by Brad Latham
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“A kind of rustling—from your bedroom.”
Muffy looked confused, then frightened. “Nothing. It couldn’t have been anything.”
He didn’t like her look, the tone of her voice. His hand went to the .38, and he drew it out. Her eyes widened when she saw it. “Nothing!” she cried again.
“Probably,” he shrugged, “but I’ll check anyway.”
He edged cautiously into the bedroom. The covers were in disarray. Muffy had been napping, probably, he thought, when I rang the doorbell. He checked the bathroom. Nothing there. His gaze swept along the bottoms of the draperies by the windows, but no one seemed to be behind them. He moved over toward them, pushing his body against the heavy cloths, but there was nothing there by the wall. The blinds were drawn, and cautiously he pulled them back, on the chance someone was outside, on the window ledge. Nothing but the green of Central Park met his view.
He dropped to the floor, gun ready, and looked underneath the massive bed, but again drew a blank.
He was perspiring as he rose, the closed windows of the room choking it with the summer heat. The sound came again, and this time he realized the source. It had emanated from the bedroom’s closet.
He edged up alongside it, his back against the wall, his hand reaching for the knob of the door. A quick flick of his wrist, and he flung it open, gun ready.
There was a rustling, tearing sound, and he leapt to one side as a naked body hurtled past him, thudding onto the floor, leaving a trail of clothing behind it, the clothes in the closet ripping off their hangers as the body crashed through them.
Muffy was at the doorway now, eyes wide as they both regarded the form before them. It stirred a bit, the head rising, then falling, cheek against rug. It was Cracks Henderson.
Lockwood turned toward Muffy. “You don’t want for boyfriends, do you?” He looked again at Cracks, whose pale body was blotched with red. “But next time you get caught with one, don’t stuff him into a closet on a day as hot as this one. Even guys in better shape than Cracks would collapse with heat prostration.”
CHAPTER
7
The Hook was still trying to figure it out as he reached the street. Cracks Henderson. Cracks Henderson and Muffy Dearborn. It didn’t add up. What the hell was she doing in the hay with him? She wasn’t the type to sleep with the hired help, and that’s all Cracks ever seemed to be with her. True, he’d been eyeing her hungrily at the opening night party, but he hadn’t even been dirt in her eyes, because he was less than that. When she’d looked at him, she’d seen nothing. Zip. Zero. So why? Why now? Or was he reading her completely wrong?
His concentration was broken by Jimmy the Newsie, who, he finally realized, was tugging at his elbow. Had been for some moments. His lip curled.
“What are you doing here? I can’t believe I’m seeing you again, after you set me up to get creamed.”
“1 didn’t have nothin’ to do with it, believe me, Mr. Lockwood,” Jimmy told him, giving him the “Mister” in an attempt to insinuate himself back into Lockwood’s good graces. “You know the grapevine. Do anything in the underworld, and ten minutes later, every hotshot in a radius of twenty miles knows what’s goin’ on. Thirty miles,” he corrected himself.
“Maybe,” Lockwood admitted. “So what’s up? What do you want?”
“News. I got news,” Jimmy said with hope, his hand automatically reaching out, palm up. By now it was an unconscious reflex.
Lockwood took out a five and handed it to him. Jimmy looked at it, grinned gratefully, and gave The Hook value due.
“Stymie,” he said, in his excitement forgetting to keep his lips firm over his teeth, revealing the gaps where several no longer existed. “Stymie’s been worked over bad, real bad.”
“So?” Lockwood asked. He’d had an urge to mess up Stymie once or twice himself, if there’d been a way he’d been able to accomplish it without touching him.
“So this. I know what you’re working on. And the talk in the street is that Stymie got it because of the Dearborn jewels.”
The door to Stymie’s shop was as old and dark and ugly as before, and the bells jangled just as discordantly. Stymie’s voice, however, was different. This time there was fear in it. “Who’s there?” it asked, tremulous.
“Bill Lockwood.”
“Oh! Mr. Lockwood!” The fence’s voice was its old repellently unctuous self again. “What a pleasure. A real pleasure!”
