Case Pending

SEVEN

Mendoza felt rather irritated at the cosmic powers; if they intended to direct a little luck his way, they might have been more explicit. Still, one never knew: it might lead to something.

The gift shop was closed, of course; he would come back tomorrow. And it was possible that this Breen woman had simply told a lie to avoid having to pay back twelve or thirteen dollars; but such a relatively small amount-and Mrs. Demarest was emphatic on assurance of her honesty. Judge for himself…

He drove tedious miles across the city, cursing the Sunday traffic, to Alison Weir’s apartment, and was late by some minutes. She opened the door promptly and told him so, taking up her bag, joining him in the hall. She was in green and tan today, plain dark-green wool dress, high-necked: coat, shoes, bag all warm beige, and copper earrings, a big copper brooch.

He settled her in the car and sliding under the wheel said, "Unsubtle, that dress. Every woman with red hair automatically fills her wardrobe with green."

"It’s only fair to tell you," said Alison amiably, "that like practically all women I detest men who know anything about women’s clothes."

"As intelligent people we should always try to overcome these illogical prejudices? He had not moved to start the engine; he smiled at her.

"You know, it would be regrettable if you were lying to me, Miss Weir."

The little amusement died from her green-hazel eyes meeting his. "Do you think I’ve lied to you? Why? I-"

"No, I don’t think so. But Teresa Ramirez says her sister meant to tell you about this ‘queer boy,’ and yet you don’t know quite as much as she told Teresa."

"I told you about that. She probably did mean to tell me a lot more, but I took up her consultation time with lecturing her. You can’t regret it any more than I do, Lieutenant! If I’d listened to her-"

"Yes," said Mendoza. He’d turned sideways to look at her, his right arm along the seat-back; he laughed abruptly and slid his hand down to brush her shoulder gently, reaching to the ignition. "I’ll tell you why I’m not just a hundred percent sure-I mustn’t be. Because I’m working this on a preconceived idea, and that’s dangerous. I find something that I doesn’t fit, I’m tempted to think, let it go, it’s not important-because I don’t want to prove my beautiful theory wrong. Just now and then I am wrong, and it’s not an experience I enjoy."

"I see. I also dislike egotistical men."

" Mi gatita roja, what you mean is that you dislike the ones honest enough to admit to vanity-nobody walking on two legs isn’t an egotist. And you should have more common sense than to talk so rudely to a rich man."

"Are you?"

"I am. None of my doing-in case you were thinking of bribes from gangsters-my grandfather was shrewd enough to buy up quite a lot of land which turned out to be just where the city was expanding-office buildings, you know, and hotels, and department stores-all crazy for land to build on. And fortunately I was his only grandson. It was a great shock to everybody, there he was for years in a thirty-dollar-a-month apartment, saying we couldn’t afford this and that, damning the gas company as robbers if the bill was over two dollars, and buying secondhand clothes-my God, he once got a hundred dollars out of me on the grounds of family duty, to pay a hospital bill-and me still in the rookie training school and in debt for my uniforms! And then when he died it all came out. My grandmother hasn’t recovered from the shock yet-she’s still furious at him, and that was nearly fifteen years ago."

"Oh. Why?"

"For fifty-eight years she’d been nagging at him to stop his gambling-she’d been telling him for fifty-eight years that gamblers are all wastrels, stealing the food out of their families’ mouths to throw away, and they always die without a penny to bless themselves. And that’s where he got his capital-his winnings. And to add insult to injury-because if she’d known about it, she’d have found some way to save face and also, being a woman, something else to nag him about-he managed to get the last word by dying before she found it out. Frankly, I think myself it wasn’t all luck, the old boy wasn’t above keeping a few high cards up his sleeve, but you know the one about the gift horse. And unfortunately," added Mendoza, sliding neatly ahead of an indignant bus to get in the right-turn lane, "by then I’d got into the habit of earning an honest living, and I’ve never cured myself."

