The Death of Lorenzo Jones (21 page)

The killer was unconscious. He lay on his stomach now, breathing hard, blood slowly seeping through his shirt and pants.

One final blow to Wade’s exposed neck and it would all be over. Hook raised the branch high over his head.

Looking down at the wounded man, he held it. And held it. For the longest minute of his life Lockwood stared down while a
hundred voices argued inside him.

At last his hand fell limply to his side, and the stick dropped back to the earth.

No, it was not up to him. The difference between an animal and a civilized man was in not killing for pleasure or revenge.
It was not Lockwood’s right to take this man’s life, even though he deserved to die.

Society would judge him by its laws, and then it would condemn him to die: not in anger, but coolly, calmly, as one shot a
mad dog. Wade would die, but not by Hook’s hand.

Enough. Lockwood tied Wade’s hands with his tie. He then guided the now conscious remnant of a man back to where their two
cars stood in the driveway. The Cord was a shambles. Gray was going to have her fixed or there
would
be murder, Lockwood thought. His Cord! He patted the front fender tenderly.

“I promise you, girl, you’ll be good as new.”

Lockwood stuffed Wade into the back seat of the Packard. Wade was mumbling incoherently.

I’ve got to get this guy to a hospital, Hook said to himself, so they can patch him up. So they can burn him in the electric
chair.

When Lockwood reached Elmsford Hospital, he refused treatment for himself, but delivered Wade into the Emergency Room and
told them to keep him restrained and to call the sheriff or the cops or whomever and keep Wade under guard for a murder indictment.

It wasn’t over yet. Lockwood was still a fugitive.

Lockwood called Jimbo from a phone at the Sinclair gas station in New Rochelle and told him the whole tale.

Not that Jimbo entirely believed it. Of course, Amanda had been arrested. He would have her verify this story.

Jimbo told him to stay in the Sinclair station. In an hour, the lieutenant’s banged-up Plymouth rolled into the space in front
of the gas pump. Lockwood walked over to him from where he had been sitting against a pole.

“Jesus Christ, Hook. Did you get the number of the truck?”

Lockwood smiled a weak hello, and held out his wrists to Brannigan. He snapped the cuffs on.

After two days and much talk at the Centre Street Detention Center for Men, Lockwood found himself out on bail, sprung again
by the legal eagles of Transatlantic.

He made his way home in the raincoat Brannigan had loaned him to cover his filthy appearance, and Diego, the angelic bellhop,
again administered to him. Lockwood ordered a porterhouse, a bottle of Canadian, a carton of Camels, and a large bottle of
aspirin from room service. Diego then went to Brooks Brothers with Lockwood’s torn clothes and got duplicates of everything.

There were about a half-dozen messages from Robin. And only one from Amanda. She was incarcerated, she said, and she’d added
to the note scribbled by the switchboard operator at the Summerfield, “Please forgive me.”

He tore up all the notes, put on the crisp new clothes, and went out to see Robin.

She wasn’t in, so Lockwood, dog-tired, sat on the apartment building’s steps and felt his bruised face with his bruised hands.
Everything still hurt, but the pains were duller now. Most of the damage was hidden by his new outfit.

In about an hour, Robin came back. She nearly dropped her packages when she saw him. Lockwood told her to go easy as she threw
her arms around his body. She didn’t, and it smarted.

In her apartment, Lockwood explained where things stood now. He told Robin that Amanda was no longer in his picture. Dames
who lied, who did things behind your back, they had no part in his life.

“And w-what about me, Bill?” Those brilliant green eyes met his.

“I can’t make plans now, baby, I’m in real hot water with the criminal justice system. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many
charges are hanging over my head—escape, withholding evidence, burglary… .”

She drew him toward the bed. “But all those things will be straightened out, honey. Your company will pay for it. They’ll
get lawyers. Everything will be all right. I just know it.”

It hurt when she lifted his hat off his head. It hurt when she unbuttoned his shirt. It hurt when she undid the buttons on
his trousers.

But then after a while it didn’t hurt at all.

says she’s a small-town saint,
but she’s been sexually harassed.
So what’s with the clinging cocktail dress
and the creamy
lips that keep whispering “yes?”

And what’s with the hard-core evidence
she keeps leaving at the scene of the crime?
How much does she really know about
the
death of Lorenzo Jones?

can take care of this.
He’s Bill Lockwood, ace insurance investigator.
Credentials: Columbia Law and the wasteland of World War I. He dines at the Stork Club with chorus girls and a Colt .38. Someone with a goon squad wants him D.O.A. at City Morgue.