Lockwood moved into the bowels of the shop, seeking out Stymie in the dimness. Finally he found him, deep in a ratty-looking chair in the rear.
“You’ll pardon me if I don’t rise, Mr. Lockwood,” Stymie apologized, the oil thick around the words. “But I’ve—I’ve been ill.”
“I heard about it. Sudden illness, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Very sudden.”
“That’s why I’m here, Stymie.”
Fright added a new aura of repulsiveness to the fence’s face. “You’re—you’re not involved in this, too?”
“I’m not here to cream you, Stymie, if that’s what you mean.”
A cackle of relief wheezed out of Stymie. “I should have known better, Mr. Lockwood. Forgive me. I’ve had—a bad time.”
As his eyes became accustomed to the murky light of the shop, Lockwood began to see the contusions. Stymie was a mass of welts and bumps and bruises, one eye half-closed. “Who did it, Stymie?”
“I—I fell.”
“Don’t give me that, Stymie. I know somebody came in and knocked you around.”
“I don’t remember.”
“The Dearborn jewels, Stymie.”
“What about them?” Stymie dabbed at the thickish fluid that constantly ran from his eyes, cautiously trying not to touch his wounds.
“You got it because of the Dearborn jewels. That’s the word.”
“I don’t feel good. I’ve got to lie down.” He tried to rise.
The Hook placed a hand against the frail chest, and Stymie subsided. “I’m not here to hurt you, Stymie. But I know you’re involved in this Dearborn thing somehow, and I’m not going to leave till you tell me how.”
“All right. Could you—could you get me a fresh glass of water?” Stymie indicated the clouded jelly glass by his side, and a curtain at the rear of the shop. Lockwood picked up the glass, its sides gritty and smudged with grease, and walked to the back, pushed aside the curtain, and turned on the faucet that hung over the filthy little basin, patches of dull white showing through the brown and yellow. He let the water run till it grew cold, filled the glass, and moved back toward Stymie. On the way, his eye skimmed Stymie’s collection of jade.
“Okay,” he said, handing the glass to Stymie, and waited for him to gurgle some of it down. “Give.”
Stymie put down the glass and tightly crossed his body with both arms, as if trying vainly to warm himself, although it must have been ninety degrees in the place. “All right. I fenced the jewels.”
“Who brought them in?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Who, Stymie, who?”
“Hit me, beat me, kick me, do whatever you like, it don’t matter. If I tell you who, I’ll be dead anyway. You know that.”
“Okay, so you fenced the jewels. What next?”
“Then I—I sold them.”
“To whom?”
“To an interested party.”
“Who, Stymie? That part won’t get you killed, we both know that.”
“How do I know?” the fence whined.
“All right, we’ll come back to that. Who beat you up? One of Toomey’s boys?”
“I can’t say.”
“One-Eye. Widwer Levinskey.”
“I can’t say. All I can tell you is that whoever did this to me wanted the jewels. I’d promised to sell them to them once I had the merchandise firmly in my possession.”
“And?”
“And—and instead I got tempted. They w
ent to someone else.”
“You won’t tell me who worked you over.”
“If I do, the next time they might kill me.”
Stymie was a shambles of fear now, and Lockwood almost felt sorry for him. “All right. That could be so. But let’s get back to the purchaser, Stymie. Him you can tell me about.”
“I’m afraid to talk about anything. I don’t want to be dead.”
“You’re letting this beating screw you up, Stymie. The guy you sold the jewels to can’t be in the same league with the guys who sold the stuff and whoever beat you up.”
“I guess you’re right.” He didn’t look too convinced.
“All right then. Who was he?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Jesus Christ.” Lockwood moved in a couple of inches on Stymie, his shoulders hunching in anger.
“I—I really don’t know who he was. He’d never been to the shop until he came about the jewels.”
“What happened?”
“He came twice. The first time he told me he wanted the jewels. I told him they were already spoken for.”
“And he upped the ante.”
“Something like that.”
“And left with the jewels?”
“Not that time, no. He didn’t have—what I wanted. He had to leave, and then two days later, he returned. And this time I gave him the jewels.”