"Well, it’s an original approach to a girl," said Alison thoughtfully. "Such a fascinating subject too-I’ve always been so interested in money, if only I’d had the chance to study it oftener I might have developed real talent for it. But I must say, I should think you’d bolster up your ego more by doing the King Cophetua business, instead of practically offering a bribe. Not at all subtle."

"I’m always loved for myself alone. And why? Es claro -a woman of high principle like you, she’s afraid to be taken for a gold digger, so she starts out being very stand-offish. She’s so busy convincing me she’s not interested in my money, vaya, she’s never on guard against my charm."

"Ah, the double play. I keep forgetting you’re an egotist. But what about the stupid ones?-the ones like Elena, all bleached curls and giggles and gold ankle chains? The ones those tired middle-aged businessmen-"

"?Vaya por Dios! I never go near such females, except in the way of work. There’s no credit to the marksman in an easy target."

"Or to the wolf who catches the smallest lamb? I see what you mean."

"So I’ll let you have the last word. You’ll do me a favor tomorrow-"

"What?" She regarded him warily.

Mendoza grinned at her. "Don’t sound so suspicious, I don’t operate so crude and sudden as that! Look, I want you to ask all your girls if Elena said anything at all to them about this staring man. Don’t tell them much, don’t lead them-a couple of them might make up this or that to be important-but you’ll be more apt to get something helpful out of them if anything’s there to be got. Official questioning might encourage them to romanticize."

"Oh, well, certainly I’ll do that, I meant to anyway. Yes, I think you’re right about that."

At headquarters he piloted her upstairs to his office. She looked around curiously. "What exactly is the procedure? I’ve never done this before."

"I’ve made a rough draft, here, of the substance of what you told me. Just look it over and see if you want to change or add anything, and then we’ll get it typed for you to sign. And what do you want?" he added as Hackett wandered in after them. "I thought you were safely occupied for the afternoon."

" Una espectativa vana," said Hackett, spreading his hands. "Kids! It’s the damnedest thing, they’ll be budding Einsteins at twelve, but the minute they hit their teens I swear to God they all turn into morons. You’d think they were blind and deaf." His eyes were busy on Alison.

"It’s a phenomenon known as puberty," said Mendoza. "Nothing?"

"Nada. You goin’ to remember your manners, or do I count as the hired help around here?"

"Miss Weir-the cross I am given to bear, Sergeant Hackett."

"The brawn," said Alison wisely, nodding at him. "I knew you must have somebody to do the real work."

"And she has brains too," said Hackett admiringly. "You got a visitor, Luis, before I forget. That Ramirez girl." He jerked a thumb.

"Oh?" Mendoza got up. "You’ll excuse me, Miss Weir-if this caveman type gets obstreperous, you’ve only to scream."

Standing there by the clerk’s empty desk in the anteroom, before she spoke, she wasn’t this century at all. Black cotton dress too long, the shabby brown coat over her arm, and a black woolen shawl held around her, both hands clasping it at her breast. No make-up: she’d come straight from church, from late mass, probably. This large official place had somewhat subdued her.

"You wanted to see me, Miss Ramirez? Sit down here, won’t you?"

"Oh, thanks, but it won’t take long, what I come for. I wasn’t sure you’d be here, Sunday an’ all, I thought I’d ask could I leave a note for you-" She took a breath. "There was some of your guys come with a warrant, to look all through Elena’s things-Mama, she just had a fit, she don’t understand about these things so good-"

"I’m sorry it troubled her. We have to do that, you know."

"Sure, I know, it don’t matter, we haven’t nothing to hide."

He wondered: the visiting uncle? The faint defiance over the honesty in her round brown eyes looked convincing. He thought, whether they caught the shifty Tio Tomas at anything or not, that was a wrong one; but he also thought the Ramirez family hadn’t an inkling of that. He waited; she had something else to say. She fidgeted with the shawl, burst out a little nervously, "I-I thought of something else, Lieutenant, that’s why I come."

