The Death of Lorenzo Jones Read Online Free

The Death of Lorenzo Jones
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hat. “I’m Lockwood. Bill Lockwood. How’s your stocking?”
    “You never mind my stocking. You shouldn’t watch a lady, you know, when she’s—” She blushed. The shy type.
    “Well, an unavoidable indiscretion because of the direction I was facing at the time.” He removed his hat and swept to the
     ground with exaggerated gallantry.
    She laughed, as much at her own modesty as at his gesture. “I suppose so.”
    Her green eyes met his gray ones and sparks flew between them.
    After a few minutes of banter Hook had found out that she was Wade’s secretary, sent by the cheapskate to watch over the workmen.
    “You could say I’m an efficiency expert,” she said and gave him a sour smile.
    Lockwood smiled. “Who watches you?”
    “Everybody. You, for instance.”
    “True.”
    “Like you were watching me when I adjusted my stocking. How much did you see?”
    “Not enough, but plenty.”
    She laughed again.
    In a few more minutes, after briefly explaining that he was an insurance man, he arranged to meet her at the bar of the 21
     Club, downstairs.
    “Tell them you’re waiting for me, Hook Lockwood. Hook’s my nickname.”
    “I hope you’re there first. That would be better. You certainly have a lot of style—the 21 Club. You must do all right. Okay,
     Hook, I’ll meet you there, in two hours exactly.”

CHAPTER
4
    He drove to the doctor’s office down in the decrepit factory district south of Houston Street. There was actually the beginning
     of a cobweb on the door. Some practice he must have. Hook found the doctor as run-down as his digs.
    His rapping got no response, so he let himself in. Dr. Carruthers was lying on his own black leather examination table, snoring
     away. A half-filled quart of near-whiskey was balanced on the desk’s edge.
    Lockwood looked down at the sodden, pale face of a man of sixty-five who hadn’t shaved for days. His straight gray hair fell
     over his soiled white collar. He continued snoring. His breath made the area around him smell like a bog.
    The doctor turned on his side and groaned.
    “Have another drink,” Lockwood said.
    The doctor sat up. His colorless eyes swirled to a rest in their watery seas.
    He burped. “Don’t mind if I do.” Then his eyes focused ever so slowly on Lockwood’s gold badge. That sobered him up.
    He put his legs over the edge of the table and stepped off it. “Just testing the thing,” he muttered apologetically. “What
     can I do for you?”
    “First, sit before you fall.”
    Lockwood pulled over a walnut chair and sat Doc down. Then he sat in a cushioned one that creaked as if it might give way.
    “Say,” Lockwood asked, looking around. “Is this chair okay?”
    “Right as rain, young man.” He burped again. “ ‘Scuse me.”
    Hook was glad he hadn’t come in with a broken bone. He looked around. The ceiling seemed solid enough, but the walls were
     all cracking and the wallpaper, little muskets and revolutionary scenes—awful—was peeling. The bare floor was scratched from
     pulling chairs about carelessly, and the two enamel cabinet doors were open, with gauze, scalpels, and the like haphazardly
     littering their counters. Two dead potted palms completed the effect. Lockwood never went to doctors or hospitals if he wasn’t
     unconscious and dragged there against his will.
    At first the doctor didn’t respond to his questions and stared off blankly into space.
    “Hello, are you there?” Lockwood yelled at him.
    The doctor suddenly came to life, “Young man, I’m a lot more here than you are. For instance, that badge notwithstanding,
     you’re not a cop.”
    “Didn’t say that I was.”
    “That suit. Too nice for a cop. And these old eyes can see your shoes aren’t worn at the heels. Your voice is too cultured.”
     He squinted at Lockwood’s face. “So what’s your game, sonny? You another rich one that’s got a dose? I can give you some tablets,
     pop you with needles, can’t guarantee
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