“He didn’t pay you in money, did he, Stymie?”
“What?”
“Another few thousand couldn’t have got you to risk your life.”
Fear and uncertainty and a hint of desperate greed registered in Stymie’s face. “I—I don’t know what you mean,” he stammered.
“Never mind. The guy who got the jewels. What did he look like?”
“No one I’d ever seen before, like I say. Looked clean. Not like someone who’d had problems with the law.”
“Describe him. Physically.”
“Well—blond, kind of good-looking, I guess, although—I suppose his face lacked some character. Kind of blocky looking, sort of square-faced, a little puffy, maybe, about the cheeks. Pale. Very pale.”
“Cracks Henderson.”
“What?”
“Muffy Dearborn’s accompanist.”
Stymie looked genuinely confused. “What?”
“You sold Muffy Dearborn’s jewels to the guy who plays piano for her.”
Stymie shrugged.
“He didn’t say anything to you about that?”
“Nothing.”
Lockwood studied Stymie for a moment, then went back into the shop. He looked at Stymie’s collection again, then picked up a piece and showed it to him. “Odd. Every other thing here is coated with dust, but this one is clean.”
“Be careful! It’s very valuable! It’s—” Stymie shrieked, jumping to his feet, forgetting his injuries, lust and fear written all over him.
The Hook finished the fence’s sentence. “It’s what you nearly gave your life for, Stymie,” he said, set it back down on the filth-coated table, and left the shop.
Lockwood walked to the nearest phone booth, lifted up the Manhattan directory, and searched for Cracks’ name. He finally found it: Silvio Henderson, 337 West 42nd Street. He dialed the number and got a busy signal. Impatiently, he hung up, then tried again. Again he got the buzz, and again he tried, and this time Cracks answered.
“Hello?”
“Cracks?”
“Who is this?”
“Bill Lockwood. Transatlantic Underwriters company. I need to talk to you.”
“I’m—I’m busy.”
“I’m a block away. Stay there.” Lockwood hung up.
He loped across 42nd Street, drawing the stares of the curious. Everyone in New York was in a hurry, but no one ran, except for the occasional cop or hold-up man. Disappointment registered in more than one face when they turned and saw no pursuing patrolman.
The Hook raced up the stoop of the dilapidated brownstone, jerked open the huge glass-paneled door, and flicked his eyes over the mailboxes. “S. Henderson. 3B.” He pressed the buzzer, waited, then tried again. When there was no response, he tried the inner door, found it locked. He pulled out a jackknife and jimmied it open. He took the stairs three at a time. He was close to something now, and he wouldn’t let it get away.
He burst onto the third floor landing, and saw it was probably too late. The door to 3B was open, and a man was leaving. It was One-Eye.
The gunman’s one good eye went wide when he saw The Hook. A housewife with a bag of garbage was opening the door of the opposite apartment, and One-Eye barreled through it, crashing her to the floor, garbage flying in all directions.
Lockwood followed, gun drawn, paused for an instant to lift the startled woman to her feet, then charged toward the open kitchen window. There was a fire escape outside, and he could see it vibrating, the heavy impact of One-Eye’s feet making it shake. He looked downward, saw nothing, and put his head out, then pulled back, as an explosion sounded, and a bullet whined by him.
He raised his pistol, jumped through the window and got off two quick shots. One-Eye was already up on the roof, gravel crackling under his thumping feet. Lockwood raced up the iron stairs, then up the freshly primed ladder that led to the roof.
He thrust himself over the ledge and off in the distance saw Levinskey, already two rooftops away. He couldn’t trust the .38 to carry that far with any accuracy and dropped his hand when he saw the two sun-bathers between him and One-Eye, already oblivious to the pistol-carrying mobster who’d run heavily past them.
Lockwood sped to the adjoining roof, then grabbed its ledge and dropped ten feet to the next. One-Eye was frantically pulling at the exit door on the next roof from the last roof.
As he ran, he saw the gangster fire two shots into the door, pull at it, curse, and in frustration, begin running again, to the last of the roofs in this chain, heading for the final exit.