"Yes?"

"I don’t want to sound like I’m telling you your own business, see, but-well, you are sort of looking into that Palace skating place, aren’t you? I mean-"

"We are. Why?"

"I don’t know nothing about it," she said. "I never been there myself, and anyway I guess this don’t have anything to do with it, I mean whoever runs it, you know. But I got to thinking, after you asked me yesterday about any guy bothering Elena, I tried to remember just what she did say, if there was anything I hadn’t told you. And I remembered one more thing she said. It was when she was talking about this fellow watching her, she said, ‘He gets on my nerves, honest, I nearly fell down a couple times.’ "

"Now that’s very interesting," said Mendoza.

"See, she must’ve meant it was at the rink she saw him. Once, anyways. Because where else would being nervous make her almost fall down? I-"

"Yes, of course." And there were a number of possibilities there; a little imagination would produce a dozen different ideas. He thought about some of them-(Ehrlich, the attendants, the other kids)-as he thanked the girl for coming in. Alison came out of his office with Hackett and was sympathetic, friendly with Teresa, asking conventionally about the funeral. The girl was a little stiff, responding, using more care with her manners and grammar.

"Well, I-I guess that’s all I wanted tell you, Lieutenant, I better get home-"

Alison sent Mendoza a glance he missed and another at Hackett which connected; he said he was going that way, be glad to drive her home, and gave Alison a mock-reproachful backward look, shepherding Teresa off.

"Your draft’s quite all right. Hey, wake up, I said-"

"Yes," said Mendoza. "Is it? Good." He summoned one of the stenos on duty, took Alison back to his office to wait, gave her a chair and cigarette but no conversation. She sat quietly, watching him with a slight smile, looking round the room; when the typed pages were brought in she signed obediently where she was told and announced meekly that she could get home by herself.

Mendoza said, "Don’t be foolish." But he was mostly silent on the drive across town. When he drew into the curb at the apartment building, he cut the motor, didn’t move immediately. "Tell me something. Did you like dolls when you were a little girl?"

"Against my better judgment you do intrigue me. Most little girls do."

He grunted. "Ever know any little boys who did?"

"When they’re very young, otherwise not. Though I believe there are some, but they can’t be very normal little boys. The psychiatrists-"

"I beg you, not the doubletalk about Id and Ego and Superego. Especially not about infantile sexuality and the traumatic formation of the homosexual personality. Esta queda entre los dos. Just between the two of us, I find a most suggestive resemblance between the Freudians and those puritanical old maids who put the worst interpretation on everything-and with such damned smug-satisfaction into the bargain."

She laughed. "Oh, I’m with you every time! But what’s all this about dolls?"

He got out a cigarette, looked at it without flicking his lighter. "Suppose you’re taking one of those word-association tests, what do you say to that?-doll."

"Why, I guess-little girls. Why?"

"And me too," he said. "Which is what makes it difficult. Well, never mind-inquisition over for today." He lit the cigarette and turned to her with a smile. "You’ll have dinner with me tomorrow night, tell me what you get out of your girls, if anything?

Alison cocked her auburn head at him. "I seem to remember you said you didn’t mix business and pleasure. Do I infer I’m absolved already?"

"I’m always making these impossible resolutions." He got out, went round and opened the door for her. "Black," he said, gesturing, "something elegant, and decollete. Maybe pearls. Seven o’clock."

She got out of the car, leisurely and graceful, and tucked her bag under her arm; she said, "Charm isn’t the word. But I have heard-speaking of the Freudians-that there are some women who really I enjoy being dominated. Seven o’clock it is, and I’ll wear what I damned well please, Lieutenant Luis Mendoza!"

" Mi gatita roja," he said, smiling.

