice, but too late now, isn’t it?”