By this time Lockwood had passed the startled sunbathers, now bolt upright as they watched in fascination. “Take cover!” he yelled at them, then raised the .38 and squeezed off a shot. It ricocheted off the last door, and One-Eye jumped to the side, then flung himself behind the tar-covered structure that was his only means of escape.
The Hook crouched behind the ledge of the next-to-last apartment building, steadying the .38 on the worn brown tile that covered it. “Might as well give up, pal!”
A shot whizzed over Lockwood’s head.
“No way you can get out of this one! Throw out your gun and come out with your hands up!” he cried, trying again.
This time One-Eye leaned out from the other side of the exit shed, and his and Lockwood’s pistols cracked at the same instant, each bullet flying harmlessly through the heavy summer air.
Lockwood knelt, broke open the pistol, and slid in four new bullets. He tensed his muscles and then flung himself over the ledge, dropping into a crouch as he hit the roof. One-Eye leapt out, fired at him, one, two shots in rapid succession, then appeared to stagger as Lockwood returned fire.
One-Eye was behind the narrow black hut again, and Lockwood advanced on it slowly, silently. A quick rustle, and One-Eye was flat on the roof, firing up at him, then ducking back before Lockwood could get off a shot.
Lockwood was in front of the asphalted eight-foot-high shed now. He pulled at its door, and it opened. He closed it, listened for a moment, his back against the door, waiting for One-Eye to come around at him from either side of the structure. Instead, he heard what appeared to be a rustling from the back wall. One-Eye was still there!
He flung open the door, jumped back, and got off four quick shots about five feet high, running in a line across the back wall. A dull thud followed. “I got him!” Lockwood thought, sprang back and ran around to the back.
One-Eye’s empty gun, flung with a force born of desperation, fear, and searing hate, caught him in the temple and he went down, his pistol flying out to the edge of the roof.
One-Eye lunged fo
r the door, and Lockwood sprang after him, tackling him at the knees. One-Eye slammed against the door as he went down, then twisted free and kicked at The Hook.
Lockwood pulled away, his back against the door, and One-Eye, scrambling up and finding his escape hatch blocked, ran for the .38 which glistened in the lowering sun a foot from the roof edge. There was no ledge at the end of this roof, just flat expanse that ended abruptly, a five-story drop its only border.
Again Lockwood leapt after him and again brought him down, Levinskey’s arm straining out for the pistol and missing it by six inches. Furious, he whipped a right hand into Lockwood, then jumped up and kicked out. The Hook rolled away, eluding him, then regained his feet. For a moment he and One-Eye stood facing each other, and for the first time he saw the stain spreading across One-Eye’s chest.
“Give it up! You’re shot,” he yelled, pointing.
His opponent ignored him, and rushed forward, head down, going for sheer bull strength. Lockwood feinted, ducked, and threw out a foot. One-Eye stumbled over it, sprawling out on the roof, little bubbles of tar bursting under him, marking his clothes.
Lockwood ran for the .38, whirled, and found Levinskey coming at him again, the front of his shirt a mass of blood and glistening black patches. He raised the pistol, but One-Eye kept coming, and once more he shifted his body, once, twice, throwing One-Eye off. The gangster lurched past him to the edge of the roof, stopped himself, and then swayed there, both feet partly on the roof, partly overhanging it.
“Back! Back! Get back!” Lockwood called, struggling to his feet, arm outthrust, trying to reach his opponent. One-Eye looked back at him, frantic, living out a nightmare, balancing evenly between life and death. The Hook now saw that the stain extended to the back of him, too, a dark spot on the back of his jacket spreading even as he watched.
And then he saw nothing. One-Eye had lost his battle for balance, a hair too far off the roof, and even before Lockwood could reach him, had pitched forward and down.
Lockwood stepped to the edge and looked. One-Eye was spread-eagled in the barren backyard, the life crushed out of him.
He went down the stairs numbly, noticing nothing around him as he descended. Outside he walked down the reddish-brown stone steps, turned to the left, and once more strode toward Cracks’ apartment house. No point in looking after One-Eye. He was beyond all help.