"And," said Alison, "I am not your little red kitten, you-you- tu macho insolente! "

"What language for a lady. Until tomorrow." He grinned at her straight back; there was-he was aware-a certain promise in being called an insolent male animal, by a female like Alison.

It sat on the corner of Matson and San Rafael, a block up and a block over from Commerce and Humboldt. Not really much of a walk home for Elena, a quarter of an hour by daylight: down San Rafael to Commerce, to Humboldt, across the empty lot and down a block to Foster where Humboldt made a jog to bypass a gloomy little cul-de-sac misleadingly called a court: another block to Main, another to Liggitt and half a block more to home. Little more than half a mile, but that could be a long way at night. Main was neon lights and crowds up to midnight anyway, but these other streets were dark and lonely.

It was a big barn of a building. Matson Street wasn’t residential, but strung with small warehouses, small business that must permanently balance on the edge of inso1vency-rug cleaning, said the faded signs, tools sharpened, speedy shoe repair, cleaning amp; dyeing-and in between, the secretive warehouses unlabeled or reticent with WHOLESALE PARTS, INC.-MASTERSON BROS.-ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES. At Matson and San Rafael, there was a graveyard for old cars on one corner, with a high iron fence around it (SECONDHAND PARTS CHEAP), and warehouses on two other corners, and on the fourth the Palace Roller Rink. The building wasn’t flush to the sidewalk like the warehouses, but set back fifteen or twenty feet, to provide off-street parking on two sides.

Mendoza parked there, among six or eight other cars: mostly old family sedans, a couple of worked-over hot-rods. It was ten past four, a good time for the experiment he had in mind. He fished up a handful of change from his pocket, picked out a quarter, a dime, and a nickel, and walked up to the entrance.

There were big double doors fastened back, but at this time of year, the place facing north, not much light fell into the foyer. That was perhaps ten feet wide, three times as long up to the restroom doors at either end. There was a Coke-dispensing freezer and a big trash basket under a wall dispenser for paper cups. In the middle of the foyer was a three-sided plywood enclosure with a narrow counter bearing an ancient cash register; and inside, on a high stool with a back, sat Ehrlich the proprietor, a grossly fat man in the late sixties, bald bullet-shaped head descending to several rolls of fat front and rear, pudgy hands clasped over a remarkable paunch: wrinkled khaki shirt and pants, no tie. Ehrlich, peacefully drowsing-still, very likely, digesting a solid noon dinner which had ended with several glasses of beer. Mendoza surveyed him with satisfaction, walked quietly up and laid the silver on the counter. The fat man roused with a little grunt, scooped it up and punched the register, and produced from a box under the counter a sleazy paper ticket, slid it across. Mendoza picked it up and passed by. At the narrower door into the main part of the building, he glanced back: Ehrlich’s head was again bowed over his clasped hands. So there we are, thought Mendoza. The man had raised his eyes just far enough to check the money: if the exact change was laid out, a gorilla in pink tights could walk by him without notice.

The second door led Mendoza into more than semi-darkness. It was a rectangle within a rectangle: a fifteen-foot-wide strip of dark around all four sides of the skating floor. That was a good hundred and fifty feet long, a little more than half as wide, of well-laid hardwood like a dance floor. There was an iron pipe railing enclosing it, with two or three gaps in each side for access to the occasional hard wooden benches, scattered groups of folding wooden chairs, along the four dark borders. A big square skylight, several unshaded electric bulbs around it, poured light directly down on the skating floor, but not enough to reach beyond: anywhere off the edge of that floor it was dark. The effect was that of a theater, about that quality of light, looking from the borders to the big floor.

Straight ahead from the single entrance, at the gap in the rail there, sat one of the attendants, sidewise in a chair to catch the light on his magazine. Beside him was a card table, a cardboard carton on it and another on the floor; those would hold the skates. Not just the skates, Mendoza remembered from the statements taken: flat shoes with skates already fastened on-something to do with the insurance, because as Hayes (or was it Murphy) had put it, otherwise some of these dumb girls would come in with four-inch heels on. As Elena had, he remembered.

It was shoddy, it was dirty, a place of garish light and dense shadow, of drafts and queer echoes from its very size. No attempt was evident to make it attractive or comfortable: the sole amenities, if you could so call them, appeared to be the Coke machine and, at the opposite side of the floor, an old nickel jukebox which was presently emitting a tired rendition of "The Beautiful Blue Danube." And yet the fifteen or twenty teenagers on the floor seemed to be enjoying themselves, mostly skating in couples round and round-one pair in the center showing off, with complicated breakaways and dance steps-half a dozen in single file daring the hazards lined down the far side, a little artificial hill, a low bar-jump. Those girls shrieked simulated terror, speeding down the sharp drop; the boys jeered, affected nonchalance. It was all very innocent and juvenile-depressingly so, Mendoza reflected sadly from the vantage point of his nearly forty years.

But he hadn’t come here to philosophize on the vagaries of adolescence… If you went straight down to the attendant, to give up your ticket and acquire your skates, you would be noticed; otherwise, he could easily miss seeing you. Mendoza had wandered a little way to the side from the door, and stood with his back to the wall; he was in deep shadow and he’d made no noise. He stood there until his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, to avoid colliding with anything, and moved on slowly. He knew now that it was possible to come in here without being noticed, but could anyone count on it five times out of five?

There would be times Ehrlich was wider awake, for one thing.

He sat down in a chair midway from the railing, twenty feet from the attendant. In five minutes neither the man nor any of the skaters took the slightest notice of him. He got up, drifted back to the wall, and began a tour of the borders.

When he got round to the opposite side of the floor, he made an interesting discovery. In the corner there a small square closet was partitioned off, with a door fitted to it. He tried the door and it gave to his hand with a little squeak. He risked a brief beam from his pencil-flash: rude shelving, cleaning materials, an ancient can of floor wax, mops and pails. Hackett was quite right; nobody had disturbed the dust in here for a long time. He shut the door gently and went on down the rear width of the building.

The jukebox was never silent long; it seemed to have a repertoire only of waltzes, and now for the third time was rendering, in all senses of the word, "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."

He came to the far corner and with mild gratification found another closet and another door. "At a guess, the fuse boxes," he murmured, and eased the door open. A quick look with the flash interested him so much that he stepped inside, pulled the door shut after him, and swept the flash around for a good look.

Fuse boxes, yes: also, of course, the meter: and a narrow outside door. For the meter reader, obviously: very convenient. He tried it and found himself looking out to a narrow unpaved alley between this building and the warehouse next to it.

And does it mean anything at all? he wondered to himself. He retreated, and now he did not care if he was seen or not; he kept the flash on, the beam pointed downward… How very right Hackett had been: this place had not been so much as swept for years. But full of eddying drafts as it was, you couldn’t expect footprints to stay in the dust, however thick. He worked back and forth between the rail and the wall, dodging the chairs. He had no idea at all what he was looking for, and also was aware that anything he might find would either be completely irrelevant or impossible to prove relevant to the case.

Now, of course, he had been noticed; he heard the attendant’s chair scrape back, and a few of the skaters had drifted over to the rail this side, curious. He didn’t look up from the little spotlight of the flash: he followed it absorbedly back and forth.

"Hey, what the hell you up to, anyway?" The attendant came heavy-footed, shoving chairs out of his path. "Who-"

"Stop where you are, for God’s sake!" exclaimed Mendoza suddenly. "I’m police-you’ll have my credentials in a minute, but don’t come any closer."

"Police-oh, well-"

And Mendoza said aloud to himself, "So here it is. But I don’t believe it, it’s impossible." And to that he added a rueful, "And what in the name of all the devils in hell does it mean?"

In the steady beam of the flash, it lay there mute and perhaps meaningless: a scrap of a thing, three inches long, a quarter-inch wide: a little strip of dainty pink lace, so fine that it might once have been the trimming on the lingerie of a very special doll.

Ehrlich went on saying doggedly, "My place didn’t have nothing to do with it." That door, well, sure, the inside one oughta be kept locked, it usually was-but neither he nor the attendants would swear to having checked it for months, all three maintaining it was the other fellow’s responsibility. Mendoza found them tiresome. Hackett and Dwyer, summoned by phone, if they didn’t altogether agree with Ehrlich were less than enthusiastic over Mendoza’s find; Hackett said frankly it didn’t mean a damned thing. He listened to the story of Carol Brooks’ doll and said it still didn’t mean a damned thing.

"I don’t want to disillusion you, but I’ve heard rumors that real live dolls sometimes wear underwear with pink lace on-and just like you say, it is nice and dark along here. Not havin’ such a pure mind as you, I can think of a couple of dandy reasons-"

"And such elegant amenities for it!" said Mendoza sarcastically. "A wooden bench a foot wide, or a pair of folding chairs! I may be overfastidious, but I ask you!"

"There’s a classic tag line you oughta remember: It’s wonderful anywhere."

"So maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Nevertheless, we’ll hang onto it, and I want a sketch of this place, showing that door and the exact spot this was found."

"O.K., will do." There was always a lot of labor expended on such jobs, in a thing like this, that turned out to have been unnecessary; but it couldn’t be helped. And in case something turned out to be relevant, they had to keep the D.A.’s office in mind, document the evidence.

"And what happened to you‘?" added Mendoza, turning on Dwyer, who was sporting a patch bandage taped across one eye.

Dwyer said aggrievedly he ought to’ve run the guy in for obstructing an officer. All he’d been doing was try to find out more about that Browne girl who’d found the body-as per orders. First he’d got the rough side of her landlady’s tongue-the girl wasn’t home-for asking a few ordinary little questions, like did the girl ever bring men home, or get behind in the rent, and so on-you’d have thought she was the girl’s ma, the way she jumped on him-if the police didn’t have anything better to do than come round insulting decent women-! She’s still yakking at him about that when this guy shows up, who turns out to be some friend of the girl’s, and before Dwyer can show his badge, the guy damns him up and down for a snooper and hauls off and-"Me, Lieutenant! It was a fluke punch, he caught me off balance-"

"That’s your story," said Hackett.

"I swear to-Me, walking into one off a guy I could give four inches and thirty pounds-and his name turns out to be Joe Carpaccio at that!"

"So now you’ve provided the comic relief, what did you get?"

"Not a damn thing but the shiner. Except she’s only lived there three months or so. But how could she be anything to do with it, Lieutenant?"

"I don’t think she is, but no harm getting her last address."

"Well, that was why-"

"Let me give him all the news," said Hackett. "You take the car and go on back, send Clawson over to do a sketch. And then go home and nurse that eye, you’ve had enough excitement for one day." Dwyer said gratefully he’d do that, he had the hell of a headache and he must be getting old, let anything like that happen. Hackett said, "Let’s sit down. I’ve got a couple of little things for you. First, Browne. I was bright enough to ask for her last address when we took her formal statement-let her think it was a regulation of some kind-thought it might be useful. And you might say it was. She gave one, but it turned out to be nonexistent. Which is why I sent Bert to sniff around some more."

"That’s a queer one," said Mendoza. "You think it’s anything for us?"

Hackett considered. "It doesn’t smell that way to me, no. She struck me as an honest girl, and sensible too, which means it’s not likely she’s mixed into anything illegal. But they say everybody’s got something to hide. We might trace her back, sure, but I think all we’d find would be the kind of thing innocent people get all hot and bothered about hiding-an illegitimate baby or a relative in the nut house, or maybe she’s run away from an alcoholic husband. I think it’d be a waste of time myself, but you’re the boss."

"It might be just as well to find out," said Mendoza slowly. "In a thing like this, any loose end sticking out of the tangle, take hold and pull-maybe it isn’t connected to the main knot, or maybe it is-you can’t know until you follow it in."

"O.K., I got more for you." The brief flare of the match as he lit a new cigarette brought some looks his way again. The kids on the floor were more interested in them than skating, now-gathering in little groups, slow-moving, to whisper excitedly about it; some of them would have known Elena.

Mendoza stared out at them absently, listening to Hackett. It was now just about thirty-three hours since the body had been found; a lot of routine spadework had kept a lot of men busy in that time. A dozen formal statements had been taken, from the Ramirez family, from three or four of the kids present here on Friday night, from Ehrlich and the two attendants, from the Wades and their visiting neighbor. A great many other people had been questioned, and of course written reports had been turned in on most of this and a new case-file started by the office staff. Again, as six months before, routine inquiry was being made into all recently released or escaped mental patients, and the present whereabouts of persons with records of similar violent assaults. The official machinery had ground elsewhere, arranging for the coroner’s inquest… As inevitably happened, crime had touched the lives of many innocent people, had grouped together an incongruous assortment of individuals whose private lives had in some part been invaded, you could say-if incidentally and with benevolent motive.

And-he finally stopped lingering the cigarette he’d got out five minutes ago, and lit it-he would offer odds that if, as, and when they caught up with this one, it would turn out to be one of the many homicides any police officer had seen, which need never have happened if someone had used a little common sense, or more self-control, or hadn’t been a little too greedy or vain or possessive or impatient.

Like Mrs. Demarest, he sometimes felt it would be nice to believe there was a master plan, that some reason for all this existed. He disapproved on principle of anything so disorderly as blind fate.

"After telling you you’re chasin’ rainbows," Hackett was saying, "I’ll give you a little more confirmation. I saw the Wade boy again, and he says maybe there was such a guy, Elena mentioned it to him. Twice. He thinks the first time was about a week ago, but they were out together two nights running and he won’t swear which it was-they came here both nights. Anyway, she asked him did he see the guy sitting there at the side staring at her all the time-"

"Here," said Mendoza, sitting up. "Right here? So-"

"Don’t run to get a warrant. The boy says he looked, and there was somebody sitting where she said, but he couldn’t see what he looked like in the dark, just that there was somebody there. He didn’t pay much attention, because he thought it was just one of the other kids, and Elena was imagining things-‘1ike girls do,’ he said-when she said it was the same guy she’d seen in here before, and that he never took his eyes off her. You’ll be happy to know that Ricky also came to this conclusion because he didn’t see how she could recognize a face that far off, in this light-he couldn’t. He wears glasses for driving and movies, and he didn’t have them on, never wears them in here on account of the danger of breakage."

"?Fuegos del infierno! " exclaimed Mendoza violently. "Of course, of course!"

"Go on listening, it gets better. He says Elena told him she’d seen the guy here five or six times, always in about the same spot, but Ricky thought then she’d maybe seen a couple of different kids, different times, and imagined the rest. O.K. On Friday night, when they first got here, she looked, and he wasn’t there. But later on, all of a sudden she spotted him, and made Ricky look, and there he was-or there somebody was. Now, mind you, just like her sister, Ricky didn’t think she was afraid of this fellow, that there was anything like that to it. If he had, if she’d acted that way, all the people she mentioned it to would’ve thought of it right off, and I read it myself that she started out being kind of flattered and annoyed at once, which would be natural, and then just annoyed. Because there was something ‘funny’ about him. So, when she spotted him again Friday night, she acted so worried about it that Ricky decided to get a closer look, to watch for the guy again, if you follow me. Elena said he’d showed up so sudden it was like magic, one time she looked and no guy, and about three seconds later she happened to look again and there he was-"

"Yes, of course. So?"

"So then, finish. Before Ricky gets over to take a close look, Papa comes in breathing righteous wrath and yanks him out."

This time Mendoza didn’t swear, merely shut his eyes.

"And if you’re still interested, Smith has tagged the Ramirez uncle visiting what is probably a cat-house on Third-at least the address rang a bell, and I checked with Prince in Vice-he pricked up his ears and said we’d closed it twice, and he was glad to know somebody had opened up again, they’ll look into it. After that Ramirez took a bus way across town to treat himself to a couple of drinks at a place called the Maison du Chat, on Wilshire. Which Smith thought was sort of funny because it’s a very fancy layout where you get nicked a dollar and a half for a Scotch highball, and six dollars for a steak because it’s in French on the menu."

"I don’t give one damn about Ramirez’ taste in women, let Prince look into that. The other, yes, we’ll follow it up-find out what you can about it, it may be a drop for a wholesaler. If anything definite shows up, throw it at Narcotics then and let them take over."

"I’m ahead of you. I got Higgins and Farnsworth on it. All they got so far is the owner’s name, which is Nicholas Dimitrios." Hackett dropped his cigarette and put a careful heel on it. "Just what’s your idea about all this, anyway?-dolls, yet! I don’t see you’ve got much to get hold of."

"?Me lo cuenta a mi! -you’re telling me! But I’ll tell you how I see it happening. Somewhere around here is our lunatic-and don’t ask me what kind he is-nor I won’t even guess why he finds a back way into this hellhole and gets a kick out of watching these kids on skates. It makes a better story if you say he was following Elena. Anyway, here he is, and nobody else seems to have noticed him particularly. Neither of the attendants has much occasion to come down to this end of the floor, and if any of the kids noticed him, they took him for one of themselves. And about that, de paso, I think we can deduce that he’s a fairly young man. Elena called him a boy, and the odds are an older man would have been noticed by others in here, would have stood out-as it is, I think he was seen, casually, by some of the kids, and accepted as one of them. On the other hand, he seems to have taken some care not to be noticed much, sitting back against the wall-" Mendoza shrugged. "It’s pretty even, maybe, but I think the balance goes to show he’s fairly young. All right. She had seen him at least once elsewhere, with another boy or several others, one of whom is named Danny-"

"A1l of which is very secondhand evidence."

"Don’t push me. He was here on Friday night, he saw her leave alone. Evidently he hadn’t made any attempt before to approach her, speak to her, and I think he did then because he saw her boy friend taken out and thought this was his chance. He followed her, using his private door, so Ehrlich and the attendants didn’t notice him leave. So he had to walk round the building, which put him just far enough behind her that he didn’t catch up for a block or so. Finish. And I don’t know why he killed her, if that was in his mind from the start or a sudden impulse. I’m inclined to say impulse, because you couldn’t find two girls more different than Brooks and this one-so he doesn’t pick victims by any apparent system, though there’s holes in that reasoning, I grant you-he may have some peculiar logic of his own, of course."

"I’ll buy all that, but there’s no evidence at all, a lot of hearsay and a lot of ifs. And how do you tie in Brooks and the doll?"

"Oh, damn the doll," said Mendoza. "I can’t figure the odds on that, if it ties in or not-it’s just as possible that somebody stumbled on Brooks after the killer left her, and stole the thing-or that she was robbed of it before she ran into the killer. And I can say- claro esta! -it’s a lunatic, and the same lunatic-and when we find him, we’ll find that last September he had some reason to frequent Tappan Street. There’s even less evidence on all that." He stood and took up his hat from the bench, flicked dust off it automatically. "Here’s Clawson. I’m going home."

"I might’ve expected that-walk off and leave me enough work so I can’t try to beat your time with that redhead."

"That," said Mendoza, "to quote another classic tag line, would be sending a boy to do a man’s work. But you have my permission to try, Arturo-I never worry about competition."